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Daggerfall is totally awesome

EldarEldrad

Savant
Joined
Sep 13, 2017
Messages
253
Location
Russia
I never played any TES game before, but as soon as I go all the way through top 70 codex rpg list, I finally stop by TES: Morrowind. Beginning whole game series from Arena, I see somewhat simplistic dungeon crawler with random straight-forward quests, generic dungeons and unexpectedly tedious main quest sequence. Combat was ridicously easy after gaining access to Spell Absorption and couple of "one shot one kill" spells. Anyway, I enjoyed Arena - it was not that bad.

And then I start Daggerfall. The first evening I was struggling starting dungeon and that goddamn skeleton who kicked my ass repeatedly. I finally kill him by using smart tactic (equipping all-mighty Ebony Dagger instead of shitty Iron Longsword) and then I leave dungeon without any idea what to do. Second evening was kinda frustrating because I still had no idea how things work, how to earn money, how to become stronger and anything.

And there came third evening. This time I failed some merchant quest and lost helluva reputation in region and then I move to another and join local Mage's guild. I take some quest from merchant where I should get 4 gold ingots and return as many as possible. Three of them were in towns and the last one - inside some dungeon. I've heard a lot about Daggerfall dungeons and decide to give it a try - hell, I'm 2nd level hero with Ebony Dagger, what could go wrong?

I began my descendant and after the first door, in the room, I found some treasures and strange white floating skull. Ok, let's click it, again, what could go wrong? Suddenly, I was teleported to different part of the dungeon. The next thirty minutes I walked through this dungeon holding the left wall and praying to God. Soon I realize that I'm walking in circle and change my tactics - I take one turn in corridor and begun holding the right wall. Ten minutes later I meet the dead-end. I checked automap. Hm, looks like I precisely 50 meters below exit point. I was in nearly total despair and absolutely no idea where to go.

So, I changed my tactics again - hey, no tactics is also tactics. I just went the way I think is right. No system, just go whenever you see. Some time after I meet centaur and almost die, only couple HPs left. I find little empty room and take a rest there. As soon as I wake up I surprisingly see that fucking gold ingot right on the floor beside me. I've exit the room make two turns left, one right and found myself exactly at the exit point. Woo-hoo, missed that Sun.

Guys, it was absolutely awesome. Just this one dungeon descent make Daggerfall one of the best CRPGs for me. The moment when I found the exit is one of the best experiences in games. The last time I feel something like this was when I played Wizardry: Proving Grounds of Mad Overlord. My party was wiped by ninjas on 4th floor, so I assemble another party for the rescue. They almost do it, but they, hm, found teleportation trap, and got stuck in unaccessible part of the dungeon. Again, despair was high, because I have no more experienced adventures, so I start with one-level dwarf fighters for the rescue. A lot of them died by ogre hands until finally both parties was saved (except for poor Samurai who didn't survive ressurection). A very rare cRPGs give all these feelings from total despair and frustration to total happiness and fun.
 

Old Hans

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
1,442
If you enjoy the feeling of being hopelessly lost, I'm sure you'll enjoy Daggerfall to no end. Especially the later main quest dungeons.
I used to always get hopelessly lost in those dungeons. that 3d map was a nightmare.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,160
You had the same experience with this game that i had. Not sure why people don't get that Daggerfall is just the dungeon crawler version of Elite.

I'll just say that pen and paper is your friend. You don't have to draw the whole thing, just mark junctions.
 

Thal

Augur
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
413
This thread inspired me try out the game. I had heard quite a bit about the terribly difficult tutorial dungeon that discouraged new players and expected some sort of a nightmarish maze. But I think it took me less than 30 minutes to find the exit, and I didn't even look at the map once. I'd say it's a pretty good compact early 3d level. I discovered one secret door (reasonably easy to spot), which I believe may have been necessary to find the way out. I even went back to make sure I didn't get lucky and find the exit too easily. Turns out that the level wasn't much larger and there was even a lever that activated an elevator, which makes it possible to theoretically bypass some enemies. Granted, that iron-immune imp right next to the starting location was a nasty surprise, but I nailed it with my shock spell. However, I have hard time thinking that anyone who had played crpgs at the time of the release would find this starting dungeon hard. I died a few times, rested once, but isn't that what you keep saves for? I did pump my strength and speed as was suggested by by some beginners guide, but didn't look a the walkthrough otherwise. Do these two stats make that great a difference? Speed I believe is important in kiting, but OTOH I only learned how to slide after I had cleared the dungeon. Are the other dungeons bigger than this?

