>One of the fun things about open-world games that have that sort of
>"ratchet" mechanism to their world development is that as long as you
>don't do the story mission that advances the world to the next stage,
>it's not a problem!
>
>(For instance, in Oblivion the Oblivion Gates don't become a
>ubiquitous problem until you actually go to Kvatch, however long you
>dick around before you finally do that. Although you can hear
>people in the streets talking about how Kvatch has been totally
>destroyed, which frankly would make my character less inclined to go
>there than before if he heard about it. :)

That seems to be a Bethesda trademark, alongside enough bugs to stock the world's most massive terrarium. The Enclave doesn't start air-dropping in on you or setting up check-points until you bring your dad to Project Purity, while the dragons don't start trying to BBQ you every 10 steps until you try to do the fetch quest for the Greybeards.