Daggerfall: My Favorite Game Ever

Orgull · Post by **Orgull** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:57 pm

I just re-installed Daggerfall in all it's 320x200 and 256-color glory on my new PC, and got it working well using DOSbox.

And it rocks.

Why don't they make games like Daggerfall anymore? I played Oblivion for about a week and then realized it was pretty and I was bored. Daggerfall looks like smashed ass and I'm still playing it after TEN YEARS. I remember spending most of 1997 playing Daggerfall every day with my cousin James. To this day when I see him, one of us will inevitably say "You can't carry anymore stuff" or "You feel somewhat bad" and then smile.

Why? WHY Bethesda? Why did you go from making an awesome and massively ambitious game like Daggerfall to a pretty but smaller game like Morrowind and then a gorgeous but really small and boring game like Oblivion.

And no I'm not looking at it through rose-coloured glasses. I remember the bugs. I'm playing right now it in all it's buggy, washed-out splendor on my 1280x1024 LCD even though it only runs at 320x200... I can't believe how bad it looks... and how much fun it is compared to Oblivion.

Will CRPG's ever be that fun again?

P.S. For those who don't know, Arena = Elder Scrolls 1, Daggerfall = Elder Scrolls 2, Morrowind = Elder Scrolls 3 and Oblivion = Elder Scrolls 4

knob · Post by **knob** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:00 pm

I never could get in to Daggerfall (I tried it years ago and couldn't get used to moving the mouse for different attacks).

Other than the world size, what exactly is different? Huge dungeons?

FlyingElvis · Post by **FlyingElvis** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:16 pm

Daggerfall is also my favorite of all time. I loved that game, warts and all.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:16 pm

Movement in Daggerfall made me motion-sick, and the cookie-cutter everything bored the crap out of me by the time I hit the third town.

I far prefer the variety of Morrowind and Oblivion.

Orgull · Post by **Orgull** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:24 pm

knob wrote:I never could get in to Daggerfall (I tried it years ago and couldn't get used to moving the mouse for different attacks).

Other than the world size, what exactly is different? Huge dungeons?

All the side quests are randomly generated, along with the dungeons for those quests that have them.

Time Passed. Reputations faded, good or bad. It was impossible to be master of every guild (like you can in Oblivion) you had to pick one or two guilds and focus on them. And there were dozens of guilds and factions and orders and temples you could join.

You had a cart for storing your loot. The cart was the best thing ever. And my god the loot. In Oblivion you're lucky to get one cool drop in an hour of gameplay. In the later levels of Daggerfall, it was loot 'o plenty! (just the way I like it)

Oh and about the world size, "huge" doesn't cut it. Scourg Barrow could easily take you a full day in real-time to navigate if you didn't know which way to go to get to the King of the Worms. The landmass in Daggerfall was bout the size of the county of Turkey. Were talking about 780,000 square kilometers. And you could (theoretically) walk every inch of it (if you wanted to.)

There was so much more but my head is exploding... I'm going back to Privateer's Hold now

marcusjm · Post by **marcusjm** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:24 pm

I think Daggerfall was too hardcore for most players. They had to choose from making a more accessible game or not make anything at all. My guess.

Marcus

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:50 pm

I distinctly remember buying this game at Walmart.
This was in the days before I had internet, so I knew very little about it (if anything). The blurbs on the box and the screenshots sold me.

Here, I just found the box: "The largest world ever created for a computer role-playing game. Adventure through thousands of cities, villages, dungeons, graveyards, ruins, castles, shrines and farms." Cripes, there was no way I could resist the promise that held.

I got it home, installed it, played it until I couldn't figure something out (I don't remember if it was a control issue or the fact that I had no idea what a role-playing game actually was, or something else), but it ended up back on my shelf to this day, where I just found it.

EddieA · Post by **EddieA** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:59 pm

"but it ended up back on my shelf to this day, where I just found it."
I'm guessing it was really dusty

ChrisGwinn · Post by **ChrisGwinn** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:19 pm

marcusjm wrote:I think Daggerfall was too hardcore for most players. They had to choose from making a more accessible game or not make anything at all. My guess.

