Vapourware Daggerfall Unity isnt Vaporware

[Butter]

That looks great.

How close is this thing to being considered truly "finished"? I know it's playable now, but i can wait.

https://www.dfworkshop.net/projects/daggerfall-unity/roadmap/

 

[cherry blossom]

I think the game looks a bit better in that mode than it does at HD resolutions, especially now that the game has a playable framerate and higher draw distance.

The game has always had playable framerates and high draw distances (once you modified the config file). It is very nice to see actual hilly terrain though.

 

[unfairlight]

high draw distances

No, it didn't. Even with mods your draw distance was severely lacking.

 

[Luzur]

 

[Martyr]

how do you get these mountains? when I played Daggerfall Unity this february there were differences in terrain height, but more like hills and not actual mountains.

 

[Luzur]

how do you get these mountains? when I played Daggerfall Unity this february there were differences in terrain height, but more like hills and not actual mountains.

Mountains and Hills mod, in his playlist.

 

[Martyr]

how do you get these mountains? when I played Daggerfall Unity this february there were differences in terrain height, but more like hills and not actual mountains.

Mountains and Hills mod, in his playlist.

absolutely amazing. this is shaping up to look like real landscapes now. I think I have to redownload the Unity mod.

 

[Luzur]

June Builds – Map Upgrades, Retro Rendering, Crime Features, and More!
Posted on July 1, 2019 by Interkarma

New Live Builds are now available, combining all our work for month of June. We managed to get a lot done this month, even making a break into 0.8 with new crime features. Let’s start breaking it all down.

Improved Travel Map Search (Pango)
Some of the randomly named locations across the Illiac Bay can be challenging to search for. Either the name is very long like “Bleeding Redeemer of Kynareth” or just plain weird like “Old Barbyvyra’s Farm”, and players would sometimes need to switch back and forth between quest log and map screens before they could perfectly enter enough of the location name for search to work.

Those days are over with Pango’s most welcome upgrade to search in the travel map. Now you can just enter any part of the name, you don’t even need to spell it quite right, and the search will find all the closest matching locations. Look what happens when I mangle “Old Barbyvyra’s Farm” to just “barbv”.







First hit is exactly what I’m searching for, along with a reasonable number of other matches. If you enter enough of the name perfectly like before, the location will be selected immediately without showing the above UI.



Improved Terrain Tilemap Shader (Pango)
My original tilemap shader had the limitation of not being able to mod ground textures. This was later upgraded by Nystul to use texture arrays to support replacement ground textures. This has now received another pass by Pango to improve mipmap blending and restore some detail back the ground when seen from a distance or an elevated position. In the comparison screenshot below, the left side is “before” and right side is “after”. Note how much more detail is present on the right. This looks even better with modded HD textures over the ground.





Pango has another terrain refinement on the way to reduce some cracking between tiles, but this code wasn’t ready at the time June builds were created. It will be included in July releases instead.



Interior Automap Upgrade (Nystul)
Nystul has done an amazing job of not only recreating the classic dungeon/interior automap but improving it in dozens of small ways that each incrementally improve the overall experience. This release sees more refinements that make the interior automap better than ever.

• 3D view is now default (a highly requested change)
• Tooltips updated to be shorter and clearer (should even fit 4:3 displays)
• Beacons optimised with transparency added
• Classic micromap has been added to help understand dungeon shape
• Fixed a bug for interiors where the entrance door position was wrong

There’s also new stuff you can do with the automap now:

• Add dungeon custom note nodes by double-clicking
• Right double-click on user note marker deletes it
• Right double-click on map geometry sets rotation pivot axis

When it comes to viewing information about the map, hover your mouse over the following to get more details:

• User note markers reveals their attached note in the status bar (in the bottom of the automap window, see screenshot above)
• Player position beacon, player marker, rotation pivot axis, exit beacon and marker reveal their purpose in status bar
• Portal markers (e.g. red brick wall teleporter) will show connection between portal endpoints
• Discovered portals will tell in the status bar if the portal is the entrance or exit endpoint (see blue line in screenshot below)

Finally, there are a few more settings in the INI to customise how the automap operates:

• AutomapDisableMicroMap – True disables micro map display
• AutomapRememberSliceLevel – True remembers slice level on map close/open
• AutomapAlwaysMaxOutSliceLevel – True maxes out slice level (and making AutomapRememberSliceLevel having no effect)

Game Window Refinements (Interkarma)
I’ve had a several requests to make Daggerfall Unity fullscreen into a borderless window. This confused me, as fullscreen has alwaysbeen a borderless window. I finally understood that what people were asking for was the borderless fullscreen window to be visible in background rather than auto-minimise when alt-tabbing away. I have changed this now so you can keep the borderless game window open in background while doing other stuff in front of it.





