Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
User avatar
Werewolf
Posts: 195
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 12:21 am

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by Werewolf »

jayhova wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 3:45 am
jayhova wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:12 pm
Werewolf wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:51 am
And what vaporware is that?
Wayward Realms. There’s an article from someone formerly on the team that details what a mess it is: https://medium.com/@indigogaming/how-i- ... 8b327e50f3

The interviews that Julian gives sound amazing and the logical progression of Daggerfall but that article shows how the game wasn’t even in development. Seeing how they STILL only show concept art it’s pretty much just vaporware. Wayward Realms doesn’t come off as a scam in any way (no kickstarter or other crap) but I don’t have high hopes for it. I want it to succeed but I wouldn’t be surprised if it never even comes out
To be clear the person who left the team was not a developer and was not familiar with how development works. Wayward realms is NOT vaporware. It is currently in development. Development for a new project from a non-studio group is at best problematic. Take DFU for example. DFU is not vaporware and never has been. However, it took a very long time (a decade) to go from a one-man pet project to a team-built, playable, complete game. Because of the open nature of the project, you got to see all that. Vaporware refers to items that will never be completed. Several projects thought to be vaporware turned out not to be. Xanadu Is a famous example of delivered vaporware. Before slinging around terms like vaporware one should remember how long Daggerfall's original sequel took to make and how long the highly successful Bethesda studios is taking to make the sequel to Skyrim.
Good points, but I think the Wayward Realms devs responding directly to the claims made in that article could ease some of the skepticism about the project. To me it looks like Wayward Realms (it it releases) will be made by a small team (not indie) and feature Xbox 360-level (good but not great) graphics, deep mechanics and systems, and a Daggerfall-sized map. Basically the spiritual successor to Daggerfall. Julian’s ideas for the game sound freaking amazing and make Daggerfall itself look simple, but those are just ideas at the moment. I hope Wayward Realms succeeds but that article I linked makes me highly skeptical. But I’d love a true successor to Daggerfall that builds off of it, not this tiny, condensed pseudo-RPG chosen one action game that Elder Scrolls has become.

Arena and Daggerfall are so different from Morrowind and afterwards that I almost consider Arena and Daggerfall to be a separate series just in the same world. You know how there’s been the Dungeons and Dragons Gold Box video games and then later Baldur’s Gate? You know how both series take place in the same fantasy world-Forgotten Realms-but otherwise are different series with different devs and different design, etc? That pretty much applies to the first 2 Elder Scrolls games and the ones after. I mean, the Bethesda that made Morrowind was largely only the Bethesda of Arena and Daggerfall in name.

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

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by jayhova »

Werewolf wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:10 am Good points, but I think the Wayward Realms devs responding directly to the claims made in that article could ease some of the skepticism about the project. To me it looks like Wayward Realms (it it releases) will be made by a small team (not indie) and feature Xbox 360-level (good but not great) graphics, deep mechanics and systems, and a Daggerfall-sized map. Basically the spiritual successor to Daggerfall. Julian’s ideas for the game sound freaking amazing and make Daggerfall itself look simple, but those are just ideas at the moment. I hope Wayward Realms succeeds but that article I linked makes me highly skeptical. But I’d love a true successor to Daggerfall that builds off of it, not this tiny, condensed pseudo-RPG chosen one action game that Elder Scrolls has become.

Arena and Daggerfall are so different from Morrowind and afterwards that I almost consider Arena and Daggerfall to be a separate series just in the same world. You know how there’s been the Dungeons and Dragons Gold Box video games and then later Baldur’s Gate? You know how both series take place in the same fantasy world-Forgotten Realms-but otherwise are different series with different devs and different design, etc? That pretty much applies to the first 2 Elder Scrolls games and the ones after. I mean, the Bethesda that made Morrowind was largely only the Bethesda of Arena and Daggerfall in name.
I guess you could join the Discord group where the developers regularly talk about the things they are doing and interact with people. Huge amounts of content has been posted and the developers regularly interact with users.

Here is a link to the original forum post. (it has been edited for content by the creator)

Daggerfall Spiritual Successor Project (Artists Needed!)

I have not read what he had to say about all of this because frankly it doesn't matter. Development is not a pleasant process and certainly not for the faint of heart. It is hard and is physically, emotionally, and mentally grueling.