I didn't find it too hardcore, I found it not to my tastes. There was no memorable characters, repetitive content, game mechanics that were not to my taste, serious bugs and content that was obviously random. They may have made later iterations of elder scrolls more accessible, but they also made them better.

Cota · Post by **Cota** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:33 pm

My favorite also. I really really hope we get to see something like it again someday.

I was digging through an old stack of papers about a month ago and I found a letter (you know, a letter. One that comes in the mail in the box outside your house.) from Pete Hines I think it was. It was an apology from Bethesda for having to delay Daggerfall. In addition to the letter, they included the strategy guide, The Daggerfall Chronicles. Can you believe that!?

Of course then I had to dig out that book and it's been in the crapper reading material rotation since. There is soooo much detail in that book and the game, holy cow. It was obviously a labor of love back then.

One of my favorite moments was when I stumbled across some witches coven out in the middle of nowhere. This woman sent me on a quest to bring her a heart of a Daedra. She says something like "Bring me the heart of a Daedra, but not from a Daedra Lord, for their hearts are full of worms." That created such a powerful image in my head, it stuck with me ever since. It even became the name of one of my favorite role-playing characters, Cota Wyrmheart.

Oh Daggerfall.

-Cota

Baroquen · Post by **Baroquen** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 10:39 pm

Daggerfall was the game I played the most out of the 4 ES games. My ex-wife and I played that game to death. I liked the game, she liked the clothes.

But yeah, something about that game was just fun.

Morrowind and Oblivion both failed to hold my interest. /shrug

Grundbegriff · Post by **Grundbegriff** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 11:02 pm

I think some of you may be confusing the quality of the game with the quality of the experience you had with the game.

Nostalgia....

Gwog · Post by **Gwog** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 11:04 pm

I bought Daggerfall when I went on my ES buying frenzy after getting so hooked on Morrowind (my first ES game), but have never actually played it. The next two years are scheduled for my backlog, so someday I'll know a lot more.

One thing that I wonder about from time to time is whether, generally, people's FIRST Elder Scrolls game always ends up being their favorite. For instance, when comparing Morrowind vs. Oblivion the things that Morrowind do better are more important in my eyes than the things Morrowind does much (and in many cases, MUCH MUCH) worse. I get this nagging feeling that I'm not being entirely objective purely because those first hundred hours of Morrowind were like discovering gaming again. And a lot of that was due to what makes the Elder Scrolls series so great rather than just because I really liked cliff racers and Caius Cosades' manly chest. I remember a lot of people saying, after MW had been out for a while, that they felt Daggerfall was better. And there certainly have been people saying that Oblivion is better than Morrowind.

So anyway, just something I wonder about from time to time. Looking forward to playing the first four games, for sure, but I've got a hell of a lot of guild, faction, and side quests in MW and Ob to finish first.

Orgull · Post by **Orgull** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 11:09 pm

Grundbegriff wrote:I think some of you may be confusing the quality of the game with the quality of the experience you had with the game.

Nostalgia....

I don't think so. I'm playing it right now and having a blast.

Gwog wrote:One thing that I wonder about from time to time is whether, generally, people's FIRST Elder Scrolls game always ends up being their favorite. For instance, when comparing Morrowind vs. Oblivion the things that Morrowind do better are more important in my eyes than the things Morrowind does much (and in many cases, MUCH MUCH) worse. I get this nagging feeling that I'm not being entirely objective purely because those first hundred hours of Morrowind were like discovering gaming again. And a lot of that was due to what makes the Elder Scrolls series so great rather than just because I really liked cliff racers and Caius Cosades' manly chest. I remember a lot of people saying, after MW had been out for a while, that they felt Daggerfall was better. And there certainly have been people saying that Oblivion is better than Morrowind.

