Greetings, fellow forum members and inhabitants of Tamriel! Let’s have a bit of a reprieve from the debates (albeit very civil ones) of the other threads here.

As the title of the thread inquires, how did you first come across the TES series? What was your first game? What TES games have you played? Even throw in which games you like or don’t like, or list your games from favorite to least favorite if you want. What is it about the series that you love so much? Any other info you think is pertinent?

Morrowind was my 1st RPG game ever and are still my absolute favorite game among the TES games.

My 2nd favorite of The Elderscrolls game series is Skyrim, mostly for the beatiful landscape and their unqiue atmosphere, but Morrowind has the best atmosphere because of the depth in the MQ and with its environment on Vvardenfell.

The 3rd game is Oblivion, but unfortunately I haven't played the earlier TES games yet e.g Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard.

picked up a copy of morrowind goty at the gas station.

don't ask me

I was at CompUsa in the mid 90s when I saw this really ugly looking scary face on a box with the name DaggerFall. It captured my interest and the rest is history.

My first was Oblivion, which also was my re-introduction to video games in general following a break since about 1996. I was completely baffled by how far they had come since, and just couldn't get over the sensation of simply walking around in the world, getting to "know" the various inhabitants of the Imperial City, hunting deer on the surrounding meadows in the sunset, etc. I remember I found it incredible that you had memorize the way to a shop in the game for instance in exactly the same way you'd have to memorize it in the real world. It was what sparked my interest in open-world games, and more importantly what they could potentially become in the future.

I've since picked up Skyrim and Morrowind as well, and definitely consider Skyrim the best game thus far in the series. Primarily since it has a marked technological edge over Morrowind, and since it alleviated the poorly thought through levelling system for instance of Oblivion. Someone here recently said Skyrim was the game Oblivion should have been, and at least as far as game mechanics go, I'm very much in the same camp.

Favorite? I think I'd have to give it to Oblivion. It's hard to get over that initial amazement, and Oblivion also had an atmosphere I resonated more with than the other games in the series. I find the setting hugely important, and Cyrodiil and its inhabitants had a sense of culture, otherworldly beauty, and "homeiness" to it I never found to the same degree in the other games. I think what draws me to the series is in some sense escapism. I'm not really in to the role playing thing others here use the games for, but the fascination lies in being placed in a slightly different universe, and imagine life in a world which is young, pre-technological, not yet fully figured out - but just as teeming with life and all that comes with it as our own.

For some reason I had a copy of both skyrim and oblivion laying around. Super scratched, just thrown aside. I don't even remember how I got them. Or why. I never played elder scrolls and didn't really understand it. I messed around with oblivion but never got into quests or stories. Same with skyrim. I never made it passed helgen and riverwood when I first played skyrim. I just kept replaying the intro over and over and over because I thought that dragon was cool.


Skip forward 2 years or so and I picked skyrim up and played through it and tell in love. Then went on to play morrowind and oblivion. Put countless hours into all 3.


Skyrim will probably be my favorite game of all time.


And in all honesty I think what got me to play the games was videos on youtube of gamers.

Let's go back about thirteen years ago, around that time I watched Toonami on Cartoon Network and during a commercial break for ... whatever show was playing at that time there was a short review with the Toonami characters Tom (a blue and white robot looking guy) and Sara (the ship's AI). Normally Tom did the video game reviews, but this time he let Sara talk about the game she was playing. She went on and on about this game where you could customise your character and what they could do, and something about it instantly drew me in.

So at this time I hadn't played a PC game in years, and honestly had only recently gotten a PC, so I made a journey to the local Best Buy and got TESIII: Morrowind. I spent several years living in Vvardenfell since then.

So far I have played MW, Oblivion, and Skyrim. I tried to play Arena when it went up as a free download for it's twentieth aniversery, but couldn't quite get into the gameplay. Maybe one of these days I'll give it and Daggerfall a chance again.

