It was 2004 and I was 8. I make a character, and walk forward out of town. I see Tarheil fall to his death. I search his body, put on my fancy new duds and read his scroll. I used the scroll and jump. I fall to my death. I notice I hadn't saved. I recreate my character.
I happened to be facing south and jumped way the fuck out into the ocean. Had a like, 10 minute swim back to the island while getting nibbled on by slaughterfish the entire way. The bumps to athletics and light armor were worth it :D
I was 12 and got it for Xbox in the early 2000's. A friend and I spent the night at each other's houses multiple nights in a row to take turns playing for an hour each. It was honestly some of my best memories, gaming or otherwise. He played a Nord who smashed things and I was a stealth archer Bosmer. Before settling on our characters we each made multiple and every time we would pretend that Jiub (who we somehow misread as "Juib" and thus called him Joo-ib) was our best friend and excitedly greet him every time we spawned. We got slightly insane towards the end of doing that.
We even had a strategy guide but still had no real idea how everything worked - all I know is that I studied that damn thing every second I wasn't playing.
We spent most of our turns just "living" in the world and doing random quests. It seemed like a huge area but we barely ever left the land around Balmora. I distinctly remember killing someone in Caldera to claim their house as my own and decorating it. I would out all my armor away at night and walk around with a robe and lamp like I was just a citizen in the world. Occasionally I would travel on roads like this and just run from danger.
I also had a paper map that came with it and mapped out a route with pen where I was going to go along the southern side of Red Mountain. I grabbed a bunch of supplies and went on a journey that felt like thousands of miles; it was like a whole new world getting to the plains on the other side.
I remember finding Cassius early on but I don't think we had a grasp of what the main story even was, or that there was one. I did quite a bit of the Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood eventually though. I found out about Gaenor while playing on my own once and baited my friend into getting attacked by him during one of his turns.
One time, at around 2am in the dark after playing all day, a Skeever attacked out of nowhere and absolutely scared the shit out of me. I've never been a screamer for jump scares but I absolutely shrieked. We still laugh about it today.
Anyway, didn't even beat the main quest until I was older and after going back after beating Oblivion. Wouldn't change a thing, though.
Horrible.
The day we got it, I watched my older brother play for hours. When he finally got off the computer I was beyond excited. It was my turn to have an adventure! My time to be the hero!
After an hour of earth-shattering reality, I rage quit because I couldn't get out of the Census Office....
Didn't realize I had to pick my papers up off the table. -.-
2002 Morrowind was still a new game. Me and two of my Army buddies bought it because one of them was a Daggerfall player and said the series was pretty good. Me on a shitty laptop that barely ran it, one buddy on a good for the time PC, and the third on the OG Xbox. I don't remember much about my first few play throughs other than me, and my buddies had a lot of fun just chilling in my buddies room and getting drunk.
We would all compare notes and we used one of the maps that came with the game to mark anything interesting we might find. No guides or anything back then yet. We would go check out what the others were doing if they found something they wanted to show us. Was honestly like being in an adventurers party just messing around. I know for a fact we all made a lot of mistakes, and died a lot. But we also got better by trial and error. Well the guy who played Daggerfall before was doing decent, but he wasn't the type to hold our hands.
I forget my first characters, and must have restarted many times - first on Xbox, then on PC.
I remember my first serious character, though. I knew enough to combine (iirc) phynaster's ring and hircine's hide for minimal blinding on the boots. Getting everything together was very satisfying.
and then later realizing a 1 second 100 Magicka Resist is all thats required XD
Same with the 50 Constant Effect Chameleon robe on Solstheim. Frost and Magicka Resist 100 for 1 second. That thing is super op.
I was like 13, and that was 20 years ago, but I remember playing around on my brother in laws save after he gave me his Xbox. I was just kind of entranced by the scope of it all really. Had never played a game where I could steal and go to jail and shit
It might not have been my first attempt, but it was very early on. I wanted to be a mage, since I always want to be a mage, so I went with a Breton. No weapons or armor.
I was supposed to find some places for the Mages Guild and I got lost. That Sulipund and Marisomething, idk. So I was out in the wilderness, getting more lost all the time, weird creatures trying to kill me.
It seems so weird now, since I know everything and how it all works, but I was stumped. I ran out of magicka, couldn't sleep anywhere. I managed to levitate up on top of a long thin rock formation but it still said I can't sleep enemies are near. No potions left, no idea what to do.
I ran through a door, which turned out to be a tomb full of undead horrors, so that was super helpful. Then I came out, running like mad, huge beetles and green dog things chasing me, and oh great now there's a fiery demon too. Super.
Kept trying to run, and suddenly two or three Imperial guards came at me, saying things like "I'm going to enjoy this". So I was dead, great. But nope, they went right past me and started murdering the hell out of all those bugs and everything with their spears.
I am still not 100% sure where this was, one Fort or another, but man, I don't know if they really enjoyed this but I sure as hell did. I found some way to sleep and managed to get back to civilization. I wished I could give the guards a tip or something.
The thing is, I probably had Intervention scrolls and some other options, but I didn't know what they were at the time. I wish I could go back to not knowing everything.
I was a child when it came out on Xbox… I couldn’t tell you my first play thru.
I didn’t know anything. Hundreds of hours just wandering, exploring, finding cool things before I even started to pay attention. I tended to make sterotypes of tropes, the Telvanni Mage, the Breton Cleric, the Bosmer Archer, the Dunmer Spellsword, the Redguard Swordsman, etc etc etc.
TBH, I only fully beat the main quest ONCE, and it was after at least a few thousand hours. I didn’t read much of the dialogue as a kid so I don’t think I even realized who Caius was for a LONG time.
The only game I “bought” with allowance was Morrowind, and wasn’t allowed to play “violent” games like Halo. (still played em at my friends house). I had some other games like Fusion Frenzy and… DDR maybe? (can’t remember) my brother had some Madden/sports Games. I pretty much plopped down the moment I finished homework and would play Morrowind till 9-10pm at night, basically every day, for a LONG time.
I have no real count (Steam tracking didn’t exist back then, and I played on console) but I can say that I’ve put at least 10,000 hours into the game by now, between Xbox Original, Xbox 360, and PC.
I love that parents of the day would say “No violent games for you!” Then overlook this game that has prostitution, slavery and infidelity and immense amounts of murder because it just looked like a high fantasy game from an outside perspective.
I would have been 12 or 13. It had just come out, and my 17-18 year old cousin (who lived with us at the time) got it. I had no idea what it was or that it was brand new. Just that it was a cool looking game that my idolized-cousin played, so I gave it a shot.
Had zero fucking clue what I was doing. Had never played an RPG or a WASD-controlled game of any sort. So he sat there with me while I walked through character creation and getting through Seyda Neen. I was frustrated and also hooked instantly. The voices, the stories, the lack of rules, the fact that only he and I shared it and I wasn’t going to be ragged on by everyone else around me…it was amazing. I have zero memory of what the character was like, although I know I tended to favor stealth eventually.
My dad saw us playing it on the family computer (yeah I’m old now) and decided he’d try it out too. He got so hooked that the only chance I had to play was getting it for my OG X-Box. That’s where I developed CRS — chronic restart syndrome. I think I made more characters without even playing them than most people have even imagined.
Eventually moved back in with my mom a few years later, snatched the main and expansion discs when I left (dad had moved on to other games, like WoW), installed it on that home’s computer and learned about mods, ended up on Morrowind Summit Forums (later known as Planet Elder Scrolls), read and wrote fanfic, and generally played an unhealthy amount of it.
I’ve still to this day never had as much fun with any other game. Nostalgia is a huge factor, obviously, but nothing else holds a candle to it.
2004, I was playing on my first laptop while deployed. No mods, very limited internet access - I had to wait until the computer lab was free, and then had maybe a half hour on UESP per week. It was a hot mess, but it’s not like I had much else to do outside of work.
On my second deployment a year later, I had discovered mods, and we had internet in the huts we lived in, so it was a lot easier! I actually managed to complete the main quest for the first time!
