The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall | Analyzing a Classic

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Since this video is gaining more popularity than I ever expected, I’d like to address some of the more common comments I’ve gotten: - First, please keep in mind that I had just over 300 subs when this was made - Yes, the introduction is a bit dragged out. The point was to both explain why the video was delayed to my small audience of regulars, while also trying to transition into one of Daggerfall’s strengths, which is emergent storytelling. - I am aware that the lack of music harms the experience, and I started adding music to my videos more recently. It’s something I’m still figuring out how to do with some amount of creativity. Just looping a soundtrack in the background is boring to me, so I opted out of adding music altogether until recently. - Since I only did one playthrough, do not expect a comprehensive breakdown of all the skills. - Knowing more about ES more than I did when I made this video, I now think Dragon Breaks are pretty lame. The concept was unique to me at the time, but there are better alternatives. That’s all, thank you guys for watching!

[@karfumble]

Are you planning on making a daggerfall unity video?

[@ever-openingflower8737]

I don't know if you heard about this by now, but there's a useful exploit concerning underwater. There's this bug that is such that whenever you're underwater and you save and load, your air meter will reset. You don't need to worry about running out of air. Just save when you're almost out of air, then drown, then load your last save game.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

@@karfumble Sorry for the late response, apparently KZbin decide to hold your comment for review (don’t ask me why, I legit couldn’t tell you). I don’t think I will be covering Daggerfall Unity since much of what I had to say about Daggerfall’s experience was covered here, but I do still need to play it at some point.

[@justjosh8869]

Play morowind please 🥺 i love it

[@1oneguythat]

Its the year of linuxxx!!!!

[@lyktemannen1888]

I think one of the main reasons that people in recent years struggle when first playing Daggerfall is less the game's fault. And more the fact that Daggerfall came out during a time when you were supposed to read the manuals games come with, the manuals were the tutorials.

[@JoeBuk724]

Very true. It felt somewhat jarring to me when they quit adding manuals with games lol. Comes with being part of the old guard i guess.

[@MidoriOfTheShuinsen]

That's still not the fault of newer players, as games nowadays have tutorials that hold the player's hand and lay out all of the (admittedly simple) mechanics and controls, so they wouldn't have that grounding of "okay, I need to study up on all of this information because the game itself won't tell me."

[@probablynotdad6553]

Daggerfalls manual is literally a full book, it's insane lol.

[@probablynotdad6553]

@@MidoriOfTheShuinsen that is the players fault though, we tolerate and encourage that by supporting companies that do so. We can always vote with our wallets.

[@MidoriOfTheShuinsen]

@@probablynotdad6553 ah, yes. the argument of "them damn kids should stop buying video games until companies make full manuals again".

[@Spellweaver5]

Let me share an anecdote about Daggerfall's dungeons. When I was much younger, I was playing through the game blind. I didn't know about teleportation being almost necessary, or anything like that. And I went into a random dungeon on some random unassuming quest. I was wandering for literal hours through this massive labyrinth, through one place after the other. Until I finally found my quest objective, some creature that I killed. And then, the best part happened. I realised that I have no idea how to get out. Even using the minimap I couldn't even find where the exit was, let alone how to get there. And so, I went on to explore. And there were hours and hours more, until I finally saw the place that I recognized and managed to get out. I've never felt such tension in any game since. It wasn't pleasant, but, my god, was it an experience.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

It’s honestly great how much of an ordeal the dungeons are

[@B-A-L]

I feel your pain because I've been there and done that too!

[@flexibleknot]

Do not forget, Daggerfall came out before the days of the internet. Nothing could be looked up. Things such as Daedra summoning first required that you read through many books to learn lore about Daedra, then find out that they can be summoned, then discover how, etc. The sheer depth and complexity of Daggerfall was what made it very appealing to me, back in the day.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I’ve had a few people mention that there were online game FAQ’s back in ‘96, but I wasn’t alive then so idek

[@thermscissorpunch1787]

Great video, by the way, sorry I forgot to say that in the first place.

[@karfumble]

The internet as we know it came out in '89. There would have been rudimentary forums. The UESP themselves came out in 1995. So yes, you could look things up on your extremely slow internet provider if you knew the websites name (google wasn't a thing). More likely though, most households didn't have internet at the time.

[@Tomattoism]

*unnerving dial-up noises *

[@muddlewait8844]

@@karfumble Speaking as someone who spent whole weeks of his life doing literally just this and eating and sleeping when it first came out, I can tell you that people playing Daggerfall were using that internet connection to download patches. Pretty much continuously.

[@lillyclarity9699]

I don't hate Daggerfall's dungeon design. I hate mazes. I am a woman, not a rat.

[@jokig]

Well I'm both :3 cheesed to meet you

[@saltyshrimppasta]

10/10 reply

[@Tomattoism]

Meanwhile I'm sliding my face on walls to reveal the hidden doors like a caveman that I am

[@ByrhtnothsDeluge]

Glad to see someone else likes Daggerfall's dungeons. They feel so satisfying to explore. Their atmosphere is still unmatched. I'll always remember the first time I did Privateer's Hold 12 years ago. The music along with the skeleton's wails and background dungeon sounds were the perfect mix to create an unnerving ambiance I'd never felt anywhere. Hearing a door creak open and not knowing what creature was coming for my wood elf was both terrifying and exciting. No game has been able to capture my imagination like Daggerfall did and still does to this day.

[@everythingpony]

Oh yes, because it's so satisfying to explore an ant hill of mazes and corridors with some of the dungeons just loading broken

[@admiralamel9563]

Get killed by skeleton simulator. 10/10 game. Todd, please hire back Michael Kirkbride.

[@admiralamel9563]

And if you want to move to Linux, try Manjaro first.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Don’t worry my dude, I’m still a Windows pleb.

[@jacekmisiak804]

About the Private's Hold (the"tutorial") - if you know the path (which is not very hard to remember), you can go through the dungeon without a single fight (you can just "run for it") even with 10 strength, 10 int, 10 endurance and 100 personality :D Long story short - you can just run near the enemies (just do not touch them) and as long as the projectiles won't kill you (there's only one ranged enemy that you will have to meet if you know the path), you won;t be harmed at all.

