Jolt Country

Well, for starters:

Daggerfall sort of had a reputation as a buggy game...

Hitler sort of had a reputation as a mean guy...
Carl Sagan sort of had a reputation as a man of above average intelligence...
Conner MacLeod sort of had a reputation as an old guy who was good with a sword...
Mr. Mucous sort of had a reputation as someone who always had a bit of a head cold...

I downloaded an abandonware copy of Daggerfall a couple years back along with the final patch. On my first foray into a dungeon I fell down a pit and, on attempting to find my way out somehow wound up back in the Void of Ultimate Gutwrenching Misery that seems to exist everywhere in that world (and which caused me to uninstall the game and give the disks to a friend when I first bought in in '94 or whenever). I bet the ending reveals the King who's haunting Daggerfall isn't really dead but is, in fact, trapped behind a wall in his castle and his vengeaful spirit is just trying to find someone who knows the teleport code.

So Morrowind earns a point over its predescessor for even being playable.

It earns another point for not sending a mage on his first quest down into a dungeon to hunt a fucking flesh golem armed with only a dagger, a fireball spell, and enough mana to cast it exactly once.

It earns its another point for not having guards magically appear out of the ether when I try to bash down a door even if no one's around to see me.

Final point comes for its attempts to differentiate between the characters at least somewhat. It's not perfect and there are quite a few generic responses, but hats off to Bestheda for creating a game of this size where I don't feel like everyone I talk to and everything they say to me is the result of a random number generator. Hell, you can even make "friends" (at least to the extent that if you do a bunch of quests for a character or give them money or use persuasion, they'll start talking all nice like to you).

But you're right, the whole "I am rooted to this spot (or general area) for all of eternity even when hot ash is spilling down around me from the Volcano Home of the Final Boss and naught you do will move me" mentality of the populace is a bit jarring, especially when that early quest to find that one guy's hidden stash tricks you into thinking people usually do different things at night (when in fact, just that one guy does).

BuddhaNeverWoreUnderpants wrote:On my first foray into a dungeon I fell down a pit and, on attempting to find my way out somehow wound up back in the Void of Ultimate Gutwrenching Misery that seems to exist everywhere in that world (and which caused me to uninstall the game and give the disks to a friend when I first bought in in '94 or whenever).

There's a line in the calendar that came with Zork Zero that went something like, "Fun Fact: 37% of all deaths in the Kingdom are from bottomless pits." The thing is, with Daggerfall, that was actually true.

I bet the ending reveals the King who's haunting Daggerfall isn't really dead but is, in fact, trapped behind a wall in his castle and his vengeaful spirit is just trying to find someone who knows the teleport code.

Ah-hahahah!

It earns another point for not sending a mage on his first quest down into a dungeon to hunt a fucking flesh golem armed with only a dagger, a fireball spell, and enough mana to cast it exactly once.

Exactly. Your ease when it comes to to playing a new character in Morrowind is much, much greater. It was always this giant deal to start up again in Daggerfall. There are few game enemies I hated more than that starter room skeleton.

But you're right, the whole "I am rooted to this spot (or general area) for all of eternity even when hot ash is spilling down around me from the Volcano Home of the Final Boss and naught you do will move me" mentality of the populace is a bit jarring, especially when that early quest to find that one guy's hidden stash tricks you into thinking people usually do different things at night (when in fact, just that one guy does).

While having them rooted makes it tougher to loot the shop keepers (and that's fair), I guess I was ultimately hoping for some kind of compromise on that. I can buy the shopkeepers hanging around their store and keeping a watchful eye on their wares -- especially since the land is infected with a immoral thief (namely: me)... it seemed like just about everyone else could have used a bit of scheduling in their lives.

I had the enormous map of the game tacked up on my wall for a little while -- it was jarring to compare where I had been to the total sum of the area available. I'd been to maybe four or five towns total. That's another reason why I am pretty sure that I'll be back to the game after upgrading my processor at some point in the future: as I didn't get anywhere else besides the few dinky burgs on the southwest edge, I'll be pumped to see what some of the rest of the cities look like. From what little I experienced, they certainly did seem to give each town its own distinct look.