I just voted to get rid of the prison. It's really quite lame, and I can see that it was trying to further the whole "action-movie style bam-get-into-the-action", but this is an open world RPG.

Besides, the whole "demonic invasion" failed to reach the height it should have. Kvatch was the only city destroyed, so I never got the whole inavsion thing.

Back on topic, I would have the game start out in the Arena. (There has to one in Skyrim, right?) As a lowly Pitdog, a voice over tells you that you have awoken with no prior memory of your life.
The Blademaster comes over and kicks you awake, telling you to get up and fight. The tutorial kicks in, telling you how to walk over to the weapon rack and choose a weapon. This is the first part of it trying to understand your class. Once chosen, pick your armour. Again, part of decidng the class. Now you enter the arena and it tells you about attacking with the chosen weapon.
Before the battle, you make a quick pray to a god Here you choose a god to worship, not a birthsign. Gods are cooler and reinforce the whole Tamrielic lore of the Nine.
With that over you fight. If you survive, the Blademaster releases you, telling you "Hey, no chance you were a -----" that's were like Baurus, the guy tells you your class. You can tell him he's wrong of course.
From there.........well that's up to gamesas! I'm not going to map out a Main Quest!

I like that.

Thanks.

Meh, now ya force into a fight, force to pick a worship, and pretty much force the fact the toon is a warrior with a guy worst than Baurus (which I find that he deserve to die to for all the thing he did in the Oblivion Intro), force into a "epic" intro. Lack openess.

Yeah, if you thought Oblivion tried the action, the way you presented it makes it action, with a huge lack of choice.

Starting in an arena isn't "action-movie style bam-get-into-the-action"?

Im not really sure what I want them to start the game with, but I hope its not prison.

Prison restricts what the devs can do with the start of the game. Morrowind and Oblivion had the player start completely fresh in prison, Arena and Daggerfall started the player as an agent of the Emperor (Even if Arena did start in a prison). By telling the player who they are, or at least who they work for before the start of the game is useful for player motivation.

So basically I'm ok if they use a prison start so long as they bulk it out by telling you why your in prison or what you were doing before you were put there. I want the character to have more motivation than "I dont have anything else to do" to do the mane quest.

I'd rather have something like Morrowind's intro (minus the part about a prophesy that really obviously applies to you, and being a prisoner). You're just a nobody stepping off a boat into a foreign land. Fill out some census forms, and go on your merry way. Maybe you have a diary or letter in your inventory that provides some sort of framework for your adventure like "Dear , you should really visit your sick uncle in Solitude. Love, ."

EDIT: I take back the thing about action. Hell yeah, we need more action. Get my blood pumping straight away. Maybe they should give you a free skooma when you start? Anyway:

You have to pick all those things anyway. Arena--Daggerfall--Morrowind (?)--- Oblivion. All force you to pick class, weapons etc first up. The early two even forced you to distribute points to stats. Eek.

This isn't a generic shooter where your character has no diversification beyond what weapon he picks to desimate the next foe. This is a highly customizable, role-playing style game that allows almost infinite combinations of stats, skills, weapons, classes and birthsigns. Its what makes the entire forum come back for more, 5 years on, what makes us keep making new PCs.

You cant just be dropped from a moving dragon mount onto a battlefield and single handedly kill the enemy general and then unleash a massive spell and desimate the enemy forces, sword flashing bloodily. Or can you?

Imagine that. The game starts out giving you ultimate control, ultimate power before it is taken away from you. Like....Star Wars the Force Unleashed. First level plays as Darth Vader, fully tricked out. Next level throws you in the boots of newbie, with no powers. But, you have had the taste of power.

Imagine TESV starts you out as a Level 25 warrior, mithril weapons and armour, powerful spells and epic skills. Then it (somehow) gets taken away. That'd be cool too.

What if fighting just ain't your thing? What if you wanted your character to be a complete pacifist who never fought? It should be an RPG, not an action game. There should be choices, and not in-your-face action as soon as you start the game.

I like how oblivion did it, it gave me time to adjust to controls and there was backup in case I needed it. starting out as an epic warrior wouldnt be very helpful to teaching you how to play a low level char

That is something I'd like above all.

But not to the point as ya descirbing in ya intro. Ya intro pretty much force to fight in an Arena. What ya talking about here is class-gen, a concept for many RPG.


At the same time, I prefer not adding intro that would otherwise force background into the PC, hence ya intro explanation. I am already aware TES isn't generic shooter but an Action RPG.


Naw, there no stealth or diplomat option. Usually, I don't think that epic battle/intro like what ya describe should be in the game to begin with; its just a manner of force combat, which I see as a big no no.


Sound like a bunch of first mods for TES5 in the making.

I actually have (what I think is) a good idea for how the game starts. When you start a new game, you get three options: Prison, Ship, and Wilderness. After your pick, you choose whether or not you want a tutorial. (Choosing no just eliminates some of the lengthiness of the beginning by skipping close to the end of the beginning story)

Prison: The traditional starting place. You're a prisoner in some high-security prison, locked away for some unknown reason. A riot breaks out, and you start trying to escape, but then wind up helping a fellow prisoner escape, too. You and the Prisoner either fight or sneak through the prison and eventually make it to the front gates, with plans to board a ship to {enter city name here]. When you get to the front gates, however, the prisoner is shot down by an arrow, and with his dying breaths, tells you to deliver a scroll that he hands you to a man in [enter city name here]. You run away from the prison alone, and can deliver the letter, drop it and forget about it, or save it and get around to it sometime later.