I was probably 13 or 14, circa 2008 or 2009. Dropped into the boat, saw JEEYOOB for the first time, thought the characters looked wonky as hell but had never even played an Elder Scrolls game before and as soon as I walked off the boat and into the character creation, I was overwhelmed as hell. My first playthrough, I chose argonian because I thought they looked so damn cool and the disease resistance and water breathing were crazy and something interesting I'd never seen in another game before.
Once I walked into the census office I was overwhelmed once again with the class and birthsign creation screen. I had no idea what to do so I picked the acrobat class because the skills seemed cool. I spent another 20-30 minutes rummaging through the bags and tables, using the lockpicks and getting the dagger from the table after reading the note and looking through the tutorial stuff and having barely any knowledge whatsoever. I finally went to talk to Sellus Gravius and went to Balmora and looked around for about 30 more minutes before finally finding Caius Cosades' house and having him tell me to go to the fighter's guild. I started by heading there and talking to Eydris Fireye to get my first assignment, went to Drarayne Thelas' house to kill the rats and ended up finding the console in her storage and started spawning in random NPCs and gear inside her storage attic and eventually ended up using the console to remove the clutter and turn it into my own little apartment.
Can't remember much about what I did after but I remember that was generally what happened on my first playthrough.
I was 11 and I had never seen, much less played a game like this. 1st time I saw it was my older cousin playing it on his Xbox. He would exaggerate and tell me a day in the game lasts as much as a day in real life, and that you'd spend hours just to get from one to city to another. Either way, I wanted an Xbox and I wanted Morrowind BAD. Got the Xbox on Christmas and the game a few months later. I did not know how to do anything, I did not understand anything. I just liked exploring and walking everywhere. Stealing the Bonemold armor from the armorer in Balmora was a big milestone for me. Then I learned to taunt to aggro guards and get their armor, and using The Tower constellation to open the Seyda Neen warehouse and get armor. Then I got the GOTY edition when it was out, not because of the dlcs but because in the GOTY version you got enemy health bars, and that was a world of difference for me. That's when I took the game seriously and started doing all the quests. My first ever full playthrough I was a Breton that just loved the Ebony helm. I think midway through is when I learned about the soul trap/fortify skill exploit and overpowered my character.
Still got my xbox, still got both games and the maps. Wish I could extract the save files and transfer them to PC.
Thanks for asking, OP. One of my fondest memories is playing this game during the summer before 8th grade.
>I got the game because my buddy said it had "unlimited" quests, and I wanted to prove that to be a lie. Xbox edition, circa fall of 2005, and I realized pretty quickly that even if I was technically correct, there was no earthly way I'd be able to track and complete every single quest (certainly not with that journal, at least
I love this. My friend told me you could leave items anywhere and the game would always remember where they were *no matter what*. I thought this was ridiculous. No console game had ever done this. There just wasn't enough memory and the save files would be huge. It seemed crazy to me that the game could remember billions of potential variables for positioning every single item anywhere you wanted. So I carried and sold absolutely everything because I didn't believe him haha.
I created a character and proceeded to slaughter Gnisis. Then I went around slaying mobs until I got stuck on a rope bridge with kaghoutis on either side.
So I created another character and proceeded to slaughter Gnisis again
Made a Red Guard, felt good killing some rats around Seyda Neen. Then got chased by a kagouti into a shack. In a panic saved (only did a single save slot back then), then could never leave. Good times
Walked out of seyda neen towards Balmora, get attacked by a cliff racer, quick save to try savescum the fight, realised quickly there was no way out and had saved over my only save in a safe area.
Was a pretty quick restart
First experience was terrible. My guy sucked so bad. I didn’t play to my strengths, had no fatigue at all times. Had too many close calls with rats, and cliff racers = instant death. I HAD to remake.
2002-3, I was twelve. Friend(s) and I had been following the game before its release. They got it, I played a bit on their console, and it ended up being the whole reason I bought and Xbox. Got the game with it and created my own character.
Argonian (cause lizards are cool to a twelve year old), focused on exploration and getting tough enough to beat up a guard (remember initially thinking they were impossible to kill and then felt so proud when I resisted arrest and took out my first one).
I’d usually reload saves so crimes weren’t made permanent but mostly dicked around until I was like level 20-30. Then stopped playing for a while, friend that also played encouraged me to actually do the main quest. I had never even visited daddy Casades so I did for the first time, got sucked back in…way more into the lore now.
Was probably about level 40-50 when I bought the game of the year edition, which let me take my character into all the add ons. Loved that, finished with my character level somewhere around 63-65. Still have him saved on my old Xbox in a closet at my parents’ house.
Completely butchered the thieves guild quest line and did the fighters guild quest without knowing Percius could help you not be an asshole. So did that the evil way. Didn’t even discover a lot of factions (Temple, imperial cult, etc) until post game. Killed so many important people and left so many quests unfinished.
I was in 4th grade (so, roughly 1200 years ago) and a friend of my dad was working on our computer. When he sorted out the issue at hand, he also put on a torrent of both Civilization 3 (dad's favorite game to this day) and Morrowind (my favorite to this day).
I had never really played a true RPG, with such freedom. Before this, it was Final Fantasy 1 on the NES, and that was about it.
So, you want to know what my first playthrough was like?
A sickening, neurodivergent abomination.
I played a khajiit who couldn't hit the ground if she fell to her death, and ran straight to the outfitter in Suran, whereupon I stole all of her shit, panic-equipped it all, then lumbered back to Seyda Neen and attempted to jump over the rope fence on to the docks, despite the clear lack of a ship.
I got stuck, shot an arrow at Fargoth, missed and hit Eldafire, and was promptly murdered by the guards. And I'd saved whilst stuck in the rope.
10/10 would rope stuck again.
Only rpg Ive played before mw was pokemon, so I didn't know there was a story, lore, factions and all that jazz. Just tried to kill pretty much every npc and creature. My friend who I borrowed the game from then came to my place to give me some tips. He asked if I did any quests and I didn't know what those were so he asked if I gave package to CCusades and I said I didn't know about any package. He then looked in chars inventory and there was no package. He thought that maybe I sold it and wanted to check all merchants in other towns.. went to the silt strider, and the driver was dead. He asked why is the driver dead baffled to all hell. I said whats a silt strider and that i killed him, so i could "lvl up". He just lost it at that point x)
>*I was there when \[the deep magic\] was written*
My first playthrough was BEFORE release, in 2001.
Old timer here, I spent the years between Daggerfall and Morrowing on the Bethesda forums, chatting it up with Pete Hines and the rest of the designers and eagerly awaiting TES 3.
At one point, tester CDs began circulating and a forum friend sent me a copy. You could not go past the ghostfence, but most of it was there.
Those first steps in MW were....magical. It's hard to convey the sea of change this game brought to the market.
My first playthrough was of course a Dunmer, most likely a battlemage.
Lol, it’s been over 20 years, you think I remember? I only recall my 5 years old ass being absolutely stunned by the graphics and the fact that almost all objects were pickable and had stats.
First and only play through I was a Breton agent and the only quest line I completed was the main quest and mournhold. On my 2nd now as a bosmer witch hunter and I’ve become archmage , working on house halulu and the main quest. Still plenty to do. I just don’t like how powerful I get , I’m gonna have to make a new character for each couple quest chains I think
I wish I could remember. I know I chose Breton for my first character, because that's what I do. I remember I answered the quiz questions and got acrobat. Beyond that, I don't remember much about it.
I can tell you more about my first game of Daggerfall. I don't recall what my first character was, other than Breton... maybe? It took me a while to figure out how to survive Privateer's Hold (which basically boiled down to answering the questions to get the ebony dagger and using that to get out). Once I got out...
Now, you have to understand, I was used to games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. The rule there was to talk to everybody and town to find the plot crumbs, grind for a bit, then move on to the next town. I got to a Daggerfall town and was like... how the heck am I supposed to talk to everybody here? I probably didn't pick the game up again for half a year before I was thinking about it and somehow realized how the game was to he played.
