Why Daggerfall is the Greatest Game in the World, a rant


I'll admit it. I'm an 80's boy. I spent lots of years rolling multi-sided dice in a dank cavern basemant, wearing a cape and showering every couple of fortnights, drinking pallets of Surge and scraping nerd boogers out from the A and B keys on the Nintendo to feast on. With kiddie man-boobs I frolicked.

And here I am today, with a strong message for the world: Daggerfall is the greatest RPG video game of all time. If you go your whole lifetime without playing Daggerfall, you're about as valuable as an empty spray can of cheese. You might as well throw yourself on a fire and be done with it.

My information comes from a depressingly expansive and wasted life of multitudes of RPG video games. While I could be out mowing the lawn, or changing my dog's 6-week old water, or mailing out the overdue bills, or feeding the escaped convict I keep chained in the woodshed, NO. I'm playing me some Daggerfall, [censored]es.

And no, the reason Daggerfall is awesome is NOT just that it's the first game to ever show nipbles. While a 16-bit, 20-pixel pair of hoo-haws is definitely where it's at when you're a man who women in real life call a, “no-brainer,” and whose girlfriend is really only in it for the money (and she seems to be taking a liking to the escaped convict), the real awesomeness of Daggerfall is in its SOUL.

I'm not talking standing-in-a-sweat-pool cocaine-infused James Brown soul, or even Hendrix's psychedelic flower-pants and scarf. I'm talking good old times 1990's computer game soul. Like the sound pigs make in Daggerfall, but also was used in Warcraft 2 when you clicked on a farm. Or hearing the Daggerfall bat sound in cheesy 80's horror movies. The whole game just FEELS cool, it has that saucy relic feel.

Daggerfall was probably created by about a dozen people over a few years in a windowless basemant. Several of said dudes probably spent most of the time writing on notebook paper (yeah, that's right. Paper.) and creating a huge wealth of quest dialogue, books, storylines as well as descriptions for how awesome the pixellated tah-tahs should be. Imagine being a game designer soaring on the tip of this new computer-RPG wave, defining a genre based on what they personally enjoyed.

Nowadays among designers it's all, “What sells? What can we take from other games, and put into this new game? What aspects does Mr. Average Geek enjoy? What kind of downloadable content can we add?”

Back then, it was just, "What sounds cool?"

I imagine the crazy work they must've put into good old Daggerfall, in regards to more recent RPG's. It seems like nowadays, all you have to do is put some crazy elf-broad wearing about the same thing as a cat's halloween costume, make her tee-tahs about twenty sizes too big, give her some kind of ridiculously huge weapon, and then add some retarded plotline about “Dark” this or “Shadow” that or “Dragon Age” this or “Lord of the” whatever...and you've got a fantasy RPG. Sprinkle on some orcs and axes and you've got the game of the year.

But Daggerfall was NEW ground. What other game boasts such a pointlessly massive free-form world? Who, to this day, even understands half of the stuff that goes on in the main quest? If anyone's actually BEATEN Daggerfall without using cheats or a guide, personally I think they should pretty much kick out whatever [censored] happens to be President at the time, and elect THAT guy instead.

And as for music, frankly I think every band on earth should just give up on their stupid garbage and everyone should listen to the Daggerfall merchant music. Fans, you know what I'm talking about. Daa-dehnehdeh-dah-deh-daaaahhh... etcetera.

I'd sing it but I don't have my cape on.

More to come, I have [censored] to do.

Bravo boy. I'm with you!

I enjoy Morrowind and Oblivion more than I enjoy Daggerfall(which I enjoy quite a bit). Daggerfall lacks interesting things to do and, while fun, isn't my favorite RPG. It's in my top five RPG and game lists, but I think Morrowind and Oblivion are better.

Actually I completed Daggerfall with no clue book (except for one single thing I had to look up-the real time limit on the Empirers courer quest.)

Took me three years, back in the day. (I preordered it-anyof you remember that?) and got it the day it waas released.
It happened that I got it on the same day I returned home from major surgery, and I still played it that day!!!)


Can I at least be Vice president. I like vice anyway.

