So I have finally decided to give my DFU installation a real gameplay, not just some “meaningless” testing different features etc. I have to say, it is pretty awesome! Thanks to all who contributed and to Interkarma for making this happen.
First off, I play with a couple of mods affecting gameplay, and only some “minor” graphics improvements…
The dungeons in retro mode, light toned down, and with ambient occlusion turned on are very nicely dark and claustrophobic. To me it feels much like the original despite being much more colorful. Vanilla had the gray washed out colors, which also added some feel but I kinda like the new look better.
Though there is some “fear factor” I miss in DFU, or so I think. It might be that I do not remember Vanilla exactly. From my memories, I remember that venturing into large dungeons on knightly errands in Vanilla gave me the creeps for various reasons… (I have always played as a non-magic user, so it is understandable.)
First, I was scared that I will not find my way out of the dungeon again… that was because I have often jumped through holes in the floor and back in the day I did not know about magic “brick-walls of teleportation” or the various levers and other pulleys to make things move. With the new map in high resolution it is now much easier to navigate the dungeon, so this fear of mine is gone for good I guess.
Second, I dreaded the water in dungeons… if water was the only option left to finish a quest, I would rather fail the quest.
Now the water does not seem as deadly in DFU as it felt in Vanilla, though I could be wrong. Can any of you more experienced tell me whether there is a real difference in this respect between Vanilla and DFU?And lastly, the most important thing. In the original Daggerfall, when I rested in a dungeon to recover some health it seemed that enemies have spawned not only near the player to interrupt my sleep, but also throughout the whole dungeon, in places I have cleared of monsters previously. Sometimes quite powerful enemies like vampire ancients have been spawned. So it often happened that while I was using up my save-slots inside the dungeon, on my way back to the exit sometimes I have found my only way blocked by this enemy that I could not defeat nor evade. I did not notice anything like this in DFU (0.13.3 beta), at least not yet. Since I am playing with various mods that might be affecting this I would like to ask, whether there is some considerable danger of monsters being spawned inside a dungeon at random places in basic DFU… not that it would be an issue now with unlimited save-slots anyway.