But you can certainly try; I am not one of those brave souls though. However, I have nearly hit one hundred hours of gameplay, with very little left to do. The main quest became my primary goal after a while, and it was conquered quickly, and easily. The other "guilds" in the game have been completed, save for the Thieves Guild. The reason I left it behind is because it was so terrible, time consuming and uninteresting. In fact, you could say that about most the game, but the main storyline brought things back to focus for me. The quests were mixed up a bit - they varied - and was actually interesting. But the main story line only accounts for a fraction of the total hours you spend in the game.
Skyrim is an interesting beast. There are many negatives that would lead you to conclude that it's not a good game, but here you (or I) are, playing it every day, for hours at a time. They've managed to pull it all together and appeal directly to our senses, and in the end I can say I had a good run. What happens is that you burn yourself out. For me, there is so much I want to do - and it doesn't help that I lean slightly towards completionism, a task that is not really possible in Elder Scrolls games. There is not enough time to do it all, and when I step back I have to realize there is no real point in doing it, it's not completely necessary. The developers have filled the world with so many little nuggets of creativity and neat things that you want to experience them all - but you can't, and probably shouldn't. Which is why I approached the game differently after a bit.
At first, I wanted to collect everything, keep every item I found for future display and enjoyment. But therein lies a problem, and one of the reasons I burnt out. When I came back to the game I took a different approach - or role, you could say - by only keeping the things that I really found interesting. What happened is my enjoyment increased, as I didn't have to search every bookshelf, or every chest for loot. I was happy just getting the special items from the big chests at the end of a dungeon, or the various rewards for completing quests. Doing this sped things up quickly, and maximized my enjoyment out of each hour of the game. I also turned on subtitles, so I could read ahead and skip dialogue. Listening to someone speak takes too long, and when you realize most of what they have to say is useless, it's easy to jump ahead. But when something interesting struck me, I would spend more time with it.
It's all about your attitude, and you realize that you are indeed playing a role playing game. It's meant to be played in any number of ways, and that no one is watching. Yes, it's great to show off your character to someone else, but it's more about sharing stories of your experience and your journey than having a chest full of wolf pelts or two hundred soul gems that will never be used. My attitude changed around fifty hours into the game, so that the last half was more enjoyable than the first. Although, there was quite a bit of grinding, and less actual role-playing. See, I discovered some dwarven armour fairly early on in the game, and was very eager to learn more about the culture and species. I raided all sorts of their ancient cities, and I would say for the majority of the game, I was in that armour. But I wanted better stuff, so I grinded away until I got the best, and was let down. Looking back, it went against my character, which may explain why it just didn't feel right.
All that being said, I enjoyed Oblivion much more. Perhaps it's because it was the first of it's kind that I played. Perhaps I just enjoyed the world more. Perhaps it's because I just came off Fallout 3 (another seventy hour game) and not enough time had passed before tackling Skyrim. Perhaps Oblivion was a bit of a surprise, and Skyrim wasn't: you know exactly what you're getting into when you start your journey here. The only thing left now are various achievements, something that I'll be a sucker for I'm sure, and will truly test my resolve.
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