If you understand the games internals, it's actually pretty light on content. It just repeats it a whole bunch to make up a large land area. The amount of fun most people tend to have with the game is related to how quickly they start picking up on the repetition. A lot of people like doing their first dungeon. They also get sick of dungeons entirely by their 20th because they've stopped seeing anything really new at that point.

Additionally, while the world is large, it's mostly scenery. There's not a lot to do in the game. You can make potions and spells, summon daedra, get quests, and dungeon crawl. Completely par for course for an early 90s PC RPG.

I sort of refute the notion that a lot of work went into that game for these reasons. It's a terrain generator with a random quest generator. If you look at the actual unique content, there's just not that much of it.

A lot of truth there.
Definitely love Daggerfall for those reasons you describe an then some. Morrowind's more my thing, but Daggerfall's a close second.

Funny side note:
The boars from the show LOST also use Warcraft 2's pig noise.

Not a fan of DF
Some good features in lore and character generation but so repetitive
I came to CRPGs from PnP but PnP left repetitive maze-like dungeons with random monsters in them behind a long time ago. DF has very much that 80s D&D feel

Speaking of work put into the game, Morrowind and Oblivion had longer development times with larger development teams, so more work was actually put into Morrowind and Oblivion than into Daggerfall.

:foodndrink:

MW&Oblivion also get repetitive after a while. MW because the world is so completely static and I can count on my fingers the number of times when something changes (it was ridiculous to see NPC's standing forever on the same spot after escort missions, particularly that one that takes you inside the Ghostfence - who the hell would want to live there?), as well as the static missions getting repetitive after awhile. Oblivion, on the other hand, seems to have taken DF's approach without the grandness or the same mastery of execution, resulting in not so exciting dungeons that all look the same. Besides the fact it shares the same emptiness and heavy abstraction as MW, e.g. for Imperial City.

DF naturally was repetitive. And the quests were nowhere near as deep as the ones in MW (OB is inferior to both, seriously), BUT they were not repetitive and they were very challenging. I'm very amazed sometimes when I read that people actually thought that MW's directions were vague, lots of travel had to be done and that the complaints were the main drive behind making the compass in Oblivion. For the love of God, MW actually holds your hand all the time, and tightly! The NPC's are all walking sign posts, ready to tell you in the most verbose and attentive manner how to do this or that and how to get there safely and without trouble - the mission to visit Dyvath Fyr to deliver the coded message actually has the questgiver give you whole potions of water walking and swimming, and Tel Fyr is not even "far away"! Nothing is "far away" in MW. And to think that we DF veterans had to deal with "get me this, I DUNNO WHERE IT IS OR HOW TO GET IT, if you don't get here in a second, we'll send someone else and you forget your damn pay and your new job". And then you had to spend the next three hours of your life looking for it only to realize that you forgot a lever on room 14; many times I just left a dungeon empty handed and desolated.

In MW, I actually save less and get less concerned, because there is no room for failure at all! Do this, crawl through this TINY dungeon or tower, and in the end, I can always pinpoint the exact location of the eon of the thing you're going to locate and how you should get there (why don't I do it myself then?).

Daggerfall's features are too many to describe, but the OP hits the nail in the head. Their aggregate makes the game what it is, and gives it a soul that few can emulate; and in the end, the procedurally generated dungeons always left you one surprise or too, contrarily to a certain point in MW where you actually had to extend the game with mods because you knew the location and name of every single artifact in the game world. Randomization is what keeps fresh, even if a bit featureless - the next TES game, if they are still sworn to making quality things, would do better to include BOTH a procedurally generated world and the touches of hand-crafted polish which make games great.

That is not to say that MW does not have merit, for it has a lot, but only that it's gameplay is still missing many of the things which made Daggerfall so immersive. Myself, I only got genuinely scared in it when an NPC talked to me behind my back, as opposed to DF where I get shivers at the thought of walking on the streets past 6PM for the whole loneliness it means.

Oblivion's quests are inferior to Daggerfall's? :huh: ... :rofl:

Yes.

No. That just isn't true.

Daggerfall: Go to and find . Kill them in .

Oblivion: Go help a certain Dunmer protect her rats. Kill a mountain lion in the basemant. Find a hunter and go hunt down mountain lions outside the city. Come back and finish off another mountain lion. Find the truth behind these attacks by investigating a suspect. While sneaking, catch the suspect in the act of placing bait. Confront the suspect about this, discover the suspect's true intentions, and make one of two choices, tell the Dunmer or keep it a secret. The reward varies and no quest is a reskinned copy of this one.

