Since OpenMW started, it got me to thinking, what if somebody coded a new engine for Daggerfall?

One that could run better on modern systems and fix the crippling bugs?

Projects like that have been started in the past, but none finished.

I think the problem boils down to: Nobody is quite sure what makes Daggerfall tick.

you can have both-in-one... swith from Windows to a real OS and use DOSBox (and wine/Cedega for the windows stuff you think you still need)... no bugs, no crashes, no viruses, just fun and ease.

Attempts have been made, but they always crash and burn on the wayside eventually.

It's a shame. I have fantasized about a port of Daggerfall (still requiring the game files, of course) that would open up new levels of modding and the reimplementation of content Bethesda cut from the final game (such as furniture stores that actually sold furniture, and regicide). It'd bring Daggerfall's popularity back to life in new, untempered levels.

Oh well. A man can dream.

Aye, its a great pity that so many things never made it into the finished game. Bethesda really had some fantastic ideas in mind for Daggerfall

http://www.svatopluk.com/daggerfall/museum/

it hard to think that stuff was cut from such a game.

would be nice though...

:ooo: Bethesda, where did you put those creative people?! They had such good ideas! I'm... I'm really starting to feel that TES has been declining - even Morrowind cannot match the depth in Daggerfall... :cold:

An OpenDF project would be awesome. The tough part is not only making the models and textures, but all the intricate dialog and stuff... =/

does it really work any better on wine?
ive not tried it myself

I'm less upset about everything cut out of Daggerfall, I'm more upset about how Bethesda hasn't shown the slightest intention of trying to redo some of these great old ideas. Face it. The Arena -> Daggerfall transition was the only time ever Bethesda sought to add unique new content. Now they're just modifying pre-existing content and even trying to cut stuff out.

What the hell is your guys' problem, Bethesda? Take initiative again!

I know. The more I read about Daggerfall, the more I delve back into Morrowind, the less confidence I have in the trend Bethesda is taking. Sure, they make good games that get Game of the Year awards... but the competition really isn't much to look at. In other words, the games could have been so much better... I don't see why I should have to settle for less.


EDIT: Back on topic: are the resources for any of these projects still up somewhere? I mean, even if the original people can't work on it, if a new team wants to try their hand at a new Daggerfall engine, it'd be easier to build on previous attempts rather than reinvent the wheel all over again.

I know of none. However, there is a project called http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8516 which was a Windows source port of Arena in the works. It was never finished, but seemed to be pretty far in development - capable of dumping Arena graphics/sprites, and it has a fully playable dungeon and town. Perhaps he would have something worthy of note to say about Daggerfall.

There used to be a site, DFWorkshop, but it seems to be gone now. http://andux.svatopluk.com/ seems to be the most alive site for Daggerfall modding. Oh, and don't forget Svatopluk's Daggerfall embassy, which is probably the most alive Daggerfall-in-general site.

You put word to what I want to say.
Daggerfall was a epic game. Redo Daggerfall, or bring back the spirit of daggerfall.

they quit and dispersed, and Todd was appointed head honcho instead.

the rest is history, as they say.

Don't need wine for DF, as you can just do DOSbox on linux. That said, I've not much luck getting wine to do anything reliable for other programs, so I keep a windows partition around for that stuff (mostly itunes).

Well, a bit of research has revealed http://dungeonhack.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page to be the continuation of the failed Daggerfall remake. I knew about this game before, but not that it was actually being worked on by the same people who attempted the remake!

It seems promising. Rather than pursue a direct remake of Daggerfall, it intends to create a game in the Daggerfall "spirit".

Of course, I'd still love it if anybody found the devotion and ambition to recreate at least some parts of Daggerfall as a mod, such as one city or the island of Betony or something.

Two weeks ago i suddenly had an idea of creating a remake of TES: Arena. Roguelike.
I didn't started yet, but this idea just burns inside me.
I wanted to make a complete, identical remake, with the same game mechanics, same monsters at the places, same events and so on.
WinArena was my hope to hack into Arena's resources, but Stanza disappeared, and WinArena is still lacks many, many features.
I'm bad at programming (only studying currently), so it will be hard for me to improve WinArena.

In one Russian roguelike fan-site there is a guy, who is currently working on Daggerfall roguelike, but i didn't contact him yet.

I mean, there are plenty of people who want to breathe a second life in these games. Just a little bit of organization and inspiration.

Interkarma's DFworkshop has come back up recently. Although interkarma has the most knowledge of DF format and is the most capable person to do something like this, I don't believe he has any plans for it.

Any Daggerfall remake would either need to be significantly different - and thus missing out on the TES world and atmosphere, or use the original data similar to what http://www.dfworkshop.net is doing. The latter approach is what source ports take (Doom, Duke Nukem 3D) as well as a few remakes such as http://www.df-21.net/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=7&sid=d94e912f3df2f1df8731db28e2fe7001 for Dark Forces ( shameless plug, sorry ). The problem with some Daggerfall remakes is that they attempted to build a new game with the Daggerfall assets, story, names, etc. and those assets were distributed with the game - which is clearly infringing on Bethesda's copyrights, in which case they are not shy about taking legal action. The reason that things like EDuke32 and DarkXL work is because they require the original game data and do not distribute any of it. So a remake is certainly possible, especially with the work done by Interkarma and others in deciphering the data formats but it would take care and a lot of work. Anyway that's all I'm going to say about it right now.

I'm working on a roguelike for fun on my free time. It's something inspired by Daggerfall and using text based maps cuts off a considerable amount of time. The entire interface doesn't have to be text-based only the game maps. Thank heavens we have things like menus and buttons and we should use them. I'm planning to generate the entire setting including the world and planet name, the names of the kingdoms and even quests, so there shouldn't be any problem with copyrighted material.