Filler, bunny?

[Imbecile]

At the moment I'm playing Daggerfall, and I'm struck by the amount of filler involved, and cant work out whether I like it or not.

There appear to be:

Largely useless skills that serve a purpose for character creation I guess (or Larping?)
Empty houses (make the towns feel bigger)
Identikit NPCs with nothing to add (but make the towns feel busier)
Randomly generated fetch quests (makes the game feel longer)
Randomly generated terrain (makes the world feel larger)

For the most part I'm liking it, especially the random quests. The problems come when I actually think about it. Knowing that the actual contents of a city are 99% filler is a bit of an odd sensation, though, having played and enjoyed GTA games I should be used to this.

Is it better to have a tiny unique city with a few unique NPCs or a huge city with one NPC and the rest being zombies?

 

[JarlFrank]

Well, most of the filler feeling is because the random generators of back then sucked. They tried to make a huge game, so they resorted to random generation. Which leads to the outdoor areas feeling empty and bland and the dungeons having many deja-vu areas. And the skills all have their use, even though some are less useful than others.

The random generation was a design decision, not to make the game feel longer but to try and make it feel more alive and less linear. A way of creating emergent gameplay. At least that's what the creators wanted to do. Daggerfall should definitely be remade one day with the original vision in mind and modern technology in our hands.

 

[Imbecile]

The random generation was a design decision, not to make the game feel longer but to try and make it feel more alive and less linear. A way of creating emergent gameplay. At least that's what the creators wanted to do. Daggerfall should definitely be remade one day with the original vision in mind and modern technology in our hands.

Well, I'm only a little way in, but I would certainly buy that. I'd love to see an updated attempt at a living semi-randomised world. I'm still not sure if I could get comfortable with loads of houses that i was forbidden to enter though.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Why don't you just go for the excellent main quest?

Trust me on this - Daggerfall sports one of the finest non-linear narratives I have ever seen. All the pieces and clues about the terrible history of the family of King Lysandus and other royals are amazing.

To be honest, Daggerfall might be one of the best written games I have seen. The writing in this game is amazing.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Yeesh, show me a game that DOESN'T have at least a little bit of filler! I'm thinking it's probably like Portal.

Which is not to say 1) that Portal wasn't fun, because IT SO WAS, and sometimes I crave an experience like that, which is more streamlined and focused and sleek, and 2) filler is always poopy. Sometimes it can be the most enjoyable part of the game.

BAD filler - Fed-Ex quests with little to no reward, MacGuffins to get to the next part of the story, really extra-big-sized maps to make more time getting from point A to point B (shit, they outright admitted to doing this for The Wind Waker, for example), and the like. And fishing minigames. Except in Breath of Fire IV. BOO-URNS.

 

[Zomg]

Filler is the wrong word for what Daggerfall has. The stuff like the monster languages and so on is legacy from cut content. Design-wise they obviously should have either been fully implemented or cut. But the partly algorithm-generated towns, dungeons and landscape aren't filler; they're context. There are designs that just won't work in the itty-bitty microcosm version of reality most RPGs use where you literally talk to everyone and look everywhere.

 

[circ]

On another note. You haven't played Portal until you've played Portal. I can't comment on this new Portal because it all seems like a silly concept and would probably make me nauseous.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/portal

Or if you just want to be lazy and read one fine book:

http://portal.stodge.org/

 

[Texas Red]

Playing Morrowind is about the most depressing thing I can think of. Playing Daggerfall... what would force a man to do that when there are so many other, non randomly generated games? Just reading this thread and know that there's a guy somewhere in a basement playing Daggerfall gives me the blues.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

...Just reading this thread and know that there's a guy somewhere in a basement playing Daggerfall gives me the blues.

Spontaneous blues song or it didn't happen!

 

[rpgcodexusername]

I hate Daggerfall, the dungeons are cut-and-paste affairs that are easy to get lost in. (because everything looks the damn same)

I tried the main quest and it just seemed like a bunch of fetch quests (this was a long time ago so maybe i dont remember the better quests). I got fed up of talking to these cardboard cutout NPC's.

Altogether a very boring game.



Morrowind was a little better but terribly unbalanced, being a thief is too difficult at the beginning because of all the unavoidable combat.

 

[Imbecile]

Playing Morrowind is about the most depressing thing I can think of. Playing Daggerfall... what would force a man to do that when there are so many other, non randomly generated games? Just reading this thread and know that there's a guy somewhere in a basement playing Daggerfall gives me the blues.

What can I say. I blame you guys, I really liked Morrowind, and figured I should at least take a look at Daggerfall, given all the compliments it gets. (Edit, also I liked the idea of a partly randomly generated game)

I appreciate that most games have filler, and that Daggerfalls filler serves as "context", but its the largest amount of context I've ever seen. In fact it pretty much overwhelms the rest of the normal game.

Its interesting, but I doubt I'll be playing it through to the end.

