The Making of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

[@rasmadrak]

I remember taking a gamble on ordering "Arena" as a kid, and man - was I impressed. Then the successor came out and to this date, I still haven't played a CRPG that felt as deep as it did. Nicer graphics, yes... but the feeling of "I can do whatever I want" is still unbeaten imho.

[@ThurstonThorntonIII]

Yeah, I had just gotten myself a new computer and saw Daggerfall in the store a few days later and took a gamble on it. It was so expansive & deep it still amazes me. Every dungeon was a maze! lol (cast recall!)

[@denisaljic]

New Vegas felt the same to me. I could play as a serial killer, as a cannibal, as a cowboy, as a biker, as roman soldier, as a pussy etc...

[@cxx23]

(Sorry to bring this back a year later.) My first TES game was Skyrim, and then Oblivion. These games were great and I became obsessed with TES lore. A couple of months ago I decided to play all of the mainline TES games in order(no Battlespire or Redguard yet.). Arena took some work to getting used to but I was able to appreciate it for what it was at it's release. Daggerfall though, completely threw me for a loop. Instead of enjoying it by old time standards, I just simply enjoyed it. Daggerfall is just amazing! I couldn't believe how much it felt like I could really live there. Oh, and I did not play the Unity version. I wanted to be able to say that I truly "played Daggerfall". As in my experiences and struggles were the same that people had on its release.(or as close as possible.) I'm now about to play Morrowind for the first time. People complain about it because it has dice roll combat and such. It'll be interesting to see what I think since I'm now used to the dice rolls. I will get to experience Morrowind as the next game rather than an old one.

[@HerohammerStudios]

I don't even remotely agree, but it's really cool to hear these kinds of anecdotes

[@HerohammerStudios]

​@@cxx23 what did you think of Morrowind?

[@TheSuperduck23]

In the mid-2000s, I messed around a bit in Daggerfall but never gave it much of a chance. At the time, I was still enjoying Morrowind. However, you made one heck of a case for this old title; I was enraptured by your Daggerfall analysis. Start to finish, my eyes were glued to your video. Needless to say, I think Daggerfall will be running on my PC very shortly. Well done! And very much looking forward to part 2.

[@Jwlar]

Thank you so much!

[@Opinwood]

Amazingly high quality content. This is a game very near and dear to my heart. I remember at age 9 watching my dad and brother play this at night, feeling terrified at the ghosts haunting Daggerfall City, and the general dread regarding the horrfiyinigly large dungeons. Also the beautiful music and massive scale of the in-game world. That such a massive area (Iliac Bay) made up only a fraction of the overall world map just blew my mind. I'm so grateful to the Unity version for completing Julian Le Fay's vision, and for supplying some amazing mods. This ensures that Daggerfall will live forever.

[@OnceLostGames]

Great video! Looking forward to the next part.

[@Jwlar]

Wow! What an honour! Thank you! I love what you're doing with the Wayward Realms too :)

[@OnceLostGames]

@@Jwlar Thank you.

[@GNOMESARECOMINGFORYOu]

"Which I'll cover in a later video" Well we're only 1:00 in, but if you're already promising to make more Daggerfall content, that's worth a subscribe.

[@lastsipahi]

I first heard about this game in a game magazine called Gameshow in 1996. I clearly remember, only the character creation screen took 6 pages to explain and I red all of them. I can't imagine the poor coders who design and script whole thing. Came with bugs, it's ok for this size game and time of development.

[@Jwlar]

The character creation is one of the strong suits for sure. So many possibilities for role-playing! Thanks for watching :)

[@Jwlar]

You can watch my final near 4-hour retrospective of Daggerfall here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2e8doCfg92BedU It includes an updated version of this video as well, correcting any mistakes I made.

[@HDBattlefieldVideos]

Outdid yourself mate, best video yet (feel like I post that on every new video lol)

[@Jwlar]

@@HDBattlefieldVideos Thanks mate!

[@ThurstonThorntonIII]

Well done!

[@allana4820]

This looks great, I still play daggerfall to this day, please for the love God put this on GOG!

