[MusicallyInspired]

This has my attention. Apparently this all started with a Reddit AMA and then an interview and then this happened. News before the end of the year.

https://www.videogam...QSd1lbamJJc522Y

Quote

A team of former The Elder Scrolls developers have come together to form a new studio called OnceLost Games, and it is working on its own open-world fantasy RPG title.

Focusing on a spiritual successor to Daggerfall, OnceLost Games’ ambition is ‘to meet the gap between the deep, complex design pillars of games from the 1990's, with the production values, improved controls and quality of life features in games today.’ Julian LeFay, considered to be the ‘Father of The Elder Scrolls’, is acting as the studio’s technical director, and stated in a Reddit AMA that he would be interested in creating a Daggerfall sequel of some sort.

‘It would have to be done in such a way that I wouldn't have business-related issues. Those are things that I've decided that I never want to deal with. With proper funding and someone trustworthy to manage the business side of things, it could definitely be a thing,’ he said. ‘I can't realistically see this coming to pass since it's not something I would initiate; it's not my thing. If someone could bring this about and then offered me an opportunity to join, that'd be a much more likely way that something along these lines could happen.’

LeFay will be joining Ted Peterson, one of the lead designers and writers for the original The Elder Scrolls series. Vijay Lakshman is taking on the role of executive producer with accolades from his work on more than 80 game titles, ranging from Spyro the Dragon to Lord of the Rings: Online. Ian Phoenix is the studio’s marketing director, who runs the YouTube channel Indigo Gaming that produces video game analysis, reviews and documentaries.

The Council of Wisdom is the studio’s Discord server, in which interested parties can chat to the developers and receive updates on its new RPG project. OnceLost Games will have an announcement scheduled for the end of the year, so we’ll keep you in the loop once we know more.

[Rimantas]

I haven't played Daggerfall yet, but i love and play Arena (1994) on DosBox. I expect only the best from this team.

[Sledgehammer]

Hopefully they'll develop a good TES killer.

[MrFlibble]

One of the team made a thread a while ago at The Daggerfall Workshop Forums:
Daggerfall Spiritual Successor Project (Artists Needed!)

Here's hoping for them to make a game that will neatly implement all the cool ideas that were pondered for DF but never reached the intended potential.

[Player Lin]

Hmm, no sure but just wait and see what will happens.

Warning : Silly rants in spoiler.

Spoiler

Sledgehammer, on 30 September 2019 - 01:51 PM, said:

Hopefully they'll develop a good TES killer.

Not sure, but I hope it would be not so buggy like Daggerfall.

(You know...original Daggerfall just really buggy too, we had official SAVEFIX for fixing corrupt save and unofficial patches. Yeah, both original and Todd team's TES game(s) were buggy too, and sometimes I just can't resist to use this to mock those silly TES fans that claims "BGS's TES games just too buggy as hell and the originals was better blah blah", well no comment. )

And not liking the use of "<something> killer" because many games claims that will end up mediocre or worse...too shitty.

[gemeaux333]

Perhaps they could also work on a Terminator : Future Shock / SKYNET remake , or some sequel or else related...

[MrFlibble]

Bugs in Daggerfall are not bugs, they're part of the experience.

But seriously, the game is unparalleled in its atmosphere IMO. If they combine the best stuff Arena and Daggerfall have to offer and improve on it that would be pretty awesome.

I really don't know why I didn't like Morrowind the same as the first two games. It's obvious that the devs analysed the previous mistakes and tried to build upon that: every piece of the game world completely unique, full of interesting stuff to explore etc. etc. But whereas in the first two games I felt really free to go and do what I wanted, Morrowind is more about discovering and/or figuring out what adventures the devs prepared for you in each area, and going through with them. Removing the truly random quests took away this charm in my opinion.

I hope the new game is more like Daggerfall in this respect. Go to random town and do a random job for a random person. Join a guild and do stuff for them, with at least the locations you have to visit with each quest always a surprise.

And yeah, I do believe that nowadays the tech will allow to create a truly living world and not just an imitation. Like what was described in pre-release materials, with the player's each action having some consequence in the game world, but at the same time stuff happening on a larger scale independently of the player's deeds, and not scripted but in a randomly emergent way.

