Frankly, I just realized how much I hate Daggerfall. Before, whenever I wanted a decent RPG experience, I'd start up Oblivion and play through, granted, a fairly rich world. While it didn't engross me as much as Morrowind, I liked it quite a bit. (Especially because I lost my Morrowind discs.) I was happy playing Oblivion, wandering through the countryside, doing a little light roleplaying as an archer, or a thief. Sure, even as a sneaky thief, I could still go toe to toe with warriors, but that was fine. I'd go about my business, listening to a couple of NPCs talk to each other, admire the scenery, and go pick up a quest. Oh, go to a cave and deliver some weapons? Fantastic! Sure! Especially with mods, it was something else and continued to sap a lot of my time.

Then the unthinkable happened. Always wanting to try Daggerfall, I've unsuccessfully been able to find it for anything other than a ridiculously high price. Bethesda had to go and make it free. So, I figured, what the hell? Let's see what all the fuss is about, right? Let's just see why everyone likes this game so much.

I hate Daggerfall.

I just finished wandering through a dungeon for about an hour, tracking down a rogue wizard and killing him. I filled up my wagon with loot, and returned to the Daggerfall to get my reward. I wandered a bit, then walked outside in the rain. It was foggy, and I could barely see 10 feet in front of me. I walked back into the Mage's Guild to wait for the storm to die down and I figured I might as well grab a quest to help me advance. I got a guard quest, and so I did. I waited for the assassins, killed them, and just as I was about to finish up my shift, I hear..

Halt! Halt! Halt!

Startled, I lashed my sword out in front of me, accidentally striking a guard who was coming to arrest me for an unknown crime. I just committed assault on a member of the city watch. I panicked, and killed him and his partner. I darted around the guild for a second, then figured more guards would come, I scooped up the armor and weapons that the assassins and guards had on their persons, and shoveled it into my wagon. I had just finished guard duty when this happened, so I accepted my reward, and I darted out of the guild. It was still raining outside, the fog obscuring my vision. My health was low, and I couldn't rest because the guards were hunting me down. I couldn't go to prison for murder of two city guards. So..

I ran. I just picked a direction and ran as fast as I could. I was hoping to get to an exit so I could leave this damned city, but all I found was a wall of four guards waiting to arrest me. I turned around and saw guards closing in from behind me as well. I knew I wouldn't be able to take all of them, especially so wounded. I used a couple of heal spells, which almost completely drained me of magic. I still wasn't in shape to fight. I looked to my left and right, then frantically started to climb up the side of the building next to me. I heard, "Halt! Halt!" get louder as the city's strike force closed in closer. As I reached the roof of the building, I saw the guards were I once was, shouting at me from the ground. I was cornered and my only option was to die or go to prison for what would have to be years.

I started running.. I made a leap of faith from one rooftop to another. Dropping down into an alleyway and continuing to sprint towards the edge of the city as the words, "Halt! Halt!" echoed in my ears. Through the fog, I could make out the sheer wall surrounding Daggerfall. I hit the wall hard, desperately grasping at the stones as the guards closed on my heels. I started climbing.. as I reach the top of the wall, my hands slip and I fall. I manage to grab onto the stones again before hitting the ground, and proceed to succesfully climb the wall this time. I hear the guards shouting behind me as I breathe a sigh of relief. I deftly leap over the other side of the wall, grunting as I hit the ground hard. Almost defeated, I continue to run until I can no longer see that imposing, gray, stone wall.

Out in the wilderness, I manage to get a couple of hours rest, heal up slightly, and continue my journey. I continued to run for days until I crossed into another territory altogether. The guards and people here don't judge me as harshly as they do back in Daggerfall. I'm not a murderer to them. It was just an accident. I quickly set about selling the equipment I looted from the dead guards, put the money in the bank, and vow to start my life anew. I rested in a tavern for a long 14 hours. I suppose the only thing to do is look for work now.

***

I looked at the clock after all that had happened, and I saw that two and a half hours had passed since I stopped that rogue mage with good intentions. Two and a half hours later, my character is a murderer and a pariah of Daggerfall. I have never, ever experienced anything in a roleplaying game quite like that. After a little time, I started up Oblivion and played for... 15 minutes. I just couldn't get into it again. I couldn't have detailed conversations, I could very well be a vicious murderer, but accepted everywhere due to paying a pittance of a fine. I raided half of an Ayleid ruin and quit.