If you prefer to do things the other way around, you use Alt+Enter to toggle between fullscreen or windowed mode at runtime. You can even drag the window size around, but note this will be reset next time you launch the game. Set in startup UI or settings.ini to make it permanent.





Retro World Rendering (Interkarma)
There’s a wide range of Daggerfall Unity players from hard-core classicists all the way through to high-end upgraders. While the latter has been fairly well represented through the mod system, the former hasn’t been able to render the game in 320×200 without also suffering blurry visuals and text. Even though the game could technically render to 320×200 resolution, it would be presented with bilinear filtering at the player’s display resolution, resulting in an unpleasant blur. As Unity doesn’t let us control this final presentation filter, we had to work around it by rendering game to a secondary render texture then presenting this manually with a second camera.

To enable in startup settings, go to Advanced > Video and set Retro Rendering Mode to either Off, 320×200, or 640×400. This setting is Off by default. Once set to 320×200 or 640×400, the game world will be rendered at that resolution while UI remains at your set display resolution. This allows you to have smooth SDF fonts and modded UI textures while the world is nice and crunchy. Or you can disable SDF fonts (use Shift+F11 to toggle at runtime) and mods for an almost perfect 320×200 experience.





Now that you can control rendering resolution and presentation (display) resolution separately, those of you with monitors that can display 1600×1200 (e.g. 1920×1200 or UHD monitors) are able to have the best experience. The explanation is a little technical (this article covers in detail) but if you set things up like below, you’ll have the best retro experience possible:

• Set game resolution to 1600×1200 (at startup resolution selection)
• Enabled retro rendering for 320×200 or 640×400 (Advanced > Video > Retro Rendering Mode > 320×200 or 640×400)
• Enable UI free scaling (Advanced > Interface > Free Scaling)

This will fix the extra w-i-d-e stretching you see on sprites when presenting to wide-screen displays. Depending on your display, you may get some pillarbox bars on either side to create the correct aspect on your monitor. I will soon update this topic on forums with updated retro settings for 0.8.





Details Slider (TheLacus)
From the pause UI, you can now adjust the details slider to change the quality settings used by rendering.





You can now also use “fullscreen” button to toggle between windowed and fullscreen mode. Note this will be reverted to work like classic once the larger quarter-screen HUD is implemented in Alpha.



Private Property Guard Response (Numidium)
If you steal from private property, and failed your pickpocket roll, you should expect to be visited by the city watch. These guys are not messing about!







Numidium has improved interior guard spawns so they always come in through the entrance door at ground level. Keep that in mind if buildings have an upstairs exit for a fast escape. Also note that if you break into a shop outside of hours, nobody is around and you won’t need to pass a pickpocket check to loot from private property.

Post-release note: Being arrested indoors has a “teleport to void” bug as of 0.8.2. Recommend fighting or running for now until this is fixed.



Faction NPC Greetings Now Match Classic (Ferital)
NPC greetings, particularly those related to guilds and non-joinable factions such as bards and merchants, have been matched to classic by Ferital. This involved a good amount of reverse engineering of classic to determine how those greetings were selected, not something I can capture in a screenshots alone.







Level-up Progress (Hazelnut)
Clicking on “Level” in your character sheet will now display a popup dialog showing your progress to next level based on skills gained this level.





Bow Drawback (Hazelnut)
By enabling setting in Advanced > Gameplay, bows will now work using drawback and release rather than single click to attack. Holding the attack button (right mouse button) will raise bow and releasing attack button again will loose the arrow. You can hold bow in drawback position for up to 10 seconds before your arm tires. If you click the left mouse button while bow is drawn back, it will also cancel drawback.





Dungeon Wagon Proximity Access (Hazelnut)
“Do you wish to access your wagon and stay in <dungeon>?” If you’re sick of that prompt, you can now just access your wagon provided you’re close enough to the exit. You can even disable the prompt completely in settings.ini using “DungeonExitWagonPrompt=False”.





