Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

[jayhova]

Sorry, not sure what you mean by Arena 1 - 2. Are you classifying Daggerfall as a sort-of "Arena 2" or are you speaking of some early unreleased version of Arena?

Arena 2 was the original working title (and the name of the install directory) for Daggerfall

[Vorzak]

Arena 2 was the original working title (and the name of the install directory) for Daggerfall

Sure, didn't know exactly what you meant then, but yeah, that makes sense. However, Arena and Daggerfall do have distinct art styles, to the point that some people argue which one is better. But there are similarities between the games of course, like I said earlier, due to the era in which they were created, the tech and industry standards of the time etc.

[jayhova]

The reason I point this out is to make people aware of how differently Daggerfall was conceived rather than later games the series. Daggerfall was conceived as Arena 2. You can see how different this would be and how far away the mindset would be from Morrowind being conceived as Arena 3. The fact is it wasn't. By the time we get to Morrowind's immediate predecessor, Redguard, The games are no longer conceived as being sequels to Arena.

Daggerfall existed as a game with only its predecessor to compare it to. When playing Daggerfall back in the day the questions that came to mind were 'How is this like Arena?' and 'How is this different?'. We can see this in the DFU implementation. One of the features left out of DFU is the ability to create map notes. This was fundamental to Arena and was kept in Daggerfall. However, Daggerfall made it less necessary to keep notes on the map. After Daggerfall, no TES game included making map notes. Because of this, note-making is seen as unnecessary and is not included in DFU. Again, this omission is due to the fact that we no longer think of Daggerfall as a sequel but as more of a chapter in the series.

[BadLuckBurt]

After Daggerfall, no TES game included making map notes.

Double-clicking on the local map in Morrowind lets you add notes, never used it much but it definitely is a feature.

[jayhova]

Double-clicking on the local map in Morrowind lets you add notes, never used it much but it definitely is a feature.

Really? I was unaware.

[BadLuckBurt]

Really? I was unaware.

I'm sure a lot of people were. I'm not sure if the XBOX version had it but the PC version definitely has it.

This is what it looked like:

[Werewolf]

I am still wondering if Arena was intended to have a seamless 12 million km map (which would be far bigger then Daggerfall!) or if each town being a separate instance was what was actually intended. I wonder if Julian Lefay remembers the answer

[Vorzak]

The reason I point this out is to make people aware of how differently Daggerfall was conceived rather than later games the series. Daggerfall was conceived as Arena 2. You can see how different this would be and how far away the mindset would be from Morrowind being conceived as Arena 3. The fact is it wasn't. By the time we get to Morrowind's immediate predecessor, Redguard, The games are no longer conceived as being sequels to Arena.

Daggerfall existed as a game with only its predecessor to compare it to. When playing Daggerfall back in the day the questions that came to mind were 'How is this like Arena?' and 'How is this different?'. We can see this in the DFU implementation. One of the features left out of DFU is the ability to create map notes. This was fundamental to Arena and was kept in Daggerfall. However, Daggerfall made it less necessary to keep notes on the map. After Daggerfall, no TES game included making map notes. Because of this, note-making is seen as unnecessary and is not included in DFU. Again, this omission is due to the fact that we no longer think of Daggerfall as a sequel but as more of a chapter in the series.

That’s a bit far-fetched, not to mention untrue. I think it’s very unfair to assume that that is the motive behind DFU not implementing the automap notetaking, or anything else for that matter. The DFU devs are very passionate about Daggerfall, as over a decade of hard work has proven, and trying to preserve the game the best they can while also adding some modernizations. They have valid reasons for their design decisions. You’re overanalyzing and obsessing over a single feature and reading into things, feels like you’re almost trying to mildly discredit the DFU team. Quite frankly, I think you need to stop being butthurt over DFU not being developed to your standards, instead, if you really care, maybe ask some questions and do some research of your own and just chill for a few.

There’s a technical reason (like this wasn’t going to be obvious?) they chose not to implement automap notetaking for town, not because they perceive Daggerfall differently with later ES games clouding their judgment or whatever ridiculous theory. Btw map notetaking has been implemented in dungeons for a long time now, where it’s the most useful and necessary.

Read this github discussion:
https://github.com/Interkarma/daggerfal ... ssues/2001

[jayhova]

That’s a bit far-fetched, not to mention untrue. I think it’s very unfair to assume that that is the motive behind DFU not implementing the automap notetaking, or anything else for that matter. The DFU devs are very passionate about Daggerfall, as over a decade of hard work has proven, and trying to preserve the game the best they can while also adding some modernizations. They have valid reasons for their design decisions. You’re overanalyzing and obsessing over a single feature and reading into things, feels like you’re almost trying to mildly discredit the DFU team. Quite frankly, I think you need to stop being butthurt over DFU not being developed to your standards, instead, if you really care, maybe ask some questions and do some research of your own and just chill for a few.

There’s a technical reason (like this wasn’t going to be obvious?) they chose not to implement automap notetaking for town, not because they perceive Daggerfall differently with later ES games clouding their judgment or whatever ridiculous theory. Btw map notetaking has been implemented in dungeons for a long time now, where it’s the most useful and necessary.

Read this github discussion:
https://github.com/Interkarma/daggerfal ... ssues/2001

Unfortunately, I am going to have to disagree. What I said was neither far-fetched nor untrue. The developer discussion you reference acknowledges this as being a feature in the original game. It was not implemented. The why of it is pretty much stated outright. Implementing this feature created technical hurdles. Those hurdles were never impossible to overcome. Obviously, this was done in the original. Implementing this feature failed the cost-benefit analysis. Had this feature been considered important to play, it would have been implemented.

The feature was considered non-essential and was not implemented because it clashed with the design philosophy of the maps. Interkarma had certain design criteria in mind and implementing the original feature would have created difficulties. This does not change the fact that a large part of leaving this feature off was the view that it was nonessential.

I'm not even arguing against the idea of this feature being considered non-essential. I'm simply pointing out that the view of it being non-essential comes from a very different view of what is or is not essential. Clearly, if notes on the map are so problematic why were they in the original game? The answer is pretty clear to me that the ability to make notes was considered necessary. Notes were considered necessary because they were in the first game and were a large part of the playstyle of the first game and Daggerfall was the sequel to that game. The reality is that if Daggerfall was the first game you played in the series or if you played the later games first you simply would not miss the ability to take notes.

The feature became so unimportant that in Morrowind I didn't even know it was there. Why was it there? My guess is that like me Todd Howard played a lot of Arena and then Daggerfall. But this is not a feature that is of much use on an Xbox.

[BadLuckBurt]

The feature became so unimportant that in Morrowind I didn't even know it was there. Why was it there? My guess is that like me Todd Howard played a lot of Arena and then Daggerfall. But this is not a feature that is of much use on an Xbox.

If you want my best guess? Debugging or leaving TODOs for landscapers I went and checked the GOTY manual and there is no mention of this in the section that describes the map features. Most people probably found out by accident. I don't remember if I had it on XBOX but it may as well have been in that build as it did feature a virtual keyboard for input.

In any case, I think there may be room for a mod to tackle the space this absence of notes / maps created. Might even use those empty sheets of papers. Not sure if I'll be the one to make it but with some creativity and DFU nearing the beta stage, it should be possible to display notes created by the player on top of what DFU gives us at present or alternatively using something separate all together.

You could argue about whether that should be core functionality or not but ultimately that decision always lies with Interkarma unless you decide to fork the code and develop your own version.