Crazy to hear that Todd pushed for a handcrafted world instead of procedural generation, when my least favourite thing about Starfield is the procedural generation
@@KingLich451 Bethesda's bad writing post-Morrowind was manageable because the worlds were still fun to explore. By removing the exploration factor through procedural generation, it made the bad writing unbearable because that's all that's left.
@@LazarusBellEmil isn’t a bad writer, he’s a complacent one. He’s competent when writing small, self-contained stories. He’s bad at writing big, expansive main quests with branching paths, though, which is exactly what he’s expected to write. He hasn’t really improved since then, preferring to stick with the familiar rather than really test the limits of his ability.
Honestly I would love to have the elderscrolls go in the direction of Michael kirkbride his ideas and fantasy ideas are amazing it feels so alien and...unnerving and I love it
Kirkbride has been more active on the forums, but don't underestimate the contributions of Ken Rolston and Mark Nelson on the concepts and world design. They are less present today, but their part cannot be overstated.
I personally dislike Kirkbride style very much and i am happy that nowadays ES is in a middle ground between tolkienesque and alien. His hand felt very forced in the lore and it seemed edgy for the sake of it.
@@viniciusvyller9458 I know and I do like it but I would like at least a bit more of that alien who knows if he had his own franchise it would be some weird fantasy sci-fi thing. I just like his ideas but can see how it won't fit with the imperial city and morrowind his some crazy alien country where they go to the moon with bees. (Edit: I also notice that we are subscribed most of the same channels you have good taste)
If he had his own game, yes, could be good stuff, i just get taken out of my classical RPG playstyle when he keeps bringing his in RL gnostic ideas, and how those lore facts that should be mysterious and ambiguous are brought up by you run of the mill farmer NPC. And thank you for the compliment :)
I agree, I feel like TES would’ve ended up being a niche series that eventually faded away if Todd and the others didn’t step in, but I would still absolutely play this hypothetical TES 3
@@ceedott Not sure it would've become a niche. There weren't many other first-person, massive open-world RPG's in 2002. Most of the others were either with an top-down or isometric view, or in third-person. Plus the interactivity with all the possible items in a fully 3D world was, and still is one of the series' greatest strengths.
@@ceedott Besides de niche aspect, I feel that TES lore would be way more... generic, if it wasn't for morrowind and the worldbuilding it created. Even oblivion, the most "generic" province, is wacky as hell compared to most fantasy, and skyrim, well, it's just fantastic. I'm glad they managed to give it a unique identity instead of just "fantasy vikings". Overall, Morrowind, I believe, gave The Elder Scrolls the identity we love today.
I wouldn't want that game *in place* of Morrowind, but I wish it had come into existence *as well*! The two concepts have so little in common, and would have played to different audiences, too.
I wish the creative differences remained on the team. The best ideas usually come from equally assertive people who heavily disagree with each other, trying to find a compromise. Now we have a series that just follows Todd's philosophy of open world theme parks.
The early premise of Fallout 76 may work as a single player RPG, where all the human NPCs you trade, interact, accept quests, recruit as followers and even romance are your fellow vault dwellers.
@@tilofuder5182 Not a shitty idea inherently, the signature Bethesda Jank scuffed the entire experience as Bethesda is known to do, and it certainly doesn't play well with a concept that requires a lot more finesse and talent to do in a way that works.
@@davidfrancisco3502 Putting the success of your game play in the hands of players is a HORRIBLE idea. It would end up being nothing but a cry fest and everyone would leave lol.
@@MrBottlecapBill Discovering what happened to the humans outside the vault to die out, the survivors a to run away and then getting rid of the menace that caused the problems would be the first and second act. The humans returning would be part of the third act.
Like it or not, Todd Howard (at least definitely at some point) has incredible creative ideas. Morrowind was so amazing partially because of his very direct and substantial role in its creation. In fact, Morrowind, compared to later games like Skyrim and ESPECIALLY Starfield, had a very small and tight-knit group of developers. This sense of camaraderie and most likely a common goal, as well as the fact that Morrowind HAD to be good to save Bethesda from going bankrupt (Bethesda was on the verge of extinction from lack of success with previous games), PLUS the fact that all the developers were thinking of what themselves and players would want to play (rather than investor suggestions), PLUS PLUS the straight-up creative genius of the people who worked on the game, all came together to create the greatest (In my humble opinion) fantasy role-playing experience of any video game EVER. As the games go on, you can tell that Todd was getting less and less involved by their visible lack of creative effort and far more mass-produce-able approach.