[@BlazingOwnager]

Those people are crazy. The dungeons are absolutely the best part of Daggerfall. They always felt like ordeals you had to survive, every single time. You'd come out and be happy to see the sun.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I completely agree, they’re my favorite part of the game.

[@kenzie4217]

Hard disagree. An extremely complex and confusing dungeon is fun ones in a while, if its done right. But the mixture of massive (poorly) generated dungeons combined with little to no help with directions makes these dungeons kinda unbearable to explore. And these dungeons arent even all that interesting most of the time. Still love daggerfall, but the dungeons are easily the worst part of the game

[@BlazingOwnager]

@@kenzie4217 They are extremely obtuse and the automap sucks, but that's part of the fun for me. The randomness of their creation honestly only benefits their mysteriously odd feel.

[@kenzie4217]

@@BlazingOwnager everyones entitled to their own opinion, i consider daggerfalls dungeons to be extremely lazy

[@BlazingOwnager]

@@kenzie4217 Lazy is not something I'd ever accuse the Daggerfall team of. You know like 95% of the game was coded by a single dude, right?

[@Mr._Anderpson]

I've stumbled across several Daggerfall videos in the past months, & this stands head & shoulders above the rest for not seeming as if most of the detail around the main quest & side quests were taken straight from the wiki. You're absolutely correct that the dungeons, while labyrinthian (pun intended) compared to later entries in the series, aren't nearly the obstacle people often describe. Yes, the default key binds are odd, but that's nothing which cannot be easily remedied. I played the original for years, but the Unity port has been my go-to since not long after its release. Some mods actually improve on the original by fleshing out minor quests, tossing in enemies to encounter in the wild, & providing a more varied landscape than the original flat world. Some old games have aged better, but I always find myself waiting until I think I've forgotten enough details to go back & give this one another spin. If Bethesda fails to restore more customization & consequence in TES VI, we can always hope the Wayward Realms fills that gap. All in all, fantastic job on the review. Fun fact, quest items are always in the last place you look for them. Once you find them, you stop searching. You may continue to explore the dungeon, but you're no longer looking for that item.

[@themeshow1011]

1¹ b. 0

[@OneTrueNobody]

The dai-katana you can select during character creation is a steel weapon, incidentally, so that's a viable Longblade-user option for dealing with those damn imps.

[@matrix3509]

Its not really correct to say that Daggerfall is only big because Arena was big. Daggerfall and Arena are two fundamentally different games in this regard. Arena was a big game because the overworld around every town and dungeon was literally infinite. Its literally impossible to travel from town to town on foot in Arena because the terrain is generated infinitely in basically the same way its generated in Minecraft. In fact its so similar you can cheat your way to the "end" of the gameworld in Arena and find the terrain generation algorithm breaking down and glitching out in the same manner it does at the "end" of the world in Minecraft. In Daggerfall, the game isn't infinite. Yes, they used a procedural terrain generation algorithm in Daggerfall as well, but they manually placed every town, shrine, and dungeon as specific points in the world so that you can travel to them on foot. Yes, the overworld is still boring, but its actually a real place and the towns and dungeons have real locations, whereas in Arena, every town and dungeon exists independently isolated, surrounded by an infinite void of nothing. This is why Daggerfall is so much more impressive (especially given the time period it was made) than something like Arena where its size is a complete illusion.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I feel like I put that line in because I heard it somewhere regarding the game’s development, but I’m struggling to remember where.

[@charlottesimmonds]

I've played so many hours of this game since I was a kid, I loved the dungeons and used the map a lot!

[@Ralzar]

Your first mistake was using the Bethesda website version of the game :D The UESP wiki has a version of the game pre-configured with DOSbox and, more importantly, properly patched. The Bethesda website version is probably the worst version of Daggerfall you can find online.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Yeah I actually tried downloading that one first but the download link was broken. I completely forgot that version existed by the end of my playthrough.

[@andrewbergheim5238]

Not sure if it was intentional but I loved that at 8:24 the book in the chest in Skyrim was Night Falls on Sentinel, a retelling of a quest from Daggerfall. Despite how different the series has become there are a few fun callbacks. The Warband comparison was also great: it's what immediately came to mind for me as well, and the comparison I made to my brother when I tried to tell him about the game.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

That was 100% an accident I didn’t even know that was there lol

[@muddlewait8844]

This is such a solid video. Love the methodical, detailed walkthrough of both your singular play experience and the story path. I see you haven’t posted anything in a while, but I hope that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped permanently. Even if it does, though, thanks for this one!

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Thanks dude! I’m nowhere near quitting, it does just take me longer to get videos out since I work full time, so production can be a bit slow. Especially with this next one that has exceeded the length of my Fallen Order video

[@Aarlaeoss]

I enjoy daggerfall's story. I can't respect the dragon breaks though. It comes off as an incredibly clunky result of Bethesda's paralysis with making decisions. Its a tad silly to imagine a player feels left out because out of several possible endings their personal journey wasn't canon. Having a story all your own is kinda the point.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

As I’ve learned slightly more about ES lore (although not a ton), I’ve come to see them less favorably as well. I don’t mind that nothing is treated as canon (Bethesda struggles to keep things consistent within their own games, I’d rather them not try branching narratives), I just don’t think dragon breaks are a concept they should do in every game, and unless the Dragonborn using the Elder Scroll caused some time-screwiness, I doubt we’ll see one for Skyrim. They’ll probably just brush off the civil war with something about “reports conflicting” over the victory or something.

[@TylerDrummer93]

How you don't have thousands and thousands of subscribers I'll never know, keep up the good work dude!

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Thanks dude, I appreciate it! It’s always good to see that people are enjoying the videos

[@TylerDrummer93]

@@saltyshrimppasta Definitely man, good things will come 🙏

[@morioh6623]

The intro takes too long to segway into something of substance. I would imagine most people click off while you were rambling about how you deleted and tried to recover files.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

To be fair, I did only have about 300 subs at the time and was still getting a feel for this type of video format, so this wasn’t something that I was really thinking about when I made it. You’re not wrong though.

