This may come as a shock to alot of you, but ive never played a single TES game. But tomorrow that should change, since ive FINALLY got around to ordering the GOTY edition of Oblivion.

Can you guys give me some advice on how to start on a good note? Should I install the expansions first, or should I wait until ive completed the main quest?

Also, I played and LOVED Fallout 3, is the Oblivion experience similar to FO3?

You will find Oblivion similar in some ways. You will be comfortable with the controls and menus. I prefer Oblivion over FO3. Install the expansions right away, as they are integrated into the game, so everything is seamless. The game does not end, after the Main Quest, so you can do anything, at any time. Most of my characters never actually do the MQ. Also, everyone will be in a hurry for you to get going on their quests, but you don't have to do what they want right away, if ever.

Your first character might be a throwaway character, until you are comfortable with the system. Choose a class from the pre-made ones you are offered, something along the lines of a melee fighter, with a little magic, to get versed in it. After several levels you might want to re-roll or create your own custom class, depending on your likes and dislikes. Or, you might find that you love your character.

If you are going to be doing bad things, like thieving and murdering, just a little heads-up that the guards are psychic and will track you down relentlessly unless way way out in the wilderness. Have fun!!

I would install everything - but only follow up their questlines a bit later on, when you've gotten the gist of the game. I suppose it's kind of like FO, in as much as it's open world and you can do what you want, but the leveling up is quite different and obviously so is the content. My advice would be to not use fast travel - you'll get a much better feel for the game this way. Also, the tutorial can't be skipped. It can be a pain to have to redo it every time you want to create a new character, so my advice is to save when you reach the long corridor in the sewers which leads to a door with sunlight at the end.

I heard that leveling up in Oblivion is different compared to FO3. Can you explain the difference? Thanks

You don't get perks and you can't distribute skill points when you level up (IIRC that's what happens in FO:3) - instead you get better at something if you use it a lot - so if you pick a lot of locks, your lockpicking skill will increase, if you use a sword a lot etc etc... You also don't get EXP like in FO:3 - instead you up your major skills enough to fill up the leveling quota and then you level up. Sorry if I'm making this seem more complicated than it is - it's not, I'm just a bit rubbish Oh! Don't forget that in order to level up you need to sleep - doesn't happen automatically.

No, we only give unfriendly advice here!

Just kidding. Install everything, it can't hurt because you don't have to start doing KotN or SI right away, you can save them for after the MQ or even do them first if you want. The way to get the best experience, in my opinion, is to start with a character with whom you can try just about everything out and then see what you like. Like if you start with a character who is semi-efficient in everything, you can see what play style (sneaky, mage, tank... etc) seems fun for you and pursue that. Try out making a test character to see what you like, for example, or make a character that can be played many ways.

Don't try to think about efficient leveling and stuff like that too much, do what you like and think about all the technicalities later. It can really spoil the game if you take it too seriously to start off with.

If on PC, I install the unofficial oblivion patches for the game and any DLC's / expansions you install. UESP wiki can help here, as with so much in the game: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Oblivion

Speaking of UESP, it is very helpful. You can easily learn about game mechanics and / or quests, depending on how much knowledge/help you want vs how much you like to play 'blind'.

Save a lot, and at differing key points that you can go back to if necessary.

Approach starting your character over again many times as a normal learning part of the game.

Installing Shivering Isles is very unobtrusive to the game until you are ready to start it, and therefore I would install it right away.

Knights of the Nine is a different story. It starts rumors and immediately causes a couple hard to ignore changes in the game - that I don't care for until I'm ready for them. My preference is to have it installed, but not activated until/if I want to play through that questline.

You don't get exp. Instead you increase your skills by using them. So if you hit enemies with a sword your Blade skill will increase and if you run your Athletics skill will increase. Leveling up then depends on your major skills. Each class has 7 major skill (and there are 21 skills total in the game). Major skills start 20 points higher than minor skills and every time you increase a major skill you get 1 point towards leveling up. When you have 10 points you have to rest in a bed (you will get a message to meditate on what you've learned) and then you level up.

When you level up you get to pick 3 attributes which you want to improve. How much you improve them depends on which skills you increased during your last level. For example if you got many increases in magic skills and no increases in combat skill you will be able to increase your Intelligence and Willpower a lot (up to +5), but you will only be able to increase your Strength and Endurance by 1 point.

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I have another question, how does the whole guild thing work? What is it, and what is some basic information about it?

