My Adventures In Tamriel or TVD Plays TES Consecutively

The Vault Dweller

The Vault Dweller

always looking for water.
Now as you all know I haven't played an RPG in any form for about a year. In fact for the past three years I've only played a handful. This is, because of the randomly high amount of good non-RPG games I've come across recently and the fact that while there have been about double the worthwhile RPGs released in the past few years than there were in the mid-2000's they are all new enough to make me wait until they're cheaper.

Recently I wanted to play an RPG. I really wanted to finally complete a playthrough of Morrowind (played it two wonderful times, but couldn't stay on the main quest) then try Oblivion. However I felt after coming back to RPGs after such a long time why not do something noteworthy? I thought why not play the whole TES series? I figured I could not only enjoy Morrowind and Oblivion more, but also the previous two games Daggerfall and Arena are free to promote people buying the later games.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/downloads_games.htm

So here I've been playing TES: Arena for about two months and have about 35 hours invested in it with only a few hours left. I have to say as a dungeon crawler it's incredible. Huge world with lots of unique locations, enemies, and loot. Best of all it's totally non-linear. I can undertake the main quest, be hired for a mission by the leader of a city to explore a dungeon, escort someone from a tavern across town, or just go outside and wander until I find small random caves/keeps/crypts.

Unfortunately the story leaves much to be desired. The setting while I know from later games to be quite good is very simply represented here. The story is simple. The Emperor is killed and the head Battlemage uses magic to appear as him and rule the continent. The character is guided by the spirit of someone important to find 8 pieces of the Staff of Chaos :roll: which can reveal the Battlemages identity. You find the pieces by exploring two large dungeons for each piece. One for the piece and the other either for a map or some item that someone requires before you're told the location of the actual staff part. Each piece found leads to a cutscene where you're hinted where the next part is and also the villain taunts you in your dreams later on sending strong enemies to fight you when you awake.

I loved the large world and non-linearity, but about 3/4 the way through I pretty much wasn't finding any better equipment or new enemies just larger amounts of money (which I can't find anything to spend it on) and groups of the most powerful monsters instead of new ones. I'm glad I'll be done soon.

I'll post my thoughts on the ending when I complete it most likely today or tomorrow. Just one dungeon left.

Also for those of you who play it does anyone find it lame (in a sell-out sort of way) that they have "whores" standing outside the taverns dressed slutty and hinting at sexual stuff? I mean come on as long as there's no action to be taken (and even if there was it better be story related) that seems pathetic to try to include that just for sex appeal.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
Man Uriel Septim VIII would have lived for fucking ever. It took a dagger to the face to end his life because time obviously wasn't gonna do it.
 
I remember playing Arena back when it first came out... loved it. Daggerfall was good, but BUGGY!!

Morrwind, IMO, was simply a work of art. I've never had as much fun exploring a game world as I did in MW.

I'll never play Oblivion ever again though.
 
Yeah so I finished Arena. Ending was simple and expected. Villain dies Emperor is saved and so on. I was surprised that either the writers couldn't or didn't have the time to think of an awesome way for the villain to die so they just said the jewel you used to revive the Emperor also housed the Battlemages life force causing him to hilariously dissolve. I was pissed though when the Emperor called my character a "child of the Empire". I just saved his life and probably the whole continent. I should be Emperor.

I'd like to point out that I was using a Redguard Barbarian. I figure that with the ancient user interface the game would be somewhat harder for playing a magic user not to mention the use of magic/abilities is always more complicated and I was just playing Arena to finish it.

So I just started Daggerfall and I still wanted to use a straightforward character, but to differentiate from my playthrough of Arena it wasn't going to be a Barbarian. I decided on ranged combat with high agility and perception opposite of melee combat and high strength and endurance. I could get killed a lot more, but I can now kill without having to charge my enemy getting hit by projectiles on the way. I'm also a high Elf.

When I get to Morrowind I'll try a mage since the interface there will be much easier to use and also between the first two games and previous Morrowind attempts I'll have played four characters none of them magic users.

Oh and when I get to Morrowind besides doing something new by sticking to the story and using magic I plan to play it with both expansions.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
Good choice on the High Elf, their high magical aptitude and natural resistance to Paralysis make them very strong characters from the start.

Emphasis on ranged combat should be an interesting challenge. I never managed to produce a good enough ranger in Daggerfall in all my playthroughs. The lure of the Katana was always too strong to avoid.
 
Daggerfall is the best of the series, but that's my opinion. Oh the hours I spent as a kid playing that game, good memories. I always choose a High Elf custom class character, long blade, destruction, restoration, etc. And 90% of the time I purposely become a werewolf, the early bonuses are great, plus werewolves are freakin' awesome.

I find that bows and arrows are pretty bad in the game though. Never was very good in that department. Perhaps I should try a ranged character myself. Oh, and leather armor is pretty much useless. I should replay Daggerfall...
 
Never played a mage in all of my playthroughs of Morrwind... I loved being a Dark Elf sneaky style character, or a balls to the walls violent character.
 
I've played the hell out of Morrowind, and I never was able to get far as a pure magic user. It's really easy to kill things early on compared to a ranged/melee character, but the amount of time you'll spend resting is obscene.

Some spells are absolutely game-changing (Mark, Recall, Divine Intervention, Almsivi Intervention, Water Walking, Water Breathing, Levitate, Slowfall, Swift Swim, and Lock Opening spells); but they're easily obtained by any character.


Just make sure you grab a secondary weapon skill (any will do) so you've got something to fall back on when you run out of mana in an area you can't rest in, and are out of potions.
 
I have terrible news.

