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 Introduction Daggerfall is the second mainline Elder Scrolls game, released in 1996. It greatly expands upon the framework established by Arena, adding a more coherent map, skills, item and potion crafting, a custom class builder and more. While it doesn't encompass all of Tamriel, Daggerfall is generally regarded as having the largest map in the Elder Scrolls series. There are hundreds of towns, dungeons, temples and homes to explore. Want to carry more stuff? Buy a cart. Want to own a home? You can do that. A ship? Yep. For the time, Daggerfall gave players an unprecedented amount of options in a software rendered 3D world. If you want to play Daggerfall, the good news is that Bethesda made it freely available in 2009, so anybody can get it up and running with programs like DOSBox. If you don't want to deal with janky controls and a dated interface, you can try Daggerfall Unity instead - a remake of the game using the Unity engine with built in mod support.  Thread Rules While I realize the game is over 25 years old, I haven't played it, so no story spoilers, please. I know a bit about the story in general (like that there are multiple endings), but not the details. Game mechanics discussion is fine. I'm also not an Elder Scrolls lore expert by any stretch of the imagination, so feel free to chime in if you have some that's relevant to where we are in the videos. About the Playthrough We'll be playing through Daggerfall in phases, starting with the demos for the DOS version of the game that are available on the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages wiki. They have some unique content absent from the main game that will be interesting to briefly check out. After that we'll jump into the full release of Daggerfall. Rather than playing in DOSBox, we'll be playing the game in its native environment - a retro PC natively running MS-DOS (specs below), using my boxed copy of the game. Instead of picking a standard class or making a custom class and choosing our skills, I'm going to create a custom class with random skills. Then I'll assign other class properties (advantages, HP, stats, etc) based on the skills that I got. I'm going to select the race ahead of time, which I'll talk about more in the character creation video. Hopefully the random skills will make for an interesting playthrough. Once we've finished with the DOS version of the game, we'll check out Daggerfall Unity to compare the original version of the game with the more modern one. Maybe we'll try out some mods as well. Technical Notes PC Specs: pre:OS: MS-DOS 6.22 Motherboard: Biostar M6TBA v1.2 CPU: Pentium II 350Mhz GPU (AGP): Rendition Verite V2200 (8MB) Sound Card (ISA): Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO Music: Roland SC-55 RAM: 64MB 100Mhz SDRAM Storage: 10GB IDE Quantum Fireball HDD (900MB Usable) Optical: ~48x IDE DVD Drive I'll be trying to upload at least two videos a week, most likely on Monday and Friday. I may have time to do an extra video on Wednesdays some weeks. Part 1 - The Demos Series Playlist
Part 2 - Daggerfall (DOS) Series Playlist
It's video games. Every day...ish. rojovision fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2023 02:23
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 12:53 |
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reserved.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:30
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also reserved.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:30
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 Episode 1 - The Daggerfall Preview Demo
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Mar 15, 2023 02:32
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Oh, oh my God. I'm so sorry for you. I'll totally be following this thread, though. I love Daggerfall, but also gently caress Daggerfall.
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Mar 15, 2023 02:52
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PurpleXVI posted:Oh, oh my God. I'm so sorry for you. Very, Very True. Also I can't stop hearing "HALT" I also can't wait for you to get to Spell Creation and Item enchanting Those are going to be Fun Days.
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Mar 15, 2023 03:24
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A Daggerfall LP, excellent. Such a cool concept and storyline, an absolute masterpiece that deserved every bit of praise it got, but also simultaneously the buggiest piece of poo poo of its' era. I think a lot of that has been patched over the years, but man, it was an absolute mess at the time.
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Mar 15, 2023 03:24
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MagusofStars posted:A Daggerfall LP, excellent. The funny thing is you can replace that title with any elder scrolls game and nobody would notice.
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Mar 15, 2023 03:33
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FoolyCharged posted:The funny thing is you can replace that title with any elder scrolls game and nobody would notice. All of them except Skyrim, the story sucks The Door Frame fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Mar 15, 2023 |
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Mar 15, 2023 04:31
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FoolyCharged posted:The funny thing is you can replace that title with any elder scrolls game and nobody would notice. Also, Darklands.
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Mar 15, 2023 04:40
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Choosing your character by randomly picking skills? Good lord, you absolute madlad, that's going to be a loving catastrophe.  Like, not even on a scale of "being optimal," there's a bunch of skills that are straight up useless. Also as a fun fact: when you're creating your character, you're given a questionnaire that can influence your starting stats, skills, factions, and equipment. These questions are stored in plain text files, and it is entirely possible to edit them so you start with multiple suits of top tier armor and weapons. Why multiple? No, not so you can sell the extras, although that's a good idea, but to make sure you can get a matching set! Gotta look good, you know.
