Truth be told, weapon/armor choices was a strong point of Morrowind. Daggerfall's weapons and armor are very resemblant of Oblivion's supply, just with a few more weapons; there's no spears, crossbows, or throwing weapons, though it does have useable staffs, flails, katanas, tantos, wakizashis, broadswords, sabers, and dai-katanas in all materials, unlike Oblivion. It also has a small-ish list of materials for weapons and armor. The weird part is that there was no "light" or "medium" armor; just leather ONLY, and chain ONLY, with the others all being plate:

• Leather -3 power, x0.166 value
  
• Chain - -1 power, x0.333 value
  
• Iron - -1 power, x0.500 value
  
• Steel - +0 power, x1 value
  
• Silver - +0 power, x2 value
  
• Elven - +1 power, x4 value
  
• Dwarven - +2 power, x8 value
  
• Mithril - +3 power, x16 value
  
• Adamantium - +3 power, x32 value
  
• Ebony - +4 power, x64 value
  
• Orcish - +5 power, x128 value
  
• Daedric - +6 power, x256 value

However, the world is pretty massive, and at least somewhat distinct. The dungeons are a mixed bag in ways; half of the dungeons are randomly generated blobs of spaghetti-like tunnels that go up and double back down for no clear reason, but the other half are rather wickedly creative chambers and large rooms.

I actually liked the idea that there were different legal systems in each of the provinces. It was possible to "escape" to another province when you got caught breaking the law. It made the game feel bigger. On the other hand, it could definitely become an exploit. It would have been great if there was some kind of macro reputation system in addition to your rep in each province. It would have been fun to be chased by bounty hunters across province borders, or, if you were evil enough, to be infamous and treated as a wanted criminal in every corner of the Iliac.

But yes, it's always easy for me to go overboard in praise of Daggerfall. Every ES game has a lot of successes and a lot of missed opportunities. The way that ratio works out in each game is pretty subjective. (Except maybe in the case of Oblivion.)

In the Shivering Isles, Big-head from Morrowind makes a reappernece, just putting that there..

In the Shivering Isles, Big-head from Morrowind makes a reappernece, just putting that there..

True, and you have M'aiq running around like The Flash in the main game, which was cute. But not a plot point, which would make it richer. You work in Caius's drug habit. You work in his stay in Morrowind. For instance, the Tribunal became god-like...how can you work that in? Only a hundred different ways. No, you can't have every last thing tie forwards and backwards, but Oblivion basically stood alone, ignoring pretty much everything that came before it despite retaining the milieu. (I still like it, it plays well. They all do, although I'd say DF comes in fourth in that category.)

The weird part is that there was no "light" or "medium" armor; just leather ONLY, and chain ONLY, with the others all being plate:

Look at it this way: leather = "light", chain = "medium", plate = "hoo-ah". And I was good with that. Has anyone ever worn fur armor? Can you even call it armor if it's fur? I wouldn't feel armored if I were wearing a mink coat.

There was the emperor, Ocato and The King of Worms in Oblivion, coming directly from Daggerfall . OK, you never actually saw the first two ones in Daggerfall except in the intro video, and the King of Worms was changed to a ridiculous high elf (http://media.photobucket.com/image/mannimarco/RheddnAllie/Oblivion/RealMannimarco.jpg). And what about Lady Brisienna, a prominent member of the Blades and her brother who was supposed to be the leader of the Blades (The Great Knight)? Nothing...



There is a mouselook mode in Daggerfall. Actually the devs themselves recommended to use it. You can activate it in the options and then configure your controls, but there is an easiest way:

Open your 'z.cfg' file, find the line 'controls betaplyr.dat', change it to 'controls viewplyr.dat'. The file 'arena2\viewplyr.dat' contains predefined controls to use Daggerfall in mouselook mode. Then once you launch the game, you will see that you still have the bottom control panel, which is unneeded in mouselook mode: you can disable it safely.

For the graphics however, there is nothing you can change, except hacking your savegame file to increase the view distance.

