In an effort for eveyone to see some statistics of TES fans, I would like to propose a couple of questions about what TES game(s) you have played before. It seems that most peope on these boards are previous Elder Scrolls players. This is good in a way because TES has customer loyalty, but on the flip side, it may show that Skyrim is not peaking the interest of new TES fans. Maybe I am wrong on my hypothesis.

Also, if this poll pans out the way I think the board comments are showing, it may explain the preferences of features of previous Elder Scolls games. Hopely posters will refrain from discussion about which prior game is the best, this topic is just to see the 'State of TES followers' Let the voting begin!

So the disclaimer:
1. This is not an official poll, there will be outliers caused by willful or unintentional erroneous votes.
2. OP has dusted off and continued Oblivion since the trailer, and because of this forum I tried to download Arena but had hardware incompatibility issues. :brokencomputer:
3. This poll may reference a good crossection of TES players, however many future Skyrim players on the forum may choose not to vote.

If this continues....My prediction is :

Most people will have played both Morrowind and Oblivion, only.

Oblivion will have the most votes.

probably this

not only have i played other tes games. first one was when i was 13 in 1999 it was arena and my uncle put it on my grandpas pc. but they have totaly ruined most rpgs for me and i find myself very critical of the rpgs that i can even stand to play. i just loaded up morrowind again the other day on my pc.

This is exactly how I feel. Im so spoiled from TES that I cannot play other RPGs for the most part. Thats why I worry sometimes about the changes they bring about. But then again they havent dissapointed me before so I feel like there is nothing to worry about.

Geniuses!

Hmm, early exit polling has a little less then 33% as new to TES lore... Not bad.

Ha ha, this is true for me too. Only diff is I was never really all that impressed with other so-called "RPGs" over the years in the first place. I've been waiting for a console game like Oblivion pretty much since I started playing D&D years ago as a teen. I'm sure I'd feel the same about Morrowind, Arena, or Daggerfall.

Yes, I'll concede I recently purchased Divinity II, with the hope of finding an interesting game, and promptly took it back to the store. There is nothing out there and most, like the Witcher, mask themselves as RPG's when they are really pure hack-and-slash with added alchemy (or similar gimmick). I hated Diablo and still do, in all its incarnations.

My vote includes everything except Arena, which I have no intention of playing.

I am not sure what I would call my first "RPG", since I played a console (bash shell) version of an RPG a while back. No graphics, no sound. It left a lot to the imagination and the only feature it had to describe the room was text paragraphs. Sometimes the font color would change for red roses and such. But it was unforgiving, because when you died, you lost all experience points and skill points earned for that level:) Then there is the board game RPG D&D which I watched some play and thought it was cool.

So Oblivion is my first RPG because I can't count Diablo II as an RPG.

III and IV. Yet to try I and II.

I was about to give a similar answer. My first RPG experience was with D&D, many years ago. Since then I've gotten into console gaming and of course, RPG's, however all of them paled in comparison to D&D. I didn't forgo these games for their inferiorness, I simply accepted that that's all I'll ever get from a console game.

Then I played Morrowind for my first time.

I was immediately addicted and played no other x-box game for neerly a year. It was D&D on an x-box!

As a side note to you Renee, you have to play Morrowind if you're a D&D player and liked Oblivion. Morrowind is even more open world than Oblivion and is high-fantasy. Download the new Morrowind graphics overhaul mod, it makes Morrowind look current-gen (It's a compliation of mods released this year.)

I'm always playing Oblivion, so yeah, I guess I replayed that.
I've played Oblivion and a fraction of Morrowind before. I intend to play Morrowind and Daggerfall once I get my new gaming PC.

It's difficult to make a RPG on a computer (or to truly call any such game a RPG), since if you've played a board-game you know it relies on interaction and player ingenuity, an unquantifiable number of situations created by players; I always feel Bioware and Bethesda are the closest one could ever get to that...

Que the Morrowind is better than Oblivion comments in 3...2....1....

Daggerfall to Morrowind to Oblivion to Fallout 3. I don't even bother with most other rpgs outside Beth's games. Fallout 3 probably had my favorite story. Oblvion had my favorate main character. Morrowind had my favorate setting. Daggerfall...well, it was pretty huge, and for a game that made me want to pull out my hair...I for some reason kept playing it.

I can't wait to see what Skyrim brings to the table.

played them all except the spinoffs.

Morrowind is better than... oh... it seems you beat me to it. JK, I liked Morrowind better, but Oblivion is still a lot of fun, because each game is unique, it's not just a new game in the series.

I've played them all, but I'm not going back to remind myself of stuff. I'll only play the old ones for some fun.

Thats a good point. Just because you have played them before Skyrim was annoucned, doesn't mean that you have to replay them...
But then if you have them and have not replayed any one of them since Skyrim was announced, then you are not a true TES fan. j/k

I've played Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion, though I started with Morrowind and played Daggerfall, and of course Oblivion, afterwards. I'm currently replaying both Morrowind and Oblivion, although I was doing this before the announcement trailer, but since I see no option for playing previous games BEFORE seeing the announcement of Skyrim, I guess it still counts.

And I see the poll results are pretty much what I'd have expected.

I started TES with Morrowind on the Xbox and bought a PC for Oblivion. I've put in over 1000hrs in Morrowind, over 1500 hours in Oblivion(700+vanilla) and an additional 1000hrs+ modding Oblivion. I've been over it for more than a year.

I did however download and play Daggerfall upon hearing of Skyrim but it was a great disappointment. Morrowind has ruined me forever for just about all other games. If it's not a Bethesda style open world I just can't get into it seriously.

It doesn't. Even if everyone on the entire message board answered it wouldn't be a good sample of TES players.

Secondly, I'm not sure why you added the "since the announcement" thing since that really gets more specific than your topic title makes it seem. I admit I'm surprised to see so many responding that they have replayed since the announcement though.

Yeah I've played Morrowind and Oblivion, but no I haven't replayed them nor would I, I'd reload my files and continue playing considering the games don't end. I get too attached to my main characters. Maybe some day I'd start over, but I can't imagine doing so.

I replayed Oblivion

This poll is a bit unreliable, since it doesn't really say whether you have replayed because of the trailer. If I hadn't of watched the trailer, I would have still been playing Oblivion and Morrowind, the trailer didn't make me want to play those games, necessarily.

I've seen the second poll countless times, it's always the same. Oblivion has always had the most players, with Morrowind following close behind with a hefty group of its own, then Daggerfall carving a smaller niche for itself, and only the smallest minority of people have ever played Arena. In terms of true popularity, who's to say. New gamers are made every day, the gamer population grows constantly, and as a result there will always be a growth in the playerbase over time. There is usually a correlation between time and video game sales. Sounds weird to consider how many people pick up sequels without playing the first one though. Mass Effect 2 sold more than Mass Effect 1, Assassin's Creed 2 sold more than Assassin's Creed 1, and so forth.