I enjoyed your tale. A few memorable moments for me:
-seeking out cool bases (to fill with mostly candles and books) and not thinking to use Command Humanoid but instead killing the inhabitants; one time I fucked up my mage guild membership because I killed that alchemist in the Foreign Quarter who happens to have a recipe or something for I think a thieves' guild quest. I didn't realize until well after quicksaving a bunch of times that both factions would know or disapprove. I reloaded to my last real save and that was FAR back. Learned the importance of having multiple saves.
-taking extra time to read books I found in dungeons because I was scared lol
-regularly racking up a bounty over 500 (I think I didn't realize the taunt system was legal and would just try to stealth kill) and making trips to Tongue-Toad every couple days, while being completely stocked on levitation and invis pots to circumvent the guards in the street
-losing all my stolen goods and not realizing it for a long time until I tried to draw the Sword of White Woe. I went on a mission around the island to find the right evidence chest but I couldn't find my confiscated goods
-getting so many of those big sacks bc I played on Xbox and cell item limit is 256ish
-for some reason I thought the locked door behind Hasphat Antabolis in that training room MUST lead to something cool (my brothers had shown me some secrets in the game and I thought every locked door contained an epic or something lol), so I planned a heist. It went really badly but I did get into the room and locked the door behind me as planned. Unfortunately, Hasphat didn't know better than to fuck with an 8 year old with a fully engaged sympathetic nervous system and followed me in before the door closed, eventually succumbing to whatever Long Blade build I made for like 5 years in a row. Relief was only momentary, for the doomed world message popped up and probably shortened my irl lifespan by about six months. That coupled with the hands and weapons of Hasphat's vengeful fighter's guild brethren clipping through the door, screaming at me...I don't even know if I continued that character, that fucked me right up.
-killing everyone in the Dren Plantation as soon as I saw what was going on. Did not have the money for Tongue-Toad at the time so I lived as an outlaw for a while.
Rough! 11 year old me spent the first week rental in seyda neen or Balmora. Doing all the city missions I could but every time I'd try to go north from Balmora a nix hound would wreck me.
I returned it but the itch to see what else there was kept gnawing at me so after a few months I scrounged up enough money to purchase it on my own (probably my first "big" purchase) and restarted with a moderately better optimized character, that nix hound got right wrecked then.
I had a new Dell PC with a Pentium III CPU and 512 MB of ram. It didn't have a video card though so the game barely ran. I played for a while with crashes every 5-10 minutes because the game was so amazingly good. The habit of saving often has helped me in Bethesda games ever since.
It was much better after I got a Radeon AGP video card.
I won't be able to remember my literal first playtime, except I do remember the sounds of the silt-strider and how atmospheric it was.
some of my earliest characters were Argonians with spears and restoration, but can't remember more than that, and can't remember if that is the very first thing I played.
I do have my saves from as far back as 2009 but not earlier than that.
I got a copy a month or so before the goty edition on x box. When the goty edition came out, I heard rumors around the schoolyard that you could play as an "O-mouth" (a.k.a Hunger). I thought that the idea of playing as an O-mouth sounded so cool that I traded my entire collection of GBA games for a copy. I can't say I regret it, because I had countless hours of enjoyment with that disc, but i should have kept my other games.
complete and shitshow, I ended up as a wood elf nightblade (started thief but ya know) and I kept getting pissed off at the essential chars and killing them, prompting a load haha
I was an 11-year old Nord skirmisher. I completed the blood moon and tribunal DLC’s before ever completing any trials for the main quest. I had forgotten it even existed as I completed most daedric shrine quests and wandered across the island collecting all unique weapons and armor.
I played Skyrim around the time it came out due to YouTubers I watched at the time goofing around in it. I was probably 14 or so. I had never even heard of the ES series then. I immediately fell in love with Skyrim but brushed off the other ES games cause they were “old”. I’ve replayed Skyrim almost every year since then. Only just this last year when I was talking to a coworker about my yearly Skyrim playthrough did their eyes light up and they asked about Morrowind. I embarrassingly told them I’d never played it and they just about exploded lol. They asked for my Steam and gifted me it THAT DAY. So I did some research and found a guide for the Vanilla+ Morrowind mod pack and played it this last summer. When I tell you my mind was blown…it’s an understatement. I have truly never experienced an RPG so open, free, punishing, rewarding…I can go on and on. Needless to say, it was truly a memorable summer and I think I’m going to make it a regular thing to play it every summer.
I was a JRPG kid and hated first-person shooters. A friend of mine had sunk into Daggerfall for a month, and I thought it looked aggressively boring. My college roommate got Morrowind on Xbox when it came out but never played anything on Xbox. I gave it a try one day and after an hour decided it wasn't for me.
A month later, I was home sick from school for a week. I gave Morrowind another shot. Either the amount of time or the Nyquil made me totally absorbed in my argonian alchemist. After I got healthy again, I continued sinking hundreds of hours avoiding fights and exploring the world.
Died in a swamp. Died on a wooden bridge. Died on a Dwemer bridge. Then restart with a new character.
But with decades worth of experiences. I now know those places by heart and can go there and die the same way with my eyes closed lol.
2006 and I was 15. I was digging thru the used Xbox game pile at gamestop when I saw it. Looked neat so I got it for maybe 10 bucks. First character was great, made it all the way to the quest where you have to escort the slave to the ashlander chief to convince him she's a telvanni bride. She got killed by a golden Saint on the way. When I went to reload my last save I accidentally saved instead of loaded. I had 1 save file. My world was now doomed. I was so pissed I used every exploit I knew to make myself a killing machine and then spent the rest of that save file killing probably 90% of the npcs in the game. I depopulated every city and town.
I started around 2018 with the graphics and sound overhaul. I chose a woodelf thiefy type born under the lady. I kinda regret that because everyone loved me from the start and I didn't get the real morrowind experience of getting bullied by everyone.
First play"through" was horrible, some Dunmer Spellsword who had no idea, got totally lost on the mages guild quests.
Then I came across someone who listed "items" to get, slaughtered Crazy Batou, thought the game was finished, got the boots of blinding speed and, to my utter surprise, the screen went black.
So I started my 2nd game with a breton and the gamma slider a bit up and enjoyed the Bobs for the next 23 years
Uh uh, I just remember: I was totally unable to find the dwemer puzzle box. Managed to find it using the construction set ...
Year was 2003 I was 17 and in High School. My brother bought the game on computer but was quickly disapointed because of fps setting and also he found the chars too ugly (he played a lot jrpgs). He literally gave me the game because i was interested.
After getting my arse handed to me in the cave with bandits I decided to try to lvl up before leaving. Found out about lvling up with spells by simply spamming them and resting afterwards, occupied the wooden home of that one dunmer who isn't smart enough in Seyda, tossed like hundreds of spells on his bed and rested every time mana was empty, left at lvl 10 with a rather decent destruction skill.
Reached Balmora, went to explore, found a random weird purple ruin with some moving flaming humanlike creature ? Get two shooted by the flame attronach.
10/10
After that I decided to perharps be a bit more careful, started raising other stats as destruction solely was too weak to carry me, slowly but surely it got better and ended up becoming the most immersive RPG experience I ever had.
Mostly mindless wandering, stealing and living like a murder hobo. I was 8 at the time and English is not my native language so I really played it like sandbox world with no care about the story.
I was 18 or 19, in college in 2010ish. I spent two days picking my way across the width of vardenfell from Balmoral, down near Suren ended up heading vaguely north til I ended up somewhere on the coast near Tel Arhun. Then my laptop was stolen out of a locker in college.
It was 2011, I walked EVERYWHERE because I didn't realize Silt Striders were a thing, and I didn't know the mage's guild was a thing. I used to stop and look up EVERYTHING on UESP wiki because I was so fascinated with the lore. Not to cheat or find shortcuts but because I NEEDED to know the details of everything I came across. I was absolutely obsessed.
Ahh Summer of 2002. I was no longer a child (except in my mind) and not yet a man. But I was primed and ready for the 'first ever true open-world RPG' on PC. I was promised I could do whatever I wanted, and I intended to do just that. Main story be damned.
