Skyrim is not my first Elder Scrolls game, but its the first I actually played. I have Morrowind and Oblivion but just could not for the life of me, get into those games. I've never been an RPG gamer and even though I tried those games, I ended up getting super duper bored and just went back to my FPS games. The super slow pace and "Hellow Outlander" and "Protect the Emperor!!" of those games put me to sleep.

Skyrim, I gave more of a chance and by the time I made it to level 14 or so I was hooked.

Im not sure about it having more skills, but I'll give you sailing and banking. What that adds to gameplay Im not sure, but I digress. As for algorithms effecting goods and gold in the economy, I'm not aware of. But that I would consider more of a serious gameplay issue that morrowind streamlined than the others you mentioned.

Morrowind was actually not developed for PC and ported over to console. It was developed to be a launch title for the xbox system. During the early phases of development Bethesda caught wind of a new system with a hard drive, and cut a deal to make a launch title. Morrowind was supposed to be ready for launch. Most people don't know that.

I'm a MW fan, but MW was streamlined. Daggerfall, despite the plethora of bugs, is the hardcoe rpg of TES. The good thing about MW, I suppose, is that it wasn't that streamlined like Oblivion, and specially Skyrim were. Skyrim is the pinnacle of this "streamlining", and I just cannot phantom TES6 being more streamlined than Skyrim is.

Life Bethesda will find a way.

Oh, please. It was a great game, certainly compared to other games. Any Elder Scrolls game is heads above the competition.

Morrowind was made for pc and ported to xbox. As I understand the user interface on xbox is even worse than Skyrim on pc.
And yes Daggerfall was procedural made, it had level scaling who worked pretty much like in Oblivion, two differences, the fun part you had an small chance of getting high level enemies even at low level, the boring part no high end enemies, daedra lords was boss enemy and you could single hit to kill them with sneak attack at high level, sneak did not fail at high level either.

Oblivion level scaling was an response to all the complains about Morrowind was to easy, the quest compass as people got lost and levitation as people abused it levitating and using cast on use enchanted items to kill enemies then complain that the game was to easy.
Dumbing down armor set is more an Skyrim than Oblivion thing. The problem with Morrowind armor sets was that while it had many parts it was lots of restrictions on them, like having to cover all of the body part as you could have clothing under. Still pauldrons as pure shoulder armor could have been kept if the other armor did not have huge shoulders already.

For comparison, here's the list for New Vegas. http://steamcommunity.com/stats/Fallout:NewVegas/achievements/ 6.6% didn't finish the beginning. Could be a bug there too, but it is worth nothing that the NV intro is shorter than Skyrim's. If you haven't played NV, you just create your character, and it gives the achievement when you're done.

New Vegas is also one of the most broken games I've ever played in my entire life. Coming from a 100+ hour fallout 3 guy who really wanted to love it.

Daggerfall was the very first video game I ever played (I started somewhat late, too), but my recollection of it isn't very good. I also dabbled with Redguard for a bit. Morrowind was the first one I really sank my teeth into. Never played Battlespire, but it doesn't sound like I missed much.

I would do anything to play Redguard again, as I felt that it was a really underrated and underexposed part of the TES series. It represents something I wish Bethesda would do with the franchise: expand it beyond open-world RPGs. The main games should no doubt remain open-world RPGs, but smaller spin-offs featuring RTS, platformer, adventure, or Heavy Rain styled gameplay could be a welcome addition. Such titles would be excellent for expanding on the lore we read about in in-game books.

Arena was my first, but Daggerfall was the first TES game I played properly.

Morrowind was my first dip in the pool of TES awesome-ness

Some years ago, my husband figure he should cheer me up. He bought me Morrowind, thinking, since I'm into fantasy and stuff (which he doesn't get at all), I might like it.


I love my husband.

I Just joined the forums to post my story.

A long time ago in a 2004 far far away,
my older brother brought home an Xbox game I have never heard of before called TES III Morrowind. We booted up the Xbox and put the disc in. After a lengthy loading screen with lots of strange pictures of odd creatures and people, my eyes gazed upon The Elder Scrolls for the first time.
As my brother already had a save on his MU he was about level 20 or so, stood in the Bitter Coast on his way to Ebonheart. The first thing he did was open the map to get his bearings and told me "you can explore every inch of this island" Just that fact alone was awe inspiring, but then he went on to say "and in the centre is that massive mountain, that is where the last boss is, and if I wanted to I walk straight into his fortress and try to kill him, but I'd be killed easily" The fact that you could try and kill the main bad guy at any time when ever you feel like it was a completely new concept to me (one that unfortunately has never been seen again since Morrowind)
After showing me the map, he switched to the inventory and every piece of equipment had it's own story.
"This helmet (Indoril Helm) was stolen from one of the temple's honour guard, the Oridinators (he explained who they are), at a place called Ghost Gate (he showed me where it was on the map and explained what ghostgate was)."
Then he jumped into first person view and pulled out a sword, but the sword had a story behind it too.
"I met a lone warrior in the wilderness who said all he had left was his sword, Umbra, and all he wanted was a warrior's death"
This is where I started to become immersed in a game I had not even played yet.
Then my brother opened the map, showed me where Ebonheart was and handed me the controller. He said I could make my own way there and do what I want, the only restriction he gave me was "stay away from the town guard" and then he explain the circumstance surrounding his bounty and getting chased out of town.
That was it, before I had taken two steps in the game, I was in love with it. You actually can go anywhere, do anything and it was a truely ground breaking experience.

