General News - Elder Scrolls Creators founded OnceLost Games

Videogamer reports that some Elder Scrolls creators have founded the new studio OnceLost Games:

OnceLost Games is a new studio formed of The Elder Scrolls creators

Will announce its new project before the end of the year

A team of former The Elder Scrolls developers have come together to form a new studio called OnceLost Games, and it is working on its own open-world fantasy RPG title.

Focusing on a spiritual successor to Daggerfall, OnceLost Games' ambition is 'to meet the gap between the deep, complex design pillars of games from the 1990's, with the production values, improved controls and quality of life features in games today.' Julian LeFay, considered to be the 'Father of The Elder Scrolls', is acting as the studio's technical director, and stated in a Reddit AMA that he would be interested in creating a Daggerfall sequel of some sort.

'It would have to be done in such a way that I wouldn't have business-related issues. Those are things that I've decided that I never want to deal with. With proper funding and someone trustworthy to manage the business side of things, it could definitely be a thing,' he said. 'I can't realistically see this coming to pass since it's not something I would initiate; it's not my thing. If someone could bring this about and then offered me an opportunity to join, that'd be a much more likely way that something along these lines could happen.'

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Thanks Kordanor!

More information.

So excited for this. God bless Julian Lefay.

Paraphrasing Julian Lefay: If someone would just, like, give me a bunch of money to make the game of my dreams, oh and also run the business for me, that's just what I'd do!

Yep, sounds like they're really going places!

According to Julian on the Discord, they have a private investor already.

Hopefully we finally get a Daggerfall 2 type game rather than an Elder Scrolls one.

In any case looking forward to see what they have planned

I saw that news today (although it was kinda known since September 1st in certain circles). Looks interesting.

A modern version of Daggerfall could be very cool.

Originally Posted by TheRealFluent
According to Julian on the Discord, they have a private investor already.

It shows, as they seems to be hiring lots of people.

I really hope they wind up contributing to the stellar game collection and not just folding their tent in a year or two.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Hopefully we finally get a Daggerfall 2 type game rather than an Elder Scrolls one.

Ideally, I'd like to see a combination. Let's be honest: Daggerfall wasn't really that great. The concept was great, but the execution left a lot to be desired. I don't want another wonderfully ambitious game that comes out half-baked because the devs bit off more than they could chew.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Hopefully we finally get a Daggerfall 2 type game rather than an Elder Scrolls one.

Ted Peterson said they were making "not not Daggerfall" on discord. There are going to be differences as they can't use TES setting and there are mechanics they think didn't turn out too well in Daggerfall that they want to change/improve.

They are still in pre-production though which means things can change, the final game might not have all of Daggerfall features depending on their budget.

NIce! Good to hear

Hard to believe it's been 24 years now, but I have fond memories of playing Daggerfall. Looking forward to playing its "spiritual successor" … AutumnBlade… or maybe… WinterDirk.

Originally Posted by azarhal
Ted Peterson said they were making "not not Daggerfall" on discord. There are going to be differences as they can't use TES setting and there are mechanics they think didn't turn out too well in Daggerfall that they want to change/improve.

They are still in pre-production though which means things can change, the final game might not have all of Daggerfall features depending on their budget.

Interesting, on what Discord server?

Originally Posted by Lemonhead
Interesting, on what Discord server?

here is the invite I created for their discord server.

https://discord.gg/uprhMh

Look at the bottom of their website and there is link.

https://www.oncelostgames.com/

Originally Posted by lostforever
here is the invite I created for their discord server.

https://discord.gg/uprhMh

Look at the bottom of their website and there is link.

https://www.oncelostgames.com/

Once you join the discord, go see the pinned posts in the library channel, that's where they pin Q&A (there is currently one from last week). There is a also some generic information in the council of wisdom channel pinned post.

There is lots of information by searching dev names too, but that's kinda annoying to do so hopefully someone will create a list and pin it eventually.

I'm excited about what comes of this.
But… there's a part of me that sorta expects a Richard Garriot burning ball of inadequacy and disappointment.

There's always Daggerfall Unity out there!!

Originally Posted by Wisdom
I'm excited about what comes of this.
But… there's a part of me that sorta expects a Richard Garriot burning ball of inadequacy and disappointment.

It's a bit different I think, Richard Garriot was failing at making games for years before the KS even happened.

While Ted, Vijay and Julian had their own thing going until they were brought together by Indigo (the marketing guy) and Ted/Julian desires to have another go at a Daggerfall-like game.

It all started with this interview by Indigo (Ian Phoenix, the marketing guy) with Julian LeFay 2 years ago (warning 3 hours long) which lead to another interview (warning 3.5 hours long) with Ted Peterson last year. With some Daggerfall Unity thrown in.

Ted believes Vijay can secure the funding they need (there might not be any crowdfunding) and they went public this early because they wanted a fan council of wisdom like back in the Arena/Daggerfall days.

If you listen to the interviews, you'll see that they have ambitious ideas, but unlike way back with Arena/Daggerfall, they are a lot more aware of it, got a lot more experience making games and had 25 years to think about it.

@azarhal
Thats fair. Crossing fingers for sure.

All the talk of Daggerfall as the comparison point makes me assume that they are again trying to create a randomly / procedurally created, massive open world game. Which I think always is more interesting in theory than in practice. Whenever a game uses randomly generated content, it's the worst part of the experience. Hand-crafted worlds / stories / locations / characters just tend to be much more interesting and rewarding for a player. Even the best "random" games like Nethack are actually pretty carefully hand-crafted, the randomness is merely an illusion used to improve re-playability.

I think a genuinely strong Daggerfall-type game would require a much better A.I than what is yet possible. It would essentially need a "dungeonmaster" which would be able to generate endless random content with intelligence, nuance and substance. I think we are still at least 10 years away from that, in the gaming world.

Even in the more recent Bethesda games like Fallout 4, the "radiant" missions don't seem to be truly random. There are locations, enemy types, enemy placements, etc, exactly tailored for the mission, to provide more variety and tactical challenge. But still, they get pretty boring after you have done 2-3 of them. And the are only *half* random.

And that's only battle, which is more forgiving for random elements. But story and character? You notice repetition within the randomness quite fast, as there is always SOME rules and context the game needs to follow, otherwise it will be a total mess where nothing works. And as a result everything just feels too generic.

But I have to admit, I'm curious how well someone could do this with the current level of gaming technology.