Not saying Todd didn't contribute, but Ken Rolsten, Kurt Kuhlmann, and Michael Kirkbride deserve way more credit for Morrowind's creative direction than Todd. He was just more willing to accept crazy ideas from his team because the company was about to fail
@@throckmortonsmith I can agree with that. I was merely pointing out the coincidental decrease in quality that seems to correlate with Todd's level of direct involvement with the games.
Back in those days games were made by a bunch of people sitting in one big room, talking to each other and constantly exchanging ideas. In the AAA world of "products" with "departments" with stiff management, and "market research", all that stuff, it's just not possible to work this way anymore. POV you're a level designer today: your task for this sprint is to put furniture in levels X, Y and Z. The writers are in another building in another town, you don't even know them in person, and the people who made the furniture have already finished that sprint so they can't make changes based on your suggestions (their team leader would kill them anyway).
I don't dislike Todd in the least. Ignoring his surprisingly massive charisma, I think he and his team are very talented world-builders, and even if I don't think their stories are going to shake the foundation of storytelling, they are enjoyable enough. I just think the company is going to shit because of greed and incompetent developing. Having good ideas doesn't mean you're a good developer. Making fun games doesn't mean you aren't a shitty publisher. Their games are unpolished, rushed messes that have to be cleaned up by modders *every. fucking. time.* and it's getting tiresome, all the while they continue to screw over people as they scam them out of shitty pre-order rewards like nylon bags instead of canvas, or implementing paid mods in their own platform after Valve told them "nah, this idea didn't pan out so we're canceling it" and removed the entire system from Steam due to massive backlash. They are creative, no one can deny that... they're just also bad at what they do and kind of assholes.
I loved daggerfall. In highschool i had a save that mapped a whole lotta cities. Fav memory was making weird spells and being a wereboar vampire. Was disappointed to find morrowind had gone in another direction, but loved it just the same. Hoping ES6 revisits the old games for inspiration and blends some of those concepts in a way that 'just works'
As much as I love Morrowind and the modern 3D TES games I long to see the universe where they all went the same direction as Daggerfall as technology progressed
I long for a world that they weren't scared to continue making their worlds unique and full of life. Oblivion and Skyrim felt so generic fantasy compared to previous games. I felt so much more tension between the natives and the empire in Morrowind than I did during an apparent civil war
@@RNS_Aurelius it was still a huge step away from the idea behind Daggerfall. Morrowind felt like a disappointment at launch, because of this, to me. I've since come to enjoy it on its own, but it doesn't hold a candle to Daggerfall.
why though, what's the point? in a playthrough in an open world sandbox styled game you can realistically explore a hundred of dungeons in a 10-100 square kilometers area. what's the point in generating a thousand of very similar dungeons in a 100000 sq km area? even a well balanced game like witcher 3 would benefit from smaller size with even more personal touch to its world. what i'm saying is there's no intrinsic value in size itself and if the size is limited then there's no need in procedural generation. where it shines is in competitive repetitive gameplay like heroes of might and magic 3 - randomization in set parameters is the goal bacause you play hundreds and thousands of short sessions instead of one long and complete playthrough.
@@EasyGameEh You definitively have a point there, especially concerning scale. On the other hand some sort of random world generation, if done very well (something I have yet to see), could make for a much less repetitive explorative gameplay. In all its current iterations, procedural generation, unfortunately, is simply used to avoid the work of a manually crafted world, it seems. Which creates a very soulless experience.
You're saying imagine what could have been. I'm thinking imagine what could still be. With projects like Dagger Fall Unity, and Open Morrowind, the latter actually bringing multiplayer to TES3, it would he cool to see some talented modders try to make a TES2.5 that's more of a spiritual successor and bringing trough all the mentioned features like multiplayer, and cross game character saves.
