Does Daggerfall make other open worlds seem fake?

[Werewolf]

Imagine being an Elder Scrolls fan in the late 90s and waiting eagerly for the Daggerfall successor and wondering about how big it’ll be and then Morrowind ends up being a puddle compared to Daggerfall

I don't have to imagine; I lived it.

How was the reaction to Morrowind amongst hardcore Elder Scrolls fans back then? Daggerfall Unity made me realize just how less ambitious Morrowind was but how did people react back then? After Daggerfall Unity I find Morrowind to be unambitious and dumbed down in order to be more commercial. The fact that people still consider Morrowind to be large and complex and highly ambitious really shows just how dumbed down the series has gotten

I’ll go as far as saying that the drop in complexity and ambition from Daggerfall to Morrowind was bigger then Morrowind to Skyrim. Don’t get me wrong Morrowind is a great game in it’s own right but with Daggerfall Unity’s QoL improvements you can really see the visionary ambition in Daggerfall that Morrowind completely discarded

[jayhova]

I don't have to imagine; I lived it.

How was the reaction to Morrowind amongst hardcore Elder Scrolls fans back then? Daggerfall Unity made me realize just how less ambitious Morrowind was but how did people react back then? After Daggerfall Unity I find Morrowind to be unambitious and dumbed down in order to be more commercial. The fact that people still consider Morrowind to be large and complex and highly ambitious really shows just how dumbed down the series has gotten

I’ll go as far as saying that the drop in complexity and ambition from Daggerfall to Morrowind was bigger then Morrowind to Skyrim. Don’t get me wrong Morrowind is a great game in it’s own right but with Daggerfall Unity’s QoL improvements you can really see the visionary ambition in Daggerfall that Morrowind completely discarded

It failed to meet the expectations of many including me. With that said, I did enjoy Morrowind. It was however a very different experience. The previous game Redguard was a trial run for a lot of the concepts used in Morrowind. I like to think of Redguard as the last TES game that was 1:1 scale. Todd Howard decided that he would make everything by hand in order to control the quality. He made the decision to treat TES as more of a game than a fantasy simulator. Even since TES games have replaced simulation with game mechanics.

This video explains how this has continued since Morrowind..

Morrowind removed the use of the keyboard completely and generally worked to make the game Xbox compatible.

[billyloist]

How was the reaction to Morrowind amongst hardcore Elder Scrolls fans back then? Daggerfall Unity made me realize just how less ambitious Morrowind was but how did people react back then? After Daggerfall Unity I find Morrowind to be unambitious and dumbed down in order to be more commercial. The fact that people still consider Morrowind to be large and complex and highly ambitious really shows just how dumbed down the series has gotten

You can read some predictions for Morrowind back in Daggerfall era, it's quite fascinating: http://www.tesguides.com/tes2/misc/tes3.htm

[Werewolf]

How was the reaction to Morrowind amongst hardcore Elder Scrolls fans back then? Daggerfall Unity made me realize just how less ambitious Morrowind was but how did people react back then? After Daggerfall Unity I find Morrowind to be unambitious and dumbed down in order to be more commercial. The fact that people still consider Morrowind to be large and complex and highly ambitious really shows just how dumbed down the series has gotten

I’ll go as far as saying that the drop in complexity and ambition from Daggerfall to Morrowind was bigger then Morrowind to Skyrim. Don’t get me wrong Morrowind is a great game in it’s own right but with Daggerfall Unity’s QoL improvements you can really see the visionary ambition in Daggerfall that Morrowind completely discarded

It failed to meet the expectations of many including me. With that said, I did enjoy Morrowind. It was however a very different experience. The previous game Redguard was a trial run for a lot of the concepts used in Morrowind. I like to think of Redguard as the last TES game that was 1:1 scale. Todd Howard decided that he would make everything by hand in order to control the quality. He made the decision to treat TES as more of a game than a fantasy simulator. Even since TES games have replaced simulation with game mechanics.

This video explains how this has continued since Morrowind..

Morrowind removed the use of the keyboard completely and generally worked to make the game Xbox compatible.

Yeah it seems Todd Howard’s design philosophy is a total 180 from those before him. As Todd held control of Elder Scrolls the series continued to get dumbed down even though Morrowind already felt super simplified and commercialized compared to Daggerfall to begin with. Seems that Morrowind switching to an extremely tiny but highly detailed world was a combination of commercializing the formula and Todd’s design philosophy. I have nothing against Todd Howard but he seems to be more of an action adventure fan with a massive budget rather then a visionary like the designers of Arena and Daggerfall.

Does anyone have the original Morrowind design documents? This video mentions looking at them https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=46gaz6veVNQ and apparently originally it would’ve very much continued from Daggerfall with the entire Morrowind providence, procedurally generated wilderness, and the storyline being the “conflict between the 5 great houses of Morrowind” and you’d be able to join any 5 of them. Makes sense. In Arena you were the chosen one (kind of) and in the far deeper Daggerfall you’re the “unchosen one.” The original Morrowind concept looked to further make your character ordinary with the storyline having different factions you could join each with their own reasons for fighting almost like Fallout (which wasn’t out yet.) It seemed to continue with Daggerfall’s political intrigue and being it to the next level. And then that version of Morrowind never actually entered development and the final Morrowind just had the “chosen one” trope, reflecting the loss of ambition in the project.