Daggerfall: Go kill to and kill .
Oblivion: Must I really explain the Ultimate Heist quest?

Daggerfall: Deliver to in .

Oblivion: Enter ancient fort in the hopes of finding the Shield of the Crusader. Free prisoner who provides you with information and read the various notes written by the conjurers to learn of more valuable information. Solve several puzzles and retrieve the Shield of the Crusader. This fort actually makes some sense and isn't just a seemingly-endless labyrinth.

Daggerfall shines in character creation/progression, but Oblivion's quests easily mop the floor with Daggerfall's quests. The only interesting quests and dungeons in Daggerfall are related to the main quest. That is not the case with Oblivion's dungeons(for example, Vilverin, Fort Bulwark, Black Rock Caverns, Ebrocca, Sideways Cave, Amelion Family tomb, etc.) and Oblivion's quests(most are unqiue). Also, in Oblivion, exploration is actually possible.

Heh, in the end, it will always be a matter of personal preference. There's no point in arguing which does what better really.

Some prefer Daggerfall's generic, randomized quests, others will appreciate the different turns some of Oblivion and Morrowind's quest had.

Though if I can say something about the quests, if I compare every RPG ES titles. Morrowind, for me, was superior. For the simple reason that your character had sometimes different answers in dialogue, how he could use his speechcraft to fool people, use mercantile to outdeal someone's offer. While in Oblivion, some quests force you to accept them (The Aleswell one, for instance).
But Oblivion wins it in terms of originality. There were not enough quests in Oblivion though.

I like Daggerfall's quests mostly when I'm starting, but then it starts to obviously get repetitive. It starts to feel like those MMORPGs that offer the same quests over and over. It gets boring to save the innkeeper's 10 cousins and 5 lost daughters or collecting 50 harpy feathers in the same dungeons.
That is often why my characters don't get higher than level 12 or 13.

Still, I'll always consider Daggerfall to be the best of the series, and one of my favourite RPGs. (My favourite being Fallout 1)
I like its art style. Its dark and gloomy color palette add to the medieval theme it has. The character creation, the main quest (That I thought was far more superior and original than Morrowind's or Oblivion's)
Its vast world. Its soundtrack. And the feeling that you are a nobody. That you are an anonymous adventurer like the rest of the people. Getting called Nerevarine and Champion of Cyrodiil irritated me after a while.

I don't get bored with DF's quests. I think of it as "routine work" - in the end, you might be rescuing this or that ingredient many times, but overall, you still have new challenges. MW is great in the first two or three times, then afterwards it's just "ohhh go fetch this" yet again and again with all the same moves and talk.

The fact is, that although both three games are repetitive, DF wins in the long term "less repetitive repetition" contest .

Daggerfall's quests are a lot more realistic and a lot more love and creativity went into writing the quest dialogue, IMO. The only problem with Daggerfall's quests is that there are only a handful and they repeat over and over.

Morrowind, on the other hand, has a lot more unique quests, but once they're done, they're done forever.

Finally, Oblivion has the least quests out of all of them, I feel, and they're the least realistic. Each quest is like a mini mystery movie with a lot of flashy scripting. You really feel like you're playing a video game, rather than living in a real world.

I think that's the biggest strength of the way Daggerfall does it's quests. It really makes you feel like you're doing natural jobs for people in a real world. Rather than in Oblivion where it really feels like you're going around picking up quests because you're a video game character.

And honestly, I feel Morrowind does it more realistically than either of them. Just because most of the quests are political favors or gopher runs. Honestly that's the kind of work you would do if you were actually a person living in Tamriel. I mean, how often do you walk into a new town and start investigating every series of thefts and murders that have been taking place in the town?

