I gotta say this was interesting. I thought I was the only one with one character. But then again a few of you may not have played so long.
I thought as late as last night about making a new character. I wasn′t serious but playing with the thought but it felt so impossible as I already know so much about everything in Cyrodiil. Exploration is what makes me tick ^_^

I almost can′t believe that some of you have made 100 or more characters, especially in these short years! I guess many of them never even left the sewers

Thanks to all for voting and posting. As I said, this was interesting

I think that counting the number of characters, by itself, is pretty meaningless. To make sense of that number we also have to know (as you said) how long we have been playing Oblivion. We also have to know how many other games we have played during that time. Some of us came to Oblivion years after others and have stopped playing Oblivion for significant periods of time to play other games, while others of us have played since launch and pretty much stuck with it.

In my case I've been playing Oblivion since the day it was released. During that time I guess I've spent about a week playing Dragon Age and about two months playing WoW. The rest of the time I've spent playing Oblivion. Which means that I've been playing for approximately 1, 600 days now. If I played for two hours a day that adds up to over 3, 000 hours playing Oblivion between March, 2006 and November, 2010. I suspect many of those who claim to have made fewer than 10 characters have not played as many hours as I have.

Another thing: as I said in my earlier post I counted test characters, failed characters, lost characters due to corrupt saves, etc, etc...every single character made for any reason. I think most people with low numbers in this thread aren't doing that.

I could also counter your statement above with one of my own: I almost can't believe that some players have not made more than 10 characters. Does nobody experiment with different races, different classes, to see how they feel? Are people just picking the first class and race and appearance that looks and sounds "good enough"?

I have a lot of curiosity about this game. I like to try different approaches to things. I like to experiment. I experiment in life as well as in games. It's hard for me to imagine a person not feeling curious about some aspect of the game and starting a character to see what that aspect is like. To me, the idea of playing just one character sounds boring. But if others enjoy playing that way, I think that's great. It's their game.

You indeed have good points there, for example why not experiment? Well, for me it′s just that I make one character, as I can be only one myself regarding race etc. May sound boring, but that′s my way to play.
I regret that I didn′t make a Nord instead of Dunmer, but at the same time I′m happy with him as he is what I thought was good back then.
As for hours, I don′t have 3000, but 1400+ and with the same character mind you I have played Oblivion almost exclusively since Feb 2007, with almost just one exception of Morrowind which I started Apr this year.

Me too, but it's the exploration of character that interests me the most.



First off, I'm retired, so I can put what time I want to into the game. I only save characters after they come out of the sewers, so my count is of characters that at least got that far.

Like Pseron Wyrd, I am including "failed characters." I generally play three or four characters at a time, alternating among them, and the characters in a "set" are usually quite different from one another. (They have to be; I'd never keep them straight if they were too alike.) I play any character at least through level 4 or 5; that's enough time to get to know them. I lose interest in some of them by then, and drop them. Those that continue beyond that level have usually "grabbed" my imagination, and they keep going for a long time.

Some of them are "dead is dead," and they die eventually. It's hard when that happens to a character that you like, but that's life, isn't it?

Around level 20, I find that characters are getting too powerful, and I've done too much with them. They usually just "retire" then, which simply means that I just stop loading the save game. Once in a while, I'll go back and visit an old friend for a while, but I rarely save whatever we do then.

Yeah actually I was a bit off there. Of course they made it past the sewers, you save just before and make changes from there, stupid me <_<
Don′t get me wrong, I totally understand your way of playing. It′s just that I have played it my way for so long my mind was kind of locked a bit

I voted 9 before I saw that you meant... ever... :facepalm:
Turns out it's 11, as far as I can remember.

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Actually, I don't do the save at the end of the tutorial any more. I do sometimes make adjustments to the character before leaving the sewer, based upon things that happened in the tutorial. All of my characters go through the tutorial; it's part of the "growing" process, where we iron out the details of who the character is, and what they like and dislike. There are a number of different ways to deal with the "problems" one encounters in the tutorial, and roleplaying for me starts there. For instance, I usually have no absolute idea about the character's birthsign, and by the time we get to where we talk to the Emperor about it, we've generally got it sorted out.

Likewise with class, which is usually selected based upon the skills which were actually used the most during the tutorial (if only Bethesda had actually done that, as opposed to giving us these "fixed" classes, and Baurus's bad guesses!) The exception is when I'm intentionally re-creating a particular character, like one of my present characters, Heddvild, who is based upon the Nord Barbarian who saunters around Balmora in Morrowind. Or when one of my characters needs to specialize in a skill that, unaccountably, we are not allowed to use in most of the tutorial, like Illusion or Mysticism.

