Wednesday 4 April 2001

Pic of the day: The witches of the Hircine cult look rather ordinary. They live in houses in towns and villages, like normal people, except they are not quite normal and they all look like this.

Return to Daggerfall

(Sorry, but it was either this or the future of doggy lust. I decided to give the other topic some more time. Perhaps later.)

So lately I have yet again returned to the imaginary kingdom of Daggerfall, as portrayed in the old but good computer game from Bethesda Softworks. No, it is not I who have made this game. I lack any artistic talent. OK, but even so, it is not I who have made it. And the graphics were not all that terrible, a few years ago ...

The first thing I did after I came home from the west coast, was to send my Daggerfall CD to a young man living not far from here. He very much wanted to borrow the game, and it is almost impossible to get your hands on here in Norway anymore. I got it back after a week. Needless to say, I would not lend it to just anyone. I either need to know you, or live close enough that I could exact unspeakable revenge on you if you damaged it... ;)

***

A week is really not a long time to play Daggerfall. I suspect I have played it almost every week since it came to Norway years ago. I am not sure there is any period of 2 weeks that I have not touched it at all, though there may be. There are definitely ups and downs in my relationship with Daggerfall, especially after I got The Sims. But I usually drop by some days each month at least. This week has been one such week.

This time I have been playing an Acrobat pre-made class. Most of my characters have been custom-designed classes of my own, but occasionally I will try my hand at the standard classes. In my humble opinion, most of them are inferior to my own classes, in playability. They just don't have enough personality. It's hard to compete with a Linguist, for instance, in personality. A character whose progress depends solely on the use of language makes for a memorable game in an otherwise hack and slash tradition of games. Or how about a character that cannot use any metal object, neither armor nor weapon? Standard classes become rather drab in comparison.

This time however I am playing an Acrobat, and I did so with some bad memories from the previous Elder Scrolls game, Arena. I played an Acrobat there and it was horrible. He was simply chased all over the place. Then again, Daggerfall is easier than Arena. Not as simple, but easier. There are so many tricks when you know the game. I am going to share some of them with you, just in case you get your hands on this jewel (and the absolutely required patch 3.13. Don't leave the cave without it).

***

The starting cave can be quite a challenge to the new player, but after a few games you find your way out quite easily. The essential thing is to not walk up the enormous flight of stairs, where the skeleton waits. Instead go past it, through the door on the left side of the stairs, straight ahead and up the narrow stairs. This takes you to the corridor leading to the upper floors. Here, the first door to the right leads out of the dungeon. Once you've fought your way (or just run) past the imp, the rat and the bat, there is the skull portal. There is one thing that seems to be common for all the players who love Daggerfall: The first time they found the exit of the starting cave, they were struck by the enormous freedom of the great outdoors. The game is the equivalent of a large state or a small country (I've heard Great Britain as a comparison) and you can spend hours just trekking from one city to another in the ever changing weather.

What I did this time was visit the witches. There are witches in many towns and villages. I went to the village of Longing, since my character is a worshipper of Logic and there is a School there. The local witch resides in a small house due west of Longing Mail and the Bank of Daggerfall. You cannot go wrong, it is the only house between those and the wilderness.

The witches are like a guild, except you cannot join. You can ask them for quests, and keep turning down the dangerous ones when you are a newbie. If you are quick but not a good fighter, the "revenge" quest is probably the best. You deliver a cursed gift to some person who has wronged the Sisterhood, and then you run for your life. The gift transforms the offender into a monster, which naturally attacks you first. So you better get going. Do not kill it, the witches want it to suffer for a while and will be peeved if you fight it. When you return, you will get a magic item. A good one. (Remember, for each malefit there is a benefit ... heh.)

Once I got an item, I always set off for the nearest Mages Guild to have it identified. Experimenting with the items can have awkward side effects ... The best items are probably the "cursing" ones. These spray corrosive poison on your enemies. Effective against everything except ranged attacks. Even monsters much larger than you will jump away when you spray them. With a cursing item, a newbie can bring down most enemies without getting hurt at all.

Another great item is those of Healing. Daggerfall is a rough place, and Healing items can be used in the middle of a battle. But best of all, they allow you to become a werewolf if you so desire. And you should, if you play a wimpy character such as an Acrobat. The trick to becoming a werewolf is to fight one for a long time. You can heal yourself while you let the wolf claw you again and again. If you do this long enough, you will dream of the moon and within a few days become a werewolf.

As a werewolf, you should waste no time but borrow money enough to summon Hircine at the witches' place. The price is 200 000 gold unless you have done quests for them - each successful quest will shave 5000 gold off the price down to a minimum of 100 000 gold. Be sure to save your game before summoning, because sometimes Hircine will not show up, and sometimes another supernatural agent shows up instead. But if all goes well, you can go to a certain dungeon and kill an ungrateful wereboar, then be rewarded with Hircine's Ring. This allows you to change into werewolf form at will, and back, unlimited. It also keeps you from transforming automatically (always embarassing) under the full moon. Finally, it keeps you from getting weak if you don't hunt the innocent once a moon. Quite a nifty gadget.

Another more cheat-like feature is the Daedric weapon smuggler ring. If you go to the Rusty Ogre Lodge, a tiny village in Daggerfall, and walk into the only tavern there, you should save your game upstairs in the large room. When you load the game again, there is a good chance that you will find daedric weapons in some of the cupboards there. These weapons are incredibly strong and will cut through anything, making the game a whole lot easier for a newbie. (Too easy after a while, but then you can just ditch the weapons.)

There are many other strategies that will work too. For instance, if you attend the School of Julianos, you will eventually be able to first buy magickal items and later make your own. The same applies to the Mages Guild, but they require you to have some magic skills before you join. On the plus side, some of the quests for the Mages Guild are almost risk free.

***

I hope this has given you a little taste of one the best role playing games for the PC, ever. (After the patch, that is. It was incredibly buggy.) You can find more about Daggerfall, and links to a good number of other Daggerfall sites, at my Daggerfall Crossroads.