In 2006, I finally made my own character (having no idea that Oblivion even existed), He was a Dunmer called Efcaz and it took 3 years of on and off playing before I finished the Tribunal, Bloodmoon and then the main quest (in that order)

On my birthday in 2008 I bought myself Oblivion GOTY for Xbox 360, although I would still play Morrowind for a while until I finished the main quest, I had essentially migrated to Cyrodiil.

In 2009 I found a cheap GOTY Morrowind for PC (only just about having a good enough computer to play it, but not Oblivion or Skyrim) I started my journey in Vvardenfel once more, now with mods!

And finally exactly a year and a day ago I bough Skyrim for 360, and have played it none stop. Bought Dawnguard and now patiently awaiting Dragonborn (cannot wait to revisit Solsthiem)

And that is my story so far, it's a wall of text worthy of being written on an Elder Scroll it's self so if you didn't read it I don't blame you.
One hell of a beefy first post if I do say so myself!

I started with Oblivion. I enjoyed the game right from the get go, but it was after a couple of days of questing and getting some sweet armor that I hacked a couple of people down just because they annoyed me. After I went to sleep and met Lucien the obsession began. Before Skyrim came out I went back and played Morrowind. The game seemed tedious at first, but once you get the hang of it you get svcked in completely. I think MW,OB, and Skyrim are all great games in their own ways. I have thoroughly enjoyed playing each. Also I might add that this is coming from and RPG buff. I've been playing them all of my life, and for the life of me I don't understand what some people's obsession is with making games that have a high barrier to entry.

Although I thought it was the action gamers with their constant critique of the "graphics"or the "poor combat" that were the most foolish, because they simply should be playing an action game instead of an RPG, I've grown to find the so-called hardcoe RPG fans to be the most inane and boorish. If it doesn't require a pencil and paper, and complex leveling calculations, then it svcks because newbs, can play it. I've played plenty of RPG's with those elements and enjoyed them, and played plenty of RPG's without them, and the bottom line is if you have a great story and an open world, you have a great game regardless of the complexity required to play it.

Morrowind was my first and is still my favorite RPG.

Daggerfall was my first.

My first TES experience was Daggerfall's demo which I found from a CD that came with a game magazine. The game was a bit too scary for the kid I was back then, but it had one very interesting and unique feature that made me want the full game anyway. It was the playable Argonian race. Surprisingly the game also didn't force a lizard guy to be a bad guy.

OMG you are me from the future! Tell me, am I rich? What car do I own? Most importantly, how bald am I?

No, Started with Oblivion, moved onto Morrowind and now Skyrim. I like all of them for different reasons

I also started with the daggerfall demo )

RedGuard was the first of the Elder Scrolls games I played, back when my father wanted to test out his new video card and felt the need to get a game with cutting edge graphics.

Skyrim is my first TES, and I only bought it because I loved Fallout 3 and New Vegas so much.

I probably won't be playing TES6, unless it looks absolutely stellar. Time constraints and the fact that I didn't really get much out of Skyrim, means that it probably will be my last TES. Probably.

these actually echo my thoughts as well.

apart from that: the landscape in Oblivion was generic copy and paste, every enemy in the game scales to your level (which eliminates any sense of actual progression), the combat is horrendous (and no, this isn't a hyperbole. in fact, it's not just horrendous, it's flat out broken. the "stagger" system they implemented was so in favor of the opposing enemy that at times it went from just being a chore, to general instances of hilarity), there's not a single memorable quest in the game (oh wait- I forgot about Hackdirt), the art style was cartoony and didn't belong in an Elder Scrolls title (seriously, I couldn't stare at a single NPC's face for more than a couple seconds without breaking into laughter and the out-of-place facial expressions), and it was really somewhat of a general disappointment overall in contrast to the hype Bethesda had been spreading during it's pre-release.

Morrowind within itself though was largely enjoyable to me, though most of quests still were completely boring and devoid of thought (delivery boy missions like: "Go deliver these twelve eggs to a mine that's located about a thousand meters from here-OH BEFORE I FORGET. they each weigh 80 pounds. so good luck with that!") and the gameplay mechanics ranged from satisfying (the sense of your character's statistics developing) and absolutely awful (for 6 hours of the game you run as fast as you walk and miss hitting targets with a broadsword that are within arm's reach).

I'm in the same boat here.

Morrowind was my first TES game. Then I bought Oblivion, and I liked it even more than Morrowind. And now I'm here with Skyrim.

Nope,Morrowind took my TES virginity