P.S. I have personally interacted with Ted Perterson on the server.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

User avatar
haloterm
Posts: 391
Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2019 5:21 am

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by haloterm »

Werewolf wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 5:35 pm Daggerfall’s countryside is bland, yeah, but the terrain mods make it more interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years we’ll have a mod that makes the countryside a lot more interesting to traverse.
I have read this thread and your other, and I think that you are mostly comparing heavily modded Daggerfall Unity from today with unmodded Morrowind from the past. Sure, if one does that one can come to the conclusion that MW feels fake in contrast to modded DFU.

But your thread title is "Does Daggerfall ...", not "Does modded DFU ...", and it seems you are somehow taking the potential that shows in modded DFU and translate that to the past, and then compare it to other open worlds.

But to be honest, unmodded Daggerfall's world is screaming at every corner: "I am generic: I am conceptually generic for my high fantasy tropes, and I am technologically generic in my procedurally generated world".

There was no reason to explore Daggerfall's very big world because it looked the same everywhere. There was a lot of space, but nowhere a distinct place, and the game world had not really the potential to develop a sense of place by having meaningful experiences in the space. The lack of distinct landscape features and the lack of roads basically made fast travel the only feasible way of navigating, rendering the whole wide world useless. And seeing that travel map with its just randomly distributed and unconnected cities and villages which show no sign of historic development is also very "meh".

I know that average gaming technology back then simply was not able to do it better, but it does not make the game better. It was ambitious, but it failed in many areas. And i doubt that in the time of Morrowind much improvements could have been done to the execution of that concept. For me playing handcrafted Morrowind was a revelation. MW was a diorama of a world, but what a beautiful one! MW actually could be explored, and it was worth it. The space was small but packed with meaningful places.


But then, decades later, we have DFU with mods - and FINALLY DF's potential is beginning to show.

For me, THE most important mods are Interesting Eroded Terrain and Basic Roads. I would not really play DFU (I mean: take it seriously as a game, not just as some retro curiosity) if these mods (or equivalents) would not exist, because finally the world of Daggerfall becomes recognizable (terrain) and traversable (Basic Roads). When we are attacked outside city gates or in the wilderness, this is not just anymore some random spot which is no different from thousands other random spaces. Instead, it is this mountain where the bandits ambushed me, this crossroads where I made camp and was attacked by some vampire, etc. Gameplay events become attached to specific landscape and infrastructural features, transforming the spaces into recognizable, memorable places. This adds SO much to the game. Just these two mods. It is even further enhanced by lots of other mods like World of Daggerfall, the taverns and temple overhauls, etc etc etc but just these two make an enormous difference.

So I think that any fair comparison to later TES games should differentiate between original DF as it was back then, original DF as it appears today, and modded DFU. (So I think what I really want to say is that the thread title should be more precise ;-) )

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

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by Werewolf »

haloterm wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2022 4:55 am
Werewolf wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 5:35 pm Daggerfall’s countryside is bland, yeah, but the terrain mods make it more interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years we’ll have a mod that makes the countryside a lot more interesting to traverse.
I have read this thread and your other, and I think that you are mostly comparing heavily modded Daggerfall Unity from today with unmodded Morrowind from the past. Sure, if one does that one can come to the conclusion that MW feels fake in contrast to modded DFU.

But your thread title is "Does Daggerfall ...", not "Does modded DFU ...", and it seems you are somehow taking the potential that shows in modded DFU and translate that to the past, and then compare it to other open worlds.

But to be honest, unmodded Daggerfall's world is screaming at every corner: "I am generic: I am conceptually generic for my high fantasy tropes, and I am technologically generic in my procedurally generated world".

There was no reason to explore Daggerfall's very big world because it looked the same everywhere. There was a lot of space, but nowhere a distinct place, and the game world had not really the potential to develop a sense of place by having meaningful experiences in the space. The lack of distinct landscape features and the lack of roads basically made fast travel the only feasible way of navigating, rendering the whole wide world useless. And seeing that travel map with its just randomly distributed and unconnected cities and villages which show no sign of historic development is also very "meh".

I know that average gaming technology back then simply was not able to do it better, but it does not make the game better. It was ambitious, but it failed in many areas. And i doubt that in the time of Morrowind much improvements could have been done to the execution of that concept. For me playing handcrafted Morrowind was a revelation. MW was a diorama of a world, but what a beautiful one! MW actually could be explored, and it was worth it. The space was small but packed with meaningful places.


But then, decades later, we have DFU with mods - and FINALLY DF's potential is beginning to show.

