So I downloaded Daggerfall XL...

[riadsala]

You did misunderstand my point. All I'm saying is that you can't go into it with the same mindset as you would go into the vast majority of other RPGs, especially modern ones, whereby your aim is to explore every inch of land and do every single quest possible. Daggerfall isn't like that. It's much more natural. It's useless to visit every single city, town, building and dungeon in the game. It's meaningless. You don't do that in real life after all. You go where you need to go to achieve your next goal, and the goal can be whatever you want it to be, regardless of if it's a quest or not. If you want to sleep at an inn then your goal is to head to the nearest inn. Stopping off to talk to every NPC (useless) and enter every building you can enter (useless) on your way there is not appropriate because of the procedural generation. You need to play it more realistically than the vast majority of other games out there.

I like the sound of that. My main gripe with modern rpgs is they're almost designed in such a way that you're meant to do everything... which renders choice meaningless.

I don't get you Wizardry. Sometimes, you talk a lot of sense, (like the stuff above), and over times, you come across as your typical internet troll. Anyway, do you have any advice for starting Daggerfall? I want to come at it as freshly as possible. I'm happy to read a manual for mechanics, but I like figuring out my own builds and tactics :)

[Wizardry]

I don't get you Wizardry. Sometimes, you talk a lot of sense, (like the stuff above), and over times, you come across as your typical internet troll. Anyway, do you have any advice for starting Daggerfall? I want to come at it as freshly as possible. I'm happy to read a manual for mechanics, but I like figuring out my own builds and tactics :)

Magic. That's my advice.

[QuantaCat]

I was almost sure you meant magic was the answer to being a troll or an actual clever person :D

Also, strangely, hearing of Daggerfall, somehow reminded me of the feeling I had when playing Dragon Age : Origins. I know its nothing like that, but the different beginnings of the different classes/races made it feel much more organic and real, rather than explorathieving. Which of course subsides again after leaving the first chapters.

[Lightbulb]

Not really. Dungeon crawling is the origin of RPGs. It's fine if you don't like it, but calling it grinding is an insult.

To 'grind' - to do something over and over. Typically before doing something fun.
Examples: Crap jobs, crap games.

Crap being, as most things, subjective.

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Also I don't see how its an insult at all; indeed I would say its impossible to insult an object (the game). It could perhaps be an insult to someone who does like the game but that again seems rather odd since disliking something does not (once one advances beyond such an idea) automatically imply that another liking it must be a "smacktard".

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Now I could see an argument that since the grinding doesn't lead to a 'fun thing' this is not in fact grinding after all but since grinding inevitably leads to more grinding (or the end of the game) I believe the analogy stands up. Dungeon crawling leads to more dungeon crawling (or the end of the game).

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Finally: single cell organisms are the origin of our species. Doesn't mean I want to have a conversation with one.

[Heliocentric]

I don't get you Wizardry. Sometimes, you talk a lot of sense, (like the stuff above), and over times, you come across as your typical internet troll. Anyway, do you have any advice for starting Daggerfall? I want to come at it as freshly as possible. I'm happy to read a manual for mechanics, but I like figuring out my own builds and tactics :)

He's an out of the closet extremist, trolls don't believe what they say, or at least say it for the wrong reasons, Wizardry legitimately believes he's pushing towards our collective gaming enlightenment.

I like the sound of that. My main gripe with modern rpgs is they're almost designed in such a way that you're meant to do everything... which renders choice meaningless.

I'l assume you are excepting the Witcher from that, but really its the game "letting" you do everything, in Morrowind you needed to really work at it to see most of the content in one run, that's probably why the world seems more complete. Another game that doesn't want you to see it all in one go in Pathologic but I always bounced off that game hard, never stopped waiting for that language patch.

[Drinking with Skeletons]

You did misunderstand my point. All I'm saying is that you can't go into it with the same mindset as you would go into the vast majority of other RPGs, especially modern ones, whereby your aim is to explore every inch of land and do every single quest possible. Daggerfall isn't like that. It's much more natural. It's useless to visit every single city, town, building and dungeon in the game. It's meaningless. You don't do that in real life after all. You go where you need to go to achieve your next goal, and the goal can be whatever you want it to be, regardless of if it's a quest or not. If you want to sleep at an inn then your goal is to head to the nearest inn. Stopping off to talk to every NPC (useless) and enter every building you can enter (useless) on your way there is not appropriate because of the procedural generation. You need to play it more realistically than the vast majority of other games out there.

Thanks for the clarification, and based on how you put it here, I'd agree with you that approaching Daggerfall in the same way as Skyrim sounds like a bad (and probably boring and frustrating) idea.

However, can I say that I question the value of using procedural generation to the point that exploring the world for its own sake becomes meaningless? It doesn't seem completely fair to write off a player's dissatisfaction with the title as just approaching it in the wrong way; couldn't the same mechanics have worked just as well in a finely detailed overworld with the same randomized dungeon system? Sure, you might not have as many randomized dungeons, but you could still have had a lot. Even with Skyrim, which is definitely not the 60,000 square miles or whatever of Daggerfall, you've got dozens of dungeons. Had they all been massive, randomized labyrinths, they certainly could have provided far more content than the average player (and I don't mean casual players, either) could ever want.

