Oblivion:First Time Players

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Welcome to Oblivion! This page is intended for people who have just started playing the game, and in particular for people who haven't played any of the previous Elder Scrolls games. There is a lot of advice on this website for how to play the game, which can be overwhelming at first. This page will provide just the key, basic information to get you started.

The most important piece of advice is: Play the game! Stop reading this Wiki, and just go have fun enjoying the game. When you're starting out, don't worry about making mistakes, and really don't worry about playing efficiently. The premise of this page is that at first, it is most important to spend as much time playing and as little time reading as possible. Although many links are provided to pages with more information, you do not need to read those linked pages at first.

A second piece of advice is to find the game difficulty setting under the options menu, and put the setting to its easiest value, because for first-time players, even the default "medium" difficulty setting can overwhelm you. This is not considered cheating, and the game does not keep track of what difficulty levels you have played at. At any point during the game, you can go back and readjust the difficulty (even in the middle of a fight if you want). Eventually, if you start to feel that the game isn't challenging any more, then you'll probably want to start increasing the difficulty a bit.

Contents

[edit] Tutorial

The game starts off with a tutorial that introduces most of the key game concepts. Escape From Prison provides a walkthrough of the tutorial.

You will be asked to make some choices to set up your character as you go through the tutorial. Don't worry too much about these choices: none of them are final. Even the decisions you made at first about your character's race and gender are not yet set in stone. At the very end of the tutorial (as you leave the sewer system), you will be given a chance to go back over all your choices and change them. Still, it is a good idea to try all forms of combat before you leave (magic, blade, blunt, arrows, hand to hand and sneaking) so you know what you would like to concentrate on later.

It is strongly recommended that before ending the tutorial (i.e., right before leaving the sewer system), you save your game, and don't delete that saved game. If you later decide you want to go back and play the game differently (i.e., create a new character), you can start from that saved game without having to redo the tutorial.

[edit] Character Creation

To fully set up your character you will need to make decisions about:

(You also get to choose a lot of options about your character's appearance, but these do not affect gameplay).

There is a page providing the details of Character Creation. In particular, you will find a lot of discussion of creating custom Classes in order to overcome the Leveling Problem. For now, ignore it. In order to start playing the game as quickly as possible, just use the game's default Classes and choose one that sounds like the type of character you want to play, or use the class that Baurus suggests. Similarly, choose whichever gender, race, and birthsign appeals to you, without worrying about the long term implications.

If you're just starting out with Oblivion you have a lot to learn about playing the game, including whether you even really enjoy the game. To truly take advantage of custom classes requires you to understand a lot of the mechanics of game play. Using a custom class intelligently can give you a stronger character in the end, but on the other hand, using a custom class also makes it possible to end up with a really weak character. The default classes in the game are designed to work well when you are starting out, without requiring you to spend a lot of time learning about Skills and Attributes. The skills that you enjoy using will improve quickly, and you will get a chance to experience some of the more powerful features made available when you improve your skills (e.g., the skill perks).

On the other hand, if you are a number cruncher or hard core player that wants to dive into the complexities of Oblivion's mechanics, it can be extremely helpful to use a detailed Character Creation Tool. Tools like OCP simulate your character's leveling so you can quickly find and avoid limiting configurations. Just remember that it is nigh impossible for a new player to really understand the complexities and subtleties of Oblivion's mechanics before ever playing -- don't get bogged down with your character creation choices at this point.

[edit] Starting Out

After you leave the sewers of the Imperial Prison, you are free to do anything you want to. If the plight of Emperor Uriel Septim appealed to you, you can continue doing the Main Quest. In that case, you will want to Deliver the Amulet to Weynon Priory. There is an arrow on your compass that shows you which way to go to complete that quest (probably red, meaning your destination is on the other side of a door; otherwise, green).

You can also decide that you have no interest in the Emperor, and head off and do your own thing. (If you ever change your mind, you can pick the quest up again; nothing will change in the meantime.) Wander into the Imperial City and talk with the townspeople. Swim across the lake in front of you and check out the gleaming white ruins (Vilverin) across the way. Walk towards some of the symbols that appear in your compass and see what is there. In any direction that you go, you are sure to find something to do.