[@helliontikes8665]

Got halfway through the video before I realized that I should be playing the game, and booted up my old character. Thanks for the awesome video and I will be listening to the rest while playing

[@everythingpony]

15:24 that is what we call a hidden floor trap. This is not a bug. This is intended feature that isn't a lot of dungeons. There are certain floor stairs and other sections that are considered curse that can afflict you with fire poison electric

[@TheStowAway594]

I check keybinds first thing, everytime I start a game. I think it's a good habit because it at least shows what the game will allow you to do, and you don't miss "block" or "sprint" because the game never told you, or you had information overload and forgot about it. I miss the days of the cardboard keyboard stencils that had controls on them, especially in games that are extremely complex.

[@cvetanstefanov760]

Amazing video. Not only was there a lot of time spent on the video itself but a lot of time spent learning the game and getting good at, making the watching experience even better. This is definitely a video I plan on coming back to every few months.

[@pendantblade6361]

Salty de Shrimp lol Just found this video, good stuff, mate.

[@bookbagfox]

I really like your independently thought through takes on the game and your overall presentation of this analysis. I particularly enjoyed your approach to the dungeons of going in and out multiple times (I should try that); I think a lot of people try to do everything in one go because that’s what we’re used to from modern games. Subscribed.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! It definitely helped me piece the dungeons together better until I learned to navigate without constantly returning to the entrance (although you wouldn't want to leave the dungeon or the enemies will respawn, there's a prompt to use your cart when activating the entrance), and it gives a sense that you're actually exploring a dungeon instead of just a roller coaster ride.

[@omegothic]

daggerfall's dungeons are terrifying. always make me feel like i'm lost forever

[@rvbxn04]

Yessss another 1hr+ review to run in the background

[@maxbgc3950]

Nice video, really informative.

[@Boblymon]

Wow finally someone who shares some of the same experiences as me with this game. I pretty much agree with everything you said about the dungeons. It took some getting used to but eventually I grew to love them, I love navigating and focusing on not getting lost, checking the map constantly to help keep my bearings. Filling out the dungeon map is kind of addicting and you can get pretty efficient at it once you get used to using the map and become confident in not getting lost, and of course getting loot feels good too. But when I decided I wanted to actually finish the main quest it all became way less fun. Even though the dungeons were more interesting, the fact that I was literally just there to find the objective made it much more tedious. And castle wayrest was absolutely the worst, the painting was in the last place I looked (if I recall correctly it's at the end of the north side but there's an entire south side that I ended up fully exploring first) and it took me forever. But yeah, I've watched a lot of reviews of daggerfall and yours comes closest to describing my experience with the game, it feels like a lot of other reviews are from people who were never really able to get into the game. By the way, you mention having to nuke enemies with spell spam to get through the late game, but when I played I used the default Rogue class. So the way I dealt with things was with a magic item I had that could cast Silence as well as my stealth skill. High level enemies will often resist the Silence effect but that doesn't cause them to notice you, so as long as they haven't noticed you you can just spam it until they get hit. And eventually I managed to summon a daedra (by pure luck, I didn't even check the date) and got the ebony mail, which when used gives you enough buffs to actually tank blasts from ancient liches and ancient vampires. I have no idea how I would have beat the game if I didn't have those items

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I agree! In hindsight, I definitely think that my issue was only playing the game once. There are a lot of solutions to dealing with powerful magical enemies, such as Silence like you mentioned. A pure melee build could just join a temple that offers enchanting and use spell reflection as well, so there are other solutions I never tried at the time

[@ThePKMNTrainerAndrew]

How do you not have 100k subs? Great video. Sat through the whole thing.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Thanks dude, I’m glad you enjoyed it!

[@Themmrnmhrm]

Well, knowing how royals are in real life, I think it is more than likely that every major royal family in iliac bay is related to tiber septim to varying degrees, due to political marriages and stuff.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Taking the statement “Tiber Septim conquered Tamriel” to a whole new meaning.

[@nicholasramirez8417]

I've been wanting to play this game forever, this video only made me want to play it a whole lot more. Thank you for making this, it's obviously a work of love

[@NirielWinx]

There are two problems with setting "running" or other similar skills as primary. 1) You will level up quickly, which means you'll encounter stronger enemies, but you won't have the combat/magic/stealth skills to deal with them. 2) Guilds have skill requirements for each rank. A high "running" skill isn't going to help me get promoted in the Order of Arkay. Having guild skills in primary or secondary helps you get easily promoted to guild rank 5 or 6 out of 9.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

That’s a good point (although I honestly don’t remember the context). I’m sure that I gave a lot of terrible advice in this video since I didn’t know what I was doing and didn’t give myself time to really learn (you can’t really judge Daggerfall on a single playthrough)

[@SandGentleman]

Very neat! I love the video! Definitely subscribing for more and watching your backlog. Very rare to find such a high quality video essay channel, even when looking at channels with millions of subs. Thanks for the video!

[@noahhopkins1565]

Good stuff, I love hearing so much detail about a game I'll likely never play. And to hear you went from 300 subs to over 2k is awesome. Looking forward to future projects.

[@robertpearson5410]

Agree with you about the dungeons and maps. They can be hard to negotiate, especially at first, but once you get the hang of it, they can be fun. As you say, I stopped looking specifically for the objective and they immediately became more fun. These days it seems that often hard equals bad, instead of a challenge.

[@krisreddish3066]

The dungeons had the one music track, sounded like a crazy version of the into to tales from the Darkside. Non stop over and over for days while you tried to find the last giant or harpy for a damned little fighters guild quest then spend hours trying to get out, rinse and repeat over 100 times. The were a bit hard to navigate just because they had like 3 tilesets for them. 3d maps are always hard to use in older games. I loved the game but it was only party playable and half assed as hell. Arena is far more approachable. The dungeons were my favorite part of the game too, what other parts are there? A flat mostly featureless random terrain or some NPC walking around a city? It was like the game that was so close to innovatively badass, but it missed by a mile of tech limitations and budget. Still fun to play to this day, and with the Unity Version perhaps I will beat it one day. I never could no matter how hard I tried when it came out. It breaks my mind how much you can do it in game, too bad most that play it will never get to them parts.

