For instance, I just looked up Skyrim's main quest, Bing says it takes https://www.bing.com/search?q=how+many+hours+for+skyrim%27s+main+quest&form=QBLH&sp=-1&ghc=1&lq=0&pq=how+many+hours+for+skyrim%27s&sc=11-27&qs=n&sk=&cvid=ABBB22C4B04345B7BC16A658D4E8E459&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl= How do they figure this out? Do a bunch of devs and/or game testers do some speed runs, only focusing on the Main Quest?
That is my guess.
I doubt there was any deliberate timing done. Since your saves have the time played as an attribute you can check, I'd imagine it was a case of looking back at some saves to see how much time had passed.
So I tried to find some among my own characters, and it appears that I always saved after getting back from Sovngarde, as none of them had a save there, even though I know who did the MQ. So I had to use a different method.
Since Dragonborn assumes you did the MQ, and everything on Solstheim starts at about level 20, the nearest estimate I got was to find saves on Solstheim from level 20+ characters, and see how many hours in those were. 30 is not a bad estimate. as you need to do side-quests for XP, or you won't have the skills to complete the MQ, so a speed run won't work very well.
That's a good way to figure, ghast, assuming you only focus on the Main Quest. My problem is I'm always straying!
But yeah, I guess "speed run" is a bad couple of words to use, because I've seen accounts in which gamers boast they've "beat" the Main Quest in Three hours or whatever. I am guessing that 30 hours includes a more relaxed pace, maybe some light use of fast-traveling via the carriage system, rather than FTing Oblivion-style.
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