[MusicallyInspired]

I do not care for random quests. Arena was fun but really got old after a while. Daggerfall is just too difficult to get started. I just cannot get into it. Morrowind is way too diceroll-y for me, but I like how there is so much handcrafted material there in quests, locations, characters, secrets, and items. That's what I love about all Todd's TES games. But Oblivion and Skyrim win out because there's more action and player agency in the combat which I highly prefer.

But I'm highly curious what OnceLost Games can do. I did like Arena and I've really wanted to get more into Daggerfall. It just seems like far too big of a game and I'm already used to "new" Elder Scrolls to backtrack to it I think.

[Sledgehammer]

Player Lin, on 01 October 2019 - 09:04 AM, said:

Warning : Silly rants in spoiler.

Spoiler

Not sure, but I hope it would be not so buggy like Daggerfall.

(You know...original Daggerfall just really buggy too, we had official SAVEFIX for fixing corrupt save and unofficial patches. Yeah, both original and Todd team's TES game(s) were buggy too, and sometimes I just can't resist to use this to mock those silly TES fans that claims "BGS's TES games just too buggy as hell and the originals was better blah blah", well no comment. )

Spoiler

I was speaking of mainly writing (that was starting to get worse with Oblivion) and gameplay (which became way too simple and most importantly, crappy with horrible difficulty scaling which gave us sponge enemies problem on harder difficulties, I hate this). Actually, I was very disappointed (and a bit pissed) when I learned that for Skyrim they planned to implement gameplay just like in Dark Messiah, that alone would make Skyrim way better. I don't mention bugs because this very problem should be reduced to minimum to begin with. No one should mention it because devs should know themselves that they must fix as many as possible and never release their games as broken mess. With Bethesda it was always a shitshow though, not just with TES games.

In this particular situation it really would depend from programmers and the publisher they going to go with (which can fuck up various projects greatly), if they go independent then it also depends from management and conscientiousness of the rest of the people involved. I hope they'll get good programmers and enough time to make their games, assuming they going to make good games, but I'm very concerned about the publisher they'll go with, I'm expecting the worst in this case.

Player Lin, on 01 October 2019 - 09:04 AM, said:

Spoiler

And not liking the use of "<something> killer" because many games claims that will end up mediocre or worse...too shitty.

Spoiler

I'm obviously not using it as a buzzword, TES is dominating because it's the only game series of its kind which is partly why people allow Bethesda to get away with any shit they do. The industry definitely needs a very good TES clone. The only semi-similar game like new TES I can think of is Dragon's Dogma that was released about decade ago (and was quite incomplete, a lot of things were cut, though the game was still very good). Would love to get a new game a bit closer to older TES games and very polished, and also more developed overall (something what older TES games lacked too), without too much of cuts or too much randomness, but that would greatly depend from the publisher.

Player Lin, on 01 October 2019 - 09:04 AM, said:

Hmm, no sure but just wait and see what will happens.

I'm quite skeptical myself, my stance is on "only believe it when I see it" stage. But I'm curious for sure.

MusicallyInspired, on 01 October 2019 - 04:51 PM, said:

Morrowind is way too diceroll-y for me

I definitely agree on that, CRPG gameplay just doesn't work too well with first person view like in Morrowind in general, it's kinda meh design because you expect things to work differently for obvious reasons. With games in aurora engine it worked way better because it's more believable (Baldur's Gate games, Dragon Age, KOTOR), that if we speak of 3D, back in the old days when things were in first person it was also believable because gameplay overall wasn't too fast-paced or "free", you know, it was quite limited (just like in games on Aurora engine).

Though I'm going to give it a go again when I get more time to play games.

[MrFlibble]

Sledgehammer, on 02 October 2019 - 12:23 AM, said:

The industry definitely needs a very good TES clone. The only semi-similar game like new TES I can think of is Dragon's Dogma that was released about decade ago (and was quite incomplete, a lot of things were cut, though the game was still very good). Would love to get a new game a bit closer to older TES games and very polished, and also more developed overall (something what older TES games lacked too), without too much of cuts or too much randomness, but that would greatly depend from the publisher.

I couldn't agree more. Haven't heard of Dragons Dogma though (just checked MobyGames, it's not for PC, then nevermind).

MusicallyInspired, on 01 October 2019 - 04:51 PM, said:

I do not care for random quests. Arena was fun but really got old after a while. Daggerfall is just too difficult to get started. I just cannot get into it.

MusicallyInspired, on 01 October 2019 - 04:51 PM, said:

I did like Arena and I've really wanted to get more into Daggerfall. It just seems like far too big of a game and I'm already used to "new" Elder Scrolls to backtrack to it I think.