[@jaydenlobbe7911]

1:16:04 I don't believe it actually is contradicted, the 5 people who use the Totem of Tiber Septim to activate the Numidium are, Uriel Septim, King Gothryd, King Eadwyre, Queen Akorithi, and Gortwog, there's nothing contradicting the possibility of all these individuals being Descendants of Tiber Septim, especially if you have any understanding of how Royal Families work Meanwhile the King of Worms and the Underking don't use the Totem to activate the Numidium, the King of Worms instead uses it to ascend to Godhood by Mantling the Necromancers Moon, and the Underking uses it to free his own soul from the Mantella so he might finally die, the reason they can use it at all despite not being Descendants of Tiber Septim is because they aren't using the Totem for it's intended purpose of controlling the Numidium

[@davidmarquez5513]

I got the popcorn ready. Thanks for your quality content. I hope your hard work pays off some day.

[@Disir-Elizbt]

Im glad im not the only one that thinks the mummy quest is the most fun, and I agree that the random dungeons are actually fun too! I dropped the game in wayrest castle because I thought the rest of the game was going to be as tedious, but now that you said that was also your lowpint Im wondering if I should just power through it, I "finished" the mages guild before starting the main quest beyond doing first contact and I still want to see the whole Atherius place, but I really wasnt having fun in the castle

[@kwaddell]

Hey! I’m loving the in-depth breakdown in what I’ve heard so far. I wanted to let you know though that to my ears the pacing is a little quick, with too short of breaks between sentences to fully internalize what you’ve said, making it a little hard for me to keep up-kind of like power walking through an interesting museum is the best analogy I can think of. You’ve put forth a lot of effort and If you like your flow I don’t want to dissuade you by any means and will be jumping back into it regardless!

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I’m glad you’re enjoying it! Honestly, I feel like I talk a bit slower in this one compared to how I normally do (or maybe it’s a difference in tone that makes it feel that way).

[@c_ornato]

I don't understand how Castle Wayrest gets so much hate when Tomb of Lysandus is right there

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I feel like I didn’t have nearly as much trouble with that one. By that point in the game I was pretty comfortable with the dungeon crawling and only really remember the elevator being a bit janky.

[@c_ornato]

@@saltyshrimppasta Tomb of king Lysandus actually took me hours, especially around the weird part with all the copy-pasted dirt ramps, wayrest was actually one of the shorter ones for me, although I guess it mostly depends on what side you explore first

[@saltyshrimppasta]

@@c_ornato I always find it interesting how difficulty can vary wildly for certain people. The main thing I remember about Wayrest is that half-wall blocking me for several hours and being unable to explore that flooded section, but I remember next to nothing about Lysandrus’ Tomb, except a hallway full of spiders and the elevator leading to his crypt.

[@colinb8623]

I completed my first daggerfall playthrough with vanilla and I had lots of problems with bugs. Mostly enemies spawning in walls, music issues, and lots of broken quests. So many broken quests that I was locked out of the fighters guild. But I still loved the game so much that I am currently doing a Unity playthrough with my only mods improving the base game, like bug fixes and a quest log.

[@iknowthatyougreatlyloveyou1613]

"2 days ago" you have another sub man

[@roachdoggjr3458]

Also, for anyone wondering, the most op build in daggerfall is a high elf warrior. Because you have good magic resistance and immunity to paralysis, and if you stack disease immunity on top of that, and proficiency in your main weapon type, then ban yourself from using any other weapon type (at character creation of course) you will have a balanced leveling rate, good defence against detrimental spell effects and after a bit of levelling the advantages warrior races to weapon effectiveness won't matter anyway because the proficiency buff you took at character creation will get you there quickly, and after a few hours you will be a warrior with slightly less health yeah, but amazing resistances a standard warrior races won't get easily and just as effective combat abilities. Also roll for strength, it's the MOST important, that's your carry weight melle damage movement speed, that's EVERYTHING

[@ronaldood4678]

Great video, just only would say Witcher 3 is mixed on quest importance not completely bad. It’s in a lot of ways trying to mimic the books. Geralt and Ciri while going through a main story encounter many side moments along that path, many of which are from necessity for money or from circumstance. With Witcher 3 having a story closer to detective fiction, it means you have excuses for side material to grow from the main story and come across more as stories that Geralt encounters along his investigation of the main plot. Witcher 1 accomplished this way better than 3 but I felt it fair to point that out. Thanks for your hard work.

[@its_saber1525]

I'm loving the small boom in daggerfall recently, hopefully it's gets more attention like it deserves

[@eugeneluk5050]

I'm new to your channel, and boy, you are a delight. During the intro, I was wondering "why is he telling us all this?", but then I actually had a smile on my face when I saw how brilliantly you connected your anecdote to the theme of this video. And then throughout the rest of the vid, I found myself genuinely snorting with laughter at your dry sense of humour and deadpan delivery. I also really appreciate that you present your own original but fair-minded takes on certain topics, where you say "I can understand why the gaming community at large doesn't like this feature, but I personally thought it was genius because...". Can't wait to dig into the rest of your videos. I have a feeling you're the type of Tuber who can find incisive, original things to say on pretty much any topic (and do so with wit!). Well done with this one.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Thanks dude, I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

[@buckbumble1872]

loved the video. you're way of retelling the story of games is always hilarious.

[@Brian-ti7xm]

This game sounds and looks amazing. I fucking love sprite avatars. So beautiful. This looks to me like doom modded beyond. I love it. Actually i recall playing It once as a child and my family member was pissed. " you really talked to everyone and didn't listen? I have to go figure out what my quests are now bc you have to write them down " truly at the time I was like what but now? I'm in awe at such a immersive mechanism.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I definitely recommend giving Daggerfall Unity a try if it looks interesting, but I take no responsibility if this spirals into an unhealthy addiction.

