Well it was on 11.11.11
I'd broken with my usual pattern and pre-ordered the game rather than just buy it from a shop. So I had that annoying experience of going to the supermarket to buy food and actually see Skyrim on the shelves, but not be able to buy it because Amazon were going to deliver my copy!
The level of frustration increased when I got home, logged onto The Skyrim Blog and the world and his wife were already slaying dragons and clearing out Dwemer ruins! It was soooooo annoying!
I think it was about lunchtime when the postie finally showed up with my copy, and I was able to install it on my PC and get started. I'll be honest, it was quite an emotional moment when the screen cleared and I saw the cart ride into Helgen for the first time on my own machine. After 7 months of working on the Skyrim Blog it was a slightly teary moment to actually be able to play the game
I'll stop now before I start blubbing
I had pre-ordered the game from a local store. They had a special mid-night opening, so I was installing it by 1 am, and started playing in the early hours. I was lurking around the blog until the game was ready.
I allowed the into to play fully before 'starting a new game'. I was in absorption mode, taking it all in. The cart, then character creation (that took me at least half an hour). I wanted to run (and shoulder an archer) when the horse thief made his break, I figured there wasn't enough archers to get us all, but I had to stand there. Then the dragon, and the running, and the 'wtf' that dragon is talking . What is he saying? - Wow, I have no clue, he's talking dragon! It was absolutely awesome.
I have no idea how long I played that first go (hours) before I took my first quick break and then after a quick blog visit, went straight back to the game. I played all through the weekend and into the next week fairly non-stop (eating and sleeping very little). My wonderful wife was quite understanding and did all the house work, ran errands, cooked meals - anything that had to be done in real life. I came back to reality for brief periods after a few days (and a couple of dead or retired characters). After the second weekend, I limited myself to just 4 or 5 hours a day, slowly weaning myself down to just an hour or two of the next couple of weeks.
What a blast! Now, I'm anticipating the next BGS game (which I think will be announced in the fall with and a release early next year - dreaming? perhaps )
Not gonna lie, my first copy of Skyrim was a torrent . Got it at late 2013's, if I recall correctly. It was an experience that changed me forever. Helgen Keep for the first time was truly exhilirating, I got lost in Whiterun, I fell off the Western Watchtower. Ahh, memories.
The 14th of November still holds a special place in my heart - unlike most of my friends, I decided to be a responsible human being when Skyrim came out and not get it until I had a clear schedule.
On the evening of the 10th I remember my friends posting on Facebook that they had recieved calls from their local game stores about how their pre-order was ready to pick up. That was when I opted for a communication blackout until my final exam of year 12 (and my secondary education!) on Monday to avoid spoilers and the like.
Come Monday I was super ready for my exam and did very well, just ending up scraping in an A for the subject (Maths C, the most difficult maths you can study in school - it was a 3 hour exam). Many of my friends didn't do quite as well as I did and I popped in to EB on my way home and picked up my copy of the collector's edition.
I pretty much played as much as I could for the rest of the week, as well as the week after, when most school leavers from the state I'm from will go to a tourist city called the Gold Coast and get drunk underage and party for a week. At the end of those 2 weeks (over 100 hours of gameplay) I was 'done' so to speak with my first character. Probably some of the best times I've had gaming.
TL;DR Skyrim was a pretty nice reward for 12 years of education
Against my better judgment, I didn't pre-order the game. I was really kicking myself over that decision. About noon on release day, I walked into GameStop not really expecting them to have any copies left in stock. Much to my surprise, a pre-ordered copy was not picked up by some deadline (I don't know what deadline the clerk was talking about since it was only noon on release day). So, the clerk sold it to me--map included. Score!
I had three immediate reactions while playing:
When the screen cleared on the opening carriage scene, my jaw dropped. The scenery was so beautiful. The initial dialog immediately sucked me in to the story (this is extremely important to me).
When I was position for the headsman, I knew something was going to prevent my death. When Alduin landed on the tower and did his Meteor Shower shout, I let out a very loud, "Holy Sh@t, this is awesome!"
When I left the Helgen dungeon, and I stepped out into the open world, my jaw dropped a second time. To this day, I roll a hunter/ranger character every so often just so I can spend more time in the wilderness.
Now that I think about it the only things I've bought on release date were Dragonborn and the Deadliest Warrior expansion for Chivalry:Medieval Warfare. Self restraint does get me marks but sometimes makes new games less fun - it took me awhile to coerce one of my friends to play Borderlands 2 with me and all of them had tossed aside Battlefield 4 when I got it a couple of weeks after release :/
I was fairly committed to hating Skyrim when it came out. It was competing with ME3, Mass Effect still being my favorite franchise ever, and there was a strong anti-Skyrim sentiment on the Bioware forums where we were anticipating the ME3 release. On top of that, I'd got Oblivion from a friend some time before, at least a year I think, and positively hated it within the first few minutes. The hack and slash just didn't seem to suit me.
I remained distasteful of a Skyrim for a long time, until I mostly forgot about it. Last holiday season, my roommate rented it from Redbox, and I thought, "Eh, what the hell?" and popped it in. Been a while since I've been as absorbed with a game as I am with Skyrim right now.
I pre-ordered from Amazon, so I got it at about 2 in the afternoon. I usually pre-order games where I have some control over my characters. I played for a few hours, but I really didn't develop a love for Skyrim for awhile. Not until I got away from the main quest, and started to give my first character quirks and real motivations. Until then, it was a beautiful game, but a hollow experience. Skyrim really benefits from having a distinct role-playing idea in your mind, I think. Now I play almost everyday, because of the freedom it allows. I still have a problem with some of the weak writing, but it allows you some creativity in how you approach your characters, and I definitely love it for that now.
Mid-summer of 2012, my aunt was taking my cousin to Gamestop to trade in games and I tagged along thinking what the hell. I was bored and had some cash, so I thought I'd get a new game (I average one a year across all platforms). I was looking around, found Skyrim and talked with the salesman for about ten minutes about the game and what it entailed, and buying it pre-owned, I paid like fifty bucks instead of sixty.
Went back home, everyone else left, so I started things off and played for a bit. I got stuck at Bleakfalls Barrow at the Dragonclaw Puzzle. I never played an Elder Scrolls game before and didn't understand the controls that well, but there were only 27 possible combinations so I just went through them all. I fell asleep, actually halfway through (was up for over 24 hours) woke up in the dark saved my game and went to bed.
So... I was bored and had the cash.
I tried playing Oblivion a year prior to Skyrim's release and stopped playing after two hours. I liked the concept but I thought the execution was poor. I saw the ads for Skyrim and did some research to see what was being improved. I was so impressed and confident in Skyrim that I asked for it as a gift for Christmas. On my third day of owning it, I played for forty hours straight. I ran out of water on hour 35 and only had hot cheetos to eat.