The First Thing You Felt About Oblivion (or Morrowind), ... When you were a Newbie. Options

[Lady Saga]

The first things I've felt about Oblivion: I was blown away. Just amazed. Unlike Kiln up above, I had no preconceptions about what to expect, and maybe that's a good thing.

I've told this story before many times over at Beth's forums, but never here.

I was bored one night: a recovering drug addict who had been into some rather heavy compassion. Those of us in 'recovery' need to keep our minds occupied; that's one of the ways we stay clean. Anyways, I'm bored, and I was also bored of all my PS and PS2 games at the time, so I started thinking about the "next gen" system.

...This was back in October 2008; I think the PS3 had only been out for a year. I said to myself that if the PS3 has any decent games (RPG-type games with adventure and magic and hand-weapons, like all the classics I grew up with) I'm gonna buy a PS3. One of the best things about quitting drugs is I had all this money saved all the sudden.

I went online to www.gamerevolution.com which is a site I've used in the past. I literally went thru the whole alphabet, reading reviews on various games at the time. I started with the letter A. Assassin's Creed was not out on PS3 (I don't think) at the time, and maybe that's a good thing, so I moved on to the letter B.

B...C...D....E...F....G...H...I....J...K..L....M....N...O....P....Q...R....S....

....NOTHING....nothing for any of those letters (not back then, anyways). Then I got to the letter T.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. What a weird title! GameRevolution gave this RPG an A or an A+, and I never finished reading the review that night. About half way through, I grabbed my keys & wallet, got in my car, and DROVE as fast as I could to my nearby GameStop, BOUGHT Oblivion AND a PS3 on the spot, drove home and hooked it all up! 10:24 PM is when I started my first character.

My first character was Lady Anne. To be honest, I don't remember much about her or my first playthrough. I was so blown away by it all! ...All the RPGs and "RPGs" I had tried beforehand railroaded the PC through invisible barriers, and offered very little exploration, if any. See that pretty path going through the bushes? Well you can't walk on it....it's just there to look pretty. That sort of thing.

Well in Oblivion, I could walk on that pretty path. See where it goes. That blew me away just as much as seeing Cyrodiil's atmosphere for the first time!

After Lady Anne delivered the Amulet, I totally scrapped her game. I started all over again with a brand-new character (whose name i've forgotten). I enjoyed that entire process so much (meeting the Emperor, leaving the Sewers, etc.) I started all over again, basically.

Phew.....

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 9 2013, 11:45 PM

[Kiln]

I was bored one night: a recovering drug addict who had been into some rather heavy compassion. Those of us in 'recovery' need to keep our minds occupied; that's one of the ways we stay clean.

Thanks for your honestly. It is hard but worth it. Games are a great way to cope with life and take your mind off of how difficult it can sometimes be. I know the feeling. Stay strong.

This post has been edited by Kiln: Feb 10 2013, 12:00 AM

[mirocu]

I still enjoyed Oblivion and ended up dumping quite a few hours into it but it wasn't like Morrowind, I was never really completely drawn in by it.

I had the same experience when I came to Morrowind from Oblivion

don't even bother, I've already tried to get mirocu to create a second character. Aint gonna happen...I was close, though, wasn't I?

No

The first things I've felt about Oblivion: I was blown away. Just amazed. Unlike Kiln up above, I had no preconceptions about what to expect, and maybe that's a good thing.

It definitely is. I literally had no idea what Oblivion or TES was when I was handed it as a thank you for driving a couple of buddies home from a party the day after. I thought it was an overhead view with gameplay like Civilization or something. When I discovered it was a first person RPG I was so happy I almost took a dive into my monitor as I wanted to physically be in that world!

This post has been edited by mirocu: Feb 10 2013, 09:46 AM

[flowerboom]

The first things I've felt about Oblivion: I was blown away. Just amazed. Unlike Kiln up above, I had no preconceptions about what to expect, and maybe that's a good thing.

I've told this story before many times over at Beth's forums, but never here.

I was bored one night: a recovering drug addict who had been into some rather heavy compassion. Those of us in 'recovery' need to keep our minds occupied; that's one of the ways we stay clean. Anyways, I'm bored, and I was also bored of all my PS and PS2 games at the time, so I started thinking about the "next gen" system.