There are guilds for mages, fighters, thieves and assassins. You can join any, none or all of them. Each has an associated questline.

Lots more info here on each: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Quests

1. Don't worry too much about your first character, because you're likely going to start a new one after some time. If things get tough, just reduce the difficulty a little. To make the first parts of the game easier, it's best to make logical combinations of race + birtsign + class. Making redguard mages and wood elf knights is possible, but you'll have a difficult time early on.

2. Don't use too much of a major skill you don't plan on relying on. For example, don't make a million alchemy potions to sell if you don't plan on alchemy being a very important part of your character. What will happen is you level up a lot, and so does the world around you, while you didn't get a lot stronger. It's the main way in which characters become useless. So if you plan to rely mostly on one type of damage, like blade, make sure that blade is one of your highest skills. This is how one of my first characters turned from a very powerful and fun character to someone struggling against whatever he encountered on the road. Eventually I managed to make my mage powerful again, but there was a long frustrating struggle.

3. Whatever everyone else is saying.

Please refer to the links below in my signature.

I'd say that Oblivion is in many ways both similar and different from Fallout 3, but that's kind of cryptic, I know, so I'll go into more detail. You'll notice some similarities between the games. Controls are similar, both have the same first person perspective with optional third person, though the third person perspective of Oblivion is somewhat different from Fallout 3's and, I would say, not really practical to play in. Like Fallout 3, Oblivion has a world that is mostly open for the player to explore freely, but you'll also notice some key differences, and I don't just mean the obvious differences in setting, with Fallout 3 being a post apocalyptic game with guns and robots, while Oblivion is a fantasy game with swords, magic, elves and all that. That's pretty obvious just from looking at screenshots of either game. The skill and level progression system is quite different, for one thing, with leveling in the Elder Scrolls being based on raising skills, which increase as you use them. For example, if you fight with a sword or dagger, your blade skill will increase, and if blade is one of your major skills, once you increase it enough, you'll gain a level, which causes your maximum health to increase and allows you to raise three attributes. Major skills are determined by your class, which also has a specialization, and two favored attributes. You can choose to use one of the default classes or create your own. Therefore, to get better at something, you have to do it, or have someone train you, which costs a certain amount of gold, and you can only get five training sessions per level. And to raise your level, you need to use your major skills, some players have found ways to exploit this system, but I'm not going to post any of those as I don't usually like to encourage players to use exploits. The presence of magic in the setting obviously means some aspects of gameplay will be different, as in Oblivion, you can use spells and magic items. What spells you can use is determined by your magic skills. For example, destruction improves your ability to use attack spells kile fire, frost or lightning spells, while restoriation is used for casting spells that heal you, restore your attributes if their damages, cure diseases and poisons (That's one other thing you'll notice in Oblivion that was not in Fallout 3. You can sometimes get diseases from animals, which will cause your attributes to suffer penalties until they are cured. And you can apply poisons to your weapons, which is essentually like allowing your potion to have a one time enchantment that goes away after your next hit. You can find them or make them yourself. Any potion that has only negative effects will function as a poison.) or fortify your attributes, and so on. Aside from being needed to cast better spells, your magic skills also reduce the magicka cost (Magicka is basically what some RPGs call mana, just referred to by a different name.) of the appropriate spells. Your magicka is determined by your intelligence, and some races also have bonuses to it, finally, some birthsigns give bonuses to it as well, so if you want to play a character who relies heavily on magic, it may not be unwise to consider playing either a race that has a bonus to magicka, or a birthsign that has the same effect, or even both, if you want to have the most magicka possible. As for magic items, you'll be able to find magic weapons, armor and clothing in the game. Magic armor and clothing gives you positive effects when ever you wear it, and magic weapons will cause your enemies to suffer negative effects when they hit them, depending on the enchantment. Note that magic weapons have a limited charge which reduces with each strike, if an item runs out of charge, it's enchantment won't work anymore until you recharge it, which there are several ways to do. You can still use weapons with no more charge left, they just won't have any enchantment effects on your enemy and will just do their base damage.