Ted Peterson and Julian Lefay are working on a game just like what you mentioned, a spirtual successor to Daggerfall called The Wayward Realms. It's not an MMO or anything but they do plan on having a drop in co-op option for those that want it. It's supposed to be 500,000 sq Kms, twice as big as Daggerfall! They have a kickstarter going atm which will help fund an early access version taking place in the starter island of 140 sq kms, so that they can get interest from publishers.
@@justurboi3806 That certainly sounds interesting I'll have to look into it. And honestly thank God they aren't going the MMO route. On top of the ridiculous costs it takes to actually make and maintain MMO which usualy leads to preditory business tactics, I've never been a huge fan of them cause it usually either means a grindfest, or it has some kind of mandatory pvp so it just ends up revolving around a lame meta, or both.
@@doc4011 yeah I’m glad they didn’t go mmo either. I don’t like that formula at all. The kickstarter ended the other day btw and they reached the goal, so we should have the early access late 2025
I am happy with what we got, but as a Daggerfall fan I probably would have enjoyed this hypothetical game as well. I am excited for Wayward Realms since it seems like it is building off of the Daggerfall formula.
0:30 Just seeing footage of this game gives me chills. People don't understand - for those who love this game (and especially played it when they were younger), 'Morrowind' is like a different reality... almost a second life.
It's funny and kinda sad... sometimes I tell people I lost a part of my self to morrowind like a lived an important part of it inside he game... here I am with kids, wife, house and a great job... but I still feel it is true.
Praise Todd as much as I like Daggerfall morrowind is a masterpiece and so glad the Daggerfall team left otherwise this alien masterpiece never would have happened
@@BlackSailPass_GuitarCovers I’ve seen what their doing with wayward realms and honestly I think they lack creativity. Everything they do is so derivative. Of course oblivion is when tes took that turn a bit but pushed their way out of it with Skyrim and eso. But the Daggerfall team while Daggerfall is a good crpg it just lacks that alien feeling / depth that morrowind had. Both teams are good at what they do and I appreciate both. But morrowind was lighting in a bottle, and blessings for Todd Howard and Michael kirkbride for their amazing vision.
Still though I find it quite interesting how starfield is much more akin to arena and especially daggerfall as a rpg. Especially when you consider todd had definitely a significant amount of creative control over this game compared to other titles. I don't think Todd has every fully left the old 90s crpg philosophy, I just think the new people that have came in has shifted the balance.
@@ciaranmck4469 I don’t like sci-fi so I didn’t play Starfield but I think … it was an experiment that didn’t seem to work. I think they were using it as a test to try things out for tes 6, clearly what they were doing didn’t go to well so, it gives them time it turn the ship in another direction.
Lmao. Todd being in charge was a curse that fell on the whole company. TES franchise is in a decline ever since Daggerfall. The version of Morrowind by Kirkbride was much better. Not this generic and shallow sh*t made by Todd. Especially Oblivion.
I'm honestly quite glad that we've got the Morrowind we know and love. While I do love Daggerfall (it being my first TES game and all), still it's very generic. The first two installments were more of a Dungeons & Dragons, than it's own thing...
@@insertname9736 doubling down on this comment ? All anyone is saying is arena / Daggerfall bland and generic morrowind amazing masterpiece no one is mentioning post morrowind works. That’s all in your head
I wonder what Julian LeFay might have thought of Star Wars Galaxies at its peak? It sounds a lot like what he was aiming for in his vision of the TES series.
Thank you for dedicating more to this discussion. Two beautiful approaches to storying telling and empowering players to tell their own stories. Yet never captured again.
Todd insisted on smaller play areas, less procedural generation, and what became the hallmark of elderscrolls: A world you can live in. And today, Julian lafey has the last laugh when Todd goes down that same route with starfield. I suppose the question now is: whose laughing now, Todd? You for proving it doesn't work at your own expense, or Julian for getting out when he did?
