Daggerfall - Retrospective @ PC World

I tried really, really hard to like Daggerfall but with the bugs, random sameness (yes, that's an oxymoron), and static nature of everything I gave up. And that was at the time that I always finished every game I got and played them multiple times.

As far as the generated content, what about Terraria and Minecraft? Those generate the land randomly and have become quite popular. Maybe the idea is worth revisiting and refining. I do think that random dialog and quests will never be that interesting but obviously those games prove that exploration of random territory and resources can be fun.

BillSeurer said:

I tried really, really hard to like Daggerfall but with the bugs, random sameness (yes, that's an oxymoron), and static nature of everything I gave up.

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Random sameness isnt really that much of an oxymoron, especially not in a humungous world such as that of Daggerfall. The central limit theorem is pretty much about that. Roll a dice enough times and you get an average of 3.5 Angband and Nethack can also end up feeling samish.

Daggerfalls (and Oblivion) also have the problem that they are randomised combinations of a few components, which gives you a lot of repetition.

A smaller random world with finer "granularity" (as in smaller and more varied building blocks) would probably end up more interesting and varied.

Zerotown said:

It worked for me as well. I remember stepping out into the snow after the first starter-dungeon en thinking: "Oh… now *this* I'm going to be playing for a while".

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I had the same experience. I had finally excaped the dreaded starter dungeon, it was nighttime, snow was on the ground, and thousands of stars twinkled overhead in a cloudless sky…all while an enchanting MIDI track played in the background. It was a cRPG magic moment for me…one of my fondest memories of Daggerfall…a great game back in the day, and yes very ambitious.

I'm also of the opinion that Verant's Everquest was highly influenced by Daggerfall, there were so many similarities like sound fonts, travel options, many stats/classes etc.

GhanBuriGhan said:

Ah, I see they have a version of the Template tool. I first thought they are missing the documentation, but its in the questing.html file. Thats really neat. Almost feel like making a little quest for old times sake…

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I think you should do it!
Live by the Sword is the best quest pack (so far!) for Daggerfall