7 ms·

I do remember feeling of being in something of RPG drought when Baldur's Gate came along. At least I believe that was the sentiment expressed by PC Games magazi

by tomc1985 8y ago

I do remember feeling of being in something of RPG drought when Baldur's Gate came along. At least I believe that was the sentiment expressed by PC Games magazine, which I was reading pretty heavily at the time. I don't think ES or Fallout were on my radar at that time but you're the first person I've heard with very positive opinions of Daggerfall; most of the ES nostalgics seem to pine for Morrowind. Baldur's Gate had the D&D license, though, and that gave it a lot of weight and staying power for people who weren't already into CRPGs. I think it also left a much larger impact than any of the games you've mentioned save maybe Fallout II. Part of the draw for me were those D&D rules; I was pretty heavy into tabletop RPGs at the time.

muro 8y ago
Daggerfall was a buggy mess or randomly generated, yet still always the same dungeons. No reason whatsoever to walk in the always-same, never ending landscape. The plot was good, the scale huge. Morrowind fixed all of that - much smaller scale, less generated stuff, excellent plot, few (er) bugs - it was actually possible to finish the game. Landscape with purpose, it was actually interesting to walk and explore.
- sreque 8y ago
  Admittedly, I've only played Skyrim and a bit of ESO, but I've gotten the impression from Bethesda that their RPGs are always buggy, but, at least with Skryim, the game was so good I was more than willing to forgive them for it. Skyrim remains my favorite single player RPG to date. To respond to the OP, I consider the baldur's gate series to be more of a trend-setter than the other games he listed.
  - godshatter 8y ago
    I remember reading somewhere that the developers of Skyrim will leave non game-breaking bugs in the code if they are funny ones that don't break quests. Things like mammoths floating in the air in certain cases, for example.
    - bitexploder 8y ago
      My kids think it’s hilarious to fast travel to a giant camp and see mammoths spawn from the air fall and die.
  - _asummers 8y ago
    Give Witcher 3 a shot if you haven't. I much prefer it to Skyrim, and felt much more attachment to the world and characters.
    - enraged_camel 8y ago
      Witcher 3 is fantastic. Incredible story, enormous amount of high-quality content, and wonderful, hand-crafted world.
    - AngryData 8y ago
      Witcher 3 is what I hoped Skyrim would be and despite playing an already existent character and it felt like I had way more freedom in my choices.
    - z3phyr 8y ago
      Witcher 3 and Skyrim are two totally different games. Witcher 3 is more story focused if you get the gist. Skyrim is kindof pseudo-choose-your-own-adventure, not focused on dialog but exploration. Witcher3 is on the opposite spectrum, focusing more on characters and dialog and world building.
      - _asummers 8y ago
        I don't know if I agree fully. Yes they were obviously different games, but it seems like Skyrim and Witcher were very similar in scale. Had Bethesda decided not to not autogenerate many of the side quests, it feels like Skyrim could have been Witcher with a different lore and combat system despite being way earlier. I remember zero Skyrim characters and remember most of the Witcher characters, and while I understand they're different games, I refuse to accept that a company the size of Bethesda could not make an Elder Scrolls story that introduces complex lore like Witcher that could be largely ignored by masses if they so choose (Fallout 4, for example).
  - dmoy 8y ago
    Oh wow it just stuck me that the Morrowind "screen always red" bug and the Skyrim "the damn battle music won't stop playing" bug are probably a very similar bug.
- dmoy 8y ago
  > few (er) heh. fewer, yes. few, no. My favorite were the "why am I underneath the ground" or the "why is my screen now red until I reload the game?" bugs that happened all the time.
Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
Morrowind does have more following, but Daggerfall has an extraordinarily staunch user base. 22 years after its release, its Reddit and various forums are pretty active and there is a full remake in Unity getting close to full functionality, with all code recreated from scratch, and people are already creating various mods for it. (obligatory link: https://www.dfworkshop.net/ https://www.dfworkshop.net/). Daggerfall and Morrowind had a quite different spirit, it was not a case of incremental improvement but a change of philosophy, hence they appeal to different (although overlapping) sets of people. Daggerfall was one of the most ambitious open world games ever created. It had an enormous world, the size of Great Britain, with over 15,000 towns and dungeons to explore and tons of quests that would be randomly parameterized with towns, buildings, dungeons and NPCs. The world was procedurally generated once, and stored into the game, so everyone sees the same towns and dungeons. The game play was totally open, to the extent that many Daggerfall fans don't care much about the main quest (even though the main quest story was actually top notch, with lots of twists, treason, meaningful choice and all). Why have a main quest when you can just live your life setting your own goals: advancing in the various guilds, striving to buy a big house, a boat, to become a famous knight, etc. The dungeons were also procedurally generated, and so labyrinthine that you could literally spend hours exploring a single dungeon. This is something that some people hated about the game (I actually love it. It was deeply immersive, and the feeling of finally getting back to the surface and hearing crickets was amazing). The character creation system was more oriented to role-playing (you could do things like give your character specific advantages or disadvantages) than to game balance. You could even make your own spells! Morrowind continued the saga in terms of lore and mechanics, but took a totally different turn. The world was hand-crafted, so it was more carefully put together, but also much smaller. And the open-world nature was very much toned down. You were now "the Chosen One" (in Daggerfall you were just a random person, except for being a friend of the emperor, living their life and trying to make fortune) and you pretty much had to follow the main quest because there weren't that many things to do on the side compared to Daggerfall. The labyrinthine dungeons were replaced by quite linear dungeons (although less so than in later installments of the saga). Roleplaying-oriented features like advantages and disadvantages on character creation, questions to determine character background, etc. were removed. Don't get me wrong, I love Morrowind too, as well as Oblivion and Skyrim, and even Arena. I have enjoyed all of them a lot. But Daggerfall was a unique beast and scratched itches that no other game did. I understand that it's not for everyone, many people hate it. It's one of the most polarizing games I have ever seen, a case of "love it or hate it". Exploring dungeons requires a lot of patience which many people just don't have, and the procedurally-generated nature (with 1996 technology) means that it isn't as fleshed out as other games - for example towns can feel quite repetitive, etc., you have to use the imagination a bit to imagine how each place is unique. Also, the fact that it was very buggy (although it improved a lot with patches, and Daggerfall Unity will hopefully be very stable as it's remade from scratch) alienated some players. But for the kind of player who seeks primarily immersion, the kind of player who actually roleplays, it's an unparalleled wonder because it lets you be whoever you want to be much better than the later games, which take you through the story on rails. Daggerfall feels like a real world, a simulation of a life in a fantasy land, and the emergent behavior caused by quests, reputations, etc. is often amazing. While the subsequent games in the saga are masterpieces in their own right, I long for a game in the spirit of Daggerfall with current (or at least later) technology.
thom 8y ago
Daggerfall was absolutely wonderful. It was like Elite but a fantasy RPG. Morrowind felt like a _huge_ step back, and even Skyrim falls short of the scale and sense of wilderness and exploration.
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oelmekki 8y ago
I'll speak only for me, here, but Fallout 1 is the game that impressed me the most among these, during those times. It had to do with this idea that you could go anywhere you wanted and you weren't forced into a linear plot (somewhat a precursor of current day's openworld games). Granted, I didn't know d&d back then, I guess if it happened now after playing d&d, Baldur's Gate would impress me more.

