Vision of Daggerfall

[NikitaTheTanner]

After having some thoughts, I've decided to share my personal views on the potential future of the project. Everybody is welcome to participate in the discussion, whether you agree or disagree with me. My vision is quite ambitious and it's impossible to realize on my own.

Fist of all, I want to thank Interkarma for all the amazing progress he brings. Without him, my vision would never even be possible, but thanks to his work we are all here and we can at least hope that our dreams may come true one day.

First of all, I would love to get just a stable copy of Daggerfall running on the moddern engine. Daggerfall is one of my favorite games, in terms of style and design. It is amazing that Bethesda had achieved in 1996. But I believe that Daggerfall's future is full of potential no one ever dreamed possible.

I believe that in 10-20 years we might be able to get a completely new world, fully believable and immersive. The base is already there, the ideas are already there, they just need to be brought to life.

I am talking about modern game with better graphics and huge level of detail. Just a simulation of Tamriel, how it could've been done today with modern technologies. Procedurally generated games are very popular nowadays, but they often lack depth. In Daggerfall, I believe that we would be able to avoid it.

I see a large game world with towns connected by roads, beautiful and varied landscapes, full of characters and locations. Of course, largely random, but generated with new algorithms to make the world feel alive. Villages, castles protecting them, working mines and flowing economy, etc. The world not just filled with random NPCs, but each NPC assigned a role in the world: farmers, commoners, mages, lords and others. Survival mechanisms with hunger, diseases, sleep deprivation, cold and heat. Deeper NPC interactions with possibility to make friends and enemies. Lots of new stories to tell, tasks to do, powers to acquire, etc.

This sort of game is far away from us, but unlike original developers we do not have a time limit. We are also not being paid, but the more work is done, the more awareness we raise - more people will likely join our cause and contribute their talent. Since Daggerfall is available for free, it has very deep potential. First, we focus on recreating game as is, which is good enough already, but once it is done - only the sky is the limit. Such game will be able to compete even with strongest AAA titles, given enough care and love.

Some things will need to be streamlined, others improved, new features added. Balance and stability should be first and foremost goals in such project, otherwise it will crumble with too many ideas not realized properly as was the case in the original game. But it can be done, I believe so. It just needs planning and joined efforts, then it will be possible. Step by step, improving the game and bringing it closer to perfection.

And now just imagine playing it with VR, travelling around Illiac Bay, seeing it anew. That is one powerful vision, I must tell!

What do you guys think? I understand that it might be too early to make concrete plans, but it would be great to start discussing things early on.

[Interkarma]

Hi Nikita, thank you for the kind words and enthusiasm. It means a lot to me that others can become so invested in this project and look towards the future.

For my own personal roadmap, my plan is to implement vanilla Daggerfall with light moderns touches and quality of life features. Also to provide a scaffold for future work. I do not plan to make any substantial changes to Daggerfall's rules, gameplay, or visual style.

So while my preference falls on the classic side of things, I totally understand that others might want something different in the future. I fully expect the community will eventually grow Daggerfall Unity by either forking the code to a new project and building on top (greatest control, greatest difficulty) or creating mods (good control, mild-moderate difficulty).

It's a good time to start discussions, and most importantly get the help of people who can script these ideas into reality. Just always try to start small and break the desired outcome down into smaller bite-sized pieces, or else it's very easy to become overwhelmed by ambition.

[kingOfWyrms]

I'm here because I think we can do what Bethesda didn't. I like the new TES and Fallout games more than any of the old ones, but I feel a certain amount of betrayal towards fans with the way the series went after Daggerfall. I wasn't even living at the time of Daggerfall, but when I look at the old promotional material, read the manuals, imagine the hype... I can't help but get this sense that TES is not what it could have been, or, more importantly, what it should have been. The new games are great fun, but that line they've been using for years, that idea of "be whoever you want, do whatever you want" has slowly become further and further from what they actually make. No, I don't see Daggerfall as exemplifying this idea, in fact I think it's worse at it than some of the later games, but the way it was presented and hyped and conceptualized, that exemplified the idea.

If you read the manual for Arena or Daggerfall, one of the first things written in either is a statement that their goal was to bring the power of tabletop roleplaying games to the personal computer, to prove that you could have just as deep an experience on your PC. Daggerfall was presented as an immersive world, and my vision of what Daggerfall should be is not simply a modern port, but not a wholly new idea either. To take the vision the designers had, the vision they gave us, and realize it. To deliver on the promise that was broken so many years ago.

My first experience with The Elder Scrolls was Oblivion, which remains my most beloved game to this day. But, I was not enamored by the dungeon crawling, or the combat, or the story; it was the idea of a simulated world that grabbed me. Years passed as I waited for a new entry, expecting deeper systems to simulate a living world, and then I finally got Skyrim. I was... disappointed. It wasn't the game I had wanted. Where I was imagining more realism, I was instead given more balance, more game. I guess I want to make Daggerfall into the game Oblivion left me wanting, and hopefully see that same desire satified in others who were let down by the path TES has taken over its life. I admit, I am an outlier here in many ways, but I have hope that maybe my desire is shared by others in the community.

[Biboran]

I had two variants of upgraded daggrfall in my head.

One baced on vanilla game. First mods need be full remade of all models and textures. Second, interface mod with 3d pices of armor and with support of 3d npcs. Next mods: unique landscape, flora and fauna for regions, unique architecture for regions, new generator template and pieces for dungeons. Hand maded capital cities, important dungeons and places, new ship and ports systems. A lot of not-generated quests: unique questlines for each regions.
I think it is possible to create a amazing full of content big game, a lot better than any TES chapter. But I think it not possible bcause no one want do this.

[NikitaTheTanner]

But I think it not possible bcause no one want do this.

Do not worry about that too much, I am absolutely sure it will change over time. It has some great potential! The main problem right now - absence of coverage, e.g. marketing. Daggerfall is an old game, not that many people are familiar with it. Even fewer know of Daggerfall Unity.

Once the game is playable to the full extent - it will gain some coverage from Youtube LPs and over game related spheres. Plus it's on Unity which is a great plus. There are tons of Indie developers on Unity and even corporations use this engine for their games. Lots of people in this community. Another thing - TES series are very popular nowadays with huge modders community. Them and their work will definitely help us in many ways.

Once it's rolling, the project might interest all these groups - TES fans and modders, Unity developers and various people who like survival games in randomly generated worlds (Minecraft, No Man's Sky, We Happy Few, etc.). That is a huge pool of people, many with creative skills. I myself started learning Blender just to help convert Daggerfall into full 3D.

There are good odds that this will result in success, as long as the project passes the early development stage and becomes fully playable and moddable.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I'm not voting any option because my vision is both!

I think a recreation of the original Daggerfall is needed, on the one hand for historical/preservation reasons (it's a gem of a game, the original version gets harder and harder to play as computers evolve, and sadly its source code was lost) and on the other hand because I love the game as it is and any changes and additions beyond fixing obvious bugs are a risk of making it worse in some respect (for example many people dislike the mouse-based combat system and the vastness of the dungeons in Daggerfall, while I love those things).

On the other hand, once we have the recreation of the original Daggerfall, of course I will want more! It would be a pity to have the game re-implemented in a modern system and not take advantage of that to generate new content, new quests, overhaul all kinds of stuff or even make new games based on the same engine. But all of this should be separate releases (or separate settings) coexisting with the possibility of playing Classic Daggerfall with Unity.