Seems like a cool game, and I can easily believe it could absorb people back in the day. Also, The sound design in this game is simply put brilliant. That skeletons roar followed by a creaking door opening, and you glancing at your depleted HP...they don't make them like this anymore. I wonder why? I'm definitely a proponent of hearing a monster before seeing it. It's a definitely a missed opportunity for a plenty of games.
 

HarveyBirdman

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Messages
1,044
Thats a great story. Does Daggerfall have any major flaws?
Every game has major flaws.
Torment -- complete ass for combat.
Fallout -- boring as hell to traverse the world hoping for random encounters, and a bunch of useless skills.
Bloodlines -- janky as fuck in virtually every way possible.
Morrowind -- shitty dungeons and a retarded combat system.
Baldur's Gate -- a trash mob infested world spawned directly from asperger's
Etc.

There's always something catastrophically wrong with a video game. We don't remember the above games for being catastrophically shitty though, because their successes were superlative.

Let me paraphrase something the wisest man I ever met taught me:
Don't pick apart everything that sucks. Anybody can do that. Instead, identify the things you like.

You had the same experience with this game that i had. Not sure why people don't get that Daggerfall is just the dungeon crawler version of Elite.
Julian LeFay flat out said that himself (to an extent, because his vision was still bigger than that).
 
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Okagron

Prophet
Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Messages
753
Fallout -- boring as hell to traverse the world hoping for random encounters, and a bunch of useless skills.
Bloodlines -- janky as fuck in virtually every way possible.
Morrowind -- shitty dungeons and a retarded combat system.
You're a fucking idiot. Haven't played the other two but remember, this is the guy that claims Oblivion is a "flawed masterpiece".
 

Alkarl

Learned
Joined
Oct 9, 2016
Messages
472
Daggerfall is a game that is more about avoiding major gameplay elements than engaging in them. Sure, you could go grab Dingle Dick Ironbeard some fresh mummy wrappings from the Hoartale dungeon for 50 gold, OR you could guard his magic rock for 100. Not that money means anything when you can rob everyone blind and take out loans you never have to repay anyway. And nothing magical happens when you go up in guild rank anyway, just access to more services you're not likely to need. Daggerfall is a roleplayers game though, if you let it it'll suck you in harder than a $500 blowjob, but even still, it's best enjoyed in small bursts. When you start getting that nagging question in the back of your head of "what's it all for?" it's seriously time to take a break.
Also featuring everyones favorite designs of big empty world, level scaling, and mandatory fast traveling. Plus, at some point, your inventory will bug out and you'll lose something important.
 

Tweed

Professional Kobold
Patron
Joined
Sep 27, 2018
Messages
2,838
Location
harsh circumstances
Pathfinder: Wrath
Daggerfall is a game that is more about avoiding major gameplay elements than engaging in them. Sure, you could go grab Dingle Dick Ironbeard some fresh mummy wrappings from the Hoartale dungeon for 50 gold, OR you could guard his magic rock for 100. Not that money means anything when you can rob everyone blind and take out loans you never have to repay anyway. And nothing magical happens when you go up in guild rank anyway, just access to more services you're not likely to need. Daggerfall is a roleplayers game though, if you let it it'll suck you in harder than a $500 blowjob, but even still, it's best enjoyed in small bursts. When you start getting that nagging question in the back of your head of "what's it all for?" it's seriously time to take a break.
Also featuring everyones favorite designs of big empty world, level scaling, and mandatory fast traveling. Plus, at some point, your inventory will bug out and you'll lose something important.

This is the absolute truth. I hope DFWorkshop takes out some of the annoyances.
 

HarveyBirdman

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Messages
1,044
You're a fucking idiot. Haven't played the other two but remember, this is the guy that claims Oblivion is a "flawed masterpiece".
Jesus, here we go again. "Please notice me senpai! <3" Okagron, stalking my posts once again.

What's with the tsundere act? We can all see right through it. Go ahead and confess your love so I can reject you already.
 

jewboy

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 13, 2012
Messages
657
Location
Oumuamua
Daggerfall was the best game from Bethesda. It was one of only two games made by the company when Chris Weaver was still in control. After that came the modern Zenimax version of the company that Codexians love to hate so well. Basically Chris Weaver was cool and wanted to make good games, but was having trouble due to Weaver being a bit Peter Molyneuxish with big dreams that were not even close to being possible, but at least he tried. Robert Altman, a money guy, a suit, came in and took over and just LCDed everything down with embrace-extend-extinguish until only retards could enjoy the games. I played Morrowind for something like an hour before rage-quitting and I never played another Zenimax-Bethesda game after that. They just weren't fun.