Once you've created your character and gotten out of the starting dungeon, you're free to go wherever you please, you can choose to pursue the main quest immediately if you like, or you can save it for another time, or ignore it entirely, the game will tell you how to proceed with the main quest after the beginning so I don't need to post that here. Like in Fallout 3, you'll find many side quests to do aside from the main quest, or many places you can explore on your own, or you can choose to join one of the guilds. For the legal guilds, joining them is fairly simple, both the Fighters and Mages Guild have guild halls in most of the game's cities, and the people in said guild halls can probably tell you who to talk to. Joining the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood ((The assassin's guild in the game.) is a little bit less obvious, though I'll tell you this, you might find hints on how to join the Dark Brotherhood if you listen to NPCs' conversations with each other. You can also join the Arena and fight in it, but that is only in the Imperial City, and I personally feel it can get a little repetitive as it doesn't have a real questline like the other factions, but rather just has you fighting against different opponents in the Arena, still, if nothing else, it's good for earning a bit of gold. Keep in mind that unlike Fallout 3 before the Broken Steel addon, in Oblivion, the game does not end with the main quest. Once you've completed the main story, you can still continue playing, so you don't need to worry about going out of your way to complete all side quests or guild quests before completing the main quest.

As far as the expansion and DLC, you can install them any time. The quests in them are independant from the main quest, and you can do them at any time once you/ve installed them, so you don't need to worry about when to install them. Once you have them installed, you can do them any time you like. Although it IS true that Knights of the Nine makes a change to the game that might be hard to ignore, which might come off as somewhat intrusive when you're trying to ignore the quest for it. I can't go into more detail on this without spoiling it, though, but it has to do with how the questline for it is set off.

My best advice would be to create a character you want to play, and go on with it, while it's possible that you might end up creating a character that isn't the most powerful one possible, but to be honest, I feel that not knowing how to make the strongest characters at first is an important part of the learning curve of an RPG. I'd just recommend making a save you don't intend to overwrite before exiting the starting dungeon, as the game will allow you to edit your character before exiting into the open world of Tamriel, which could be useful if you decide you want to start over. Otherwise, you'll need to play through the starting segment of the game again, also remember that if things start getting a little too difficult, you can change the difficulty slider. Some players try to level as efficiently as possible, but i prefer not to worry about that sort of thing too much, while I don't generally create characters I know will stand little chance of surviving like ones who aren't good at any skills useful in combat at all, I don't go out of my way to ensure that I get x5 multipliers every level or anything. While this might mean that my characters aren't the most powerful ones possible in the end, I figure it makes the gameplay feel a little more natural. Of course, I do have some mods installed that alter game balance, which may also make certain play styles more viable, but you can only use mods if you have the PC version, and if you do, I still wouldn't recommend getting any mods that will make major changes to the game when you're new to it, because for one thing, if you're not even familiar with the unmodded game, you might not know what aspects you'd want changed with mods. Aside from what I've said so far, the most important thing is, of course, to have fun, because that's what you're playing the game for, after all, so do what you think would be most fun, and don't be afraid of making mistakes, because that's part of the proccess of the learning curve for any new game too.

holy [censored]

Once in oblivion the first thing to do is the Main Quests (in my opinion), then go to the City Arena, complete all the faction and reach Grand Champion Title (That will leveling up ur combat skills), Complete the Mages Guild Faction, reaching Arch-Mage Title (To increase the Magic skills), Complete Fighters Guild, if u want u can join Dark Brotherhood or u can go now to Shivering Isles.
Thats my recomendation =)

As others have stated, add http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Oblivion to your favs. You're gonna love this game. The role playing choices are endless.

Hope you're still here...

Don't take Athletics or Acrobatics as Major Skills.

I would also recommend not taking Alchemy, Speechcraft, or Mercantile (whatever it's called) as Majors until you are more used to the game.

Blade/Blunt/Block/Heavy or Light Armor/Armorer/Destruction/Restoration are all good.

Really just use a preset one but if it includes Athletics or Acrobatics swap them out for something else.

Have fun, let people know if you run into problems, we'll happily help you out.

Most quests, including the arena and mages guild questline offer levelled rewards. These rewards do not level up with you, so if youre a lvl 30 your lvl 15 amulet is gonna be crap.

Therefore it is best to wait with certain quests until you reach the level where the reward is maxed.

Unfortunately, for the mages guild and dark brotherhood in particular, this means dont touch until lvl 30.
The mages guild reccomendations you can do, and of course nothing stops you from doing all of them early, but being a lvl 30 character and having no good items to aid you in battle really hinders your gameplay.

The arena offers a particular reward that really best isnt touched until the relevant skills are maxed.

The main quest should not be finished until at least level 17, at wich point you can get the highest level sigil stones, wich are a must have on high levels to make custom enchanted gear.