New Paper Doll Renderer (Interkarma), Supports Texture Replacement (TheLacus)
This one is hard to show in screenshots, as by default it looks just like the old paper doll renderer. But under the hood, the paper doll renderer has been replaced completely from software drawing with no mod support to a GPU shader that supports texture replacement via the mod system.

Internally, the paper doll image is rendered to an 8x render texture (that is 8x the size of classic paper doll). For classic body and item images, this looks exactly the same when scaled back into position. But it’s actually a much larger image with loads more pixel density.





With support from TheLacus in the mod system, it’s now possible to replace equipment with HD textures. It even supports custom masking to paint out the areas where hair, etc. should be blocked by helmets.





You can also finely control scale and offset of replacement image using XML, in a similar way to changing other texture replacements. See the Textures modding documentation for more details.



Breaking & Entering (Interkarma)
Locked buildings now have variable lock strength. You’re no longer guaranteed to pick the lock every time.





Just like in classic, failing to pick the lock means you can’t retry until your lockpicking skill increases. This is cached on a per-building basis in discovery data. If you do succeed your lockpicking attempt, you’ll get a satisfying click as the door unlocks and you enter building.

If you do fail though, what other options do you have? You have been able to bash in exterior doors for a while, but now guards might be alerted from the noise. The chance of guards is lower than the chance of successfully bashing the door, but you won’t always be lucky. It’s like these guys have nothing better to do than wait around for you to cross a line.





The other change to breaking and entering is how the Open spell works. Just like with dungeon doors, your player level must meet or exceed the lock level. Whereas dungeon doors go from strength 1 to 20 (magical), building locks only go from 1-10. Higher quality buildings have a better lock strength than lower quality buildings.



More Artifact & Enchantment Effects
At this stage, it’s easier to say what hasn’t been finished. So here’s the entire TODO list for magic:

• Soulbound enchantment
• Lord’s Mail, Staff of Magnus need health regen payload
• Skeleton’s Key needs support for magical locks

The Effect System Status page will reflect when these have been implemented.



General Fixes & Improvements

• Mod system general cleanup and improvement (TheLacus)
• Filter identical resolutions from setup UI (TheLacus)
• Ensure emission maps are same size as albedo (TheLacus)
• Improvements to pause window implementation (TheLacus)
• Added OnPreFastTravel event for mods to capture (TheLacus)
• Fix scale of modded daedra summoning window (TheLacus)
• Opening automap no longer affects scene lighting (Nystul)
• Fix automap save crash under some conditions (Nystul)
• Fix “i’m at” setting correct location after searching (Hazelnut)
• Implement %n, %vcn, %rn macros (Hazelnut)
• Fix “no arrows” message when loading game while holding bow (Hazelnut)
• Fix exception when no building discovered (Hazelnut)
• Fix potion recipes added to loot and shelves to not show as “unknown” (Hazelnut)
• Fix material applied to arrows in loot (Hazelnut)
• Fix black background for negative reaction popup (Pango, Hazelnut, Ferital – seriously, all of them fixed this)
• Expand serialization of social groups for effects (Numidium)
• Add type inference to ScreenComponentCollection (pcbeard)
• Improvements to transport manager (zaklaus)
• Notebook file now cleaned up when deleting save (jbrod22)
• Double-click no longer closes spell merchant window (Pango)
• Display available money in spell merchant window (Pango)
• Use ARGB for spell icon loading, fixes display of spell icons on some GPUs (Interkarma)
• Fix crash casting identify inside dungeon (Interkarma)
• Improvements to item effect equip/unequip responsiveness (Interkarma)
• Show strong/weak armour modifiers in paper doll (Interkarma)
• Make tilemap texture compatible with linear colour space, preparing for future change (Interkarma)
• Fix daylight scale to animate by curve to more closely match classic (Interkarma)
• Fix classic sky animation to animate by curve to more closely match classic (Interkarma)
• Fix light transition at 5:59am to 6:00am with lower ambient light scales (Interkarma)
• Reduced intensity of auto-torch by half (Interkarma)
• Increased range of indirect light (Interkarma)
• Slightly reduced noon peak ambient light (Interkarma)
• Slightly increased interior ambient light (Interkarma)
• Fix armour rating of Lord’s Mail and Ebony Mail, need to recreate item if already have one with 0 armour rating (Interkarma)
• Reseed random before generating loot piles and quests (Interkarma)
• Fix macro %g3, %pg3 to his/her instead of his/hers (Interkarma)
• Place support for location name macro inside dungeons (Interkarma)
• Effects can now modify attribute maximum (Interkarma)
• Effects can now modify chance to hit (Interkarma)
• DrainEffect magnitude changers now public for effects (Interkarma)
• Play VID files from console, e.g. “playvid anim0000.vid” (Interkarma)
• Implement CastSpellOnFoe quest action (Interkarma)
• Humanoid quest Foes spawned now match Foe gender (Interkarma)
• AddFace/DropFace quest actions now support humanoid Foes (Interkarma)
• Calling “place item”, “place npc”, “place foe” to a different location will now remove live game object in scene (Interkarma)
• Paralyzed enemies can no longer attack player if in range (Interkarma)
• CastWhenStrikes must now land a blow for spell to trigger, misses no longer count (Interkarma)
• Implement fallback for quest house types – if a specific house type cannot be found quest system will fallback to use any house (Interkarma)
• Fixed issue where quest resources could still be duplicated in a scene (Interkarma)
• Multiple self-cast spells from CastWhenUsed now supported (Interkarma)
• Saving throw bypass (e.g. self cast from item) now applies to CastWhenUsed items, so player will not resist their own item casts (Interkarma)
• Quest status now shows as “ended” instead of failed, as this could be confusing for quests with no actual success condition (Interkarma)
• Physical world boundaries are now enforced so player cannot run of edge of world (Interkarma)
• Removed console commands “clearmqstate” and “setmqstage” as these were for early development testing only (Interkarma)
• Removed pre-alpha main quest option when starting a new game, main quest always starts now (Interkarma)
• Fix house containers with books only stocking “First Scroll of Baan Dar” (Interkarma)
• Exterior buildings now have lock strength, status text shown may not reflect difficulty at this time (Interkarma)
• Open spell now requires player to meet or exceed level of exterior lock as with interior doors (Interkarma)
• Fix effect costs of Pacify spell variants (Interkarma)