For me, THE most important mods are Interesting Eroded Terrain and Basic Roads. I would not really play DFU (I mean: take it seriously as a game, not just as some retro curiosity) if these mods (or equivalents) would not exist, because finally the world of Daggerfall becomes recognizable (terrain) and traversable (Basic Roads). When we are attacked outside city gates or in the wilderness, this is not just anymore some random spot which is no different from thousands other random spaces. Instead, it is this mountain where the bandits ambushed me, this crossroads where I made camp and was attacked by some vampire, etc. Gameplay events become attached to specific landscape and infrastructural features, transforming the spaces into recognizable, memorable places. This adds SO much to the game. Just these two mods. It is even further enhanced by lots of other mods like World of Daggerfall, the taverns and temple overhauls, etc etc etc but just these two make an enormous difference.

So I think that any fair comparison to later TES games should differentiate between original DF as it was back then, original DF as it appears today, and modded DFU. (So I think what I really want to say is that the thread title should be more precise ;-) )
The mods that enhance the countryside make the game world feel more immersive for sure. Just having paths and hills makes the countryside feel much more distinct. Can’t wait for future mods to further improve it

Vorzak
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:30 pm

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by Vorzak »

Daggerfall’s world feels the most fake and possibly the least realistic game in TES to me, mostly because of its copy-pasted, procedurally generated world, but I don’t think every aspect was meant to feel realistic anyway.

The unrealistic layouts of cities are mostly just clusters of randomly placed buildings that make no practical sense, barely resembling any medieval city found in history, Arena cities barely did better. Most building interiors made no realistic sense and had few practical layouts, many had random rooms, walls and doors that had no purpose or practicality. Dungeon layouts are a bunch of random modules placed together, made little sense, smaller dungeons won’t solve that issue. TES Arena dungeons were far worse, they are deliberately created mazes for you to figure out how to navigate through, sometimes almost requiring use of what I call ‘cheat spells’ to get through walls, not anything practical to resemble an actual underground place in use. The wilderness in Daggerfall is completely empty and has no character and no use to the player. Mods for Daggerfall are barely fixing these issues, and that’s okay with me since I like the game in its near original state.

Daggerfall doesn’t need to be realistic though, there is so much more to be enjoyed than realism in this game. It’s a game focusing on its complex RPG mechanics, supported by generic fantasy tropes - it’s not an exploration and realism focused game. Optional mods and minor added features are fine for some players, but the original DFU shouldn’t be changed too drastically for all players, because for me I like how the original plays.

Morrowind world is small, it’s focus was more on exploration and story. It had realistically designed towns, buildings, dungeons, set pieces and environments. Despite its small world space, in many aspects it felt realistic over Daggerfall and Arena. A different game with a different focus, and that’s fine with me.

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

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by Werewolf »

Arena and Daggerfall were made with much less powerful tech then Morrowind. I think if there would ever be a modern-day Daggerfall successor a big part of the appeal would be realistic medieval cities and a countryside with cave dungeons and random events. Daggerfall and Arena didn’t have realistic cities, yes, but they were DOS games. They had an excuse, but modern “rpgs” built with hardware literally thousands of times more powerful don’t have that excuse. Arena and Daggerfall were made on DOS with small teams and a limited budget. Modern games have hundreds of developers and tens of millions of dollars and far far better hardware. I’m pretty sure if there will ever be a AAA RPG in the future with Daggerfall’s ambition it would have realistic medieval cities and much more logical dungeons

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

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by Werewolf »

Arena and Daggerfall were made with much less powerful tech then Morrowind. I think if there would ever be a modern-day Daggerfall successor a big part of the appeal would be realistic medieval cities and a countryside with cave dungeons and random events. Daggerfall and Arena didn’t have realistic cities, yes, but they were DOS games. They had an excuse, but modern “rpgs” built with hardware literally thousands of times more powerful don’t have that excuse. Arena and Daggerfall were made on DOS with small teams and a limited budget. Modern games have hundreds of developers and tens of millions of dollars and far far better hardware. I’m pretty sure if there will ever be a AAA RPG in the future with Daggerfall’s ambition it would have realistic medieval cities and much more logical dungeons. And while Morrowind had more logical building design the “cities” were still just large villages instead of actual medieval cities that house several thousand people, something Daggerfall at least managed to give the impression of doing, on DOS hardware.