[@cinnamoon423]

Daggerfall is the closest thing I got to that "perfect" game. It's something that inspire me to one day go further with my work on blender. Personally love to see radiant ai, dark souls level of combat, more life sim elements, and a more advanced take daggerfall's quest system. But just like this game I don't think that's happening unless I do it myself. (And I don't know coding and still have a lot to learn about 3d modeling.)

[@p1zzaman]

I agree, this is the best game of the series. Not only the scale, but the depth and also one important factor is the sense of time passing is very important. The dungeons were great too. This is the old Elder Scrolls game where I felt that I may not make it out of a dungeon, or actually get lost in. Todd Howard said in an interview that the technology is not there yet to implement what he envisioned Elder Scrolls 6 would be. I think procedural terrain generation has come a long way. I hope they can combine machine learning, procedural generation and such to create a world just as large as Daggerfall and to fill it with interesting points of interests scattered everywhere, and quests to make the world alive and actually large.

[@Jwlar]

The Wayward Realms (headed by Julian LeFay and Ted Peterson) is seemingly trying this, but it had a rocky development so far. A combination of procedural generation and modern Bethesda's trademark hand-made worlds/locations could be amazing. I hope Todd is planning on making cities a more real size too, I know that was one of the reason he was giving for why the technology isn't there yet (in regards to how small Whiterun and such were).

[@OnceLostGames]

@@Jwlar We did have a rocky bit but got things straightened out and back on track, and are aiming to be just as ambitious, if not more, this time around.

[@stanleycooper4285]

The thing with procedural generation is that there is a lack of an overarching story and cohesiveness that I enjoy out of traditional RPG games. Machine learning would be interesting in generation but can you imagine trying to finish a game that is completely unique to other people? There would be no manual to finish the game or webpage to help out. I wonder what this type of gaming would like? - a minecraft type of play?

[@dealwolfstriked272]

Julian Lefay mullet is just what I needed this morning :) 9:10

[@queuedjar4578]

LeFay lowkey drip. Also see his style when he was with Russia Heat.

[@paulwalker4044]

Wow! Brilliant video. Already hyped for part 2

[@camraid9]

No other rpg maintained the sense of mystery like daggerfall did... You rightly felt like the world was bigger than you.

[@queuedjar4578]

Daggerfall truly makes Tamriel a character itself, not just a theme park-ized theatre back drop that requires so much suspending of disbelief to become a believable world.

[@TReXxYT]

can't wait for part 2!

[@davidmuldowney]

Great video, never heard of that making of essay, just tracked it down, thanks!

[@Jwlar]

Thank you! Yeah, it was a great find.

[@emmathepony1992]

this is one of the best daggerfall videos ever

[@Jwlar]

Thank you so much!

[@smokingbarrels7019]

Brilliant video! I have been hooked on Daggerfall the past 3 week's and I must say when it finally *clicked* with me I just fell in love with the game. Morrowind is still my favorite, but Daggerfall might just dethrone it, still have a lot of things to do in the game before I can truly say which is better.

[@beverlyhillslawyer3502]

i found this on the steam community hub. I am not disappointed. love this video, deserves more views and likes

[@Jwlar]

Thnka you, Glad you enjoyed it!

[@queuedjar4578]

Interesting, there's a steam community hub specifically for Daggerfall somewhere?

[@Jwlar]

@@queuedjar4578 Unfortunately not, I post them in the Morrowind one as people still seem to enjoy them in that tab.

[@kaffeeundsims]

Great documentary. And I love that the narrator achieved CHIM :D

[@humanharddrive1]

love a look back that provides so much context

[@regntonne]

4:51 That looks more than just 34 gold pieces.

[@Jwlar]

Haha, somtimes it can be just a single piece as well XD

[@hazelnut2002]

Very interesting video, thanks for making it. However I do wish you'd shown more of the default DFU/Daggerfall graphics rather than using the Dream hi-res mod for the majority of the video. This was especially apparent in the section when you were talking about the art styles and artists who worked on the game, while showing fan made replacements on screen at the time. Other than that, great stuff. Maybe you could showcase the vanilla art more in part 2?

