Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
Post Reply
User avatar
jayhova
Posts: 923
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:54 pm
Contact:

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

Development on Morrowind was very long. It is quite possible that they made a list of features they wanted in Morrowind once they completed Daggerfall. If that is the case when they did the development they put it in and did nothing with it. It was a feature of TES games at the time development started but then became a feature that was not useful on the Xbox and so while it was left in it was not moved forward. Virtually all PC-exclusive features were deprecated starting with Morrowind. No more typing in the answers to riddles etc.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

User avatar
Werewolf
Posts: 195
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 12:21 am

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Werewolf »

Still wondering if Arena was at one point intended to be a seamless 12 million km open world instead of each town being a separate instance like it ended up being

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

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

My guess would be no. Arena was conceived as town centric game. Go to a town, fight in the arena, do some side quests. I became a sort of knock off of other dungeon crawl games. Since it never had a grand campaign scheme to begin with, I doubt there was any priority placed on a unified world-space.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

User avatar
Werewolf
Posts: 195
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 12:21 am

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Werewolf »

Then why did Arena advertise itself as 12 million km? I believe the manual has elements not in the actual game. Also the manual even explains that maps in the wilderness work differently then inside towns because of the world’s size. It’s odd that the developers would program maps to work differently in the wilderness like that if the world wasn’t at least at one point proposed to be connected. Julian might know

Arena had nowhere near as much cut or unfinished content as Daggerfall but it still had cut and unfinished content. It’s just odd that the manual specifically states that the world is 12 million km (a pretty specific number). I think the world actually being interconnected was probably at least PROPOSED. Again, Julian might know

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

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

Werewolf wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:57 pm Then why did Arena advertise itself as 12 million km?

My guess is marketing. Given the time when it was developed Arena was huge. I imagine someone along the way asked how big is this empire and then published the answer as a feature.
Werewolf wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:57 pm I believe the manual has elements not in the actual game. Also the manual even explains that maps in the wilderness work differently then inside towns because of the world’s size.
It's actually quite common for elements to be left out because they never worked right and could not be fixed before release. There were a number of features that never made it into Daggerfall. It's been a while since I played Arena. There would have been city maps, dungeon maps, and the areas around dungeon maps.
Werewolf wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:57 pm Arena had nowhere near as much cut or unfinished content as Daggerfall but it still had cut and unfinished content.
Arena was not a game that was a highly anticipated sequel. Daggerfall was promised and then delayed. Even as it was it was a huge amount of work and cost a lot of money to produce. Bethsoft was up against the wall with no other projects funding the company it needed to release the game.
Werewolf wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:57 pm Julian might know
Likely he does. He had an AMA some years ago on the Daggerfall Reddit. I have not combed through it to see what questions he answered.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

User avatar
Werewolf
Posts: 195
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 12:21 am

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Werewolf »

So originally there were planned to be different types of maps for towns and dungeons? I just wonder sometimes about whether or not Arena was at one point planned to have an actual open world and not the separate instances.

But yeah, Arena had a better atmosphere and more consistent art style. I’ve mentioned this before, but in Daggerfall some of the sprites aren’t great, although it has its share of beautiful sprites

Also I wonder where the idea of werewolves came from. Werewolves went from being hidden content in Daggerfall (in the context of playing Daggerfall in the 90s, suddenly finding yourself as a lycanthrope must have been mind-blowing) to pretty much on the side in Morrowind as werewolves were added via DLC, to completely absent in Oblivion (why was that?) to being portrayed in a much more cinematic style in Skyrim. Now werewolves seem to be a well-established thing in the series, although that didn’t happen until Skyrim. Werewolves are established now to the point where if Elder Scrolls 6 doesn’t have werewolves there would likely be some vocal complaints and requests to add them in DLC. But once again in Daggerfall they were basically a hidden feature that made you super powerful. Wonder where exactly the idea to put werewolves in came from, And I wonder if Daggerfall had more plans for lycanthropy.

