Hey guys, so some of my buddies have raved about Oblivion / Skyrim but I never picked em up. I've always been a fan of MMOs but lately nothing has been able to keep my attention... WoW turned to [censored] after Cataclysm, SW:TOR was great for a week but then turned out awful, GW2 was actually really fun for a while but got really boring after finishing the story with one character, due to lack of end game and PvP. The Secret World has a sweet story but combat is really boring...

AAANYWAYS... looking at this game, it has piqued my interest. I understand that a lot of ES games has to do with lore and story-line. I am thinking about playing through Oblivion and/or Skyrim while waiting to for release. Do I NEED to play Oblivion? Or if I do Skyrim will that be enough ES experience to have a good basis for ESO?

Looking forward to open beta! Then I will judge whether to pick ESO up or not... I vowed to never pay a sub fee for MMO again, but if the PvP is good enough I may consider it!

Technically, you wouldn't need to play any other game to be able to play ESO. Playing Skyrim will get you familiar with the graphics style, mechanics, and some of the controls. It will also get you introduced to the lore.

There's no need to play more than one of the games, though.

Thanks, I will probably just grab Skyrim then... I was more interested in from a lore perspective. But since Skyrim takes place a couple hundred years after Oblivion anyways, I assume that by playing Skyrim I will get a good idea of the lore before getting into ESO.

I think that you could pick up the lore much easier and in more detail by searching the various wiki articles or forums rather than trying to piece it all together from the different games.

Welcome to the forums and I hope ESO is what you're looking for.

Well, ESO takes place about 1000 years before Skyrim.

The best way to learn the Lore is to read the wikis, and check http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1112211-how-to-become-a-lore-buff/.

Playing the games to learn Lore will be very very very time consuming, as it's not just given to you, you actually have to talk to everyone, read every book, etc.

But you should still play at least one of them (or all of them), to get the feel of the world and the Races and the type of Factions there are.

Yeah... I guess what I was going for was just get a feel for the gameplay, world, races and factions as opposed to getting a Phd in Elder Scrolls history

Well you don't have to read everything. Just what interests you.

The http://www.gamesas.com/topic/15282-elder-scrolls-lore-faq/ is a bit more concise though.

Playing Skyrim would be great not just for lore though. The combat is actually really similar as well.

While you probably don't need to play and TES game, I think it will make ESO more enjoyable for you.