Surgey
Scholar
If you've come to this thread, you are curious, like The Elder Scrolls, or are assuming this is a thread involving people tripping and collapsing on sharp objects. Or perhaps you are a combination of the options above. Either way, here you are!
Daggerfall is The Elder Scrolls 2, meaning it is the sequel to Arena. It's popular even among people who hate Bethesda and it was ahead of its time, according to some. The world is incredibly massive (bigger than Morrowind and Oblivion's worlds combined) and is filled with even more faceless NPC's than Morrowind (hooray!). The game also has six (6) different endings, according to Wikipedia. Here's an except from The Wikipedia Article for Daggerfall:
Hm. I'm suddenly worried as to whether I can complete this game...
Ahem. As I was saying, this game is a precursor to Morrowind, and some of the features in it are nice to see, as Morrowind took a few steps BACK from it. For example, Daggerfall has several travel methods, including horses, carts, and ships, all of which you can buy (and should). Sadly though, there are no spears.
This particular Elder Scrolls game takes place in the provinces of High Rock (the Breton homeland) and Hammerfell (I believe this is the home of Redguards). Interestingly enough, unlike the next 2 Elder Scrolls games, you cannot play an Imperial. According to the manual, the Imperial Province is actually a mix of other province's races (America!), so it's thus impossible. Interesting.
But I digress. Let's get on to the game! I'll explain things as they happen. Also, it's worth mentioning that this is my first playthrough of the game, so it's all new to me, too! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this LP...
I kind of like this logo more than the other one...
Don't bother waiting for something else to appear. That's all there is. No "THE ELDER SCROLLS 2!" or anything. That's it.
Obviously we're going to Start a New Game. I have a previous save, but it's just a test one and the character sucks anyway.
Here we go! Anybody who hasn't played the later games will probably be confused as to what races are from what province, obviously. However, since I know where Argonians are from, I go ahead and click Black Marsh.
Sure enough, here's the information page on the Lizards.
After selecting a race, you're given the option of answering questions for the game to pick your class or picking a class from the list. At the bottom of the list is "Custom" so don't worry too much. Obviously, I pick custom.
Here's the class creation page. As you can see, there's plenty to do, and tons more options than Oblivion and even Morrowind. If I wanted to, I could subtract points from certain scores and add them to another, but I'm new to the game, so I'll make a balanced character here...
Here's the Special Class Advantages page. There are quite a few to choose from, and if you've played Morrowind, you'll realize that some of the advantages are similar to what Birthsigns give you.
Here's the Class Disadvantages page. For simplicity, I've already picked some.
You can easily recreate a birthsign from Morrowind with certain advantage and disadvantage combos. For example, if you wanted to recreate the "Trollkin" birthsign effect, you could take "Low Tolerance: Fire" and "Health Regeneration." Or if you wanted to create the Atronach (or whatever that sign that gives you the stunted magicka thing), you could pick the Disadvantage "Doesn't Regenerate Magicka Points" and the Advantage "Spell Absorption." It's pretty cool, really.
Here's another of the interesting options available. As your character is a friend of the Emperor's and already supposedly a hero, you can choose to change some reputations around. However, you have to make sure all the bars are balanced (as in they all add up to 0). Here you can see I made this character disliked by the nobility (he's a loose cannon!) but liked by Merchants and the Underworld for his no-bullshit Jack Bauer awesomeness (and willingness to buy shit, obviously).
Okay. Everything here seems to be in order. As you can see, I assigned the skills.
The Primary skills are ones that pretty much define your class, the Major ones are secondary ones that are still rather important, and your Minor skills are your skills that you don't really specifically train in, but still want to have some ability in. As you can see, I gave this character various combat skills as his primaries. They're pretty self-explanatory, but Critical Strike, as far as I know, increases critical chance and damage. The others you can probably guess what they do, but as for Streetwise and Etiquette, I will explain them when they come up in the game.
At this point, it's worth noting that all your options you pick set how hard it is for you to gain a level. If you're familiar with the concept of the "Level Adjustment" in Dungeons and Dragons, it's very similar to that. This is what limits your choice in Advantages and your "Max HP per level." The sword on the right side of the character screen shows how hard (or easy) it is to level.
I figured since this character (let's call him Fred for now) is a no-holds barred fighter who kills his enemies with finesse rather than brute force, I'd make him use big heavy blunt weapons. Also, he's Jack Bauer, so he's got Streetwise, obviously. Also, he heals for some reason. Moving on...
Next up we have the Background maker. This is another interesting part of character creation. You can choose to make your background random or answer some questions, but I opt to answer the questions, since they're actually very useful questions and not super vague like Morrowind's "Did you beat up school bullies?" bullshit questions.
