Just because something is a trademark doesn't mean it has to happen every game. And in Daggerfall, you start out in a cave, under order of the Emperor. That's decently similar to being in a prison. But I'm not going to argue pointless semantics with you.

A ship start is good for me.
Just something like perhaps the captain starts talking to you, asks where you come from, what you are for a class (but not so bluntly) and such stuff. Tells you where you are, gives you some tips and PERHAPS he is an agent of some kind and gives you a clue of where to go. Or perhaps he was just told by someone to tell you something which he doesnt understand but which you will find out what it means. Something like that. Something to start out with. Either follow this clue or start your own life.

I'm fine with the prison start, to be honest, its worked for the games in the past. It justisfies why you start off without any good equipment, since if you were already adventuring at the start of the game you would already have basic equipment. When you're in a prison, it makes perfect sense that you wouldn't have your equipment, plus, it doesn't force a specific background on your character. To use another Bethesda game as an example of what I mean, I'll mention Fallout 3, in that game, you start out in a vault, it also offers an in-game tutorial and character creation like Morrowind and Oblivion, but Fallout 3 reveals some information about your character's background, it shows you what sort of life you lived up until the point where the story actually starts off, and it tells you who your parents were. While in that game, it didn't bother me so much since the story Bethesda decided to go with required this information. but since I value the freedom to play whoever I want in the Elder Scrolls, I would not like that in the game. Starting off in prison does not have this problem, since you don't know WHY you're in prison. You could have commit murder, or stolen something valuable, or maybe you were just arrested for accidentally picking up someone's carrot, for all the game tells you, you might not actually be a criminal at all, maybe you were wrongly imprisoned for crimes commited by someone else, it's up to you to decide why you're in prison, and who you were before your arrest. On the other hand, I wouldn't object to a different start either, as long as it still served the same purpose, I don't care too much how the game starts as long as the beginning does its job and makes me want to continue playing the game. Still, since the prison introduction works fine, I see no reason to change it unless either Bethesda decides that the story they go with would work better with a different start, or just because they felt like doing something different for a change.

As to the tutorial, I'd say that Oblivion had the right general idea, by starting off with an interactive tutorial, it introduces you to the basics of the game, and lets you experience the mechanics you're being told about while the game tells you about them, rather than just reading about how to do something in the manual, I'd say that players are more likely to learn it quickly if they can experience it at the same time as they learn. Also, another thing I like about Oblivion's tutorial is that it doesn't make you permanently commit to a specific character until after you've had a chance to use most of the skills you'll want to choose, this helps somewhat to avoid the problem many RPGs have where by the time you actually know if you like the character you chose to make or not, the only thing you can do if you don't is start over and replay the same quests you've done so far, it's not perfect, of course, but it helps somewhat. The main thing I want to see changed about this, and this I REALLY want to see, is the oportunity to skip the tutorial. The problem with tutorials in most games, and Oblivion is one of them, is that while they're helpful when you haven't played the game before, once you know what they're trying to teach you, they can easily get annoying, so I don't want to have to play through the tutorial every time I start a new character. And I know that in Oblivion, you could keep a save before leaving the sewers, but I shouldn't have to do that, it's not THAT hard to make the tutorial optional, there's no reason I should have to do it myself, plus, in later playthroughs I'll probably install lots of mods, and with some mods, it may not be a good idea to add or remove them from an existing saved game, so I don't want to keep starting from the same save across multiple playthroughs if I change the mods I'm using. I think the simplest solution would be to include a message at the start of the game. after choosing the name, race, six and appearance of your character *assuming the game uses the same setup for character customization as Oblivion.) you could get an option to choose whether you want to play the tutorial or not, if you choose to, the game will start in the usual way, if you choose not to, you would be teleported to the end of the tutorial, with journal entries explaining what happened during the tutorial so things won't get confusing, and with items that you'd probably have picked up during the tutorial being added to your inventory (After all, whether or not to play the tutorial is a choice you should make based on whether you feel you need it or not, it makes no sense to punish players for deciding not to play it if they did it because they don't want or need to play it.) This way, if I already know how to play the game, I don't have to keep going through a tutorial if I don't want to, but I still get a helpful tutorial when I'm not familiar with the basics, I don't even know why Bethesda decided NOT to do this in Oblivion.