Don't get me wrong, Oblivion, in my opinion, is a fantastic game in its own right. However, for the 15 minutes I played today, I ran through the dungeon, slashing and hacking some bandits to death. If I got injured, I'd heal myself with magic or the plentiful potions. I didn't have to worry about either because I had tons of potions and my magicka regenerated quickly enough. My fatigue is a non-factor now on the character I'm playing in Oblivion. I don't *have* to rest, I don't have to do anything. Oblivion is a fantastic game, and while I do have complaints about it, I've certainly put enough hours into it to say that I like it. But after playing Daggerfall, and having the experiences I have had playing THAT game.. well.. roleplaying in Oblivion, which was once light, is now gone for me. As an action RPGish game, I love it. The combat (especially with mods) is fun and engaging, and all in all, it's a very in depth action RPG. Daggerfall has shown me, however, that there is much more than talking to a person and getting a quest, killing some bloke, and getting a reward. Politics, conversation, people hating you *just because* and there's not a whole lot you can do about it, ships, banking (Which I love, I know that's silly, but I like it), dungeons that feel like an epic adventure every time you set foot in one, climbing (Again, may be silly, but I love it). Crimes have long lasting effects to your reputation, and you can't just pay a fine. You pay a fine AND go to jail, or banishment, or you're forever on the run from the law every time you set your foot in that region. People hate you because you're a murderer. You cannot fix things with a bit of gold and say "Oh, sorry guys, I know killing is wrong, but here's 1000 gold. Is that okay? I'll give you an extra 1000 if I can kill your friend over there!!"

Oblivion has always served me well (not as well as Morrowind =P) as an RPG I could get lost in and be a character. Daggerfall, however, has shown me another plane of western roleplaying, and I love it.

I hate Daggerfall, because it ruined Oblivion for me.

I know this is a long, rambling post, so for all the TL;DR people out there.

Title = joke.
Me <3 Daggerfall.
Yay.

Whew! Lucky for me, I skipped all the way to the bottom.

Edit: BTW, I have gone back and read the whole post. Quite a fantastic tale of misadventure!

I came ready to rage, but now I have nothing but love

I felt the same way, the newer games even with their greatly improved graphics just doesn't give the same immersion that daggerfall had. Actions have real consequences, factions have use, and you have to fend for yourself as the game is cold, brutal, and unrelenting in its lack of babying you through it.

That's a great tale. It sums up perfectly the appeal Daggerfall holds for me, and no doubt many others.

In Daggerfall, you're effectively a nobody - a pawn of gods and men. There's no grand hero fantasy surrounding you and the world actually punishes you for mistakes. It's definitely more fun to live with those mistakes and play through the consequences than it is to reload an try again.

Anyway, grats on being bitten by the Daggerfall bug.

Phew, that bit of what happened there could have been the beginning of a nice RP. :goodjob:

Hah. I thought you were going to rant about how poorly designed the game is due to a run of bad luck with your experiences, although about two paragraphs in I knew this was a joke thread. I love hearing these newcomers' stories about Daggerfall. The game is full of thrills that never get old, even 13 years after its release.

I have yet to get into any serious trouble, but...since my character is a marauder, once I feel confident enough I'm am going to kill and pillage the heck out of some kingdoms, and sell turn my pillaging into a nice profit

Great story.

It is true that Daggerfall ruined a lot of the later games, that unfortunately while improving the visuals, removed sadly several part of what made Daggerfall brillant in gameplay and personnal roleplay.
Just the character generation is hundred time superior to their Morrowind/Oblivion equivalent.

Each time i am playing in Daggerfall, i am always amazed by how good it is always now.

I remember the first time I had a....misunderstanding with some guards. It wasn't my fault he ran into my sword as I was swinging it!

That's what I said! Except the hammer just happened to fall on the person's head.

I know! I mean, when I'm swinging my flail, it's their fault for running into it.

It's good fun to raise hell in those smaller kingdoms with no real purpose.