There's an example. That's the first question. Using the backgrounds, you can really get some mad bonuses to skills. Obviously, I pick Blunt Weapons, as that's a primary skill.
The game goes on with about 9 more questions before my background is done, at which point it tells me my reputation to commoners has increased (probably because I said my motivation for adventuring is helping people).
...hmmm.... I'm not going to waste time by asking you guys right now. So I'll just name him "Nine-Toes" for now. Don't worry. I can always change his name later by clicking on it on the character page. So feel free to submit requests.
There's my portrait up there. At this point, I assign some bonus points to my skills and stats. I boosted my strength a bit, as you can see, and added some points to my blunt weapon skill, among others. I then click exit, and...
The beginning of the intro. SHIT! There's no option for subtitles. Argh. Well anyway, the voice is going on about some demons or something. I can't remember. It's secondary to my smashing, though.
Ah, there we go. "Er, wait... why do I get the feeling this is going to involve me being thrown in jail?"
Holy shit! Full motion video! Where the fuck did those go for Morrowind? Is that Uriel? "Sorry to break the fourth wall, but you're not Patrick Stewart. Also, your body guard is a fucking mute."
Well, he's not bad. Actually, I kind of like him more than Patrick Stewart. His voice is pretty good. "And again, sorry about breaking the fourth wall, but you're going to die two games from now. Sorry about that."
If you're wondering what he's talking about, he's telling me about how King Lysandus of Daggerfall was slain and how his spirit is trapped on the mortal plain or something. He mentions Oblivion, too, and something about closing the gate (I shit you not). Then again, I may have misunderstood him. Long story short, Emperor Septim wants me to go to Daggerfall and free Lysandus' spirit. He also wants me to find some letter he sent to someone in Daggerfall (I honestly forgot who) and destroy it.
"Rest well this night; for tomorrow, you set sail for Daggerfall!" Cryptic. As you can see, Septim takes the torch. Not shown: he puts it into a bowl of sand to put it out.
We're then treated with a black screen... And then.
CHAPTER 1: The Search For the Exit to This God Damn Cave!
Oh, God Dammit! Nine-Toes has't even reached the place yet and already things are FUBAR. And let me guess; the cavern is a huge monster-infested dungeon, right?
This does not bode well. Oh well. Well, at least I have a fire.
Let's take a look at the character screen here. Hmm. You know, I actually kind of like how the Argonians look in this game. More than Morrowind, actually, those goddamn 6 kneed bastards. Anyway, I digress. Let's see. Let's change out some of my equipment into something useful like armor, Nine-Toes is wearing rags as it is...
Great. I guess Nine-Toes just fucking threw all my equipment overboard during storm. Strangely enough though, he somehow managed to keep his Elven Flail. If you're wondering where he got that flail, there was an option in the Background questionnaire that asked what item he was lent and later given, and I obviously picked the Elven Flail.
Let's go ahead and check the stats on the shirt and pants. Maybe they give some type of defense bonus... let me just click that shirt...
Oops. Argh! I guess in the act of trying to look at the shirt, it just fell off.
Oh well. Let's try this again. I'll check the pants this time...
Bah! Those fell off, too. Well I suppose I'll pu- OH GOD I DON'T HAVE ONE! ARGH! I am no man!
We're putting those right the fuck back on. Jesus Christ. We'll pretend we didn't see that.
Well this looks inviting. I totally love dark, dank caverns.
It's worth mentioning at this point that the music is very cool. I know you can't hear it, but try looking up the soundtrack sometime. It's great. There were actually 2 soundtracks with the game, and the good one is only available with the right sound card. Fortunately, DosBox is able to emulate the good one.
Oops, almsot forgot to equip a weapon. Seeing as how Nine-Toes didn't take Hand to Hand skill, it would be in his best interest to pull out the flail. WOW! That thing is fucking huge! If I didn't know any better I'd think it came right out of Warhammer 40,000 or something...
Let's whip this thing out. Ooooh.... this is going to be awesome.
Moving down the corridor and through a passage so secret it was right in front of me, we find our first victim. A bloodthirsty rat with glowing red eyes. Man, whatever happened to NORMAL rats?
Since we're here at combat, I'll go ahead and talk about that. The combat is sort of like Die By the Sword in the fact that you hold the mouse button down and move the mouse to perform the different moves. I'm not sure why Morrowind took a step back from this by require you to move, but oh well. The moves, like Morrowind, have different damage and accuracy bonuses or penalties. For example, a thrusting attack is more accurate but does less damage, which makes absolutely no sense for swords and daggers, but hey, whatever. Horizontal attacks are the "Balanced" attacks, as they receive no penalties but no bonuses as well.