[@Brian-ti7xm]

@@saltyshrimppasta cheers to that comrade, I'll eventually join pc gaming and have my life changed for the significantly better!

[@s0urp0wer5]

My favorite video of yours. Really love the lore of elder scrolls but could never endure even oblivion so it's nice to watch these and experience through proxy

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Thanks dude, I’m glad you enjoyed it!

[@Dokkir]

Excellent video, my scro. Top honors for actually playing DOS in 2021 lol.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

DOS Daggerfall is just as fun as it is painful. Definitely can not recommend the Bethesda files, but the pre-patched version on the UESP has a broken link. I’m glad you enjoyed it though!

[@rvbxn04]

If you want to play DOS use Daggerfall setup, it installs alot of patches for you and is just easier to use.

[@jaydenlobbe7911]

1:42:01 Again there's nothing contradicting the possibility of any of the people who can receive the Totem being descendants of Tiber Septim except the King of Worms and the Underking, if you have any idea how Royal Families work you'd understand that any of Tiber Septims Descendants who were never crowned Emperor would have been married off to other Royal Families, it's only natural that about half of High Rock's Aristocracy would have Septim Blood

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Keep in mind that everything I said regarding the story was based on in-game evidence, as the intention wasn’t to have a detailed lore discussion. I don’t bring these up as a plot hole, only that it seemed weird to me at the time.

[@Chad_Thundercock]

Making the jump to Linux is scary at first, but you'll be glad you did. Mint is a great entry point, in my experience.

[@kevnar]

You should have just covered Daggerfall Unity. Almost nobody is going to play the original DOS version now that that's out.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Eh, I don’t regret my choice. It was a really interesting experience, and I feel it adds a little more to the overall discussion around this game so that not every single analysis video is saying the same thing.

[@everythingpony]

13:20 and if you would have downloaded the proper patches it would have been fixed and not completely empty. There were issues that there were ground terrain elevation but it wasn't properly coated to work at release and they're supposed to be wildlife and random dungeons

[@RadishAcceptable]

Regarding the Ebony Dagger: I never take it and I still usually kill everything in the tutorial. The tutorials prompt you to cast spells on the imps. Shock kills it. The imp can kill you fast if you don't have a lot of HP though regardless.

[@sgtboom7]

15:30 Yea I think the dungeons get a little bit too much hate from the community. Now are they convoluted messes that would make Theseus pause and basically requires your character to have mark and recall? Yes. But with Daggerfall Unity and selecting the "smaller dungeons" option they are not nearly the several hour-chore they normally are but still enjoyable to experience with some difficulty involved. And I for one enjoy the combat in the game and just dungeon delving in general. It also makes the story/handmade dungeons seem like huge behemoth-sized levels that demands the full attention of the player and good preparation in comparison which I think is appropriate.

[@sgtboom7]

I also agree that using Daggerfall's map is not only a necessity it is a learned skill.

[@joehook7209]

I just realized while watching, this only has 1k views.. Wtf?? The quality is so high great work shrimp 👊

[@forevernight3279]

This was and Is to this day an oustanding game. Was hooked for hours

[@everythingpony]

I feel like a majority of your issues. I'm only at 30:00 is if you read a little bit back in the '90s and even 2000's ish. You had to read the manual because the manual was not only a big chunk of the story. It taught you stuff like what races abilities were what magic did? What certain abilities did so if you would have gone into the mindset of I'm going in blind and instead went in with the mindset of I'm going in blind with the manual then you probably would have done a lot better on your first play

[@citrus_sweet]

I couldn't play the original version so kudos to you for dealing with that sht 💀 I encountered a bug where if I tried to enter any building, the game would crash and considering you needed to enter buildings to do anything quest related, lol, go fk myself I guess.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Time to roleplay as a nomad who lives off the land

[@autoprez]

I just discovered your channel, so my apologies if you already have or haven't, but good luck with Linux. It's worth the growing pains, I promise. :) I run Debian btw.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Yeah I never did lol. I took one look at Arch and did the “woah this looks hard” meme, so I never switched

[@robintst]

I never really had a lot of problems with movement in such old PC games because I am left handed so I've always played with the arrow keys... but if the mouse is also to be used, the fact that the programmers set so many functions be default to the complete opposite side of the keyboard always drove me nuts. Going by the letter that the name of the function starts with like "J for jump" was a hold over from more simple DOS games in the 80s that needed to go away a lot sooner by the time Daggerfall had come out. I really tend to have more issues nowadays with certain keybinds getting hardcoded around the WASD area that I absolutely need to move to the other side which forces me to use an autohotkey script a lot of the time.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

If nothing else, I really should’ve given the game more credit for letting me rebind the keys at all.

[@joepetto9488]

Slow burn bone chilling genre redefining video essay

[@ankh-ef-en-khonsu3274]

nice video on the game. it's interesting seeing someone play the game from a current perspective.

[@Kee715]

I quite like the dungeons although I felt like they're arduous length really wore out their welcome after a while. Of course I didn't really start feeling that way until after I did the Wayrest dungeon and then Direnni Tower or whatever back to back. At that point I feel like I had my fill lol I will say that I do think it would have been worthwhile to play the unity port. Out of the box I believe it's about as faithful as it can get to playing the original without having to deal with all the struggle and strife of the original.

[@astralflick]

Very entertaining video about a game I have never played

[@Mr._Anderpson]

Don't take this the wrong way, but people playing Daggerfall today should take into consideration the marked differences between gamers & society in general over the course of 30 years. If you played PC games in the 90s, it was assumed you were a nerd. It isn't like today where computer use is almost ubiquitous in one form or another. The game developers could not make the game palatable for a future audience as it would have been impossible to foresee the changes which have occurred. If you plan to play a game this old, it is a good idea to at least attempt to approach it as someone would in 1997. What does this mean? Read. The game came with an extensive manual. It would have been assumed a player would have read the manual not only to install the game, (since this was long before simply inserting a disc automatically opened an installation wizard), but also to learn the basics about stats, equipment, monsters, & the background of the game's setting. Chances are the site you download the game from will also contain a link to the manual. As mentioned in the video, the UESP wiki is an incredible resource a new player would be wise to use. Ok. Grandpa is tired. Come back later & I'll tell you about manually installing games which arrived in a packet of 7-9 5 1/4" floppy disks, or waiting 20 minutes to download a single image online as it loaded, pixel by pixel, from top left, across and down.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

This is something I didn’t think to mention back when I made the video, but you’re 100% correct. Daggerfall’s manual is pretty comprehensive (and almost 100 pages), and would have smoothed over a lot of the early game issues I had. Although the map section still doesn’t mention hidden doorways oddly enough, but anybody using it frequently would pick up on that anyways.