Favorite? Definitely MW, but that doesn't mean that I haven't grown attached to Skyrim as well. I live in that game as well. Oblivion? I never really felt like I've lived in that game quite like I have the others, but that's not to say that it's a horrible game.

What do I love about the series? The openness. Even if sometimes you get railroaded into parts that you want to avoid (tried to avoid the 'dragonborn' bit, but when trying to talk to Jarl Balgruf about General Tulius's offer, the only dialogue options I had forced me to get the Dragonstone and then slay the dragon by the watchtower..... a little sore about that) I still feel like it's "my" game in the end.

I first got into the series with Oblivion. I don't remember how I first heard of it, but it was in the lead-up to release. I was captivated by the graphics (even though I knew my PC at the time couldn't max it out, I could still handle it well enough), and the promised first-person open world RPG gameplay. Also the fact that it was DRM free in an era when everything was going heavy-handed SecuROM lockdown, I wanted to show my appreciation for a company that avoided such DRM. I got the game not long after release, and I was not disappointed. The open world gave me a sense of freedom that I never felt before in a game, with exploration-driven gameplay with good music and good atmosphere, and NPCs that would live their own lives as I (my character) lived my own. Then of course I quickly found mods after that, which helped me make the game even better.

By this time I had obviously heard of Morrowind, and soon realized I had heard about it before when a friend of mine had mentioned the Bloodmoon expansion. I just didn't look into it at the time since I didn't have a system that could run it, and I didn't connect it with Oblivion until this point. So I decided to check out Oblivion's predecessor since I had heard positive things about it. Unfortunately I was kind of disappointed by it. The short view distance with the constant wall of fog really hampered the exploration aspect that Oblivion had drawn me in with, along with the static NPCs that made the world feel less alive. The combat didn't feel as fluid or impactful, and the sound and music didn't quite stand up to Oblivion either, with much less ambient sound and more repetitive music (the music itself was just as good, don't get me wrong, but there was no differences between towns, dungeons, and exploration, and there were fewer tracks overall), and the grayish color tones of half the map wasn't appealing (not to mention those ash and blight storms). I didn't not like the game though, because there was still enough there to like, and it still ticked the right boxes that other RPGs avoided. It just felt like it could've been better.

Eventually, Bethesda released Arena and Daggerfall for free, which prompted me to try out Daggerfall. I knew from the get-go that I'd have conflicting feelings about it, given it was a 3D game from the mid 90s before 3D acceleration became a thing. I didn't quite realize how bad the engine would be, though. The janky rasterization (more than the blocky pixels, which I'm not bothered by, but how straight lines can turn into a kind of sawtooth pattern), and the poor performance, which is basically required since the engine bugs out if it runs faster than like 20 or 30 fps (DOSBox doesn't help matters since it has trouble properly emulating the speed of CPUs). But as I played, I recognized something. I was getting similar feelings to those I got when originally playing Oblivion. The fact that shops and guilds closed, and that city and town streets emptied at night, it made it feel like people were living their lives again (although in a much more primitive fashion compared to Oblivion). The dynamic reputation system combined with the random quests that affected it made dialog with NPCs, although also primitive, feel that much more organic (and better written). There was more music than Oblivion and Morrowind combined, and IMO better music, which was even more situationally appropriate (it varied not only by interior/exterior, but also by time and weather). There was also an impressive use of color given the limited 8-bit mode it used. Combined with the random sounds that'll play in dungeons, I was quite surprised by the atmosphere it managed to create for itself despite being so old. In fact it even made me a bit more disappointed in Morrowind, given that this all was accomplished in 1996 for Daggerfall, dropped for Morrowind in 2002, then started coming back with Oblivion in 2006.

I've never really got around to giving Arena a shot. Although I'm sure it'd be a fun game, it is before the series got its footing, and is even more primitive than Daggerfall. My time with Skyrim is more limited than I would have preferred, given its use of Steamworks DRM.

Oh, back in 2004 when I first played Morrowind. Fell in love with it and played it all the damn time before Oblivion came out.