Either way, Nine-Toes pounds the rat into a splintery paste. Note the text at the top of the screen. Judging by the corpse, I'd say it did more than "just die."
There's a chest in the corner, so Nine-Toes quickly loots it, finding some gold pieces in it. Nine-Toes then moves on up the stairs in the side of the room.
It's also worth noting here that Daggerfall sometimes bugs and you fall down through stairs into what players call "the void." So make no mistake, Daggerfall is just as buggy as its later games. I suppose that's another thing that the later Elder Scrolls games didn't take a step back on.
Great, now flying rats. This one actually might be a challenge, though...
FAPPO! Not shown: The bloody mangled heap of what used to be a bat. As you can see, this game is bloodier than Morrowind.
Also, the game features nudity (don't worry, we'll get to it eventually). Suck on that, ESRB!
Man, these halls go on forever... Nine-Toes makes his way on and finally goes down some stairs on a side passage.
At last! Another human! Well, humanoid, anyway. Looks like Nine-Toes is not the only one lost in this cave. Maybe we could ask for directions?
"Excuse me, sir!"
Good thinking! Nine-Toes decides to use his mad Jack Bauer-esque Streetwise skills to communicate in the thief's language... "(Hmm what's with the hood indoors?) Hello, my homie! It seems you are a thief lost in this cavern! I'm pretty thief-ish and lost in this cavern myself! Perhaps you-"
"Well, yes, that's a nice knife and all, but reall- OH GOD YOU HIT ME! OW GOD IT HURTS! ARGGHHHHH....!"
Is this the end for our possibly-soon-to-be-renamed hero, Nine-Toes? Did I actually die there in the game and reload a previous save game so I could kill the thief? Will the thief drop phat loot? All these questions and more will be answered in the next chapter, Chapter 2: I Saw a Dumb Helmet the Other Day!!
Anyway, taking suggestions for a new name for Nine-Toes, if you want to suggest any.
Daggerfall is The Elder Scrolls 2, meaning it is the sequel to Arena. It's popular even among people who hate Bethesda and it was ahead of its time, according to some. The world is incredibly massive (bigger than Morrowind and Oblivion's worlds combined) and is filled with even more faceless NPC's than Morrowind (hooray!). The game also has six (6) different endings, according to Wikipedia. Here's an except from The Wikipedia Article for Daggerfall:
Daggerfall is the largest Elder Scrolls game to date, featuring a game world estimated as being 161,600 square Kilometres — roughly twice the size of Great Britain — with over 15,000 towns, cities, villages, and dungeons for the player's character to explore. According to Todd Howard, Elder Scrolls programmer, the game's sequel, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is 0.01% the size of Daggerfall. Vvardenfell, the explorable part of the province of Morrowind in the third game has 6 square miles. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has approximately 16 square miles to explore. In Daggerfall, there are 750,000+ non-player characters (NPCs) for the player to interact with, compared to the count of around 1000 NPCs found in Morrowind and Oblivion. It should be pointed out that the geography and the characters in these later games are much more detailed
Hm. I'm suddenly worried as to whether I can complete this game...
Ahem. As I was saying, this game is a precursor to Morrowind, and some of the features in it are nice to see, as Morrowind took a few steps BACK from it. For example, Daggerfall has several travel methods, including horses, carts, and ships, all of which you can buy (and should). Sadly though, there are no spears.
This particular Elder Scrolls game takes place in the provinces of High Rock (the Breton homeland) and Hammerfell (I believe this is the home of Redguards). Interestingly enough, unlike the next 2 Elder Scrolls games, you cannot play an Imperial. According to the manual, the Imperial Province is actually a mix of other province's races (America!), so it's thus impossible. Interesting.
But I digress. Let's get on to the game! I'll explain things as they happen. Also, it's worth mentioning that this is my first playthrough of the game, so it's all new to me, too! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this LP...
I kind of like this logo more than the other one...
Don't bother waiting for something else to appear. That's all there is. No "THE ELDER SCROLLS 2!" or anything. That's it.
Obviously we're going to Start a New Game. I have a previous save, but it's just a test one and the character sucks anyway.
Here we go! Anybody who hasn't played the later games will probably be confused as to what races are from what province, obviously. However, since I know where Argonians are from, I go ahead and click Black Marsh.
Sure enough, here's the information page on the Lizards.
After selecting a race, you're given the option of answering questions for the game to pick your class or picking a class from the list. At the bottom of the list is "Custom" so don't worry too much. Obviously, I pick custom.