[@Mr._Anderpson]

@@saltyshrimppasta Yep, there are a lot of reviews of old games which mention issues which wouldn't have occurred to us back in the day. Even some of the videos which are incredibly long were published with complaints that could have been addressed by reading a manual, let alone the wiki. It's just one of the changes in gaming over the years. Players today expect everything they need to know to be presented in-game. I'm not dunking on younger players. It is merely a difference between then and now. Very old games like the TSR "Gold Box" series had embedded copy protection which would prompt a user to input a word from the manual or journal, or to have a cardboard disk which was included with the game as a primitive encryption method. Some of the Mechwarrior games had cardboard keyboard overlays to help you learn the key binds. Like I said, a lot has changed in 25-30 years.

[@joseamadorsilva7395]

I came for the synopsis.. but was saddened by the lack of the clipity clopity and background sound from the game.. lmao😂

[@alexsm3882]

*"I did that thing you do when you use the sexploit"* Salty Shrimp Pasta, c. 2022

[@Xegethra]

It's a mod, but it adds in roads between the towns and cities, which I think is rather nice. You can walk them or speed up time as it auto moves you along. If it weren't for that mod, yeah I'd be doing a lot more fast travel. Original Daggerfall is rough. I played it some years ago because Unity version wasn't anywhere near finished. I got through it, bit of a love/hate but I made it. The Unity remake is nice, I'm glad it exists and that it's finished now. Even though they were more basic, I think Arena's dungeons were much better in size, even if they were one level only and the next "floor" was a new one you spawned to. I do like Daggerfall's verticality though, but man they did get a bit too big for my liking. I do like the levelling in Daggerfall, do something more often to get better at it, as opposed to putting in XP. 37:49 No, I'm left handed and those are nightmare controls. I always rebind when I can. IJKL for movement and use the keys surrounding those.

[@towermoss]

I'm sorry, i just don't get all the hoopla about the first dungeon. Everyone makes a huge fuss about it, and that puts off new players (there's even a mod to skip it). The dungeon is fine. The one thing putting off players is the "mile wide, inch deep" nature of the game.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

The dungeon itself is fine, but if you haven’t changed the controls to mouse look and are still using the default, then it can make the combat encounters way more difficult. A lot of people aren’t accustomed to their starting weapons outright no working on some enemies, and the eclectic tutorial messages don’t help. The fact that there is a mod to skip the first dungeon tells me that enough people struggled with it to want to start out in the world. Especially since, if you know what you’re doing, you can be out of it in 20 seconds

[@towermoss]

@@saltyshrimppasta I agree with the controls. The Unity version is nice, you should try it if you haven't already. For me, this was the type of game you start up and explore something new almost every time. That's it's biggest strength to me. A new town, a new dungeon to explore.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

@towermoss yeah a playthrough of DF: Unity has been on my list for a while now. I’m honestly just glad the people cared enough to to make that version so that more people can experience it. That, and Jewlr’s video has basically been a lot of free PR for it

[@googleisawful1473]

~20:00 While the map is the solution to the secret doors problem, it isn’t necessarily a good solution. For one, it doesn’t really make any sense. While the map is obviously game-ified, I like to think it at least works as a representation of a map the player character may actually be making. But if the player is the one making the map, and the player is unaware of a secret door, then why would it be visible on the map? Maybe that could be seen as nitpicky, but I also think the existence of secret doors in general in the game can be called into question when the solution to all of them is just…check the map. In other games, finding secret areas often requires some thinking or searching on the part of the player that can feel rewarding. Daggerfall basically just adds the tedious extra step of scanning the map every so often as you walk down the hallways and reveal more of the map. It’s a single solution to a frequent problem. I don’t know if you address any of this stuff later in the video. If you do, sorry.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I can see that perspective as well! It’s an issue that is heavily lessened or worsened by how you play. I was checking the map every 5 seconds so it wasn’t ever an issue. But if you check it every 5 minutes, you’ll spend even longer looking for an alternate route or hidden doorway (which I did on occasion). I don’t think I bring the issue up later from what I recall, so the argument is pretty one sided. I think it was more of an “in response to X” type of argument.

[@googleisawful1473]

Thanks for the response. To be honest, the secret doors aren’t one of my biggest issues with the dungeons, I just had those criticisms pop into my head as I was watching. Great video, though! It isn’t my favorite in the series (I’m more of a Morrowind guy), but Daggerfall deserves some love.

[@roachdoggjr3458]

Dang, critical weakness to disease? You got some grapes pal, I ALWAYS give myself immunity to disease and then take armor and weapons type disadvantages to offset it, I have had several playthroughs end from catching the common plauge while I'm 4000 miles from civilization and having no backup save I knew was sickness free, I have been traumatized into NEVER allowing disease or God forbid becoming a wear piggy to ever softlock me again

[@saltyshrimppasta]

My plan (which mostly worked) was to use long blade and the fireball exploit to keep things mostly at a range. I think I only ever caught a disease once, which is when I learned that you cure disease is NOT easy to cast with 20 restoration.

[@roachdoggjr3458]

@@saltyshrimppasta oh yeah the fireball exploit is amazing, tbh I suck bad at magic builds so if I do one I'm always tempted to go that route and usually do. I end up brute forcing it as a warrior most of the time, high elf for resistances but long blade is the best melee skill imo. Great video btw, I love how you not only talked about the games mechanics but also the way that unique problem solving and personal challenges make this game so fun and repayable.

[@danielevans7439]

Bit by a rat and died of dysentery. 10/10 would play again.