Update for bugs fixed in 0.8.6 released on 05 July:

• Further refinements to tilemap shader (Pango)
• Fix boozers talking like nobles (Ferital)
• Fix save bugs with user note markers and teleporter markers in automap (Nystul)
• Fix bug making exterior doors non-interactable (Interkarma)
• Option to enable/disable mipmaps in retro mode – off by default for sharper low resolution textures (Interkarma)
• Added option to disable exterior (sunlight) shadows (Interkarma)
• Improved shadow distance settings for more performant interior/dungeon shadows (Interkarma)
• Increased maximum of mouse look sensitivity to 8.0 (Interkarma)
• Limit quest building auto-unlock to residences only (Interkarma)
• Fixed player being hurled into void when arrested indoors (Interkarma)
• Fixed characters with “no regen spell points” disadvantage recovering spell points during fast travel (Interkarma)
• Increased volume of ambient sound effects (Interkarma)
• Prevent swim-bobbing animation from continuing after levitating off water (Interkarma)
• Player will stand up again when levitating off water (Interkarma)
• Footstep sounds no longer play while levitating (Interkarma)
• Will no longer crouch while levitating and touching ground (Interkarma)
• Can now levitate while underwater swimming to remove encumbrance and fly underwater (Interkarma)
• Additional state cleanup now performed when starting a new game or loading classic save (Interkarma)
• Fix corrupt savetree record from preventing classic save import (Interkarma)

For more frequent updates on Daggerfall Unity, follow me on Twitter @gav_clayton.

 

[Luzur]

how do you get these mountains? when I played Daggerfall Unity this february there were differences in terrain height, but more like hills and not actual mountains.

Mountains and Hills mod, in his playlist.

absolutely amazing. this is shaping up to look like real landscapes now. I think I have to redownload the Unity mod.

Yeah looks ok, but i hope not all mountains will look like that, just this particular region, since they look more like huge meteorites have hit Tamriel enmassé then mountains.

Edit: the mod
https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2261

Rocks of Daggerfall

• Quote

Post by Kamer » Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:30 am

This pack for Uncanny's New Locations mod adds various rocks and mountains in the wilderness of Daggerfall. This release specifically is unreleased, but born off of Isle of Betony and is more focused on just adding a bit more variety in the wilderness. In some instances it can lead to some great views. This release is also serving more of a test. I want to see how well it runs on other pc's as well as how interested everyone would be in me continuing this project. So if you have any problems, see any bugs, please report them.