Haha oh my god, I can't believe I forgot KoW. And him one of my favourite characters, too. Still, the manner of his comeback wasn't really to my taste, as I see it wasn't to yours - LOVE the link And I love how Kror-i's curled up in the corner as well. I always felt sorry for those dancers

I actually have a theory about Brisienna.... and that is that her brother, the Great Knight, is actually Jauffre. He's about the right age, and says himself that he retired from a very high position. Obviously I don't have a shred of proof to back it up, but it just seemed to click for me.

but still, Caius is missing and they failed with the "King of Worms".

I actually have a theory about Brisienna.... and that is that her brother, the Great Knight, is actually Jauffre. He's about the right age, and says himself that he retired from a very high position. Obviously I don't have a shred of proof to back it up, but it just seemed to click for me.

Never thought about it, but it works for me.

<--------- not just a pretty face, nstuff.

what was wrong with the king of worms in oblivion? the player had the upper hand with the black soul gem. made sense that some things are just hype, even the king of worms. i smiled when the king of worms was just a sinister twerpy cult leader with influence. a much needed breath of air from the rest of oblivion's predictableness.

the great knight was total cheese too in daggerfall. glad that was mostly retconned. changing the blades from the highest knighly order of legends to the emperor's secretive honor guard and spies was a great move.

lady bri would've been a great addition to oblivion, would've made sense of as was suppose to be close with the emperor.

Honestly, in my opinion the Blades were already pretty spy-like in Daggerfall. IIRC, they desribed their Numidium-hunting affair as a 'secret quest' or similar. I've always assumed there are several sides to the Blades - after all, they do comprise the Emperor's personal guard. It makes sense for their public face to be a knightly order.

As for the Great Knight being a clich?... well, he's only mentioned once very obscurely, and never seen! I don't think I ever got his conversation topic in all the time I played. I only found out about it via http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/Rumple_teasza/Gwynabyth%20and%20Eadwyrd/gwynabythdialogue.jpg screenshot.

I love it when games reference others in the series, and I mean love it. It makes me incredibly giddy, like a little schoolgirl.

I don't think the fat balding Altmer wuss in Oblivion named "Mannimarco" was meant to be a shoutout to Daggerfall fans. If so, it was really poorly executed, practically more of an insult than anything else. They probably were bored and just decided to recycle some old content for the lulz. I recently found out when playing TES: Arena that The Underking has existed in the series as far back as then. Mostly in the form of quests where you are sent by nobility to hunt down a random Battlemage who is allegedly accomplices to him, or even The Underking himself. I once also had a quest where resting would sometimes spawn monsters to attack me, text messages saying they were probably sent by The Underking.

i don't remember if the blades were associated with the emperor in daggerfall per se, i do remember that they were a highly regarded order of legendary knights that were loyal to the empire but not particularly to the emperor, or close to that cliche. of course, the blades and great knight were just part of the pool of random queries for the rumors for the most part. the blades did have a stronghold in some providence in daggerfall, which i guess the necromancers planted a cursed weapon of sorts.

of all npcs in daggerfall, i think elysana is the only one that really stands out since she wants to kill off the player.

I think that was Castle Llugwych.

I agree, until Oblivion, Mannimarco was not supposed to be an Altmer but a powerful supernatural being. We will never know why they change him to an Altmer, but from what I read on the official forums, most people who played Daggerfall before, even those who like Oblivion, did not like the new King of Worms. I'm ok when Bethesda is making lore additions, like the whole Daedra thing which was introduced in Daggerfall, expanded in Battespire and further in Morrowind and Oblivion. But I don't like when they make radical changes which contradict what was canon before. For example, Imperials didn't have Roman names in Daggerfall nor Arena (Jagar Tharn, Ocato, Lady Brisienna, and Uriel Septim are all Imperials and don't have Roman names). Why introducing them in Morrowind then? This was a nonsense, and I read an interview of a former dev telling some disagreed with the change, which can explain why the Roman culture we saw in Morrowind Imperial settlements (the Imperial Legion uniforms for example) was banished from Oblivion. However this was not the worst 'lore-change', as we didn't know many Imperials until Morrowind. The worst change was with Bretons which were given French names. But Breton names were already established in Daggerfall, like 'Gondynak Hawking', 'Theodyval Yeomham', 'Tristoryan Moorcroft', 'Bridwell', 'Gothryd', 'Eadwyre', etc. They should have expanded on that instead of radically changing the lore.