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Mar 15, 2023 05:07
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Oh. Oh no. Oh no. 
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Mar 15, 2023 10:09
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Oh Daggerfall, you beautiful bastard you! I remember buying this in the late 90's and spending dozens, if not hundreds of hours, playing the drat thing and making barely any progress at all. It's a beautiful game and I absolutely adore it. But I'd like to reiterate this: PurpleXVI posted:I love Daggerfall, but also gently caress Daggerfall.
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Mar 15, 2023 10:16
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Ground zero on this poo poo. I love the concept, but holy gently caress does that game sometimes feel like poking an anthill made of extremely stressed razor blades.
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Mar 15, 2023 18:59
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You''re engaging on a journey that promises to be interesting to say the least! Godspeed.
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Mar 15, 2023 20:13
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 The Daggerfall Preview Demo - Properly Exploring the Pit of Jagadha Glad to see the enthusiasm so far. Next time we'll check out the second demo that I have which features what I assume is another unique dungeon. It looks and plays a lot more like the Daggerfall that ended up on store shelves.
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Mar 16, 2023 14:28
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MechaCrash posted:Choosing your character by randomly picking skills? Good lord, you absolute madlad, that's going to be a loving catastrophe. What could go wrong with somehow rolling every language skill?
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Mar 16, 2023 15:07
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Ah, the exciting era of wRPG's where katanas were mysteriously always stronger than longswords and broadswords. 
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Mar 16, 2023 15:23
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 The Daggerfall Dungeon Demo There's one last demo I want to check out after this one which features a more complete experience including towns. I believe I've read that it's set in a part of the map that you can't actually get to in the retail release.
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Mar 23, 2023 03:29
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I have a fondness for any game where skeletons are badasses rather than pushovers.
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Mar 23, 2023 22:22
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This seems like the kind of game that can get hilariously broken with exploits, I guess maybe we'll see when we get to the main game what we can do.
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Mar 24, 2023 04:58
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Tombot posted:This seems like the kind of game that can get hilariously broken with exploits It’s an Elder Scrolls game, yes.
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Mar 24, 2023 10:20
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Tombot posted:This seems like the kind of game that can get hilariously broken with exploits, I guess maybe we'll see when we get to the main game what we can do. lol, lmao even You have NO idea.
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Mar 24, 2023 10:26
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Tombot posted:This seems like the kind of game that can get hilariously broken with exploits, I guess maybe we'll see when we get to the main game what we can do. I think you can more or less break the game at character creation, though I don't know the specific details.
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Mar 25, 2023 18:11
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One I can think of off the top of my head is that the high elves are immune to paralysis and you can give yourself massive weakness to paralysis for extra points in things. Maybe not the biggest exploit, I'm sure somebody could share their favorites.
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Mar 25, 2023 18:57
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Oh hell yes. Daggerfall is one of my favourites.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:14
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Are you planning to tackle the Betony demo? I was, like, eight when that came out and playing that for months has probably irrevocably destroyed something important in my brain.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:28
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YggiDee posted:Are you planning to tackle the Betony demo? I was, like, eight when that came out and playing that for months has probably irrevocably destroyed something important in my brain. Betony demo is next week, after which I'm all out of demos so we'll move on to the main game.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:37
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Since Dodge being broken was mentioned but not expanded on, then what it's supposed to do is obvious: you are harder to hit. What it actually does is make it harder for you to land hits. Also the way language skills work is "if you get near an enemy of the appropriate type, there is a chance it won't be hostile." You know it worked because you walk up to the appropriate enemy and it doesn't immediately start trying to kick your rear end. Which is great, as long as you give it enough time to attack and evaluate if it is doing so, because if your language skill passes and then you start trying to beat it down anyway, oops the fight's on motherfucker. This is, of course, in addition to the more obvious things like "how many friggin' weaponskills do you really need at once, do you really need to be juggling axes and maces and swords to maintain this poo poo, why do that when you can just pick a weapon type and make yourself super rad at it."
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Mar 26, 2023 03:08
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MechaCrash posted:Also the way language skills work is "if you get near an enemy of the appropriate type, there is a chance it won't be hostile." You know it worked because you walk up to the appropriate enemy and it doesn't immediately start trying to kick your rear end. Which is great, as long as you give it enough time to attack and evaluate if it is doing so, because if your language skill passes and then you start trying to beat it down anyway, oops the fight's on motherfucker. Man, I'm sad that Battlespire was such a mess, because I really loved the idea, there, that you could essentially try to convince any Daedra to not make a given encounter a fight to the death, and maybe even to join you instead.
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Mar 26, 2023 09:39
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I would argue being able to utterly break the game in an elder scrolls game is a feature not a bug. I think my favorite method is making an infinite intelligence buffing potion in caldera at the start of Morrowind.
