The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a role-playing game released in 1996 for MS-DOS. It was a follow-up to cult classic
The Elder Scrolls: Arena, and
Daggerfall's popularity led to its famed sequel
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Bethesda becoming one of the biggest names in the industry.
Daggerfall is special for a number of reasons. The game world is
huge, slightly smaller than Great Britian--Wikipedia estimates it to be 160,000 square kilometers. In comparison,
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has 37.1 square kilometers, much of which is inaccessible anyway due to invisible barriers. This makes it one of the biggest game worlds in gaming. Of course, a lot of this is generally empty, uninteresting space--but it's full of procedurally-generated towns, dungeons, villages, temples, graveyards, and witch covens to explore. NPCs are randomly generated, too--there's thousands of random no-names milling about the streets of the cities, making them really feel "alive". Add to this a great (but incredibly fiddly to finish) plot and one of the most robust character creation systems ever made and you have a (really, really buggy) masterpiece.
So I'm doing a Let's Play of it because it immediately became one of my favorite games ever after I played it and DOSBox takes screenshots.
World Map - The game takes place in Hammerfell and High Rock.
Character CreationRace - The races available are:
- Bretons: European people knockoffs from High Rock. Supposedly really good with magic. I dislike them for their genericness and because all the character portrait options look ugly.
- Redguard: Dark-skinned warriors hailing from Hammerfell. Supposedly excellent fighters. I'm rather partial to them.
- Nords: Beefy blonde Vikings from Skyrim. Supposedly also excellent fighters. I'm partial to them, mostly because one of the portraits bears an uncanny resemblance to Arthur from FE14, but also because they get free Frost resistance.
- Dark Elves: Dark-skinned elves that come from Morrowind. Supposedly good rogues and thieves. I dislike them for still being Drow ripoffs in this one.
- Wood Elves: Exactly what it says on the tin, from Valenwood. Apparently good with bows. I dislike them for no particular reason.
- High Elves: The most broken race in the game, from Sumurset Isle. Have
FREE PARALYSIS RESISTANCE. Paralysis is the devil in this game and I feel the only fair way to deal with it is to take a custom class and give yourself costly paralysis immunity with it. I don't care what you say, they're broken to high heaven and I'm not using one.
- Khajiit: Cat people from Elsweyr. Supposedly good rogues. They're pretty lame in this one because they're not actually cat people yet, just people with cat tails who paint their faces.
- Argonians: Lizard people from the Black Marsh. The game says they're good rogues and mages. I'm rather partial to them for looking really goddamn badass.
You might note I said "purportedly" or "supposedly" or some variation thereof when talking about class specialties--that's because they haven't really been implemented to their full extent in this game.
Experimenters state that they've found your race impacts your statistics almost imperceptibly little (and besides, most stats are quite important for basically everybody, with Strength and Intelligence being the major exceptions.) So suggest whatever you want (except for High Elves.)
- I'm going to make a custom class, because the premade ones are all pretty lame. So instead of suggesting a class, suggest a character archetype instead. Personally I'm partial to roguish sorts, but I'm cool with whatever. The general sorts of archetypes you can make in Daggerfall are "Warrior", "Wizard Warrior", "Rogue", "Wizard Rogue", and "Wizard".
Note that no matter what, I'm taking the Mysticism school of magic as a minor or major skill, because Open and Recall are the two best spells in the game for sheer utility; a 1% chance Open spell lets you rob stores blind, and Recall can cut your travel time in half because you can complete your task in a quest and immediately warp back to the quest-giver to report your success.
Name - Say I'm ruining your fun all you like, but I'd prefer a serious name, or at the very least a thinly veiled reference. "Dongs" and the like are right out.
First update will come after I've decided on a character; it will cover my preferred way out of the starter dungeon and possibly early misadventures in the nearby town Gothway Garden.
And no, I have not abandoned my other Let's Play--I have like 2 other FE games to finish at the moment and I'm working on those. :v
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Topic: Let's Play The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (Read 2414 times)