[@Jwlar]

Very true, I'll make an effort to include more of the vanilla styling in later episodes. Thanks for the tip!

[@queuedjar4578]

@@Jwlar You can certainly also just cheat and use retro rendering in unity, some may not immediately catch the difference lol

[@tasospodcast8832]

This is a historic video! Subscribed. Man I wish I could find that super rare version of Daggerfall that came with a small statue of Lysandus...

[@Jwlar]

Glad you enjoyed! Same, it's super rare.

[@queuedjar4578]

Is there anywhere I could see this collector's king lysandus figurine? I've never heard of it before sounds very sick.

[@Gravitycrazy]

Really resonated when you talked about the original vision of the RP aspect, the idea of not having a big crescendo ending and something more free form doing what you want, when you want. But Skyrim for instance the whole game is more about the narrative as opposed to the world

[@NarsMcain]

Oh my, glad I stumbled on this!

[@BooneyianLogic]

looking forward to part 2. great writing and fantastic work.

[@urrrr]

Your channel seems really promising, hope you keep up the good work!

[@Jwlar]

Thanks, will do!

[@cesuz]

I just started playing Morrowind for the first time ever a couple of weeks back, really got me interested in how the older TES games looked and worked as I was too young at the time of release to play them. This is some great work and just what I was looking for! Thanks for the hard work, you got yourself a subscriber!

[@Jwlar]

Thank you!

[@kasperlarsson7853]

Great video! Synchobonk was a good touch as well!

[@Jwlar]

Thank you! I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that :) I'm a long-time KliksPhilip fan haha

[@queuedjar4578]

@@Jwlar LGR and Philip are your most immediately recognizable influences lol

[@Jwlar]

@@queuedjar4578 Definitely haha, always love to pay homage to my favourite channels.

[@CustardCream99]

What a great video, I'll probably never play daggerfall but I appreciate your enthusiasm for the game and it's history, good job.

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

Huh? just play it ya wuss

[@Sickliff]

Talk about a hidden gem! Loved learning about Daggerfall's development. I'm kinda in the same situation, I picked up this game last year and fell in love with it. I'm interested in seeing your thoughts on Unity. I'm generally more of a fan of the vanilla experience and exploring the limits of the game and its engine. Unity is much more polished, and I agree that for most people it is the right choice. But for me it's like playing Skyrim with the unofficial patch. So many bugs that could be helpful, gamebreaking, or fun are just gone in the Unity version, and so I'm torn between which one to invest in. Of course, I have the utmost respect for Interkarma and everyone who's made bugfixes and patches for the game. But the active development means that making a video about a bug could be risky if it will be fixed. Maybe that's a good thing. But the biggest draw to Unity for me is that sweet render distance. Anyway, I'm hooked. Keep up the good work. And by the way, the intro sound effect took me back to my childhood.

[@Jwlar]

I'll agree that the removal of some of the trademark Bethesda glitches and exploits does make unity lose some of the charm. Vanilla certainly has that 90s dungeon crawler atmosphere that can't be replicated. My main love for unity is its 'modability', brining its customisability on par with the newer games. And yeah, the render distance is awesome, especially combined with mods that add roads and interesting terrain. Thanks for watching! :)

[@gladdySOA]

i grew up with Daggerfall and its glitches are not endearing at all. This is an awful take. Unity is borderline miraculous in that it fixes things that the OG DF wanted to fix but never could.

[@Sickliff]

@@gladdySOA I totally get that, and I guess I should clarify a bit. Rather than completely unpatched, I use DFQFIX and maybe a few smaller fixes that come with DaggerfallSetup. However, the scope of these bugfixes is mainly quest bugs that make it literally impossible to progress. Other than that, I take the good with the bad, and that's just my preference.