...This was back in October 2008; I think the PS3 had only been out for a year. I said to myself that if the PS3 has any decent games (RPG-type games with adventure and magic and hand-weapons, like all the classics I grew up with) I'm gonna buy a PS3. One of the best things about quitting drugs is I had all this money saved all the sudden.

I went online to www.gamerevolution.com which is a site I've used in the past. I literally went thru the whole alphabet, reading reviews on various games at the time. I started with the letter A. Assassin's Creed was not out on PS3 (I don't think) at the time, and maybe that's a good thing, so I moved on to the letter B.

B...C...D....E...F....G...H...I....J...K..L....M....N...O....P....Q...R....S....

....NOTHING....nothing for any of those letters (not back then, anyways). Then I got to the letter T.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. What a weird title! GameRevolution gave this RPG an A or an A+, and I never finished reading the review that night. About half way through, I grabbed my keys & wallet, got in my car, and DROVE as fast as I could to my nearby GameStop, BOUGHT Oblivion AND a PS3 on the spot, drove home and hooked it all up! 10:24 PM is when I started my first character.

My first character was Lady Anne. To be honest, I don't remember much about her or my first playthrough. I was so blown away by it all! ...All the RPGs and "RPGs" I had tried beforehand railroaded the PC through invisible barriers, and offered very little exploration, if any. See that pretty path going through the bushes? Well you can't walk on it....it's just there to look pretty. That sort of thing.

Well in Oblivion, I could walk on that pretty path. See where it goes. That blew me away just as much as seeing Cyrodiil's atmosphere for the first time!

After Lady Anne delivered the Amulet, I totally scrapped her game. I started all over again with a brand-new character (whose name i've forgotten). I enjoyed that entire process so much (meeting the Emperor, leaving the Sewers, etc.) I started all over again, basically.

Phew.....

Again you trust astonished me renee ( look im going to call you renee get over it) its actually really nice to see how oblivion has literally changed your life , its just amazing what the elder scrolls can do isint it ?

i dont know anything about drugs , again like with beggars i cant comment but you seem to of done really well for yourself , COOKIES!

[flowerboom]

well i feel like old miro , with BOTH skyirm and morrowind

with skyrim i was just dissapointed basically , the game felt so much smaller then oblivivon, the idea of stand-alone quests ( the epic glue that held cyrodill togther) was dead , the guiliens had fewer quests than previous , there were fewer spells to learn , there was less land to explore , there were less skills to learn...everythign was just LESS .....

with morrowind , the highest praise i can give , and its high is this : i can see why people think it was the best game ever created , when i first played i felt the epicness , i loved the towns , the music , the creatrues..the sheer amount of things to do was overwhelming

but , the world had no map icons so i didnt have a clue were i was going , the world has NO AI ( almost) which completly killed the games immersion . the combat was bad , creatures were annoying , and the quesltines i gave up on because they were TOO LONG

literally i did like 50 quesst for fg and eventually gave up because time after time i got a fetch quest to head to "the most northern of the isles) when i was in balamors



i honestly think that your favourite ES game is your first , because you get something unique , something raw , from that which you can never have again

This post has been edited by flowerboom: Feb 10 2013, 10:07 AM

[mirocu]

i honestly think that your favourite ES game is your first , because you get something unique , something raw , from that which you can never have again

This is what I have been preaching for years over at Bethsoft

[Lady Saga]

It definitely is. I literally had no idea what Oblivion or TES was when I was handed it as a thank you for driving a couple of buddies home from a party the day after.

Ha ha you've told this story before and it still amazes me!

I've probably asked this before but did those buddies give you Oblivion and say something like "heh, this game is kinda cool, you can have it." Or were they more like "this is the BEST game in the world, and you can have it!"

i dont know anything about drugs , again like with beggars i cant comment but you seem to of done really well for yourself , COOKIES!

It's amazing and true: a videogame really did change my life for the better.

i honestly think that your favourite ES game is your first , because you get something unique , something raw , from that which you can never have again

I disagree. I like Skyrim and Oblivion equally, yet OB was my first. Both have flaws and both have better points, and that's just how it is with me. *shrugs*

Skyrim's questlines are shorter (true) but I still enjoy the writing of them. Skyrim is "dumbed down" in lots of ways, but so was Oblivion (in comparison to Morrowind) and what too many people do is they ignore Skyrim's better potentials. Yeah, it's dumbed-down, but there are also plenty of areas where it's not, or where it's got new features.

