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[G-Flex]

One issue here is that, at this point of graphical development, we're reaching severely diminishing returns in a lot of areas. There's not much difference to be had in how well you can represent a bunch of trees in a still shot in typical resolutions.

What would matter here are things like how things are animated, how the water acts, and so forth. I want to know what that waterfall and those plants look like in motion.

[Sordid]

@Sordid Are you always this negative about everything? Or just Bethesda?

I'm negative about a lot of things, but never without reason. Said reason in this case being that Daggerfall did have lit windows during the night. Graphics are just about the only area in game design in which there is a steady, ongoing improvement, and in this specific case Bethsoft had gone backwards for no other reason than because they were lazy.

I still think sordid is blind as a dead lamprey if he thinks that there isn't much of a graphical difference between this and oblivion.

I don't think that, and I don't see why you'd think that I do. I never said that. I think you're confusing me with someone else.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

@Sordid Are you always this negative about everything? Or just Bethesda?

I'm negative about a lot of things, but never without reason. Said reason in this case being that Daggerfall did have lit windows during the night. Graphics are just about the only area in game design in which there is a steady, ongoing improvement, and in this specific case Bethsoft had gone backwards for no other reason than because they were lazy.

You're confusing aesthetic style with graphical improvement. Oblivion, for instance, was a massive improvement over Morrowind in terms of graphics, but a downgrade in aesthetic style, particular with the cities.

Daggerfall had simple 3d meshes for the environment, with everything in that environment being represented by a low-res 2d sprite. The upgrade from that to Morrowind was staggering. The upgrade from Morrowind to Oblivion was also staggering, but less so; both were 3d, but Oblivion was prettier 3d. At this point, there's really not much more improvement to be made beyond aesthetic polish, as increases in graphical quality become ever slighter and more expensive.

[Javarock]

@Sordid Are you always this negative about everything? Or just Bethesda?

I'm negative about a lot of things, but never without reason. Said reason in this case being that Daggerfall did have lit windows during the night. Graphics are just about the only area in game design in which there is a steady, ongoing improvement, and in this specific case Bethsoft had gone backwards for no other reason than because they were lazy.

You're confusing aesthetic style with graphical improvement. Oblivion, for instance, was a massive improvement over Morrowind in terms of graphics, but a downgrade in aesthetic style, particular with the cities.

Daggerfall had simple 3d meshes for the environment, with everything in that environment being represented by a low-res 2d sprite. The upgrade from that to Morrowind was staggering. The upgrade from Morrowind to Oblivion was also staggering, but less so; both were 3d, but Oblivion was prettier 3d. At this point, there's really not much more improvement to be made beyond aesthetic polish, as increases in graphical quality become ever slighter and more expensive.

I agree, But I would hope they would spend less time and money makeing things excessively realistic, And instead use the saved money and time on makeing the features even better

Seriously?, Who needs moveing branchs... I would prefer a overhull on animations for more practical things like hair. Perhaps they did, Who knows... Also and they going to have pauldrons once again?

[Sordid]

@Sordid Are you always this negative about everything? Or just Bethesda?

I'm negative about a lot of things, but never without reason. Said reason in this case being that Daggerfall did have lit windows during the night. Graphics are just about the only area in game design in which there is a steady, ongoing improvement, and in this specific case Bethsoft had gone backwards for no other reason than because they were lazy.

You're confusing aesthetic style with graphical improvement. Oblivion, for instance, was a massive improvement over Morrowind in terms of graphics, but a downgrade in aesthetic style, particular with the cities.

Daggerfall had simple 3d meshes for the environment, with everything in that environment being represented by a low-res 2d sprite. The upgrade from that to Morrowind was staggering. The upgrade from Morrowind to Oblivion was also staggering, but less so; both were 3d, but Oblivion was prettier 3d. At this point, there's really not much more improvement to be made beyond aesthetic polish, as increases in graphical quality become ever slighter and more expensive.