As for the pack itself, it obviously requires Uncanny's New Locations mod to work. Be sure to get that first if you want to use this. In the files itself are 3 zipped files:

RoD_Gavaudon_Main - This file has all the core files and is required for the install.

RoD_Gavaudon_ExtraDetail - This optional file adds smaller rocks to each section in Gavaudon

RoD_Gavaudon_MountainLayer - This optional file adds an extra layer of mountains in the northernpart of Gavaudon

As of right now I have only finished Gavaudon for testing purposes.

Install:

1. Grab Uncanny's Location Loader from here and place it into your StreamingAssets/mods folder

2. Extract the RoD_Gavaudon zip file contents into the StreamingAssets/Locations
-If you have any performance issues, feel free to remove any layer files.

Download: RoD_Gavaudon

Download:Uncanny's Location Mod

 

[Martyr]

how do you get these mountains? when I played Daggerfall Unity this february there were differences in terrain height, but more like hills and not actual mountains.

Mountains and Hills mod, in his playlist.

absolutely amazing. this is shaping up to look like real landscapes now. I think I have to redownload the Unity mod.

Yeah looks ok, but i hope not all mountains will look like that, just this particular region, since they look more like huge meteorites have hit Tamriel enmassé then mountains.

yup, they really look like meteorites. but still amazing, mountains are something that makes landscapes seem more real. as long as you don't have these massive mountains blocking your way all the time like in Skyrim....
I also wonder if they will be covered in snow and how that would look like.

 

[Luzur]

Daggerfall Main Quest 2.0
Post by Jay_H » Sat Jun 08, 2019 6:24 pm

This is something for the far future which I'll be working on in little bits. I just have a few proofs of concept here.

I feel as though Daggerfall's main quest fails to take advantage of many of the rich set pieces available to the game world. So many NPCs are hardly scratched with a fingernail, let alone getting a personality to speak of. When the main quest is finished it hardly feels as though you know anyone at all. In addition, there are a lot of improvements and changes that could be made to the gameplay and structure of the main quest without losing anything of substance.

So here are a few ideas on print of how a MQ 2.0 could look.

Brisienna not only tells you to speak to the royal families of the Iliac Bay, but assigns you to do so. Each member of the royalty and of the court will have something to say illuminating their perspective and position.

Morgiah sends you a letter after you visit Wayrest Castle on Brisienna's assignment, asking for your help contacting the King of Worms. Once you return, her clever political senses could lead more directly toward a good informant in Daggerfall, making for a better hint.

Perhaps he never met his brother, but Lhotun can still suffer severely from seeing his world fall down around him.

Cyndassa might know more what a castle worker might know about...

... and other members of the court might help to fill in the blanks.

Of course, not everyone will be happy with your sudden intrusion on behalf of the Emperor.

This wouldn't change anything about the main quest's final outcome, but it would make a much more robust pathway there, and would add more events along the way.

 

[Lemming42]

I like the weird polygonal meteorite look, at least if it's used in moderation and only in one or two regions - even if it's not really adherent to the lore, it's a great reminder that Tamriel at its best is a weird and alien continent with sights that have no comparison on Earth.

That Main Quest 2.0 mod looks exciting. There's a lot of named characters with unique portraits who just stand around doing literally nothing in vanilla, like The Oracle (who has one of the coolest portraits) and Lord and Lady Bridwell (who are meant to be the leaders of the Knights of the Dragon but don't say or do anything useful). There's also all the characters who have faction data and portraits in the game files, but don't even show up in game who it would be really cool to see brought into the game and added to the main quest.

I mean, look at all the cool shit the devs just left lying around unused in the game files:

From UESP: "Lady Doryanna Flyte is a Wood Elf noble and the wife of Lord Auberon Flyte, the ruler of Anticlere.

Lord Flyte is still the official ruler of Anticlere, but ever since he contracted Guedoilic Plague, Lady Flyte has assumed the mantel of leadership. She has since replaced the Lord's counselors with her own advisors, and become the leader of Anticlere's knightly order, the Knights of the Flame.

There are whispered rumors that Lady Flyte is consorting with the (supposedly) imprisoned guildmaster of Anticlere's Thieves Guild, even helping him escape at night to rob passesrsby together."

From UESP: "Lord Auberon Flyte is a Breton noble and the official ruler of Anticlere. However, his health has been in a steady decline since contracting Guedoilic Plague from an Argonian ambassador, and his wife, Lady Doryanna Flyte, now rules the region in his stead."