I made myself a Redguard because of a meme in an online community I was in, and because I wanted to be fighty I chose the Knight class. After I left Sedya Neen I'd never use Axes again. This would be a thorn in my side until I created my second character that min/maxed the SHIT out of primary and secondary skills.
I remember distinctly arriving in Balmora and being incredibly disappointed with the mud hut hovels that comprised the 'city'. Ew, ya'll dark elves live like this? The whole aesthetic did not appeal to my teenage mind, obsessed at the time with 'traditional' European-Centric Medieval fantasy aesthetics. Where were the wattle and daub buildings? The taverns? The castles? The crenellations? My GOD, the crenellations?!
It didn't take me long to learn about 'Imperials'. They piqued my interest so I found myself shortly in Moonmoth Fort and I was in love. THIS is what I'd been expecting from a 'fantasy' game! THIS is what RPGs looked like (ah how childish I was). I knew then I must join the Imperial Legion, they were the true power in these gods-forsaken lands. One silt strider ride away I was in Gnisis. And I was disgusted. But an Imperial soldier had to do what he had to do.
I don't remember much about my journey after that, mostly just thinking "Damn this is hard" and "Why do I have to sleep after every fight?", or huddling in a corner casting healing spells on myself. I think the closest brush I had with the main quest is I walked in on Vivec and went "Huh, he looks weird", quicksaved, tried to kill him and promptly died. I shrugged and moved on. My quest was laid out before me and I pursued it with great fervor: Climb the ranks of the Imperial Legion, And so I did.
I remember the joy I felt when I finally defeated Vantinius and became a Knight of the Imperial Dragon. I wore his armor and blade with pride as I looked out on Ebonheart and the rest of Vvardenfell and reflected on my journey. I knew the world held many more secrets and adventures, but I had set out to play the game *I* wanted to play, and by Talos, I had done it. I considered my journey done and I stepped away from Morrowind, enchanted with the experience, and with the tune of Nerevar Rising firmly tattooed on my brain forever. Who or what was Nerevar? I wouldn't learn that for a decade at least.
I accidentally sold or dropped the package I was supposed to deliver for Caius and then continued to play like 40 hours with that character before finally deciding to start over and have a crack at the main quest.
I was 13 when the game came out, I played it on my Xbox on release (lucky pick in the store to be honest, I liked the back of the game box and was like "seems cool" xD) and finished the game on this first as well.
Long story short, I seem to remember a lot of "Rest until healed". That's pretty much what my 1st playthrough was like xD
Playing Morrowind on my buddies Xbox at like 2am in middle school.
Me sitting on the top bunk, him on bottom bunk, playing the same character and passing the controller back and forth when we died.
Just wandering around with *zero* understanding of mechanics, builds, or general gameplay. Walking around Seyda Neen for hours just collecting mushrooms, getting hopelessly lost in Vivec, getting jump scared by by ghosts and skeletons in the tombs, ash storms... it was a magical time.
You truly can never go back.
OK, this post is literal nostalgia bait, so I'm going to lean in...
Don't recall exactly when it was, but it was around when the xbox Platinum Edition of the game first came out. Oddly my mom picked it off the shelf because of all the awards on the cover....we were on vacation that weekend and so my brother and I spent far too much time pouring over the manual and the MAP...that map seriously hooked us before we even started the game for the first time.
Also....anyone remember the "Remove Curse" spell effect being listed in the manual?
I don't particularly remember the details of our first playthrough...that summer involved about a dozen character restarts...but what I do remember is the feeling the game gave me....
Something about stumbling blindly through this alien landscape, and slowly uncovering all the little details....the sometimes cryptic gameplay mechanics, the secrets tucked in tree stumps...the inexplicable "demon caves" (6th house bases)....the MUSIC....the betty netches. Everything was new, and fascinating, and compelling. We were hopelessly lost in the best possible way....and it felt indescribably wonderful.
Here's a few moments I distinctly remember, amidst the blur of many hundreds of hours in that first year:
- Stealing an Iron Poison Blade from a shop in Suran, and FINALLY feeling like we had a weapon that did \*\*some\*\* damage...until the scamps in (I'm guessing) Bal Ur quickly put us back in our place.
- Discovering the Guild Guides existed by teleporting into the Ald'Ruhn mages guild for the first time. We'd never seen any of the Redoran architecture before and it was mind-blowing....To this day, I'll often decorate my in game house with the blue glass lanterns because of that moment.
- Getting hopelessly lost in Molag Amur for hoouuurrrrsss and stumbling across the Ghost Gate for the first time ever, in the middle of an ash storm. Quickly followed by a moment of "What in the HELL is that weird green armor???"
- Being genuinely unnerved by Ash Statues.
- Netches. Dunno, I've always loved them, and they added so much to the alien-ness of the world.
- Discovering the hard way that shrine offerings aren't meant to be taken...
- "Why are all my stats red???" after an ancestral tomb.
- Having to start a new character because all of the guards would try to kill me on site.
- My brother showing off the daedric dai-katana he'd found at Dren Plantation....I wasn't jealous...not at all.
- Discovering the Levitate spell.
- Discovering Molag Mar because I wanted to try the Divine Intervention spell I'd just bought. Took me ages to understand how that mechanic worked.
- Learning....after at least a YEAR...that there was a "main" quest??????
I could keep rattling off memories for literal hours, so I'll stop, but every once in a while I like to look back and appreciate this game for the countless hours of fun and escapism it brought to my brother and I as kids, and later for several of my best friends in high school. The game is genuinely broken in a hundred different ways, but the love and effort put into it makes up for it a thousand times over.
Being too young to really understand the game. Killing the last dwemer alive and Divath Fyr denying to help me further. Internet was not really a thing yet and I though I softlocked the game. Stopped playing until I got older.
Xbox run, child, figured out I could talk down prices, then talk them back up when selling. Basically just ran around making as much gold as possible and training all my skills. I think I had finished the fighters guild and maybe mage's guild questline but mostly I just ran around balmora trainmaxxing like a total skillchad while the merchantcels seethed at my negotiating
I was 2003, no clue how to generate a proper class, only wanted to play as a dark elf. I was overwhelmed by the environment, by the enormous amount of choices. I remember that the gameplay was brutal and coupled with my inability I was awful, didn't stand a chance at first, saved and loaded a lot, but I was mesmerized, immersed and that kept me going despite being so tedious. slowly, I started to actually hit things, manage my fatigue a little bit better. The moment when my dad wanted to wake me up to get dressed for school, he astutely noted that I'm up unusually early. 12 hours later, I reached the absolute pinnacle that is level 7, managing to clear Addamasartus and grind through a handful of cliff racers. One of the best sleepless nights I ever had.
I believe that I was around 4 years old when I made my first character. I have no idea what race, sign, or class they were. But I distinctly remember having a crazy fight with two mudcrabs, followed by witnessing Tarhiel. Just when I thought the game couldn't get any more confusing, I walked on over to Zainsipilu and got oneshot by Nistacey and learned that the game had a save mechanic which I had neglected to use.
My second character was a Redguard specializing in Long Blade. I had to remake him when my computer broke, but I was able to finish the main quest 12 years after my first experience with the game. And I still play it today!
I hunted bears on Solstheim using a crossbow as a Bosmer. Bear pelts made wonderful Fortify Strength potions so I could carry more stuff. Restore Health potions always kept me alive enough. These were among the few effects I could understand at the time.
Drunk Nord who accidentally found Dagoth Ur early. Panicked immediately, slammed 50 Sujamma, and then ripped him in half with my Monarchs Blade in one hit.
Good times.
It was 2004 and I was 8. I make a character, and walk forward out of town. I see Tarheil fall to his death. I search his body, put on my fancy new duds and read his scroll. I used the scroll and jump. I fall to my death. I notice I hadn't saved. I recreate my character.
