Only having played about 15 hours of Daggerfall, I am very curious, upon looking at the variety of language skills available to use by the player, whether they are actually worth using? Do they serve the purpose they set out to serve? Should they ever be re-introducted in some way into TES series?

King.

I don't think today's players are that interested in roleplaying, which is the only real value of a lot of those skills.

Good point. It's a shame really

Games used to have a lot of small trade-offs, just for character interest. A mage might be stronger at night, but weaker in the daylight. It all balanced out, but it gave a little "variety" to things. I can't see the great bulk of Skyrim players being interested in that level of difference. Players now don't even seem to want races/genders who are stronger/weaker in various ways. They want to "max" everything, and they don't want to accidentally create a "bad build."

I don't like the idea of maxing , and I don't believe that there really is a bad build. I like the balance that genders and races give

But we are today's players! We! ... Me and you! And many others! We're all here! Let us commence and geek out.

Kidding. I know what you mean, glargg.

We are the players! I finally got into Arena. This year, I WILL complete Daggerfall

Almost never ,they are a nice idea but most of time they just wouldn't do anything.Having them and actually being able to understand(getting translated subtitles,etc)npc talking for quest reason and stuff like that would be nice.But I would make it less of a skill and more like perks you could learn from certain teachers.

The language skills give you a chance to get past a monster (that speaks a particular language) without having to fight. The higher the skill, the better your chance of being ignored, but if you have a weapon readied that will drastically lower your chance of getting by peacefully. This is handled automatically; you don't have to do anything to activate the skill.

If the skill works, what you'll see is the monster standing still with its back turned toward you, rather than facing you and attacking.

Not really that useful except for role-playing.

Isn't that what these games are about?

Anyway, several of my characters have learned languages. A few have not. I approach this the way I approach any other game feature: if there there is a genuine roleplaying reason for that particular character to know that particular skill or use that particular feature, they do. If not, they don't.

I've never really invested into a language skill, but I will often take one as a major or minor skill for a custom class. I do like having an alternative to combat, from a role-playing perspective. If I'm playing a scholar or mage, I might take more language skills, while if I'm playing a barbarian-type, I probably won't have any. The biggest problem with language skills is that they're difficult to increase. as you won't be fighting the same monster type all the time. Hell, I've had characters that only ever encountered one or two nymphs or centaur in their entire lives.

They were poorly implemented--almost not implemented at all, really. Were they to allow actual dialog with the creatures like in Battlespire (although BS does not require a skill) then they would be very interesting; but alas they are pointless.

languages were crappy. sure, you could have a chance a monster wouldn't attack--it was a really low chance even at 100%. may as well just take sneak and pretend all the same. or use 'tongues' spell, effectively replacing all those skills.

it svcks since it was heavily suggested that you would be able to talk to these creatures, gaining access to things other characters wouldn't. but alas, never implemented.

Do it and you won't be disappointed. The game is addicting as hell and believe me, i'm not being nostalgic. I finished the game for the first time just before Skyrim came out so there is no room for nostalgia. I am in the middle of another playthrough as we speak.

I will advice you to do some research about the character creation first or at least read extensively the game manual.

Now about the languages, i don't know, for me they are not worth it due to the poor implemetation but in general the character creation gives you enough space to choose 2-3 skills for rp reasons, as long the rest of the build resembles something like a spellsword.

When I was playing Daggerfall regularly 1997-2000, I rarely made a character that didn't include a certain language skill. My character was a carryover from a pen-n-paper group that I was associated with at the time. Communication over combat was an essential part of our game and the Daggerfall language skill gave me a warm link back to those friends. The skill was and is disappointing in that it doesn't live up to its description but it will always be part of my Daggerfall game out of remembrance of friends long gone.

My sugestion, combine a literate Barbarian, without any magic skills, with high charisma and three language skills on major and the rest on minor, for an exotic role-playing experience in Daggerfall. What matters is not to compare how efficiently you can play with or without those skills but how different the playing experience and character reactions will be. Unfortunately you won't get much more than better dialog responses and a flavor of stealth which is why these skills get the feeling of being underdeveloped. The rumor was that language skills raise very quickly and it would be very useful later in the game when you find lots of Daedra to know their language, so with respect to efficiency it may pay off because you will level up faster and have an easier time with combat, but i never tried it myself.