This Wiki provides pages describing each place you will find in the game, and walkthroughs of every quest. The Quest Timing article explains why performing some quests earlier or later within the game may be beneficial. As you read through these pages, it is important to remember that a lot of aspects of the game are selected randomly. Therefore, the quest walkthroughs and place descriptions cannot tell you exactly what you will encounter. One character might find four imps, another character might find two spriggans, a minotaur, and a rat in the exact same place. Also, you may open a chest and find a great piece of enchanted armor; other characters might only find 5 gold. The page on Dungeons provides with more information on what to expect while exploring, and how randomness affects what you encounter.

[edit] Making a Bit of Cash

To get started with making some money, go clear a few dungeons and sell the loot. This also has the benefit of helping with leveling up, as described below. An easy way to make money is through alchemy. If you go around the guilds you have joined and collect the food, each of these can be made into a restore fatigue potion. These sell on average for around 6-12 gold each. Just make 100 and you have made a nice amount of gold. The food reappears in guild halls after a few days, so you have an essentially limitless supply of money. This also has the benefit of quickly leveling up your alchemy skill, and you will be making more advanced potions in no time. You could also join the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild and sell the items found in the guild halls, or make money by fighting in the Arena. Doing the Arena is one of the best ways to get money early in the game, because unlike most quests, the rewards do not change as your character's level increases, meaning there is no point saving it until later, and there is a lot of gold to be won.

[edit] Leveling Up

Once you have sufficiently increased the major skills of your class, a message will appear on your screen suggesting that you "rest and meditate on what you have learned". An icon will also appear at the bottom of the screen. This means that you are ready to level up; all you need to do is find a bed and sleep.

When you wake up, you will be presented with your list of Attributes and told that you can increase three of the eight values. For some of the values, you will see "+2" or "+3" next to them (up to a maximum of "+5" when you are either lucky, or have planned ahead); for the others, you will only get a +1 increase.

You probably want to choose Attributes that have large increases next to them; the one exception is Personality which rarely helps you (unless you are dying to get that extra coin or two when trading items), and should be avoided even if you have a +5 next to it. If in doubt Endurance is always a safe bet. If you're fighting face-to-face a lot, choose Strength; if you're mainly casting spells, both Intelligence and Willpower will help you; sneakier characters will probably want to choose Agility.

[edit] Improving Your Gameplay

Once you start to feel like you have the hang of things, you may wonder what else you could be doing. Chances are that you're not taking full advantage of all the skills and other opportunities in the game.

Some places to start browsing for additional information are:

[edit] This Wiki

If as you're using this Wiki, you see anything that you think needs correcting, or needs to be added to, go ahead and do it! Just set up an account and start editing. Even if you're new to Oblivion, we welcome your contributions. In fact, by being new to the game you may notice critical omissions that others have overlooked. If you see something that you think needs to be filled in, but don't know the information yourself, put a comment in the talk page; then someone else will know to fill it in.

There are several pages that provide information to help you start out with editing:

  • Help:Contents - A listing of various available help articles.
  • Quick Editing Guide - The bare minimum on how to get started.
  • Getting Started - An overview for new wiki editors, including links to other useful articles.
  • Mentor Program - Pick a mentor to help give you advice as you start out.
  • Style Guide - General guidelines to help you in writing articles.
  • Helping Out - An article with general suggestions on ways to contribute to the wiki.
  • IRC - Details about our IRC channel.

One word of caution, however: if you find a great magical item in a particular place, don't assume that everyone will be able to find it in that place. Since most items are placed randomly, it is generally difficult to predict where good pieces of loot will show up. The few places where you will see specific recommendations (i.e., Non Random Loot) have been verified by multiple players, or confirmed by looking at the game's internal mechanics (using the construction set). If in doubt, always feel free to ask on the talk pages.

[edit] What's Next?

After you have played for quite some time, you may find that you're having a hard time staying alive. That is the point at which the Leveling Problem has caught up with you.

Congratulations, you've now graduated past the First Time Players page! Now is the time to start over (using that game you saved at the end of the tutorial) and implement all the tidbits you've learned about playing the game. One of the great things about Oblivion is if you start with a new character, you don't have to redo anything that you previously did. You can choose to go in a completely different direction. Or if you enjoyed some of the quests, you can redo them and you'll probably find that the quests turn out a bit differently the second time around.

Retrieved from "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:First_Time_Players"
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