17th Anniversary Giveaway (Patreon)

Because I can't remember when exactly I started playing Morrowind, I consider the day that I joined Tamriel Rebuilt (June 8th, 2004) to be my official Elder Scrolls community anniversary. This year marks 17 years from that date, and after what we've been through the last 14+ months, I wanted to do something special for everyone. What I ended up settling on is a huge giveaway featuring prints, stickers, postcards, and various other things I've created for Patreon and elsewhere over the past half dozen years or so.

Though the giveaway is centered on Twitter, I didn't want patrons to be left out: you can fill out the survey and just write your Patreon username in the "retweet" field. If you're a Oathman patron and have been receiving prints already, please make sure you specify what you do/don't want by name so you don't get doubles. Anyone that enters is going to get something mailed to them, though I can't absolutely guarantee that I'll be able to fulfill every request exactly :)

*** 

As a related aside, while it’s always a hit to poke fun of the 18th release of Skyrim, I’ve always thought that it was a brilliant idea. It’s a great way to test the hardware waters and ensure a smoother development for your future ports and titles, it keeps money coming in for minimal dev cost, and, perhaps most importantly, every re-release is a chance for someone to experience Elder Scrolls for the first time. Someone like me. 

I never bought Morrowind. In the early 2000s I was playing primarily RTSs and FPSs -- I’m not sure I had ever even heard of the concept of an RPG. Sometime around 2002 my dad decided that we needed a new computer, and Morrowind came bundled with several other games as a free demo on the new Nvidia graphics card. No one in the family was particularly interested in the nondescript brown CD, but once we tried it, we were forever hooked.

The lack of manual and my complete unfamiliarity with the concept of RPGs actually made the whole thing even more of a magical experience. I spent months at level 1 because I just didn’t know that leveling was a thing, much less how to do it. Accidentally activating a bed, deciding to see what sleeping does, and then discovering that you get stronger when you do it still sticks out in my mind as one of my fondest gaming memories