Interesting point, but my first Elder Scrolls game was Arena back in 1993 and Daggerfall trumped Arena on just about every level IMHO. My second favorite would have to be Oblivion, followed by Arena with Morrowind dead last. (It was just too boring)

tiny ogre · Post by **tiny ogre** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 11:25 pm

I really wanted to love Daggerfall, but I could never get past all the bugs. It scarred me so badly I couldn't even play Morrowind for more than about an hour.

I did finally manage to play Oblivion for 10-15 hours without being reduced to a quivering lump. Maybe next game I will finally get over it.

moss_icon · Post by **moss_icon** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:02 am

daggerfall was great but i would get bored of it very quickly these days. the quests were very dull and samey, and the dungeons were ridiculous. modded morrowind is still the best of the series in my opinion.

Patchfoot · Post by **Patchfoot** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:43 am

heh, I actually pre-ordered Daggerfall. I remember being really young at a science fiction convention and there were these weird guys handing out glossy sheets for two upcoming games: Terminator Future Shock (I think?) and Arena. I was ecstatic about both. I really liked the future stuff from Terminator and Arena was a ludicrously ambitious rpg. I couldn't wait for either to come out, though my parents were somewhat reluctant to buy me Arena with the silly bimbo on the front.

Well, the Terminator game kinda sucked, but Arena was fantastic. Of course, it was buggy and rather repetitive, but I was completely immersed in the world and loved how fluid the gameplay was (compared to something like the goldbox games). When Daggerfall was announced with even more features (!!) and with fixes to some of Arena's faults it couldn't be released fast enough either. I remember this was one of the first games I obsessively followed on the internet.

Sure it was buggy, but again I was floored by its depth and unlimited gameplay. Damn I was hooked, I practically lived in Tamriel.

I enjoyed MW and Oblivion, but there was something definitely missing in the transition to MW from DF. It's hard to say what it was. Perhaps it was just getting older and being less interested in completely living inside the world of an rpg, but I feel like there must have been some shifts in the game design.

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:01 am

I think it is because each game is a smaller, better focused game. Arena was pretty big, I understand. I never played it, but I did play Daggerfall, and that was a huge area, with tons of stuff to do, but it did suffer from a feeling of randomness and sameness.

Morrowind was a smaller area, with more detail, better graphics, and no randomness.

Oblivion, even more so than Morrowind.

I wonder if by Elder Scrolls 7 we will just have one extremely detailed city to run around in.

DArtagnan · Post by **DArtagnan** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:25 am

Daggerfall had some wonderful features, and it stands as the game I've looked forward to the most. Considering when they made it, they managed to hype this one in a way that rivals today's market.

However, it was extremely buggy, and many of the features promised were a joke in actuality.

The random dungeons, apart from major clipping issues, were overly huge and empty, and they either placed the object of the boring random quests right at the entrance, or at the far end of it. They looked like Van Gogh had done the painting right after cutting off his second ear. Every single dungeon "felt" like the others, apart from the few in the main quest.

It didn't exactly help that the 3D "auto-map" was almost impossible to read and make good use of.

About the random quests, how many variations were there again? 10-20? With some words switched in and out IIRC. Yeah, something like that.

The NPCs were notoriously hollow and literally looked like cardboard cutouts.

The much famed ship you could buy was basically a solid structure placed on a sea texture, with one single feature: a storage room. You couldn't even sail the damn thing, but it DID reduce your travelling time.

Daggerfall proved, along with Elite 2, that a giant randomly generated world does not make for more interesting exploration than a smaller world with more content density, designed by hand.

The combat system was.... well.... crap. Oh, and it was buggy too, as I recall armor having little to no effect on your character.

The horse/cart features were cool for the time, I admit, but I remember having fun when my horse made galloping sounds whilst levitating with me

Anyone who claims it was better than Oblivion is smoking some serious nostalgia-weed. The reason you're enjoying the game now is because you have no expectations of it, they were apparently already met when it was released. I don't want to take away your joy, but if ever there was such a thing as a wrong subjective opinion about a game, Daggerfall being superior to Oblivion is it.