It was in 2007, when one of my male friends got hooked into oblivion, and started to talk to us girls about it annoyingly lot during a picnic in the local hills, especially pointing out the fact that "the grass is moving". Of coure him praising digital pixel grass in the middle of a beautiful real life grass field made me make fun of him, but he took offense because he is a sissy, and being the nice girl i am, i've decided to "try out his stupid grass game if it makes him feel better".

(It was a "big deal", because i havent played any games before, i've had an nes when i was little and played some classics that everyone did, like doom or sims, but that was all)

So he gave me his copy, i remember it was a saturday afternoon when i installed it, c.a. 4 PM.

Then during the next long hours came a crazy hazy road trip (after spending an unacceptably long time with the chargen menu), with getting constantly (and deliberaltely) lost, wanting to pet a bear, getting chased by same bear form the imperial city to skingrad, accidentally stealing calipers, being a "criminal scum" because of said calipers, wondering where all those calipers came from, becoming the hero of kvatch while screaming "i don't know what i'm doing", joining the mages guild accidentally, becoming a thief on purpose, stealing all the cheese, thieving rindir's staffs out of business because he is annoying, levelling up wrong skills, buying useless spells, getting addicted to cheese, stalking on npcs, finding out being a nord and a thief might be a bit unusual, not knoing where my horse is, getting another horse, losing it again, and discovering half of the map without knowing about fast travel.

The next thing i know that i somehow fell into some huge rounded room with many chairs a stone table some shiny guards and an ugly high elf. I dont know how any of us ended up there, i can't get out because the door is locked and i am out of picks. So i'm stuck and bored, and trying to hit the elves head with various food pieces, which he doesn't seem to mind. Maybe he has a sense of humor, and he even seems to be so sad and lonely there, just like me, he tells me his friends left him because their province needed them and he can't give me soldiers, probably because he'd be even lonelier in this huge empty room, he's tall and starting to look kinda cute, maybe we can grow to like each other with time, even start a family here, then a whole nation, we'll be the people of the big rounded room, i have enough cheese in my inventory to feed us for a century. And then he stands up, opens the door, leaves without goodbye, slams and locks it back in front of me. It's because you are a magicky-elfy council leader and i'm just a thief, you stuck-up [censored]? Just wait, i'll steal your ugly robes. Short but beautifully tragic love story.

So i look away from my monitor in grief, and it is sunday 11AM, not fredas 1st seed, and unlike in the game, i forgot to eat or sleep.

I am hooked to the new tes games ever since, and still can't find my horse, and still addicted to cheese, and still don't care about the grass. Also grew fond of khajiits and dunmer too much.

Morrwind is my favourite, next Skyrim, but Oblivion will always have a special place in my heart. (Sadyl i couldn't get into daggefall or arena yet)

(i did manage to take away the elf guys robe with the help of a mod once, which resulted in an awkward main quest ending.).

had money burning a hole in my wallet, went into game store, saw a game called Redguard on a shelf, said "i guess i'll give this game a try"

Was in my local Electronics Boutique back in '02 chatting with the manger and the associate, I had never heard of TES being a console gamer. The manager guy pretty much sold me on Morrowind and he said it was coming out for Xbox. I preordered it that day.

Arena. It played like a grander scale Ultima Underworld (although underworld was definitely more polished). Random quests, exploring endless countrysides, ruins, dungeons, etc. daggerfall was a bit of a let down when first released -- there were a few step backs from arena despite the grand vision the game had. that and early on, you could barely advance much without losing your save to corruption.

I was at a Gamestop and I was looking for a game for the original XBox. There was a hyper customer who was in love with Morrowind. He told me how great it was and that the XBox goty came with all of the expansions. After a 15 minute discussion I bought the game, and the rest was history.

I used to watch my step brother play Oblivion when I was much younger. Loved watching it, and the music and scenery has become extremely nostalgic from that, despite my thousands of hours spent on the game. I watched him play it many weekends and when u finally got the game in 2009 I played it obsessively. Had no idea about fast travel and ended up wandering into nowhere, but I was fascinated by it. Picked up Morrowind a couple of years later with my dad and was extremely excited, but didn't have the patience for the game and expected it to be a lot like Oblivion. I was awful. But after putting about a hundred hours into Skyrim I returned to Morrowind and gave it a proper go.