Oblivion had the "least"(in quotes because Daggerfall actually has fewer, since an amount of formulas that are fewer in number than Oblivion's quests are just inserted with random, yet exactly the same, goals) amount of quests due to them being the most creative. In Tamriel, why would politicians be more likely to have you, a stranger and, in Morrowind, an outlander, do quests than people, who are aware of your reputation as an adventurer, would have you help them out with smaller problems? It's not like you have to, either. If you choose to get involved, you will get involved. Nothing made me investigate rumors in Oblivion and the only times people came to me was due to my fame(You know that's why you are asked to meet with the countess of Bruma, meet the leader of the Order of the Virtuous Blood, and do other things in Oblivion, right) or, in the case of the quest at Aleswell, if they are at the brink of tolerating their current condition and beg for you, the armed adventurer who just walked into their inn, to help them.

Daggerfall and Morrowind both had very player-centric quests as well. Why is this trader asking me to escort them or why is this Nord asking me to help hunt down a witch? Why am I the reincarnation of a historical Chimer figure and the god-slaying prophecy-fulfiller? In Daggerfall, why am I, a complete stranger being asked by people to to protect them from assassins or being asked to deliver a daedric heart to a certain person while fighting off Daedra? All Elder Scrolls games are guilty of being games(I know that's a horrible crime on these forums), so that singling out tactic doesn't work. Daggerfall lacks creativity in many ways. That's not necessarily a bad thing and I love this game despite its flaws, but defending flaws is something else. If you prefer randomly-generated, cut and paste quests, that's fine, and I agree that such quests have a certain charm to them, but not acknowledging the strengths of another game doesn't result in a fair statement. Oblivion had creative quests. It may have been lacking in the amount of them compared to Morrowind and, if you count copying and pasting on a small amount of formulas as the creation of different quests, Daggerfall, but its quests are more creative and unique than Daggerfall's and even Morrowind's. I think a solution to pleasing everyone is to have creative, hand-crafted quests and some randomly-generated filler quests both in the same game with some in between quests, such as the ones found in Morrowind(which has unique quests of its own, but was less concentrated with them than Oblivion was).

Obviously you've never lived in a big city.

Because I can't go to the produce market, ever, here in Philly, without being stopped by some crackhead who needs me to steal a daedric amulet from a wereboar.

I live in the Water's Edge of the real world.

I believe that crackhead is a lady in green named Christian Mastersmith? :laugh:

I just remember she had an Elvish first name and a British surname.

Many Yaa and many boos on ya part OP, but for the most part, good for ya.


Meh, I still view Oblivion's Quest like that of Daggerfall/Morrowind but much shorter and with vocal (and not in a good way). I don't really see anything special or creative about it; not to mention ya compare an everyday quest it a main quest.


Ehh, Oblivion get the player involved with the quest, rumor or just walking in the house with the quest. If the player not willing to do the quest, the quest list in the Log would still remind ya that the quest is there. I usually blame the vocal for the lack the quest given in the game itself.

As for "(I know that's a horrible crime on these forums)", that just opinion and singling things out just making it easier in regard the faults of the game. Usually, Oblivion has been the target as a Black Sheep because what it offer was some good things and bad things, but the bad things usually out weigh the good in many people's opinion.


Sounds bad. I live in an area where a there use to be a bunch of rogue mages fire fireball at each other for territory and Skooma. Thankfully, the Imperial Knights intervene and place got better, eventually.

Because you, uhm, look like a bully boy capable of doing it? Ever realized what people think when you have a sword and armour on? Or a more modern equivalent: ever realized what people think when they see someone armed to the teeth and in army uniform?

All that "You're the Nerevarine" thing is annoying, I agree. But then every TES game has the player go through wild twists of fate, except that DF treats the player as a mercenary, not as a hero. You're not even supposed to have "noble blood", you're just an anybody accidentally chosen because the Emperor is making a wild gamble due to his reduced power; whereas in MW you're the "Nerevarine", and all.

As for your first point, exactly, there is a reason. In Oblivion, there are also reasons for people asking you to do things, such as your reputation(is actually factored in people asking you to do things). In Oblivion, is my character also not an armed adventurer? It is true for both of those games. The political and neutral area that Daggerfall falls into is unique. It is the only (numbered)Elder Scrolls game that doesn't have the character be a hero who must save something and make everything better, again.

I'm just saying that's pretty much all Oblivion consists of. And every quest in Oblivion seems to be a big flashy production.

It's like they're putting on a show for me. I'm constantly being overtly reminded that I'm a character in a video game and it's hard for me to get immersed.