A restrospective
So, as I mentioned, I love playing The Elder Scrolls, it was the first sandbox-adventure RPG I ever played. I started on Morrowind around the time I was twelve, but I wasn't old enough to appreciate it at the time. Fast forward about four years and I finally owned my own Xbox, so, being of an older age and appreciation for games, sought out a copy of Morrowind. Now I'm sure anyone that has played this game knows exactly how hard it is to immerse yourself in the game, from the scripted characters with lifeless faces, to the stale combat. So after about five failed characters, I resolved myself to really "Roleplay", thus Rorie was born, an Imperial Paladin sent to Morrowind by Uriel Septim to improve relations between the Dunmer and the Imperial Legion. The first things I did were really get into the Paladin mindset, as you probably know, the Census office is full of things that you can sell off to fully equip your character right off the bat, well, naturally, I stayed away from that and had to do tasks in Seyda Neen to buy my equipment, one item at a time, starting with the menial task of clearing out Addamasartus, to investigating the murder of the tax collector. Secondly, I avoided using the Silt Riders, any other time I had played I robbed the Census office, bought my weapons and armor, and hopped on the Silt Rider straight to Balmora, little did I know how much adventure I was missing, I had never even known about Pelegiad. After I had reached Balmora by foot, which takes about two ingame days of walking, I sought out Caius, where he gave me the initial Blades quest, blend in, and I took that very seriously, so I enrolled in the Fighters Guild and worked my way up until the quest for the Orcs bounty came up. Now that Orc had a nice house in the northeast corner of Balmora, and as an added bonus too the bounty, I took the house as my own and spent days decorating it and filling the bookshelves and just having all these little things that made that house feel like a home for Rorie. Now, I could go on about his story, mainly because I have about 100 hours logged on him, but I'd rather not bore you all with that.
Now, I honestly think Morrowind is the best of the recent three games, it has an amazing story, a giant world, and it doesn't hold your hand every step of the way. The magicka system is the best that I've seen, so many spells, the spell creation list is great and so was the item enchanting. All good things have a downside though, as with many sandbox games back then, the gameplay was lacking so much. Melee combat was atrocious and stealth seemed like filler text that was unusable, no matter how stealthy I thought i was being, anyone could spot me from a town away.
Now, I stated before that I think Oblivion was the worst of the three that I have played, but by no means am I implying its a bad game, it was just really dumbed down since Morrowind, magic items had to constantly be refilled, the character models were awkward, especially the male walk cycle and a similar staleness in combat. They failed at recreating the Khajit and Argonians, they lost so many bestial qualities and it just enraged me. Now, on to my experience with the game.
Once again I made Rorie, but with no idea how to continue on his story, I decided to make it his origin story. I interpreted the opening as an in-character dream, and as soon as I left the sewers I immediately traveled to Chorrol and enrolled in the fighters guild. He wakes up from the dream and finds the Amulet of Kings under his pillow, extremely confused, he sought out Jauffrey. From there I did fighters guild quests to raise his self esteem and fighting capabilities, I made him almost the polar opposite of his hardened Millitary older version and played him as a scared young adult trying to be useful. I gave him none of the restoration skills that he had in Morrowind, to symbolize his growing into Paladinhood. Soon after my first encounter with an Oblivion gate, his fears had been realised, having faced demons only told of in stories. He heard of a prophet in Anvil, and sought him out, starting the Knights of the Nine questline. As I went through and completed all the tasks that made him a better person, he realised that he needed to give his life for the Nine. When I finished the KotN, I continued on the mainquest, clad in the armor, and full of confidence. Now, to fit the story line, and to just fuck up the continuity, I replaced Martin Septim with Uriel, giving Rorie a connection to the empire, and a friend in high places. Honestly, I sped through Oblivion on Rorie, mainly because I had already beaten it on a Breton Spellsword, but it still gave him a good backstory, which helped alot when I moved onto Skyrim.
Now to the Holy Grail of current sandbox RPG's, Skyrim. Skyrim is a mixed bag of feelings for me, it is an amazing well put together game with terrific combat, but at the sake of something I loved from previous games, the stats and classes, it seems like they took out so much of what made it Elder Scrolls in character creation and just left the class system behind. Otherwise, I have to say, aside from the bugs that are akin to such a big game, its absolutely flawless.
So, continuing my tradition of playing Rorie, I set this out to be the middle of his timeline, completely tossing aside the notion of a 200 year time skip. He was making his way to the Nord lands of Skyrim to aid the Imperial on their skirmishes with the Stormcloak rebellion, when he was caught in the raid that imprisons your character. After Alduin attacks, I followed after the Imperial friend you made through the ruined keep and make my way to safety. Once again I specialize in restoration, heavy armor, shields and one handed weapons, so off to my Paladinly roleplaying adventure. So, I set off along the quest line to Dragonsreach where he met the love of his life, Lydia. She and Rorie fought their way through waves of Stormcloaks on the warfront in the name of the Imperial Legion, where at the end of their campaign, they showed down with Ulfric Stormcloak. After all that quest line was done, I felt a bit of emptiness, that was his purpose, I had no drive or ingame reason to go on and fight against the dragons. So I felt a bit of the retired life, making money chopping wood and hunting, forging new armor, and taking a pilgrimage to the Mages academy, where he perfected his restoration magicks. Soon after a Dragon spawned near the guild and gave me renewed vigor to keep going on the main quest. Now, out of character, I wanted Lydia to die during the fight with Alduin, giving Rorie a reason to retire almost indefinitely until the events of Morrowind would bring him back into the action, but sadly, I could not bring her with me to Valhalla, so I had to be content with the 4 to one fight with Alduin, in which the most epic scene for a battle, he called down his meteor swarm shout, and i yelled back with a thunderstorm, the epicness was almost solid, until I realised that I had to wait 5 minutes for Dragonrend to be available and I had just failed. I had reset and taken on Alduin in the boring just meteor storm where I easily beat him by tactically placed a rock between me and him.
Thats it for my Elder Scrolls experience, thanks for reading, I had alot of fun writing it, and I hope you read what I have to come
~Vvasssrieal
