If anyone still plays Daggerfall...

how was the story in 1 and 2? I've always been curious on the "Ages" and lore
 
Arena didn't have much story within the game; it was one of those visit-8-dungeons-to-collect-the-8-pieces-of-the-one-and-only-magic-item-that-can-defeat-the-bad-guy type deals. But the gameworld was immense and as far as I know is the only single-player game where you can visit every province in Tamriel.

It's completely open-world with sidequests everywhere, but the quests are randomly generated and not part of the story. It was the only one of the series where you have to kill things for xp to level up rather than being skill-based, and combat was different in Arena and Daggerfall than the later games, where you swiped your mouse to swing your weapon rather than pushing buttons, which in my opinion made it a more immersive experience.

Daggerfall is one of my favorite games of all time and has tons of story and politics in it. There's a book called Daggerfall Chronicles if you're more interested in just the story and not the gameplay, but if you don't mind the old-school graphics, the gameplay has a lot to offer that wasn't all replicated in the later games. Factions and guilds were introduced, and played way better than their subsequent incarnations because they weren't set storylines that come to an end by being put inexplicably in charge of the guild.

Quests were innovative and procedurally generated on demand so you never ran out, and temples were a joinable faction so there was a line of holy quests, too. Politics were dirty and underhanded, so you could never take a quest at face value that the task giver was being honest about what you were getting into or had your best interests at heart. And there were functional conveniences like wagons, ships, and even banks that would loan you money if your reputation was good. You could get banned from towns if you caused too much trouble, hunted by assassins if you chose to help someone with an undisclosed enemy, betrayed by commonfolk if you try to help them with something they're being dishonest about. Much like real life, it's a real challenge to try to be an upright hero rather than just going with the flow of other people's loose morals. Frustrating sometimes, but I think it makes the world feel a lot more alive and consequential than the later games do, and gives the best experience of what Tamriel is actually like to live in rather than just being a story that takes place there.

For more detail than you probably want to listen to me go on about, UESP.net is one of the best sources of info. It's been around since the beginning of the series and is a virtual encyclopedia of everything in the games. If you just want lore and history, you can find pretty much everything there.
 
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