In Morrowind you start the game in a small village. This village was a perfect introduction to the game as you got to do a few quests, meet a few people, enter your first dungeon, see a man fall down from the sky and get familiar with the world and it's politics. After exploring the village you travel to Balamora to meet the Blade contact that is to take care of you. He gives you a bit of starting cash and tells you to go and find a job.

In Oblivion, after leaving the sewers, you start out in the middle of nowhere. The natural choice for first time players is to start the main quest and travel to kvatch, but doing the whole superhero thing (saving a city, travelling to another dimension to fight demons) so early in the game totally put me off. The only other option is to wander aimlessly or to fast-travel to a random city.

The execution setup sounds like it will be thrilling, quick, and get us right into the game.

Well, seeing as how the person who guides you through the main quest is the one who rescues you from being executed, I can't see that being the case.

I like how the opening sounds.

I felt that Oblivion's opening was better, for the exact reason you liked Morrowind's better. I feel Oblivion guided the character more, taught them their different skills while in the sewers, and then left them to decide what to do. (Even if you didn't want to start with the MQ right away, you shouldn't get lost, since your within eyesight of the Imperial City)

Morrowind basically left you alone as soon as you left the docks.

Edit: The fact that Oblivion let you readjust you character at the end of the sewer (and keep it as a reusable save) was also an improvement from the former game IMO (not that Morrowind's intro was tediously long).

Okay but the first thing i did when i played oblivion the day it came out was wander around in the forest kill bandits and explore a bunch. so yea. your point is pretty invalid

Good. Then I only ask that the pacing of the main quest is a bit slower in the beginning. No demons on the first five levels, please.

And I also think it will introduce us to the game in a slower way. Instead of being introduced immediately into a big city, you have to run away from a city and get to know the world. Also, from what I can tell, the first city we'll be involved in is Riverwood, a small town.

I agree. I just wonder how the execution will be prevented and where you will be when it ends. They said Riverwood is near where you start out, which kind of makes me think we'll be somewhere in the wilderness when the execution scene ends. Or maybe you will simply start out right in Riverwood.

I just prefer any tutorial quests to be skippable. I'd rather it start it more like Morrowind or New Vegas, and less like Oblivion or Fallout 3 with their unavoidable tutorials for every new character.

Well, I don't see us fighting a dragon in the first five levels, so I think you're safe

So is Riverwood a city, or a small town?

I did enjoy the sewer part. What I did not like was that you were given a quest to save a city from a demon attack so early on.

In Morrowind you were given clear instruction as what to do as soon as you left the docks.

It's a small town. http://www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim/media/screenshots/riverwood/ is what it looks like.

The thing is, starting kinda in the middle of no where allows for that epic view of the world that Oblivion and Fallout 3 had. And I'd much rather have an epic view of the mountains and valley's of Skyrim, rather than some town square.

They weren't unavoidable. You needed just make a save right before exiting the sewers/vault; then use that every time.

I know. He referred to it as a city and a small town.

It's already confirmed we'll be slaying dragons pretty early on. So much for this idea...

My reaction was that i felt completely lost. It doesn't make sense to have to start the game by fast travelling to a completely different part of the world map and then be given perhaps one of the most epic quests of the whole game.

You start in a prison, and prisons are usually located in cities. One of the first towns you will run into is Riverwood. You were caught crossing the border into Skyrim. So, based on this information, I highly believe that you begin the game in Falkreath.

Dragons are not gonna feel very scary if you kill your first one at lvl 3.

I thought the beginning was fine, the opening cinematic of Oblivion was much better than Morrowinds
the beginning of skyrim has already been confirmed so this thread is kinda useless

You didn't really start out with an "epic view" of the world in either of those games, though. In Oblivion, you started out in a dungeon tutorial that took nearly thirty minutes to get out of. In Fallout, you were inside the Vault for about the same amount of time before you actually saw the world.

Honestly, Morrowind's way of introducing the player to the game seems the best way to me. It was quick and you got a view of your game world within a few minutes of starting. I feel like introducing the game by letting the character loose in a small town with a lot of things to do is a much better way of starting the game. That way, they feel like they are actually playing the game, not just running through a tutorial. And really, it's not that hard to figure out how to play the game. You don't need a whole tutorial when you can look through the game manual quickly while the game is installing and receive a few simple hints at the start.

Edit: my brain feels cloudy, and this post doesn't feel right, so Im throwing it away. :brokencomputer:

I liked Oblivion's beginning. The sewers were tedious but it made me appreciate the gameworld so much more when I got outside. I went to Jauffre with the amulet, but instead of going straight onto Kvatch (which is when you really start to get into the main storyline) I went and explored a bit.

Something similar would be nice for Skyrim.