Here's the class creation page. As you can see, there's plenty to do, and tons more options than Oblivion and even Morrowind. If I wanted to, I could subtract points from certain scores and add them to another, but I'm new to the game, so I'll make a balanced character here...
Here's the Special Class Advantages page. There are quite a few to choose from, and if you've played Morrowind, you'll realize that some of the advantages are similar to what Birthsigns give you.
Here's the Class Disadvantages page. For simplicity, I've already picked some.
You can easily recreate a birthsign from Morrowind with certain advantage and disadvantage combos. For example, if you wanted to recreate the "Trollkin" birthsign effect, you could take "Low Tolerance: Fire" and "Health Regeneration." Or if you wanted to create the Atronach (or whatever that sign that gives you the stunted magicka thing), you could pick the Disadvantage "Doesn't Regenerate Magicka Points" and the Advantage "Spell Absorption." It's pretty cool, really.
Here's another of the interesting options available. As your character is a friend of the Emperor's and already supposedly a hero, you can choose to change some reputations around. However, you have to make sure all the bars are balanced (as in they all add up to 0). Here you can see I made this character disliked by the nobility (he's a loose cannon!) but liked by Merchants and the Underworld for his no-bullshit Jack Bauer awesomeness (and willingness to buy shit, obviously).
Okay. Everything here seems to be in order. As you can see, I assigned the skills.
The Primary skills are ones that pretty much define your class, the Major ones are secondary ones that are still rather important, and your Minor skills are your skills that you don't really specifically train in, but still want to have some ability in. As you can see, I gave this character various combat skills as his primaries. They're pretty self-explanatory, but Critical Strike, as far as I know, increases critical chance and damage. The others you can probably guess what they do, but as for Streetwise and Etiquette, I will explain them when they come up in the game.
At this point, it's worth noting that all your options you pick set how hard it is for you to gain a level. If you're familiar with the concept of the "Level Adjustment" in Dungeons and Dragons, it's very similar to that. This is what limits your choice in Advantages and your "Max HP per level." The sword on the right side of the character screen shows how hard (or easy) it is to level.
I figured since this character (let's call him Fred for now) is a no-holds barred fighter who kills his enemies with finesse rather than brute force, I'd make him use big heavy blunt weapons. Also, he's Jack Bauer, so he's got Streetwise, obviously. Also, he heals for some reason. Moving on...
Next up we have the Background maker. This is another interesting part of character creation. You can choose to make your background random or answer some questions, but I opt to answer the questions, since they're actually very useful questions and not super vague like Morrowind's "Did you beat up school bullies?" bullshit questions.
There's an example. That's the first question. Using the backgrounds, you can really get some mad bonuses to skills. Obviously, I pick Blunt Weapons, as that's a primary skill.
The game goes on with about 9 more questions before my background is done, at which point it tells me my reputation to commoners has increased (probably because I said my motivation for adventuring is helping people).
...hmmm.... I'm not going to waste time by asking you guys right now. So I'll just name him "Nine-Toes" for now. Don't worry. I can always change his name later by clicking on it on the character page. So feel free to submit requests.
There's my portrait up there. At this point, I assign some bonus points to my skills and stats. I boosted my strength a bit, as you can see, and added some points to my blunt weapon skill, among others. I then click exit, and...
The beginning of the intro. SHIT! There's no option for subtitles. Argh. Well anyway, the voice is going on about some demons or something. I can't remember. It's secondary to my smashing, though.
Ah, there we go. "Er, wait... why do I get the feeling this is going to involve me being thrown in jail?"
Holy shit! Full motion video! Where the fuck did those go for Morrowind? Is that Uriel? "Sorry to break the fourth wall, but you're not Patrick Stewart. Also, your body guard is a fucking mute."
Well, he's not bad. Actually, I kind of like him more than Patrick Stewart. His voice is pretty good. "And again, sorry about breaking the fourth wall, but you're going to die two games from now. Sorry about that."
If you're wondering what he's talking about, he's telling me about how King Lysandus of Daggerfall was slain and how his spirit is trapped on the mortal plain or something. He mentions Oblivion, too, and something about closing the gate (I shit you not). Then again, I may have misunderstood him. Long story short, Emperor Septim wants me to go to Daggerfall and free Lysandus' spirit. He also wants me to find some letter he sent to someone in Daggerfall (I honestly forgot who) and destroy it.
"Rest well this night; for tomorrow, you set sail for Daggerfall!" Cryptic. As you can see, Septim takes the torch. Not shown: he puts it into a bowl of sand to put it out.