I can agree on one thing here, and that is that knowledge gained through trial & Error is knowledge you remember, precisely because you do not want to go through that again, it knowledge won bitterly, and therefore it goes directly to the spine, instead of out of the other ear.



I'm not sure what this addresses, I'm not considering that to be trial & error, sure you messed up when you killed cauis, provided you goal was to main quest, if it wasn't then you didn't really mess up, and even if killing cauis could be considered a mistake, you abandoned the problem, and had fun with something else, which I would probably have done too.



I don't think most people actually read the manual unless they really have to, because most games really aren't that difficult to figure out, unfortunately TES or RPGs in general require a lot of pre-obtained info, before you can actually start to enjoy the games, this means either having an extensive manual, or a good tutorial. The least hassle is mostly with a tutorial because it keeps the player in the game.



I completely agree, I think that is one of Oblivions worst issues, every time you wanted to create a new character, you had to go through the freaking thing. :swear:



Tell me about it, I don't think I have an issue with that, as long as descriptive information comes up when you hover over the skill or attribute, I think that would be sufficient. I wouldn't particularly call that Trial & Error, sure on some level it is, but you have sufficient information to make a good call, you aren't just left there. Or actually in Oblivion you kind of are, can't remember if it is noted in the manual, but the first time I played, I thought the +5 or +3, were attribute raises that was already going to be applied to the attribute, and so I had 3 additional points to put in where I wanted, so I usually picked the ones who only got +1 or nothing, I mean "just to balance out"



Well, I wouldn't say that a sufficient tutorial which teaches you the basics by making you perform them, is gonna make you a master of the game, I wouldn't want that either. as for slaughtering everything right off the bat, I would have to say that this should depend on how you made your character. In there beginning there should always some kind of "beginners" area.

Just a quick reminder stay on topic not saying you are not but this tread is so close to the oficial one. That it could be shut down even though I have moderator permision for it.

When I killed Cauis, I didn't do it by accident. I did it so I wouldn't be tempted to go through the main quest.

I'm just saying that, if people think starting over means rushing through the same quests in order to catch up, that's not true with TES games.

So, we're on the same page with wanting the character we create to dynamically affect the way we go through the game.

The way this ties in with the OP:

I don't want to start out with some heal spell and fire spell if I didn't choose destruction and restoration.

I don't want to be forced to stop and shoot an arrow at a bucket because that's an asinine thing to do while in the middle of a prison break.

They were both solely for the sake of the tutorial and therefore, kind of cheesy. I like a subtle tutorial, or at least, if it is blatant, it shouldn't try to be immersive at the same time, if that makes any sense.

As for trial and error, I think we were defining it differently.

As for the prison start.

In Daggerfall, you're in a cave, not prison. That's not semantics. That's just two totally different locations.

EDIT: I don't think this is a huge issue because Morrowind's tutorial was subtle and short and Fallout 3's wasn't short, but it was subtle. And most of that opening was more back story than just learning the game.

I honestly think Oblivion's opening was the contrivance that it was because they wanted to show off everything the physics and lighting can do right in the beginning, for the previewers and critics and people who rented it.

Its not a tradition. In that case, tell me why it is a tradition in the first place? The way I see it, its the following:
Arena: Imposter Picard put ya in a one cell dungeon left there to died because he hate ya/ for giggles/ ya threat. No prison/jail involved here.

Daggerfall: Ship Wreak. Stranded in a Dungeon full of baddies. No prison/jail involved here either.

Morrowind: Ya got off the prison ship, but really, it does not have that atmospheric of a prison/jail at all; no bondage, no meanie jail mate, everyone nice, etc. For all we know, that trip is a cover up. That say, no prison here.

