Daggerfall was better than Morrowind? Tell me why.

[Blacklung]

All right, as some may or may not know, I recently acquired (about a week or 2 ago, I've lost track of time) Daggerfall and have been playing it for hours on end (many times to the point of resisting sleep for many hours). While I'll agree it's very large, very fun, I fail to see why people say it was much better than morrowind. Quite frankly I find thier flaws and qualities to be equal in qualitatively and quantitatively. Here's my little flaw comparison list:

MW flaws:
Index wikipedia NPC's/no real dialogue
Boring story line
Unreacting world
Theft is ridiculously easy
No mounts/mounted combat
Lockpicking is still too simple, traps are pointless
Monster AI is terrible (stuck, can't jump, run when you leap over their heads)
THE VOID
Last boss is not a challenge and have no choice but to fight him
Too easy to become too powerful too fast
No houses or ships to own
No fast travel (DF style)
Numerous patched/unpatched bugs
Magic is nerfed
Dungeons are mostly too small
Shop keepers have too little money (what do I do with 300 daedric katanas?)
Nothing to spend money on when you are rich (which is also much too easy)
Swimming with 1000 lbs of loot...
Becoming a vampire is pointless

DF flaws:
Indexer NPC's (plus what the hell are you wearing!?)
Towns are too random (nothing of real differing interest, even Kansas has tourist traps)
Nothing interesting for miles if you set out from town (pointless to not use fast travel)
Door bashing bugs
"Halt Halt Halt" (aneorism)
Theft is ridiiculously buggy, difficult (pickpocket a monster in a town...)
Guards are only after you, never after anyone after you.
Enemies get stuck too easily
Dungeon's are too random, big (poorly made, pasted together, no flow, de ja vu, no real different interest)
Loitering in shops to do midnight shoplifting (nobody does a thing)
Merchant's have infiinite money
Merchant's buy back goods stolen from them
No guild requirement info (a lot of guessing here unless you use the beginner's guide)
Crime rep is bugged (whether guilty or not...you are pond scum, or pickpocket the guard before he arrests you and you only get charged for that)
THE VOID
Looking up and down is very limited (see that hole, go climb it, good luck, break a leg...literally.)
No way to really tell rep unless they hate you or love you.
Quest bugs galore...("The Nest of Aneloth" this target does not exist on map, does not exist, does not exist ARRRGGHHH!)
Paralyze = instant death, especially at low levels when it happens too often and you can't get ahold of potions/items
Shooting arrows through doors...
Patched/unpatched bugs galore
Still fairly unreactive world

So did I miss anything? If so let me know, I want to see the whole picture here. And also let me know why you think one is better than the other.

 

[Solik]

I think the consensus is that DF had more positive aspects than MW did, rather than fewer or lesser flaws. I don't really agree with that notion myself.

 

[Vault Dweller]

From another post:

I hate to explain things all over again, especially to people who claim that they've read the discussions, but you are trying to argue, so God fucking bless you for that.

The difference between DF and OB (short version)

DF had very deep character system with many diverse skills that supported different chartacter builds: a thief who climbs walls, backstabs, does critical strikes, etc - all those skills are now gone; a mage who levitates over obstacles - gone, a Conan-like fighter who doesn't rely on magic at all - climbing again, medicine for healing (no spells, no potions), swimming (great mechanics, btw) - gone, explorer who speaks creatures languages - gone, etc. Most of the alternatives in skills have been removed.

Advantages/disadvantages, both for the character system and crafting. Needless to say, it's a great way to keep powerful items in check, and create unique characters with role-playing in mind (weakness in holy places, fast healing, using only leather armor for thieves, etc)

Truckload of guilds (more than 30), witch covens, vamps, werewolves, etc

Well done random quests catering to different characters and role-playing, plus an option to decline a quest at minor advancement penalty.

Great dungeon design - walls and shafts to climb, open areas to levitate, switches, multiple routes, pits to jump over, atmosphere, etc.

Horses, carriages, banking, houses & ships to buy, mark & recall, HUGE world, etc.

 

[Solik]

Having a large number of options isn't quite the same thing as deep. If those options rarely come into play, or are basically the same as several of the other options, then it's really a false choice.

There wasn't much difference between most of the guilds in DF. They gave similar or exactly the same random quests. Vampires are in OB.

Even though about half of them sucked, I do miss random quests just for replayability.

