DaggerXL- remake of elderscrolls:daggerfall

[bactiman]

http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/
http://daggerxl.50.forumer.com/

DaggerXL is a Modern Daggerfall Engine Recreation for current Operating Systems and hardware – essentially it is a remake in the spirit of a port. It will ultimately fully emulate the game of Daggerfall and then optionally enhance it by refining existing features and adding new gameplay elements that were originally intended.

DaggerXL makes use of hardware acceleration providing higher resolutions, color depth, greatly improved visibility, better texture filtering, enhanced performance and more. In addition DaggerXL will support full modability, similar to more modern Elder Scrolls games, using custom tools.

The original Daggerfall data is used, so the full game is required. Custom mods can then be applied to optionally enhance the graphics, sound or music.

There is road map on the website, it looks like it will be a while before it's finished.

 

[ArizonaSteve]

Fortunately, Daggerfall is freely downloadable from Bethesda's website.

 

[Throckmorton]

Why not just remake it as an Oblivion mod?

 

[exar333]

:thumbsup:

 

[ImpulsE69]

This is cool. I actually own an original copy of Daggerfall. I don't know if I'd actually attempt to play it again -but who knows...

 

[modestninja]

This is cool. I actually own an original copy of Daggerfall. I don't know if I'd actually attempt to play it again -but who knows...

I still have mine too. I loved that game and played it for many hours despite the bugs and repetitive dungeons. One of my favourite things to do was to rob shops at night and sell them back everything in the morning. Also, I like that by enchanting my armour with levitation allowed my horse and buggy to fly and allowed my to fly around shooting arrows and casting spells at random city guards/citizens while remaining beyond their reach.

Anyway, I'll be excited to see this when it comes out. Maybe I'll even finish the game this time without having to create a new save file every few hours in case something happened that made the game impossible to finish (like a main quest disappearing.)

 

[Rpger]

Why not just remake it as an Oblivion mod?

A Daggerfall Mod to recreate Daggerfall would be larger than Oblivion itself. The Daggerfall map is nearly 30 times the size of Oblivion with hundreds of towns and probably more than 20-30 times the number of dungeons. Most people who know agree Daggerfall was the largest offlline RPG map ever made and likely will be made, so it would be an extremely large and daunting undertaking (if not awesome!).

 

[waggy]

of course its the largest. it repeats itself so much its rather crazy.

 

[motsm]

of course its the largest. it repeats itself so much its rather crazy.

Indeed. It's the largest because it has the most filler.

 

[vrait]

Why not just remake it as an Oblivion mod?

Cause Daggerfall is way to big for the oblivion engine. And just the fact Oblivion sucks ass? This is a remake in HD. Why do it on a totally different engine? That defeats the purpose.

 

[Rpger]

of course its the largest. it repeats itself so much its rather crazy.

It repeats itself in the same way Oblivion repeats itself: towns and dungeons use common building blocks which make similar but not identical entities. The early 1990's limitations in memory and processing power simply make the low-res landscape, town, and dungeon graphic components more obvious in their reuse since the lack of detail doesn't provide as much visual distraction.

The dungeons in Daggerfall are generally much larger and more deviously complex than the ones I've seen in Oblivion, if you strip it down to just the tunnel map. So in some ways I found the Daggerfall dungeons more interesting. On top of that, there are so many more dungeons and towns in the game than any other. So sure, every town has similarities to others, but they are also different. Most of the main quest dungeons also were hand-customized beyond the basic dungeon building blocks, so also provide some uniqueness beyond the overall tunnel map.

I would disagree it is any more repetitive than today's rpgs, and in many ways even the storyline is more ambitious than modern rpgs, since it has six or so possible endings rather than the usual two or three in most modern games. Daggerfall's faction system is also more elaborate than in the later Elder Scrolls games.

The slower rate of levelling in Daggerfall probably exaggerates the sense of repetition also, since you have to crawl through more dungeons to get anywhere. And although the plots of quests are no more complex than other rpg's, because of the sheer size of many dungeons, towns, and map, the quests often feel like a hunt for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Daggerfall doesn't have master trainers that can get you beyond 60-70% in a skill. And no skill books, either. All that means more dungeons, over and over. But only if you really want to develop a character maximally. To complete the main quest though, it's unnecessary.

So many of those complaining about repetition are simply grumbling because Daggerfall didn't make it easy to max out a character without cheating. All in all, Daggerfall still ranks with the best rpgs, not to mention it's also the biggest.