there were imperials, or rather, cyrodils, as early as redguard. Attrebus and Amiel Richton. acually they were more like colovian.

breton names didn't suffer as bad as redguard names did in transition. redguards now have boring names.

as for the king of worms, why did everyone think he needs to be some supernatural being? even in daggerfall, he was just human (or elf), except for glowing eyes, which mage guild summoners had too. there were rumors that he was a lich or something, but nothing really suggested he was anything more than human. i liked the oblivion representation, afterall, the king of worms was only weak because the collosal black soul gem trumphed his greatest magic, and this showed the king of worms as a influencially powerful cult leader rather than some allpowerful necromancer anti-hero. perhaps the god part still will exist, but i hope the king of worms stays dead for the rest of the series. it's bad enough he's the 'boba fett' of TES.

The whole Wayrest royal family are probably the most developed characters in the entire ES series (well, except for Eadwyre). They've appeared in two games, and have several books devoted to their exploits. Even in Daggerfall, they all stood out to me as interesting characters. I guess Vivec is equally developed but...well, don't get me started on Vivec.


The Imperials were Roman influenced starting with Daggerfall. Look at the names of some of the emperors: Pelagius, Antiochus, Magnus--all known Roman names. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe "Uriel" is a latinization of a Hebrew name. And if you can think of a more Roman name than "Tiber", well, I owe you a coke.

The reason it's so jarring in Morrowind is that the Septim Empire went from being Roman influenced to outright Roman. Architecturally, philosophically, institutionally, they were a direct copy. That's fine, since it's the first we really met the Imperials in a full game, but ideas like the "Reman Dynasty" are pushing it even for me. (But I was an Ancient History major, so I'm sure I'm easily offended on such fronts.) In Daggerfall the Empire was portrayed one way, in Redguard another, and in Morrowind another. Oblivion completely changed the Imperials AGAIN...so it's getting really difficult to figure out what their culture is.

Loved the Daggerfall version of Breton names though. As for the KoW in Oblivion...well, that might be the only time I've ever seen a fan community go into such complete collective denial: "It's okay, that wasn't even really him." I would dearly like to believe Bethesda didn't stick him in there as some dreadfully misguided attempt at fan service, but it seems like that's the simplest explanation.

But the Roman aspect was introduced in Morrowind, that's what I was speaking about. It was too much in my opinion, and I think that because of this the Roman thing was nearly removed in Oblivion.



Maybe because he gave many the impression to be a powerful supernatural being, and I think that was intended considering his appearance. And actually he was supposed to be a lich, this is written in the book Mannimarco, King of Worms, you can read in it Oblivion. So why telling us it is an Altmer lich and then put a living Altmer instead? This is a complete mystery...

Can I just be egotistical for a moment and yell "I called it!!" I always harboured a theory that Mannimarco was Altmer - or, as my own pet theory goes, half Altmer and half ancient Breton. The Dirennis were an extremely powerful Altmer family living on Balfeira Isle very close to where KoW now keeps his main sanctuary in Scourg Barrow. They would have been around at the time Mannimarco was first rising to power - contemporary with Galerion, or am I mixing up my timescales? Apart from anything else, 'Mannimarco' is a classic Altmer name. It follows their naming patterns perfectly. So even if he's a lich now, he could feasibly have been born Altmer. He had to be something, after all.