Arena is cool but indeed the stuff you can do is quite limited compared to Daggerfall. One of its strong points that was not improved upon in the sequel is the functional wilderness: while you can't walk on foot from location to location (the wilderness is generated randomly) there are opportunities for adventuring there, you bump into random people and locations, there are villages and inns and farms and whatever. In Daggerfall, you can "slow-travel" on foot or horse from place to place, but the wilderness is completely empty save for occasionally generated random monsters (if you camp) and endless tree and boulder sprites. Yeah, you may run into something like a random dungeon or even an occasional witch coven (very rarely) but only if you're willing to spend like hours of aimless wandering with nothing interesting happening altogether.

I would personally recommend you to give Daggerfall a(nother) try. Pick an easy class like a Breton/High Elf Warrior or Battlemage, it does make quite a difference at the start. Some classes are rather botched in DF compared to Arena, and combat magic at low levels is nigh useless. Also don't forget that controls can be configured to the modern WASD+Mouse scheme with zero trouble, which is undoubtedly the recommended way to play.

What I like about Daggerfall is that indeed to properly play it you need to have a strategy and plan stuff in advance. It's kind of like a roguelike really. First dungeon, carefully level up and gather some gear; once out sell junk at a good shop (lowest quality gives best prices when selling), buy horse & cart, and join guilds. You absolutely need to rank up in a temple that gives potions because sooner or later you'll run into folks with poisoned blades. If playing as a caster, join the mages and buy custom spells as the funds permit. And of course, have multiple saves: one in town, one when you get a quest, one in dungeon, more if the situation demands.

I cannot say anything about Daggerfall Unity as I haven't tried it out yet. Last time I checked, it didn't adjust visuals to the correct aspect ratio and I'm too much of a purist to ignore this. But it should have some quality of life improvements compared to the vanilla game, plus there are some interesting mods.

[Sledgehammer]

MrFlibble, on 02 October 2019 - 01:57 AM, said:

I couldn't agree more. Haven't heard of Dragons Dogma though (just checked MobyGames, it's not for PC, then nevermind).

It was released on Steam in 2016 or so I believe (it's also on GOG). Highly recommend the game, it even has very nice (and unique) companion feature.
https://store.steamp...com/app/367500/
https://www.gog.com/...gma_dark_arisen

[Player Lin]

Sledgehammer, on 02 October 2019 - 12:23 AM, said:

Spoiler

I was speaking of mainly writing (that was starting to get worse with Oblivion) and gameplay (which became way too simple and most importantly, crappy with horrible difficulty scaling which gave us sponge enemies problem on harder difficulties, I hate this). Actually, I was very disappointed (and a bit pissed) when I learned that for Skyrim they planned to implement gameplay just like in Dark Messiah, that alone would make Skyrim way better. I don't mention bugs because this very problem should be reduced to minimum to begin with. No one should mention it because devs should know themselves that they must fix as many as possible and never release their games as broken mess. With Bethesda it was always a shitshow though, not just with TES games.

In this particular situation it really would depend from programmers and the publisher they going to go with (which can fuck up various projects greatly), if they go independent then it also depends from management and conscientiousness of the rest of the people involved. I hope they'll get good programmers and enough time to make their games, assuming they going to make good games, but I'm very concerned about the publisher they'll go with, I'm expecting the worst in this case.

Spoiler

I actually never played TES3 and 4 and only played just a little of TES2(mostly the demo) due to lack of time...damn. And even with flaws and silly publisher, I still like TES5, I know the game had a lot of flaws and some doesn't like some gameplay designs and/or the writing(I'm not too care on that part and don't too care about writing style, just don't something too weird and enough to make me understand the story, I'm actually fine with cliché, as far as I like the story).

But I'm not sure about Dark Messiah's gameplay would make Skyrim better since I'm not really like that, feel a little be limited/not fit my playstyle(played DM first then Skyrim, I like DM too but doesn't really like the gameplay, just OK to me), but I'm fine with that, so too bad BGS changed their plan and used something simpler.

I always feel Bethesda should take some more time to let the game finished, not just always release the game on fixed deadline and it may get better on bug part, but...I won't hold my breath, as we already has a lot of failed shit even they delayed to release for polishing the game...still end up "bugfest".