Julian's vision for the game would have been awful for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Even ignoring that they would have been totally different games likely with entirely different settings. I mean don't get me wrong, procedural generation isn't horrid and I like the idea that we could have potentially had some sort of implemented coop in the Elder Scrolls series (why we haven't gotten anything like it yet, idk, but I suppose we should probably be glad; Bethesda's engine could never handle it and they're not the best developers in the world when it comes to polishing their games). It's just that these games having hand-crafted worlds is what makes them so beloved. I am certain there is a strong following for the games before Morrowind, but I highly doubt they are as numerous or as enthusiastic as TES 3, 4 and 5 fans. And those games had genuine narratives of their own. Imagining if the series had gone procedural and focused on multiplayer... I just don't see the series being as successful as it is today. Frankly, I think the series would have turned out quite boring in the long run, but maybe that's just me. I do enjoy a good narrative and I am not a huge fan of procedural generation in most games. It works in some cases, like Valheim, but not for games that emphasize story and world-building, not really.
Tbh I prefer handcrafted world which can be filled with lots of visual storytelling I never liked proceduraly generated world of Daggerfall. It's literally my only issue with that game (except the size od damn thing) so I am glad they scrapped it for Morrowind
This makes me want to play Morrowind again. Unfortunately, you can never really go back. That's the problem with nostalgia. Also, id have to fiddle with it to upscale the font again, and i dont remember how i did that, and it was still too small.
Is the UESP your main source for these alternative plots? I have a fantasy of making a total conversion for TES4 that better fits my expectations back in 2006, and I’d love some more inspiration.
The original Tribunal plot actually sounds really cool and in line with the tone of the main quest of Daggerfall. I wish ES games would bring back more of the "political soap opera" vibes and cut back on the chosen one power fantasy stuff.
I don't think Daggerfall is any less of a power fantasy than the games that followed it (the player character is friends with the emperor; how much more elite can you get?) but I agree that I wish there was more of a focus on political intrigue and mystery. Morrowind definitely carried some of that over, but Oblivion and Skyrim both threw that out in favor of a more straightforward "the Empire itself is under threat!" plots, which I find myself much less invested in. Oblivion at least had impeccable atmosphere and great side quests. Skyrim had...great character customization? Which is awesome and all, but it doesn't make the rest of the game particularly memorable.
@@TheAtroxious Fair enough. I'm just tired of how much it has devolved into "You are the chosen one of all things and Tamriel's only hope for survival."
It’s so weird for me cause Skyrim and Daggerfall are my two favorites, oblivion and morrowind are in an uncanny valley of enjoyment for me. Is this a hot take?
Very interesting. I never played Morrowind but I’m a huge Skyrim fan and have watched many lore videos about both games and the franchise as a whole. It’s interesting to wonder what we could have gotten and at the same time a bit saddening to know of the untapped potential we missed-out on but I guess it’s the case of “not missing what you never had”… Still, a multiplayer Elder Scrolls Morrowind adventure would’ve probably been amazing.
its so f*cked up that we dont have a daggerfall or arena remake, but yet we have The Last of Us remastered like 10 times now I think its fair to say the vast majority of Bethesda game fans havent played any of the older games like Fallout 1 and 2, or Daggerfall, Arena, or even Morrowind. Such a massive opportunity for a remake/remaster with that in mind. Crazy the Bethesda bean counters havent realize the profit potential.
I like the idea of using procedurally generated content in videogames, even have a uni project that's going to be related to it, but... It needs to be used in a context that makes sense and, to me, an RPG is the worst genre to do that. To me, an RPG is the epitome of heavily curated hand-crafted content in videogames. No genre should aspire to be 100% hand-crafted with great quality more than an RPG. So, I'm glad that Morrowind became what it is today.
Yeah, RPGs are all about the world and writing and little about actual gameplay. So having these two aspect be procedurally generated is kinda stupid. Nobody cares that the guns feel like shite in FNV because the characters and the quests are amazing and make up for it. However, I understand why daggerfall had to be procedurally generated and I couldn't imagine it any other way. In the end, daggerfall feels more like a rogue like/ dungeon crawler than an RPG though...
I love the more mordern BGS games, but back in 2002 Morrowind was kinda a letdown for me. Morrowind felt small and dumbed down compared to the "Grand" Daggerfall.
Seems always weird when folks blame Todd for “dumbing down” the series when in reality he’s sort of the opposite. Like say what you will about Skyrim and even some aspects of Oblivion but they were much expanded upon than some folks give them credit for, like the draugr, the Dovakiin, the idea that shouts came from the Dragon Language, Miraak, etc. or Oblivion with its Amulet of Kings and the way that Oblivion in general kinda works.
