Daggerfall and Morrowind

J

Josan12

Vault Senior Citizen
So in order to try to understand Bethesdsa a little better, i've been looking into their previous games Daggerfall and Morrowind

So what are these games like? Does anyone recomend them? From reading about them they sound like pretty good RPG's. Stat-dependant gameplay, free-choice, minimal rail-roading, etc. In fact i'm a bit confused - are we talking about the same Beth that made that dumbed-down joke Fallout 3?? Or are Daggerfall and Morrowind not that great after all?

Opinions?
 
Daggerfall was made by a completely different development team, it was a dense free roam rpg with an incredibly large land mass and randomized quests. I had fun with it, although there are a ton of game breaking bugs. Rpg wise its superior in every way to both morrowind and oblivion, hell you could even duel wield(primatively) and the art direction (imo), was vastly superior to the hum drum greys and browns seen in it's sequels.


It hasn't aged well, unlike fallout, and getting to run it on xp can be a bit of a bitch.

Morrowind is better then oblivion, but simplified in terms of rpging in comparison to it's predocessor. THe combat is okay, but if you can get past the mehish wiki like dialogue system, you can find a somewhat rewarding experience.

Again these two are worthwhile if your looking for a freeroaming experience, just don't expect high quality storytelling
 
I haven't played Daggerfall, but I'm considering it. I'm not a huge fan of the first person perspective with such dated graphics just because depth perception gets really weird, but I might try it out.

Morrowind on the other hand I have played. Apparently it's a dumbed down version of Daggerfall. It's a pretty fun game, and the landscape is incredibly diverse unlike Oblivion and Fallout 3. There is a large number of towns and plenty of things scattered across the world that are easy to miss in a single playthrough. The size of the map is also considerably larger than Oblivion or Fallout 3 and is an island so it doesn't have to rely on conveniently placed mountain ranges as natural borders. There's some voice acting, mostly when you're walking by someone and they give a little greeting (which gets a bit irritating since it happens all the time) but actual conversations are text based. You pick a topic you want to ask about, and they give you a response, usually pretty lengthy and the writing isn't terrible.

In terms of gameplay it's okay. The battle system is somewhat less interesting than Oblivion since it lacks shiny graphics and some of the power attacks but I enjoy it more. It's much more RPG than Oblivion, since even if it looks like you hit someone if your skills aren't up to snuff you'll miss. Can be frustrating if you don't realize it (as my twelve year old self failed to). Much like Oblivion, your character inevitably becomes a jack of all trades and you can max pretty much everything out without cheating which sucks in my opinion.

There's a good deal of side-quests that will almost certainly distract you from the main quest (I still haven't beaten it since I'm pretty uninterested in it), and a lot of them are pretty good if I recall correctly. The main story is okay, but I wasn't particularly gripped by it.

One good thing is there are no leveled mobs in game. I kind of like how bandits aren't decked out in glass armor and crap when you level enough.

Also, there are more weapon and armor types than Oblivion. Axe and blunt are their own category (mace=axe wtf?) and there's a category for medium armor. Also there's a short blade and long blade skill, and I think some of the others are split up as well. I prefer this.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Pretty solid game. I've heard that Morrowind was dumbed down from Daggerfall though. I'm kind of seeing a trend here...
 
Morrowind has a few things that definitely make it more endearing to me than Daggerfall was. First and foremost was the level of attention they put into detail. The fact that you can read a book about an old powerful artifact lost on the east coast, then later be journeying along the eastern coast and stumble into a cave where you find the artifact and some things associated with its story. It all lends to an incredibly fleshed out world, with a rich and complex lore that has no equal in other video games, in my opinion. If you were willing to put the time in to talk to the encyclopedia NPCs and read the books, the experience you got was something great.