Not sure I'd agree that the dungeon design was particularly great. They ranged in quality a lot depending on the random generator. And once you'd played through about five, there wasn't much else to see.

Horses and houses are in OB. Ships were not really implemented in DF.

DF's HUGE world was empty; you fast travelled across it rather than ever exploring. I think a significantly smaller but exceptionally more dense sandbox is a good trade.

I liked the advantages / disadvantages system, though, even if it was implemented very poorly in DF.

 

[Chefe]

Daggerfall came out in 1996. It was very advanced for its time.

Instead of improving upon the things that Daggerfall started, Morrowind threw all that innovation out the window.

 

[Thrawn05]

Having a large number of options isn't quite the same thing as deep. If those options rarely come into play, or are basically the same as several of the other options, then it's really a false choice.

There wasn't much difference between most of the guilds in DF. They gave similar or exactly the same random quests. Vampires are in OB.

Even though about half of them sucked, I do miss random quests just for replayability.

Not sure I'd agree that the dungeon design was particularly great. They ranged in quality a lot depending on the random generator. And once you'd played through about five, there wasn't much else to see.

Horses and houses are in OB. Ships were not really implemented in DF.

DF's HUGE world was empty; you fast travelled across it rather than ever exploring. I think a significantly smaller but exceptionally more dense sandbox is a good trade.

I liked the advantages / disadvantages system, though, even if it was implemented very poorly in DF.

A lot of the stuff in DF such as Vamperism and owning your own boat, are really eastereggs. They weren't meant to be part of the gameplay, just some little extra stuff they threw in there. Many of them were never finished or even started, such as Bard songs.

I did enjoy both DF and MW, even though MW did lack a LOT of good things that were in DF. Oblivion just took it too far in taking stuff out.

 

[bryce777]

Having a large number of options isn't quite the same thing as deep. If those options rarely come into play, or are basically the same as several of the other options, then it's really a false choice.

There wasn't much difference between most of the guilds in DF. They gave similar or exactly the same random quests. Vampires are in OB.

Even though about half of them sucked, I do miss random quests just for replayability.

Not sure I'd agree that the dungeon design was particularly great. They ranged in quality a lot depending on the random generator. And once you'd played through about five, there wasn't much else to see.

Horses and houses are in OB. Ships were not really implemented in DF.

DF's HUGE world was empty; you fast travelled across it rather than ever exploring. I think a significantly smaller but exceptionally more dense sandbox is a good trade.

I liked the advantages / disadvantages system, though, even if it was implemented very poorly in DF.

Why do you idiots come here just to argue about oblivion?

Please just kill yourself.

 

[Volourn]

Daggerfall was piece of shit... like the rest of the ES series...

 

[bryce777]

Daggerfall was piece of shit... like the rest of the ES series...

But it was a promising piece of shit, whereas morrowind was just a disappointing piece of shit.

 

[Blacklung]

Ok, I'm actually with Bryce, though not to the level of killing yourselves, keep Oblivion out of this thread for god sakes.

Edit: Ok, I was a bit drunk and probably scrolled to fast past a post or too (I'm not the only one here to do this let us remember), sorry about the earlier post. Strange how different the world looks without beer goggles. Thankfully no strange ugly women in my bed this morning.

 

[Tintin]

In case no one here realized, Solik mentioned Oblivion because VD introduced the "difference between DF and OB" first. We know how blasphemous it is to insult Vault Dweller but maybe next time you should bother to read before going " u stoopididiots go away".

 

[Vault Dweller]

Has the art of reading comprehension escaped you completely? I copy-pasted that paragraph from another thread where the difference between DF and OB was discussed. Since the paragraph was mostly about DF, I thought that it would do.

 

[Tintin]

Has the art of reading comprehension escaped you completely?

Yes., yes it has. I'm afraid I wasn't able to read that sentence. (or was there another answer that question was supposed to prompt?)

I copy-pasted that paragraph from another thread where the difference between DF and OB was discussed. Since the paragraph was mostly about DF, I thought that it would do.

Yes, and just as easily you could have copied the "analysis" of Daggerfall itself. Was there really any reason to also copy the comparison sentences?

And that is pretty much besides the point since my post wasn't even about that, just about the stupidity of attacking Solik for responding to statements in the post above him.

 

[Blacklung]

From another post:

I hate to explain things all over again, especially to people who claim that they've read the discussions, but you are trying to argue, so God fucking bless you for that.