So far, while I enjoy just hopping into and playing Skyrim more, it's third, with Oblivion first and Morrowind second. Have only watched videos of Daggerfall and put about five hours into Arena, so N/A.


As for what I like about the series, it depends on how I feel. Sometimes I want to complete as much as possible and love the sheer amount of goals and the satisfaction. Sometimes I love to deeply role play. Sometimes I just want a nice walk with peaceful music. But the constant theme is the immersion. A huge, living open world to explore with different cities and scenery. No different sections like a Fable game and classic RP skills and attributes to give you something to do in the world. No huge goals, just do what you want when you want. The lore is amazing, too, and I love that each game is a different area of a map we already know of, so I can see different parts gradually (though at this rate I'm pretty sure I'll be dead before we get all of it).

I was looking for a new game in 2001. Amazon recommended an upcoming game called Morrowind. I checked it out and thought the screenshots were gorgeous. I knew absolutely nothing about roleplaying games. I had never played one, had never known anybody who played one. But the screenshots looked beautiful so I thought I'd take a chance.

I began as a filthy casual who bought the game because of shiny graphics and I wound up a roleplayer. But I'm still a filthy casual.

My friends were all playing the crap out of Skyrim, and I thought about getting it a few times, but never did because it just didn't seem like my kind of game. When the Dragonborn DLC came out, I seriously thought about getting it, but still wasn't sure I'd like it. I went onto Youtube and found the "Skyrim Poop" series by mans1ay3r. I was like, "Man, I could get into this!" I picked it up from the store for the Xbox 360, and wound absolutely loving it. Realized it was called "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim," and discovered the other TES games. Wound up buying The Elder Scrolls: Anthology not that long after it came out, and finally played the others. Going into the first three TES games thinking they'd be like Skyrim was...rough.

Oblivion

Had no job so games were rare and far between. looking for a game with long hours on google to get my monies worth two games kept poping up the first was dreamfall the longest journey...(because the name was similiar to the google search I used) and second was oblivion with people on forums stating they were reaching like 300 hours on oblivion. So I got both for cheap....never looking back money well [censored] spent! Well not at first I kinda hated...or frustrated with oblivion after the sewers area was done and the game threw me into this giant land of limitless exploration.....it was overwhelming. But I slowly came around.

Fascinating stories! Even a few people who started with Redguard or Arena. I enjoyed reading them all!

I suppose I ought to answer my own question now that I have the time to. I’ll try to make it short (which probably won’t work), because I could drone on about this series for a while and I doubt my story is that interesting. But anyway…

Unlike probably most people on these forums, I came very late to the Elder Scrolls party. And not only was I late in terms of which installment I played, but when I played said installment. Back in 2011, I heard plenty of my friends and classmates talk about this great new game that had just come out. It sounded intriguing, but I never got around to playing it. It wasn’t until 2013, during college, that one of my buddies from high school asked if I wanted to play that very game, Skyrim. When I played it then, that’s when I figured out it was part of a series of games by seeing the full title The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I had probably heard of The Elder Scrolls before, but it didn't ring any bells. Cool, if I liked this game, I could go play the earlier installments! When I fired up Skyrim, I was floored. I had never played a game like it before (or, as I would find out later, any of the other games in the series). The environment, the soundtrack, the expansive world, the amount of content…it was incredible.

But when I was first started playing I hadn’t really molded what kind of role I wanted to play at the time, and I had no idea what I was doing in general. I initially did quests just because they were in my journal. For example, I helped Brynjolf get Brand-Shei sent to jail, which I wouldn’t have done if I knew what I was doing (screw you, Brynjolf; also, not too long ago, I found a console command to get Brand-Shei released, and I tried to somewhat atone for what I did by helping him find out about his heritage and stashed a bunch of gold in his lockbox). Another time I got a 1000 gold bounty and I still have no idea why. You could say that I was an Elder Scrub (heh heh…I’ll be here all week, folks…).