Seeing how werewolves in Daggerfall come across as being not fully developed, for example town citizens don’t react to you as a werewolf and in a game focused on role-playing being a werewolf changes nothing but being overpowered and having to occasionally kill someone, which seems unusual. While Daggerfall generally was adventurous it did have in some elements a dark, occult, almost Diablo-like style. The werewolves in Daggerfall look very vicious and even malicious, and savage in a negative way, as opposed to modern Elder Scrolls where they’re moreso savage in a “wild” way. Daggerfall werewolves were super strong and literally had to murder people to remain in health. Skyrim werewolves are just wow I’m a wild werewolf. Daggerfall more accurately featured the medieval-Christian view of lycanthropy as terrifying and murderous whereas modern Elder Scrolls is more pagan with more “wild” werewolves. Ironic that Daggerfall’s secular lore at times has Christian views that dislike the supernatural as Daggerfall’s dark lore to me seems to view the supernatural as dark and menacing (like general Christian views) but in a secular, pessismistic way where humans are insignificant in a large magical world.

It is interesting how secular fantasy lore shares similarities with Christian views of the supernatural as a negative thing. Ironic that as one sees the fallacies of magical thinking and paganism, and sees how crappy the earth can be at times, you begin to interpret the “supernatural” as being quite negative as you delve into existentialist questions. I am not a Christian (I’m secular) but I do find Christianity’s negative view of life and acknowledgment of human violence to be like the predecessor to pessimistic atheism. You can argue that Buddhism might be pessimistic but remove Jesus and Christian cosmology is actually horrifying and presents a hopeless world, like modern-day secular pessimism. Buddhism also shows how painful life can be but Christianity really acknowledges how VIOLENT people can be.

Okay enough talking about how I think old religious thinking translates into modern pessimism for me

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

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

Werewolf wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:25 am Also I wonder where the idea of werewolves came from. Werewolves went from being hidden content in Daggerfall (in the context of playing Daggerfall in the 90s, suddenly finding yourself as a lycanthrope must have been mind-blowing) to pretty much on the side in Morrowind as werewolves were added via DLC, to completely absent in Oblivion (why was that?) to being portrayed in a much more cinematic style in Skyrim. Now werewolves seem to be a well-established thing in the series, although that didn’t happen until Skyrim. Werewolves are established now to the point where if Elder Scrolls 6 doesn’t have werewolves there would likely be some vocal complaints and requests to add them in DLC. But once again in Daggerfall they were basically a hidden feature that made you super powerful. Wonder where exactly the idea to put werewolves in came from, And I wonder if Daggerfall had more plans for lycanthropy.
Werewolves were in Vampire the Masquerade. At the time Julian and the boyz were playing the Vampire game.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

User avatar
Werewolf
Posts: 195
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 12:21 am

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Werewolf »

That makes sense, though Werewolf the Apocalypse actually has more sympathetic werewolves as opposed to Daggerfall. Come to think of it Daggerfall’s world seems similar to a tabletop RPG where every player will have a different experience in the same world. For a tabletop game it’s because the DM controls things, whereas Daggerfall translates that to games with a realistically-sized and scaled world and randomly generated quests.

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

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by jayhova »

The stated goal of Daggerfall was for the game to simulate the tabletop experience with the computer becoming the DM.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

User avatar
Werewolf
Posts: 195
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 12:21 am

Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Werewolf »

jayhova wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 10:14 pm The stated goal of Daggerfall was for the game to simulate the tabletop experience with the computer becoming the DM.
Makes perfect sense though even vanilla Daggerfall doesn’t reach those heights but it comes far closer than most RPGs. In the future when AI for games becomes a thing it would be fascinating to see another game with Daggerfall’s premise. Imagine a dynamic fantasy RPG with a Daggerfall-sized world but far more detailed with AI-powered generation of towns, history/lore, countryside, NPCs, and dungeons.

Basically, imagine an AI that can procedurally generate content, as the DM. In fact come to think of it it’s probably already possible to make an AI that could be a DM for tabletop games, like you type what your party is and where you are and such and it would generate events, dungeons, plots, conversations, etc. It’s just nobody’s made that but it is possible

Post Reply