[@Lemunde]

I really enjoyed watching this and I agree with most of your points. The only real reason to play the original Daggerfall is if you're either unaware of DF Unity or if the only computer you have access to is over 20 years old. It's far too janky for most people and the amount of bugs makes it barely playable. My first experience with Daggerfall was finding it on an old 500+ games demo disc. I played it for maybe 10 minutes before quitting in frustration. I would only learn after playing both Morrowind and Oblivion that it was part of the Elderscrolls series. My first time actually playing it seriously and beating it was a couple of years ago using DF Unity, which made it much more accessible. I played through maybe 95 percent of it without having to resort to online guides, but there are parts of this game that are clearly designed with a strategy guide in mind. The whole wall torch thing was very frustrating to learn, because there was no possible way I could imagine figuring that out on my own. Then there was that one puzzle at the very end that involved reading a book that had no indication of being relevant and you're expected to figure out it was actually a riddle for the next room. It's like taking the most frustrating aspects of point and click adventure games and applying it to a few select spots to a quasi action RPG. But I suppose that's part of Daggerfall's charm.

[@JoeBuk724]

1:51:50 “Dragon.exe stopped working” 😂

[@joetheman74]

Crux pronounced like Ducks. Ducks ---> Crucks ----> Crux. Now to be fair to the game, with all the issues you had in the Crux, remember you were playing on Dosbox. An emulator. While it is a very good one that works 99% of the time it is possible that the problems you were having were aggravated by Dosbox. Daggerfall is a buggy game even when played on period hardware. Add Dosbox into the mix and you are bound to add additional problems. Many other players have played this section on a real DOS PC and it worked as intended. This is why Daggerfall Unity exists. It runs better on modern hardware and also fixes the majority of bugs Bethesda left behind in the game. Overall great video and nice to see a new generation appreciating these older games. The fact that you did this video when you were new to youtube with a small 300 sub channel makes the quality of this video even more impressive.

[@emmw7794]

This dude is a masochist. Playing the DOS version of DaggerFall.

[@everythingpony]

51:00 again, if you would have installed the patches, there was one patch that enabled repairing of magical items because default you can't it's a setting in the i and i file that literally says allow magic repair

[@Name_cannot_be_blank]

The first dungeon got incredibly easy, after i thought through and created another character and went through it, with the correct things, it felt like cheating

[@jaydenlobbe7911]

15:00 You're supposed to use Water Breathing AND Water Walking, Water Walking actually increases you Swim Speed in Daggerfall

[@antondavidovic3996]

I also like the dungeons in Daggerfall. They feel like huge expeditions you have to prepare for well before you set foot in them. Much more interesting tjan Skyrim's Nord ruins...

[@Roderickrulezzz]

Really entertaining

[@luigimaster111]

Watching this video rather than just playing more Daggerfall almost feels like a form of procrastination. I already know I love the game and I don't need more reasons to reaffirm my position. Daggerfall really took me off guard and really stuck in my mind as something amazing as a result. For my childhood I was a console gamer, grew up on the n64 mainly, I didn't at all expect a clunky old cRPG to grip me so intensely and change my whole perception on gaming as a medium, especially since I got into it so late, not only that but once its magic wore off from playing it way too much it left me feeling like an empty husk, chasing a high that I'll probably never be able to experience again. Daggerfall is very cruel.

[@probablynotdad6553]

The begining dungeon is supposed to teach you that you CAN'T win every fighter, and that it's better to run away sometimes. Soul Gems give more enchantment points btw. I ended up loving the mummy question, every night was a gree 300+ gold with how easy to kill he was, and he always dropped loot, sometimes he spawned more than once in one night for me as well. Most of my biggest problems, especially with DosBox, but also on Unity is simply the heavily dated UI, the spell maker/potion maker/enchantment all look horrible and are extremely unintuitive at first, with the enchantment UI being the best of the 3. As far as mercantile, sell items once at a time and you'll level up faster, each item counts as a tick on your mercantile skill, but only when sold 1 at a time, if you'd sell 30 iron daggers at once that's just one transaction, if you sell 30 it on daggers, 1 at a time, that's 30 separate transactions via the games logic, all of which give you xp. I love Daggerfall, but, I'd highly suggest using mods and the Unity port which in my opinion, is by far the definitive edition of the game even if you play it as vanilla as possible. Daggerfall is a great RP/lifesim, but a pretty bad game, it's just a 90s bootleg pc version of D&D after all(Arena and Daggerfall are both based on a D&D campaign the devs played at the time), everything functions off of dice roles, and the game was so rushed that half the content was never finished or never even made it into the game.

[@patricktarver4573]

i hated the intro until you said the words "emergent storytellng" and i was like "this son of a bitch, I'm in"

[@Thomas1238fedor]