I figured out what I was doing eventually. Once I defeated Alduin, I thought it was time to get my hands on the other games. Steam had them on sale, and so I bought Oblivion (foolishly I didn’t buy Morrowind until sometime after the sale, but I eventually found out it was still worth it). Still being pretty new to the series, I naively expected Oblivion to be largely the same as Skyrim but in a different province with a different story. And boy, was I wrong. After looking up a few tips and getting the hang of it, I grew to very much enjoy Oblivion, though I didn’t love it as much as Skyrim. After helping Martin Septim defeat Mehrunes Dagon’s daedric forces to become the Champion of Cyrodiil, I finally got Morrowind.

I didn’t learn my lesson from starting Oblivion, and was taken aback by how different Morrowind was from the two TES games that I had played at that point. It was the GOTY edition so I had the expansions, and foolishly wandered to Solstheim very early on. Getting wrecked by fryse hags, spriggans, and other NPCs, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue with the game. But I gave it another chance, started over fresh, and looked up some tips that included dealing with one of everyone’s favorite Bosmer, Fargoth. From that point on, Morrowind grew on me and then I absolutely adored that game as well. After defeating Dagoth Ur and fulfilling my role as the Nerevarine, The Elder Scrolls officially cemented itself as my favorite video game series, which I don’t think I had at that point. But it didn’t stop there.

I found that Arena and Daggerfall were up for free, but I had to look up how to get them running since I am not that tech savvy. I have a soft spot for MS-DOS games and games from that era in general since I played a bunch when I was a kid, so I was definitely going to play them. I figured at that point I would just keep playing chronologically backwards, but I found the process to get Arena working was easier so I played that first. Despite the simplicity of the game, it was the hardest Elder Scrolls game by far. I had to have died at least 20 times in the Imperial Dungeons (the first dungeon which is at the very beginning of the game, for those who don’t know). After pushing through everything the dungeons and Jagar Tharn could throw at me, I ended him and became the Eternal Champion.

After Arena, I verified a safe way to get the v2.13 patch for Daggerfall, and finally began playing it. I had learned by that point not to expect any two TES games to be the same, but I was still surprised by just how much changed between Arena and Daggerfall (at least gameplay-wise, that may have been the biggest change in the series). If you plan to play Daggerfall and you have heard about the length of dungeons, well…wait until you see for yourself. The first side quest I completed brought me to a dungeon of which the name escapes me at the moment, where I had to rescue a lady’s lover who was held for ransom by the Thieves’ Guild. I said “screw the Thieves’ Guild,” and went to go find the guy instead of pay the ransom. After AT LEAST THREE HOURS I think it was justified that I enabled the cheats that came with that patch. I never once used god mode, but I definitely used the cheat that teleported you around the dungeon (as well as some other times when I was stuck, such as when I was cornered by two Vampire Ancients early on in the game). Dude was stuck in a wall in a gigantic room that I had already been in! Anyways, a few side quests were completed, I eventually gave the Totem of Tiber Septim to Lady Brisienna, put King Lysandus to rest, and I attained the Mantella. It was then, in January 2016, that I had beaten the last installment I had left in the TES series!

Don't remember exactly when and in what order I completed the DLCs, but they are done as well. What a series.

Currently have Redguard and Battlespire left to play (thank you, GOG), and I plan to start ESO in the near future. I doubt I’ll ever get my hands on the mobile games.

If I had to pick a favorite, it is a tight race between Morrowind and Skyrim, but I think I might give the edge to Morrowind. Every game has some things I don't like, but overall I love all of the games.

Wow, that was longer than I anticipated. I thank you if you read all that drivel.

TL;DR: This is my favorite video game series, and I love each installment. I’ve beaten all of the main series, but still got Redguard, Battlespire, and ESO left to finish/play. Played Skyrim, then Oblivion, then Morrowind, then Arena, then Daggerfall, and what a wonderful journey that was.