I don't think I'm confusing that, and I don't see how the failure to have windows that light up at night is a question of aesthetic style. In my view, aesthetic style would include things like the architectural style of the buildings, the layout of the cities, their colors and textures, and so on. The transparency of glass and the visibility of light inside a building from the outside is not a question of style, it is a simple fact, and its omission can therefore be objectively called an error on the developer's part.

I would hope they would spend less time and money makeing things excessively realistic, And instead use the saved money and time on makeing the features even better

Seriously?, Who needs moveing branchs... I would prefer a overhull on animations for more practical things like hair. Perhaps they did, Who knows... Also and they going to have pauldrons once again?

Same here. Who's really going to be paying that much attention to trees anyway? Now the player character, that's going to be right smack in the middle of the screen almost 100% of the time.
I would also love to see the return of pauldrons, and individual armor pieces in general. Also the ability to wear clothing under armor, as it was in Morrowind.

[G-Flex]

The unrestricted armor/clothing in Morrowind did have a downside in that you were encouraged to wear every single piece of armor and clothing you could find. In essence, no matter who you were, you ran around wearing an exquisite robe, pants and a skirt, etc. I guess that could be solved via some lightweight layer-checking, though (no pauldrons with a robe, or something like that, and no skirt and pants at the same time maybe, or no skirt with leg armor).

[Jehdin]

The unrestricted armor/clothing in Morrowind did have a downside in that you were encouraged to wear every single piece of armor and clothing you could find. In essence, no matter who you were, you ran around wearing an exquisite robe, pants and a skirt, etc. I guess that could be solved via some lightweight layer-checking, though (no pauldrons with a robe, or something like that, and no skirt and pants at the same time maybe, or no skirt with leg armor).

What would prevent you from doing any of those things? I typically just stick with armor, but if someone wants to run around in Gandalf robes with gigantic WoW pauldrons and a tutu, they should be able to.

Limiting that is just stupid, if you don't want to wear all that crap, then don't. It's easy to become pretty god-like in Morrowind, whether or not you wear a skirt won't change that.

[GamerKnight]

I once played a wizard who had a spell that killed EVERYTHING (even Vivec) in a fifty foot radius and never failed. I then made him wear nothing but a skirt. Lolz.

[Soulwynd]

Daggerfall had simple 3d meshes for the environment, with everything in that environment being represented by a low-res 2d sprite. The upgrade from that to Morrowind was staggering. The upgrade from Morrowind to Oblivion was also staggering, but less so; both were 3d, but Oblivion was prettier 3d. At this point, there's really not much more improvement to be made beyond aesthetic polish, as increases in graphical quality become ever slighter and more expensive.

And yet, the gameplay of daggerfall is still far better than the latest two games.

/still plays daggerfall
//has never touched morrowind or oblivion again.
///compromises a bit since morrowind was all kinds of better if compared to oblivion.

I think the problem is that they are moving really backwards with gameplay. It's kind of ironic when shaking your mouse ten times to kill a creature feels more interesting than what we have in morrowind/oblivion. And I say that while I think the melee combat is one of the worst aspects of Daggerfall. If it was me designing it, I would have added all sorts of parries and melee attacks, similar to what you may see in mount & blade.

[GamerKnight]

I never played daggerfall, and Morrowind, Oblivion and The Legend of Zelda series are really the only RPGs I've ever played (Unless you consider FarCry 2 as a RPG. I do.) so I don't know what you're talking about. I was talking to Dink, and he remarked about Morrowind's creatures being more fun than Oblivions. He was so right. Sure the Spider Daedra in Oblivion is sweet terrifying, but you can't go past a Khaugouti. That reminds me, has anyone seen a Cliff Racer demotivational poster?

[Sordid]

That reminds me, has anyone seen a Cliff Racer demotivational poster?

This one?