And again, I don't mean that you're wrong. I think your advice is good for people who are interested and might be open to that kind of experience, and I think your justification for why the randomness works for you is well-reasoned. I just think it's fair for a person to dislike the game for its randomness, even if that is a considerable part of why you like it.

[Keep]

However, can I say that I question the value of using procedural generation to the point that exploring the world for its own sake becomes meaningless?

Isn't...the real world procedurally generated by random forces?

...Hiking is meaningless?

[Berzee]

Isn't...the real world procedurally generated by random forces?

No sir!

But then, neither are computer games really. At least -- the procedural generation they use isn't procedurally generated, as though it were turtles all the way down.

[agentorange]

Isn't...the real world procedurally generated by random forces?

...Hiking is meaningless?

Well, the world has infinite possibilities to draw from. Procedural generation in Daggerfall has like 10 assets it can reuse over and over again.

[BillButNotBen]

Wizardry is completely right this time on daggerfall - but, as he says, it doesn't mean you're stuck on a linear path.

I played Daggerfall for years and never actually followed the quests much at all. I did however set up my own business and a nice trade route, and rob everyone blind, and run from the cops from rooftop to rooftop. And the dungeons were at the same time infuriating and incredible to explore.

But there's no point talking to everyone or trying to do "everything". Just decide what you want to do and do it.

Oh, and take the ebony dagger. Oh, and run away a lot.

[Harlander]

No sir!

Isn't...the real world procedurally generated by random forces?

But then, neither are computer games really. At least -- the procedural generation they use isn't procedurally generated, as though it were turtles all the way down.

The procedural generation in games is procedurally generated by the rules governing the universe. It's the most inefficient way of creating procedural generation code for games you can imagine, with a lot of strange side-effects.

[archonsod]

I like the sound of that. My main gripe with modern rpgs is they're almost designed in such a way that you're meant to do everything... which renders choice meaningless.

Daggerfall renders everything meaningless outside the main story. There's no choice in the first place - while you can opt to join the Mages Guild or any of the temples of the Divines, the only quests they give are randomly generated and all draw from the same random pool (essentially there's three different pools - mage, thief and fighter - and the guilds are designated into one category or another and simply generate quests from that). The same applies to towns - there's a lot of them, but there's no actual story or similar going on, just a collection of stores and some NPCs who can hand out random quests - again drawing from a common pool.

[riadsala]

Daggerfall renders everything meaningless outside the main story. There's no choice in the first place - while you can opt to join the Mages Guild or any of the temples of the Divines, the only quests they give are randomly generated and all draw from the same random pool (essentially there's three different pools - mage, thief and fighter - and the guilds are designated into one category or another and simply generate quests from that). The same applies to towns - there's a lot of them, but there's no actual story or similar going on, just a collection of stores and some NPCs who can hand out random quests - again drawing from a common pool.

Sounds like ideally I'd want something half way between both styles of game then. Anyway, I'll give it a shot. I like a challenge. And I think my Baldur's Gate Tutu install has gone wonky, so I'll wait for a sale on gog.com. buy a new copy of the game, and start over sometime. And in the meantime, I can try Daggerfall out. Maybe I'll learn something.

[Wizardry]

There are lots of quests in the game: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Quests

Also, the main quest in Daggerfall is rather non-linear in comparison to other games in the series:
Daggerfall: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:...ough#Quest_Map
Morrowind: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:M...est_Flow_Chart
Oblivion: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Main_Quest
Skyrim: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Main_Quest

[Drinking with Skeletons]

Isn't...the real world procedurally generated by random forces?

...Hiking is meaningless?

While the world is formed by random forces, they are infinitely more complex than anything a video game--let alone a very old video game--can produce.

To bring in an unrelated analogy, I guess I would prefer a finite amount of carefully prepared steak over infinite hot dogs. But I actually like a well-prepared hot dog more than beef in general, so...hold on, I'll get back to you after lunch.

[Berzee]

Wizardry, you just sent me on like half an hour of reading Morrowind main quest spoilers. >_<

Drinking with Skeletons, what about a steak that's formed by infinitely complex random forces?

[QuantaCat]

The world is formed by YOU.

[sabrage]

There are lots of quests in the game: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Quests

Also, the main quest in Daggerfall is rather non-linear in comparison to other games in the series:
Daggerfall: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:...ough#Quest_Map
Morrowind: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:M...est_Flow_Chart
Oblivion: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Main_Quest
Skyrim: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Main_Quest

I had no idea TES wiki was so... Thorough. Thanks for those pages.

[squirrelfanatic]

The world is formed by YOU.

In Soviet Russia, game roleplays you.

[Wizardry]

In 2011, game roleplays you.

Fixed.
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