How do you go about playing the huge open-world games?

Like Skyrim, Fallout even to a lesser extent games like Deus Ex, Arkham City

For me personally I never just do the main quest straight away, Im aware that sometimes its best to do this as the pacing of the story can get messed up if your supposed to be urgentlysaving the world but your spending a hundred days doing side quests

But if you compelte the main quest and you are back in the world with theside misisons to do I find it feels a bit empty (no matter how many side quests there are)not having this huge goal to achieve kinda hanging over your head, does anyone else feel this way?

So what I do is usually do a couple of main story mission (the ones right at the start) and then just plough through side quests for 50 or sohoursmaybe leave a few to complete (a big important quest dark brotherhood) for after completion, and then play through the mian story missions back to back to get the pacing of it

Like Skyrim, Fallout even to a lesser extent games like Deus Ex, Arkham City

For me personally I never just do the main quest straight away, Im aware that sometimes its best to do this as the pacing of the story can get messed up if your supposed to be urgentlysaving the world but your spending a hundred days doing side quests

But if you compelte the main quest and you are back in the world with theside misisons to do I find it feels a bit empty (no matter how many side quests there are)not having this huge goal to achieve kinda hanging over your head, does anyone else feel this way?

So what I do is usually do a couple of main story mission (the ones right at the start) and then just plough through side quests for 50 or sohoursmaybe leave a few to complete (a big important quest dark brotherhood) for after completion, and then play through the mian story missions back to back to get the pacing of it

gillri

my first playthrough i often skip any questing and spend my first file exploring seeing what i can do what i can create what i can dismantle..

was most enjoyable n oblivion and again in minecraft where that practically IS the game atm.

If I plan on doing multiple playthroughs I always play as a evil character first so I can do whatever I want and not even care. With quest I tend to always do a few side quest first, explore a lot of the land, and eventually get to the story when I start to get bored with side stuff to keep myself from getting bored with the game. Right now for examplse I'm playing Fallout New Vegas and barely into the main story at all just because I love exploring and doing finding out all the weird stuff in this game. I will admit, I was more immersed into Fallout 3 than how I am with New Vegas right now for some reason.

I'll do a main story mission or two, but I always get sidetracked with the sidequests. I like levelling stuff up to make the game easier, and I'm one of those people who just likes to wander around and see what the game has to offer. I usually only go back to the main story if I can't find anything else to do.

Unless I don't especially care for the game, then I might stick with the main quest just to finish the stupid thing.

I was 45 hours into Oblivion BEFORE I remembered that there WAS a main quest. I was messing around with exploring and tackling the other quests like Mage's Tower and the Dark Brotherhood.

Less extreme - I put in about 20 hours before tacking the main story in Fallout 3.

New Vegas I have, and I WANT to play, but I keep putting it off. I haven't played in so long that if I do go back to it I might just re-roll a new character and start from scratch.

As you can see from these few examples, in almost every open-ish world game I play I tend to do the side quests and lots of exploring before I even touch story missions/quests. Hell right now I've got 28 hours into Batman Arkham City and I'd say 85% of that has been finding Riddler Trophies and doing the various side quests that pop up.

It depends on how much "copy-paste" there is in the game. For a game like Oblivion or Fallout 3, I tend to ignore nearly everything except areas associated with side quests/quests. I still do some free exploration during travels, but I don't trouble myself with trying to complete every dungeon on the map. I don't know if Skyrim will be the same. Don't get me wrong. Those are still some of my favourite games, it's simply that this playstyle has been the most enjoyable for me when playing them. For smaller scale games like Deus Ex HR, where all the content are unique and hand-crafted - I complete everything that can be completed. I guess my simple rule is that if being a completionist starts feeling repetitive, I'll just focus on the important things and ignore the minor details.GhoX

yes I agree with Mass effect 2 andDeus ex, arkham city, as there isnt alot of cut and paste in those games soI do absolutely everything

I mean I put 35 hours into Deus Ex HE, and 45 into ME2, on my first playthroughs so im really thorough, but sometimes fallout and oblivion it can get repetitive which is why I have always preferred slightly more focsued rpg's like Shenmue, chrono trigger, Deus Ex 1 and HR,and Mass effect, maybe you could put Zelda and Okami ion there also

Depends,

If it is semi-open like The Witcher and STALKER, I'll do most/all of the minor quests in the area before completing the main one and continuing on. The main one can often be done in chunks, so it can be nice to do alternate between the two to keep it as varied as possible. STALKER is a bit different in that doing your own thing like getting loot can take up time too, but isn't necessarily part of a quest.

