What got you into The Elder Scrolls?

War

The first Elder Scrolls game I played was Morrowind. I had it on the original Xbox - and it was one of the first games I played (besides Runescape) where you could really create a custom character and dress them up as you wanted.

I actually didn't play it that much - but I eagerly looked forward to the sequel, Oblivion. Once that was out, I played it obsessively. I think I completed 95% of the quests, had nearly all the relics, was the master of all the guilds, and was a high-level in a ton of skills. I think I accumulated around 900,000 gold without cheats either. Eventually I got bored enough to just start giving (bribing) random citizens a ton of gold just to make them like me.

So while I did start with Morrowind, Oblivion was what really drew me in. I did revisit Morrowind later on the PC though, and I put a load of hours into it having fun.

Majoron

I heard the hype around Skyrim when it came out. However, I don't like to jump into a series without any context, so I like to play through all of the previous titles first. I did the same with Zelda, Metal Gear and Fallout. However, try as I might, I couldn't make it through Arena. So I started with Skyrim, and played a fair way through Oblivion afterwards. I'm now reading into the lore of Nirn. It's astonishing how much depth there is. However I feel like I should play the earlier titles after hearing all the Daggerfall elitists go on about how horrible the later games are.

War

Majoron
WIth most Elder Scrolls games, a lot of people will claim the first game of Elder Scrolls they played was the best version. People who played Morrowind first will generally say Oblivion and Skyrim are worse. People who played Oblivion first will say likely say other titles are worse...and so on. That's obviously not the case with everyone though, myself included. I personally like most of the games and I can see their pros and cons.

I think you would enjoy Morrowind, it's not quite as difficult to get into as something like Arena and Daggerfall, but it does have some archaic gameplay mechanics. I do believe the lore and world of the game is just as fun to explore as some of the other titles though. If you do play Morrowind, here's a bit of a starter guide that might spoil a little fun learning the game, but make it easier to start out: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Starting_Out

Some other tips I might add for Morrowind beginners:
- Combat is a dice roll system. This means when you attack, you won't always hit, although you see your magic/arrow/sword physically touch the enemy. It's not a hit until you hear the "hit" sound effect.
- You can avoid missing a lot and taking a lot of hits by keeping your agility a high level, and keeping your stanima in combat high. If you have no stanima, you will likely miss almost all your attacks, and the enemy will hit you a lot more. It's very important to keep it above 0.
- Try practicing fighting mudcrabs in the Seyda Neen, the first town. Once you level up a couple times, then you can move onto fighting the bandits in the cave to the east. They have some good gear you can take too.
- You can sleep anywhere to refill your magic/health/stanima. It's likely enemies will attack you though if you sleep outside though. If you have the DLC at the start too, you may face assassins which are pretty much impossible to kill at a starter level. So it's best you find an inn or something.
- There is no fast traveling by map. It has to be done by boat or by silt striders - those big bug things with 6 legs.
- Early on you should probably focus on leveling up immediate combat skills. After you're good with a weapon like a knife or sword, then you can start leveling up other stuff and not worry about getting killed all the time.
- Enemies aren't leveled to you. This means you can stumble into dungeons or places where things will kill you very easily, so watch out, and don't save the game where you can get stuck.
- If you do get a stuck in a spot with no way out, then open the console and type and enter "TGM" for invincibility, and "TCL" to toggle collision and fly out of the area. Just type those commands again to disable them.

Majoron

War Wow, it definitely sounds a lot more like what I would consider a classical roleplaying game than the later titles, I'll certainly give it a look.

Wunis

War - You can sleep anywhere to refill your magic/health/stanima. It's likely enemies will attack you though if you sleep outside though. If you have the DLC at the start too, you may face assassins which are pretty much impossible to kill at a starter level. So it's best you find an inn or something.

Assassins can attack you if you sleep inside or outside. However, it isn't a disaster, as you are practically meant to turn the difficulty to the minimum at the start of the game and ramp it up over time.

Phatphuc

It was Morrowind for me, i was in middle school and had not gotten into pc gaming yet, i plugged over 700 hours into that game and utterly fell in love with it.

Sean-Bean

Because I'm a youngling, my first TES game was Oblivion. I remember seeing the cover of the GOTY edition, with its splendiferous lack of detail on it, and I remembered reading high praises for Oblivion in a gaming magazine... so I gave it a shot.

Truth be told, I quite liked it, though it had its silly bits. Hit that guard with your sword eleven billion times, and he's down only 33% of his health. Nope. Down you go, difficulty slider!
It was the first game I played of this caliber, where my character could buy a house and stuff like that. I enjoyed sleeping at night in my shitty shack at the ImpCity Waterfront, then going out in the mornings and jogging around the lake, improving my skills. Good times.

Skyrim was better though. I tried getting into Morrowind, but I couldn't. The bloody combat was dreadful... I'm fine with miss chances in a tactical battle setting, a-la XCOM or Divinity: Original Sin, but not when it's a first-person game.
I should really give it a shot again, now that I'm not a child anymore, and could probably stomach the mechanics enough to enjoy the setting and story.

Never played any of the others, unfortunately.

Soyroy

I am fascinated with the Medieval time period so any medieval based game is my bread and butter. I was introduced through a mod for a game called Mount and Blade Warband that was based in tamriel. I then researched a bit and saw all the hype for Skyrim. I didn't want to go and buy Oblivion because I am not made of money (unlike Skyrim 😛 ) When Skyrim was released I played it thoroughly for months. Year later bought Oblivion rinse and repeat Skyrim addiction. Now I just need to get around to playing Morrrowind and the rest. The only thing that is keeping me from buying it is the rng style combat, but I will eventually give in.

VodkaAndAK47

Back in elementary school, my friend started talking about Oblivion. I knew about the game, and knew it had ragdoll physics. Back then, I really loved games with ragdoll, and I remembered you could move bodies around in Oblivion. So I came over and played Oblivion with him and holy hell, that was a great experience. Ended up getting the GOTY edition on my birthday. Still a great game

Sean-Bean

Interestingly enough, I believe I read an article at Rock, Paper, Shotgun that compared Oblivion to Mount&Blade. I had heard of the Elder Scrolls series, and I'm pretty sure I'd seen the Oblivion GOTY cover at a store or something, but had never come in contact with the actual games.
Given that I'm a big fan of the Mount&Blade game(s), I thought I'd give Oblivion a shot. And I did...
And this is the story of how I skipped Morrowind. 😛

Soyroy

Sean-Bean Nice to see a fellow Mount&Blade fan.

Cozy

Oblivion. I remember the hype over all the NPC's being fully voice acted and they didn't seem quite as potato-faced to me as they do now 😛

Never really could get into Morrowind, I can see the appeal, but I find a lot of the early gameplay to be pretty rage-inducing.

If I had to rate the modern TES games in terms of my own experiences, I'd say Skyrim = Oblivion > Morrowind. That said, if one can deal with dice-roll combat and starting out weaker than a mudcrab, I hear Morrowind has an amazing storyline and great world to explore.