UESP Forums

Is this thread ok? I'm going to start Daggerfall after I wrap up Morrowind, and I'd like a general place to talk about it, without constantly making new threads.

So great, it's worthy of being a sticky thread! And so, sticky'd.

Daggerfall is great, once you get out of the starter dungeon...which took me embarrassingly long...

Is it harder than the infamous opening Arena dungeon?

I never tried my hand at Arena, but Daggerfall definitely kicked my butt until I finally got out.

No, you can get out of the Daggerfall dungeon in a little under ten minutes.

In general, Daggerfall is harder than Arena, except for the starter dungeon.

This is true. Every dungeon after is a 3D maze, and it's just god-awful.

That's actually why I have never completed it - the plot was fantastic, the quests difficult and I enjoyed most of them, but then I'd get lost in some horrible maze with unreadable map that would give Escher a headache (and I won't even mention the glitchy walls, doors, monsters and unpickable quest items).

Falling out of the world or contracting diseases that give me no time to find a cure are my favorites.

I heard Daggerfall is the buggiest ES game.

Is that true?

Kind of.

The version I originally downloaded came in with a save game fixer, kinda made me think the game was really broken.

Unlike in later games, most of the bugs aren't game-breaking, if you're careful. Just keep multiple saves around and you'll be fine; both in terms of bugs and the game being an [&@%!] as intended.

I've also heard a lot of flak for the dungeons being incredibly poorly designed.

Massive understatement. The dungeons are not only poorly designed, they are poorly pieced together as there are literally times when you will fall outside of the playable area. And the bigger dungeons are damn near impossible to get out of if you get lost as well.

Does the UESP have maps for the dungeons?

They're randomly generated, so no.

Like the landscape, right?

The landscape is permanent, it was just created using algorithms, rather than being hand-crafted. Portions of Oblivion's game map were constructed the same way.

Oh. I heard it was randomly generated, making it harder to move around.

It was, in a way. They ran an algorithm that placed tiles together. The only difference is that they only ran it once and saved it, making the game world, whereas dungeons are randomly assembled every time a new game is played.

That's pretty cool; it's certainly give the game a lot of replayablity.

Not really. You will never, ever travel across the landscape because there is literally nothing to see.

Which version of Daggerfall do you think I should play? The original disc version that comes with the collection or the downloadable version?

I recommend DaggerfallSetup. It's the version I use and it's the only one that has worked on a playable level for me. But if you want the fully original vanilla experience, go with the disc.