Figured i'd make a designated thread here for daggerfall since i cant stop talking about it lol
Have you ever played Daggerfall? Did you know about the Unity port?
I've played daggerfall off and on since I was 12, before the Unity port and the bug fixes and even then I was soo hooked. I loved being able to essentially live in this immersive, pixelated world, dressing up my character & trying my best to save up enough to buy a house for her.
And the dungeons scared me as a kid and kinda still do lol. They're huge labyrinthian mazes that you can get stuck in for hours, some people don't like that but I love them.
The mods genuinely add so much. Maybe i'll post another spoiler later with my favorite mods, but the modding community is so cool and tightnit and seem to collab on a lot of big projects together, just like morrowind's. I really reccomend people check this game out if you have the time!
if you're unaware what daggerfall is, i'll link the LGR video from 2012 that introduced it to me (at 0:45 you can see a boxed copy and wow.. i would sell a kidney for one)
tldw; Daggerfall is the second installment in the Elder Scrolls series, the same one Skyrim is a part of. It was released in 1996 after only two years in development and features an overworld map roughly the size of great britain (though due to procedural generation of town and dungeons large sections can look identical).
Bethesda started giving the game out as freeware years ago, and in 2023 Daggerfall Unity, a complete rewrite of the game ported to the Unity engine, had its feature complete 1.0 release. This group effort made the game much more accessible to newer audiences while also allowing players to produce and install custom mods in the same vein of Skyrim's modding community.
If you would like to play Daggerfall, you can download it for free though GOG or Steam. Daggerfall Unity can be downloaded at their *homepage, and you can view mods for the Unity version at Nexusmods!
*note: daggerfall Unity has a release on GOG called "daggerfall Unity - GOG cut" which comes pre-installed with a lot of mods already. While this may sound enticing, it is not advised to download this version as many of the mods have since become outdated and very buggy. The modding community for daggerfall unity in general seems to be against this version so i'd stay away and download it regularly through the daggerfall unity homepage.
tldw; Daggerfall is the second installment in the Elder Scrolls series, the same one Skyrim is a part of. It was released in 1996 after only two years in development and features an overworld map roughly the size of great britain (though due to procedural generation of town and dungeons large sections can look identical).
Bethesda started giving the game out as freeware years ago, and in 2023 Daggerfall Unity, a complete rewrite of the game ported to the Unity engine, had its feature complete 1.0 release. This group effort made the game much more accessible to newer audiences while also allowing players to produce and install custom mods in the same vein of Skyrim's modding community.
If you would like to play Daggerfall, you can download it for free though GOG or Steam. Daggerfall Unity can be downloaded at their *homepage, and you can view mods for the Unity version at Nexusmods!
*note: daggerfall Unity has a release on GOG called "daggerfall Unity - GOG cut" which comes pre-installed with a lot of mods already. While this may sound enticing, it is not advised to download this version as many of the mods have since become outdated and very buggy. The modding community for daggerfall unity in general seems to be against this version so i'd stay away and download it regularly through the daggerfall unity homepage.
Note: This mod list is designed for those getting into Daggerfall Unity modding but it's also tailored around my preferences. You can mod Daggerfall to your own liking, and turn it into visually a much different game. My preference for modding the game is "vanilla plus" which means I want it to still feel like a game from the 90's, very pixelated & colorful, and I want to add content that compliments and expands on it.
Before modding: There are some useful options packaged into Daggerfall Unity that I recommend reviewing to enhance your experience:
- from the boot menu, click 'advanced' then head to 'gameplay'. Go ahead and check "smaller dungeons" without any shame in the world, they will still be huge but now a bit more manageable. Review the 'enhancements' tab while you're here, there's a lot of helpful options that aren't on by default.
- Once in game, you can access the Effects options by hitting Esc and finding the button in the top left corner. There's a lot you can do with effects, but the main thing for maintaining the retro feel is all under the 'retro mode' panel. set 'mode' to 320x200, and optionally I like to set the postprocess to 'palettization (-sky)'.
With all that out of the way, here are my mod recommendations!
Before modding: There are some useful options packaged into Daggerfall Unity that I recommend reviewing to enhance your experience:
- from the boot menu, click 'advanced' then head to 'gameplay'. Go ahead and check "smaller dungeons" without any shame in the world, they will still be huge but now a bit more manageable. Review the 'enhancements' tab while you're here, there's a lot of helpful options that aren't on by default.
- Once in game, you can access the Effects options by hitting Esc and finding the button in the top left corner. There's a lot you can do with effects, but the main thing for maintaining the retro feel is all under the 'retro mode' panel. set 'mode' to 320x200, and optionally I like to set the postprocess to 'palettization (-sky)'.
With all that out of the way, here are my mod recommendations!
