Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus

Originally Posted by Corwin
You are expected to use the quick travel option to immediately go to the nearest city, NOT walk there in the wilderness!!

Yeah, it says so in the tutorial if you choose to follow it. But I was really surprised that it was pushing you to fast traveling straight away.

It makes sense given the size of the game world. They wanted players to realize early on that Daggerfall wasn't your typical open-world RPG. Walking from point A to point B is just a colossal waste of time.

Originally Posted by JDR13
It makes sense given the size of the game world. They wanted players to realize early on that Daggerfall wasn't your typical open-world RPG. Walking from point A to point B is just a colossal waste of time.

Yeah, understandable, but then what's the point of having an enormous world, if you're not gonna have any reason to explore it on foot. I was also surprised that, upon exiting the first dungeon, I kept walking for 5 mins in random direction. And there was basically nothing. Just endless terrain and some foliage/trees. No wild-life, no landmarks.

While I understand they wanted to create the feeling of an enormous world, and it does have an impact into making you feel tiny and insignificant, the bubble is kind of popped once you realize it's all empty.

And the weird thing is, related to the first dungeon, after going off in a random direction I did fast-travel to the nearest town (something call gothway garden). And after fiddling around town, I exited town again wandering into the barren landscape. And somehow (not sure what the probabily of this happening) I did manage to stumble back to the Privateer's Hold, on foot. So it's not even that far away from Gothway Garden. Unless I actually stumbled onto a different dungeon that has the exact same layout (since most monsters, that I killed the first time, were respawned inside the dungeon).

EDIT: Anyway, it is what it is. It's not gonna stop me from enjoying the game, when I eventually get around to it, but it is a quibble of mine.

Exploring it on foot isn't feasible. It's that large.

If you want to find random dungeons to collect loot or level up, you can set out from any town and find one. It's not that the world is empy, it's just that it's actually generated to a realistic scale, and gamers aren't used to that. So, if you're traveling to a specific point, it doesn't make sense to walk there in real time unless you're already very close to that location.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Exploring it on foot isn't feasible. It's that large.

If you want to find random dungeons to collect loot or level up, you can set out from any town and find one. It's not that the world is empy, it's just that it's actually generated to a realistic scale, and gamers aren't used to that. So, if you're traveling to a specific point, it doesn't make sense to walk there in real time unless you're already very close to that location.

I'll play devil's advocate a little more. Indeed, it's generated to a realistic scale, but if they indeed wanted to keep with the realism there should also be stuff in the world besides just barren landscape and some foliage and shrubbery. In real-life, unless I'm in the desert, when I walk into a direction I can find plenty of points of interest. But I can understand the limitations of even attempting this. Especially for the 1990's. It's still amazing that they even pulled off what they did for that period.

Anyway, no use debating this further. It's a limitation, it's nothing too bad and not gonna keep me from playing it. But I'm also in the camp that is happy they chose to lower the scope, and put in more manual world design in Morrowind. And then they threw that out with Oblivion. To this day I'm not sure I played Oblivion more than a couple of hours. It just didn't grab me in the slightest. The landscape is boring as hell, they streamlined gameplay/mechanics even more. The combat is still as boring as Morrowind's, but Morrowind has loads of other things going for it.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
I'll play devil's advocate a little more. Indeed, it's generated to a realistic scale, but if they indeed wanted to keep with the realism there should also be stuff in the world besides just barren landscape and some foliage and shrubbery.

There is. Things are just spread really far apart.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
But I can understand the limitations of even attempting this. Especially for the 1990's. It's still amazing that they even pulled off what they did for that period.

Exactly. The world is about as detailed as we could get from a game released in 1996. They could have went with a much smaller world and had it be more content dense of course, but that obviously wasn't what they were going for. I'm glad they didn't do that because Daggerfall's scope is what made it unique at the time even if it's not everyone's cup of tea.

The best way to play Daggerfall is to just accept that you're not meant to uncover the entire map like you would in a typical open-world game. Just follow the main quest and do some side-quests or random exploring whenever the mood strikes you.

Originally Posted by JDR13
There is. Things are just spread really far apart.

I guess that's my question. Is there stuff in the wilderness that's not referenced/pointed to directly by a quest or NPC, or if it is pointed to, you have to find it on foot, and not just fast-travel there? Or is everything pointed to and you can fast-travel to it, and you're just wasting time randomly wandering the landscape?

If it's the first, then it's great. You could theoretically play it endlessly, and still find stuff either not referenced by quests or not easily findable by fast-traveling close to it.

But, come to think of it some more, I do have a memory of quest in Morrowind where I had to find a cavern, and all I had were text descriptions and landmarks. And that one in particular, I remember circling around that area endlessly until i finally found it. So, it might no be so fun. But if it's optional, it should be fine.

Loved me some Daggerfall back in the day, especially those crazy dungeons. But then the game crashed and corrupted all my saves, so I never finished the main quest. One day maybe.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
I guess that's my question. Is there stuff in the wilderness that's not referenced/pointed to directly by a quest or NPC

Yes, there are tons of locations. I remember reading that there's something like 15,000 points of interest in the game. The vast majority of those locations are procedurally generated of course as there's obviously no way that much could be done by hand.

You can stumble across caves, cemeteries, temples, mausoleums, farms, and various kinds of ruins among other things.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Yes, there are tons of locations. I remember reading that there's something like 15,000 points of interest in the game. The vast majority of those locations are procedurally generated of course as there's obviously no way that much could be done by hand.

You can stumble across caves, cemeteries, temples, mausoleums, farms, and various kinds of ruins among other things.

Are the randomly generated points of interest generated once, when you start the game? Or how exactly does this work?

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Are the randomly generated points of interest generated once, when you start the game? Or how exactly does this work?

As I understand it, locations are predetermined. Enemies and loot will be random.

It was procedurally generated when Bethesda created the game world, but nothing changes when you start a new game. i.e. the cave at XY coordinates is going to be there in every playthrough.

Originally Posted by JDR13
As I understand it, locations are predetermined. Enemies and loot will be random.

It was procedurally generated when Bethesda created the game world, but nothing changes when you start a new game. i.e. the cave at XY coordinates is going to be there in every playthrough.

Oh, interesting. I guess that's better, considering the size of it. And it makes the discovery of points of interest a communal effort. Nice.

Daggerfall is the Elite 2 of the RPG genre.

It's the essence of wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle.

If you're into sandbox and conceive-your-own-meaning - it's wonderful.

Another similar more modern game would be No Man's Sky.