and in our hearts, we know that game is long way off....

Nothing like going to the fighter's guild and being told that the quest was already given to ... the fighter's guild.

I agree because Bethesda realized they can make a crappy game like Oblivion and sell millions of copies just because it had good graphics (when it came out) so I think TES5 is going to end up the same.

Crappy Gameplay + Good Graphics = Big Seller

Although the series as a whole has been dumbing itself down, Morrowind took a different direction in design than Daggerfall, one that I welcomed. We may not have had our procedurally generated dungeons or HALT HALT HALT guards, nor our climbing skills, but Bethesda gave us an intricately crafted world full of lore and an engaging storyline. The amount of detail they put into Morrowind was simply amazing, and it was a welcome change from the genericness of Daggerfall. It wasn't as large in scope, but it was fun as hell. Equal tradeoff - sacrificing open endedness for visual beauty and intrigue. Most people were fine with that.

Oblivion only took things down another step though - only this time nothing worthy of note was added to make up for it. Spinny leaf trees! Yay!


Indeed. This mindset of "oh, there's a central questline, but you have to focus more on your own survival in this world" was wonderful at the time and I wish they'd return to it. In Morrowind it wasn't as bad since the storyline wasn't as forced into your face, but it still had that whole "oh you're the Nerevarine? I'll give this errand to YOU!" or "we will gladly aid the Nerevarine". Of course, sometimes it was all "TEMPLE DOCTRINE != NEREVARINE KILL KILL KILL!" which was fun sometimes, but I did love the world of Daggerfall in which you were just another random schmoe, pawn of the petty bickering nobles and just another townie among the other thousands of generic...townies.

Huh,right
Name an RPG that came out around the time oblivion did that was better.
EDIT-I hate the "POPULAR GAMZZZ SUK!!!!!111111" people.

Your equal tradeoff was an unequal tradeoff to me. Was Daggerfall the epitome of perfect? no - none of the games have been. The expectation was that MW was going to be Daggerfall, better graphics, a more (not less) involved story, and at least as challenging - not you became God by level 20 (even if you didn't do the main quest.) As I've said before - nearly every argument that MW fans use against OB can be applied from DF to MW - there is, however, a player generational difference as well as a more pronounced graphical difference between the 2.

Had the graphics been updated as they were but instead of shrinking the world -

- made it more bug free (even in GoTY with the latest patch I have now lost my Ald'Rhun teleportation mage presumeably beneath the floorboards.) This makes "bug" arguments towards Daggerfall have little meaning.

- Kept a similar world size. Random terrain in larger chunks for travel with roads / fixed locations where necessary (if necessary) pre-generated. A few small towns (save Vivec) didn't really cut it.

- Realistic walking speed rather than make the newbie player walk slower than his or her grandmother in order to make it take longer to traverse space (and let's not get into the preponderance of double back paths.)

- Local politics beyond just a few houses.

- cliff racers

I could go on but, as you to me, I realise I'm preaching to someone who has already set their gold-standard. Daggerfall was that when it came out and the promise of such a diverse world with -more- not less features was the expectation. My disappointment was probably no less than yours towards the direction of Oblivion. What you saw as an equal trade off I saw as pretty pictures and easier gameplay for folks too lazy to live in a harsher world. Combat so easy even a cave-man could do it.

I love the Heretic/Hexen series. In fact, I'm currently working on a Heretic map for a major community collaboration over at the DoomWorld forums.

Heretic > Hexen II > Hexen

(Never played Heretic II.)

I didn't say oblivion svcked it was alright, but to easy. I agree with you about popular games svcking somewhat, but not all popular games, in my opinion game developers are more worried about graphics than great gameplay.

Nothing better than pecking your friend to death as a chicken :thumbsup:

Few people here really think oblivion was a bad game, it just happens that it doesn't live up to the series as a whole.


Am I the only one that found combat to be easier in Daggerfall than in Morrowind? I seem to miss a lot less with the same skill level, and enemies that would be a hard challenge in Morrowind at my level are quite a pushover in Daggerfall. Maybe the rest of the game was made more unforgiving to make up for it.

I agree 100% with all this. I appreciate elements of MW and Oblivion, but I think it's pretty clear that the most dramatic change in the series was from Daggerfall to Morrowind. The stated design goal of Daggerfall was to create a role-playing environment where the player was the main character in a play that would change based on the player's actions. For MW the goal became "exploration." I don't mean this as an insult to either game, but I really do see MW and OB as part 1 and part 2 of the same thing. Daggerfall was something else entirely.

Then I apologize.
EDIT-Combats alot easier then I thought.
Skeleton still killed me though. :meh:

Fantastic story. It sure sold me, I'm downloading the game now.
I began TES with MW and nevr tried the earlier versions. Sounds like I have missed out on a something great.

I actually came here to find out more about it, before I got it. I wasn't sure if it would be something I would get into. Thank you, you answered my question without me even asking.

Great post, so true.

I've never played Daggerfall (that seems like it will change soon) but from watching videos I definitely think the spirit of Daggerfall and Morrowind are much more similar than Morrowind --> Oblivion. Even though Morrowind is more limited in scope, it still feels like a living world, and you are free to play a role. AND I think there were improvements from Daggerfall to Morrowind that cannot be ignored. It seems to me at least that Magic and Archery were not well fleshed out, and magic only worked well because of the mechanics it allowed (healing, levitating, etc) and what happened with Oblivion was that there were no improvements like that, at all. Anything that worked well in OB was done just as well as MW, as far as gameplay is concerned, but not only did they not add any new elements, they removed quite a lot of content, dialogue, and choices. Morrowind had a wide open world, Oblivion had a tiny fantasy sandbox. It's in that respect that I think it has more in common with Daggerfall, and if only the Oblivion curved back towards DF, rather than moving in a linear direction from Morrowind.