Sledgehammer, on 02 October 2019 - 12:23 AM, said:

Spoiler

I'm obviously not using it as a buzzword, ......The industry definitely needs a very good TES clone. The only semi-similar game like new TES I can think of is Dragon's Dogma that was released about decade ago (and was quite incomplete, a lot of things were cut, though the game was still very good). Would love to get a new game a bit closer to older TES games and very polished, and also more developed overall (something what older TES games lacked too), without too much of cuts or too much randomness, but that would greatly depend from the publisher.

Spoiler

Doesn't like the gameplay style(TP Action games are not really my cup of tea mostly) of Dragon's Dogma so too bad for me.
Well... I found it always something better will got cut because lack of time or publisher just a**hole. So I'm not put too much of hope, but still...who know what will happen when it actually happens.

Sledgehammer, on 02 October 2019 - 12:23 AM, said:

I'm quite skeptical myself, my stance is on "only believe it when I see it" stage. But I'm curious for sure.

It's fine, I think. Hype won't help.

Sledgehammer, on 02 October 2019 - 12:23 AM, said:

I definitely agree on that, CRPG gameplay just doesn't work too well with first person view like in Morrowind in general, it's kinda meh design because you expect things to work differently for obvious reasons.

I prefer FPV but "too-much-dice-rolly" is not something I would like even I understand that's how CRPG works but...it just feel weird when it looks like you hit something but actually you're not because your hit check was failed.

At least on TES3, we have mod can change that(but not perfectly).



Nah, I just needed shitloads of time and then I'll buy or/and play the old TES games.

[Sledgehammer]

Spoiler

When I spoke of gameplay I meant combat, sorry. I'm talking about Dark Messiah.

Also, changing Morrowind gameplay is kinda weird, I mean, CRPG mechanics is the main gameplay of the game.

[Player Lin]

Sledgehammer, on 02 October 2019 - 08:57 AM, said:

Spoiler

When I spoke of gameplay I meant combat, sorry.

Spoiler

Okay, isn't combat also part of gameplay?

And I'm fine with both(DM and Skyrim) combat style...hmm, I'm sorry too.

EDIT:

Sledgehammer, on 02 October 2019 - 08:57 AM, said:

Also, changing Morrowind gameplay is kinda weird, I mean, CRPG mechanics is the main gameplay of the game.

True, but if it improves the experience then why not? Yes, it may weird but not every one like the CRPG part of mechanics.

[Sledgehammer]

Spoiler

Just wanted to clarify that.

I'm not a fan either, because it's not very well designed. But still would be weird. I'm appreciating CRPGs more so maybe I may change my mind later.

[MusicallyInspired]

I'm all for changing the combat in Morrowind. I don't even care if it's weird. Actually, I'm really looking forward to Morroblivion and Skywind. I don't care about the gameplay so much as the world, exploration, lore, and story....as long as the gameplay is something I actually like. I'm also looking forward to FF7 Remake for the same reason.

[Avoozl]

I'd personally take Open Morrowind over Skywind.

[Sledgehammer]

I bet Skywind will never be finished anyway. But OpenMW for vanilla plus mods is definitely the best version of Morrowind, way better than original game, even though it's technically not exactly finished yet.

[The Battlelord]

If the Soul Trap glitch still work i'm ready to go .

[MrFlibble]

MrFlibble, on 02 October 2019 - 01:57 AM, said:

I cannot say anything about Daggerfall Unity as I haven't tried it out yet. Last time I checked, it didn't adjust visuals to the correct aspect ratio and I'm too much of a purist to ignore this. But it should have some quality of life improvements compared to the vanilla game, plus there are some interesting mods.

I finally got around to try DFUnity. It appears that at some point, the correct aspect ratio support feature was introduced, but it's kind of hidden in the options so I was not immediately aware of how to enable it.

At startup, you need to set your rendering resolution to a 4:3 ratio (e.g. 1024x768), then go to Advanced -> Interface and select Free Scaling. This will render the cutscenes, menu screens, interface etc. in the selected aspect ratio.

You can then also go to Advanced -> Video and pick Retro Rendering Mode to get the closest to vanilla experience that is possible. There are two options, 320x200 and 640x400 (which will be stretched vertically to fit the 4:3 ratio) that can be roughly compared to Chocolate Doom and Crispy Doom respectively.

This is all described in detail here.

The game mechanics are not all source port accurate yet but there's some extensive reverse engineering going on that should eventually produce a more or less faithful recreation.