Daggerfall Connect 0.4.9 is now available. Highlights of this release are nearly-complete MAPS.BSA reading and a simple XNA Framework 3.1 Game Library for rendering Daggerfall’s 3D environments.
If you’ve been interested in developing with Daggerfall Connect in the past, but have lost interest due to my infrequent updates, now is a good time to have another look. I will be wrapping up and bug-stomping everything over the next few weeks as part of the upcoming 0.5.0 release.

For non-programmers, there’s a new version of Daggerfall Imaging 2 in the works that will be part of 0.5.0. This version has improved .GIF exporting and user-defined categories for grouping images in the navigation view. I will also be talking more about a rebooted version of Daggerfall Scout using XNA in the coming weeks.

The http://code.google.com/p/daggerfallconnect/ on Google Code now contains an SVN repository, downloads, and a wiki for tutorials, documentation, etc. The 0.5.0 branch has been created and will be updated about once a week. More wiki content will be added whenever I have spare time.

http://www.dfworkshop.net/ will continue to be my blog for discussing what I’m working on lately. I do need to take breaks often due to other commitments, but I always come back eventually. I will be active at the Workshop for the foreseeable future. Comments have been enabled on new blog posts and all feedback is welcome.

Good to see that you're still around and pumping out new things Interkarma

Merciful Zeus, I ignored this thread earlier because I thought it had something to do with Daggerfall on Kinect. I should look at the usernames more closely
Good to see you! This looks awesome (as usual)

Sorry, but what is it?

Any programmer working with Daggerfall's files has to write code to read Daggerfall's http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Hacking_Guide. Daggerfall's files aren't in standard formats like .PNG or .3DS, they are unique formats and can take a lot of work to get into. My library creates a foundation for reading these files that takes most of the work out, allowing the programmer to just concentrate on what they want to accomplish.

For example, reading a Daggerfall texture takes up much of http://code.google.com/p/daggerfallconnect/source/browse/trunk/DaggerfallConnect/Library/Arena2/TextureFile.cs. When using my library, you can get the same textures back as a standard Bitmap type using the code in http://code.google.com/p/daggerfallconnect/wiki/BasicTutorial2. I wrote http://www.dfworkshop.net/?p=712 using my own library.

Daggerfall Connect is entirely open source under the free MIT license and already supports most major Daggerfall file formats. It works in any .NET language, and could probably be adapted to work under Mono on Linux as well. This opens up a lot of powerful functionality for creating exploring tools and extracting data for remakes. For example, members of the DaggerXL Texture Project (high definition textures for DaggerXL) are already using Daggerfall Imaging 2 to easily browse and export Daggerfall's bitmaps.

The sample XNA Game Library (part of the code base) provides a demo foundation for rendering Daggerfall's graphics. For example, if you wanted to make a Battlemage deathmatch or CTF based in Privateer's Hold, you could use my library to extract and render the dungeon environment, battlemage sprites, and spell effects. You'd have to code the game yourself, but my library make it easy to work with Daggerfall's files. It's not just limited to XNA, you could use any .NET renderer as well (Ogre3D, Irrlicht, etc.).

I would love a updated version of Daggerfall (iv never played it) that works on Win7 without DOSbox.

An awesome guy called Lucius is hard at work on just this concept. Check out http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/, it's an incredible piece of work and has already come far.

The main difference between our projects is that Lucius is working on a game and I'm working on a code library. What Lucius is doing is much cooler by far, but I'm hoping Daggerfall Connect will still find interest with Daggerfall fans who are also avid coders. There used to be a lot of this type, but they've dwindled over the years.