This is one of my longest-standing game ideas that still appeals to me. Unfortunately, it is one of the most complex, and I don't expect to accomplish it. Nevertheless, here is the story of how I imagined the game and some details about how it might play out.
After playing TES 3: Morrowind for many hours, my excitement for TES 4:
Oblivion was unparalleled. A larger world to explore, intelligent people who
had actual lives and motivations, bigger and better and more beautiful than ever.
Playing it was a disappointment for several reasons:
1. Dumbed down. Half the magic classes and weapon classes were just gone. How
is this a bigger game?
2. Fast travel. It's real nice as a player to click on a thing on the map and
be there, but it sacrifices a lot of what made Morrowind so memorable. I had
to carefully plan everywhere I went to not spend too much on travel, and get
to places efficiently, because backtracking means hours of in-game time, walking.
Sure, the map was bigger, but it felt half the size, because it's just so
convenient to just click on a city, and not bother with the area in between.
3. The people are dumb. Sure, they have lives where they walk from house to
the store everyday. So while I'm waiting for the shop to open, I follow the
shopkeeper, who stops and has the same inane conversation with every person he
meets. "Did ya hear about them headcrabs?" "They're sure dangerous" "Did you hear
that the hero is saving the day?" "Yeah, it's all in the newspapers." The worst
part is I know they are only doing this when I'm around. They get nothing from
it; it's solely for the player character to pick up hints or hear about his or her
exploits. Meanwhile, what I want is for the stupid shop to open up.
4. Urgency is a hoax. This is the big one. I was on the main quest, and was told
"Quick, this town is under siege by demons! Everyone is hiding in the church and
we need to save them!" But first, I want to level up just a tiny bit. Being the
Elder Scrolls, there's plenty to do, and I forget about the main quest for months.
One day, I come back to the city, and everybody is still waiting for the hero.
The demons haven't done any evil, the guards haven't gotten impatient and stormed
the castle, and the people holed up in the church haven't gotten hungry. The
whole façade of a living world dissolved.
Ok, I understand each of these design choices, and if they had made it actually time dependent, with people consuming food, realistic interactions with a player character who has no job (just runs around stealing stuff), and an expanded set of skills, weapons, and magic, it would have been a totally different game, and not necessarily a better one. Nevertheless, QfE aims to fix a pet peeve.
The major feature of QfE is that events go on with or without you. Will you spend a year of time doing "find my chicken" quests, and return to gain your diploma with nothing but a few happy farmers as your commendation? Or will you seek out quests worthy of doing? Or, you know, maybe you'll just be in the wrong place at the wrong time the entire game, and your fellow classmates will get all the glory. You should have teamed up with them, you self-centered player character.