Yep, I hadn't heard of TES until Oblivion came out and everyone at the AtariAge forum started gushing and raving about it. I didn't buy it right away because of the price, but after a few months of listening to everyone talking about it I finally gave in.
I think I picked up the Morrowind:GOTY edition shortly after that-- or I may have bought Morrowind first at a discount but then had never played it, which was something I frequently did back then. When I finally did try Morrowind it didn't sit well with me at first, because the graphics and gameplay seemed so much cruder than Oblivion's. But it grew on me in a big way, and now I like it a lot.
I grabbed the free Arena download after that, but gave it up after about 30 minutes of trying to figure out how to get around the Imperial Dungeon and survive.
Then I got Skyrim as soon as it came out, and played it during all of my free time.
After getting a new computer and taking a break from TES while I got back into music, bought a better keyboard, and started learning about DAWs and MIDI, a couple of years ago I started missing Morrowind. So I installed my standalone version of Morrowind on my new computer, then eventually bought the Steam versions of Morrowind:GOTY and Oblivion:GOTY so I could play them on my desktop computer and then continue my games on my laptop while traveling, as I was already able to do with Skyrim.
That led to a rekindled curiosity about Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard, and Battlespire. (I don't count any of the mobile games, since there's no way I can get them and play them.) I grabbed the free downloads of Arena and Daggerfall again, installed Arena on my new computer, and took the time to learn how to play it. It took a while, but I finally made it out of the Imperial Dungeon and got through the main quest with a lot of help from the UESPwiki. I haven't installed Daggerfall yet, because I started replaying Arena with the intention of mapping all of the towns and making a list of what each merchant has for sale.
Then I finally broke down and bought the Elder Scrolls Online while Bethesda was having a sale. I got the "Guilds and Glory" bundle that includes four DLCs, plus the Morrowind chapter. That pretty much began taking up all of my waking hours for a few months. I finally got to the point where I didn't feel like I had to play it for hours on end every day, except that every so often Bethesda has a special event (as is the case right now) where you can earn experience points at twice the normal rate, obtain special quest rewards, etc., and I get sucked back in again trying to make the most of the special rewards.
Morrowind was my first RPG, back on the original xbox in 2004'ish. Great game. Spent countless hours wandering that world, doing all the guilds, fighting Dageth Ur at the end of the main mission. Had a crazy green/glass sword and armour. Oh, and that turtle that bought items from you for like 10x the price? Ha. Good times.
He isn't a turtle, he's a mudcrab!
I didn't learn about him until after I'd been playing Morrowind for a few years-- I was looking through the UESPwiki and came across a reference to him, so I had to go find him since he gives the best prices. There's also a scamp who gives good prices. Before I learned about them I would usually go to the merchant on Solstheim in Raven Rock, because he seems to give the best prices out of all the other humanoid merchants-- or else he just has the most money on hand.