DireAussie · Post by **DireAussie** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:31 am

One thing I liked about Daggerfall is that it had realistic towns and cities. They had hundreds of citizens who would wander around the place, and they would go to bed when nightfall came. It was very simplistic but immersive. Ah, the power of 2D sprites

Modern day RPG's throw together a tavern, a church, guildhouse and a few other buildings, populate them with 10 named quest related citizens and call it a bustling township.

The thing I liked least about Daggerfall were the dungeon designs. Many were way too large. They were randomly constructed and some of them were impossible to complete without cheating. This ended up being a game killer for me.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:01 am

One of the big things games are using now are crowd simulations along with all the GPU power to render those crowds. Unfortunately, its taken longer for PCs to make this kind of tech standard, whereas consoles have high end GPUs built in. This is why Oblivion didn't have really crowded cities, yet games like Dead Rising and the upcoming Asssassin's Creed has pretty large crowds of people in decently large areas.

So give it a while, once the right technologies become more standard in PCs we'll see PC games make use of them.

Gwog · Post by **Gwog** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:52 am

Orgull wrote:
Gwog wrote:One thing that I wonder about from time to time is whether, generally, people's FIRST Elder Scrolls game always ends up being their favorite.
Interesting point, but my first Elder Scrolls game was Arena back in 1993 and Daggerfall trumped Arena on just about every level IMHO. My second favorite would have to be Oblivion, followed by Arena with Morrowind dead last. (It was just too boring)

Drat, there goes my theory.

qp · Post by qp » Mon Jan 08, 2007 9:22 am

Arena & Daggerfall were awesome. Couldn't have played DF without some of the cheats though..those dungeons were just insane (I used the [ ] teleport cheats after awhile)

I wonder if they could do Daggerfall in XBLA...with procedural textures etc?

FlyingElvis · Post by **FlyingElvis** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 12:41 pm

DireAussie wrote:The thing I liked least about Daggerfall were the dungeon designs. Many were way too large. They were randomly constructed and some of them were impossible to complete without cheating. This ended up being a game killer for me.

The main storyline dungeons were not randomly constructed. These were some of the best dungeons in CRPG history.

The random dungeons were less interesting, I would agree. Finding that one small quest item in those mazes was hardcore or torture depending on how you feel about it.

ChrisGwinn · Post by **ChrisGwinn** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 2:13 pm

DireAussie wrote:One thing I liked about Daggerfall is that it had realistic towns and cities. They had hundreds of citizens who would wander around the place, and they would go to bed when nightfall came. It was very simplistic but immersive. Ah, the power of 2D sprites

But they weren't realistic - they just had large populations with schedules. The actual towns and cities weren't laid out in a way that made sense, there was basically no industry, and the people were just wandering around.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 2:13 pm

Can't remember if I was playing Arena or DF, but I *do* remember my last action in the game was finding a dungeon (random I believe) that had a Lich in it and the damn thing chased me throughout the huge cavern. iirc he made a god awful sound while chasing me, but that could be my imagination remembering something that didn't happen. (I mention that with respect for the game, not mocking)

Anyway, the last action I ever took in an Elder Scrolls game was trying to use a levitate (fly, maybe?) spell and getting pixel stuck in the floor somewhere. It had been so long since I have saved that I never played the game again (and I had put some considerable hours into it)

Ah well. Time to play MW with mods. Hopefully they fixed the getting stuck in between two levels crap.

At this rate, I should be installing my copy of Oblivion by 2010. I assume I will have a kick ass (relative to today's cards) vid card by then

Baroquen · Post by **Baroquen** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 2:20 pm

Hmmm... well I thought I tried to be careful regarding the use of terms "favorite" and "better". Sure, the newer games are technically superior, and some of the flaws/bugs/design decisions from past games have been fixed. That said, Oblivion sits on my desktop HD unplayed.

I'm not a believer in the nostalgia theory as I'm currently playing XCom and Bard's Tale and enjoying both. While I feel DF wouldn't hold up as well, I don't think my preference is strictly "fond memories".

