Elder Scrools II: daggerfall is free

[Ivo]

Holy Jesus, I knew this game was big, but I had no idea. This is epic. There is no way I could explore this whole game. I don't even know how far I'll ge in the main quest, it's a bit overwhelming.

The game is epic alright, but the main quest should not be that overwhelming (except the last dungeon, as I said). Hang in there. If you don't dwell on other stuff (e.g. just wandering around, or Guild quests, which will quickly become a bit repetitive by the way) you will make it.

BTW, investment tip - get a wagon and horse as soon as you can (I don't remember if you can travel with the wagon without having a horse - if you can, buy the wagon first).
You can make a lot of honest money from literally dragging everything you get in dungeons to the entrance to deposit in the wagon (I'm talking stripping your dead foes - they attacked you anyway - and selling their stuff, weapons, armor and clothes). With a wagon you can lug around much, much more than you can by yourself. The game is fairly realistic and you won't be able to carry much more than say, two sets of metal armor without becoming seriously encumbered by yourself.

Ivo.

[J T]

Games this big kind of scare me off. Once I invest a bit of time into a game, I like to think that I might one day complete it. These gargantuan RPGs that require you to clock over 100 hundred hours of play at the least are just too big for me. It's like at some point it stops being a game and becomes a major lifestyle choice.

[marurun]

So Arena is set across the entire continent of Tamriel, Daggerfall is in the bay between High Rock and Hammerfell, Morrowind is on the island of Vvardenfell in Morrowind, and Oblivion is in Cyrodiil. Daggerfall, though, is rediculously huge. The land area is approximately 40,000,000 acres, with Morrowind and Oblivion being about 0.01% of that. It was all procedurally generated, which let them essentially run a script to generate the rediculous amount of content. As a result there is less diversity. It's definately a case of "bigger is not better".

So, still working out how to spell ridiculous, eh?

I'm not sure procedural techniques would really get them the same quality results in this day and age. The push for more and more detailed graphics means a lot of hand-tweaking textures and effects. This has the drawback of making every little bit of content more expensive to make.

[marurun]

Tried to download just now. I got a 1.5 meg corrupted zip file. I e-mailed them telling them there was a problem (but also thanked them for generously allowing the game to be downloaded) and then waited about an hour. Then I right clicked the link and said save target as, and I think its working now, no wait. Same problem. I'll let you guys know when it works for me.

Their site is likely just overloaded. They have a mirror. I forget where it is. A google search will get you to it. That's how I found it. I think it might be through gamershell or something of the sort. That site should be more reliable.

[Ivo]

Games this big kind of scare me off. Once I invest a bit of time into a game, I like to think that I might one day complete it. These gargantuan RPGs that require you to clock over 100 hundred hours of play at the least are just too big for me. It's like at some point it stops being a game and becomes a major lifestyle choice.

I think that if you focus in the storyline (otherwise, you can't really "complete" Daggerfall) you can finish it well under 100 hours (once again, cautionary mention of the totally crazy final dungeon). There is not that much grind in the game, for example.

Ivo.

[J T]

Update to this thread:

I just found out there are some installers that make it easier to put these old games on a modern machine.

Elder Scrolls: Arena
http://theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net/?ti ... naSetup_EN

Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
http://theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net/?ti ... llSetup_EN

Now the DOSBox work is done for you and you can get on with enjoying your game! Have fun.

[CFFJR]

JT, I loves ya man. Thanks for the links.

I've been meaning to install these, but I've been dreading the inevitable screwing around I would have to do to get them running.

An installer is just what the lazy gamer ordered.

[Lord_Santa]

for those interested, this is the future of Daggerfall

http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/

alas, 'tis still in alpha, but given time I think it'll be well worth the trouble

on that note, Daggerfall is still an experience well worth having

I bought it just the other month, if nothing else to complete my Elder Scrolls collection (I'm only missing Arena atm)