The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall -- get it for free!

[Gez]

Bethesda Softworks just released the second opus of their TES series as a free download on their site.
BethBlog announcement (http://bethblog.com/index.php/2009/07/09/daggerfall-now-available-for-free/)
Official forum thread (http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1012682)
Download link (http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/downloads_games.htm)


It's a very good game of that golden era of CRPGs, the 90s. I spent a lot of time on it when it was new and I heartily recommend it to anyone wishing to try a vintage game.

Also, if you like it, keep an eye on this very promising little thing (http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/).

[Morty]

This is good, although I really don't think Daggerfall is very good except for "how did the games look back in 1996" feel. Due to its age it's rather... crude to be honest, and not very user-friendly, even by my rather low standards for user-friendliness(i.e. I don't have to be led by hand by a game). It's still worth trying out, though. Just bear in mind that depending on your choices at character creation, the game might be hard.

[Terraoblivion]

Hard is a bit of an understatement of what it might be. Try playing a character with all language skills among their major and intermediate skills.

In any case Daggerfall was a rather great game, but i don't think it aged well. The interface isn't really that bad, i think, but the gameworld is extremely generic and the novelty of the size has pretty much worn out by now, i'd think.

[Morty]

Hard is a bit of an understatement of what it might be. Try playing a character with all language skills among their major and intermediate skills.

Even playing a straight-up mage with only leather armor and short blades can be an excercise in frustration. And the dungeons... I didn't belive it when people were saying you can get lost there until I actually played Daggerfall.

[jamroar]

This is good, although I really don't think Daggerfall is very good except for "how did the games look back in 1996" feel. Due to its age it's rather... crude to be honest, and not very user-friendly, even by my rather low standards for user-friendliness(i.e. I don't have to be led by hand by a game). It's still worth trying out, though. Just bear in mind that depending on your choices at character creation, the game might be hard.

The entire control scheme is remappable. I always remap the controls to a WASD control scheme first.

Also, you will need to run the thing in DosBox on 2000/XP (or an actual Dos/Win98 box) even though it appears to run fine, IIRC, or run into that game-breaking "indoor enemies spawn invisible" bug.

[Terraoblivion]

That is true as well, Mort. I was refering to making the game unplayable and not hard though. :smalltongue:

As for getting lost it is a fairly minor problem compared to the risk of clipping through the floor or falling into a room you cannot climb out from if you haven't learned levitation or have a mark you can return to.

[Morty]

The entire control scheme is remappable. I always remap the controls to a WASD control scheme first.

Also, you will need to run the thing in DosBox on 2000/XP (or an actual Dos/Win98 box) even though it appears to run fine, IIRC, or run into that game-breaking "indoor enemies spawn invisible" bug.

That's what I did, but it doesn't fix all the issues with the game.


As for getting lost it is a fairly minor problem compared to the risk of clipping through the floor or falling into a room you cannot climb out from if you haven't learned levitation or have a mark you can return to.

And let's not forget about discovering that a guy you were supposed to kill was in a room near the entrance you've passed by because it was locked and you couldn't be bothered to open it(Open spell eats huge amounts of SP and rarely works). Makes you wonder why you couldn't just wait for him to starve there...

[Gez]

Even playing a straight-up mage with only leather armor and short blades can be an excercise in frustration. And the dungeons... I didn't belive it when people were saying you can get lost there until I actually played Daggerfall.

Playing a mage is easy. Take the trait that lets you absorb magicka from spells, and use only explosions-at-range spells, taking care to be within the area of effect of your own spells. Instant mana refill. :smalltongue:

To pay for that, stack the "can't wear plate armor" disadvantage with "forbidden material" for most types of metal... Yeah, it'll also affect your ability to use weapons, but you don't need weapons when you have destruction spells that effectively cost 0 to cast because they're immediately refunded...

[Rutskarn]

I second the motion that this game has aged badly. Its size is...impressive, sure, but everything within that expanse is pretty much generobland. I could replicate the experience with some dice and a random dungeon generator.

[TSED]

The point's moot - the download from the site seems to be broken.

Tried downloading it twice, both times the archive fail0rs out and doesn't extract anything.


Kind of funny, really.

[Gez]

I think the traffic's been a bit much for Bethesda's servers...

[Ozymandias]

The download kept cutting out for me at 2-4 MBs last night, until it suddenly worked today. Just keep trying, I guess.

[Johnny Blade]

I'm downloading it right now.


At 10 KB/s. :smallbiggrin:

[Morty]

Playing a mage is easy. Take the trait that lets you absorb magicka from spells, and use only explosions-at-range spells, taking care to be within the area of effect of your own spells. Instant mana refill. :smalltongue:


Yeah... another exploit that's pretty much cheating but makes playing a mage a bit more bearable is to take a weak magic item, use it and then cancel the casting. It'll give you SP equal to the cost of the last spell you cast.

[Nano]

I'm downloading it right now.


At 10 KB/s. :smallbiggrin:

If you download it at Fileplanet, it should go quite a bit faster. Did for me, anyways.

[Johnny Blade]

If you download it at Fileplanet, it should go quite a bit faster. Did for me, anyways.
Ah, thanks for the hint.

It's already almost fully downloaded, though.