Oh, and I liked it better than Arena also (which I played first). Interesting theory though.

DArtagnan · Post by **DArtagnan** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:57 pm

XCom

Well, X-Com breaks all nostalgia related rules, because it's just that good.

Jancelot · Post by **Jancelot** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:27 pm

I played Arena first and remember how much I looked forward to Daggerfall. Oddly, I still remember walking in to CompUSA and finding an end display devoted entirely to those big, shiny, dark boxes. I certainly got my money's worth out of it, but I never came close to finishing the game. The bugs ended up killing my experience. Morrowind ran like ass on my rig at the time so I never got in to that one. I thought Oblivion was brilliant in every aspect except for the scaled leveling system which completely destroyed my enjoyment. Oh well, I'm pretty much sick of elves, goblins and paladins at this point. Bring on Bioshock and Mass Effect!

Kael · Post by **Kael** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:27 pm

The cost of size is detail. In general I like Oblivion the most though, even there I wish for more detail (and Im willing to sacrifice scope for it).

I loved the many thing they did in oblivion that were painstakingly detailed, my personal favorite was the artisit that was trapped in his painting. And the locations, like the assassins guild were cool. But after returning a dozen times to an identical assassins guild, with people wandering aimlessly through rooms I begin to wonder it it hasnt been stretched to thin.

The practical requirement of making the assassins guild truley change over time is insurmountable (or at least the implementation of that on a large scale). And Im amazed at the detail they do provide. But I would be even more in awe of a game with half the characters and twice the detail on them.

Orgull · Post by **Orgull** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:36 pm

Oddly, I enjoy the gigantic, random, sprawling dungeons. I could spend days down there... oh wait... I do spend days down there. Maybe that's why I like it, because it's such a hardcore game and not a pretty run-the-rails adventure.

dbemont · Post by **dbemont** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:04 pm

The bugs were a bother, and yes, the sprawling random dungeons got silly, but it was certainly the game in the series that held my attention. My son and I played many, many hours, although I never finished it.

Dan_Theman · Post by **Dan_Theman** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 9:20 pm

I've enjoyed all of the Elder Scrolls games, possibly because I just played for what they were - opportunties for immersion.

A funny aside, the sound that the goblins made from the original Arena - something that sounds like a frog croaking the word "Muelin" - is still stuck in my head to this day. In fact, that precise sound has been used in other products from time to time (it's likely part of a sound library that belings to a parent company). The few times I've heard it elsewhere it just brought a goofy grin to my face.

Daggerfall was a wonderfully ambitious piece of work. Unfortunately, it was out at a time when I had less of an opportunity to enjoy it that a couple of the other Elder Scrolls releases (namely 1 & 3). Perhaps this is why it just never ranked as high on my scale, but I can appreciate it for all that it is.

Orgull · Post by **Orgull** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 10:16 pm

I just stumbled across some comments at grimwell.com from one of the artists who worked on Morrowind, who is a huge Daggerfall fan...

Daggerfall was a notoriously buggy game, but once patches made Daggerfall stable enough to enjoy, I was hooked again. Although I only finished Daggerfall's convoluted main quest twice, I played the game on and off for three years. The bugs in Daggerfall became part of its appeal. I could discover inside-out houses, dungeons that let me walk out into the void between 3D objects, cats floating in mid-air, and the spiky water at the edge of the world. Even after three years, Daggerfall could still surprise me, although rarely in a positive way. It was a great game for a certain kind of explorer. My kind of explorer.

Also further in the article he makes this point, which I agree with:

However to this day, I still don't like Morrowind. I felt the scripted content and static world was a step backward from the procedural worlds of Arena and Daggerfall.

The full article is here if you're interested

Orgull · Post by **Orgull** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 10:50 pm

Some more cool comments I found on TES forums...