The wilderness is better-fleshed with peaceful creatures, for instance, which is something I've wanted in Cyrodiil for a long time. I like seeing bunnies and foxes hawks and goats, not just deer. This makes the wilderness more believable to me. Fish in the streams, birds in the air. I like watching butterfiles, moths, and dragoflies flit around one another as my character walks by. ... I can also make a charcter who has a mundane job, and he or she make money this way if they want to without me having to "RP" it. Not all characters have to adventure/spam potions for sale, now we can make money chopping wood! Or mining ores! Or farming!

Skyrim has a better system (in my opinion) of leveling too; I much prefer the static leveling system over Oblivion's dynamic (everyone levels with you) system. I like the fact that some areas are too dangerous to go into, and some are easier. It invites new methods of strategy. Enemies in Skyrim also won't just chase you to the far points of the globe if they see you. Wolves, bears, bandits (etc.) usually give us a chance to keep off their turf before they attack. I get sick of being chased by multiple wolves in Oblivion/Cyrodiil! I'm glad Beth changed this.

I could go on but you get the point, I hope. Maybe if I had access to mods in one game (but not the other) I would prefer one over the other, but if they're both vanilla? I like 'em both about equally. And for a variety of reasons.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 10 2013, 03:11 PM

[mirocu]

It definitely is. I literally had no idea what Oblivion or TES was when I was handed it as a thank you for driving a couple of buddies home from a party the day after.

Ha ha you've told this story before and it still amazes me!

I know! If I hadn´t done that, I wouldn´t be here right now!

I've probably asked this before but did those buddies give you Oblivion and say something like "heh, this game is kinda cool, you can have it." Or were they more like "this is the BEST game in the world, and you can have it!"

The former. He said he was done with it (I guess he meant the MQ) and he actually offered me a choice for two games. Oblivion was one that I took, and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was the other. I say it was two for two!

[Lady Saga]

The former. He said he was done with it (I guess he meant the MQ) and he actually offered me a choice for two games. Oblivion was one that I took, and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was the other. I say it was two for two!

Oh, so he beat the game, huh?

Glad you took Oblivion over Bloodlines. I wonder if Assassin's Creed was out back then if I would have bought it instead of Oblivion. I don't own AC to this day, but my nephew does and it is the type of game that I potentially could get into. But I'm glad I got 'stuck' with Elder Scrolls.

:biggrin:

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 11 2013, 04:30 PM

[flowerboom]

[/quote]

Oh, so he beat the game, huh?

Glad you took Oblivion over Bloodlines. I wonder if Assassin's Creed was out back then if I would have bought it instead of Oblivion. I don't own AC to this day, but my nephew does and it is the type of game that I potentially could get into. But I'm glad I got 'stuck' with Elder Scrolls.

:biggrin:
[/quote]


yes i dont tend to buy computer games anymore because tes just fills the void for me

the opening scene , This is the year of akatosh 433 , the closing days of the 3rd era , and the final hours of my life. - EPIC !!

Every time i make a new character i watch it , it fills me with such passion , such insipartion that it just fills my head with thoughts about a new character , mirocu even if you dont intend to make a new character you need to watch that opening scene again.

It ... it is so all- inspiring .... THANK YOU DEVS

This post has been edited by flowerboom: Feb 11 2013, 04:42 PM

[mirocu]

I'm glad I got 'stuck' with Elder Scrolls.

Me too! I seriously had no idea what the game was really about, but I´m so glad I decided to help those guys get home!

i dont tend to buy computer games anymore because tes just fills the void for me

Same here. If I play another game besides Morrowind or Oblivion, it feels like I´m cheating on my girlfriend or something!

[flowerboom]

[/quote]
Same here. If I play another game besides Morrowind or Oblivion, it feels like I´m cheating on my girlfriend or something!
[/quote]



*smashes glass*

WHAT?!

i thought i was the only one in your life

[Lady Saga]

Me too! I seriously had no idea what the game was really about, but I´m so glad I decided to help those guys get home!

In my case, I've been waiting for a game like Elder Scrolls since the mid 1980s. Ever since playing Adventure on the Atari 2600. <-That's a video link. Watch a few seconds or minutes of that video. THAT is one of the videogame "RPGs" we had to play when I was a kid. That's what we had on console. From what I understand, PC games back then were either entirely text-based, or offered similarly simple graphics.