Exactly my plan. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE :chaos: ! Oops, wrong IP bliviongate:

:rofl:

Heh heh, and now some people are coming to understand why a lot of us old timers were disappointed with Oblivion. You think it's bad for you now... but you'll get used to it. I, and others like me, had to watch Daggerfall change into Oblivion, fully comprehending and aware. It isn't a bad game, really it isn't. It's just that Oblivion is a mere toy when compared to Daggerfall. Oblivion is a video game. Daggerfall is high art. Unfortunately, high art doesn't sell all that well, and the industry is now sufficiently mature that there's no room for people to go out on a limb like that any more.

I agree but for me that point was Morrowind. Oblivion is just a logical extension of the dumbing down process that had already started and was so very much different from Daggerfall that - by itself as an action game - is actually fun. Lighthearted, FPS, sit for an hour and play it fun but still fun.

Well, that certainly wasn't the simplest way out of that situation. hehehe

I found I had more fun with Oblivion after a lot of crazy mods showed up. Once I had it modded to have balance closer to Morrowind (HARD dungeons from the start), far more thing to play with (items, enemies spellls), different combat (shield bashing, limb severing, backstabs, critical arrow hits, etc), a respectable (non-consol-oriented) UI, a transparent levelling mod, the game was a lot more fun and immersive. Finding and setting up that many mods was a nightmare.

Daggerfall is interesting exactly because of what this thread says: there's more to do and things are more complicated. I like how the letters of credit let me walk out of a pawn shop with 38k in gold and how the bank solved that silly problem intantly. I like my wagon! It goes fast too! (I admit scavenging for flowers by scary forts in Oblivion so I could make feather potions was really fun).

Daggerfall is a refreshing change and a true PC game in the sense where PC games get to be complex with nasty learning curves. Need more games like that.

Agreed. Wouldn't really say it's dumbed down, but with Morrowind the TES series certainly took a big step towards another direction (handcrafted world, player not so anonymous and so on) than the path Daggerfall was going. While I feel that Oblivion is a relatively small step from Morrowind.

And how was I supposed to know some people were just chilling, and accidentally got hit with a spell when I was fighting off the guards WHO HAD NO RIGHT TO ATTACK ME! I SAID I WAS SORRY!

Dumbed down = just a bit too reactionary, I'll agree. Apologies.

While I agree with what you said, even that OB was a relatively small step from Morrowind, in many ways it does feel like just as large a leap. What bothered me about the transition from Daggerfall to Morrowind was the reduction in scale, plot, difficulty and options. The skill based gameplay, however, wasn't that much different. The change from skill based to mostly player based FPS style in many ways changes the game play completely. Now, as someone who has liked FPS's since Doom and I spent hours and days killing monsters and friends, FPS is just fine and fun for casual play. It's not really an ES game anymore though save in name, company and some lore.

Anyway, hijacked this thread enough. Really enjoyed the OP's initial post - brings back memories.

I 'unno. When I'm casting spells in DF, I feel like I'm playing Hexin.

This thread has made my day, grats OP.


Also, Verlox, the Hexen/Heretic series is quite possibly my favorite set of Fantasy FPS games. Especially Hexen II and Heretic II.

Very true. I've always considered myself lucky that I was around playing games when the industry was so young and developers were still taking gigantic risks.

Then again, it's great to see someone in 2009 having the exact same experience getting into Daggerfall I had in 1996. The OP does one of the best jobs I've seen in a long time of capturing the spirit of Daggerfall. Unfortunately, after playing the game for so many years some of the seams do start to show, so I love the way this post recreates the feeling of what the game is like during those first few days of playing. Brought back a lot of great memories.

But yes, I hate Daggerfall too. It's been 13 years, and I'm still waiting for an ES game to live up to it. Welcome to the club.

I noticed that. In Daggerfall, you're not the savior of the world. The game doesn't revolve around you. If you head into a guild to get a quest, sometimes the NPC will say 'sorry, I gave it to someone else' instead of 'Oh, I actually have this task that I should give to someone else, but you're the only person around here who does errands!'

Also, Daggerfall lacks one thing that makes Oblivion and Morrowind very good. No Annoying Fan and no Fargoth.

Thats a good read, OP! Give ya props for that!