 

[JarlFrank]

Daggerfall is not that good as a game, but as a concept, it shows a fuckload of ambition and innovation. And it wasn't even finished, which you always have to remind yourself of. The devs had a lot more in mind for it. If anyone would try to properly remake Daggerfall with our modern gaming technology, it could be the best game ever. A fantasy world simulator with a complex political main quest and dungeon crawling with large dungeons thrown in for some fun. Too bad that it will never happen in the current state gaming is in.

 

[Dark_Paladin_Anti_Hero]

I really liked the manual. It had that classic medieval look to it, and was much better written and easier to follow than many other RPG manuals. The game itself was alright. Obviously, old Bethesda was all about huge worlds and making realistic cities (well, cities with a realistic number of inhabitants, at least). If you think Daggerfall is cut an paste you should check out Arena. At least in Daggerfall the cut and paste cities and such are from the same region. Go to High Rock and Hammerfell in Arena and - if I recall correctly - the only difference is the ground color. Even with all the sameness, I felt like I was actually in a world instead of a game, just because of the sheer size of the thing. At least the filler is issued by guilds and such, instead of every John, Dick, and Harry asking you to fetch their amulet or kill six rats.

Filler is the wrong word for what Daggerfall has. The stuff like the monster languages and so on is legacy from cut content. Design-wise they obviously should have either been fully implemented or cut. But the partly algorithm-generated towns, dungeons and landscape aren't filler; they're context. There are designs that just won't work in the itty-bitty microcosm version of reality most RPGs use where you literally talk to everyone and look everywhere.

If you have a high language skill and click on the appropriate monster it will not attack - most of the time. They probably had more purpose in the original design docs. There's a mod out there that restores some of the cut content from Daggerfall that was found on the disc, but I never tried it out.

 

[Raapys]

Reading through the list of cut features from Daggerfall makes me sad everytime. They wanted nations going to war with each other, cities being under siege, etc. Pretty much the whole 'true dynamic world' thing.

They failed miserably, of course, and they'd probably have needed two or three more years of development to ever really finish the damn thing and then polishing it. Still, I applaud their ambition.

As it stands, it's still a good game in my opinion. Despite all the cut features and numerous bugs that were never fixed, the game is still one of the most feature-rich games ever made. The magic system is neat, the enchantment system even better( and ridiculously exploitable ) and character creation is still top-notch. Guild advancement comes with actual benefits, too. Just wish they'd fleshed out the world with alot more *real* quests( i.e. not the template/random quests ), because as it stands there's really just the rather short main quest line and maybe one or two side quests.

As for the randomly generated cities/dungeons, I think they do a decent job at what they're supposed to do; creating the illusion of a huge and 'realistic' world. The trick is to mix in the right amount of hand-made content, and although they did have a few hand-made dungeons, cities, quests and NPCs, there just weren't enough of them.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I hate Daggerfall, the dungeons are cut-and-paste affairs that are easy to get lost in. (because everything looks the damn same)

Is it so hard to use the 3D map?

 

[Igor]

Daggerfall is the western mountain of dogshit below the human. That beautiful it is the gambling of Japan RPG perfection with it does not compare. To be long the emperor has lived!

 

[Gragt]

WTF is this shit just above my post?

 

[MetalCraze]

A living proof that two bombs weren't enough?

 

[Dark Matter]

Funny how, despite using older technology and everything being randomly generated, the world of Daggerfall seems so much more alive and immersive than that of Oblivion.

 

[Wild Slop]

WTF is this shit just above my post?

Considering this and the last topic I just came out of I'll guess a Japanese zerotol.
I gotta say I like his broken English ball busting.

 

[OSK]

WTF is this shit just above my post?

Considering this and the last topic I just came out of I'll guess a Japanese zerotol.
I gotta say I like his broken English ball busting.

Meh, he used to be able to speak perfect english: http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... ht=#127850

 

[Gnidrologist]

...Just reading this thread and know that there's a guy somewhere in a basement playing Daggerfall gives me the blues.

Spontaneous blues song or it didn't happen!

I woke up this morning
*da-daa-da damm*
Found my dick was gone
*da-daa-da damm*

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Gni wins.

Just so you know. :twisted:

 

[JarlFrank]

Reading through the list of cut features from Daggerfall makes me sad everytime. They wanted nations going to war with each other, cities being under siege, etc. Pretty much the whole 'true dynamic world' thing.

They failed miserably, of course, and they'd probably have needed two or three more years of development to ever really finish the damn thing and then polishing it. Still, I applaud their ambition.

The saddest thing about it: the nowadays Bethesda would have the resources, both technical and financial, to create this game. Yet they won't because people like Todd have other ideas. And generally, all the good designers of the old Bethesda days are gone now anyways. Shit.

 

[X40c]

@Random fantasy world generator

Ahem... Two words: Dwarf Fortress. The point of DF is to become a complex immersive and while it is not a pureblood RPG, it still has huge amounts of potential. Of course we'll have to wait till 2020 before the storytelling part actually becomes good enough to be compared with cRPGs. Then again, reading some of the player written stories, the Fortress mode is already quite immersive, even if the Adventurer mode is not up to bar. I suggest hearing some of the interviews made with Toady One, he has touch on the subject of fantasy world generation a number of times and has outlined the nature of DF 1.0 as well.