And with Morrowind even if you like it far better then Daggerfall (and I personally feel that Morrowind did a ton of things right) you can’t argue that it wasn’t objectively less ambitious then Daggerfall. Many mechanics were implemented better but objectively it toned down the scope significantly. It had less skills, it removed the class maker, it removed banking, it removed language skills, it didn’t have knight orders, it simplified a ton of things, etc. Even if you don’t take into account the map’s size and scope, Morrowind still objectively toned down Daggerfall’s scope, and began Elder Scroll’s Franchise Original Sin of each game getting dumbed down from the previous one.

Vorzak
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:30 pm

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by Vorzak »

Werewolf wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 12:22 am Arena and Daggerfall were made with much less powerful tech then Morrowind. I think if there would ever be a modern-day Daggerfall successor a big part of the appeal would be realistic medieval cities and a countryside with cave dungeons and random events. Daggerfall and Arena didn’t have realistic cities, yes, but they were DOS games. They had an excuse, but modern “rpgs” built with hardware literally thousands of times more powerful don’t have that excuse. Arena and Daggerfall were made on DOS with small teams and a limited budget. Modern games have hundreds of developers and tens of millions of dollars and far far better hardware. I’m pretty sure if there will ever be a AAA RPG in the future with Daggerfall’s ambition it would have realistic medieval cities and much more logical dungeons. And while Morrowind had more logical building design the “cities” were still just large villages instead of actual medieval cities that house several thousand people, something Daggerfall at least managed to give the impression of doing, on DOS hardware.

And with Morrowind even if you like it far better then Daggerfall (and I personally feel that Morrowind did a ton of things right) you can’t argue that it wasn’t objectively less ambitious then Daggerfall. Many mechanics were implemented better but objectively it toned down the scope significantly. It had less skills, it removed the class maker, it removed banking, it removed language skills, it didn’t have knight orders, it simplified a ton of things, etc. Even if you don’t take into account the map’s size and scope, Morrowind still objectively toned down Daggerfall’s scope, and began Elder Scroll’s Franchise Original Sin of each game getting dumbed down from the previous one.
We were talking about opinions on whether Daggerfall feels fake in comparison to later TES games, etc. and I said Daggerfall actually felt the most fake to me. The “excuse” of how or why it lacked realistic design doesn’t matter as much for me since I believe that the complexities of Daggerfall’s RPG mechanics and design are sufficient for my enjoyment and the main focus for that game’s design, not realism and exploration.

For sake of discussion: Yes, we have the capabilities now to create fairly detailed procedurally generated environments for ‘resource and crafting’ games like Minecraft and No Man’s Sky, etc. but I’m rather thankful that TES didn’t go down that road of world design. The focus on story and detailed, handcrafted design of Morrowind is rather satisfying for me in its own way, it’s extremely immersive and feels more realistic compared to any random generated worlds in my opinion. 98% of world space in Daggerfall is unused and pointless to the player, mods really haven't fixed that glaring issue.

Morrowind is less ambitious with its world design as far as not having a more advanced procedural generation algorithm to create it? Sure, because it didn’t use one, everything was handcrafted with 3D models piece by piece and specifically placed throughout the world, which might actually take longer, more effort and creativity than programming an algorithm. Sure, it’s smaller, but having a larger world space means it would take a much longer time to handcraft and place everything. The space Morrowind does have it utilizes very well and in a very practical manner for the player, unlike Daggerfall. There is also much lore, culture, atmosphere and story in Morrowind that Daggerfall is lacking, this too takes much time, creativity and ambition to put together. The scope was not “toned down” as much as the focus and ambition was changed. To me, to an extent, we are comparing two completely different games with very different ambitions, not similar games where one is simply less complex or ambitious.

Daggerfall has 35 skills, but language skills, pickpocket and lockpicking (11 skills) were only partially implemented and mostly useless and impractical to the player, beyond basic roleplay I guess, there is almost nothing the character can gain from using them. Morrowind has a class maker, but a less complex one for sure, that is disappointing. But it had 27 useful skills, that is a plus to me. Some of the best ones - 4 Armor skills (including Unarmored), Armorer for repairing equipment on the go, much needed Block skill, more complex Marksman skill, more useful Sneak and Security skills, Speech skills that were more useful and interactive, Alchemy, Enchant and Conjuration are very complex and were welcome additions.