Now and then i come across a apologistic video about daggerfall and am tempted to give the game another shot. So i did, and here is what happened: I cleared the tutorial dungeon like always, fun stuff, i picked a random town and guild to join, stumbled into the temple of Kynareth and got my first quest: travel to another town and get a potion to give to a person on some other town to cure their disease. I travelled, walked around, asked for directions, got the potion, delivered it, went back to the temple and got my reward. Went for another quest, it was another delivery, amidst that, i ended up getting a disease myself which was draining my intelligence, i realized it too late and i couldnt survive the trip to a town with a temple that could cure me so i had to reload a save from before i got that disease and lose all the quest progress. So i ended up getting a quest to find a person who went mad, which led me to spend a few hours lost inside a dungeon that only had rats, bats, bears and tooth saber cats. No loot. This is the point where i usually drop this game, but your video kept me curious so i pulled through, i found the person, gave it a good beating and brought it back to the temple. Next quest was an exorcism but, ontop of giving me confusing directions, it ended up glitching at the end so i had to reload the save and get a different quest, which was dealing with a haunted house. Straight forward stuff. Then i got a few quests about finding someone or something on a dungeon and this time i got some interesting enemy sets and the objective tended to be right near the entrance, which was a bit of let down but ok still. I found some magic gear but nothing special, i got a diamond and a ring that cast slowfall. Eventually the guild awarded me rank of acolyte and started sending me to dungeons to deal with apparitions and other undead. I got another exorcism quest but i was able to solve it properly by avoiding talking to the "guardian" of the possesed person, speaking directly to them, getting the holy item and delivering it, which then led me to fighting my first daedric creature, whom beat the ever living shit out of me. After getting promoted to the rank of Curate, my last quest sent me to a dungeon to deal with a cursed relic, there i found a magical ruby that casts some sort of knockback spell. Upon finding the relic, i was then surprised by a Daedric figure of a woman who tempted me to leave the relic in exchange for a magical dress. Initially i refused, to which the woman took off her dress, grew wings and transformed into a crazy bitch, summoning a gargoyle and another daedric enemy, anihillating me instantly. I had to take her bargain, i had no chance of winning, but i didnt wanted to give up. It was then that i found out how much of a game changer my magic ruby was. It turns out that the knockback spell can throw enemies against each other or against walls, causing collision damage in the process! Who would have thought the key to defeating my enemy was inside that very dungeon and i just had to learn how to use it? Tl;DR: Thanks for the video, it made me a lot more invested into the game, it is still a rough diamond, but im conditioning myself slowly and getting to enjoy it more. This game is a lost art, its hard to think something similar will ever be created again.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I’m glad you’re enjoying it! The game definitely requires you to adjust your tolerances and save frequently. Surprisingly, I don’t think that I ever caught a disease while playing, but I’m sure the long blade and fireball spam had something to do with that.

[@kingjm1000]

SALTY! Bro listen, the part about the Leshen following you in Witcher 3, that has scarred me too! I still have yet to finish that game, like it's so great and so intimidating to me at the same time. That Leshen scared the hell out of me.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

That’s one of the few moments from my TW3 playthroughs I vividly remember. I couldn’t even tell you where in Velen that it happened

[@JoeBuk724]

1:04:30 “supposed to tie into the sequel’s plot” im curious if by that they mean Summer Set, which was originally supposed to be the next game, not Morrowind. Till the old creators moved on. I’m prob preaching to the choir here, but they are actually developing a spiritual successor to Daggerfall right now. “The Wayward Realms” by “Once Lost Games”. Definitely worth a look!

[@B-A-L]

I loved this game and played it for hours on end. I used to spend hours levelling up just to get every type of armour and every type of weapon just to make my character look smart and coordinated. There did appear to be a major bug for me though where I wasn't able to continue the story because a major quest failed to appear, even after restarting the game several times. However, last year I returned to the game and managed to find the quest and finish the main storyline... using DosBox on my smartphone! I was very disappointed with the ending though which was literally just a text box. Oh yeah, I seem to remember I worked out it would take a year to walk across the entire map in real time and that doesn't even include visiting every town or dungeon!

[@Iymarra]

Late to the vid but I hope you made the switch to linux already. I did too after a new two week old win11 system was bricked by a update. Husband helped me get set up on Manjaro linux. As for daggerfall, it's quite the experience

[@saltyshrimppasta]

I ultimately didn’t end up doing it. How does Manjaro compare to Win10?

[@Iymarra]

@@saltyshrimppasta It runs very well, gaming on a linux system is nearly almost the entire same as on a windows system, you either use proton (compatibility layer that allows you to run games on steam) or wine (non steam based compatibility, replicates windows install directories etc)

[@saltyshrimppasta]

@@Iymarra my biggest concern with switching OS is a conflict with Steam so that’s good! I’ll have to look back into it now that Windows is causing my new PC to randomly shut off for no reason.

[@Iymarra]

@@saltyshrimppasta There's a website that allows other linux users to feedback what games work and don't work, called protondb. If the developer has been thoughtful, the game will run natively in linux. Else, proton will usually work. People put any workarounds etc there. However, some devs aren't kind - Destiny 2 is an example, because of Battleye, it won't work on linux. Payday 2, CSGO? All run natively. It really depends on what you're going to play - the majority of stuff runs either with no problems or natively, and the rest is either a little issue or the devs are arses and have put ultra restrictive DRM on which stops genuine consumers like linux users (for little issue, I mean a texture might bork once or something because of compositing but if you reload it'll be fine, or the game won't play nice with alt-tabbing unless you're in borderless fullscreen mode.)

[@GRiznitDShiznit]

I was most of the way through Fallout 3 with one save until I got permanently soft-locked in a room and lost my first play through. Ever since then I’ve been a multiple save kinda guy haha

[@FeelingShred]

yeah if it was in a spinning hard disk the files could probably have been recovered, I did this multiple times myself, including audio and huge video files... what might happened is that you are using an SSD storage drive... I'm not too familiar with SSD's so I'm not sure files can be recovered from them

[@WintrBorn]

Thanks for mentioning the Unity version. I'll have to grab that - I know the original is pretty buggy, and didn't feel like fighting the game.

[@jaydenlobbe7911]

1:24:07 The King of Worms is lying to your face about the Underking lmao

[@Drexus88]

If you download Ancestral Ghost's version there's console commands to teleport to quest objectives, maybe it's any version idr. Maybe 10 years ago I purpose built an old compaq pc and put win98 on it just to play Daggerfall natively, it's an experience for sure.

[@cicio7777]

Please consider contributing to the Wayward Realms kickstarter campaign running right now! It is Unreal Engine 5 sequel to the 1990s Daggerfall huge open world RPG...

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Ironic that you mention this, I was recently on a podcast where we discussed the Wayward Realms and our thoughts on the Kickstarter. The episode hasn’t been released just yet, but the consensus is that we’re skeptical about much of the promises and their plan to seek out a publisher once they’ve secured funding from backers. I really hope they’re able to pull it off, but if I’m being honest, I’m not especially optimistic.

[@chaosordeal294]

I used to make Windows, and it does stink. But your file loss is almost certainly your own error, and not Windows'. Waveform is a totally free, mature DAW.

[@saltyshrimppasta]

Probably, but at this also isn’t the only time I’ve had files vanish into the void, so it wasn’t my only experience with the issue either. Still, I more or less explained why I even told the story in the pinned comment