I enjoyed Daggerfall for a while but imo it gets kind of samey and boring after a while due to the lack of any sort of compelling, decent narrative. That open world = no story thing. Not my cup of tea. Fedex questing was never fun for me. I already had a job. I did enjoy the challenge of trying to kill as many city guards as I could though. I always wished Bethesda had anticipated that and made it a bit more gamey and interesting. As it was I always just ended up in jail too soon. The whole being an outlaw/fugitive thing could have been more fleshed out than it was. It was not intended to really be a playable option. The game was also beautiful for that time and iirc had weather systems like snow and rain. And it had a nice feel. It was just fun until it got too samey. The combat felt good.

The whole 'open world' thing would only work if you could simulate a world that is complex, detailed, and interesting. That still isn't really possible even now. That was Chris Weaver's original vision. He wanted to make a game that was sort of like the Holodeck adventures from Star Trek TNG where you could just interact with the world and interesting stuff would happen, emergent gameplay, but he didn't have the billions of dollars necessary to have any chance of making such a thing in the real world. I'd like to see some games start to use 'deep learning' neural networks to try to make unpredictable game characters though. I just recently saw a news story about an AI system that can manage to create somewhat realistic dialogue basically from scratch. That's a start. I think Weaver was also interested in Virtual Reality. It was a thing at the time. Anyway the money guy came in and rofl-stomped the idea guy and that was that.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,182
Location
Bjørgvin
Also, The sound design in this game is simply put brilliant. That skeletons roar followed by a creaking door opening, and you glancing at your depleted HP...they don't make them like this anymore. I wonder why? I'm definitely a proponent of hearing a monster before seeing it. It's a definitely a missed opportunity for a plenty of games.

I played DF back in the days, but I can't remember...does it have directional sound? I remember lack of it was one thing I really disliked about Arena when I tried it a year or two ago.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,182
Location
Bjørgvin
Every game has major flaws.
Torment -- complete ass for combat.
Fallout -- boring as hell to traverse the world hoping for random encounters, and a bunch of useless skills.
Bloodlines -- janky as fuck in virtually every way possible.
Morrowind -- shitty dungeons and a retarded combat system.
Baldur's Gate -- a trash mob infested world spawned directly from asperger's
Etc.

Huh?
Fallout's problem was dying from friendly fire.
Morrowind's it the utterly static game world.
Baldur's Gate: you don't need to fight all the trash mobs. Learn to scout.
 

Lonely Vazdru

Pimp my Title
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
6,656
Location
Agen
a creaking door opening, and you glancing at your depleted HP...they don't make them like this anymore.
That creaking door sound is still oftenly used in movies or tv shows. It always brings me back to Daggerfall's dungeons and totally kills my immersion.
 

mfkndggrfll

Learned
Shitposter Bethestard
Joined
Mar 21, 2018
Messages
546
Fallout -- boring as hell to traverse the world hoping for random encounters, and a bunch of useless skills.
Bloodlines -- janky as fuck in virtually every way possible.
Morrowind -- shitty dungeons and a retarded combat system.
You're a fucking idiot. Haven't played the other two but remember, this is the guy that claims Oblivion is a "flawed masterpiece".

You haven't played a single cRPG except for Fallout 2.
 

HarveyBirdman

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Messages
1,044
Huh?
Fallout's problem was dying from friendly fire.
Morrowind's it the utterly static game world.
Baldur's Gate: you don't need to fight all the trash mobs. Learn to scout.
Just listing big flaws. Not making an argument for the flaw of the game.
 

DavidBVal

4 Dimension Games
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Developer
Joined
Aug 27, 2015
Messages
2,994
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Madrid
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Daggerfall... I will never forget the first time I got lost in a dungeon either, the music while the snow fell and wolves howled, and other climatic moments.

But above those memories I remember very distinctly the moment I saw that immense world map, with literally thousands of locations to explore.

The developers had great ambition and vision, for sure. As for flaws, the game was incredibly buggy back when I played it as a kid, to the point of being almost unplayable due to crashes and geometry glitches, exploits everywhere that kind of ruined the feeling of challenge, and the generated content can eventually get repetitive. Still, even if Morrowind is my favorite TES game, Daggerfall is the one I played as a kid and the one that left a big impression on me.
 

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