I´ve already said shouted out that I´m getting the Anthology for my collection and I couldn´t be more excited!! Pixies will be up as soon as it arrives unless one of you beat me to it

I think it´s an awesome thing to do; give out all the games in the series in one, big bundle and I really hope they´ll do the same to the Fallout series. Since Arena and Daggerfall are more hard to come by in physical form these days I´m the most excited about them though I don´t know if I´ll play them. But maybe I should, it almost feels like an obligation
I´m also excited about the maps. Not only will I get copies of the maps I already have, but also one of Tamriel as a whole and one of Iliac Bay!

Anyway, the poll is up! Do your thing!

I'm completely ambivalent towards it on account of already owning all the Elder Scrolls games I want, to be honest.

Also, I think you might have missed this thread. And placed this thread in completely the wrong forum...

As I´ve posted in it, no I didn´t miss it And I don´t think it belongs in that particular section since the Anthology has all the games and not just the old ones. Furthermore, I´m not sure if I can make a poll in that section. I couldn´t in the RPG section for some reason..

But yeah, the description of this section states "Anything but TES" but I didn´t see this thread fit for the Older Games section either

I agree with Mustard,already have em and I probaly wouldn't have the room for it anyway

Got it, playing Skyrim. I don't plan to take pictures of it, though, unless there's something you just can't wait to see.

I love the maps. I miss having manuals.

I realized I should have made an "Already got it" option in the poll when I clicked Post Thread *facepalm*

And I can´t edit the poll

I want it mainly for the maps, I already have the games that I would play.

But I can. I took the liberty of adding that poll choice for you.

I'm not going to get it. I'll simply drool over mirocu's copy.

I won't buy it. I have Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion already.

I hint if anyone actually wants to play Arena and/or Daggerfall: backup your savegame files regularly. Take breaks. Do not forget to re-set your teleportation anchor after EVERY use of recall!!!! You don't want to be stuck in a Daggerfall dungeon. Oh and in Arena, in the autogenerated dungeons, the staircases are always at the same height and the same distance from the nearest western or eastern wall. Passwall is your friend, too.

I bow down and raise my glass to Acadian´s assistance and stargelman´s advice!
It could be fun to just try out Arena and Daggerfall but everyone speaks so harshly about their legendary difficulty. Some have not even gotten past the tutorial in Daggerfall! But I´m getting this collection for precisely what it is; a collection of all Elder Scrolls titles

I'm giving it serious consideration as a source of Morrowind (with its expansions), and KotN. I haven't played either of those, yet.

I don't have Skyrim, either, but since the Anthology doesn't change anything about its requirement for Steam, it's not a factor. If I find that they've "steamed" the rest of the games, I won't get it. I already know that the DLC's for Oblivion aren't included (except as Steam downloads), but I wouldn't miss those.

Getting past the intro dungeon in Daggerfall isn't that challenging. But try and keep playing it with the tedium of the autogenerated dungeons, that's a real challenge. Unless you're really into random dungeon crawling, then it's probably a great thing. Personally, I preferred roaming the huge cityscapes

Surely you´ve played Morrowind??


It would be a shame if they´ve "steamed" all the games but at least I already have unsteamed versions of Morrowind and Oblivion. And I really think they should have added all DLCs for Oblivion! I can´t see any reason why not include those in this awesome collection!

Edit: Maybe I thought of Arena´s tutorial, stargelman. I know I´ve heard either game being legendary difficult right from the start.

Well, Arena has one big problem: there's very few character classes you can actually play with. Try playing as a bard or a thief, and you're doomed to certain death a few meters into the first dungeon. Need a spellsword or similar to survive at all. Perhaps a knight, but that gets difficult later on.

Yikes. Not much room for roleplay then, I guess

There aren't skills, either. But Arena makes up for it with atmosphere. It's fantastic. The MQ locations are breathtaking, as far as you can say that for game that's 20 years old. There's dark crypts deep under the earth that seem to stink of decay and where the weight of the stone above you seems to squash you into a claustrophobic pile of horror. There's zombie-infested underground dens. There's goblin-riddled spooky palaces where you find the last notes (and remains) of humans hunted to extinction. There's old mine shafts digged by dwarfes millennia ago. And there's inns with music so terrible it will make your ears bleed with horror.