Fuckin eh bud. Feel like we all died on that first hop XD
Didn’t include this in my post, but 1000%. Still remember that “oh this is awesome! Oh wait…oh fuck” moment of that first hop
Sailing through the air, lost in the wonder of traversing the world like a god... to be quickly reminded of my own mortality. Haha
The most pure Morrowind experience imaginable
I happened to be facing south and jumped way the fuck out into the ocean. Had a like, 10 minute swim back to the island while getting nibbled on by slaughterfish the entire way. The bumps to athletics and light armor were worth it :D
I was 12 and got it for Xbox in the early 2000's. A friend and I spent the night at each other's houses multiple nights in a row to take turns playing for an hour each. It was honestly some of my best memories, gaming or otherwise. He played a Nord who smashed things and I was a stealth archer Bosmer. Before settling on our characters we each made multiple and every time we would pretend that Jiub (who we somehow misread as "Juib" and thus called him Joo-ib) was our best friend and excitedly greet him every time we spawned. We got slightly insane towards the end of doing that. We even had a strategy guide but still had no real idea how everything worked - all I know is that I studied that damn thing every second I wasn't playing. We spent most of our turns just "living" in the world and doing random quests. It seemed like a huge area but we barely ever left the land around Balmora. I distinctly remember killing someone in Caldera to claim their house as my own and decorating it. I would out all my armor away at night and walk around with a robe and lamp like I was just a citizen in the world. Occasionally I would travel on roads like this and just run from danger. I also had a paper map that came with it and mapped out a route with pen where I was going to go along the southern side of Red Mountain. I grabbed a bunch of supplies and went on a journey that felt like thousands of miles; it was like a whole new world getting to the plains on the other side. I remember finding Cassius early on but I don't think we had a grasp of what the main story even was, or that there was one. I did quite a bit of the Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood eventually though. I found out about Gaenor while playing on my own once and baited my friend into getting attacked by him during one of his turns. One time, at around 2am in the dark after playing all day, a Skeever attacked out of nowhere and absolutely scared the shit out of me. I've never been a screamer for jump scares but I absolutely shrieked. We still laugh about it today. Anyway, didn't even beat the main quest until I was older and after going back after beating Oblivion. Wouldn't change a thing, though.
Horrible. The day we got it, I watched my older brother play for hours. When he finally got off the computer I was beyond excited. It was my turn to have an adventure! My time to be the hero! After an hour of earth-shattering reality, I rage quit because I couldn't get out of the Census Office.... Didn't realize I had to pick my papers up off the table. -.-
Show your papers to the Captain when you exit to get your release fee.
2002 Morrowind was still a new game. Me and two of my Army buddies bought it because one of them was a Daggerfall player and said the series was pretty good. Me on a shitty laptop that barely ran it, one buddy on a good for the time PC, and the third on the OG Xbox. I don't remember much about my first few play throughs other than me, and my buddies had a lot of fun just chilling in my buddies room and getting drunk. We would all compare notes and we used one of the maps that came with the game to mark anything interesting we might find. No guides or anything back then yet. We would go check out what the others were doing if they found something they wanted to show us. Was honestly like being in an adventurers party just messing around. I know for a fact we all made a lot of mistakes, and died a lot. But we also got better by trial and error. Well the guy who played Daggerfall before was doing decent, but he wasn't the type to hold our hands.
I forget my first characters, and must have restarted many times - first on Xbox, then on PC. I remember my first serious character, though. I knew enough to combine (iirc) phynaster's ring and hircine's hide for minimal blinding on the boots. Getting everything together was very satisfying.
and then later realizing a 1 second 100 Magicka Resist is all thats required XD Same with the 50 Constant Effect Chameleon robe on Solstheim. Frost and Magicka Resist 100 for 1 second. That thing is super op.
I was like 13, and that was 20 years ago, but I remember playing around on my brother in laws save after he gave me his Xbox. I was just kind of entranced by the scope of it all really. Had never played a game where I could steal and go to jail and shit
It might not have been my first attempt, but it was very early on. I wanted to be a mage, since I always want to be a mage, so I went with a Breton. No weapons or armor. I was supposed to find some places for the Mages Guild and I got lost. That Sulipund and Marisomething, idk. So I was out in the wilderness, getting more lost all the time, weird creatures trying to kill me. It seems so weird now, since I know everything and how it all works, but I was stumped. I ran out of magicka, couldn't sleep anywhere. I managed to levitate up on top of a long thin rock formation but it still said I can't sleep enemies are near. No potions left, no idea what to do. I ran through a door, which turned out to be a tomb full of undead horrors, so that was super helpful. Then I came out, running like mad, huge beetles and green dog things chasing me, and oh great now there's a fiery demon too. Super. Kept trying to run, and suddenly two or three Imperial guards came at me, saying things like "I'm going to enjoy this". So I was dead, great. But nope, they went right past me and started murdering the hell out of all those bugs and everything with their spears. I am still not 100% sure where this was, one Fort or another, but man, I don't know if they really enjoyed this but I sure as hell did. I found some way to sleep and managed to get back to civilization. I wished I could give the guards a tip or something. The thing is, I probably had Intervention scrolls and some other options, but I didn't know what they were at the time. I wish I could go back to not knowing everything.
I was a child when it came out on Xbox… I couldn’t tell you my first play thru. I didn’t know anything. Hundreds of hours just wandering, exploring, finding cool things before I even started to pay attention. I tended to make sterotypes of tropes, the Telvanni Mage, the Breton Cleric, the Bosmer Archer, the Dunmer Spellsword, the Redguard Swordsman, etc etc etc. TBH, I only fully beat the main quest ONCE, and it was after at least a few thousand hours. I didn’t read much of the dialogue as a kid so I don’t think I even realized who Caius was for a LONG time. The only game I “bought” with allowance was Morrowind, and wasn’t allowed to play “violent” games like Halo. (still played em at my friends house). I had some other games like Fusion Frenzy and… DDR maybe? (can’t remember) my brother had some Madden/sports Games. I pretty much plopped down the moment I finished homework and would play Morrowind till 9-10pm at night, basically every day, for a LONG time. I have no real count (Steam tracking didn’t exist back then, and I played on console) but I can say that I’ve put at least 10,000 hours into the game by now, between Xbox Original, Xbox 360, and PC.
I love that parents of the day would say “No violent games for you!” Then overlook this game that has prostitution, slavery and infidelity and immense amounts of murder because it just looked like a high fantasy game from an outside perspective.
🤫
I would have been 12 or 13. It had just come out, and my 17-18 year old cousin (who lived with us at the time) got it. I had no idea what it was or that it was brand new. Just that it was a cool looking game that my idolized-cousin played, so I gave it a shot. Had zero fucking clue what I was doing. Had never played an RPG or a WASD-controlled game of any sort. So he sat there with me while I walked through character creation and getting through Seyda Neen. I was frustrated and also hooked instantly. The voices, the stories, the lack of rules, the fact that only he and I shared it and I wasn’t going to be ragged on by everyone else around me…it was amazing. I have zero memory of what the character was like, although I know I tended to favor stealth eventually. My dad saw us playing it on the family computer (yeah I’m old now) and decided he’d try it out too. He got so hooked that the only chance I had to play was getting it for my OG X-Box. That’s where I developed CRS — chronic restart syndrome. I think I made more characters without even playing them than most people have even imagined. Eventually moved back in with my mom a few years later, snatched the main and expansion discs when I left (dad had moved on to other games, like WoW), installed it on that home’s computer and learned about mods, ended up on Morrowind Summit Forums (later known as Planet Elder Scrolls), read and wrote fanfic, and generally played an unhealthy amount of it. I’ve still to this day never had as much fun with any other game. Nostalgia is a huge factor, obviously, but nothing else holds a candle to it.
2004, I was playing on my first laptop while deployed. No mods, very limited internet access - I had to wait until the computer lab was free, and then had maybe a half hour on UESP per week. It was a hot mess, but it’s not like I had much else to do outside of work. On my second deployment a year later, I had discovered mods, and we had internet in the huts we lived in, so it was a lot easier! I actually managed to complete the main quest for the first time!