Anyone have a link to the original Morrowind design documents from shortly after Daggerfall? I’ve yet to find them but that video and a couple other people have apparently read them so they should be online somewhere

[Ralzar]

I have been saying for quite some time that Morrowind is where the Elder Scrolls series split to the point of Arena/Daggerfall being considered its own separate series.
Morrowind really started the trend that ended up with the open world genre of today. Small worlds that pretend to be big by smushing a excessive amount of content into it and expecting you to not notice a large city is ten huts, the next city is a two minute stroll away, there are enemies around every corner of the road and all npcs are in a time stasis waiting for you to talk to them.
The way the games ended up, they feel like amusement parks. You go to the mages guild, buy a ticket and go on the ride. At the end you get your participation trophy with the inscription "archmage" and you head on to the next ride.
What's over there? Is it Fighters Guild Mountain? Perhaps we should ride the Dark Brotherhood Cups first, before the line is too long?

Arena took the first step toward a true roleplaying computer game. Daggerfall took the second step. I am still waiting for the third. So until that time, if ever, we mod Daggerfall to make it closer to what it should have been and what games could have been.

[Werewolf]

I have been saying for quite some time that Morrowind is where the Elder Scrolls series split to the point of Arena/Daggerfall being considered its own separate series.
Morrowind really started the trend that ended up with the open world genre of today. Small worlds that pretend to be big by smushing a excessive amount of content into it and expecting you to not notice a large city is ten huts, the next city is a two minute stroll away, there are enemies around every corner of the road and all npcs are in a time stasis waiting for you to talk to them.
The way the games ended up, they feel like amusement parks. You go to the mages guild, buy a ticket and go on the ride. At the end you get your participation trophy with the inscription "archmage" and you head on to the next ride.
What's over there? Is it Fighters Guild Mountain? Perhaps we should ride the Dark Brotherhood Cups first, before the line is too long?

Arena took the first step toward a true roleplaying computer game. Daggerfall took the second step. I am still waiting for the third. So until that time, if ever, we mod Daggerfall to make it closer to what it should have been and what games could have been.

I do agree that Morrowind feels like a theme park. The world is insanely condensed and exists for you to plunder and experience all the attractions. Daggerfall is the exact opposite. The world is realistically scaled and has so many towns and dungeons you’ll never explore them all and you are a member of the world, it doesn’t revolve around you.

At this point the best hope for a continuation of Daggerfall are mods for Daggerfall Unity. Daggerfall Unity is still relatively new but in the future I could see more advanced mods that are essentially conversions, with maybe entirely new maps that are Daggerfall’s size but have improved generation and even more features.

[Werewolf]

How was the reaction to Morrowind amongst hardcore Elder Scrolls fans back then? Daggerfall Unity made me realize just how less ambitious Morrowind was but how did people react back then? After Daggerfall Unity I find Morrowind to be unambitious and dumbed down in order to be more commercial. The fact that people still consider Morrowind to be large and complex and highly ambitious really shows just how dumbed down the series has gotten

You can read some predictions for Morrowind back in Daggerfall era, it's quite fascinating: http://www.tesguides.com/tes2/misc/tes3.htm

Even back then people complained about Daggerfall’s oversized dungeons!

[Antonius]

God I loved Morrowind (and I LOVE DF). I was/am one of those faithful who played arena and DF and waited breathlessly for MW. When I released, I rushed home with it and after installing, I sat listening to the intro music for like 10 minutes...and my wife walked by and said "what's the matter? don't want to start it because it will over that much sooner?" Ahhh how well she knew me.

In fact, I am AS WE SPEAK, replaying MW with OpenMW and loving it and remembering just how great a game it really is/was. Yeah, it is condensed and yeah, it lacks some of the (unfulfilled) ambition from DF but it is still a GREAT game. Story is interesting, tons of interesting places, content, design...the hand made world is awesome despite its flaws. It has issues like endless trash enemies (I mean really obnoxious levels of it), the aforementioned condensation, the static nature of things like stores being open always etc, but man it does some stuff really well and is SO great in so many ways. It is years better than Oblivion or Skyrim and if they had just kept in the vein of DF and MW and enhanced those and made them better and ambitious instead of dumbing down the series, it could have been insanely magical.

I mean, I played and enjoyed OB and SR, but I never replayed them or wanted to....SIDE NOTE...if you have not played Enderal...the FREE fan made project that uses the Skyrim files you are MAKING A MASSIVE ERROR. Free and frankly light years better than SR for me. Download and play it NOW. Anyway... I have always thought and said DF was the best of the series hands down but I am not positive (although in a pinch I would still say DF...I have just always had an insane love affair with it....JUMP IN THE FOUNTAIN!) and you could sway me to MW with the right argument and only a little effort...but either way they are VERY close no matter what because both have big flaws and BIGGER positives in a way the next 2 games did not.