muro 8y ago

Daggerfall was a buggy mess or randomly generated, yet still always the same dungeons. No reason whatsoever to walk in the always-same, never ending landscape. The plot was good, the scale huge. Morrowind fixed all of that - much smaller scale, less generated stuff, excellent plot, few (er) bugs - it was actually possible to finish the game. Landscape with purpose, it was actually interesting to walk and explore.

sreque 8y ago
Admittedly, I've only played Skyrim and a bit of ESO, but I've gotten the impression from Bethesda that their RPGs are always buggy, but, at least with Skryim, the game was so good I was more than willing to forgive them for it. Skyrim remains my favorite single player RPG to date. To respond to the OP, I consider the baldur's gate series to be more of a trend-setter than the other games he listed.
- godshatter 8y ago
  I remember reading somewhere that the developers of Skyrim will leave non game-breaking bugs in the code if they are funny ones that don't break quests. Things like mammoths floating in the air in certain cases, for example.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    My kids think it’s hilarious to fast travel to a giant camp and see mammoths spawn from the air fall and die.
- _asummers 8y ago
  Give Witcher 3 a shot if you haven't. I much prefer it to Skyrim, and felt much more attachment to the world and characters.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    Witcher 3 is fantastic. Incredible story, enormous amount of high-quality content, and wonderful, hand-crafted world.
  - AngryData 8y ago
    Witcher 3 is what I hoped Skyrim would be and despite playing an already existent character and it felt like I had way more freedom in my choices.
  - z3phyr 8y ago
    Witcher 3 and Skyrim are two totally different games. Witcher 3 is more story focused if you get the gist. Skyrim is kindof pseudo-choose-your-own-adventure, not focused on dialog but exploration. Witcher3 is on the opposite spectrum, focusing more on characters and dialog and world building.
    - _asummers 8y ago
      I don't know if I agree fully. Yes they were obviously different games, but it seems like Skyrim and Witcher were very similar in scale. Had Bethesda decided not to not autogenerate many of the side quests, it feels like Skyrim could have been Witcher with a different lore and combat system despite being way earlier. I remember zero Skyrim characters and remember most of the Witcher characters, and while I understand they're different games, I refuse to accept that a company the size of Bethesda could not make an Elder Scrolls story that introduces complex lore like Witcher that could be largely ignored by masses if they so choose (Fallout 4, for example).
- dmoy 8y ago
  Oh wow it just stuck me that the Morrowind "screen always red" bug and the Skyrim "the damn battle music won't stop playing" bug are probably a very similar bug.
dmoy 8y ago
> few (er) heh. fewer, yes. few, no. My favorite were the "why am I underneath the ground" or the "why is my screen now red until I reload the game?" bugs that happened all the time.

Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago

Morrowind does have more following, but Daggerfall has an extraordinarily staunch user base. 22 years after its release, its Reddit and various forums are pretty active and there is a full remake in Unity getting close to full functionality, with all code recreated from scratch, and people are already creating various mods for it. (obligatory link: https://www.dfworkshop.net/ https://www.dfworkshop.net/). Daggerfall and Morrowind had a quite different spirit, it was not a case of incremental improvement but a change of philosophy, hence they appeal to different (although overlapping) sets of people. Daggerfall was one of the most ambitious open world games ever created. It had an enormous world, the size of Great Britain, with over 15,000 towns and dungeons to explore and tons of quests that would be randomly parameterized with towns, buildings, dungeons and NPCs. The world was procedurally generated once, and stored into the game, so everyone sees the same towns and dungeons. The game play was totally open, to the extent that many Daggerfall fans don't care much about the main quest (even though the main quest story was actually top notch, with lots of twists, treason, meaningful choice and all). Why have a main quest when you can just live your life setting your own goals: advancing in the various guilds, striving to buy a big house, a boat, to become a famous knight, etc. The dungeons were also procedurally generated, and so labyrinthine that you could literally spend hours exploring a single dungeon. This is something that some people hated about the game (I actually love it. It was deeply immersive, and the feeling of finally getting back to the surface and hearing crickets was amazing). The character creation system was more oriented to role-playing (you could do things like give your character specific advantages or disadvantages) than to game balance. You could even make your own spells! Morrowind continued the saga in terms of lore and mechanics, but took a totally different turn. The world was hand-crafted, so it was more carefully put together, but also much smaller. And the open-world nature was very much toned down. You were now "the Chosen One" (in Daggerfall you were just a random person, except for being a friend of the emperor, living their life and trying to make fortune) and you pretty much had to follow the main quest because there weren't that many things to do on the side compared to Daggerfall. The labyrinthine dungeons were replaced by quite linear dungeons (although less so than in later installments of the saga). Roleplaying-oriented features like advantages and disadvantages on character creation, questions to determine character background, etc. were removed. Don't get me wrong, I love Morrowind too, as well as Oblivion and Skyrim, and even Arena. I have enjoyed all of them a lot. But Daggerfall was a unique beast and scratched itches that no other game did. I understand that it's not for everyone, many people hate it. It's one of the most polarizing games I have ever seen, a case of "love it or hate it". Exploring dungeons requires a lot of patience which many people just don't have, and the procedurally-generated nature (with 1996 technology) means that it isn't as fleshed out as other games - for example towns can feel quite repetitive, etc., you have to use the imagination a bit to imagine how each place is unique. Also, the fact that it was very buggy (although it improved a lot with patches, and Daggerfall Unity will hopefully be very stable as it's remade from scratch) alienated some players. But for the kind of player who seeks primarily immersion, the kind of player who actually roleplays, it's an unparalleled wonder because it lets you be whoever you want to be much better than the later games, which take you through the story on rails. Daggerfall feels like a real world, a simulation of a life in a fantasy land, and the emergent behavior caused by quests, reputations, etc. is often amazing. While the subsequent games in the saga are masterpieces in their own right, I long for a game in the spirit of Daggerfall with current (or at least later) technology.

thom 8y ago

Daggerfall was absolutely wonderful. It was like Elite but a fantasy RPG. Morrowind felt like a _huge_ step back, and even Skyrim falls short of the scale and sense of wilderness and exploration.

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oelmekki 8y ago

I'll speak only for me, here, but Fallout 1 is the game that impressed me the most among these, during those times. It had to do with this idea that you could go anywhere you wanted and you weren't forced into a linear plot (somewhat a precursor of current day's openworld games). Granted, I didn't know d&d back then, I guess if it happened now after playing d&d, Baldur's Gate would impress me more.