The difference between DF and OB (short version)

First of all, we are not comparing DF to OB here VD, but DF to MW (wow that's a lot of abbrieviations).

DF had very deep character system with many diverse skills that supported different chartacter builds: a thief who climbs walls, backstabs, does critical strikes, etc - all those skills are now gone;

Ok, I'll agree that taking out climbing was a bad idea, but you could still do critical strike/backstabs in MW, though it was tied into the sneak skill much more directly than in DF.

a Conan-like fighter who doesn't rely on magic at all - climbing again, medicine for healing (no spells, no potions), swimming (great mechanics, btw)

Ok, first of all, the medical skill didn't do diddly squat except speed up your healing during rest. There were no uses for the bandanges, not scalpal-like objects, nothing herbs or salves (potions are fairly close to this by the way) or anything else that actually gave me any impression that I was praticing medicine (hell I wondered what I had been doing to raise this for quite some time). Yes if it would have been implemented better in MW instead of scrapped, that would of been great, but we're talking actuals here, not what if's. Swimming, ok yes, it had interesting mechanic of encumberance keeping you from floating and they mucked that up in MW. However, I fail to see why you link this directly to the warrior since a rogue or mage could be equally good, if not better swimmers considering they wear less...or were you trying to say that the warriors can't swim, this is unclear. Also, you could still be a non magic warrior in MW, just raise those acrobatics and jump like the dickens (climbing would've help I'll admit).

- gone, explorer who speaks creatures languages - gone, etc. Most of the alternatives in skills have been removed.

Ok, I'll agree that it was a bad choice. In fact, I had read an early preview that said the languages would still be in MW, and I was disapointed when this was not so. However, there was never any way to learn a creature language fully enough (even with training to 50%), to learn their language peacefully...you mostly learned it by killing them. If was true in real life, we may not have killed so many people in the history of the world because of language barriers...or perhaps to pass my German tests I would have gone to Germany and killed a few people.

Advantages/disadvantages, both for the character system and crafting. Needless to say, it's a great way to keep powerful items in check, and create unique characters with role-playing in mind (weakness in holy places, fast healing, using only leather armor for thieves, etc)

I'll admit, the checks and balances system was much better in Daggerfall, but you could still easily gain so much money and create mass amounts of ultra powerful items, raise your skills extremely high (albeit it took longer). Also, whereas DF allowed every character class to wear every type of armor with really no problems or experience, MW actually had different armor class skills which rewarded you for staying with light, medium, or heavy armors. Weakness in holy places, yes but of course it depends on your opinion of what a vampire is in TES and whether or not TES lore really has any "holy" places or things, but let's not open that can of worms anymore. And, I believe that in MW, faster healing was simply tied to endurance (as it also was in DF, but had a skill too...Medicine.), it was there, but it just didn't have a skill.

Truckload of guilds (more than 30), witch covens, vamps, werewolves, etc

All of which had you doing the same thing over and over again. Fighter's guild? Kill this kill that. Assassin's guild? Kill this kill that. Knight's, kill this kill that. Temple's cure them, kill that, deliver this... Actually, let's break this down even more...quests were: kill this or that, deliver this or that, take him here or there, cure them, but with different places and names (some of which didn't even work or appear). I can't say that MW did much better at the FEDEX style of questing which plagues many games today, but at least it attempted to put a little bit more story into the quests.

Well done random quests catering to different characters and role-playing, plus an option to decline a quest at minor advancement penalty.

Well done? No, I think I just answered this one. However, the decline option was a very nice feature though. MW might have been better if it had improved on the random quests rather than thrown them out. Then again, I play more on the field of slightly better limited number quests, than repetitive, boring, infinite quests.

Great dungeon design - walls and shafts to climb, open areas to levitate, switches, multiple routes, pits to jump over, atmosphere, etc.

I believe our perceptions of great design are greatly incompatible. This isn't even a question of blue or beige curtains, it's more like laundry and pizza boxes on the floor vs. vaccuumed carpet and space to move about in. MW's dungeon's were much more detailed, even in their small size, than the randomized, repetitive dungeons of DF (not even the handmade one's impressed, except for the end dungeons). None of the DF dungeons even really resembled much of what they were named after. It was mostly just long narrow halls with some steps and a few big rooms and dead end spots. Oh yes throw in TEH ELEVATOR AND SECRET DOOR! Sure they're interesting, but if not implemented well, they're just stupid.

