Poll: Best Elder Scrolls opening sequence

[Tom_green_day]

Did Oblivion even have one? All I remember is several hundred hours of cellars. Preferred Skyrim so much more in every way.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Morrowind. Because it was short.

More to the point, it was functional.
Who are you?
What do you look like?
Sweet, now here are your instructions to start the main quest, off you go and play this amazing huge game.

PS, look out for the Cliff Racers.

I guess it's weakness was that it didn't give you anything for the story, so a lot of players get bored before it all kicks off, their loss.

 

[romxxii]

They've all got terrible openings. If there's one consistent thing about the Elder Scrolls games, it's that you always start off as a prisoner and through some contrivance -- be it running an errand, stumbling onto an assassination attempt, or a stay of execution via dragon -- you begin your journey to becoming an extremely overpowered and imbalanced demigod.

 

[hyplion]

You miss 2 TES games in your poll.... (4 if you count in redguard and that horrible battlespire, but those are not TES games as we know and love them)

for me its daggefall, the emperor sends you on a mission but before reaching daggerfall you get shipwrecked, the only time you are not a prisoner.

 

[synobal]

Don't get me wrong Morrowind is a classic opening but I think for over all design Oblivion wins hands down. The dungeon, the action, drawing you into the main story, and then stepping out of the sewer for the first time and the world just hits you. It was exceptionally well done.

I think Skyrim had the weakest of the three openings honestly.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

Game starts and I'm about to get executed! Skyrim it is.

I just found out that you could pick between following the imperials or that rebel dude. Curious.. who the hell would follow the imperial pigs that just tried to execute you? Also kind of ironic that if it hadn't been for Alduin, you'd suffer from a bad case of DEAD before the game even begins.

One gripe about the Skyrim intro is that they never tell you why you are on the execution cart.

One of the guards tells his captain that you were caught crossing the border. Perhaps the imperial twats consider that a crime worthy of death by execution? They are dicks like that.

 

[endtherapture]

What would you lik to see in the opening sequence for TES6?

So we are talking about a game that does not exist and will continue to not exist for the next five years, yet you omitted Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire and Redguard?

Well what happened in the openings of those games?

 

[tangoprime]

For first time viewing? Skyim's, because it's the only one that actually does what an opening is supposed to do, aka SET UP THE GAME'S SETTING.

In Skyrim's opening we
-Get a view of Nordic culture
-Learn there is a civil war
-Learn The Empire got their asses headed to them by elves
-Learn dragons are coming back
We learn pretty much every single major issue going on in the world in that opening, and about the people involved in those events.

Oblivion and Morrowind are half assed as shit in this regard, Oblivion we learn someone is trying to kill TEH EMPEROR, but that's pretty much it, Cyrodiil? Imperials? Thieu culture? whats that?, you wouldn't know, because the game doesn't tell you, and in Morrowind's.... actually, we learn nothing from Morrowind's opening, the cutscene before the opening told us we were sent to Morrowind just cuz......, but it doesn't exactly tell us jack shit about Morrowind, or whats going on in it, or what exactly this prophecy is about.

In terms of replaying it, Morrowind's, only because it was short.

Ditto this. I also enjoyed how, even if you didn't want to get involved with the main quest, you could still reasonably ignore it, and your background was left ambiguous. You were crossing the border at the wrong place and the wrong time. Which way, or why, or your original origin/destination aren't told, you can decide. I like the touch of you not being on their list, then mentioning they'll have your remains sent to *homeland of your chosen character race*. After the craziness, you're told you should head into the nearest town down the mountain (loved the natural flow to escaping and moving down into the valley to come across your first town) where you can get some help and a bite to eat, then told you should go warn Whiterun, but have no obligations.

I've enjoyed it every time.

Captcha: yelling goat ...well if he'd been a running goat instead of being a yelling goat, I wouldn't have put an arrow in him and turned him into my first leather shield in Riverwood.

 

[Longstreet]

Skyrim of course, hands down.

I might be a bit biased though, it's the only TES game i have played.

Ironically its also the only things that keeps me from playing that game again, can't be arsed to sit through that intro again.

 

[itsthesheppy]

Morrowind. Hands down. It was short, sweet, and to the point. You're a prisoner being released, here's a name and a place, go.

Oblivion was a little better. Skyrim was pretty bad.

 

[triggrhappy94]

The beginning is always the worst part of TES games--unless you're trying to use a glitch to raise skills.

Morrowind was the shortest, so it gets points for that.
Skyrim was action-y, you get to see the sweet decapitation mechanic, and you almost get killed. Points for that.
Oblivion saw the raise and fall of Emperor Captain Pichard. Points for that.

I want to say Oblivion, maybe because I played that one the most. I feel like it had the most subtlety and allowed you to participate more, even if it maybe the longest.

 

[afroebob]

Never played Marrowind but Oblivion and Skyrim had some of the shittiest openings of all time. One is going through a shitty dungeon being told shit you knew nothing about and the other was riding in a shitty cart with a bunch of people talking about shit you know nothing about (and ripping off CoD 4's rather great opening) then going through a shitty cave. I love Skyrim and like Oblivion but they have some atrocious openings an, no offense, but anyone who thinks they where anything but shit are.... well... I don't want to get banned so just use your imagination.