Now this isn't even close to being true. Yes, a lot of dialog and faction options were missing from Oblivion, but to say that NO improvements were made is disingenuous. Archery in Morrowind was basically identical to archery in Daggerfall (aside from the ability to shoot through doors and walls being removed), the main differences being that enemies both needed and had arrows in their inventory. Oblivion archery was considerably developed over the other two through the skill perks system. And while the loss of a few really, really cool spell effects (levitation, teleportation) is lamentable, the physics system in Oblivion made the effects that remained not only more versatile, but at times a heck of a lot funnier (sending corpses flying, fireballing in the bookstore, etc). Grabbing objects from unreachable locations with telekinesis was fun (even if the absence of trapped doors and chests removed one major use). Swinging blades, falling rocks, and so on are a significant step above "click and receive spell effect" for traps (though I admit they should have included that old style of trap, as well).

Mind you, I would have preferred if the game had been more similar to Morrowind in the action respect, and had a fuller factional implementation (keeping the "Duke of Kvatch" storyline would have been a start). But still, you gotta give credit where credit is due.

Actually, I suppose that all the games of TES series are quite different and still they are TES games. I love all of them, from Arena to Oblivion, each one fore different reasons. Yes, I agree that Daggerfall is a wonderful, amazing, fantatic game! But I will never agree that Morrowind was a step back! Yes, it lacks climbing the walls, banks, carts. Yes, the judicial system is rather stupid and the clothing system lacks Daggerfall's wonderful hooded capes which you can wear over the cuirass which can be worn over the shirt. It lacks mysterious withches, turning from the old hags into beautiful girls. It lacks powerful Daedra summoners and magic items smiths. But it brought something so important, that all these gaps could be easily forgiven. It brought the ability to surprise. In Daggerfall I knew that my day will be devoted to the exploring the endless maze of the unknown dungeon, then to the long search of the exit, then getting the faceless, impersonal town by fast-travel, taking a new generic quest and starting everything from the very beginning. In Morrowind, while walking from one unique town with its history and personality to another (not less unique!) I could found something unexpected, amazing, something what can interrupt my way and make me go in completely different direction, doing completely unexpected things...

There is also one more reason why I like Morrowind not less then Daggerfall. It is the feeling of cosiness. It is the world where you really live, where you are not the stranger. In Daggerfall I knew no one except the heads of royal families. Everyone other were nothing to me but the sources of services and quests. In Morrowind I knew a great number of people, not only names, but their characters, their interpersonal relations. I knew that Galbedir don't like Ajira, that one girl is in love with a mugger, that one lady hates men, while one sir likes both men and women, that some are ready to get in troubles for their ideas.

I knew that all of them were real people and not cardboard characters as in Daggerfall. And that's why I can't help arguing with those, who state that Morrowind is a "regress' or it doesn't fit TES series. Actually, it brought the life into series!

I see where you are coming from here. I don't think Morrowind is a step back so much as it is a step to the side, or a step in another direction. All the elements you mention in Morrowind are excellent. I just would have preferred a Morrowind that took everything you described and added it to Daggerfall, rather than leaving out a whole host of elements that made Daggerfall great (character creation, legal system, challenge, etc. etc.). I respect that Bethesda wants to do something new with every game in the series, but I'm bothered by their habit (from DF to MW and again from MW to OB) of throwing out the interesting elements of the previous game when they make a new one. There's no reason Morrowind couldn't have been more detailed, with more meaningful characters, while still maintaining all of the key features we old DF players loved.

Me too somewhat

Sounds like you whacked a door by mistake, or pressed the 'rest' button instead of 'loiter', Vynik... Nice story, well written.

Agree with Byzantine - Morrowind & Oblivion abandoned the ideals of world-simulation to take TES in a different direction - not necessarily a bad one, but one which was *bound* to disappoint those who built their expecatations with Daggerfall. Many felt and feel that they should have improved upon it instead of condensing their efforts into 'Theme-Park' (aptly put by luciusDXL with reference to Oblivion) pocket-sized TES worlds with little content beyond what was deemed 'necessary', certainly in comparison to DF.

Perhaps you're the only one who found Morrowind hard past level 3 or 4? I'm no powergaming youngster who probably take Daedra temples with a loincloth and dagger at level 8 but I am raiding them at 13. Golden saints and others at the "top end" of the MW mob spectrum are already easy and as I collect souls from here on out it's only going to be easier. My only problem is the lack of soulgems atm because I don't read spoilers and have only gotten the ones that I have found (2 so far.) I purposefully haven't finished certain quests, guilds, or gone to a couple places I remember so as to not make the game even easier.

The new content with GOTY (which was the purpose of restarting) may suprise me but the old vanilla stuff is just as much of a /yawn as it was when I played at release.

MW is quite easy. Once you get into Tribunal and Bloodmoon, things change. And hot damn, werewolves do pack a nasty bite

I'm glad I'm not a tl;dr person.

Well, that makes me want to play Daggerfall even freakin' more. Curse you for writing this when I have no PC of my own! Curse you!

As a semi-unrelated note, you should try storywriting if you don't already; that was very engaging and fun to read.

Wow

That was so entertaining to read!

I know. Morrowind wasn't that bad actually, but I'm worried of TES5 :/
I just hope the Ideas and Suggestions thread manage to push it into the right direction. Which is 13 years backwards.

I feel the same way,but only because I've been playing oblivion for two straight years while I just now got daggerfall.