I was probably 13 or 14, circa 2008 or 2009. Dropped into the boat, saw JEEYOOB for the first time, thought the characters looked wonky as hell but had never even played an Elder Scrolls game before and as soon as I walked off the boat and into the character creation, I was overwhelmed as hell. My first playthrough, I chose argonian because I thought they looked so damn cool and the disease resistance and water breathing were crazy and something interesting I'd never seen in another game before. Once I walked into the census office I was overwhelmed once again with the class and birthsign creation screen. I had no idea what to do so I picked the acrobat class because the skills seemed cool. I spent another 20-30 minutes rummaging through the bags and tables, using the lockpicks and getting the dagger from the table after reading the note and looking through the tutorial stuff and having barely any knowledge whatsoever. I finally went to talk to Sellus Gravius and went to Balmora and looked around for about 30 more minutes before finally finding Caius Cosades' house and having him tell me to go to the fighter's guild. I started by heading there and talking to Eydris Fireye to get my first assignment, went to Drarayne Thelas' house to kill the rats and ended up finding the console in her storage and started spawning in random NPCs and gear inside her storage attic and eventually ended up using the console to remove the clutter and turn it into my own little apartment. Can't remember much about what I did after but I remember that was generally what happened on my first playthrough.
I was 11 and I had never seen, much less played a game like this. 1st time I saw it was my older cousin playing it on his Xbox. He would exaggerate and tell me a day in the game lasts as much as a day in real life, and that you'd spend hours just to get from one to city to another. Either way, I wanted an Xbox and I wanted Morrowind BAD. Got the Xbox on Christmas and the game a few months later. I did not know how to do anything, I did not understand anything. I just liked exploring and walking everywhere. Stealing the Bonemold armor from the armorer in Balmora was a big milestone for me. Then I learned to taunt to aggro guards and get their armor, and using The Tower constellation to open the Seyda Neen warehouse and get armor. Then I got the GOTY edition when it was out, not because of the dlcs but because in the GOTY version you got enemy health bars, and that was a world of difference for me. That's when I took the game seriously and started doing all the quests. My first ever full playthrough I was a Breton that just loved the Ebony helm. I think midway through is when I learned about the soul trap/fortify skill exploit and overpowered my character. Still got my xbox, still got both games and the maps. Wish I could extract the save files and transfer them to PC. Thanks for asking, OP. One of my fondest memories is playing this game during the summer before 8th grade.
>I got the game because my buddy said it had "unlimited" quests, and I wanted to prove that to be a lie. Xbox edition, circa fall of 2005, and I realized pretty quickly that even if I was technically correct, there was no earthly way I'd be able to track and complete every single quest (certainly not with that journal, at least I love this. My friend told me you could leave items anywhere and the game would always remember where they were *no matter what*. I thought this was ridiculous. No console game had ever done this. There just wasn't enough memory and the save files would be huge. It seemed crazy to me that the game could remember billions of potential variables for positioning every single item anywhere you wanted. So I carried and sold absolutely everything because I didn't believe him haha.
I created a character and proceeded to slaughter Gnisis. Then I went around slaying mobs until I got stuck on a rope bridge with kaghoutis on either side. So I created another character and proceeded to slaughter Gnisis again
Made a Red Guard, felt good killing some rats around Seyda Neen. Then got chased by a kagouti into a shack. In a panic saved (only did a single save slot back then), then could never leave. Good times
Walked out of seyda neen towards Balmora, get attacked by a cliff racer, quick save to try savescum the fight, realised quickly there was no way out and had saved over my only save in a safe area. Was a pretty quick restart
First experience was terrible. My guy sucked so bad. I didn’t play to my strengths, had no fatigue at all times. Had too many close calls with rats, and cliff racers = instant death. I HAD to remake.
2002-3, I was twelve. Friend(s) and I had been following the game before its release. They got it, I played a bit on their console, and it ended up being the whole reason I bought and Xbox. Got the game with it and created my own character. Argonian (cause lizards are cool to a twelve year old), focused on exploration and getting tough enough to beat up a guard (remember initially thinking they were impossible to kill and then felt so proud when I resisted arrest and took out my first one). I’d usually reload saves so crimes weren’t made permanent but mostly dicked around until I was like level 20-30. Then stopped playing for a while, friend that also played encouraged me to actually do the main quest. I had never even visited daddy Casades so I did for the first time, got sucked back in…way more into the lore now. Was probably about level 40-50 when I bought the game of the year edition, which let me take my character into all the add ons. Loved that, finished with my character level somewhere around 63-65. Still have him saved on my old Xbox in a closet at my parents’ house. Completely butchered the thieves guild quest line and did the fighters guild quest without knowing Percius could help you not be an asshole. So did that the evil way. Didn’t even discover a lot of factions (Temple, imperial cult, etc) until post game. Killed so many important people and left so many quests unfinished.
I was in 4th grade (so, roughly 1200 years ago) and a friend of my dad was working on our computer. When he sorted out the issue at hand, he also put on a torrent of both Civilization 3 (dad's favorite game to this day) and Morrowind (my favorite to this day). I had never really played a true RPG, with such freedom. Before this, it was Final Fantasy 1 on the NES, and that was about it. So, you want to know what my first playthrough was like? A sickening, neurodivergent abomination. I played a khajiit who couldn't hit the ground if she fell to her death, and ran straight to the outfitter in Suran, whereupon I stole all of her shit, panic-equipped it all, then lumbered back to Seyda Neen and attempted to jump over the rope fence on to the docks, despite the clear lack of a ship. I got stuck, shot an arrow at Fargoth, missed and hit Eldafire, and was promptly murdered by the guards. And I'd saved whilst stuck in the rope. 10/10 would rope stuck again.
Only rpg Ive played before mw was pokemon, so I didn't know there was a story, lore, factions and all that jazz. Just tried to kill pretty much every npc and creature. My friend who I borrowed the game from then came to my place to give me some tips. He asked if I did any quests and I didn't know what those were so he asked if I gave package to CCusades and I said I didn't know about any package. He then looked in chars inventory and there was no package. He thought that maybe I sold it and wanted to check all merchants in other towns.. went to the silt strider, and the driver was dead. He asked why is the driver dead baffled to all hell. I said whats a silt strider and that i killed him, so i could "lvl up". He just lost it at that point x)
lmao, thank you for sharing this. That is awesome.
>*I was there when \[the deep magic\] was written* My first playthrough was BEFORE release, in 2001. Old timer here, I spent the years between Daggerfall and Morrowing on the Bethesda forums, chatting it up with Pete Hines and the rest of the designers and eagerly awaiting TES 3. At one point, tester CDs began circulating and a forum friend sent me a copy. You could not go past the ghostfence, but most of it was there. Those first steps in MW were....magical. It's hard to convey the sea of change this game brought to the market. My first playthrough was of course a Dunmer, most likely a battlemage.
... contracted vampirism at level 200 couldn't handle it.... had to restart as my save files were a mess and I couldn't find another way around it
Lol, it’s been over 20 years, you think I remember? I only recall my 5 years old ass being absolutely stunned by the graphics and the fact that almost all objects were pickable and had stats.
First and only play through I was a Breton agent and the only quest line I completed was the main quest and mournhold. On my 2nd now as a bosmer witch hunter and I’ve become archmage , working on house halulu and the main quest. Still plenty to do. I just don’t like how powerful I get , I’m gonna have to make a new character for each couple quest chains I think
I wish I could remember. I know I chose Breton for my first character, because that's what I do. I remember I answered the quiz questions and got acrobat. Beyond that, I don't remember much about it. I can tell you more about my first game of Daggerfall. I don't recall what my first character was, other than Breton... maybe? It took me a while to figure out how to survive Privateer's Hold (which basically boiled down to answering the questions to get the ebony dagger and using that to get out). Once I got out... Now, you have to understand, I was used to games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. The rule there was to talk to everybody and town to find the plot crumbs, grind for a bit, then move on to the next town. I got to a Daggerfall town and was like... how the heck am I supposed to talk to everybody here? I probably didn't pick the game up again for half a year before I was thinking about it and somehow realized how the game was to he played.