After playing Daggerfall for about 10 hours and enjoying it very much (it's like a raw Morrowind) I was forced to abandon it. I ran into a bug that causes quest specific things (such as the monster you're sent to kill or the item you're sent to retrieve) to become invisible. It happened to me once before when I was sent to kill rats in a tavern. I could hear the rats and even their attack sounds, but I took no damage nor could I damage them not to mention that I also couldn't see them. However this last time was a dungeon which although it wasn't related to the main quest it was for a temple and between exploring, fighting, leaving to sell/buy stuff, and rest it took almost four hours alone. Then I found out the item wasn't there.

I checked around. The bug appears in any version running on a computer with Windows XP/vista and there is no patch or solution.

Although the bug hits randomly if it happens even once to any of the twenty main quest things I wouldn't be able to complete the game. A shame.

I do admit that the size of the game world was staggering to behold. Like 20 counties each with forty dungeons/towns/interesting areas. Some only take a few minutes to explore and some hours. I actually have trouble believing a game can possibly be that big.

Also those guys at Bethesda have no shame as far as appealing to the common denominator. Every female had huge boobs and in the temples they had naked concubines. :roll:

Unfortunately I can't move directly to Morrowind. I planned to play it not only through all of the main quest, but to do so with both expansions neither of which I currently have. Once I buy the Morrowind GotY Edition I will though, but that will probably be a few months.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
Heh, this thread makes me feel like installing the other two games. As far as TES goes, I played Morrowind only, and with a Bosmer Archer, so it has been quite pleasant: an agile build that can dispatch foes from afar makes for great exploration of mountains and thus, of Vvardenfell itself.
 
The Vault Dweller said:
The character is guided by the spirit of someone important to find 8 pieces of the Staff of Chaos :roll:
Click to expand...
:mrgreen:

I wrote an outline for a fantasy parody once in which a tribe of extremely ugly Sewer Elves sent the character on a quest to find The Sceptre of Garbage.

The Vault Dweller said:
I do admit that the size of the game world was staggering to behold. Like 20 counties each with forty dungeons/towns/interesting areas. Some only take a few minutes to explore and some hours. I actually have trouble believing a game can possibly be that big.
Click to expand...
Having just played Daggerfall for the first time about three months ago, I have to say this was the most underwhelming aspect of the whole experience. So what if there are 100 towns and 50 dungeons in every province? They're all the same, except the buildings are in different places. The dungeons are better than the towns, but still there's far too much repetition. I got bored after about 20 hours and I haven't had one urge to try Daggerfall again.

Cut out about two-thirds of the locations, and it would be a better game.
 
I like pretty much all the TES games. Morrowind was the first I played and I loved it. Still remains one of my favorite RPGs.

I do think you guys tend to exagerrate how bad Oblivion is. "Oh man it's terribad! It's made by Bethesda and they RUINED Fallout FOREVER by making it like Oblivion, so it is horrible." I do admit they really need more voice-actors (I could care less if Captain Picard is going to be in the game if he dies 7 minutes in and cost you half your damn voiceacting budget) and the level-scaling stuff was annoying, but I enjoyed it. It's fun to romp about, hacking at random bandits in an abadoned mine.
 
IIRC, there was a patch/mod that could teleport you to the desired quest locations inside the dungeon. As far as I could recall, there are only 5-6 question locations in any dungeons. Even though most dungeons are hand drawn, they are modular unless it's the major quest/storyline dungeons.

So you could skip the minor quests, and still find your way around major quest dungeons. You just can't see them but that doesn't mean it's not there right?
 
UniversalWolf said:
I wrote an outline for a fantasy parody once in which a tribe of extremely ugly Sewer Elves sent the character on a quest to find The Sceptre of Garbage.
Click to expand...

:lol:

Starseeker said:
IIRC, there was a patch/mod that could teleport you to the desired quest locations inside the dungeon. As far as I could recall, there are only 5-6 question locations in any dungeons. Even though most dungeons are hand drawn, they are modular unless it's the major quest/storyline dungeons.

So you could skip the minor quests, and still find your way around major quest dungeons. You just can't see them but that doesn't mean it's not there right?
Click to expand...

The problem is you can't interact with the monsters/items that are quest specific.

I actually found a quest specific monster for one of the quests that ended up being bugged. I could hear its chatter and even its attack sound, but it couldn't hurt me and I couldn't interact with it in any way. I assume a quest specific object wouldn't be pick-up-able.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
TVD, wtf is this blasphemy...

you DARE suggest that bethesda would not patch GAME BREAKING BUGS like this? they fucking made fallout 3.

how dare you lie and slander bethesdas mighty TES series like this! they should take you to court!


/sarcasam
 
The werewolf?

Anyway, as far as I can recall, there was an item editor mod that can give you any items you want and you can even modified its durability (max was like 40k), but I don't know if it's still online.

I think(can't remember, it's been 10 years, more or less) there was a mod that will give you all the reputation pts and reaction pts for all factions, and it might have been able to give you the unique monster ID which you can use a command to spawn it.
 
OakTable said:
I do think you guys tend to exagerrate how bad Oblivion is. "Oh man it's terribad! It's made by Bethesda and they RUINED Fallout FOREVER by making it like Oblivion, so it is horrible." I do admit they really need more voice-actors (I could care less if Captain Picard is going to be in the game if he dies 7 minutes in and cost you half your damn voiceacting budget) and the level-scaling stuff was annoying, but I enjoyed it. It's fun to romp about, hacking at random bandits in an abadoned mine.
Click to expand...

Yeah.. especially in endgame when those bandits are romping around in full Daedric armour as a result of level scaling. Good times...
 
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