Hell! Daggerfall dungeons are big, but they have the right size. Daggerfall has a lot of them, which is actually the right number. Daggerfall dungeons are truly a labyrinth of corridors, which is great. Daggerfall dungeons are SCARY; just look at these ugly, 1996-style graphics monsters and you'll get really scared. Going through the corridor, fearing every door on your side *there might be a lich there*.

Today, of course, graphics are so sofisticated that all monsters, no matter how ugly the coders wanted them to be, look like walking works of art. First you're amazed on how well done is their appearance, then you realize that they are bad and need to be destroyed. Ugly graphics and sounds were really great for obscure environments.

Actually, the sound is one of the things that make DF dungeons extra scary.

First off, no combat music. Whose bright (read: stupid) idea was it to herald each fight with trumpets in MW and OB? You're never caught by surprise! In Daggerfall, you didn't know if you were about to get thrashed until it hit you, unless you happened to see or hear them beforehand.

Creature sounds are the other thing; each creature had a unique idle noise it made. Hearing something in a dungeon can have a few different effects on your next few moves:
1. You don't recognize the sound: this usually either piques your curiosity or scares the hell out of you. Either way, you usually tread a bit more softly until you can identify the source.
2. You recognize the sound: you can now either
a) relax, it's just a rat.
b) prepare for a decent fight, it's a wraith (better put up some magical defenses).
c) freak out! I hear a Daedra Lord, but WHERE IS IT?!?
3. You hear nothing: so either
a) it's safe.
b) you're about to get killed by a nightblade. We did mention that, save for those that come from hacking you to death, humans make no noises whatseoever, right?

It's sad that by making the new games "more theatrical" and "epic", the devs effectively killed one of the best aspects about Daggerfall. It doesn't matter how good looking or scary looking your creatures are, without the element of surprise there is nothing to fear. And that's one thing that Daggerfall does very well. Fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the known, too. And that was mostly accomplished by simply not having combat music.

Cota · Post by **Cota** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 2:26 am

I think that Daggerfall allows me to use my imagination more than Oblivion/Morrowind. It's more generic randomness allow me to fill in the gaps to fit my character. Morrowind and Oblivion do this too, but to a lesser extent I think because of the more scripted or crafted nature of the design. The story is important, but also important to me, is crafting an interesting character to play. Daggerfall is so wide open, the possibilities are practically infinite.

Daggerfall also has a more believable world. There are more cities, more factions, more distinct regions, and more guilds. Some regions favor a particular diety, some even have unique holidays. In Oblivion the entire Imperial Province has what, seven cities? And I'd hesitate to call any but the Imperial City, a city. And banks! Banks that you could borrow money from. And speaking of money, it had actually had weight didn't it? And you had to exchange your currency into bank notes in order to carry it all.

Daggerfall also has more skills and a deeper character creation system. Males and females even have different base statistics. Admittedly, not all the skills worked. The language skill for example, I do not think ever worked right, at least, I never got it to work. In addition to more skills, the system had Advantages, and Disadvantages. All these things helped to build a more interesting and diverse character than do the two games that followed.

In Daggerfall, each Daedra could only be summoned on one particular day of the year! And I think even then some of them required a storm or rain. Contrast that to Morrowind/Oblivion.

<Daedra Prince> "Thank you for choosing McArtifacts. Would you like to try our Wabbajack combo quest today?"

<Adventurer> "Uhm no thanks. I'll have the McMace of Molag Bal, and a side of Skeleton Key please"

<Daedra Prince> "Your total is a Lion Skin and Head of Lettuce. Please pull forward."

Anyways. I do not want to dump Morrowind/Oblivion. I liked Morrowind quite a bit, though I was pretty 'eh' towards Oblivion. Neither of them are bad games. I just prefer Daggerfall. It sort of played like a MMORPG. Withouth the MMO part.

A funny aside, the sound that the goblins made from the original Arena - something that sounds like a frog croaking the word "Muelin" - is still stuck in my head to this day. In fact, that precise sound has been used in other products from time to time (it's likely part of a sound library that belings to a parent company). The few times I've heard it elsewhere it just brought a goofy grin to my face.