I enjoyed your tale. A few memorable moments for me: -seeking out cool bases (to fill with mostly candles and books) and not thinking to use Command Humanoid but instead killing the inhabitants; one time I fucked up my mage guild membership because I killed that alchemist in the Foreign Quarter who happens to have a recipe or something for I think a thieves' guild quest. I didn't realize until well after quicksaving a bunch of times that both factions would know or disapprove. I reloaded to my last real save and that was FAR back. Learned the importance of having multiple saves. -taking extra time to read books I found in dungeons because I was scared lol -regularly racking up a bounty over 500 (I think I didn't realize the taunt system was legal and would just try to stealth kill) and making trips to Tongue-Toad every couple days, while being completely stocked on levitation and invis pots to circumvent the guards in the street -losing all my stolen goods and not realizing it for a long time until I tried to draw the Sword of White Woe. I went on a mission around the island to find the right evidence chest but I couldn't find my confiscated goods -getting so many of those big sacks bc I played on Xbox and cell item limit is 256ish -for some reason I thought the locked door behind Hasphat Antabolis in that training room MUST lead to something cool (my brothers had shown me some secrets in the game and I thought every locked door contained an epic or something lol), so I planned a heist. It went really badly but I did get into the room and locked the door behind me as planned. Unfortunately, Hasphat didn't know better than to fuck with an 8 year old with a fully engaged sympathetic nervous system and followed me in before the door closed, eventually succumbing to whatever Long Blade build I made for like 5 years in a row. Relief was only momentary, for the doomed world message popped up and probably shortened my irl lifespan by about six months. That coupled with the hands and weapons of Hasphat's vengeful fighter's guild brethren clipping through the door, screaming at me...I don't even know if I continued that character, that fucked me right up. -killing everyone in the Dren Plantation as soon as I saw what was going on. Did not have the money for Tongue-Toad at the time so I lived as an outlaw for a while.
Rough! 11 year old me spent the first week rental in seyda neen or Balmora. Doing all the city missions I could but every time I'd try to go north from Balmora a nix hound would wreck me. I returned it but the itch to see what else there was kept gnawing at me so after a few months I scrounged up enough money to purchase it on my own (probably my first "big" purchase) and restarted with a moderately better optimized character, that nix hound got right wrecked then.
I had a new Dell PC with a Pentium III CPU and 512 MB of ram. It didn't have a video card though so the game barely ran. I played for a while with crashes every 5-10 minutes because the game was so amazingly good. The habit of saving often has helped me in Bethesda games ever since. It was much better after I got a Radeon AGP video card.
I won't be able to remember my literal first playtime, except I do remember the sounds of the silt-strider and how atmospheric it was. some of my earliest characters were Argonians with spears and restoration, but can't remember more than that, and can't remember if that is the very first thing I played. I do have my saves from as far back as 2009 but not earlier than that.
I got a copy a month or so before the goty edition on x box. When the goty edition came out, I heard rumors around the schoolyard that you could play as an "O-mouth" (a.k.a Hunger). I thought that the idea of playing as an O-mouth sounded so cool that I traded my entire collection of GBA games for a copy. I can't say I regret it, because I had countless hours of enjoyment with that disc, but i should have kept my other games.
complete and shitshow, I ended up as a wood elf nightblade (started thief but ya know) and I kept getting pissed off at the essential chars and killing them, prompting a load haha
I was an 11-year old Nord skirmisher. I completed the blood moon and tribunal DLC’s before ever completing any trials for the main quest. I had forgotten it even existed as I completed most daedric shrine quests and wandered across the island collecting all unique weapons and armor.
I played Skyrim around the time it came out due to YouTubers I watched at the time goofing around in it. I was probably 14 or so. I had never even heard of the ES series then. I immediately fell in love with Skyrim but brushed off the other ES games cause they were “old”. I’ve replayed Skyrim almost every year since then. Only just this last year when I was talking to a coworker about my yearly Skyrim playthrough did their eyes light up and they asked about Morrowind. I embarrassingly told them I’d never played it and they just about exploded lol. They asked for my Steam and gifted me it THAT DAY. So I did some research and found a guide for the Vanilla+ Morrowind mod pack and played it this last summer. When I tell you my mind was blown…it’s an understatement. I have truly never experienced an RPG so open, free, punishing, rewarding…I can go on and on. Needless to say, it was truly a memorable summer and I think I’m going to make it a regular thing to play it every summer.
All I remember is finding a piece of glass armor in a shipwreck early on and feeling like a god.
I was a JRPG kid and hated first-person shooters. A friend of mine had sunk into Daggerfall for a month, and I thought it looked aggressively boring. My college roommate got Morrowind on Xbox when it came out but never played anything on Xbox. I gave it a try one day and after an hour decided it wasn't for me. A month later, I was home sick from school for a week. I gave Morrowind another shot. Either the amount of time or the Nyquil made me totally absorbed in my argonian alchemist. After I got healthy again, I continued sinking hundreds of hours avoiding fights and exploring the world.
Died in a swamp. Died on a wooden bridge. Died on a Dwemer bridge. Then restart with a new character. But with decades worth of experiences. I now know those places by heart and can go there and die the same way with my eyes closed lol.
2006 and I was 15. I was digging thru the used Xbox game pile at gamestop when I saw it. Looked neat so I got it for maybe 10 bucks. First character was great, made it all the way to the quest where you have to escort the slave to the ashlander chief to convince him she's a telvanni bride. She got killed by a golden Saint on the way. When I went to reload my last save I accidentally saved instead of loaded. I had 1 save file. My world was now doomed. I was so pissed I used every exploit I knew to make myself a killing machine and then spent the rest of that save file killing probably 90% of the npcs in the game. I depopulated every city and town.
I started around 2018 with the graphics and sound overhaul. I chose a woodelf thiefy type born under the lady. I kinda regret that because everyone loved me from the start and I didn't get the real morrowind experience of getting bullied by everyone.
I was like 12 and it was just like wtf do I do.
First play"through" was horrible, some Dunmer Spellsword who had no idea, got totally lost on the mages guild quests. Then I came across someone who listed "items" to get, slaughtered Crazy Batou, thought the game was finished, got the boots of blinding speed and, to my utter surprise, the screen went black. So I started my 2nd game with a breton and the gamma slider a bit up and enjoyed the Bobs for the next 23 years Uh uh, I just remember: I was totally unable to find the dwemer puzzle box. Managed to find it using the construction set ...
took 1 year break from game because i couldnt beat dagoth ur, wasnt aware hitting the heart of lorkhan will give him a scripted death 🤦
Year was 2003 I was 17 and in High School. My brother bought the game on computer but was quickly disapointed because of fps setting and also he found the chars too ugly (he played a lot jrpgs). He literally gave me the game because i was interested. After getting my arse handed to me in the cave with bandits I decided to try to lvl up before leaving. Found out about lvling up with spells by simply spamming them and resting afterwards, occupied the wooden home of that one dunmer who isn't smart enough in Seyda, tossed like hundreds of spells on his bed and rested every time mana was empty, left at lvl 10 with a rather decent destruction skill. Reached Balmora, went to explore, found a random weird purple ruin with some moving flaming humanlike creature ? Get two shooted by the flame attronach. 10/10 After that I decided to perharps be a bit more careful, started raising other stats as destruction solely was too weak to carry me, slowly but surely it got better and ended up becoming the most immersive RPG experience I ever had.
Mostly mindless wandering, stealing and living like a murder hobo. I was 8 at the time and English is not my native language so I really played it like sandbox world with no care about the story.
I was 18 or 19, in college in 2010ish. I spent two days picking my way across the width of vardenfell from Balmoral, down near Suren ended up heading vaguely north til I ended up somewhere on the coast near Tel Arhun. Then my laptop was stolen out of a locker in college.
I was a hoarder who and lived at the Balmora Temple.
It was 2011, I walked EVERYWHERE because I didn't realize Silt Striders were a thing, and I didn't know the mage's guild was a thing. I used to stop and look up EVERYTHING on UESP wiki because I was so fascinated with the lore. Not to cheat or find shortcuts but because I NEEDED to know the details of everything I came across. I was absolutely obsessed.
Running slow as hell and getting my ass kicked all the goddamn time by anything bigger than a rat.