As for looks... Divyath Fyr is reportedly up to 4,000 years old, and he's managed to stay looking normal. If KoW is as powerful as he boasts, taking a normal shape shouldn't be too much of a tax on his abilities. So in essence, I didn't mind the idea of what Beth tried to do with him in Oblivion, because I think it's in agreement with the lore. The problem was that it was executed in such a lame, anticlimactic way.

I liked the Roman influence on the Imperials, it's a strong theme, and maybe a little close to historical fact, but they are, after all, the most mainstream human race (Redguards are fairly normal, not magically inclined like Bretons, but TES is more based in European mythology) everybody else is elves, orcs, or beasts, so they should be a little crazier.

And I think Breton names should be a mix of early Anglo and French, for obvious reasons. Not exclusively one or the other. The town guards in Oblivion is what a Breton guard should have looked like, and the Imperials should go back to having romanesqe armor.

the king of worm's biography could've been exaggerated. the devs mentioned that, like our own history, in-game books (and lore in general) is biased and should be taken with a grain of salt. there's no doubt that the accounts of the king of worms are exaggerated, perhaps as propaganda, perhaps for sensationalism.

altmer are supposived masters of necromancy themselves, using it to extend their natural lives to near immortality. the telvanni possibly do the same. the king of worms as an altmer makes perfect sense, especially as altmer have the most reason to be sinister given their culture and background. scourge barrow is the perfect place for a base; the redguard fear magic and are very ignorant of it.

i suppose it was rather anti-climatic that the player was immune to the worst of the king of worms' spells. in theory he should be tougher, but the player gains power way too quickly in oblivion due to design. however, it's suiting that the king of worms is dead for the next era.

That is a pretty interesting and realistic origin for him. I think KoW is one of those characters that is more interesting the less you know about him. It's fun to theorize about who he is, what his goals are, etc. Oblivion just demystified him way too much for my tastes. I suppose it could have been handled well if that whole quest was given a little more attention. I have no problem with KoW being an Altmer, but a sissy, generic-faced Oblivion type Altmer? That was a heart-breaker.

Indeed it makes perfect sense he was an Altmer, but an Altmer who practiced necromancy for more than a thousand years. So I think his body should have been affected, after all it is the case in most fantasy RPGs where you find sorcerers using 'bad' magic. Divayth Fyr is another story, he is a powerful wizard, not a powerful dark mage of some kind. And even without considering that, he didn't manage to preserve his body, as he looks very old. The problem with Oblivion is that faces were very limited, it was probably the worst in that particular aspect of the Elder Scroll series. You couldn't make NPCs which look really old, or NPCs with beards, etc. Even if TNR proved it was possible to make good looking heads with the tool, they are not on the level of the Morrowind community's ones. gamesas is simply lazy now, they make games which fit the minimum requirements to gain profit, and let the community fix them... That's why the KoW as an Altmer looked so generic and wasn't impressive at all.

I agree with everything you said!


I'll be devil's advocate and argue that 1. we don't really know anything about what kind of sorcery Fyr's been up to all these years, and 2. If KoW is as powerful as he seems, he should be able to cast a glamour to make him appear however he pleases... but I agree with your fundamental point, so it's unnecessary. It's not so much the appearance aspect as the weakness of power that dissatisfied me. I don't think it was handled well. The "Mannimarco wasn't actually as powerful as he made out to be and has been PR spinning all these years" theory is pretty interesting, but the evidence contradicts it. I don't think Traven's soul, even in a black gem, would have had the power to defeat KoW's thousands of years of experience.

If they'd had just one little tidbit hidden in the game hinting that the Altmer you kill isn't actually KoW himself, opening up some opportunities for speculation, I would accept the situation. But I've never found such a thing.

PS. Your avatar makes me feel like I'm discussing this with the King of Worms himself... which is bizarre and sort of terrifying

The Imperials were Roman influenced starting with Daggerfall.

It's worth noting that Arena didn't have "Imperials" at all.

And if you can think of a more Roman name than "Tiber", well, I owe you a coke.

Romulus?