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Mar 27, 2023 23:08
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YggiDee posted:Are you planning to tackle the Betony demo? I was, like, eight when that came out and playing that for months has probably irrevocably destroyed something important in my brain. I also did this. I played it more than I did the full game when I got it. Also getting levels/the best armor/weapons in the game is super easy. Go to a shop that has a wall between the entrance door and the shelves to buy/sell stuff. Attempt to steal everything you can, which will summon hundreds of guards (HALT! HALT! HALT! HALT!). Of course their pathing means they can't actually get to you because there's a wall in the way, but you can still attack them through it for whatever reason. Enjoy your hundreds of corpses filled with loot. As you level up (from doing this) they will eventually be dropping daedra equipment. I figured this out playing the demo and would spend hours seeing how many guards I could get to spawn then killing them all.
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Mar 29, 2023 22:50
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I know that melee weapons in first-person games are usually a bit janky, but drat that's the laziest looking sword swing animation I've ever seen. Come on, player character, that skeleton is trying so hard to shriek and swing at you, at least put some effort in.
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Mar 30, 2023 11:50
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 The Daggerfall Betony Demo (Part 1) I had some issues getting the demo to run on my machine, but eventually got it working. It seems to work fine in DOS Box on a modern PC with no problems.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:15
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Woolwich Bagnet posted:I also did this. I played it more than I did the full game when I got it. I'm not going to try to immediately break the game, but that sounds like a fun thing to try at some point just to show it off. Crazy Achmed posted:I know that melee weapons in first-person games are usually a bit janky, but drat that's the laziest looking sword swing animation I've ever seen. Come on, player character, that skeleton is trying so hard to shriek and swing at you, at least put some effort in. The lazy weapon swing is one of my least favorite parts of Daggerfall so far. I prefer the slower paced combat to Arena's frantic mouse dragging, but give me a few more frames of animation, at least.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:18
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With the caveat that it's been literal decades since I played Daggerfall, this demo seems almost identical to the real game (except for the demo messages and being limited to one island, obviously). Is there anything you found that seems different that I missed? Woolwich Bagnet posted:Also getting levels/the best armor/weapons in the game is super easy. Go to a shop that has a wall between the entrance door and the shelves to buy/sell stuff. Attempt to steal everything you can, which will summon hundreds of guards (HALT! HALT! HALT! HALT!). Of course their pathing means they can't actually get to you because there's a wall in the way, but you can still attack them through it for whatever reason. Enjoy your hundreds of corpses filled with loot. As you level up (from doing this) they will eventually be dropping daedra equipment.
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Mar 31, 2023 01:30
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Also, making a dedicated mage and creating a spell that practices all magic types at once, then renting a room and casting it over and over again. Although one thing I'm curious about is how useful leveling up on its own actually is- Daggerfall isn't as committed as Oblivion when it comes to everything scaling, but it definitely makes heavy use of level scaling itself.
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Mar 31, 2023 01:46
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One thing I do remember is the dungeon you start the game in being a nightmare to get out of. The game actually came with a flyer for the strategy guide, which included a walkthrough to get out of it. It was pretty clearly a case of 'you would have never even gotten out of the starting dungeon without this, you should definitely buy the guide for the rest of the game!' I think? you have to go through a secret door just to escape it, and I remember that there's an imp on the way out that you can't even hurt without the appropriate weapon type.
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Mar 31, 2023 02:04
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 The Daggerfall Betony Demo (Part 2) I noticed in editing that I missed something in the barn area. We'll go back and check it out next time.
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Apr 1, 2023 23:01
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 12:53 |
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So addressing a couple things in the video: -You're right that focusing on leveling a weapon skill should be a huge priority because your to-hit but not damage is based on weapon skill. Therefore, early game combat when you have low skill tends to be super variable - if you land a couple hits with a decent weapon, it's over super fast...but you can often go on long miss streaks where the monster just tears you apart while you're whiffing. The same formula was held over to Morrowind, then was thankfully changed in Oblivion so your to-hit is always good and skill just impacts your damage. On average, the systems are probably about the same, but it feels much better to play. -Paralysis is definitely the most annoying status in Daggerfall, to the point that High Elves are the clear Best Race in the game solely because of their innate immunity. It's not required because there are alternatives but it's incredibly handy. Being a Bethesda game, there's an associated exploit/bug in character creation of course. You're not intended to be able to take both an immunity and a weakness, so the game prevents you if you do it directly via adding Advantages and Disadvantages...but High Elves' natural immunity isn't checked in the same way, so you can do High Elf plus Critical Weakness to Paralysis and the immunity takes precedence and basically get free 'points' on the difficulty scale.
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Apr 2, 2023 04:41
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