Ship: You are a passanger on a large ship, headed towards [enter city name here]. You wander througout the ship for a bit, and eventually start talking with a man wearing ragged clothes (the prisoner from the Prison intro). However, pirates then attack the ship, killing everyone, taking no prisoners. You and the Prisoner fight/sneak your way through the ship, killing pirates all the while, heading towards the lifeboats with plans to continue [enter direction here] towards [enter city name here]. However, when you near the boat, the Prisoner is stabbed by a pirate, who you promptly kill. With his last words, the Prisoner tells you to deliver his letter to a man in [enter city name here]. You row the lifeboat to shore alone, and can deliver the letter, drop it and forget about it, or save it and get around to it sometime later.

Wilderness: You're camping out in the woods alone. You get hungry and decide to go hunting for some deer. While out hunting, you come across a wounded man (the Prisoner from the Ship and Prison intros) being chased by animals and into a cave. Curious, you follow him and kill the animals chasing him. You find him dying in the cave, but not from animals; instead from a knife that was thrown into his side. He tells his story and gives you a scroll that he asks be delivered to a man in [enter city name here]. He then dies. You return to camp and pack up. You can decide to deliver the letter, drop it and forget about it, or save it and get around to it sometime later.

So? What do you guys think?

OK, this will give gamesas guys an aneurism, but, what if when you click new, you have to choose a "style" of combat/magic/stealth. I know its a big choice straigtaway, but from there, it could branch into three separate starts for the same MQ.

Thief is stealing somethine, Mage is playing around a mystic artifact and Warrior is fighting something.

Wow, that's actually real good. I like that. I'd buy that game. :goodjob:

They could keep the prison theme but instead of being in the imperial prison which requires you break a law etc which seems to ruin role-playing for some people, you could start held captive/imprisoned by rogue bandits etc. It could be a small camp or even the big baddie of the game could have you held captive. You could rise up by breaking away, fighting or bargaining for escape tools with other inmates, this would give a start to your character class. Once out you could choose to inquire, I'm hoping in TES V we can ask anyone about anything.. Or you could ignore what happened and just carry on with your life

How about this for an intro: You are suddenly falling from the sky, and you go through the sod roof of a farmhouse and land on the bed. You get up and try to leave, but the door is locked, and the hole in the roof is too high up, so you decide to look around a bit. You find a trap door and open it, and you promptly find yourself being attacked by a group of necromancers. One accidentally sets off a trap, killing them all. You loot their bodies, get a weapon of your choice, and find a note on a table. On the note there are evil plans to sack a town and turn the dead to zombies. You did not stop the entire raiding party, as the real force consists of 100+ necromancers led by some Breton or somethin'. You could either A) ignore it and let the town die; B ) Alert the Captain of the guard and help fight; or C) assist the necromancers in destroying the town.

I think the tutorial is a nice feature the first time around, but after that it becomes very trite and boring. Perhpas making the tutorial optional is a good way to go about it, I would also like to see the tutorial have much fewer menu pop up kinda things, perhaps you are escaping from a dungeon or sorts, not from jail, and this is a trial that whoever owns the dungeon gives to the people he/she captures, and you can find various hints from others who have tried to get through it. Might be a little dark, but I think it could be pulled off nicely, and would add much to the beginning of the game. Although I highly doubt it will be much different from the regular start of Morrowind or Oblivion, it is easy to make your background if you are just some person in a prison cell, much more difficult the more you narrow it down.

I would love to see Daggerfall's background system to return. But, I'd like to have more control over it. I'd like to have a pre-determined background, dependant on my class, and if I don't like it (I doubt certain "casual" gamerrs would care, so you don't need to bother) I can select from another, or choose to type out my own.

Wow that's good too. About the enquire thing i mentioned that in another thread. I love D-Fall for it and hate Oblivi for it. The only thing the people in Oblivion know about is the damn Fighter's Guild!

Absolutely love the idea of worshiping a god. A nordic god maybe too another option. That would be relay cool but with a customizable story behind it with stats attached would rule.

Also epic and an awsome start.

I don't much care for the prison start.

How about you start out as someone from a shipwreck like the beginning of Daggerfall (however you end up a few miles inland and in the depth of a dungeon is still not really explained). Waking up among broken wood somewhere in a place you don't know, possibly even with memory loss, weakened by drifting out on the sea. Would be reasonable that you start out with low attributes, being starved and possibly sick, with nothing on your body other than the clothes you wear and maybe the rubble around you.

Actually this would be quite similar to the intro of Risen, but that worked so why not.

Maybe there's a guy in town trying to cast a new spell, say, Recall, when a bird flying by poops on his forehead and causes him to screw up the words, and you, a person walking through town in the wrong place and the wrong time, get teleported from your humble village to wherever that guy was trying to end up - some insane distance away. Once there, you'd have some explaining to do. You could try and talk. You could try and fight. Apparently, that guy was supposed to be the hero, but you know how it goes. They think you're that guy. Things happen and you have the option to take his place, or not. Maybe you say, I'm not the droid you're looking for, and they say, well, think about it, and come back if you change your mind? Maybe you start right away? Your background is yours.