Has anyone mentioned the "Alternate start - Live another life" mod by Arthmoor? Best alternative we have. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9557

Actually, I don't think the current state of the game is what was intended by the developers. Radiant Story was supposed to make the game much more dynamic than it is. I don't think they were able to make it work right.

In the lead up to the game's release, Radiant Story was talked up big time. We were told that it would automatically have the game react to the player's actions. If we killed an important quest giver, the game would replace that character with someone else that could complete the quest ... stuff like that. We would be able to ruin local economies. Family members of murder victims might come hunting us down, etc. Clearly, that's not how the game actually works.

To me the current state of the game measured against promoted features tells me that they simply couldn't get Radiant Story to work reliably enough in the long term and had to turn large segments of it off. Having done so, they had to 'patch up' the voids left by the absence of Radiant Story, doing things like making far too many NPCs essential because the system they had in place to deal with their deaths was no longer functional.

I even read somewhere that they had relied heavily on Radiant Story for quests, but came to realize that it didn't tell good stories, so they had to change course and create more traditional quests. This is probably why the guild quest lines were so short, because they lost too much time trying to develop a system that they never could get to work.

I'm actually optimistic about the quality of DLC, because I suspect they will stick with what they know works from the start in development.

My reason is is I want to see the land from high up places, I do not want barriers in places that I can clearly get over, it is something I have adored about this series since I first played Morrowind.

Right, the only major NPCs involved with the main quest are

Any one of those characters being killed can have major ramifications, not just for the main quest, but for other quest lines. And since people already complain about broken questlines (as you did a few posts back) after killing someone, you can't make the game without considering all the ways that players could break quests.

The Elder Scrolls has always been built around a large, open world, but one of the drawbacks of that design is that, without essential NPCs, you can accidentally cut things off. Radiant story was designed to try and get around this, but as the above poster mentioned, it seems like it never did as much as they were hoping.

I agree. People like the OP need to consider the tradeoff.
We can go on all day about freedom but if certain things aren't limited, things get broken.

With the above example, a player could theoretically kill off various important NPC's like in Morrowind. But what would that leave them to do? Really, that kind of attitude should just be saved for crazy murder-spree playthroughs.

Hmm that's too bad. It would have made the game a lot more fun to play imo

That still doesn't seem like a lot of NPCs to make death scripts for. As in real life, one person's death doesn't signify the end all progress. I do think that it would be a good Idea to keep some of them like balgruf, ulfric, tulius, and other main quest only npc's as essential at least until they serve no further purpose.

Hi all,

use the "You`re not the Dragonborn"(?) mod if you don`t like being forced into making prophecies come true.
You`ll even be able to have random dragon encounters after killing the first dragon outside Whiterun.

Rgds, Haldir

In the lead up to Skyrim's release, Todd Howard downplayed Radiant Story big time. Here's one example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fbzBDQ4Bhw. Radiant Story may have been "asked up" big time. It was not "talked up" big time.

As I recall, it was said we could affect the economy in small ways, not wreck it.

In the first Skyrim preview, published in last year's February issue of Game Informer, Todd Howard says, "'We're still telling very specific storylines in our main quest and our factions, and all that stuff is done by hand.'" It doesn't fit your "This is probably why the guild quest lines were so short." The guild quest lines feel plenty long enough to me.

The article also says, "If you murder the shopkeeper in Riverwood that might give you a quest, his sister will automatically inherit the shop, and might even offer you the same quest." That specific instance of an application of Radiant Story doesn't support a generalized implication that Radiant Story was intended to replace any important quest giver. Essential characters don't result from patching up holes left by the absence of Radiant Story; they result from developers wanting to protect quests from accidental deaths.

I let Irileth wait for six month on the fields of Whiterun, until I finally came to help her killing that dragon

So if you don't like the game without a main quest and you don't like Skyrim's main quest, then maybe you don't like skyrim?

I know if I bought a game and didn't like it, I wouldn't play it. I don't get why people force themselves to play this game wishing it were something it is not.

Hi there...

Ok here is your solution.

Have fun.

Peaceeeeeeeee

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9048

Don't start the main quest.

I like parts of the main quest and one of the points of the forums is to discuss what you like/ don't like about the game. I also like parts about the game other than the main quest I just wouldn't want to play the game without the main quest. My only problem is that the main quest and most of the side quests are really linear in choices. Oh and I myself have no problem with being a dragon born I was just replying to the suggestion of ignoring the main quest altogether.

The majority of things to do in this game are not a part of the Main Quest.

This. I was going to say the same thing. I remember Todd Howard almost looking in despair when he'd be asked about radiant story during interviews.

In Morrowind you were the Neveraine whether you liked it or not, hardly any different than being a Dragonborn.

You can be a Neveraine/Dragonborn and forget the destiny thing, you can always just not do what Balgroof/Caius tells you, not to kill the Dragon/Dagoth whoever and not figure out whose reincarnation you are.

I have no idea why the idea of being a Dragonborn when somebody births with this, suddenly became a thing that FORCES you to be a Nordic hero who shouts dragons to death and wears silly helmets.

So learning dragonshouts on different walls around Skyrim is just a random occurance?

/Pwned.

Does not matter if it's not active. It still means you are dragonborn regardless. Still able to devour souls of the dragons, so they are different from any trained fighter. It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that regular people can kill them, it's the fact that the player is Dragonborn main quest or not.

Right outside the tutorial dungeon, Hadvar said to me, "we should split up".

I did. I ended up in Riften, pennyless and homeless. No better example of not being a hero or superman can I find. After a run in with the Thieves Guild, I earned some money and respect. Eventually I earned enough to buy a house. Then I became Thane. Then I became very important within the Guild.

In any other game, that would be the main quest. I was level 50+ at the point. The game offered no challenge anymore, so I restarted .


Right outside the tutorial dungeon, Hadvar said to me, "we should split up".

I did. I ended up in Winterhold. Pennyless and homeless. No better example of not being a hero or superman can I find. After a run in with the Collage of Winterhold... You get the idea...

No Dragonborns were invoked, My character came from nothing and made a name for himself, levelled up to where the game became too easy and I had accomplished all I could within the role I was playing. Both examples (and a few others unmentioned), involved more hours individually than most games have in their entirety.

TES games are like this and have always been like this (Spoilers for previous games follow). The main quest (or Dragonborn Quest as somebody had suggested) is but one minor part of a very large game world. It seems that some people don't "get" TES games. Skyrim is a place where quests happen. It is not a game in the conventional sense. If you want to roleplay a superman, you can be Dragonborn/Neravarine, if you don't, you can roleplay many other people, large and small.

Previous TES games (Starting from Daggerfall) had you as being the Emperors best spy that could change the world, A reborn elven hero that kills a god and leads a nation, a predestined hero that later becomes a Deadra Prince, and now the last of the Dragonborn. There has not been a main quest that didn't have you as a superman/woman in any of these games. Do you know why? The clue is in the title. The Elder Scrolls. There wouldn't be an Elder Scroll written about a bloke that wasn't superman.