custom game project using DFU Engine?

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
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Jay_H
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Re: custom game project using DFU Engine?

Post by Jay_H »

This is a pretty slow forum, and bumping won't benefit you much here -- if anyone has any answers they're free to give them, but your last question has a lot of legal implications and I don't know that many of us have experience with that ;) If you don't get any answers, you'll probably have to live with that.

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jefetienne
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Re: custom game project using DFU Engine?

Post by jefetienne »

I'd say considering that Nintendo can take down standalone fan-made games and projects (such as Pokemon Uranium), I think it's possible Bethesda has the same power to take down standalone games or remakes in order to protect their IP. However, modding can still be on the table, because Bethesda actively encourages mod development under the umbrella of their own proprietary engines/assets.

If you look at Project Tamriel, there are whole volunteer-driven projects of TES provinces within the Morrowind engine (and are also compatible with OpenMW, a GPL-licensed Morrowind engine.) They even have a "High Rock 427" project that is still in its concept stages to recreate the Daggerfall province.
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MasonFace
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Re: custom game project using DFU Engine?

Post by MasonFace »

I don't think I'm the only one confused by this topic, and let me explain why:

That you "have a large amount of money put aside" to "get into non-commercial game development". This means you have cash to burn in order to develop a game that will not earn any money in return. This doesn't make economic sense. Doing this as a hobby or to gain experience is fine, but from things you've said in the past, it sounds like you're wanting mostly just hire out the labor... so I'm not sure what kind of meaningful experience you'd gain from it.
The only thing is that now, I'm starting to lean towards recreating the entirety of daggerfall using a new base engine and codebase rather than working off of the mechanics bethesda created. Think of it how Skywind is remaking Morrowind from scratch using Skyrims engine and mechanics rather than just updating and modernizing the base morrowind game.
Then do that. :P If you really want to get into non-commercial game development, then there's no better place to start than working on mods or source ports! As jefetienne pointed out, there are already a number of projects that exist that are incorporating the Daggerfall game world into more modern Elder Scrolls game engines. In my opinion, one of the most promising is Skygerfall. Prehaps you should try to join that team instead of spear heading your own project from scratch?

As far as the legal questions, I'm not aware that we have any lawyers in our community that specialize in this specific topic. I'd say that since there are so many fan-made recreations of old Elder Scrolls games made in modern engines that haven't been shut down, you're probably safe, but that's no guarantee. I don't know if there's anything stopping Bethesda/Zenimax from exercising their right to issue Cease and Desist letters to any and all of these projects.

I'm really not sure what else this community can offer you, but I wish you luck.

imsobadatnicknames
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Re: custom game project using DFU Engine?

Post by imsobadatnicknames »

I don't really see the point of trying to use DFU's engine (an engine that is supposed to closely mimic DaggerFall's funciontality with a few modern upgrades) to do a "modern recreation" of Daggerfall (and tbh I think what you were originally proposing would likely count more as a gameplay overhaul than a custom game project, at least if I understood correctl and your main goal is to incorporate more modern gameplay mechanics into DFU)

I think a better focus for a custom project using DFU's engine would be to make a new game that shares Daggerfall's base mechanics but has its own geography, lore, main quest, etc., kinda like SureAI have done with Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Though, that probably wouldn't be exactly easy to implement either and would require reverse-engineering whatever tools Bethesda originally used to generate all towns/dungeons/etc. and place them on the map.
Released mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/users/5141135 ... files&BH=0
Daggerfall isn't the only ridiculously intrincate fantasy world simulator with the initials DF that I make mods for: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=177071.0

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