Morrowind had all the classic factions - Fighters, Mages, Thieves guilds, only Dark Brotherhood is not joinable, but there is the Morag Tong assassin guild to somewhat replace that. Instead of Knightly Orders there is the Imperial Cult, Imperial Legion and 3 Great Houses to choose from, not to mention the many background factions you are unable to join, much like Daggerfall in this sense. So Morrowind actually has more unique faction variety. Banking systems and variety of player housing is another thing that should have been implemented, so the player feels like they can actually live and function in the world, another disappointment for Morrowind. But that to me doesn’t necessarily detract from all the good things Morrowind does so well.

I’m not saying all this to claim that one game is better than the other overall or what game is my personal favorite. In fact, I’ve played far more Daggerfall than Morrowind over the years and keep coming back to it more consistently. Morrowind has its many flaws, and I agree it is unfortunate that it didn’t take certain things from Daggerfall and expand on them, but none of that really makes Morrowind a worse or a “dumbed down” game overall, just different.

Edit: This long video explains the many reasons why I like Morrowind as well
Morrowind Analysis | A Quick Retrospective

User avatar
MrFlibble
Posts: 410
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 10:43 am

Re: Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

Post by MrFlibble »

Vorzak wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 11:21 pm The unrealistic layouts of cities are mostly just clusters of randomly placed buildings that make no practical sense, barely resembling any medieval city found in history, Arena cities barely did better. Most building interiors made no realistic sense and had few practical layouts, many had random rooms, walls and doors that had no purpose or practicality. Dungeon layouts are a bunch of random modules placed together, made little sense, smaller dungeons won’t solve that issue.
When talking about these aspects, I think we should bear in mind the context of when the game was being developed. XnGine was very advanced for its time, and it is pretty clear that Daggerfall developers had not yet the full grasp of its potential. You can notice that in many areas, the possibilities provided by a true 3D engine are not used at all. For example, there is no height variation whatsoever in cities and towns, the land is flat as a piece of paper. And if you venture into the wilderness, sure they tried to make more realistic terrain but it still fells like the same piece of paper, but now crumbled, most of the time.

Compare this to a different game on the same engine that was developed concurrently by a different team in Bethesda: The Terminator: Future Shock. There, there are very clear attempts to make use of the 3D environment for gameplay purposes and to create meaningful locations such as destroyed cities and various terrain features, so that higher ground might give the player an advantage, for example. The robotic bases' interiors are also quite mazelike, but they also have way more meaningful puzzles and various locations for the player to figure out and traverse.

It seems that the sheer scope and ambition of Daggerfall simply undermined its own goals. There was too much content to create, so they resorted to mass random generation, resulting in identical locations across all world. Dungeons are full of seemingly incomplete elements, like there appear to be levers that simply do nothing, or empty rooms, or rooms filled with seemingly random props that do not fit with the overall theme of what that dungeon is supposed to be. Even Privateers' Hold feels like a completely random string of rooms and corridors, rather than anything resembling a pirate hideout or whatever.

The amazing part is that the resulting game is playable and enjoyable, and perhaps due to some of its shortcomings it actually leaves a lot of room for imagination and roleplaying. While many mechanics like language skills do not really contribute to gameplay, most of the rest is quite functional, and these less functional ones are still a nice part of the game IMO.
Vorzak wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 11:21 pm TES Arena dungeons were far worse, they are deliberately created mazes for you to figure out how to navigate through, sometimes almost requiring use of what I call ‘cheat spells’ to get through walls, not anything practical to resemble an actual underground place in use.
I agree that for the most part, Arena dungeons are not as interesting to explore as Daggerfall ones. This is the greatest limitation of a Wolf3D-esque engine. But on the other hand, some of them manage to actually have more detail, like in Stonekeep there is recognizably a throne room, the royal bedroom, kitchen etc., whereas most Daggerfall dungeons, including main quest castle interiors, look odd and often nonsensical, not in the least due to textures that feel out of place (like crude stone walls with no windows in nobles' bedrooms). But at the same time, the randomly generated dungeons provide an almost roguelike experience that is in itself pretty enjoyable, even if many dungeon layouts make absolutely no sense whatsoever from a "realistic" standpoint.

I would also say that the skill-based system from Daggerfall contributes to more interesting gameplay than the older XP based system that just encourages you to stick to your best available weapon and grind encounters. Because of this, Arena lacks a big chunk of character build-up. Same goes for the absence of joinable factions with services that are progressively unlocked as you rise up in the ranks. Daggerfall's factions encourage players to plan their character development strategy to get access to important services (item enchanting, potions etc.) as opposed to simply farming gold to get powerful items.

Post Reply