The entire continent was littered with dungeons and ruins that were each unique to varying degrees, and held hand-placed items, NPCs, and other such things, most of which were either connected to the lore or a side quest. They played up the varying factions vying for power. The ancient powerful wizards of the east who made illegal land-grabs and didn't give a fuck about anything because they were just as old or older than the gods most of the dark elves worshiped. The old warriors trying to cling onto their honour and pride in a world that is steadily changing. The profit and power-hungry house with heavy ties to the local crime syndicate. Even the events surrounding what happened to Nerevar (who the player is reincarnated from) could have transpired in any number of ways, and you are given a ton of information but no real answer. You are forced to draw from a wealth of knowledge and decide for yourself.

Now if you didn't read anything and just ran around killing shit then granted you will not experience anything close to that, but a great deal of Morrowind's appeal is what you put into it. Daggerfall was not able to achieve anything on that level of depth, simply because it was so goddamn huge, a large amount of the content and all of the dungeons were randomly generated. This is not to say that Daggerfall wasn't a great game. I believe that each game succeeds in an area where the other game lacks.
 
I never finished Morrowind, but it is far better than Oblivion. Never played Daggerfall, but I heared that it isn't that bad.

I am just wondering, how much dumped down TES5 will be compare to Oblivion.
 
Stay the hell away from the xbox version of morrowind.

Bought the xbox version, and constantly encountered game-breaking bugs/crashing. GOTY edition arrived (bloodmoon+tribunal). Bought it... and was disgusted to find that not a single bug was fixed. 5+ minute load times plus tons of crashing does not make for a fun experience.

After obtaining it for the PC and installing the unofficial patch; it's a surprisingly enjoyable game. Definitely a step up from oblivion, but it sure is brown.
 
What I found more or less funny... after I installed Bloodmoon and Tribunal and started playing Morrowind again, I meet some Dark Brotherhood dude, that wanted to kill me. Well, I killed him first and took all his stuff. The next night, I got the same... some dude wanted to kill me but I killed him pretty easy. Took the stuff again... I meet these guys nearly every night, took everything they have had and sold it to some trader. Then I was richt as hell. I played it approx one hour and was already rich forever, equiped with the best stuff I could buy.
 
Peronaly I got more into Daggerfall then Morrowind. Im going to say out now, its not a perfect game, it has its share of bugs. But what It did have at that time re playability, good RPG experience. No game was like previous. Oh and it was creepy, the catacombs were huge and the undead were the worst ones. I mean what friking skeleton sneaks behind you and unleashes bone chilling howl. Or running down tunnel, suddenly bumping into something, next thing your dead, with text you were killed by elder vampire that was invisible. Another thing it got right was lore and small random missions. The books were joy to read and some quest had unexpected outcome. One case, some tavern keeper in random village wanted me to go and deliver ransom for his daughter in certain time. I thought to hell with that and declined the quest and they guy cursed me and blamed her upcoming death on me. Next thing I know when exiting the tavern at night Im attacked by the ghost of little girl. Also the nude witches were nice didn't expect that.

In the end I say it was one of the better ones from TES series.
 
There was a completley different team that made Daggerfall, none of them are working in bethesda today.
 
MW is a game that I still invest quite a bit of time into, even after all these years. I still find a tomb or cave that I hadn't found before, and am still stunned at the sheer level of care that went into making that game.

I finished the MQ of Oblivion, and haven't really ever played it after that. All that grass and forest gets bland after a while, and the minigames suck ass.

I'd give MW a go, but get the PC version, install some mods (like Better Bodies) and have a blast with it.
 
Haven't played Daggerfall yet, but Morrowind is certainly a lot better than Oblivion. Also it has much more interesting world, various settlements with different architecture styles, not a copy\paste fest which last two Beth games are.

Ultimate Textures is a mod that makes things look much better in Morrowind, also Changing Faces and it's add-on, which replace default ugly faces with much better looking ones, and gives each NPC a unique face. Also mentioned above, Better Bodies, which certainly makes bodies more realistic. :)
I also like Fair Magicka Regen, although some could see it as a cheat, for me it is a tweak.
Actually there are plenty of mods I use, so it's one of those games that take a long time to reinstall, but these are what I consider enough for the first playthrough.
 
