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Does the dagger rise or fall?
By Justin A. Hussel

Proceeding the success of the much-acclaimed computer fantasy role-playing epic Arena: The Elder Scrolls, released in 1994, designers Julian LeFay and V.J. Lakshman, as well as Bethesda Softworks itself the small company responsible for the award-winning game made a promise. They fully intended to produce and publish the best, largest, and most sophisticated CRPG released to date. This project had a name: Daggerfall: The Elder Scrolls 2.

The promise and consumer expectation of Daggerfall prompted enormous RPG-fan interest and support. Bethesda's America Online forum filled up with message-laden discussion folders labeled with topic 'Daggerfall'. Hundreds pre-ordered the game by phone and through Bethesda's Internet web site before it even neared completion. The RPG Newsgroups were swamped with chains of Daggerfall conversation. Loyal Elder Scrolls fan and former Bethesda employee Rich Glade even started an e-mail news list funded from his own pocket for the discussion of Daggerfall, Arena, and future Elder Scrolls installments.

Bethesda originally stated a vague (not public) release date of 1994. After allowing fans to bask in the glow of the Light they prayed was almost upon them, Bethesda promptly delayed it for several months. When the named months fell upon the world, Bethesda delayed the game 'til 1995. After several more delays, the pending release date reached January 1996. From there, that 'release date' slowly, sickeningly, and vexingly slinked from week to week, month to month Until it was finally set at August 1996. From there: August 30th. Beyond and finally: Mid September.

Thus best and most-famous RPG or not Daggerfall had already reached infamy as one of the most delayed titles in computer game history. Bethesda's ordinary and e-mail mailboxes were flooded with complaints, curses, moans, pleas, and threats of canceled orders. Tension grew on the Daggerfall news list; complaints became personal flames the e-mail term for personally and purposely insulting and agitating comments and threats toward Bethesda and other list-subscribers.

It wasn't until Daggerfall was finally released in the U.S. in September of 1996 first sent to those who had pre-ordered and a week or so later delivered to the shelves of retail stores that the 'Damn Bethesda! They're enjoying the torment their dragging us through!' complaints on the news-list itself returned to the discussion status.

The immediate issue was whether or not Daggerfall had reached consumer expectations. As the true CRPG-fan knows well, 1996 was debatably a terrible year for the CRPG market; the popular magazine PC Gamer wouldn't even name a 'Best RPG of the year.' for this very reason. Arena had been named by numerous magazines the best RPG of 1994; Thus was it hoped that the sequel would follow the footsteps of it's predecessor. So Is Daggerfall the best CRPG of 1996? Yes And no.

Daggerfall DOES live up to most of its specific promises. The game-world itself is enormous: Twice the size of Great Britain. It would take literally two weeks of real time for a player to cross the two provinces in the fantasy land of Tamriel Daggerfall is set in on foot. There are hundreds of enormous towns and dungeons, laden with NPC's, or 'Non-Player Characters' the player can 'interact' with. The '3-d' first-perspective graphics regardless of the fact that they're only VGA rather than SVGA are beyond stunning, mountains in particular. The SFX are great. The background music scores are many, varied, and fantastically pleasing to the ears and invaluable to the atmosphere of the game. The monsters and items are many. You can join guilds, make your own spells and items, embark on and complete innumerable quests. The game does offer the 'free-style' nonlinear vastness Bethesda promised: A player could spend anywhere from a hundred real-time hours to several years enjoying and completing the game's main and sub objectives.

So what's the problem? If Daggerfall is indeed such a game, how could it possibly be considered anything BUT the best CRPG ever released?

I've used the 'Just as Light cannot exist without Darkness, Good cannot exist without Evil' metaphor numerous times in the past, so this time I'll simply say that while Daggerfall offers much of what it promised, there's much more that it DOESN'T offer And the flaws aren't minor. Indeed, many of those wounds are almost critical.

Daggerfall's grandest and most terrible flaw is interactivity, or rather, the lack thereof. Any true computer or non-computer role-playing gamer knows that the most important aspect of any RPG is interactivity, primly with NPC's, other characters in the story. The Ultima games are the most long-lived and successful in the CRPG genre largely because of the depth NPC and story interaction offers. You don't just ask characters you meet "Where's this?" or "Any rumors?"; You ask them about themselves, their lives, and the world around them. In the Ultima games, NPC's have virtual lives. They have personalities, concerns, goals, even schedules.

Arena's NPC's were little more than mindless clones. They wandered the cities and empty overworld without any real direction; the only thing a player could ask them was 'Who are you?", "Where is so-in-so", "Any rumors?", and "Where can I find work?" All characters talked with basically the same tone, and regardless of what they said when you asked "Who are you?", you couldn't ask them about anything else regarding their lives and jobs.

Thus, one of the major aspects most CRPG fans myself included hoped to see drastically improved in Daggerfall was the NPC interactivity. So Did we see that improvement? Quite simply: NO. If anything, Daggerfall's NPC interactivity is WORSE. You can't even ask anyone who they are. No one has a personality. A grandmother in a rocking chair, a young boy with a tambourine, and a nude hooker in an inn room all speak with the same tone, share the same static and one-dimensional personality.

The entire game is made up of little more than quests: The main quest, which though I haven't really gotten into it yet is supposedly interesting and involving and countless 'sub-quests' you are offered and can accept or decline at your convenience. There are no 'random or miscellaneous' encounters, something AD&D PC and non-computer RPG's are much-loved for. Basically, nothing happens that isn't quest-related.