[@queuedjar4578]

@@Sickliff Daggerfall Unity actually retains a lot of game exploits since it's a direct port of the vanilla game's systems, so things like the Inability to Regen Spell Point + Absorb Magicka exploit and the altmer Paralysis exploit are still possible. The only bugs you really start missing from the engine update are things like the clock rate affecting your jump distance/speed/clipping, and other movement oddities like the karate jumping. I wouldn't be surprised if people make mods that patch these weird movement bugs back into the game lol.

[@ausilliam]

your videos are so high quality and they are a joy to listen to while im working on my roleplaying game.

[@Jwlar]

Thank you! Good luck with your game :)

[@druout1944]

same here; somehow missed it in '96; started with Morrowind; but Daggerfall has become my favorite.

[@oscarcutface1353]

This video and your channel is criminally underrated, superb video dude keep it up.

[@11th_defender51]

Loved the video! This is really well made. I started playing daggerfall a few months back and thought that it was too dated. I recently tried daggerfall unity and am really loving the game. I will note that some of the lines were a bit suspect, seeming to take a bit too much inspiration from indigo gaming.

[@Jwlar]

Yeah that's fair. I've taken steps since to try and be unique - I find myself accidentally channeling my main influences, probably because I watch far too much KZbin, haha. Thanks for watching!

[@11th_defender51]

@@Jwlar No worries. Do you have any idea when the next video will come out? Just wondering.

[@Jwlar]

@@11th_defender51 It should be out before Christmas, it's going to be a long one from the looks of it - analysing and critiquing the story and main quest. Then I hope to take a deeper look into the extended lore for Episode 6 in early January.

[@11th_defender51]

@@Jwlar ok

[@NieOrginalny]

An amazing video, I must say. Good research and incredible levels of production quality. I'll be sure to watch the other two parts as soon as I can. Although I do like Daggerfall, it's more of a fascinating oddity and a technical marvel to me, and overall prefer the design of Morrowind, but I do think parts of it could be implemented for an experience with the best of the both worlds. Skyrim sort of attempted this with the radiant quests, and I think they were executed the best in the Thieves Guild, but it also discarded too much of the depth for my liking.

[@Jwlar]

I agree to a degree, Daggerfall is too big for its own good at times.

[@Deathmoths]

Indigo recommends. I'm interested.

[@LauritzenLucas]

I actually didn't like Skyrim because i'm not a huge fan of medieval/fantasy games, but goddamn was I impressed with Daggerfall after I first played it when the pandemic started. Still my favorite TES.

[@avatar19822]

New subscriber. Love your Elder Scrolls videos. I was playing Daggerfall back in 1995 on the demo CD-ROM disk where you're just on the isle of Betony, before I became obsessed with the real thing. Keep making more videos. I like your accent, too.

[@Jwlar]

Thank you :)

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

This video is criminally under-viewed. Keep it up, I think this series could blow up for you if you keep making videos this high quality. Maybe find a way to conveniently toss in a little reference to one of the more search/ algorithm-friendly later Beth games in the title >.>

[@Jwlar]

Thank you! And that's a great idea, I'll keep it in mind.

[@gamewojtek]

Awesome video, I love such in-depth retrospectives on video games! Best of luck with your future endevours! I am certainly looking foward to them!

[@Jwlar]

Thanks, will do!

[@DMIwriter]

Love this deep dive. Very well researched, written, and edited. Good work! I quite enjoy Daggerfall, but I've never finished the main quest. My sole complaint is the extremely tedious dungeons. Though I just learned that in Unity, there's an option to toggle small dungeons on. Playing through Battlespire at the moment, but I might have to jump back into Daggerfall here soon

[@OingoBoingo--nice]

What a kick ass new channel! Cant wait to check out all your stuff!

[@Jwlar]

Thanks!

[@Tanuvein]

Expected a reference to Heretic or Hexen. Never heard of Hex. Great video by the way.

[@Jwlar]

Thank you

[@TheVioletBunny]

This makes me so excited for the wayward realms

[@HerohammerStudios]

I like the future games, but Daggerfall is easily my favourite. There's just something so charming and grand about its world

[@purpleflurp6601]

Hearing the 3kliksphilip music was a mental flashbang

[@leongt1954]

I played it not long after it's release and still have the big box version sitting up on a shelf

[@leek6927]

Really can’t wait for part 2

[@dabtonydimple9819]

You have done a awesome job, exactly what has been missing for years. I hope you will get more views and subs.