 

[motsm]

It repeats itself in the same way Oblivion repeats itself: towns and dungeons use common building blocks which make similar but not identical entities. The early 1990's limitations in memory and processing power simply make the low-res landscape, town, and dungeon graphic components more obvious in their reuse since the lack of detail doesn't provide as much visual distraction. *cut for size*

None of your points negate the fact that the game is needlessly big, and doesn't have enough content to support it's size. Sure, your giving reasons why those issues exist, but they exist just the same. This doesn't mean Oblivion is much better in that regard, as it has much less variety, and that is compensated for by a smaller world, so it just ends up being about the same degree of pasted locations. Morrowind is the only game where I think Bethesda found the proper size to content ratio.

 

[shortylickens]

None of your points negate the fact that the game is needlessly big, and doesn't have enough content to support it's size. Sure, your giving reasons why those issues exist, but they exist just the same. This doesn't mean Oblivion is much better in that regard, as it has much less variety, and that is compensated for by a smaller world, so it just ends up being about the same degree of pasted locations. Morrowind is the only game where I think Bethesda found the proper size to content ratio.

Oblivion is quite dense in locales compared to Morrowind and extremely dense compared to Daggerfall.
BUT, many of the Oblivion places do feel similar. The ayleid ruins all feel the same, even the handful that you need to visit for a quest. The old fortresses. Most of the caves. The Oblivion gates are sure as hell similar enough that your really only needed to clear out one during the entire game, not a dozen.
The good thing is if you like a particular location theres a hundred more to burn yourself out with.

Also, Shivering Isles was a hell of a lot cooler than Frost Moon and Mournhold Combined.

 

[Texashiker]

Most people who know agree Daggerfall was the largest offlline RPG map ever made

When Daggerfall was released, PC gamer magazine said the gameworld was about the same size as England. I bought the issue where they talked about daggerfall, and included a demo on the CD. I wanted to play the demo, but did not want to spend 8 - 12 hours downloading, so I bought the issue of PC gamer.

Daggerfall was an amazing game that was ahead of its time. At the time I was to involved with Quakeworld, C&C and Diablo to get into Daggerfall.

When the remake is released, I will download and play it.

 

[Rpger]

None of your points negate the fact that the game is needlessly big, and doesn't have enough content to support it's size. Sure, your giving reasons why those issues exist, but they exist just the same. This doesn't mean Oblivion is much better in that regard, as it has much less variety, and that is compensated for by a smaller world, so it just ends up being about the same degree of pasted locations. Morrowind is the only game where I think Bethesda found the proper size to content ratio.

Which is exactly why a hi-res remake would work better and make the original Daggerfall map live up better to its potential. What makes a larger map interesting is the fact you can create a varied terrain that's noticably absent in early lo-res vga games. Exploration of maps is a goal in itself in rpg's, and for that, the larger and more detail a map has, the better. So in that respect, Daggerfall is still a great game as it makes up for lack of close-up detail with a more expansive map with more dungeons and towns.

Combine both close-up detail with an expansive map and the rpg is that much better. Add in a well-written story to exploit that detail and the game becomes legendary.

 

[skace]

None of your points negate the fact that the game is needlessly big, and doesn't have enough content to support it's size. Sure, your giving reasons why those issues exist, but they exist just the same. This doesn't mean Oblivion is much better in that regard, as it has much less variety, and that is compensated for by a smaller world, so it just ends up being about the same degree of pasted locations. Morrowind is the only game where I think Bethesda found the proper size to content ratio.

Morrowind had just as many, if not more C&P (copy and paste) dungeons than Oblivion. Unless you count the portals, which heavily weigh on Oblivions C&P factor.

An Arena open source project is good for 1 reason, if Bethesda doesn't shut it down, it may give them a fresh look at how others see their games. This is assuming the porters take any liberties other than a direct graphical port. However, even if only a graphical port, it may give some insight towards graphics.

It should be interesting.

 

[motsm]

Morrowind had just as many, if not more C&P (copy and paste) dungeons than Oblivion. Unless you count the portals, which heavily weigh on Oblivions C&P factor.

I don't agree. Morrowind had a bigger variaty of dungeon types, and had more unique hand made dungeons that held completely unique, non quest related items. Oblivion essentially never did that, so exploring the world felt pointless, because all you ever found was the same pasted dungeon that held some gold pieces and a generic weapon you could have just bought back in town. On top of that, Morrowind has more than just medieval architecture in it's towns, so they feel entirely unique, it also has more varied landscapes to go a long with that architecture, so as you travel greater distances from your starting location, the world actually looks a lot different; the only varied landscape in Oblivion was the addition of snow if you went north.