From UESP: "The Fey is a supernatural being in the shape of a woman, whose origin and motivations are completely unknown."

None of these characters actually exist in the game. There's a wealth of content in the files just waiting for modders to bring into the game.

 

[cherry blossom]

And so it has begun.

Rest well this night, for tomorrow, you will sail for the modding of Daggerfall!

Do these people have no eyesight or taste, though? Those higher resolution plant textures look absolutely terrible and out of place.

 

[Luzur]

 

[cherry blossom]

Interesting. Not bad. But super smooth textures just don't do it, especially up close. Climbing that rock and looking at its surface upclose looked like gazing into a soup. Low-res 3D models look nice and fit in with the rest but lose the comic book look of 2D sprites which I prefer. I am also not sure I like the smooth fonts against the low-res backdrops.

I love that fast-travel option, though.

 

[Makabb]

Interesting. Not bad. But super smooth textures just don't do it, especially up close. Climbing that rock and looking at its surface upclose looked like gazing into a soup. Low-res 3D models look nice and fit in with the rest but lose the comic book look of 2D sprites which I prefer. I am also not sure I like the smooth fonts against the low-res backdrops.

I love that fast-travel option, though.

that's why the retro mode is there

 

[illuknisaa]

Retro mode doesn't fix the godawful looking textures. Textures in unity have this smooth plastic look which is not present in the vanilla game.

 

[Lemming42]

Retro mode looks like shit, have to admit I'm not sure what the use or appeal of that feature is other than for people who enjoy eye strain.

 

[index.php]

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Unlike most projects of this type, this one seems to have graduated beyond fiddling with graphics. Rare.

 

[Luzur]

Imagine when everything is finished and installed, this game is gonna blow our asses clean off with amesomeness

 

[Lemming42]

Airship looks incredible, I hope it gets integrated into fast travel - it could be the fastest form of transport and allow the player to recover health and stamina even while moving at "reckless" speed.

 

[luj1]

Soon, very soon.

 

[moraes]

Started and I can't leave Privateer's Hold alive on high reflexes difficulty setting.

It's released, by the way:

Daggerfall Unity Alpha Release
Posted on July 30, 2019 by Interkarma




The first Daggerfall Unity alpha release is now available on Live Builds. Since announcing this a few days ago, I’ve been honestly overwhelmed by the well-wishes and positive feedback from you all. Thank you everyone for your support, it means so much for a project like this. Your kind words help me to come back each day with a fresh heart.

So what does the alpha milestone mean? For Daggerfall Unity, this means we are now at broad feature parity with classic Daggerfall. Not only is the game playable from start to end, but all the core gameplay systems from classic are implemented and available. Hitting alpha means that development will shift from adding new gameplay features to refinement and fixing bugs. There are also a few features unique to Daggerfall Unity that I’ve been saving for the alpha cycle. Check out the roadmap to see what’s coming up next.

In some ways alpha doesn’t feel like a big deal. We were almost there in June with only a single enchantment effect and a couple of artifact effects remaining. But emotionally I feel that reaching this point really is a huge milestone. It represents the final stages of development are here at long last.



What Happens Next?
We are now at the point where development becomes all about refinement and bug fixes. Sadly this means my regular monthly updates from the last year or so have come to an end. There are no more big exciting features like Vampirism or Enchanting to tear the wraps off each month. Now comes the hard work of patching logic errors, polishing systems, and gradually iterating over the game. This could mean a release every second month, or even multiple times a month. It just depends on the work being done and when I’m confident to release patches.

Once the final alpha targets have been reached, we’ll roll into beta. Only after a solid beta cycle will I be happy to call release milestone and 1.0. I don’t have a time-frame on this right now. I’d rather have an extended alpha/beta period and fix as many problems as possible than rush into release. But there’s no reason not to play now if you want to – the game is done. It’s just going to become more bug-free and polished as time progresses.

The cadence of development will change moving forwards as well, because the upcoming releases are more about quality than quantity. As the game reaches an increasingly stable state, and stewardship of Daggerfall Unity shifts from solely myself to the community at large, the amount of my personal time required on this project will start to wane.

As I get more free time at the tail-end of Daggerfall Unity, I’m going to spend that time working a new game. This won’t be another remake, it will be something original and a bit personal. I’ll reveal more on this once I’ve made enough progress, perhaps later in 2019. But don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be involved in this community for years to come.



