based on your aforementioned rankings, you've added mods that detract from your enjoyment of the vanilla version. i know that you are very new to TES, but typically mods are used to enhance the experience e.g., graphics, combat, immersion, music, additional geography, etc.

so yes, if you'd rank vanilla over modded i would submit you are doing it very, very wrong. lol

Played Arena when I was seven after Daggerfall came out, and I ave to say Morrowind and Daggerfall blow it out of the water in every conceivable way.

Is that suppose to be sarcasm or a typo?

He's got a point, Pseron. Assuming you don't intentionally put crappy mods on, how could you find a game YOU chose mods for to be less enjoyable than a game you haven't customised?

Yes I guess I'm no exception here, Morrowind first played, Morrowind favourite game of all time.

Arena was first, Daggerfall the favourite

Started with Morrowind, all the way back in 2003, but Oblivion is my favorite by far, followed by Skyrim and then Morrowind. I do love modding for MW though, so I suppose it does hold something of a special place in my heart.

You know Jiub I always get a little weirded out when I see your extremely strange avatar, but since today is Easter it seems oddly appropriate. Like you're some Elder Scrolls Easter Bunny coming to give us eggs.

(eggs with mods in it)

Happy Easter to all of you.

I see, now. You're right. Let this be a lesson to everyone: this is what happens when you write a post right before you go to sleep.

I agree. I belive this is true to other "large" series as well, like the Final Fantasy series. Lots of people there seem to consider their first FF to be the best FF.

played oblivion first, with skyrim being my favourite. think this a pretty pointless assumption tbh

My first and favorite is Morrowind

True for me. It's true for other series too. Thief:TDP/Thief:TDP; Morrowind/Morrowind; Deux Ex/Deus Ex; KotOR/KoTOR; Rome:TW/Rome:TW. (Or maybe they're just better games? )

And I think Shogun2 might be better than Rome. Not sure.

Not if you take Europa Barbarorum or Roma Surrectum into consideration.

My first TES game was Morrowind but Skyrim is still my favourite. Beth have gone that much further with the game play, graphics, combat system and environment etc with Skyrim. Using both hands in combat. Walking across the tundra with giants patrolling mammoths that respond independently to other creatures is an amazing feeling. Butterflies and rabbits random activity as you wander the wilderness. Standing on the top of Markarth looking out across the horizon. Amazing stuff.

Morrowind is still my second fav and will always be my first love though.

Morrowind was my first Elder Scrolls game, and I've said it several times, without mods, Morrowind is hands down the best TES game, in my opinion. Now, with mods I always said Oblivion surpassed Morrowind. Of course, the big quest mods and larger overhauls have yet to be released for Skyrim, but when they are, I fully expect Skyrim to become my favorite TES game.

I do think Skyrim has at least matched Morrowind in terms of landscape, as different as they are. Sadly, I was mulling over it last night again, Morrowind just had so much story. I doubt we'll see its like again.

In general, I can't say my first exposure to a franchise is the best. Myst, Age of Empires, Medieval: Total War, Baldur's Gate, The Sims, and Half-Life were all spectacular games, but every one of them was outshined by their sequels, as far as I'm concerned.

Skyrim is by far my favourite game in the series, but Morrowind was the first I got. In this case gameplay, quests, dragons, the civil war and the quality of the factions (the College of Winterhold really made me feel like I was dealing with arcane issues in a way neither Morrowind nor Oblivion managed). It's also far deeper, more diverse and, contrary to popular belief, more RPGish than previous games (probably even more than Daggerfall).

You see, having a stats system does not make a game an RPG. Nor does it require it (look at Fable 2). The stats system is a relic from a bygone era when RPGs were no more advanced than a pen and some paper. Back then people didn't have the technology to record the strengths and weaknesses of an RPG character. They do now. Having stats is more of a hindrance if you want to make a TRUE RPG. In Skyrim you are what you play. How can it get any more RPGish?

Granted, it's not perfect, but it'll be something they'll improve on for the next game.

I suppose I fit the sterotype. Morrowind was my first and favorite TES game, but if I had started with Oblivion, it probably would have been my last TES game. Quite simply, the newer games are a different genre than MW and DF, and I have no interest in them. Not to say that they're bad games, but they're for a different market, not me.

The same "first = favorite" claim can not be said for Fallout. I played FO3, and was kind of disappointed in it, although it wasn't all that bad. Later, based on remarks from the "hard-core" fans of the series, I bought the original Fallout and was quite impressed with it. The graphics and overall gameplay were VERY dated (much more so than Morrowind), but the underlying mechanics and concepts were quite enjoyable (your actions had long-term hard consequences). Despite the aged graphics and extremely clunky interface, I liked the older game far more than the one I played first.

!!! Okay, like Skyrim all you want, but don't try to argue that it's more of an RPG than Daggerfall. Even from an objective viewpoint that's false.

They have nothing to replace the stats. Tell me what exactly they have? It's just simplified. There's no getting stronger, no getting faster, nothing but a more limited skillset. Where exactly are you getting this "strength and weaknesses can now be portrayed in Skyrim without stats" stuff?

By definition an RPG is a game where its outcomes, large and small, depend in large part on your character's skill and abilities, not your own hand-eye coordination as a human being. Clearly in Skyrim this is not the case, since combat comes down to the player's timing and skill, and lockpicking especially has only a faint grounding in the character's skill value. I can pick the hardest lock in the game at level 20 skill if I'm careful and have some spare lockpicks. And what goes into determining how good your character is at something (again, as opposed to you the player) is skills and attributes and other stats.

Without this distinction, you might as well call Call of Duty: Black Ops an RPG. Give me one criteria that you think qualifies as Skyrim as an RPG and I promise I can classify Call of Duty: Black Ops as an RPG too, using that same criteria once you've left attributes and statistics behind.

My first was Oblivion and that's probably my least favorite

I played oblivion first and it is still my fav TES game and fav overall videogame of all time. Amazing memories. Going into a game in a medieval setting where i could be and do whatever i wanted was mind blowing for me coming off of Fable the Lost Chapters. The factions especially blew me away, particularly the Dark Brotherhood. I played morrowind after, and it took me a while to get into it but once i did i absolutely loved it. Morrowind is the only tes game that i do not feel the urge to mod in the slightest, I just think they got everything spot on with plenty of depth and i can appreciate that some aspects of morrowind are better than oblivion. I do really like skyrim, but i find it lacks the depth of quests, character development etc that its predecessors excelled at and as such I guess it did fall short of what i had hoped for.

For TES: True
For Fallout: False(FO:NV > 3 imo. Trying out FO1 atm to see how I like it)