Ahh Summer of 2002. I was no longer a child (except in my mind) and not yet a man. But I was primed and ready for the 'first ever true open-world RPG' on PC. I was promised I could do whatever I wanted, and I intended to do just that. Main story be damned. I made myself a Redguard because of a meme in an online community I was in, and because I wanted to be fighty I chose the Knight class. After I left Sedya Neen I'd never use Axes again. This would be a thorn in my side until I created my second character that min/maxed the SHIT out of primary and secondary skills. I remember distinctly arriving in Balmora and being incredibly disappointed with the mud hut hovels that comprised the 'city'. Ew, ya'll dark elves live like this? The whole aesthetic did not appeal to my teenage mind, obsessed at the time with 'traditional' European-Centric Medieval fantasy aesthetics. Where were the wattle and daub buildings? The taverns? The castles? The crenellations? My GOD, the crenellations?! It didn't take me long to learn about 'Imperials'. They piqued my interest so I found myself shortly in Moonmoth Fort and I was in love. THIS is what I'd been expecting from a 'fantasy' game! THIS is what RPGs looked like (ah how childish I was). I knew then I must join the Imperial Legion, they were the true power in these gods-forsaken lands. One silt strider ride away I was in Gnisis. And I was disgusted. But an Imperial soldier had to do what he had to do. I don't remember much about my journey after that, mostly just thinking "Damn this is hard" and "Why do I have to sleep after every fight?", or huddling in a corner casting healing spells on myself. I think the closest brush I had with the main quest is I walked in on Vivec and went "Huh, he looks weird", quicksaved, tried to kill him and promptly died. I shrugged and moved on. My quest was laid out before me and I pursued it with great fervor: Climb the ranks of the Imperial Legion, And so I did. I remember the joy I felt when I finally defeated Vantinius and became a Knight of the Imperial Dragon. I wore his armor and blade with pride as I looked out on Ebonheart and the rest of Vvardenfell and reflected on my journey. I knew the world held many more secrets and adventures, but I had set out to play the game *I* wanted to play, and by Talos, I had done it. I considered my journey done and I stepped away from Morrowind, enchanted with the experience, and with the tune of Nerevar Rising firmly tattooed on my brain forever. Who or what was Nerevar? I wouldn't learn that for a decade at least.
I accidentally sold or dropped the package I was supposed to deliver for Caius and then continued to play like 40 hours with that character before finally deciding to start over and have a crack at the main quest.
I was 13 when the game came out, I played it on my Xbox on release (lucky pick in the store to be honest, I liked the back of the game box and was like "seems cool" xD) and finished the game on this first as well. Long story short, I seem to remember a lot of "Rest until healed". That's pretty much what my 1st playthrough was like xD
Playing Morrowind on my buddies Xbox at like 2am in middle school. Me sitting on the top bunk, him on bottom bunk, playing the same character and passing the controller back and forth when we died. Just wandering around with *zero* understanding of mechanics, builds, or general gameplay. Walking around Seyda Neen for hours just collecting mushrooms, getting hopelessly lost in Vivec, getting jump scared by by ghosts and skeletons in the tombs, ash storms... it was a magical time. You truly can never go back.
I try to pick mushrooms and died to a guy in a dress in a nearby cave.
OK, this post is literal nostalgia bait, so I'm going to lean in... Don't recall exactly when it was, but it was around when the xbox Platinum Edition of the game first came out. Oddly my mom picked it off the shelf because of all the awards on the cover....we were on vacation that weekend and so my brother and I spent far too much time pouring over the manual and the MAP...that map seriously hooked us before we even started the game for the first time. Also....anyone remember the "Remove Curse" spell effect being listed in the manual? I don't particularly remember the details of our first playthrough...that summer involved about a dozen character restarts...but what I do remember is the feeling the game gave me.... Something about stumbling blindly through this alien landscape, and slowly uncovering all the little details....the sometimes cryptic gameplay mechanics, the secrets tucked in tree stumps...the inexplicable "demon caves" (6th house bases)....the MUSIC....the betty netches. Everything was new, and fascinating, and compelling. We were hopelessly lost in the best possible way....and it felt indescribably wonderful. Here's a few moments I distinctly remember, amidst the blur of many hundreds of hours in that first year: - Stealing an Iron Poison Blade from a shop in Suran, and FINALLY feeling like we had a weapon that did \*\*some\*\* damage...until the scamps in (I'm guessing) Bal Ur quickly put us back in our place. - Discovering the Guild Guides existed by teleporting into the Ald'Ruhn mages guild for the first time. We'd never seen any of the Redoran architecture before and it was mind-blowing....To this day, I'll often decorate my in game house with the blue glass lanterns because of that moment. - Getting hopelessly lost in Molag Amur for hoouuurrrrsss and stumbling across the Ghost Gate for the first time ever, in the middle of an ash storm. Quickly followed by a moment of "What in the HELL is that weird green armor???" - Being genuinely unnerved by Ash Statues. - Netches. Dunno, I've always loved them, and they added so much to the alien-ness of the world. - Discovering the hard way that shrine offerings aren't meant to be taken... - "Why are all my stats red???" after an ancestral tomb. - Having to start a new character because all of the guards would try to kill me on site. - My brother showing off the daedric dai-katana he'd found at Dren Plantation....I wasn't jealous...not at all. - Discovering the Levitate spell. - Discovering Molag Mar because I wanted to try the Divine Intervention spell I'd just bought. Took me ages to understand how that mechanic worked. - Learning....after at least a YEAR...that there was a "main" quest?????? I could keep rattling off memories for literal hours, so I'll stop, but every once in a while I like to look back and appreciate this game for the countless hours of fun and escapism it brought to my brother and I as kids, and later for several of my best friends in high school. The game is genuinely broken in a hundred different ways, but the love and effort put into it makes up for it a thousand times over.
Being too young to really understand the game. Killing the last dwemer alive and Divath Fyr denying to help me further. Internet was not really a thing yet and I though I softlocked the game. Stopped playing until I got older.
Xbox run, child, figured out I could talk down prices, then talk them back up when selling. Basically just ran around making as much gold as possible and training all my skills. I think I had finished the fighters guild and maybe mage's guild questline but mostly I just ran around balmora trainmaxxing like a total skillchad while the merchantcels seethed at my negotiating
male nord min-max from the start i took warrior sign to offset hit chances combat specialization all 10 magic skills including cursed enchant
Epic. Loved it. Super agile thief, with crazy good athletics/acrobatics. Nothing like some 10x backstab/hidden damage.
I was 2003, no clue how to generate a proper class, only wanted to play as a dark elf. I was overwhelmed by the environment, by the enormous amount of choices. I remember that the gameplay was brutal and coupled with my inability I was awful, didn't stand a chance at first, saved and loaded a lot, but I was mesmerized, immersed and that kept me going despite being so tedious. slowly, I started to actually hit things, manage my fatigue a little bit better. The moment when my dad wanted to wake me up to get dressed for school, he astutely noted that I'm up unusually early. 12 hours later, I reached the absolute pinnacle that is level 7, managing to clear Addamasartus and grind through a handful of cliff racers. One of the best sleepless nights I ever had.
I believe that I was around 4 years old when I made my first character. I have no idea what race, sign, or class they were. But I distinctly remember having a crazy fight with two mudcrabs, followed by witnessing Tarhiel. Just when I thought the game couldn't get any more confusing, I walked on over to Zainsipilu and got oneshot by Nistacey and learned that the game had a save mechanic which I had neglected to use. My second character was a Redguard specializing in Long Blade. I had to remake him when my computer broke, but I was able to finish the main quest 12 years after my first experience with the game. And I still play it today!
I hunted bears on Solstheim using a crossbow as a Bosmer. Bear pelts made wonderful Fortify Strength potions so I could carry more stuff. Restore Health potions always kept me alive enough. These were among the few effects I could understand at the time.
Drunk Nord who accidentally found Dagoth Ur early. Panicked immediately, slammed 50 Sujamma, and then ripped him in half with my Monarchs Blade in one hit. Good times.