July New Features
So what’s new in this month’s release? There aren’t many new features as so much work has been completed already. But there are a couple of new things to play with.

Soul Bound Enchantment




Once you trap a soul, you can bind it to an item at the enchanting station. This allows you to add more positive effects to that item, but not without a cost! Certain souls will forcibly bind other effects, both positive and negative, to your item. And if your item break then the soul trapped within will be released to attack you. If it happens to be your weapon that just broke, you might find yourself in a spot of trouble.







Classic Quest Fixes (Jay_H)
For the last several months, community superstar Jay_H has been toiling over the classic quest scripts. He has managed to turn out hundreds of fixes and refinements to these quests, above and beyond any prior community fixes. He has corrected logic problems around quests ending and delivering rewards, and worked around many emulation issues caused by subtle differences in Daggerfall Unity’s quest engine compared to classic.

There’s no way to put all of this in a screenshot, or even adequately describe just how much work has gone into this. Questing in Daggerfall Unity is now a much better experience thanks to Jay’s substantial efforts.

That’s not to say everything is perfect yet – we still have a long way to go before all of classic’s quests are stable enough for 1.0. But this is a huge stride towards the finish line. Thank you Jay!



General Fixes & Improvements
As with every prior release, there’s a list of bug fixes and refinements that have gone into the game thanks to everyone involved.

• Experimental support for custom books (TheLacus)
• Allow import of spell icon packs from mods (TheLacus)
• Fix texture import for bow (TheLacus)
• Fix weapon image pixel bleeding (TheLacus)
• Support for importing texture arrays as assets (TheLacus)
• Fix AssetInjection option not saving correctly (TheLacus)
• Fix issue with metallicgloss maps (TheLacus)
• Fix ground alignment for loot with custom scale (TheLacus)
• Fix bug with residance name not being resolved on info click (Nystul)
• Fix broken exterior automap when starting from interior save (Nystul)
• Fix for 1×1 town positioning in automap (Nystul)
• Improve ambient sound volume and prevent sound stacking (Pango)
• Improvements to automatic wagon access when near exit (Pango)
• Refinements to location search algorithm (Pango)
• Fix fast travel to ground level when elevation below player’s current height (Pango)
• DaggerfallTilemapTextureArray shader improvements and cleanup (Pango)
• Fix closing Use Magic Item when not intended (Hazelnut)
• Fix for joining Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood regardless of intro quest failing (Hazelnut)
• Restrict interior loot piles to Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, and taverns (Hazelnut)
• Fix for non-temple greeting messages (Hazelnut)
• Change guttering effect on player torch from flicker to cosine effect (Hazelnut)
• Fix macro %n gender in quests (Ferital)
• Fix initial quicksave not working for quickload (Ferital)
• Handle %bn macro in biographies (Ferital)
• Enable random Khajiit name generation in character creation (Ferital)
• Minor improvements to magic stocking, more fixes required (Interkarma)
• Fix to import corrupted/unsupported spellbook as blank (Interkarma)
• Added magic item repairs option to startup UI (Interkarma)
• Illegal rest warning option to help prevent accidental rest in towns (Interkarma)
• Clear escoring faces on a new game (Interkarma)
• Fix regex issue with Item resource declaration (Interkarma)
• Fixed table definition for Mehrune’s Razor (Interkarma)
• Support for child face textures in quests (Interkarma)
• CreateFoe support for msg id popup (Interkarma)
• Fix RestrainFoe only working on first foe (Interkarma)
• Fix legal reputation to be clamped between -100 to 100 (Interkarma)
• Fix for “The Princess” and similar quest to display correct sprite gender (Interkarma)
• Fix grounded collision check when starting rest while levitate active (Interkarma)
• Allow proximity wagon access from any exit door (Interkarma)
• Lycanthropy is now a free spell (Interkarma)
• Implement Peron details macro, e.g. =npc_ might be “young lady in green” (Interkarma)
• Fix shadow distance and quality being overwritten at runtime by pause menu details slider (Interkarma)
• Fix three-day lycanthropy disease not being curable by temples or Cure Disease spell (Interkarma)

For more frequent updates on Daggerfall Unity, follow me on Twitter @gav_clayton.

 

[agris]

Are those voxel fonts optional? They're incredibly jarring next to the stock pixel font.