Funny that you mention that. That very same sound is forever stuck in my head. As well as a certain creaky door that I've even heard in movies and in uhm... that Xena TV show. They reused that "Meulin" sound in one of the Morrowind expansions too. By the way, did you know what that sound is? I think it's a noise made by a camel.

One thing that I wonder about from time to time is whether, generally, people's FIRST Elder Scrolls game always ends up being their favorite.

Maybe, but my favorite is Daggerfall and I played Arena first also.

-Cota

moss_icon · Post by **moss_icon** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:48 am

Orgull wrote:Oddly, I enjoy the gigantic, random, sprawling dungeons. I could spend days down there... oh wait... I do spend days down there. Maybe that's why I like it, because it's such a hardcore game and not a pretty run-the-rails adventure.

tell us about the time you played daikatana all the way through 5 times in a row without losing any health, you glutton for punishment you! you martyr of the miserable gaming experience!

tiny ogre · Post by **tiny ogre** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:53 am

Cota wrote:
One thing that I wonder about from time to time is whether, generally, people's FIRST Elder Scrolls game always ends up being their favorite.
Maybe, but my favorite is Daggerfall and I played Arena first also.

Interesting thought, but no. Oblivion is the first one that didn't make me want to strangle someone from Maryland just in case they knew someone at Bethesda.

Well OK, Morrowind didn't really either, but I would have given them the evil eye and a wide berth.

IE Oblivion is my favorite to date, Daggerfall was the first one I played, but I'm still waiting for them to get it right. I think they're going to, in two or three more games.

Really looking forward to Fallout 3!

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:31 am

"Males and females even have different base statistics."

99% sure Oblivion has this as well, not sure about MW.

qp · Post by qp » Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:40 am

Orgull wrote:Some more cool comments I found on TES forums...

Hell! Daggerfall dungeons are big, but they have the right size. Daggerfall has a lot of them, which is actually the right number. Daggerfall dungeons are truly a labyrinth of corridors, which is great. Daggerfall dungeons are SCARY; just look at these ugly, 1996-style graphics monsters and you'll get really scared. Going through the corridor, fearing every door on your side *there might be a lich there*.

Today, of course, graphics are so sofisticated that all monsters, no matter how ugly the coders wanted them to be, look like walking works of art. First you're amazed on how well done is their appearance, then you realize that they are bad and need to be destroyed. Ugly graphics and sounds were really great for obscure environments.

Actually, the sound is one of the things that make DF dungeons extra scary.

First off, no combat music. Whose bright (read: stupid) idea was it to herald each fight with trumpets in MW and OB? You're never caught by surprise! In Daggerfall, you didn't know if you were about to get thrashed until it hit you, unless you happened to see or hear them beforehand.

Creature sounds are the other thing; each creature had a unique idle noise it made. Hearing something in a dungeon can have a few different effects on your next few moves:
1. You don't recognize the sound: this usually either piques your curiosity or scares the hell out of you. Either way, you usually tread a bit more softly until you can identify the source.
2. You recognize the sound: you can now either
a) relax, it's just a rat.
b) prepare for a decent fight, it's a wraith (better put up some magical defenses).
c) freak out! I hear a Daedra Lord, but WHERE IS IT?!?
3. You hear nothing: so either
a) it's safe.
b) you're about to get killed by a nightblade. We did mention that, save for those that come from hacking you to death, humans make no noises whatseoever, right?

It's sad that by making the new games "more theatrical" and "epic", the devs effectively killed one of the best aspects about Daggerfall. It doesn't matter how good looking or scary looking your creatures are, without the element of surprise there is nothing to fear. And that's one thing that Daggerfall does very well. Fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the known, too. And that was mostly accomplished by simply not having combat music.

The one thing that would give away a DF dungeon encounter was a brief moment of harddrive thrashing as it presumably loaded in the monster...

edit: Hey I just remembered something my nostaglia gland washed over for Arena and Daggerfall - those hideous 2-5 minute loading times when you entered or exited any building.