The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall continues living with Daggerfall Unity

This was one of the first few games that made me "wow" at the potential future of PC games. Free-roaming, first person, RPG progression with quests, guilds and more. Amazing freedom. Obviously, the game kind of suffered as a result - I remember often wondering what the hell I was meant to do next! In fact, I got that feeling quite a lot in Morrowind too, I think. It wasn't until Oblivion that they made the primary quest more prominent.

Great to see this get the same kind of love that Morrowind has enjoyed with OpenMR though.

With all these modifications, the game is more playable now than ever.
And really a great example of how you don't need a high poly count for a good atmosphere.

Quoting: scaineGreat to see this get the same kind of love that Morrowind has enjoyed with OpenMR though.

Sorry to be that guy, but it's OpenMW. :P

Quoting: scaineThis was one of the first few games that made me "wow" at the potential future of PC games. Free-roaming, first person, RPG progression with quests, guilds and more. Amazing freedom. Obviously, the game kind of suffered as a result - I remember often wondering what the hell I was meant to do next! In fact, I got that feeling quite a lot in Morrowind too, I think. It wasn't until Oblivion that they made the primary quest more prominent.

Great to see this get the same kind of love that Morrowind has enjoyed with OpenMR though.

what Bethesda has been getting away with through the years is amazing... The signature abysmal face models have even made it into Oblivion IIRC? But the main problem is shoddy incoherent gameplay - judging mostly based on extensive hours spent in Morrowind. You can't base a 100+ hrs sprawling game on atmosphere alone. Yet that what they do. Oh and have we mentioned BUGS yet?))

Quoting: Cyril

Quoting: scaineGreat to see this get the same kind of love that Morrowind has enjoyed with OpenMR though.

Sorry to be that guy, but it's OpenMW. :P

Ooof. I was two cans of Punk down when I wrote that. Forgive me my mortal sins! :)

Edit: At least I LINKED to OpenMW! Phew!


Last edited by scaine on 14 May 2020 at 10:41 pm UTC

Quoting: mos

Quoting: scaineThis was one of the first few games that made me "wow" at the potential future of PC games. Free-roaming, first person, RPG progression with quests, guilds and more. Amazing freedom. Obviously, the game kind of suffered as a result - I remember often wondering what the hell I was meant to do next! In fact, I got that feeling quite a lot in Morrowind too, I think. It wasn't until Oblivion that they made the primary quest more prominent.

Great to see this get the same kind of love that Morrowind has enjoyed with OpenMR though.

what Bethesda has been getting away with through the years is amazing... The signature abysmal face models have even made it into Oblivion IIRC? But the main problem is shoddy incoherent gameplay - judging mostly based on extensive hours spent in Morrowind. You can't base a 100+ hrs sprawling game on atmosphere alone. Yet that what they do. Oh and have we mentioned BUGS yet?))

I dunno. You say "getting away with through the years", like they're utterly dropping the ball somehow. And yet, no other developer is making games like this. Total freedom. First person. Massive RPG mechanic. Engaging side quests. Believable worlds.

Their vision is gigantic. So, sure, some gamers, myself included, cut them a massive amount of slack. And of course, mods can fix almost any sin.

Quoting: scaineI dunno. You say "getting away with through the years", like they're utterly dropping the ball somehow.

Like.. meh graphics on anything less than ULTRA HYPER BURN UR RIG settings? Special effects in the form of tga files? Horrible models? Murky textures? Incoherent scripting? Useless roaming between copy-pasted caves and (slightly less copy-pasted) NPCs? Sure, there is freedom, to do what tho? I'd like to do something in a game this grand, not suffer the 100000th encounter with an ancestor ghost exactly identical to the 99999 before him - damn they had a problem with gene diversity those Dark Elves... Getting around the island was impeded by the devs seemingly on purpose for the player to suffer - so you would just imbue a ring with some magiks and fly-hop half the damn rock in one go. Does wanders for immersion. Super clunky fights with no tactics whatsoever - just statically poking critters with your daedra sword. Compare to... just about any TPS game, but a specialist TPS game, that has actually put at least some thought in its battle mechanics. Mages sucked terribly, bc you could got all the magik you needed via the souped-up items.
Untested and un-streamlined world (scripts) where you could almost become the top guy in two factions which were in game lore at cutt-throats. What the friggin use of them then???
Original and interesting quests are at a premium, the bulk is certifiable Fed-Ex.
Main quest is meh and hopelessly buried under the cruft of the phony humoungous "simulated" world.
And last but not the least absolutely ridiculous level-up system in an AAA game, period. Oh the joy of trying to haggle with that thick Norse guy (girl?) in Balmora for the sole purpose of levelling up when you're ready cos if you actually put forward the skills you use daily you'd level up before you got the chance to actually earn any useful skill points...
And bugs? Have I mentioned bugs? And there are tons of (game-breaking) bugs in just about every TES game so I heard!!

Quoting: scaineTheir vision is gigantic.

You don't play vision. Usually. Not for a 100 hrs
BTW 'the vision' has gradually become less and less gigantic from Arena onwards heh

Quoting: scainemods can fix almost any sin.

Oh, the mods... and patches. and addons. and don't forget the EDITOR! Are there two people in this world who played the same Morrowind?)))) Actually 100% supports my point.

Gothic and Wizardry 8 the year before MW were much more honest and coherent games.

TLDR yes it's grand, but that's about it. The only real joy is exploration which quite quickly becomes boring, when you find out that the crabs around Nebuchandezzar's tomb are 100% the same as near the Islands and just about everywhere else.

Good to hear that they are making more progress on this very cool project. For some of us, Daggerfall was the first RPG that we loved. I started playing it back when it came out in 1996. It was a very buggy, but amazing game, for its time. Hopefully now a new generation of gamers will appreciate this old gem -- and play it natively on Linux.

Check out the "DREAM" texture pack to see what Daggerfall can now look like in the year 2020:
https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/5

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: scaineThis was one of the first few games that made me "wow" at the potential future of PC games. Free-roaming, first person, RPG progression with quests, guilds and more. Amazing freedom. Obviously, the game kind of suffered as a result - I remember often wondering what the hell I was meant to do next! In fact, I got that feeling quite a lot in Morrowind too, I think. It wasn't until Oblivion that they made the primary quest more prominent.

Great to see this get the same kind of love that Morrowind has enjoyed with OpenMR though.

Damn, you must be disappointed now so many years later then, about all the unrealized potential I mean.

I know I am.
After Morrowind, things just went downhill with Bethesda.
Thankfully, with projects like these and OpenMW, we'll have more than enough Morrowind and Daggerfall for many years to come ;)

And who knows, maybe someone will pick up the ball of gameplay depth they dropped from Oblivion onwards (when they started replacing deep RPG mechanics with clicky action combat) and do something with it.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPAnd who knows, maybe someone will pick up the ball of gameplay depth they dropped from Oblivion onwards (when they started replacing deep RPG mechanics with clicky action combat) and do something with it.

It runs much, much deeper than that. The value potential in the TES franchise's gameplay was squandered after Le Fay left Bethesda. Rather than iterate and fix the broken systemic game elements as much as was possible in that day, after Daggerfall the Zenimax suits pushed BethSoft toward more and more of a lore focused direction while excising and/or simplifying all the mechanics.
But hey, Le Fay and the rest of the original core trio behind Arena and Daggerfall have their own thing going now, OnceLost Games, and are supposed to be working on a new RPG, so maybe we can hope for a more updated mechanically rich spiritual successor to the DOS TES games.