Your First Elder Scrolls Experience, Please tell Options

[Bolzmania]

My sisters friend had the game and my sister borrowed it from her. Well, everybody just loved the game. I did only kill people but now I' doing more stuff.


//Daedroth

[raggidman]

psst - I started with Daggerfall - soo loooong agoooo - I can't even rremember the year.

One moment I was playing stuff like Wing Commander and fighting off the Cats, and the next I was in this weird dugeon - andI was the Cat person!

It was the spookiest dungeon I have ever been in! That music! And all those strange creatures that seemed somehow to fit, as creatures seldom have done in other games.

It took me ages to fing my way out of that dungeon - or so it seemed at the time. An dI had begun to wonder if the whole game was set in it. Then all of a sudden - pow - I was out in th estarlight, and then it started snowing! And the music - totally different - real travelling music! true

[marstinson]

Daggerfall! Saw it at Computer City right after its release in 1996. I had just upgraded to Win95 on a Pentium processor at something like 100 or 120MHz with an amazing 32MB of RAM (really hot stuff after futzing around on a 386SX at something like 8 or 12MHz). Never read a review; the on-box description just blew me away and I had to get it. Took it home, loaded it up, nearly messed my drawers when the skeleton came charging down the stairs in Privateers Hold and immediately fell in love with it. Thousands of hours of playing time and an entire website written in Notepad with graphics courtesty of Paint (Beginners Guide to Daggerfall). Bugs out the wahzoo (something like 6 or 7 patches before Bethesda finally gave up on it), but we found work-arounds and loved every minute of it. Hard to believe, but the Huge install ate up a fourth of my hard drive (FAT16 partition could only go 2 gigs). Somehow managed to keep it running through several hardware and OS upgrades.

Picked up Arena in a bargain bin at some point, but couldn't get it to run. Think I've still got the CD around here somewhere.

Played almost all of the way through Battlespire (CD got the scratch of death over a critical sound file and I didn't feel like special-ordering a replacement). Was one of the Redguard testers (can still hear it: "would you please find Izara and come to bed?"). Got Morrowind and Oblivion within a day or two of their releases. Yep, I've definitely received my money's worth from the good folks at Bethesda.

[canis216]

It started when a friend of mine in college got Morrowind, and I would just watch him play. The game world was so interesting, and his adventures so entertaining, that I would just watch him play for hours. Seriously. A couple months later I saw the game on sale (cheap) at the big Target in Cedar Rapids and picked it up. I was hooked instantly, of course.

[bbqplatypus]

I believe it was back in aught-three or aught-four. My parents are divorced, so my siblings and I would visit my dad periodically for certain weekends. He had a few games down there for us while we were there, and one of those games was Morrowind.

We mostly played it casually, never getting particularly far. Usually we just ran around and did whatever we felt like. Of course, we were low-level, so we couldn't do all that much. I don't know if any of us stuck with a particular saved game for all that long. It's not like you can do much for two weekends a month.

I joined the Legion and did one or two quests for them usually. One thing that ALL of us were impressed by was the sheer size, scope, and uniqueness of the world. We had the map of Vvardenfell posted near the computer. It all seemed so huge that I couldn't possibly hope to understand it all. It was magnificent and truly engaged my imagination.

Finally (it might have been as much as a year later - I'm not sure), I decided entirely on my own initiative to take the game home and play it for real this time. And the rest is history.

I got sucked into Vvardenfell on several different occasions. I think it was the second (or was it the third?) time around that I got hit the hardest. The immersive experience for me was total - I didn't think of it as "playing a game" or interacting with what basically amounted to static conversation popup windows. I thought of it like it was real, in a sense. Or at least I wished it was. I was "in character" throughout. In that regard, it turned me into a crazy person, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.

So yeah...I've been TES-crazy ever since.

[saqin]

Well, when Oblivion first came out there was loads of news about it, but it took a good while before dad bought it(I was around 11, 12 years old.) Then I watched dad play it, tried it a few times but was to scared to kill anything, meaning I mostly ran around admiring the landscape.

[Captain Hammer]

My uncle had just gotten a new system a couple years after 2000, so he gave my brother and I his old system along with a classic Super NES and Sega Genesis (there is a reason that this man is my godfather). Well, after finally getting the compy up and running, we checked out what games he had given us. And what was in that bin?

Hmmmm..., can't remember anything but two games from somebody called 'Bethesda' called "The Elder Scrolls" series, Arena and Daggerfall.

Well, we tried to get through Arena, and finally got so fed up that he came and showed us a few tricks to get us out that first dungeon. From then on, my bro and I were entertained, but not enthralled, it was something to do when we had time on our hands.

And then we moved to Florida, and a new buddy I met at school told me about a new Elder Scrolls game, and I was like "Yeah, I played the first two, never bothered with those one-off sequels. I don't want another glitchy game like Daggerfall."