[@Jwlar]

Thank you very much!

[@paypercutts]

Great video mate! Best Daggerfall review/breakdown/making of I've seen so far! Well done. I hope ya channel has great success coz of this. I played Future Shock as a PC Gamer demo disk in the mid 90's and loved it! Once I read that a game called Daggerfall was being made by the same company, with the same engine, I rushed to play it's demo too when I saw it shortly after. The full game then was AUD$130 in 1996/97, might inflate to $200+ in today's money! I begged my parents and my grandparents to make this my birthday and xmas present all at once in late 1996. Played it for months then and still very very fond of it today! Since the release of Morrowwind, Oblivion and Skyrim, I've always told emerging console gaming newb Elder Scrolls nerds, that the OG ES2 game called Daggerfall on PC is the best, and still the best IMO

[@thomastheturtle8368]

Most underrated channel of all time

[@Jwlar]

Thank so much, it means a lot! :)

[@canon5324]

Would love to see "The Making of Baldur's Gate".

[@paranoidpony6861]

This video reminded me of something. Game devs have been falling short on promises for a long time. They can't always pull off everything they want to I guess.

[@Jwlar]

Yep, ambition has been lost as games have gotten bigger and more polished, although that's probably for the best, as the alternative seems to lead us to Cyberpunk scenarios. Unfortunetly, we may never see again the same groundbreaking sweeping changes in gaming as we saw in the 90's and early 2000's.

[@jaymarksman]

This was a really good video! Subscribed, and gonna watch some of your other ones :) Keep up the good work.

[@Jwlar]

Awesome, thank you!

[@kevnar]

Waited 2 years for this game to release. Got lost in a dungeon and ruined my save.

[@Jwlar]

Ouch

[@hallfiry]

Excellent video!

[@Jwlar]

Thank you very much! And thank you for the brilliant essay and all the videos you have provided the community.

[@Sw3nssoN]

I think the graphics still have a place in modern gaming, imagine the content they could cram in!

[@grauph1up]

Kinda wishing I had discovered the unity version before I dumped 2000 hours into new world. I think this is going to be my new delve.. the map size sold me :D

[@Ploulaf]

I'll watch this entire playlist then watch the 4h video, just cause there's never enough Daggerfall.

[@attilavs2]

Just a reminder : The min. specs are 8mb of ram and a good processor for the time. It can run on a calculator. Just think of the possiblities. [btw you don't have to the game is like 500mb without patches and even the largest calculators only have about 90mb of memory]

[@paulkeane7585]

13:06 How do you buy a castle in Daggerfall?

[@Jwlar]

Ah, good catch, mistake on my side. I meant to put "Sort of" instead of "True". No castles from what I've seen, just bigger houses.

[@queuedjar4578]

@@Jwlar Base daggerfall also has no furnishing options other than what you get when you buy the house. Mods for DFUnity have since properly added all of these features regardless though so that "sort of" is not entirely needed hehe.

[@Gaijins]

Fantastic video

[@FROZENbender]

the 3kliksphilip music hahaha. so nostalgic

[@EvilReFlex]

I also played Arena and Daggerfall in the last years, but I like Arena more... the dungeons in arena are more fun.

[@rvbxn04]

ANOTHER DAGGERFALL VID LET’S GOOOO

[@DaoistYeashikAli]

Reallllly Gooooood

[@floppynwah8141]

Well done sub rightfully earned

[@Jwlar]

Thanks!

[@HybOj]

Lovely 😊 KoW

[@GrumpyScamp]

Excuse the gloom, but here's a new subscriber. Gonna watch this now!

[@MrSmokecz]

Hi and thanks for the great video. It seems that some scans from the magazines (at 9:00) are from the Czech PC magazine Score and maybe a level. : Are you Czech if I may ask? :)

[@Jwlar]

Good catch! I’m not sorry, I’m Welsh, but I came across that magazine spread in my research.