So ever since then I have been waiting for a 3D game with lots of exploration, a game like TES IV: Oblivion. So that's roughly 28 years of waiting!

Thank you. *sits down, with coffee*


This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 11 2013, 04:54 PM

[mirocu]

In my case, I've been waiting for a game like Elder Scrolls since the mid 1980s. Ever since playing Adventure on the Atari 2600. <-That's a video link. Watch a few seconds or minutes of that video. THAT is one of the videogame "RPGs" we had to play when I was a kid.

Wow, just look at the colors! The lush forest! The lifelike towns!

[Lady Saga]

Wow, just look at the colors! The lush forest! The lifelike towns!

Lol. we had to have a LOOOOOT of imagination back then!

[flowerboom]

Me too! I seriously had no idea what the game was really about, but I´m so glad I decided to help those guys get home!

In my case, I've been waiting for a game like Elder Scrolls since the mid 1980s. Ever since playing Adventure on the Atari 2600. <-That's a video link. Watch a few seconds or minutes of that video. THAT is one of the videogame "RPGs" we had to play when I was a kid. That's what we had on console. From what I understand, PC games back then were either entirely text-based, or offered similarly simple graphics.



So ever since then I have been waiting for a 3D game with lots of exploration, a game like TES IV: Oblivion. So that's roughly 28 years of waiting!

Thank you. *sits down, with coffee*

... yup they sure dont make like they did in the 80's ! ( i wasnt born )

suprised they didnt feature MT in there at some point.

This post has been edited by flowerboom: Feb 11 2013, 05:31 PM

[Kiln]

When I first played Morrowind I didn't want to stop, I played it on the Xbox the first time.

The open world was just so unlike anything I'd ever seen in a console game. Those types of games just didn't exist in such great detail for console gamers, maybe not for PC players either. Morrowind was something really unique and that is what dragged me back to it so many times.

When I look back on the first time I played it, I was at a friend's house and acted like a total dirt bag by tying up his Xbox with a single player game for several hours. I felt guilty but then he fell asleep and I played MW all night until the sun came up.

As soon as I got an Xbox I grabbed MW and played it constantly. When they released the GOTY edition with the expansions I was sucked back in again. I just never get the same feeling with current games. Oblivion and Skyrim were fun but never felt the same.

Personally I think that it is because both Oblivion and Skyrim are too generic. There's just not enough originality in these current games. The landscape, architecture, creatures, and people aren't distinct enough in the last two installments IMO.

[Lady Saga]

When I first played Morrowind I didn't want to stop, I played it on the Xbox the first time.

I am pretty sure I saw Morrowind at a friend's house in the early millenium. I was at some party in 2002 or '03, and the Xbox (the original one) was still relatively new. Anyways, I remember being awed by this game, whatever it was. I remember there was a lot of fog or mist in the air, and it had a fantasy theme to it. And it seemed to go on and on forever.

But back then I did not have an Xbox, and my memory is terrible; if somebody told me "this game is called The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind" I would not remember that sort of a name (too weird!) unless I wrote it down. But I probably asked the guy playing the game what its name is, and since TES: III was not on Playstation, my luck ran out.

So that's one thing to think about. Assuming I had an Xbox back then instead of a Playstation, chances are I would have discovered Elder Scrolls years before 2008.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Feb 16 2013, 08:16 PM

[Destri Melarg]

The first things I've felt about Oblivion: I was blown away. Just amazed. Unlike Kiln up above, I had no preconceptions about what to expect, and maybe that's a good thing.

I've told this story before many times over at Beth's forums, but never here.

I was bored one night: a recovering drug addict who had been into some rather heavy compassion. Those of us in 'recovery' need to keep our minds occupied; that's one of the ways we stay clean. Anyways, I'm bored, and I was also bored of all my PS and PS2 games at the time, so I started thinking about the "next gen" system.

...This was back in October 2008; I think the PS3 had only been out for a year. I said to myself that if the PS3 has any decent games (RPG-type games with adventure and magic and hand-weapons, like all the classics I grew up with) I'm gonna buy a PS3. One of the best things about quitting drugs is I had all this money saved all the sudden.

