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The trouble with sandbox games is that while I love being able to explore a virtual landscape, I end up feeling guilty for not paying more attention to the main storyline. In Oblivion, hellspawn kept warping out of dimensional tears and rightful heirs needed to be restored to thrones, but that’s the kind of bother that gets in the way collecting nirnroots. Yes, I know that Klatch is besieged, but there’s a stolen painting in Chorral which won’t find itself.
The problem is that side quests in these types of games extend the player’s immersion in the world, while the main quests exist in a temporal stasis. Klatch may be besieged, but they can hold out until I decide to drag my Wood Elf ass over there. It’s an interesting dichotomy, on one hand we have rich, dynamic worlds to play in and on the other, we have strictly scripted events which don’t play out until we walk on stage.