[GaelicVigil]

The unrestricted armor/clothing in Morrowind did have a downside in that you were encouraged to wear every single piece of armor and clothing you could find. In essence, no matter who you were, you ran around wearing an exquisite robe, pants and a skirt, etc. I guess that could be solved via some lightweight layer-checking, though (no pauldrons with a robe, or something like that, and no skirt and pants at the same time maybe, or no skirt with leg armor).

What stopped you from wearing every piece of armor was role-play.  That's the difference between Morrowind (and Daggerfall) compared to Oblivion.  In Morrowind, you could meta-game the crap out of that game and beat the whole thing in 10 minutes if you really wanted to.

You see, people who have a passion for RPGs love having those options so they don't have to use them.  It sounds ironic and weird, but people loved Morrowind because you could be anything you wanted and didn't have the game tell you "no you can't do that - it's cheating".  They gave you an empty slate to work with which allowed you to express yourself in your character in whatever form you wanted.

Just look at Minecraft, which has had tremendous success because Notch has embraced this concept.  Sure you could meta-game and  beat the crap out of everything in site, but not many people do.  People like to invent their own challenges, rather than having a computer give them restrictions.

The more game devs figure this out, the more people will be happy with their games.  Unfortunately, most devs don't get it, like Bioware and (as it's looking more and more) Bethsoft.

[GamerKnight]

Thanks Sordid.

[G-Flex]

The unrestricted armor/clothing in Morrowind did have a downside in that you were encouraged to wear every single piece of armor and clothing you could find. In essence, no matter who you were, you ran around wearing an exquisite robe, pants and a skirt, etc. I guess that could be solved via some lightweight layer-checking, though (no pauldrons with a robe, or something like that, and no skirt and pants at the same time maybe, or no skirt with leg armor).

What stopped you from wearing every piece of armor was role-play.  That's the difference between Morrowind (and Daggerfall) compared to Oblivion.  In Morrowind, you could meta-game the crap out of that game and beat the whole thing in 10 minutes if you really wanted to.

You see, people who have a passion for RPGs love having those options so they don't have to use them.  It sounds ironic and weird, but people loved Morrowind because you could be anything you wanted and didn't have the game tell you "no you can't do that - it's cheating".  They gave you an empty slate to work with which allowed you to express yourself in your character in whatever form you wanted.[/quote]

You don't have to give me a lesson on role-play or intentionally limiting yourself. I know how that stuff works, and I know why roleplaying is fun.

However, I find roleplaying less fun when I have to make intentionally stupid choices. In the case of Morrowind's clothing, if I asked myself "why wouldn't my character wear a skirt, pants, and a robe?" I wouldn't have a good answer. The only answer would be a metagame answer, which is the antithesis of good roleplaying. Roleplaying is saying "my character's personality is such that he would reasonably do This", as opposed to predicating your character's decisions based on avoiding exploity gameplay.

Morrowind is not a freeform do-anything-you-want-no-matter-what sort of game. It's a game, where you exist in a consistent world and try to roleplay what a character would do in that world. It's not a Lego set, nor is it Minecraft. Roleplaying is seriously diminished for me when I have to take myself out of my character's head just so I can make metagame decisions to prevent him from doing something he would reasonably do, like actually trying to be good at alchemy, or using the best weapon he's found, or wearing the clothing that suits him the best. Good roleplaying in a game like Morrowind is when you can just act naturally, doing what you feel is right for your character without accidentally stumbling upon exploitative bullshit that totally breaks the game because certain gamesystems are poorly-implemented.


tl;dr you cannot excuse poor balance and design decisions with the word "roleplay"

[Soulwynd]

It was a lot better balanced in Daggerfall than it was in Morrowind. There wasn't any physics defying light armor (besides elven, somewhat). You had leather, chain, and -then- the special metal ones. There wasn't an armor skill either, so what limited you? The armor's weight. Sure, you could be a mage and wear some freaking heavy armor, but more often than not you wouldn't have any weight left to carry anything. In fact, even for a strength based character, you basically needed strength buffing items to wear the super heavy armor and still have some carrying room.