After my buddy nearly beat me senseless upside the head with a history textbook, he lent me Morrowind the next day. One install later and I was floored. I almost didn't want to give the game back, but was forced to do so, upset and angry. But there was a Best Buy in convenient biking distance from my new place, so after saving some money, and waiting for GOTY edition to come out, over I went, bought the game, and got home.

The rest, they say, is history. It has gotten to the point that I now get computers with an eye towards future upgrades in anticipation of the next Elder Scrolls release. I'm going back through Oblivion now, and a buddy at college asked me to Beta-test a huge Morrowind mod called "Balanced Scales." Fun stuff.

[Destri Melarg]

I remember the first time I saw the box cover art for Morrowind on the X-box. The game said that I could create any kind of character I wanted, that sold it to me. I took it home with images of the dark elf I would create dancing in my head. Imagine my surprise when I put the game in, turned it on, and discovered Redguards!

Now I came to this genre as a hard core sports gamer (College Hoops 2K, NBA 2K, and Madden FTW) so I was used to being able to play as a ‘black’ character. Unfortunately most shooters and action games of the time pigeon-holed you into playing as a specific character, like Master Chief or Ryu (don't get me wrong, I love Ninja Gaiden, Halo not so much, but still it was noticeable).

With Morrowind I got introduced to Redguards; the ‘most naturally talented warriors in all of Tamriel’ were still as dumb as a bag of hammers, but who cares? I created a Redguard Sorcerer born under the sign of the Mage and rolled on from there. The first thing he did after leaving the census office was explore the first tomb he found up the coast north of Seyda Nean. In that tomb he found the Mentor’s Ring which went a long way toward helping him to master the magical arts. For the first time in a non-sports game genre I got to play as a character that resembled me. I’ve been hooked on the Elder Scrolls ever since.

[PhoenixGamer]

My first was when playing Arena, the very first game. It was insanely hard and when I got finished with it I yelled SUCCESS! so hard I swear the walls were shaking.

[King Of Beasts]

The first time I played oblivion I had no clue what was going on. I wandered into a bunch of caves, and got turned into a vampire.

Now at the time, I didn't know vampires existed in oblivion, so whenever I died in the sun, I was like WTH?

I eventually figured out what happened, and was too terrified to go into caves for a while.

[Elisabeth Hollow]

Oblivion. I wasn't even much of a gamer then either. The most gaming i did was when I played Tekken or Mortal Kombat with my dad when I was little (he was the lenient parent)

Then I realized how open it was and was amazed. It opened my world up to other RPGs and I've been hooked ever since.

[SubRosa]

My first Elder Scrolls experience was within a year of Oblivion coming out. A friend of mine and fellow Pen and Paper RPG player told me how great it was, and talked me into trying it. My computer at that time was so old that I literally could not play it. When I tried creating a character, I would move the mouse, and literally two minutes later the cursor would start to move. After about five minutes of exasperating battle, I finally gave up and resigned myself to never try this stupid game again.

Fast forward a few years. I had spent my time after that not only playing Rome Total War to death, but seriously modding it as well. My inspiration to mod was the game's near total lack of appreciation for females in ancient warfare, be they the many Celtic, Germanic, Scythian, and Sarmatian women who fought in the ranks, or those notable for their leadership such as Zenobia or Tomyris. That led me to create a massive conversion mod that brought women into the game.

After finally burning out on that, I started casting my eyes around for something else to play. At the time I had just discovered the anime Claymore, and was completely hooked on it. While looking for Claymore stuff on the internetz, I found a mod for Oblivion that added Claymore armor and swords. That prompted me to dig out my old copy of Oblivion. With a newer computer, I tried again. This time the blasted thing actually worked! I spent about a month gleefully hacking away at everything that moved with my first character, Clare (completely inspired by the anime of course). After that I decided to try to really play the game, and was completely sucked in by the open world, and the emphasis upon you telling your character's story, rather than following the story the game tells you (as every linear game does).

Perhaps most of all, (just like Destri) I was overjoyed that a computer game actually gave me opportunity to play a female character (ok, I don't think it was female Redguards he was overjoyed to play, but then again, he might be a playa' ). After so many games like RTW, the Doom games, Dark Forces, the Jedi Knights, etc... it was nice to have the chance to play a member of my own gender for a change. In fact, I am so sick of having penises forced upon me by games, that I will not play the ones that do anymore. I just cannot take them anymore.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Oct 24 2015, 07:35 PM

[King Of Beasts]

I was really into two worlds before I started playing oblivion.

[ghastley]

I started with Oblivion, having spent a lot of time making mods for Dungeon Siege I and II. When the franchise was sold, and DS3 was announced as being made by Obsidian, with no toolkit, I went looking for another game to mod. Morrowind lost to Oblivion, because I had a machine that would run the latter well enough, and I never actually got around to buying Morrowind before it disappeared from stores. I'd still get a copy if it turns up in a bin somewhere.