Oblivion: Prison Intro. Hated it. I modded the hell out of it after 5 minute of gameplay.

Hell, lets look into 2 other games:

Battlespire: Ya arrive as a student for training.

Redguard: Ya start out on a ship by a awesome Redguard name Cyrus, who fought Pirates in the beginning.

By logic, this "traditional" Prison Intro only happens once aka Oblivion.

Morrowind was the only odd one out in my eyes (Redguard, and Battlespire don't really count). To me the tradition was you start in a "room" (prison, cave, cell, whatever) at the starting of a long tutorial dungeon made to get you used to the game. In Morrowind you were sent from the Imperial City prison on a boat, but the game just started on the boat (maybe they were just trying to do something new).

So to me the semantics of whether it was technically a "prison" or whatever doesn't matter. It is still considered, to me, the "Elder Scrolls" intro.

If the semantics are pointless, then so is the prison idea.

The tradition is to start in a room? Maybe I'm beginning in a room, but I'm also beginning outside another room. It's all perspective.

There is no need for any judication to bring the prison intro back from Oblivion because it isn't a tradition at all. There no pattern in the intro of the The Elder Scoll. Theoretically, any intro of any game can start in a room or outdoor, dungeon or in a city, sane or insane, action or no action. Saying its start in a "room" isn't good enough to defend the jail intro "tradition" of the Elder Scroll.

As for "In Morrowind you were sent from the Imperial City prison on a boat", there still absolutely no proof of any jail/prison or that saying happening to the PC, whether or not the event is true (or I just skip the intro movie altogether because I want to play the game right away.) Like I say before, it can be a coverup for all we care. Beside, getting off the boat isn't the same as being in a stinky jail cell for an intro.

In arena you're in a prison cell in the imperial city. Wo cares how you got there, that's where you are.

In Morrowind, the guards aren't nice to you. You're definitely a prisoner.

The only one where you're not a prisoner is Daggerfall.

There's only absolute proof in math, in reality everything is built on evidence, and there's evidence that you were a prisoner in morrowind, ergo the intro, and the coded package. Occam's Razor dictates that the least assumptions, is simply that you were a prisoner. In every TES game I've played, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion, I've started as a prisoner, or came from one. My background in Daggerfall involved King Lysandus getting me out of prison. To me this whole Prison thing is clearly tradition, or a theme, being held against ones will.

EDIT: I understand that Daggerfall had more than one background, but one of them was still that you were imprisoned, don't know about the other ones.

Why would they tell a coverup story to the PC? lol that's just a ridiculous sidestep.

Either way though, I don't really care anymore. There seems to be a theme that they go with, with the whole escaping a dungeon and finally finding the light of day at the end of it and seeing a gigantic world (or city) in front of you to explore. And I like that theme, but I would still like to skip it if I felt like it.

In Arena, that is definitely not a Prison. Its just a cell that ya would left there to rot and die. No other Prison Cell exist; no visible jailer in sight. People greet ya nicely outside the place after playing some guessing game with the door.

Morrowind, its just that one guy. Probably a bad day or he hates the job. Everyone else is either neutral or happy. Pretty much view and greet ya as an immigrant than a prison-bird (in which that would at least steer a bit more tone if that was the case).


Except whether or not they call the PC mean s/he is really a prisoner. My evidence is pretty much the surrounding in the intro itself. Ya start in a boat, with no way of tellings that its even a prison boat because it does not feel like it.

Daggerfall-wise, that intro is very open to have basically anything happens to the PC. If ya were once a convict, fine, but that ain't my role and I would never see Daggerfall, of all intro, as one with a prison as a starting point.


Ever heard of the term "Prisoner in my own body"? Well, its too vague to automatically assume the Morrowind's PC was in a Prison beforehand.

There is no assumption to be had, and there is no absolute proof. You know why? Because it's video game lore, it's fiction. They tell you the story, and that's it. Unless they tell you later that it was a lie for some reason that they created, than it should be taken as true. I don't even know why you're fighting this. Is Morrowind jsut too unique, perfect, and alien to have a "generic prison" back story?

