Figure it out yourself.

What? Not everything was handed over to us in MW, where as OB assumed you didn't read the manual or look at the key mapping. If horse combat was in there, maybe the person selling you the horse can instruct you on some basic commands.

The only purpose the tutorial should have is to give you what the basic commands are, how to work them, and a little practice. Everything else you need to figure out on your own.

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.

To stick even truer to this philosophy, instead of a game manual, TES V is going to ship with an ice pick for giving yourself a lobotomy.

What? Not everything was handed over to us in MW, where as OB assumed you didn't read the manual or look at the key mapping. If horse combat was in there, maybe the person selling you the horse can instruct you on some basic commands.

The only purpose the tutorial should have is to give you what the basic commands are, how to work them, and a little practice. Everything else you need to figure out on your own.

Nah, I kind of hate trial and error. Wasn't Oblivion exactly that, just giving you the basic commands?

What? Not everything was handed over to us in MW, where as OB assumed you didn't read the manual or look at the key mapping. If horse combat was in there, maybe the person selling you the horse can instruct you on some basic commands.

The only purpose the tutorial should have is to give you what the basic commands are, how to work them, and a little practice. Everything else you need to figure out on your own.

The prison theme is fine but the tutorial is too long. But the main bad thing is after you've left the dungeon you are out in the open. In Morrowind the tutorial is shorter AND if you leave the Census & Excus (?) office you are not out in the open but in a small town (seyda neen). Seyda neen also guides as a tutorial without forcing the player to follow it. There is a quest making you familiar with sneaking (Fargoth), a quest making you familiar with moral quest solutions (turning in the tax money) and so on.

That is the brilliance of Morrowind.

If you look at some interviews. The whole reason for that excruciatingly long tutorial was because, apparently, 99.9% of fans hate to read. This includes game manuals and key mapping charts. That was the devs' explanation.

To stick even truer to this philosophy, instead of a game manual, TES V is going to ship with an ice pick for giving yourself a lobotomy.

The ONLY tutorials should be small text boxes ala Morrowind, I don't want a 20 minute tutorial again, it's really annoying. To hell with people who lack common sense. It's not like you need to read a wall of text. As I said above, it was only the likes of "Press mouse 0 to open the hatch". If you can't read that, stop playing games and go learn to read.

What? Not everything was handed over to us in MW, where as OB assumed you didn't read the manual or look at the key mapping. If horse combat was in there, maybe the person selling you the horse can instruct you on some basic commands.

The only purpose the tutorial should have is to give you what the basic commands are, how to work them, and a little practice. Everything else you need to figure out on your own.

I remember recently getting someone to play Morrowind. He was talking to me over Steam, and he would ask me "How do I attack", "How do I talk?", "Omg you could have told me High Elves were weak against magic".

It was ridiculous. Personally, I really don't get this at all. What's so difficult about reading? It's not a case of "hardcoe" and "casual" players, it's a measurement of the level of idiocity. Obviously, If I don't read what important text that comes up, I'm going to fail miserably. It's like playing Oblivion with skipping the text and not reading the journal. Pure idiocity.

I want the tutorial to at least me togglable. It annoyed me even in Morrowind "Press mouse 0 to open the hatch". I bloody know! I've been playing the game for 7 years! It's also really unimmersive. And it takes quite a bit of effort that I can't be bothered to exert to mod it.

The ONLY tutorials should be small text boxes ala Morrowind, I don't want a 20 minute tutorial again, it's really annoying. To hell with people who lack common sense. It's not like you need to read a wall of text. As I said above, it was only the likes of "Press mouse 0 to open the hatch". If you can't read that, stop playing games and go learn to read.

P.S. Whoever hates trial and error should speak for themselves. That's one of the best things about learning my way through the world and skill system of Daggerfall and Morrowind. Honestly, how many people really prefer Oblivion's "trial and text box."

The prison theme is fine but the tutorial is too long. But the main bad thing is after you've left the dungeon you are out in the open. In Morrowind the tutorial is shorter AND if you leave the Census & Excus (?) office you are not out in the open but in a small town (seyda neen). Seyda neen also guides as a tutorial without forcing the player to follow it. There is a quest making you familiar with sneaking (Fargoth), a quest making you familiar with moral quest solutions (turning in the tax money) and so on.

That is the brilliance of Morrowind.

P.S. Whoever hates trial and error should speak for themselves. That's one of the best things about learning my way through the world and skill system of Daggerfall and Morrowind. Honestly, how many people really prefer Oblivion's "trial and text box."

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.
You could rise up by breaking away, fighting or bargaining for escape tools with other inmates

Keep the prison theme, but improve it drastically. You are held hostage or just for fun, by a bunch of bandits or other baddies. You fill your character sheet in the cell, and then you must use your strenghts to bust free of the imprisonment. Your highest attributes or skills grant you several choices, which you must choose from.

-Strenght/hand to hand: break the cell door with brute force.
-Security: lockpick your way out with an improvised pick.
-Speechcraft: persuade your captors to let you go, or seduce one of them, OR talk them into a fight between each others.
-Illusion: cast Chameleon and hide. While they're searching the cell you sneak out. OR use Charm to help seduce/debate your way out.
-Destruction: blast the door open.
-Alteration: cast open
-Conjuration: conjure up something to harass them.
-Alchemy: poison your food and pretend a hunger strike. They might eat it and get sick.
-Mercantile: make them an offer they can't refuse
-Pickpocket: steal the key to the door

Unless your escape was silent, or you fail to sneak past the baddies, you must fight or avoid them. Hand-to-hand is good abviously, since you have no weapons yet. Dodge and high Agility might keep you alive long enough to run from the fight, as well as sanctuary and shield spells. If you have really managed to seduce/charm one on your side, that person will help you in the fight.

Obviously you need the ability to pick some spells from your major spell schools, to be able to use them.

Edit: forgot one thing. The starting location is obviously random. You flee the whatever building you are in, to find yourself in the middle of wilderness. You find a road, and you can start following it in which ever direction you choose to find a town. After a few playthroughs you can pretty much guess where you approximately are, and what town would be nearest. Hardly as boring as Privateer's Hold, the Ship, or the Imperial Prison OVER and OVER again.

I prefer it, I mean the challenge should lie in the game, not in learning how to play the game, and the challenge in the game sure as hell shouldn't require Trial and Error in order to be solved. I think Trial & Error is the most tedious way of problem solving, because it requires no thought process going into it, no logic, it's all based on luck, you have nothing to go by, so all you have left is simply to acquire knowledge through the process of just winging it, in order to find the right approach through elimination.

Forget the prison, it's no tradition.

How is the prison not a tradition..? It's a trademark of the series.

Anyway, I say keep the prison, because it is a tradition.