Horses, carriages, banking, houses & ships to buy, mark & recall, HUGE world, etc.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, cheap, and way to randomized, repetitive and boring. Maybe teleportation is nice, but sometimes I wonder if it's a bit too much of a cheat. Just my personal opinion here of course. Also, a big world is nice, but if the world does not differ that much then it really isn't a world, it's a xerox with a few black smudges or fade outs.

Despite, all this, I still find both games fun (No I'm not stupid, just a bit insane and I like powertrips), but simply enjoyed MW than I am enjoying DF now. [/quote]

 

[Chefe]

Is there a point to this thread?

 

[Blacklung]

No, because all posts eventually derail thus they can never have a point. The only thing that changes is the amount of time until the derailment. Come on, you should know that Chefe.

 

[Chefe]

I dunno... this thread just seems so... useless.

 

[Tintin]

Is there a point to this thread?

Is there really a point to any thread on an internet forum?

 

[Blacklung]

I dunno... this thread just seems so... useless.

What, and the post informing us of the guy dying from a horsefuck in the ass is suppose to enlighten us to the ways of the world?

 

[Thrawn05]

I dunno... this thread just seems so... useless.

What, and the post informing us of the guy dying from a horsefuck in the ass is suppose to enlighten us to the ways of the world?

Well, the horsefuck thread is really meant to tell everyone what NOT to do with a horse, or a Chocobo.

 

[Chefe]

I dunno... this thread just seems so... useless.

What, and the post informing us of the guy dying from a horsefuck in the ass is suppose to enlighten us to the ways of the world?

Did I ever say that it does?

 

[obediah]

I believe our perceptions of great design are greatly incompatible. This isn't even a question of blue or beige curtains, it's more like laundry and pizza boxes on the floor vs. vaccuumed carpet and space to move about in. MW's dungeon's were much more detailed, even in their small size, than the randomized, repetitive dungeons of DF (not even the handmade one's impressed, except for the end dungeons). None of the DF dungeons even really resembled much of what they were named after. It was mostly just long narrow halls with some steps and a few big rooms and dead end spots. Oh yes throw in TEH ELEVATOR AND SECRET DOOR! Sure they're interesting, but if not implemented well, they're just stupid.

Anyone that can even think about the "hand crafted" morrowind pigeon hole dungeons without having to run to the restroom to vomit has no business even using the word "design". Oh a door...three rooms and a level appropriate monster. There's no excuse for how bad they were. They do prove that big, bland, and random is much better than tiny, bland, and all the same (but not random!)

 

[Drakron]

Morrowind have un-inspired dungeons design that were copy/paste ... Daggerfall have non generated dungeons that are far better that what we seen in Morrowind.

Another thing, Daggerfall had diferent themes on regions ... going to Hammerfell we see North Africa type of housing as Morrowind simply lacked any variaty (understanble but they tried to make the great houses have a unique look and it was simply not very diferent).

Daggerfall was full of errors but what Morrowind did was not correct those errors but make new ones ... what is the point of crafted quests when they look to come from a generator? or have crafted dungeons that simply are the same templates?

I could see the effort on Morrowind but I also see it was half baked ... just like Daggerfall.

 

[elander_]

A lot of the stuff in DF such as Vamperism and owning your own boat, are really eastereggs. They weren't meant to be part of the gameplay, just some little extra stuff they threw in there. Many of them were never finished or even started, such as Bard songs.

What are you talking about? I never heard of any Bard songs feature that was planed in the game. I know that a map similar to Fallout and a survival skill was planned. That towns would be ocasionaly under siege or aflicted by plagues and kingdoms would attack each other. But nothing about any Bard songs or Bard gameplay. Do you remenber anything that was said about it?

 

[Proweler]

Well both had their flaws but atleast they improved on the worst points. Fedex is better then random generated fedex, small but often supricing - if you take the time to look - dungeons are better then random mazes, ect.

I don't agree on the lack of different settings in Morrowind there was allot of ashlands but plenty of swamp, grassland, tundra, rockface, ect. I think it's the lack of recognize ability is what makes it appear rather bland.

I don't think the lack of ability's is really a flaw. I've seen plenty of RPG's that just have to many identical or low use feats. In a party that isn't to bad but for a single character game it's to much time spend on redundant feats.
There is Combat, Knowledge, Stealth and Social. If each provides interesting gameplay I'm happy enhough.