Hi there,
So I decided to give TES a try and got myself Oblivion Game of the Year Edition Deluxe (figured I might easily end up getting the addons one day anyway) and created a char to test it, get a feel of the gameplay and all.

I don't plan on going through the main quest with it since I mostly want to see how things work, but I quickly found myself with an inventory filled with junk.
I happen to have a few "homes" (thanks DLC) where I thought I'd stash stuff so I can crawl into some dungeons with a light pack to get some experience and hopefully better items, but I feel a bit wary of letting the stuff on the ground and find it disappeared, not to mention some might be very difficult to locate.
Is there actually some way of storing gear (cabinet, chest, etc.) by default or should I be rich and buy a house?
While town-hoping to get quests for the mage guild, I stumbled upon http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Glarthir and ended up killing him (woops, sorry), so I have a house, sort of... or will it be reclaimed by the authorities or a new citizen at some point as days/months/years rolls by?
This inventory limit feels quite harsh to me, I thought I'd first join the mages guild to get loads of stuff to sell and make money, yet most of it is worthless crap and hardly worth the hassle of collecting, carrying, selling... The weapons of the fighters guild feel a bit more worthy (yeah, I'm a social butterfly, joining all sorts of groups and all).
I find gold to be leaving quickly at this very early stage of the game (barely 800 after 3h).

I had a glimpse on IGN to understand a bit of the character creation and built a female dark elf born under the sign of the lady, specialized in magic, modified the battlemage class to replace blunt with light armor, so I believe I should have kind of a jack-of-all-trades character, yet my first walk out of the sewers got me dead after a few minutes, when I ran into a guy with a heavy hammer that must have laughed at me trying to block him with a leather shield. I guess I better wait to have some better equipment and a bit more experience before wandering countryside in Cyrodiil. Good thing I saved before leaving the sewers.

BTW Bethesda, the save system could benefit from a "per characters" system, I find it confusing to have all saves mixed together.

Otherwise, I find it terribly interesting, the world seems huge with tons of lore and things to discover, I got a feeling I won't be sleeping much for the months to come...

You can buy a house in each city. Ask the count (countess) for it. The cheaper one is in the Imperial city. Ask in the Market district... For 5000 you'll get a great one in Anvil haha...

I always buy the imperial city shack, It's nearly central in the map so it's not too far away from all the other cities and I like the waterfront, and probably most important it only costs 2000.
In terms of that bandit killing you don't worry, as soon as you get the hang of the gameplay mechanics you'll breeze through them, When I make a new character I always clea out that ruin over the lake and kill everything there with ease, note that it will get harder and harder as you level because it has a rubbish leveling system, there is ways around it, I for one normally efficient level the first 10-15 levels anyway to give me a head start plus there are skills such as illusion and alchemy that can make up for that.

Welcome aboard the TES boat, matie! :celebration:

And why not have a http://images.uesp.net//c/c4/Fishystick.jpg to top it off

Hi JayDea!

Glad to see you're enjoying Oblivion. If you're having trouble making money, you could try alchemy or dungeons. I won't give too much information incase I spoil the experience for you.

Above all have fun and explore Cyrodiil!