What if bethesda changed it up in the next elder scrolls and started the character some were else besides prison? What locations would be interesting for you to start the game? :hehe:

drunk in the gutter, with a cracking headache

Right, and everyone is consider an alcoholic at that point. I past.

If any intro that I would consider, its this: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11495

At least with this intro, anyone can create anyone of who they wanted to be.

I should have left the drunk part out, The premise I meant was that you are a mysterious person with amnesia, trying to find out who you are.

I somewhat like to retain my memories, though if the main quest involving breaking barrier of who is that toon for ya, I past, again.

Arrival in port is pretty sweet. Would be even better if you could choose from the start which port you arrived in.

I'd like to arrive in a caravan. You should be able to select what your doing in the caravan as well. Guard, merchant, driver, space waster...

I thought you could with that Oblivion mod?

You can, but I'd prefer to have it as the vanilla start. If Bethesda were to use an arrive-in-port style beginning, I doubt they'd give players such frivolous optionality. And an added benefit: with a peaceful, non-fanfare arrival in port (or by caravan ), it sends the message that the MQ won't be designed in a way where it will ram itself down players' throats from the word "go."

Curious that it doesn't bug you in either Morrowind or Oblivion.

your character doesn't have amnesia in those games. Your simply not told your background and are thus allowed to come up with one on your own.

It means the game does not make my toon a generic "I forgot who I am" hero. Much more preferable to create the background. If the player want his/her toon to have amnesia? So be it. If the player wanted a background involving being a prince of a lost land, then good for that player. Morrowind is somewhat flexible in creating the background. Oblivion basically destroy it.

However, DF had it best. You were on a ship on your way to DF, but a nasty storm caused the ship to go BOOM! and you wind up swimming to a near-by cave for shelter. Works for any type of character.

I would definitely agree with ya with this. Daggerfall have one of the most opening intro of the whole series. Its also one of the intro that is "less shove the main quest down ya throat" part. I would consider this as well for the future, just so as long the ship is a travel ship and not a prison ship.

I think an approach similar to Fallout 3 would be interesting. Actually viewing your character's development first hand. But then it would be too restrictive on character background.

What if they just started you out as a common villager that got violently thrust into a skirmish? >.>

Too action-oriented-right-from-the-start for my tastes, personally. After Oblivion's use of an action-packed beginning and the ramifications from that action-packed beginning, I'm yearning for a return to a sweet, simple, "Here is the world, *kick*, good luck!"

you wake up on the cost wearing nothing but a pair of tattered pants and a rusty iron shortsword. you have amnesia and dont remember how you got there. as you try to find civilization you are jumped by bandits. during that fight you remember something... you remember being a legion soldier on a boat that was attacked by pirates. during that fight you were stabbed and kicked into the ocean. your wound is still there. the only reason you survived is by luck and the cold water slowed the blood flow of your body. when you make it to a city you see a man in the tavern... a pirate. he sees you and you get into a fight. before you finish him he says "hahah, kill me if you want, but there will be no saving your friends.... they are locked away in a secret location only known me and a few others. face it, you were a failure then and you were a failure no-- uhh...." the pirate dies. you then embark on a quest to find your lost shipmates blah blah blah whatever

Except I doubt all players want it to be canon that their character was a legion soldier on a boat attacked by pirates, just as I doubt all players want canon amnesia.

Though the shipwreck on a beach (though not linked directly with the MQ) would be just as good as an "arrive in port" start.

Personally, I'd still prefer to arrive via transportation (boat/caravan/teleported), since it says almost nothing about your character except for the fact that they managed to get a ride.


no. says too much about our char's background.

Just because a boat sunk, doesn't mean you automatically wake up forgetting your whole life, while still barely alive on shore. If you cut off the forgetting your whole life part and legion solider, it still works as a good intro, because you were going to place X, but your ship ran into really bad weather or something.

I'd say "ocean rescue". Then you have no choice or way to avoid going where they want you to be, but even if it's a prison ship, you're not actually a prisoner (although I'd lockj you up if I were captain, just in case you were a plant to spring someone else!). And unlike a merchant ship which may well let you work for passage, a prison ship is a lot more likely to force you off at its destination.

Considering this is forcing a background onto the PC by making them "work" on deck or be on a "prison" ship, I am not buying into this.

I'd rather believe we were going to X place, because we wanted to. No other elaborate means, other than we were just going to X place. Our reason can be our own. And either we begin the game just like MW (i.e. we get off a boat and check ourselves in at the census), or we wind up in a cave/shore/someoneelse'shome due to a bad storm.

Basically what I am getting at is, the start of the game should be almost like DF's.

I'd rather have a tiny starting dungeon with the old prisoner approach, this time with better escaping options. (invisibility, charm, sneaking, lockpicking, seducing, debating, bribing, kicking in doors and bashing in heads, stealing weaponry and using those, poisoning the captors, using destructive magic etc)
Then you have only a small map of 2-3 closest cities and your choice where to go.

Privateer's Hold is already getting old, but the tutorial dungeon of TES4 got old right after the first time. TES3 start was otherwise fine but it sure get's old to do the same stuff in Seyda Neen every time. Oh, a guy fell from the sky. What a surprise.

hmmmm...considering the post on fallout 3's start, i agree it was nice, now if there was only a way to incorporate the fallout 3 approach with the open approach, problem with the F3 approach is that it takes quite a bit out of roleplaying, but i still enjoyed it because it was very different from all the TES openings, it allowed you to see your own development, but like you said, it does restrict role-playing, anybody got any ideas on how to get the best of both openings?