(What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
Dalebvr
Posts: 44
Joined: Wed May 22, 2019 9:52 pm

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by Dalebvr »

Oh man.

I played Arena when it came out, got it from the computer shop (damn I miss those. Actual boxes and media to reinstall from instead of 'Hour 9 of downloading'), so I was revved to play DF. When I got the notification that UPS had it, I went to the arrival area with ticket in hand to grab it and go.

Then I ran into the AMD K6-200 Causeway issue. Have to say though, that Julian and Co. were fast getting those first few memory issue patches out. Then we fired it up and finally got into the game I managed to tweak my hardware enough that causeway errors were on the rare side).
I surfaced like 12 hours later, wondering where the time had gone (I had an AWE-32 sound card, so the MIDI was never the tinny plinking of basic sound, but a nice orchestral soundbank. Swoon). I think I was cussing out those damned imps in PH. The outside world was mind blowing; having dungeons actually out in the wilds? Not having them spitting distance from undefended villages with kids and animals and unmolested by the creatures? I'd been on the bethsoft forums as the DF team was whacking away at their game, and even with the glitches it was living up to a lot of the hype. You could see where the tech had failed to function as intended, and those of us who followed knew at least some of the content cut at the last second, but it worked.

Then it snowed, and that wonderful, sweeping orchestral theme of riding free as the wind played, and I was lost. I could spend a couple of hours just clopping along, listening to that theme (hell, I -STILL- have the extracted midi files and the .ogg player that the format company put on their website). There were some disappointments, but all I could think was 'Next iteration, they will have nailed it cold'.

Then we got the hip pocket sized rats nest maze of a world called Morrowind, which took one of the largest nations in Tamriel and reduced it to function on a gen 1 Xbox. Excellent story telling (Yay Ken!), but the way they did things screamed 'maze' to every sense I had. Never got into it (hoping the Skywind might correct some of that).

dutchovenfarts
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:17 pm

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by dutchovenfarts »

oh yeah! anyone remember the skeletons used to moon walk towards you in 1.0? lol

User avatar
Jesster
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jul 31, 2019 9:34 pm
Location: Vvardenfell

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by Jesster »

My first memory of Daggerfall was watching someone else play it when I was a kid. They were exploring some dungeon corridors and turned into a werewolf to start hunting enemies down. This was actually what started my werewolf obsession. I didn't know what Daggerfall was at the time, so I just remembered it as "the cool werewolf game" until I got into Morrowind later on and learned more about the series.

User avatar
ironside31
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:00 pm

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by ironside31 »

I had just bought the game and rushed home to play it. I had to remove quite a bit of other stuff to fit the full install on my Packard Hell pc. I launched the game and made my first char and was eager to get into the game, I skipped the videos. BIG mistake! I went straight to the main city of daggerfall after getting out of Privateers hold. I was wandering around looking at everything and then thru my headset came VENGENCE!!!!!! I ripped off the headset and tossed it on my desk and tried to restart my heart, meanwhile I was being torn to shreds by a ghost.

I was now hooked on this game and have loved it ever since.

PS Thank you Interkarma and the rest of the team for reimaging my favorite ES game

User avatar
jayhova
Posts: 923
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:54 pm
Contact:

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

I got one of the first printings of the game. The silk screening was very heavy with one side of the disk having a lot of ink. I have to put a piece of tape on the other side to balance the disk out. It was like rebalancing the load in a washing machine.
Spoiler!
Image
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

nicksta1310
Posts: 126
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2022 8:43 am
Location: Australia

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by nicksta1310 »

The first time I played Daggerfall was when Bethesda made it freeware in 2009. I had read about the game's ambitious scope and decided to give it a try, even after disliking Arena. I knew that Daggerfall had a buggy reputation, but since I was one of those people who enjoyed Battlecruiser 3000AD in the late 90s, I was willing to tolerate some instability to experience the massive world and gameplay freedom (it comes with the territory when deadlines are a thing).

I remember being pleasantly surprised by the quality of the FMV intro (e.g. the actor's performance and bookending the scene with the torch), especially after failing to understand what the narrator was saying when the animated book was turning its pages. I also remember being pleasantly surprised that a DOS game from 1996 had mouselook support.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the manual and wasn't aware of UESP, so I fumbled through character creation and got punished in Privateer's Hold for a while. I wasn't expecting great graphics, but I was still disappointed with the two frames of combat animation from the enemies, which was less than Arena and laughable by 1996 standards. Realising what the dungeon exit looked like was a WTF moment.

I loved exploring the big towns and city states, but I was disappointed with the reliance on instant fast travel between them. It was like the polar opposite of Betrayal at Krondor, which mastered wilderness gameplay three years earlier, but featured minimal interaction with towns.

You may be getting the impression that I had mixed feelings about Daggerfall and you would be right. I wanted to like the game a lot more than I did, because I could see its potential. I gave up on the DOS version when both of my save files got corrupted.

I learned about Daggerfall Unity a few years ago and decided to wait and see for a while. I finally gave it a try in August of this year and found that I liked the game a lot more. I look forward to liking the game even more in the future.

User avatar
numidium3rd
Posts: 187
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:34 am
Location: United States

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by numidium3rd »

nicksta1310 wrote: Wed Nov 02, 2022 12:20 pm I remember being pleasantly surprised by the quality of the FMV intro (e.g. the actor's performance and bookending the scene with the torch)...
That intro doesn't get enough love IMO. Considering the standards of acting in FMV games at the time it was pretty great. It set a particular dark, mysterious tone that later entries in the series never did for me.

User avatar
jayhova
Posts: 923
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:54 pm
Contact:

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

Excuse the gloom, but none may know of this forum post. :evil:
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

User avatar
PRAEst76
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri May 27, 2022 7:19 pm
Location: Suomi
Contact:

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by PRAEst76 »

No idea, but it was late enough that I ran it in dosbox. I knew of the game, but when it came out I was still an Amiga holdout. Played Morrorwind on the original XBox back in the day. Think I may have got Daggerfall from an abandonware site or something about 15 years ago. Couldn't get into it. Wasn't running very well probably. Tried again when the first DFU appeared. Looked decent but I put it aside until I was bored during lockdown and realised the extent of the mods. Been hooked since. Wished I'd got into it sooner.

User avatar
jayhova
Posts: 923
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:54 pm
Contact:

Re: (What are your) First memories of Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

PRAEst76 wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 3:29 pm ... but when it came out I was still an Amiga holdout.
I was an Atari ST holdout until after Windows 95. I was however playing with PCs and I played Arena on my buddy's DOS machine.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

Post Reply