It's worth it.

I’m pretty excited about checking out Arena and Daggerfall. It’s the wandering that appeals to me the most. Your advice (take breaks, awesome) will surely cut down on the number of “Gaaah WTF *bangs head*” posts I make in the Older Games forum.


Also I should mention the Anthology box. It feels nice in the hand, looks good, entices with pretty pictures, and is not a big Thing that I have to display somewhere.

Sadly the "No I'm not going to get it, but gosh-darned-it, it does look awesome!!" option is not there... ...

Given the lack of time I have, I wouldn't be able to give the older games their fair chance...

But the set does look well awesome innit!!...

No, won't be buying it, mainly because I have played them all already. My 2 cents for anyone thinking of it? If you haven't played Morrowind, grab it - still my favourite game I've ever played. Daggerfall is too damn hard, especially at first, but persevere with it and it rocks. Arena, must admit, I didn't care for in the slightest. Although having read Starge's post below, that might be because I tried to play it as a Thief. Twice. Badly.

Might as well skip Arena and Daggerfall and start with the third game IMO. Unless you're a masochist or don't mind restarting 7 times in the first dungeon them you probably won't like them much. People who say Morrowind's combat is broken/bad have probably never played the first two games.

Then there are various useless skills like languages, broken quests, and dungeons with no exits. I played Daggerfall for a very short time before calling it quits. Basically my opinion is that I didn't miss much.

Sorry!


Ooh, I so look forward to the box alone!! But now when my initial excitement has worn off I´m getting more irritated that every single one of the DLCs aren´t included. Is there a reason like keeping them exclusive or something? Is it about the prize? Because that is not an excuse; we who´re buying it would still buy it even if it cost a little bit more!
I already have every DLC to Oblivion (except Stronghold) but in a "complete" collection such as this, as a dev I´d make darn sure they were included!

Best as I can tell, it is laziness. No retail edition of Oblivion ever came with the DLC (apart from KOTN that was treated as a full expansion). Instead of making a new version that includes them, they've simply hauled the old manufacturing hardware out of storage I think. Not that I actually know how installation programs and disc-burners are made or operate.

A better example is morrowind perhaps. I've only seen the promo-image of the box, but I remember mentioning in one of the threads about the anthology that Morrowind apparantly comes on multiple discs. For clarification, Morrowind came before the dvd era and came on cds, as well as its expansions. Now a cd (man, this makes me feel old, I remember the floppy disk that held ~1 megabyte) holds only ~700 megabytes. The first time I bought Morrowind it came on two cds, one for the game and another for the construction kit. Disc-swapping was required during the installation process.

When Morrowind was later rereleased on dvd as GOTY, it and its expansions easily fit on one disc.

So there is no reason for Morrowind to need multiple discs for the anthology, unless the promo-image showed multiple discs solely as an easy visual for the expansions.



As for the poll, I am waving back and forth on it. On the one hand, shiny box and everything nice and tidy in one place (minus Oblivion DLC). Also, maps. On the other hand, I already have the three I would play.




And a question to those who did buy it. About the maps, does it show anything about the continents beyond Tamriel?

Nope. On the eastern map edge it says "The Padomaic Ocean," and on the western edge it says "The Eltheric Ocean."

One thing I´d also really like is paper manuls for each game. I know they have them for Morrowind onwards, but do they come with Arena and Daggerfall, Grits?

Nope. No manuals at all.

*weeps*

I've been playing laptop Skyrim with the Controls wiki page open on my phone. It's... not ideal.

Admittedly it would be better if the letters weren't worn off so many keys. I have to close my eyes and pretend to type in order to remember where some of the letters are.

Aren't there even PDFs for the manuals? Hard to believe

Goddammit! When will they ever release a complete collection!??

There’ a little slip of paper that tells you where to get the manuals online. So eventually I'll get around to making my own manuals. Still.

Also there’s a sticker promoting TES Online.

But I’d rather have manuals.


ETA: Oh!! There may be PDFs of the manuals on the Arena and Daggerfall discs. I haven’t checked.

Oh no not my precious information!

HOW DO I WALK!?!?!?!/

The Anthology is here!!!