If it's open like Oblivion I suppose it depends how much the main quest makes me want to continue it. I'll probably do a few main missions during my first playthrough, but not all at once.

One thing I like to do in all of them is keep as organized as possible so I don't feel overwhelmed. Things in Oblivion like only carrying certain types of ingredients made things seem a lot more manageable for me.

Like Skyrim, Fallout even to a lesser extent games like Deus Ex, Arkham City

For me personally I never just do the main quest straight away, Im aware that sometimes its best to do this as the pacing of the story can get messed up if your supposed to be urgentlysaving the world but your spending a hundred days doing side quests

But if you compelte the main quest and you are back in the world with theside misisons to do I find it feels a bit empty (no matter how many side quests there are)not having this huge goal to achieve kinda hanging over your head, does anyone else feel this way?

So what I do is usually do a couple of main story mission (the ones right at the start) and then just plough through side quests for 50 or sohoursmaybe leave a few to complete (a big important quest dark brotherhood) for after completion, and then play through the mian story missions back to back to get the pacing of it

gillri

I tend to weave in and out of the main mission, exploring and completing side quests along the way.

I try to do as many sidequests and other activities as possible before completing the main narrative.

I usually do a mix of side missions and main missions, then just beat the rest of the side missions once the story is over.

I try to do as many sidequests and other activities as possible before completing the main narrative.

Vari3ty

I try to maintain momentum in the main story but screw around more. In Fallout 3, I spent almost the entire first 20 hours or so finding new places and doing side quests before I considered myself powerful enough to enter DC. Once I entered DC and did some story missions, I screwed around in DC even more.

In the GTA games I tend to take turns doing the missions. On for Ricardo, one for Avery, etc. and rotating.

I've got no problem keeping the main storyline in my head, so I'm all about exploring and side-quests until I've got nothing but the main storyline left. My absolute favorite thing about open-world games is exploration! The main storyline is 2nd.

I feel the same way with the main quests. Like in AC, after beating the main story there are still side quests I can do but the insentive to do them is taken away.

However, Oblivion I went through the main quest in no time and 50 hours later am still exploring, joining guilds, and side questing. But ES is all about the world while AC is more about the characters/story.

I know for Skyrim I'll take a similar approach as Oblivion with doing a ton more exploring. The world actually looks so good that I may just explore rather than side quest for a while.

Deus Ex was tricky since you had to do the side quests in certain parts of the game or they'd often go away as the story progressed. I'm disappointed I missed the bonus quest/mission I got for preordering the game. I still have no idea where to find it.

I pretty much do the same thing as TC, play some main quest missions, explore a bit and do side quests, then more main quest missions...as for Dark Souls which I'm currently playing and has an open-ish type world...once I kill big scary thing, I run to next are...debate on going up stairs or path to the right...choose path only to have to choose left, right, or down...go downwards to just have to choose run towards another big scary thing...go through creepy fog or turn around and choose another path...which I then just set the controller down and stare blankly at the tv for several minutes...then choose fog...run through it get killed then kick myself for not taking a different pathApocalypse324

I first complete side quests(if they aren't terribly boring) of a particular area\city and then go for the main quests.

In something like Oblivion, Fallout or Mass Effect i tend to do as many side quests as i can. The main quests are always pretty quick & short & so if you dont want the game to end quickly then you must Do the side quests.

Some one also mentioned too much copy & paste can affect what missions you tackle. If there is too much copy & paste in the side missions then i will move back over to the main quest. Hopefully Skyrim will feature more variety & detail into its dungeons so that mayne this time i will explore them all. I hated dungeons in Oblvion.

[QUOTE="Apocalypse324"]I pretty much do the same thing as TC, play some main quest missions, explore a bit and do side quests, then more main quest missions...as for Dark Souls which I'm currently playing and has an open-ish type world...once I kill big scary thing, I run to next are...debate on going up stairs or path to the right...choose path only to have to choose left, right, or down...go downwards to just have to choose run towards another big scary thing...go through creepy fog or turn around and choose another path...which I then just set the controller down and stare blankly at the tv for several minutes...then choose fog...run through it get killed then kick myself for not taking a different pathjunglist101

I like taking things really slow and exploring every little nook and cranny to help give me a boost at the beginning of the game when I normally would be all underpowered. Then as I get more powerful I'll branch out and explore a little more generally :P

Generally I avoid the main quest until my strength has increased by a large percentage.