[@SkiesProjects]

"landmark graphics" lmao that's great

[@SkiesProjects]

I'm not even into video games and you made this extremely interesting!! Kudos! Making stories interesting even when someone isn't involved in that community is the marker of a great video essayist 😄

[@queuedjar4578]

The original game graphics are oddly atmospheric, certain interesting details like the glow of building interiors during night time or in foggy weather, dynamic lights when casting projectile spells, multi layered/storied buildings, snow on buildings and roads and frozen ponds during the winter that melt away in the spring and summer instead of just static environments that are the same all year round in game, and actual transparent/see through sprites like the ghosts were especially impressive at the time, some of these details are even things that games nowadays forgo or get wrong.

[@travus111]

Great video

[@Jwlar]

Thanks!

[@justanotherunlistedacc]

Just right away: respectless to suggest a port over the original at the start of the video, which is about the game's history... Signed, an MSDOS Daggerfall player :p

[@CassioMaiaLarotonda]

It was not dire at all, ppl did not know any better and those games were wonders! The same will be thought about our time in some decades

[@Exquisitec0rpsy]

Someone needs to step up and feature you.

[@Exquisitec0rpsy]

All the work you put into this, you deserve more subs

[@DagoCoria]

Damn good vidi

[@terra1555]

heck, you can even have a life in the game, I can't think of any other game that has done that

[@iyziejane]

Was Daggerfall the original game with "fall" in it's name? We later got Planetfall, Titanfall, Darkfall, Greedfall, etc.

[@jamarionstewart2810]

Daggerfall is the goat of the elder scrolls games

[@oldschool1079]

excuse the gloom..

[@Jwlar]

...None may know of our meeting

[@akimbofurry2179]

I don't like skyrim, i literally scoffed when you said oblivion and skyrim had more ambition. Those games are condescending, small and the dungeons insulting. Even Morrowind annoys me on a few fronts, even if it is my 3rd favored elder scrolls game. Though dungeons and ruins in Morrowind were far more dynamic, it just don't have the same scop or charm as daggerfall or arena. Great video.

[@anonymousanon8412]

Are you using the "better terrain" mod?

[@Jwlar]

I am.

[@queuedjar4578]

Looks like DREAM and maybe distant terrain as far as graphics go.

[@Jwlar]

@@queuedjar4578 It is, plus some interior lighting mods.

[@bokrugthewaterserpent3012]

Shout out to Joe Lieberman, without his schizophrenic fear-mongering my cousin would have never heard about this game, and I would never have played it.

[@aidenturney1773]

3 kliks phillips music !

[@snufftbunz]

how the fuck do you not have more viewers lol

[@InnerTranquility]

I don't understand why so many daggerfall unity players play with trilinear instead of point rendering! It all looks "mushy". You need point rendering to get that crisp look. Look at the armor on his character in the character sheet. Looks awful. All the detail is lost. Go to advanced, then video and set the filter sliders to point. Just a...tip.

[@Jwlar]

Yep, I'll claim ignorannce on this one. I believed putting all the sliders to the rigjht would be the best option, but you have now made the game much nicer looking, thank you!

[@InnerTranquility]

​@@Jwlar You're welcome :)

[@queuedjar4578]

Real Daggerfall fans play on legacy rendering lmao

[@CassioMaiaLarotonda]

Sorry, you are wrong, the advent of polygons and 3D processors in video card, games like these are more difficult to make and more easily bugged and expensive, had they had more time, the game would be amazing the way it is.

[@DaoistYeashikAli]

Comment for the Algorithm

[@vovasyhin7219]

Why are you showing off Unity while talking about XnGine? You gonna confuse a lot of people! As well as the people responsible for Daggerfall Unity.

[@Jwlar]

Yeah good point, I should've included more vanilla Daggerfall footage around that Terminator segment.

[@markcorrigan3930]

3:58

[@FrazierDanger]

"Pandemic"