This too, is how I feel, me and my Khajiit, Mzaar'Rhashi have traveled together, and have accomplished so much in our time. Our next big goal is to find the remaining relics of The Crusader and save the world. Again. :foodndrink:

I have made well over ten, but I have two main characters.

Heirstang, my level 33 Nord Warrior. A good 200 Hours on him. Great times ( I will definitely remake him for TES 5 )

And Draga, my level 14 Rouge/sorcerer type character. He's a dunmer, and we have also had good times. A little under 100 hours for him.

And many many more, who are less important, but still fun.

I can't imagine only creating one character, starting over in an elder scrolls game is half the fun for me. Haha.

To each his own!! :laugh:

Ah, I missed that. My apologies, and brilliant idea! Thank you!

I can understand that even though I don′t practise it myself
I think Acadian said it best. You play it your way, I play it my way and we both have fun :foodndrink:

I am replying to this based on my experiences in all Elder Scrolls games, because I consider them at my disposal.
I have 2 characters that I consider to be my main characters, who have reappeared countless times over the years and I play constantly. Both of them have been recreated several times over the games I have played, and have changed drastically from what they once were (indeed, they are still evolving)
I probably have 20+ characters that I have played for over 50 hours each, and will still go back and play on occasion. These characters fill specific roles for me, but are not as fleshed out or as unique as my main characters. For instance I have a warrior/paladin type character that I enjoy playing, but he is only ever 'the warrior/paladin guy.'
Total characters that I have made? Hundreds. Hundreds upon hundreds.

Indeed they are, but this poll is only about characters in Oblivion

I have made just one, with almost 100 hours of gameplay, and lots of exploring to do

Since starting to play in May 2010, I've probably created about 15, but I've kept the save files for 11 of them. I keep all the save files in named folders in the My Games directory where the Oblvion Saves folder lives. Then I keep the saves for each character sorted by number and compress them as they fill up (e.g., "1 to 100.zip" "101 to 200.zip"). About 600 hours of play time in total, and I have yet to finish a single main quest! I enjoy just killing Goblins, wandering from place to place, and when I get tired of a particular character I just make another one.

I have made 2 characters since my first time!
I created for first time, a Nord called Sepht Volturi as my main character, i reached level 12 and at that time, i's like to try making a girl then i created Veronica Volturi (Sepht's sister), an Imperial, born under the sigh of the assasin, im playing with that character and im level 19 at the moment.

That′s just my thing, as I said in my opening post. I envy people like you who still can enjoy the game from the beginning, even though you already are familiar with it. Creating a new character isn′t enough for me :nope:

I can think of eight characters that I've created (no, wait, make that ten), but there might be one or two I've forgotten because I haven't played them much. But some of those I've played more than others.

11.
- an Imperial (male, warrior). Survived the mainquest but I lost him in the end of FG
- a High Elf (female, mage). Slain in the Battle of Bruma
5 dunmers (two thives, one in DB, one in MG and a figther)
- a Falmer (female, from a mod) can't remember where I left her, she was boring
- a Chimer (mod too, of course) happily survived MQ and FG, now lives in New Sheoth
- another Dunmer (male, custom class) KN, MQ, still lives in Cheydinhal
- and another Dunmer created three weeks ago (male, custom class, custom everything). On his way to Weynon Priory now.

Just made a new PS3 account a few weeks ago around christmas, and i'm going for an argonian male mage trying to thnk of a name

I've only ever made three. I would make more at a time, but the concept of finishing a quest in one game, but having it still be available in another seems kind of weird to me. I enjoy the idea that doing something here will change something over there.

Same here. I don′t understand how so many gamers can have so many characters going on at once. I would have a hard time keeping track of which character has done what :ahhh:

It's called roleplaying. Those of us who roleplay often make completely different characters when we start a new game. The personalities of those characters dictate what that character does in that particular game. There is no way my magic-distrusting barbarian warrior would ever do the Mages Guild recommendations. There's no way my mage will ever do the Fighters Guild.

Did Tolstoy write only one a book? Did Picasso paint only one picture? Each time I play a character I tell a new story. I paint a new picture, using the game as my canvas.

Sounds like one can′t RP a single character only? :blink:

I think that′s obvious. It′s the minor quests I figure that can be hard to keep track of who has done what

I think you folks may have dropped some packets in your conversation. I believe that cory was referring to playing multiple characters at the same time. While Pseron Wyrd seems to be thinking he meant playing multiple characters, not at the same time, but one after the other. But looking back, maybe I am completely misreading cory's statement. Now I am confused. :facepalm:

For myself personally, I can only RP a single character at a time. But I have played many characters overall. I guess you could say I practice serial monogamy.