Dragula said:
There was a completley different team that made Daggerfall, none of them are working in bethesda today.
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Is there anywhere that I can look at the various groups? I am fairly certain Rolston, Todd, and several others were there since Daggerfall or before.
 
The lore is definitely a huge part of Morrowind. It's pretty detailed. In fact, maybe I'll start playing Morrowind again and play a treasure hunter searching for artifacts and such, relying on books and lore. You know, that actually sounds like a lot of fun...
 
Yes, Morrowind is a lot better than Oblivion and is a pretty decent game. The world is a lot richer than Oblivion's and stats matter more (at least combat stats do). I cannot imagine playing it on XBOX though because of the number of times I had to use console commands to continue playing. I was playing GOTY too.
 
Thanks for the info, guys. Much appreciated. I think Morrowind is sounding interesting. Then i might try Oblivion, and onto FO3.

Would someone care to compare MW and DF to Ultima Underworld for me? (or any other Ultima game for that matter)
 
Ultima Underworld(1 and 2) are in a way far more enjoyable games then daggerfall. It's a bitch to control in daggerfall, but its worthwhile if you can get past it's clunkyness.

Ultima IMO, was a far better series than the elder scrolls series.

Not to say that daggerfall and morrowind were bad either. It's sort of disappointing to see how far bethesda has fallen(gamewise)
 
Pablosdog said:
Ultima Underworld(1 and 2) are in a way far more enjoyable games then daggerfall. It's a bitch to control in daggerfall, but its worthwhile if you can get past it's clunkyness.

Ultima IMO, was a far better series than the elder scrolls series.

Not to say that daggerfall and morrowind were bad either. It's sort of disappointing to see how far bethesda has fallen(gamewise)
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Seriously. I was really excited when I booted up Oblivion, until I realised every single area looked exactly the same. So god damn boring. Hell, if they were going to make gameplay sacrifices they could of at least made it interesting to look at. Ah well, at least I have mods...
 
My favorite Elder Scroll game is Battlespire mostly because its a spinoff to the series, its a dungeon crawl with interesting story, difficult combat, decent level design and great dialogs and voice acting. The best thing in the game was the ability to talk with EVERY enemy and there is when dialogs and voice acting really shine. Not every enemy can be reason with some like Spider Daedra are psychotic and their dialogs reflect that, Scamps are cowardly creatures that you can intimidate or persuade them to join you. This was the last game where Dremoras had their more human look which i prefer and in dialogs they had this educated, superior/egoistic tone in which they referred to you as nothing more than an a animal that can sometimes bite the hunter.
 
Daggerfall was one of the first PC RPGs I ever played and as such I'm probably a little biased. I loved it. When it first came out it was buggy but later patches really helped it.

It was tremendously wide open, especially compared to later Beth Soft offerings and as such had numerous opportunities for players to break the game. I was notorious for hideously abusing the "create a class" system and breaking the game right off the bat. But it was fun and it had tons to explore and find.

Morrowind was streamlined slightly and had far less area to it but the streamlining made sense, it wasn't dumbed down as much as it was preventing the player from breaking the game as badly as Daggerfall. You could still abuse the enchanting system but that took money and experience so by the time you were omnipotent you felt like you earned it.

I think Morrowind is standing the test of time better though a lot of that is owing to the high res models and texture packs that modders put out for it. I don't think that Daggerfall had that sort of support though to be honest I never went back to check.

Though, as has previously been pointed out it's really hard to judge BethSoft as it was then and compare it to BS now because the design teams are drastically different. But by all means play them anyway :D

And being a werewolf in Daggerfall was WAY cooler than the werewolf in Morrowinds Bloodmoon expansion.

Just my two cents.
 
TheLastOutlaw said:
Though, as has previously been pointed out it's really hard to judge BethSoft as it was then and compare it to BS now because the design teams are drastically different. But by all means play them anyway :D
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Good point, i'll bear it in mind.

On a different subject, what about Planescape: Torment? Any good?
 
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