It came in the mail this very day and I have now taken a few pixies to show anyone interested what it all looks like I must say though, I was very reluctant about breaking the plastic cover and ruining the mint. But then I thought, if I don´t open it up and appreciate it all, who will? Besides, I already have other unopened stuff in my collection so at least I have that
Besides not getting a full manual for each game plus all the DLCs I was a little bummed out about a chip in the lower right corner on the plastic box. Not too much of a biggie, but still.

Anyway, pixie time! Apologies if they´re not perfect

Front cover (with the chip)
Back cover
Box and booklet
Arena
Daggerfall
Morrowind + CS
Tribunal and Bloodmoon
Oblivion
Skyrim
Map of Tamriel
Map of Iliac Bay
Map cover + notes

You're probably right, either that or they had lots of extra copies laying around and figured out a way to sell them easily.

It does look very nice though going by the pics just posted by Mirocu.

mirocu! Congrats, my friend! I know how much you've been looking forward to getting that. What a collection you must now have! You'll have to get busy crafting new custom wooden display cases for it all now.

Thanks, Acadian! I really like my collection of Beth games And to think, you are to blame for it when you wiggled your KotN retail disc in front of me over at Bethsoft. You owe me some money, buddy!


Yeah, I want the same type of display cases they have in Oblivion!

Buuuut! Do you also have Redguard and Battlespire? No collection could be complete without those!

That´s exactly my point earlier! When will they ever release a complete collection!?? And I mean every DLC and full manuals for each game!!

-pouts-

I'm just messing with you. Both of these games were pretty crappy, and even I finished neither.

It doesn´t matter. They should be in a complete collection.

Of course I knew you were messing with me

Just got it. I'll be installing Morrowind as long as it's not Steamed, and then I'll look at whether Skyrim can be persuaded into permanent offline mode once it's registered. I'm not sure if I'll put KotN into my game, but that's a possibility, too.

My two septims on KOTN is to start without it so the Anvil chapel is pristine and fully functional until you are (if ever) ready to commence the KOTN quest. Then simply add it in to the existing game. Buffy's been walking past that prophet and trashed chapel years and may or may not ever do that quest. Once you start a game with KOTN installed, you can't 'undo' it without starting a new game (at least I couldn't figure out, within reason, how to).

Yeah I think that Bethsoft would just like to forget that they existed.

They actually did do Morrowind on multiple discs? Wow, I had totally convinced myself that it was only an advertising trick to show prospective buyers that the expansions were in.


As I've said, I've already got all the TES games I want to play but dangit, that case is so shiny and I haven't tossed enough fireballs at walls to level my willpower and resist. I'll just wait for my birthday. I usually get a discount coupon then from a bunch of online stores.


And yeah, Battlespire and Redguard weren't included because they weren't 'numbered' games but let's be honest, that's just pr-speak for 'we didn't want to'. I never played Redguard, but Battlespire is a proto-morrowind engine-wise and build up like a horrifyingly clunky first person shooter. With all the lack of shops and safe resting opportunities that implies. It did have more Daedra than even Oblivion though. I can kinda see Bethesda deciding to not include them. Apart from being a different beast, they're pretty obscure as well.

I s´pose you uncheck it in the launcher then as it automatically installs with Shivering Isles. Unfortunately I forgot to do that and only realized it many hours down the road *facepalm*



But in the name of collecting, I wants them!


Stargelman, send me your copies, would you kindly?

I actually do have them twice. I think I got them off ebay for some kind of competition that never happened or something.

Can I buy one of each from you!???

The complete collection also needs the best games in the series.

The Travel games.

Hmm, no "I wouldn't go near it with a ten-foot barge pole" option, so I'll settle for "Nope, don't care".

The fact that it contains Skyrim makes it an automatic no-buy for me. Besides I've got Morrowind and Oblivion, so the only one there that interests me is Daggerfall.

I got it solely in order to complete my collection with Arena and Daggerfall. I don´t give two pine cones about Skyrim. Although it is also part of the collection...

Why all the Skyrim hate?

Heh, you really don't want to ask me that. My answer is long, detailed, and venemous enough to melt plastic.

Suffice to say I disagree with many of the decisions made during development.

I like to call it...The TES Effect.

Each game in the series that comes out will always be called "Streamlined","Casual" or simply "Not as good as the last".

Happened with all of them really,expect maybe Daggerfall.