Hi everyone, being extremely new to the game I have a general question regarding exploration and the quests. Does every cave, place, etc have a quest associated with it? I love to explore, but I'm worried that if I go out and dive into every ruin, cave, or place that I'll inadvertently ruin a quest, or quest line. Is this something I should worry about if I want to make sure that I follow whatever story that is associated with their respective places?

With radiant quests and everything, the answer could be yes. My advice is just go with the flow of the game

Don`t worry. the game has been designed so you don`t even have to follow anyquest at all and it still won`t break. Either certain quests will be `locked out` or are solvable without even knowing you solved it.

Just start and explore.

p.s. that said I`ve heard some quests don`t work right, but that`s not teh fault of the Player.

Usually if you do come across a cave or dungeon associated with a quest, the quest will activate when you do something relating to it, like picking up an object. This doesn't always happen, but a telling sign is when you can't remove a quest object from your inventory.

I've done plenty of exploring and going into places without having a quest reason and in over 300 hours of gameplay, I've only found one item that essentially ended a side quest right after the quest became active. As I was being asked to retrieve an item I was already thinking, "Hey, I've got that right here!" Certain things in the different dungeons may not be available until after you get the quest, but I'm not sure.

Hello, and welcome!
Every cave/dungeon does not have a quest associated with it, but any cave/dungeon can have a quest associated with it since the game has a system to generate random sidequests, that usually takes you to places you have not been to.
You can pretty freely wander and explore, but you do have to watch out for certain caves/dugeons/ruins that might have quests in them that might get screwy if you visit them ahead of time. If you go to the issues subforums there are a couple of great threads that list problem areas. It's also possible that picking up certain items related to quests before getting the quest can break the quest, but generally all of this stuff pertains more to miscellaneous or side quests.
Really, instead of just wandering randomly, it might actually be better for you to direct things a bit by accepting and doing quests. Sure, you can let yourself get sidetracked, and a lot of times you can pick up quests by doing that, or even reading a book or overhearing a conversation.
I would say, do misc quests as an excuse to explore, and just be careful picking up particularly unique-looking items in random caves, for example named musical instruments, i.e., "so- and- so's lute" because these are part of the Bard's College quests and picking them up before getting the quests will mess it up.

If you clear a dungeon, the map will show that it is cleared. I have gone through a couple of dungeons believing I killed everything in it and the map did not show that the dungeon was cleared. My assumption is that there is a quest that is going to bring me back to that place if I find the right person or trigger. In case you did not know, when you enter a dungeon, the enemies in that place are leveled to your character at the time you first entered it. So, when you are at low character levels it won't hurt to stick your head in any place you find even if you do not explore it. I find it hard to turn around sometimes and have to see what else is inside.

Wow thanks for the quick replies! Allow me to refocus my question; i am really enjoying hearing the stories all the citizens have been giving me relating to the quests. I worry, for example if I were to wander into a cave and wipe out all the inhabitants, would the quest, (to wipe out the cave dwellers) and story(s) associated with that disappear? Or would they respawn upon finding and activating the quest, thus keeping the stories apart of my game?

EDIT: thx Llamusskull for providing the exact answer to my question! And thx to everyone else who contributed!

Depends on the quest, but usually enemies will respawn when you activate a quest at a cleared location. Sometimes, if it's just one of the "kill the bandit leader at such and such place," only a couple of enemies and the leader will respawn, not everyone that was there the first time.

I do a lot of side exploring. Many times I have cleared a dungeon ( tagged as so on map) and later recieved a radient quest to go to said location and clear out bandits or whatever. The game WILL repopulate that dungeon, sometimes with completely different enemy types. I have also picked up quest items before i had the quest and it started the quest once i picked it up and during my play experience, never had it "break" a quest.

Just yesterday i cleared a dungeon with a word wall and learned the word. Soon after, i got a radient quest from using a shout in a populated area, and it took me to the same dungeon I just cleared. It had new enemies and I learned a different word from the same wall. Kinda weird.

I wouldn't worry about doing things out of order. I don't think too many quests will break. IMHO the only likely result is you may have some quest items in your inventory that you can't get rid of. IIRC they don't count against your carry limit so the only problem is you may have some clutter of no-longer-needed quest items in your inventory.

I guess I'll give a somewhat contrarian point of view. I killed a female NPC in a dungeon that apparently I wasn't supposed to. I forget the chars name and the dungeon though. It's just west of Solitude/Blue Palace.

Anyway, she was near the inside entrance and was glowing. So I killed her. Then I got the message, "Quest Failed; 'Scroll For...;" I've tried to look it up but I can't find it in the appendix of the guide. I have no clue what it was for; and I'm not going to pour through several hundred pages looking for it. What I do know is that it's not a sidequest. So whatever storyline it's for, it's probably broken.

So be careful. I'd suggest looking up each dungeon/cave/ruin before going on a random killing spree in order to gain loot.

Beware ...

The only issue with exploring a dungeon before the game asks you to is Unique items. A named item has a good chance of being needed or wanted at some point in the game by someone. It could be for no other reason than you are trying to collect the Unique or Legendary items.

Quest items for the most part can not be dropped from your inventory, so most of what you need later can not be discarded or sold.

Those undroppable quest items don't count against your weight total either, I'm led to believe, despite what it shows in your inventory.

But don't fear in any case if you do pick them up, there's more than a few quests where even once you finish it successfully you still can't get rid of the quest item.