But if you really do need evidence than I can give it to you. It's all right in the starting of the game even in the tutorial. The most revealing one is when Sellus Gravius says

Just because its fiction does not mean it means one way. There are branches of paths and backgrounds the players can form. Saying that the intro for Morrowind means ya been a Prison before does not mean its absolute. That say, I don't need to lie.


HA, my ass. Its more that when I play Oblivion for the first minute and BAM, my Oblivion experience was utterly destroy as along with my view on the game itself. I still did not recover from that experience, even after I found a mod to destroy Oblivion's intro, as ya plainly see me in these kind of thread against the notion of the Prison Intro.

Also, I hate to see that people view Oblivion's intro as "tradition", even though its not a tradition at all or that there could be an intro that does not dictate ya have to be convict but instead, have an openness that the PC can be anything and not bull crapping their way because they were in bondage and have a cell next to a cellmate named Baba. Hell, I can see they could have gone a whole bunch of routes rather than the Prison Intro for Oblivion and still follow the Main Quest nicely. Same goes for any future installments.

Its does not have to start that way.

I'm sorry but in Morrowind the PC was a prisoner. Next time you play Morrowind read the intro, read what the NPC's in the character creation process are saying. Especially when Sellus Gravius tells you you were release from prison.

Either way I dropped the whole tradition thing. To me there seems to be a prevalent theme in three of the games of having a long dungeon that you have to escape, and in Morrowind you were a prisoner but set free. This is probably why people are thinking that the whole prisoner thing is a tradition.

And again, still in the line of misinformality. Sellus Gravius don't really know who ya really are and ya got off the prison boat, assuming ya were in prison at one point, but that does not automatically mean the PC was one because Sellus still don't know who ya truly are. I play the intro a bunch of time in the past to know that the PC was not has been in a prison to begin with, mainly because ya still in a boat or there hardly any info that really support that fact the PC was a prisoner. If anything, they just gave ya citizenship in Vvardenfell or a pass because the PC was an immigrant, not set free from prison.

I really don't even know what to say to that. You have like 3 or more completely different sources telling the player and the player character that they were in prison, and they were even on a prison ship, and that's still not enough to convince you? AND you claim to know that the exact opposite happened?!?

Do you even take in anything from any of the games to actually be considered lore? Or could all of that just be lies too?

They can/will be unreliable sources. Beside, if anything, these source are easily miss and does not constantly blah ya that ya were a prisoner, not to mention it isn't that important to the overall game anyways. Being in a jail cell as an intro, on the otherhand, is a punch in the stomach. Ya cannot ignore that.


Many parts of Oblivion's lore I trash'd. Not so much in Morrowind or Daggerfall. Usually, ingame decision that isn't the Main Quest isn't really lore, really. Its more of player's viewpoint of things and achievements of what he/she done ingame.

In the intro video they are giving the player (not the character) background lore to what the game is essentially going to be about. They call the character a prisoner. There's no room for lies, there's no decision made by the player, or the player character. It's just pure unadvlterated lore.

The only reason I can think that you are even arguing is that you have an ulterior motive. To me I don't really care about tradition, or which game had a "better" intro, I just can't understand how somebody is going to ignore the facts right in front of their face.

That's not true. Don't you remember.

In Morrowind jiub says, "i think i heard them say they're going to let us go." or something like that.

And the guards aren't all happy. They're calling you scum and saying don't try anything funny.

Keep the prison theme, but don't start out as a prisoner. Have the starting dungeon be in the sewers under the prison, and end up in it where guards find you and help you or something like that.

As for Arena:

"No one has escaped from the Imperial Prison in 40 years, since the days of Jagar Tharn and the Imperial Simulacrum."

I wonder who that could be. It most certainly isn't the Eternal Champion who just happened to actually break out of the Imperial Prison 40 years ago. Nope, it must be referring to someone else. [/sarcasm]