[jayhova]

God I loved Morrowind (and I LOVE DF). I was/am one of those faithful who played arena and DF and waited breathlessly for MW. When I released, I rushed home with it and after installing, I sat listening to the intro music for like 10 minutes...and my wife walked by and said "what's the matter? don't want to start it because it will over that much sooner?" Ahhh how well she knew me.

In fact, I am AS WE SPEAK, replaying MW with OpenMW and loving it and remembering just how great a game it really is/was. Yeah, it is condensed and yeah, it lacks some of the (unfulfilled) ambition from DF but it is still a GREAT game. Story is interesting, tons of interesting places, content, design...the hand made world is awesome despite its flaws. It has issues like endless trash enemies (I mean really obnoxious levels of it), the aforementioned condensation, the static nature of things like stores being open always etc, but man it does some stuff really well and is SO great in so many ways. It is years better than Oblivion or Skyrim and if they had just kept in the vein of DF and MW and enhanced those and made them better and ambitious instead of dumbing down the series, it could have been insanely magical.

I mean, I played and enjoyed OB and SR, but I never replayed them or wanted to....SIDE NOTE...if you have not played Enderal...the FREE fan made project that uses the Skyrim files you are MAKING A MASSIVE ERROR. Free and frankly light years better than SR for me. Download and play it NOW. Anyway... I have always thought and said DF was the best of the series hands down but I am not positive (although in a pinch I would still say DF...I have just always had an insane love affair with it....JUMP IN THE FOUNTAIN!) and you could sway me to MW with the right argument and only a little effort...but either way they are VERY close no matter what because both have big flaws and BIGGER positives in a way the next 2 games did not.

I totally agree with this. I got into DFU via the OpenMW project. I did a few blog posts a number of years ago talking about the very phenomenon you're speaking of and the OpenMW project.

https://softunderbelly.com/elder-scrolls-updates/
https://softunderbelly.com/elder-scrolls-revisited/
https://softunderbelly.com/elder-scrolls-revisited-pt2/

[Werewolf]

God I loved Morrowind (and I LOVE DF). I was/am one of those faithful who played arena and DF and waited breathlessly for MW. When I released, I rushed home with it and after installing, I sat listening to the intro music for like 10 minutes...and my wife walked by and said "what's the matter? don't want to start it because it will over that much sooner?" Ahhh how well she knew me.

In fact, I am AS WE SPEAK, replaying MW with OpenMW and loving it and remembering just how great a game it really is/was. Yeah, it is condensed and yeah, it lacks some of the (unfulfilled) ambition from DF but it is still a GREAT game. Story is interesting, tons of interesting places, content, design...the hand made world is awesome despite its flaws. It has issues like endless trash enemies (I mean really obnoxious levels of it), the aforementioned condensation, the static nature of things like stores being open always etc, but man it does some stuff really well and is SO great in so many ways. It is years better than Oblivion or Skyrim and if they had just kept in the vein of DF and MW and enhanced those and made them better and ambitious instead of dumbing down the series, it could have been insanely magical.

I mean, I played and enjoyed OB and SR, but I never replayed them or wanted to....SIDE NOTE...if you have not played Enderal...the FREE fan made project that uses the Skyrim files you are MAKING A MASSIVE ERROR. Free and frankly light years better than SR for me. Download and play it NOW. Anyway... I have always thought and said DF was the best of the series hands down but I am not positive (although in a pinch I would still say DF...I have just always had an insane love affair with it....JUMP IN THE FOUNTAIN!) and you could sway me to MW with the right argument and only a little effort...but either way they are VERY close no matter what because both have big flaws and BIGGER positives in a way the next 2 games did not.

Morrowind was still a great game. Keep in mind it was Bethesda’s last chance to be saved from bankruptcy so it makes sense that it would be more conventional. Morrowind could’ve been a stepping stone to Elder Scrolls rising back up. Bethesda could’ve used Morrowind as a soft reboot that would be the first step in making the successor to Daggerfall. They could’ve made the future games perhaps be more beginner friendly with more forgiving early areas and the return of fast travel whilst expanding upon the ROG elements more in line with Daggerfall. But then of course we ended up with Skyrim not even freaking having classes. Morrowind has an excuse for being dumbed down as it still has a lot going for it and would’ve been a great soft reboot towards the more simple “chosen one” nature of Arena that would then build back to Daggerfall with future entries. But that didn’t happen. Oblivion clearly was designed for console gamers who don’t play RPGs but it still did at least try to be an RPG, it clearly struggled to resist the demands of executives who interpreted the genuine criticism of games like Morrowind being hard for new players as the ways of the RPG genre itself, not the starting area being hard. But Skyrim had zero excuse, that game was gleefully dumbed down to the point where it insulted the player.

What killed the Western RPG? The idea-amongst corporate executives-that the reason why many found Western RPGs too hard to play is because of the deep mechanics of RPGs, not the tendency of Morrowind’s world to be dangerous and thus brutal for early players.

Had Western RPG designers been able to convince the suits that they could just make the starting areas easy for low level characters to make them accessible then we very well could’ve had Elder Scrolls post-Morrowind get more complex over time like how Daggerfall was more complex then Arena, instead of the series getting dumbed down. They failed