I went online to www.gamerevolution.com which is a site I've used in the past. I literally went thru the whole alphabet, reading reviews on various games at the time. I started with the letter A. Assassin's Creed was not out on PS3 (I don't think) at the time, and maybe that's a good thing, so I moved on to the letter B.

B...C...D....E...F....G...H...I....J...K..L....M....N...O....P....Q...R....S....

....NOTHING....nothing for any of those letters (not back then, anyways). Then I got to the letter T.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. What a weird title! GameRevolution gave this RPG an A or an A+, and I never finished reading the review that night. About half way through, I grabbed my keys & wallet, got in my car, and DROVE as fast as I could to my nearby GameStop, BOUGHT Oblivion AND a PS3 on the spot, drove home and hooked it all up! 10:24 PM is when I started my first character.

My first character was Lady Anne. To be honest, I don't remember much about her or my first playthrough. I was so blown away by it all! ...All the RPGs and "RPGs" I had tried beforehand railroaded the PC through invisible barriers, and offered very little exploration, if any. See that pretty path going through the bushes? Well you can't walk on it....it's just there to look pretty. That sort of thing.

Well in Oblivion, I could walk on that pretty path. See where it goes. That blew me away just as much as seeing Cyrodiil's atmosphere for the first time!

After Lady Anne delivered the Amulet, I totally scrapped her game. I started all over again with a brand-new character (whose name i've forgotten). I enjoyed that entire process so much (meeting the Emperor, leaving the Sewers, etc.) I started all over again, basically.

Phew.....

This is a great story, Saga (or is it Renee? Which do you prefer?)! Thank you for sharing it with us.

Like Kiln I started with Morrowind. I too was drawn in by the openness and the alien quality of the world. I spent hours doing nothing but roaming. I saw houses inside of mushrooms, cities built almost entirely underground to cope with the ash storms, and Vivec’s cantons with the floating Ministry of Truth. The Ghostfence was this incredibly majestic and intimidating thing to me for the longest time.

But even more than that was the fact that this world had a long and vibrant history to it. Too many times in RPGs it seems like the world is just thrown in as a stage for all the magic and sword-play. How often do we hear:

“It was a few years after the great war between man and elves in the land of _____...”

The smartest thing that I believe the developers did in this series was to include all of the in-game reading material. The books gave Tamriel a palpable history that could be quantified. You could read about a particular Dwarven stronghold, then pack up and go visit that stronghold. That just blew me away!

I remember the guard that recommended that I take the Silt Strider the first time I left Seyda Neen. I had no idea what the hell a ‘Silt Strider’ was. I didn’t find out that it was the gigantic insect parked outside the city until I hit Balmora. Once in Balmora I had a job to do... find some guy named Caius Cosades. The game didn’t hold your hand and tell you how to do this, it was up to you. That really made me feel like a stranger in this world, which is exactly what I was supposed to be. I wandered around until I found the South Wall Corner Club where a helpful proprietor steered me towards Cosades house. Inside I was greeted by a shirtless, balding wreck of a man with a crack pipe laying under the bed (It wasn’t until later that later learned about skooma). This guy turned out to be the Grandmaster of the Blades in Vvardenfell! Needless to say, I was even more hooked!

It doesn’t matter if you have an interesting world filled with unique architecture and fauna, if there aren’t great characters inhabiting this world things will still get old fast. That is where I believe that Morrowind succeeds over the other entries in the franchise. In addition to Caius, you also had Sugar-Lips Habasi, Aengoth the Jeweler, Persius Mercius, Big Helende, Gentleman Jim Stacy and Crazy Legs Aratamo, Master Aryon, Mistress Therana, Divayth Fyr, and Balades Demnevanni. Not to mention the likes of Mehra Milo, Nibani Maesa, and Sul Matuul . And who can forget the first time they met Uncle Crassius?!

i honestly think that your favourite ES game is your first , because you get something unique , something raw , from that which you can never have again

I think there's a lot of truth to this.

[Lady Saga]

Thanks Destri, and I suppose Renee is fine. Renee is my real first name. I only call myself Lady Saga here because I like telling stories...."sagas" if you will.

Your story is great, too. I have yet to try Morrowind. I really wish I had an Xbox back in the early 2000s. If so, I'm sure I'd be a TES veteran with 20,000+ posts on the forums, just like some of you folks.