We're then treated with a black screen... And then.
CHAPTER 1: The Search For the Exit to This God Damn Cave!
Oh, God Dammit! Nine-Toes has't even reached the place yet and already things are FUBAR. And let me guess; the cavern is a huge monster-infested dungeon, right?
This does not bode well. Oh well. Well, at least I have a fire.
Let's take a look at the character screen here. Hmm. You know, I actually kind of like how the Argonians look in this game. More than Morrowind, actually, those goddamn 6 kneed bastards. Anyway, I digress. Let's see. Let's change out some of my equipment into something useful like armor, Nine-Toes is wearing rags as it is...
Great. I guess Nine-Toes just fucking threw all my equipment overboard during storm. Strangely enough though, he somehow managed to keep his Elven Flail. If you're wondering where he got that flail, there was an option in the Background questionnaire that asked what item he was lent and later given, and I obviously picked the Elven Flail.
Let's go ahead and check the stats on the shirt and pants. Maybe they give some type of defense bonus... let me just click that shirt...
Oops. Argh! I guess in the act of trying to look at the shirt, it just fell off.
Oh well. Let's try this again. I'll check the pants this time...
Bah! Those fell off, too. Well I suppose I'll pu- OH GOD I DON'T HAVE ONE! ARGH! I am no man!
We're putting those right the fuck back on. Jesus Christ. We'll pretend we didn't see that.
Well this looks inviting. I totally love dark, dank caverns.
It's worth mentioning at this point that the music is very cool. I know you can't hear it, but try looking up the soundtrack sometime. It's great. There were actually 2 soundtracks with the game, and the good one is only available with the right sound card. Fortunately, DosBox is able to emulate the good one.
Oops, almsot forgot to equip a weapon. Seeing as how Nine-Toes didn't take Hand to Hand skill, it would be in his best interest to pull out the flail. WOW! That thing is fucking huge! If I didn't know any better I'd think it came right out of Warhammer 40,000 or something...
Let's whip this thing out. Ooooh.... this is going to be awesome.
Moving down the corridor and through a passage so secret it was right in front of me, we find our first victim. A bloodthirsty rat with glowing red eyes. Man, whatever happened to NORMAL rats?
Since we're here at combat, I'll go ahead and talk about that. The combat is sort of like Die By the Sword in the fact that you hold the mouse button down and move the mouse to perform the different moves. I'm not sure why Morrowind took a step back from this by require you to move, but oh well. The moves, like Morrowind, have different damage and accuracy bonuses or penalties. For example, a thrusting attack is more accurate but does less damage, which makes absolutely no sense for swords and daggers, but hey, whatever. Horizontal attacks are the "Balanced" attacks, as they receive no penalties but no bonuses as well.
Either way, Nine-Toes pounds the rat into a splintery paste. Note the text at the top of the screen. Judging by the corpse, I'd say it did more than "just die."
There's a chest in the corner, so Nine-Toes quickly loots it, finding some gold pieces in it. Nine-Toes then moves on up the stairs in the side of the room.
It's also worth noting here that Daggerfall sometimes bugs and you fall down through stairs into what players call "the void." So make no mistake, Daggerfall is just as buggy as its later games. I suppose that's another thing that the later Elder Scrolls games didn't take a step back on.
Great, now flying rats. This one actually might be a challenge, though...
FAPPO! Not shown: The bloody mangled heap of what used to be a bat. As you can see, this game is bloodier than Morrowind.
Also, the game features nudity (don't worry, we'll get to it eventually). Suck on that, ESRB!
Man, these halls go on forever... Nine-Toes makes his way on and finally goes down some stairs on a side passage.
At last! Another human! Well, humanoid, anyway. Looks like Nine-Toes is not the only one lost in this cave. Maybe we could ask for directions?
"Excuse me, sir!"
Good thinking! Nine-Toes decides to use his mad Jack Bauer-esque Streetwise skills to communicate in the thief's language... "(Hmm what's with the hood indoors?) Hello, my homie! It seems you are a thief lost in this cavern! I'm pretty thief-ish and lost in this cavern myself! Perhaps you-"
"Well, yes, that's a nice knife and all, but reall- OH GOD YOU HIT ME! OW GOD IT HURTS! ARGGHHHHH....!"
Is this the end for our possibly-soon-to-be-renamed hero, Nine-Toes? Did I actually die there in the game and reload a previous save game so I could kill the thief? Will the thief drop phat loot? All these questions and more will be answered in the next chapter, Chapter 2: I Saw a Dumb Helmet the Other Day!!
Anyway, taking suggestions for a new name for Nine-Toes, if you want to suggest any.