Heyall,

Over the past few days I decided that I would culture myself a bit by playing some of the older Elder Scrolls games, specifically Morrowind and Daggerfall. My eldest sister had an old copy of the former game lying around so I had been playing that up until yesterday (level 8/9 Argonian thief warrior) but yesterday I decided I would try out Daggerfall. So, I downloaded and installed the game, and I have a few impressions/questions to share/ask you guys. Thanks for your time.

Impressions:

- This game is deep. 98% of the towns, characters, and quests may be randomly generated, but that's really not such a bad thing. The game has a Nethack sort of vibe to it and there are enough random elements at play that the assortment of things you find don't get old too quick.

- For 1996 these graphics are pretty impressive! Kudos to whoever wrote the graphics engine for this game.

- Hey, this thing's got a 3D map! With... backwards controls. /me sighs

- I appreciate the character history thing. Not many games have that and it's fun to see it in a TES game.

- This game is not nearly as hard as I was made to believe it is. I had no trouble escaping the first dungeon, but I will grant that the game is somewhat challenging at times.

- Yay for uncensored mature content!

- Argonians resemble their modern designs much more in this game. I appreciate that.

- Character dialogue is ridiculously nonsensical!

- I see that even the DOS games Beth wrote would crash quite horribly to the parent OS. DOSbox has thrown me to my desktop at least twice now.

- There appear to be no armor-related skills. The only difference between different armors it seems is weight and protection value.

- It's interesting that I can only carry a realistic amount of stuff at any one time. My character has a carry limit of 78 kg if I remember correctly.

- Some of the quests can be difficult to complete simply because their objectives/solutions are not clear. That makes me kinda sad.

- Harpies cannot be harmed by normal weapons. Huh.

Questions:

- Where the HELL are all the healing/stamina/magicka potions? Every time I've found myself critically wounded I've had to stop and nap for a whopping 13 hours to regain my lost health points!

- What are the advantages of joining a guild?

- How do you climb walls?

- How do you pick locks?

- How should I go about committing good ol' cat burglary?

- Do silver weapons work on ghosts/harpies, or do I need to go the extra mile and get something enchanted to beat them with?

- Where can I go or what can I do to identify something?

You just answered your own question Aside from the rare times a monster or treasure will have potions, you have to join the Dark Brotherhood or one of the temples (except for Kynareth or Julianos) to buy or make them. There's also all sorts of other things you can get - the Mages' Guild is especially full of fun things like buying or making magic items.


Walk up to one perpendicular to it is the easiest way. It can take a bit of experience to get a feel for when you're exactly perpendicular, but once you are the game will say "Climbing mode" and you'll start going up (usually slowly unless you have a bit of skill with it).


Switch to steal mode (F1, or the button that normally looks like a hand on the bar at the bottom of the screen until it turns into a hand pinching a gold piece). Just make sure to switch back before you try to talk to someone, unless you want to pick their pockets.


You're not likely to find lots of stuff lying around houses, actually. Your best bet is to try and break into a store at night by picking its door, preferably a pawn shop (hoping you find holy tomes or daggers) or weapons store. There's also a cheaty trick to do that without having to pick the lock, but I'm sure you want to do it properly (though I'll still tell you if you'd like. )


Silver is fine for ghosts, but for harpies you need Dwarven or above.


Mages Guilds have a person who can identify for you. The service is open to non-members as well as members.

Thanks for the help, Maccabeus!

Nifty. Say, here's another question for you: are there trainers in this game like there are in Morrowind?

I've found that climbing is easiest to pull off when you use the mouse, although in other ways it's more difficult since once you've started I don't think you can actually pull off any tricks.

Whenever I do that I just get a message that says "This lock has nothing to fear from you..." Does that indicate a failure to lockpick? Am I missing an essential item? Or is my lockpicking skill just not high enough?

Ok, thanks for the tip. And no, I'm not interested in any cheap tricks, at least not yet.

After checking the handy http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Weapons guide on UESP I think I should shoot for at least Mithril. Material immunities svck.

Yes, they're usually in the guilds. In the fighters guild of Daggerfall it's a Redguard woman that trains you. Also the guilds tell you about their advantages when you ask to join.

You can click on ladders to move up them.

There are variations on that to tell you how close you are to getting it, so you're nowhere close yet. You need rather high intelligence to be good at lockpicking.

Also if you haven't heard, buy a cart from the General store. You can dump things in it from a dungeon without leaving the dungeon.

In addition to what the others have said, I'll point out that guild services require a certain minimum rank. Some services you can use as a non-member, some at first rank (i.e., as soon as you join), and some only after you've worked up to a higher rank.

For example (if I remember right), you can't buy potions in the Temple of Akatosh until your reach fourth rank. Other temples let you buy them at second or third rank; the hint book or one of the web sites can give you lists of ranks, services, etc. for all the guilds.

Working up in rank in a guild takes two things: doing guild quests to improve your reputation with the guild, and building up skills that are important to the guild. Again, see the hint book or web sites for details.

On the subject of guild quests: the only ones that count torward your guild status are the official quests given by the official NPC quest giver. Generic quests you get from just talking to NPCs in the guild don't count.