Yet the worst in the line of interactivity is the general 'environmental response.' Bethesda claimed you could live a 'virtual life' in a fantasy world in Daggerfall. That quite simply and bluntly is a crock of bull dung. Unless you restrict the meaning of 'fantasy life' to completing quests, chatting with boring people, killing things, and gathering and selling treasure, you CAN'T do whatever you want. You CAN'T be the town idiot, the city pimp, the town drunk You can't even work in a shop or inn. Daggerfall is one of the first games to literally let your character be naked (it even shows a nude portrait of your character), yet no one in town, or even in castles including kings and queens even 'notice' the fact that your buck naked. Trudging unclothed through snow doesn't yield any genre of pain, disease, or even a "You're cold" text message. There is weather, but again, it's all visual; People still walk unprotected in rain and snow, many and most clad very inappropriately for such weather. If you 'visually' 'run over' people with a horse, no one gets hurt; There is no such 'collision detection.' If you jump off a roof on a horse, no body cares. If you crash into a wall over and over again for an hour in the middle of the town square, nobody gives you a second glance. You can't even 'utilize' the many prostitutes found throughout the game; none of them even seam to realize they're nude or topless. If you're arrested, you get a trial, but your options are brief and over-simplified: You can debate, lie, or plead guilty, but only by selecting one of those three options. Guards couldn't care less if you pull out a sword in the throne hall of the kingdom's high ruler, yet if you try to camp near a city--or even in the middle of a nowhere farm--they'll be on you with long swords raised. All in all, the only notable aspect of 'virtual life' accommodated by Daggerfall is the fact that you can actually buy your own ships and houses.

World size is another matter; Few CRPG fanatics would say "A huge game world stinks," but even fewer would debate against the 'fact' that an 'empty' game world is useless. The two provinces covered in Daggerfall are immense; there are literally hundreds even thousands of towns, cities, dungeons, graveyards, and temples But as in Arena, there's just not enough to make one city or one huge empty forest stand out from another. Dungeons are the most disgusting; They are huge, visually magnificent, even unparalleled in CRPG history Yet again, most are EMPTY, meaningless. Exploring them takes hours of monotonous game-play, with only a visually beautiful but practically ridiculous 3-D automap for navigation. In dungeons, you do little more than delve through meaningless tunnels and underground pools; You fight LOTS of monsters, gather treasure But beyond that, there really isn't much. Dungeons AREN'T set up like towns or 'real' logical places, as they should be, but rather as mazes that are there for nothing more than to provide 'meaningless exploration' for the any wandering adventurer who happens along or is sent there to find a particular item or slay a certain monster or villain.

"There may be 16000 dungeons but I am never going to look at them all - not because it would take too long but simply because there is no point. Whatever you want from any dungeon you can get from the one you are in - there is absolutely nothing to distinguish them except shape," said an anonymous Daggerfall list-subscriber.

Some too many, in fact persist that Daggerfall DOES offer a virtual life.

"The game can always offer you more options, but when it comes down to it if you want to live in a virtual world you need an imagination," said list-subscriber Adam Pyle.

My response to this: "I don't need to pay $65 for a CRPG to sit around I pretend I'm in a fantasy world, or to imagine I'm having sex with a hooker."

"However, on the contention that you cannot make friends and have affairs, hire whores, etc... I would have to think that the focus of an RPG should be adventuring and dangerous acts, especially a graphical, single player excursion such as TES," said list-subscriber Hayden Parkman.

To that, I say: "But there's the line between virtual life and virtual ADVENTURE. There's a big difference. Everyone in a 'fantasy' world ISN'T an adventurer, and even adventurers don't 'adventure' every second of their lives."

Computer technology simply isn't advanced enough to create a true virtual fantasy world, or an electronic Dungeon Master, but there are innumerable technically minor yet otherwise major possibilities and aspects that should have (and easily could have) been incorporated into Daggerfall. (See the included list.)

Bugs or programming errors that take on innumerable player-pestering forms are another of Daggerfall's major flaws.

"Why do I feel like I just spent $60 for a beta-version?" said list-subscriber Isaac Appleman.

So, is Daggerfall truly crap? Is it a mockery of the 'Ultimate RPG' pledged? Quote undeniably: NO. Daggerfall IS a terrific game with fantastic graphics and high playability. Yet it DOES lack some of the most basic facts one would expect to find in such a fantasy CRPG, many (such as town reaction to player nudity) which have already been incorporated in past CRPG's such as the acclaimed Star Trail. Daggerfall is 'fun,' but almost without question, it does become boring after a while; long player brakes from the game are quite necessary; If you play for an hour or more a day, you'll probably be bored and frustrated with much of the game in less than a week.

Yet there are still many who believe that Daggerfall did indeed live up to its expectations.

"[Daggerfall is] the best open ended RPG to date," said Pyle. This is definitely debatable; I'm still not really sure if I back this statement or not; a 'real' answer would require more contemplation that I can afford to allow a computer game.

Thus, Daggerfall IS a great game, and if you enjoy fantasy RPG's, you'll probably be impressed or at least somewhat pleased with it. However, if you are among the many who've been entranced by Bethesda's vow and others' hopes of the 'ultimate RPG to date' with a chance to live a 'virtual life' in a fantasy world, you'll probably be minorly or majorly disappointed.

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