I've since installed Daggerfall and any tools I could find for that, and created an Orc race, and a few extra quests. Even with the sprite graphics, the old game's still fun to play (and mod). I may get around to doing the same with Arena.

Currently doing a bit of nostalgic adventuring with Vampirella, who naturally became a vampire for a while.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Feb 6 2013, 04:05 PM

[flowerboom]

We are using friends names ? ill spill the beans then ..

i was at my friend Edward may about 4 / 5 years back now , that was the first time i saw oblivion , he was already on there family ocmputer playing it , i remeber watching the tutorial dungeon and actualy being so scared but at the same time facinated

i remember the first town we went to - cheydinhal! i remember the newlands lodge inn and the dark elf lady so distinctivly after watching entranced ( the game not the boy i mean!) for sevral days i finally plucked up the courage to ask if I COULD HAVE A GO

"ya , in a minute "

well you know how it goes.. when he finally nipped to the loo i raced to the controller , that was the first time i ever got to jump into the tes world , all i actually did was pick up a sweetroll and eat it... i remeber edward getting all angry because i had killed his chracter ( the guards came to kill the sweetroll thief)

a week after i went on my own home pc ( i was about 10 ) and looking for "oblivion" ..the night before i had pinched eds copy to see what the name of the game was ( he refused to tell me. .. , anyway i found it and it was £20 , i was like "WHAT?!" bu in the end my mum paid for it so it was all good

for about 3 1/2 years i didnt even realise there were whole communties buzzing about tes , but i remember my early OB days

basically i was terrified of dungeons and ocnfrontation in general , i spent most of my time in safe , safe, cities talking to people and buying/selling things , i did the guild lines but i hated having to go into any type of dungeon , i was literally wetting myself with anxiety over getting jumped on by some headless zombie or worst of all , RATS!

haha it was so bad the only way i could actually deal with it was learning conjuration , whenever i went into a dungeon i would summon some giant storm atronoch around every corner , i would then hide and wait for all the nasties to die . i got to master level out of FEAR .

I got SI and i loved it , then i got KOTY , again tops . eventually skyrim came out and i was a bit dissapointed by it to be honest . it lacked the depth and FUN of oblivon , somehow it just couldnt beat oblivion ( i still play oblivion a lot) , anyway about 3 months ago i decided to have a crack at morrowind because you hear a lot of people saying it is epic , best game ever etc. etc. and it was OK , i have played a little and i enjoyed a few bits but mostly i hate how dead the world feels ,im really into role-play and its hard with MW.

so yeah dont tell edward may ( we aint friends no more) about me spilling the beans on him

[flowerboom]

I saw a review of Daggerfall in a PC magazine and had to have it, as I love RPGs. First installed it on a 486/66 PC. Even with the incredibly slow load times, it was the best game I had ever seen. The world is huge, the dungeons were often insanely complex, people had learned how to exploit the clipping problem (surfing the Void). I mostly keep my Win 98 machine running so I can play Daggerfall.

And then I heard of this "sequel" called The Elder Scrolls 3- and my life has never been the same.

yeah daggerfall is apparntly the largest game space ever created , twice the size of the united kingdom , i live here and thats , as a guy in oblivion tells you "BIG see ? REALY BIG"

i have never played daggerfall or arena , mostly because i think the graphics would be to dated for me to really enjoy it , i play TES for role play so i dont think id get much out of it.

[flowerboom]

about morrowind , i can actually see how people got so drawn into it , but i think that it was the sort of game you had to be there for to really get it . like when i started morrowind the game was very dated and oblivon AND skyirm had come out...you just cannot get the same feeling out of a game like you do with the latests tes game.

[flowerboom]

In fact, I am so sick of having penises forced upon me by games, that I will not play the ones that do anymore. I just cannot take them anymore.

wow ... surely they wearnt that graphical ?

but then i have added some mods that add daggerfall books to my oblivion...wow they just dont let that stuff be printed anymore

This post has been edited by flowerboom: Feb 6 2013, 09:38 PM

[Kiln]

In fact, I am so sick of having penises forced upon me by games, that I will not play the ones that do anymore. I just cannot take them anymore.

wow ... surely they wearnt that graphical ?

I think what the poster meant was that she doesn't like games that don't have the option of playing as a female character, not that there was any graphic depiction of said topic actually in the game.

[Elisabeth Hollow]

In fact, I am so sick of having penises forced upon me by games, that I will not play the ones that do anymore. I just cannot take them anymore.

wow ... surely they wearnt that graphical ?

I think what the poster meant was that she doesn't like games that don't have the option of playing as a female character, not that there was any graphic depiction of said topic actually in the game.

I'm laughing so hard at this XD