Headed over to a friend's house. I occasionally had to "fix" his PC after he deleted a few details like his operating system to make more room for saved games and such. This time he had some game called Daggerfall on the computer, but was busy with some fantasy wargame books for an upcoming miniatures battle, so I amused myself by trying out the video game. Made it out of the tutorial dungeon and not a whole lot further, but it seemed interesting enough. Promptly forgot about the game.

Several years pass, and I find myself in the mall in front of an Electronics Boutique (now a Gamestop), with a big bin of "closeouts". My choice comes down to some used game in a box with all the manuals and stuff (might have been "Sacred"), or some basic used disc in a generic plastic case with no manual and nothing else but a price sticker in the corner. On a whim, I bought the disc: something called "Morrowind". A few weeks later, I was back to pick up the full GotY edition. It took a few more months before I remembered that older "Daggerfall" game and realized they were related. That was shortly before the release of OB. I've been playing Morrowind on and off ever since, got into modmaking to a limited degree, and probably sunk an absolute minimum of 5K hours into it, if not 10K.

Bought OB a couple months after its GotY release. Loved the better visuals, but the longer I played, the more I missed the character-based RPG aspects and deeper politics and culture of Morrowind. Drove myself to complete the MQ, despite my growing dislike for the heavy-handed leveling and scaling, as well as the "always succeed" mechanics, and had to install extensive mods just to be able to stand it that long. I still want to try SI, but can't. Last night, I gave it another try, loading the disc and heading through the tutorial dungeon, with the intent of heading straight for that small island with the gateway. Never made it past the death of the Emperor before the bad memories started and I had to shut it down and put the disc away. In essence, almost everything I liked about Morrowind was absent in that game.

I haven't bought Skyrim, mainly because the issues that I disliked about OB are mostly still present, plus I'm not a huge fan of Nords or cold climates, and I've got no intention of putting Steam on my system if I can help it. Quite simply, it doesn't interest me beyond idle curiosity, and I've got a lot better things to do with the time and money.

After being spoiled by OB's graphics, I felt the urge to install mods in Morrowind to improve the visuals. I've added a fair number of tweaks, patches, and additions to the game, and made a few of my own, but am reasonably content with the vanilla gameplay if I ever have to play it that way again.

Was introduced to Morrowind by my father, back in 2002 or so. Both me and my brother ended up liking the series.

lol I remember buying the Daggerfall demo from Babbages in 94 or 95; it was just the dungeon one that was really buggy, but had that awesome beastiary, prelim screenshots, and the character gen and alchemy lab previews. I think it was $4.99 or the time? I think one screenshot showed npcs on horseback fleeing on a road in the countryside with hills and houses; which really got me pumped for the game as exploring the Arena countryside was one of the highlights - follow a road and you'll find a dungeon, or tavern, or another town randomly.

unfortunately it wasn't a real gameshot, and there were no roads between towns, or npcs using horses, nor varied terrain.

Daggerfall is my favorite game of ALL TIME!

Back when my PC just luckily met the games requirements

No game since has drawn me into it as much since then.

My cousin's husband helped me build my first PC. One of the first games he recommended to me, was Morrowind. So I took his recommendation and bought Morrowind. Then I bought the GOTY edition for the expansions, because I loved Morrowind.

Late nineties I was in between M&M games when I picked up a party RPG called Thunderscape, probably the worst RPG I've ever played. I suffered through a few months of it until I couldn't take it anymore. I needed a fix, bad. I started searching the game stores hoping to find something new that combined my favorite elements from games like the party based RPG Might and Magic series and first person sword and sorcery Heretic and Hexen games. Having seen reviews of Daggerfall in game magazines I thought its rather unique approach to character development might be just what I was looking for. Sounded like it would be worth a try. So when I spotted Daggerfall in a store I bought it, It turned out to be everything I was looking for and more. I've been in the world of TES ever since.