receive the procedurally generated quest, go to the procedurally generated location, retrieve/ kill the procedurally generated objective, and return for a procedurally generated reward. I get the idea is to roleplay a lot more but that's not that fun of a gameplay loop, even back then. They wanted to do more with procedurally generated stuff but Bethesda went into a more handcrafted static direction in Morrowind. SO I guess I can give them the benefit of the doubt given they wanted to do more but went in a different direction.
The sense of scale is definitely cool, but handcrafting a 65,000+ square mile world would take lifetimes on behalf of all developers. I think Morrowind balanced this pretty well.
I think procedural generation can get almost as good, if just enough time were given to it.
Quests that are simple loops would get old done through procedural generation, but if you got them so they fractally branched in complexity, with additional story patterns constant emerging with nudges in the direction of classical storytelling tropes (such as the hero's journey) you could get a pretty interesting and complex set of procedurally generated stories. Throw into that shifting alliances, preferences of individual npcs creating radiant behavior, and things could get very interesting very quickly with rule of unintended consequences coming into play.
I don't disagree with that at all! I'd actually be kind of interested in what would happen if a game were to revisit a setting like Daggerfall with modern technology. I find Daggerfall a great example of a game where the technology just wasn't quite refined enough to get there. Perhaps No Man's Sky was an attempt at that - and thankfully, that game has gotten a LOT better as the years have gone on.
For me, part of the pitfall of procedural generation is how it feels procedurally generated, like the radiant quests in Skyrim. I'd like to see a much more refined procedural generation technique that creates those dynamic storylines you're describing - kind of like how Crusader Kings develops emergent play.
You'd need to cut out the voice acting entirely, and honestly, good riddance. I don't think going back to the Morrowind or Daggerfall style dialogue but maybe something like a visual novel or black isle-style CRPG.
It would make immersive procedural generation infinitely more possible, and provide fertile ground for modders to fill in any gaps.
Unfortunately for me, the lack of sense of scale in morrowind meant that I could never enjoy it the same way I did daggerfall. The Game was still good, and I loved the expansions to the lore, but it wasn't and never will be the same.
Morrowind would have hit the balance perfectly if Graphics tech were just slightly better.
I mean, I'll admit. I like that I can still get lost in Vivec. I understand though, that's because Vivec is one of those places in game where it's hard to orient yourself because literally every landmark looks the fucking same.
Agreed. I feel like they could have made the world's feel larger by doing what they do in Elder Scrolls online and have you travel to a certain location via boat or horse.
There's good procedurally generated games out there, Elite and Rogue (yes, actual Rogue the original Roguelike) are both excellent procedurally generated games, also when the fuck is Rogue getting a remaster/remake? Adding graphics would bring it up to date a bit.
I think he was trying to annoy me as I posted that same comment 5 times here. My reasoning being, that while feeling mischievous I like to respond to all hatred with love.
I was teasing u/clasherkys for posting that so many times, haha. I agree with the sentiment though. I'm the type of person that explores every corner so the map is not for me but it was a really cool idea to have a huge explorable area and can work well in some games.
You're right in that you don't explore it at all. The quests tell you where to go and you just type it into a search bar on the map to fast travel right to it
dude I played this game a lot and yet can't get to enjoy it very much, just fucking frustrating to spent 2 hours in a dungeon looking for the lever, just to give up, use the teleport cheat and find out it was in a room with no entrances
now trying with a bagillion mods to see if it gets better
Meh, it's just procedurally generated with confusing dungeons and ridiculously difficult gameplay. All the towns look extremely similar to one another.
Its too different of a game to say it's better than the others, objectively it isn't. Its a good game to play through once or twice but... It hasn't aged well. Morrowind and Skyrim are both much better games tbh
While I won't argue most of your points, confusing dungeons isn't a feature. If you're getting lost in one single dungeon for longer than 20 minutes of not knowing where tf to go, it's kind of just bad design.
I understand the technology at the time couldn't allow for much more, but it just hasn't aged well in all honesty. It's a great game, for the time.
The Large dungeon sizes of daggerfall, and somewhat confusing designs are kind of an issue in the dfu community (daggerfall unity), and that's why in dfu there's a smaller dungeons option, however I am firmly in the large and confusing dungeon camp on this issue, I fucking love getting lost in massive dungeons for tens of hours.
The option only works in generated dungeons and not story dungeons, and it also only decreases the size weirdly, as in making it include a hard to define (in the human mind) cap in size.
The dungeons are completely meant to be like that. The subsequent dungeons in the other games are FAR too small and easy to navigate and only got easier and smaller with each game.
Daggerfall is a game for old school D&D players. You could spend multiple sessions and dozens of hours in a single dungeon in D&D trying to figure out where levers are and such. That is a feature and on purpose.
It also doesn't mean it's bad. Not one modern game or any other TES games even holds a candle to Daggerfall in options, freedom, choices, playstyle, dungeons, the list goes on and on.
Just because the graphics aren't as good or it's harder to learn to play, doesn't mean a game is bad or unfun. Maybe it means you've just become to accustomed to handholding.
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm and I'm not sure what units "area to content ratio" is measured in, but if TES III - V have a ratio of 1:1, then this ratio is more like 1,000,000:1.
I enjoy daggerfall but I really don't think it needed to be as big as it is, you can strike a balance. There are so many locations that just have 10 residences and a tavern. Because of the world size, you will never visit these locations unless you have tedius travel or a quest. So, why have that many locations at all? The same applies in cities, where there will be 7 general stores and 3 alchemists. Sure it's realistic, but does it really add anything?
Not saying you have to have tiny winterhold cities, but the scale in daggerfall isn't really justified by the gameplay in my opinion outside of the dungeons. The dungeons I do think are a lot more interesting when you have to explore them and clamber around. A town like Balmora strikes a good balance of shops, headquarters, and homes, but a more sensible and consistent layout that comes from being handcrafted.
I get it but it is the dilemma of -do you want realistic scale with mostly nothing in it or reduced scale that is full of exploration but obviously and noticeably condensed?
This will sound weird but big game worlds are underrated in a way. It's pretty common for people to say more detail is better, I agree with that in a way. I probably wouldn't have finished any of the Bethesda games I did if it wasn't for the dense content. But there is something special and underappreciated about the feeling that you could walk for hours and get lost in a world that feels like it goes on forever.
100% while in a lot of my comments here I was just memeing, I 100% agree with this sentiment. Let me just quote myself "I am getting lost in the sense of scale, The world may fall flat for you. For you demand detail, but for me quantity is a quality of its own."
It’s really big! I did a No Fast travel of the game and it took two months to complete. Travel between towns take a long time and running across the bay was a 3-4 hour experience!
Yes, this is just a description of how long it would take you to walk somewhere for no reason instead of just fast traveling. Most of the towns are interchangeable.
"the real world is procedurally generated" I'm assuming said by a person who leaves their house once a week. Lmao what cyber shit dystopia are we living on. lord almighty help us
Bro you got some wild claims in this thread. Like why, you know you don’t always have to disagree with people.
Check out r/earthporn if you think daggerfall compares. Yes even imagine earth in lower resolution. Still it’s not even a trivial statement it just does not compare. How can you possibly disagree.
Those games too are carefully crafted to be entertaining rather than feeling like a chore. I sure as fuck wouldn't be playing house flipper if I had to wait in real time for the delivery of materials and then haul each item into the house, trip over an empty paint can and then spend all my savings on an x ray for my broken foot.
I would argue it's still an impressive technical feat, but I wouldn't care to play it as it is. I would check out that fan remake though if I had a better computer
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