- Dynamic Music and Dynamic Music Pack - Arena and Daggerfall Mix: Dynamic music restructures how the game handles music, allowing transitions inbetween tracks and combat music (which daggerfall didn't originally have) as well as custom player-made playlists. The pack I linked contains music from both Daggerfall and Arena, played on a roland SC-88 and is my favorite way of hearing the music from these games : )
- Better Ambiance: Adds enhanced visuals and sfx to dungeons and player movement. Makes dungeons stand out from one another and adds some other nice vfx tweaks. I prefer to uncheck "Better footstep sounds" in the mod options because they sound too crisp and clear in comparison to everything else in the game but its up to you.
- ASphincterSaysWhat collection (Attacks, Feeling Lucky, Battle of Wills): There's more I could list from this creator but these three really spice up Daggerfall's combat for me. Battle of Wills restructures how enemies reflect magic, Feeling Lucky adds the Luck stat to many common actions, and Attacks restructures the combat formula among other things.
- Roleplay & Realism (+ Items): R&R adds a lot of small immersive additions to the game, check the description for the full list. The Items module is an addon which adds new gear and useful items to find.
- The Penwick Papers: similar to the above, penwick papers enhances the immersive side to Daggerfall by adding a lot of things from grappling hooks, new tricks for rogue-type players and enemies, and new spell effects to use in the spell maker.
- Warm Ashes, Wilderness Overhaul, Basic Roads, and World of Daggerfall Project: These four combined enhance the overworld of Daggerfall to make it both easier to navigate and much more interesting to explore.
- Better Ambiance: Adds enhanced visuals and sfx to dungeons and player movement. Makes dungeons stand out from one another and adds some other nice vfx tweaks. I prefer to uncheck "Better footstep sounds" in the mod options because they sound too crisp and clear in comparison to everything else in the game but its up to you.
- ASphincterSaysWhat collection (Attacks, Feeling Lucky, Battle of Wills): There's more I could list from this creator but these three really spice up Daggerfall's combat for me. Battle of Wills restructures how enemies reflect magic, Feeling Lucky adds the Luck stat to many common actions, and Attacks restructures the combat formula among other things.
- Roleplay & Realism (+ Items): R&R adds a lot of small immersive additions to the game, check the description for the full list. The Items module is an addon which adds new gear and useful items to find.
- The Penwick Papers: similar to the above, penwick papers enhances the immersive side to Daggerfall by adding a lot of things from grappling hooks, new tricks for rogue-type players and enemies, and new spell effects to use in the spell maker.
- Warm Ashes, Wilderness Overhaul, Basic Roads, and World of Daggerfall Project: These four combined enhance the overworld of Daggerfall to make it both easier to navigate and much more interesting to explore.
- Dynamic Skies: The original "skybox" for Daggerfall is actually a flat plane that follows the camera, this mod changes it to a proper skybox and adds a lot of minor vfx additions to it, most notably a remade weather system. I reccomend using the normal or pixel editions unless you're going for a more high-rez modlist.
- Unique Armor and Diverse Weapons: Unique armor makes Dwarven armor look, well, dwarven and Diverse weapons remakes all weapons to match their type as well as adds custom graphics for certain unique weapons.
- Shield Widget and Weapon Widget: Wow these two mods really make combat feel much more impactful and fast paced. It manipulates the first person weapon sprites in a way that makes the animations a lot more fluid.
- Beautiful Cities and Beautiful Villages: adds a lot to the layout of cities, towns and villages to make them much more unique and visually pleasing. Both have a handful of requirements, notably Daggerfall Expanded Textures and RMB Resource Pack, which are prerequisites for many other mods and very useful. Be sure to download the required files first before installing!
- Unique Armor and Diverse Weapons: Unique armor makes Dwarven armor look, well, dwarven and Diverse weapons remakes all weapons to match their type as well as adds custom graphics for certain unique weapons.
- Shield Widget and Weapon Widget: Wow these two mods really make combat feel much more impactful and fast paced. It manipulates the first person weapon sprites in a way that makes the animations a lot more fluid.
- Beautiful Cities and Beautiful Villages: adds a lot to the layout of cities, towns and villages to make them much more unique and visually pleasing. Both have a handful of requirements, notably Daggerfall Expanded Textures and RMB Resource Pack, which are prerequisites for many other mods and very useful. Be sure to download the required files first before installing!
Have you ever played Daggerfall? Did you know about the Unity port?
I've played daggerfall off and on since I was 12, before the Unity port and the bug fixes and even then I was soo hooked. I loved being able to essentially live in this immersive, pixelated world, dressing up my character & trying my best to save up enough to buy a house for her.
And the dungeons scared me as a kid and kinda still do lol. They're huge labyrinthian mazes that you can get stuck in for hours, some people don't like that but I love them.
The mods genuinely add so much. Maybe i'll post another spoiler later with my favorite mods, but the modding community is so cool and tightnit and seem to collab on a lot of big projects together, just like morrowind's. I really reccomend people check this game out if you have the time!
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