They blame him because he gives talks and shows his design principles. When I hear stuff like "less is more" or see him showing a mobile game that he loves and why he loves to play it. Where the reason being cool fanfare sound at the end of the level. Then you start questioning the guy. But people who know him say he seems like a nice guy. He also has a ton of experience even if he did make mistakes (assuming some of latest games are his mistakes) he is a successful game developer. Personally I love Morrowind and I am happy that he pushed for handcrafted world. Procedural generation is hard to accomplish right. There are not a lot of games that use it and are successful.
Amulet of Kings was introduced in the Elder Scrolls Arena manual. If by "the way Oblivion in general kind of works" you're talking about the planes of Oblivion, they were really fleshed out by Battlespire and Morrowind's in-game book "On Oblivion" more than anything.
With all due respect, you seem to misunderstand what the whole “dumbing down” conversation is about. When people say the games are being dumbed down they are talking about the gameplay and game mechanics
The way Bethesda and Todd expanded on this critically aclaimed "Elder Scrolls 2" wasn't with Morrowind. Todd had other plans fot it... People loved the ambition, freedom and roleplay element of the previous games? Well, Todd, who always knows better, was going to show them what they really wanted! How about playing a mage in a dungeon? Or some pirate in a very small map without any roleplay elements? Then, after accumulating failures on failures, Bethesda tried a desperate last move. This was some really crazy idea: "What if we gave customers what they want?" That's how Oblivion was born... The rest was history! Todd learned its lesson and kept the concept of a half baked features and bugs. And Bethesda kept making more mediocre games every year. The end.
I mean, I feel like that's being a little unfair to Julian, his ideas were actually extremely ambitious for the time, and he actually has passion for what he was doing. Plus, everything I've seen of the Wayward Realms doesn't really reek of games as a service. While there was procedurally generated content in Daggerfall, there was also an active attempt to compensate for that in the game via the various other systems implemented to compensate for it, though I will admit many of the systems were not fully implemented simply because they were a little to ambitious for the technology of the time. That doesn't quite directly compare to Starfield. I never had to slow travel to the nearest settlement to the starting dungeon in Starfield because fast-travelling would cause the disease I picked up to kill me before I arrived, then had to trot over to the bank and take out a small loan to cure said disease from the local branch of the regional bank because the stores in said town wouldn't the type of loot I had, so I didn't have the money to pay the local temple to cure me. Plus, while I really love the story of Morrowind, I do also kind of miss the messy political intrigue of Daggerfall, and feel like Oblivion and Skyrim's plots should have had a focus on some good old fashioned LeFay style political intrigue, and a lot of the rumors from Morrowind regarding the Septim succession really feel like that was supposed to be the direction Oblivion was supposed to take. As for Skyrim, while I like the game, I feel like it would have been better served had the Civil War been fully fused into the main plot ala the Putting the Ghost of Lysandus to Rest/Finding the Emperor's Lost Letter approach from Daggerfall, along with the political implications of the War being spun off into a whole separate game system. Procedural generation and Mutliplayer alone do not "games as a service" make, especially when LeFay and Peterson seem like genuinely passionate about their work in most of their public interactions.
@@davidb7406 if you ahve played tamriel rebuilt, you KNOW for a fact that it doesnt compare to procedural generation and games should never be made like that, nobody likes radiant quests in skyrim and fallout 4 and this idea was taken from daggerafall. We dont know any more copy paste in games we need less.
If her first is not her first born; take a wild guess what other "first" a woman has in that time period that would be valuable enough to any male, to get them to do what she wanted... It's a veiled reference to the fact on her actual wedding night, I highly doubt she was a virgin (and maybe as much a tacit admission that The Real Barenzieath may be the correct telling) given the racial stance on Dark Elven sexuality.
It's pretty much unconceivable that she'd be a virgin at that point. She was already married do King Eadwyre and prior to the events of the game, had a reputation as a notoriuos schemer, which in the case of dark elven females usually involved sexuality. Furthermore, Mannimarco was undead. What possible interest could he have with intercourse?
MMORPG with the graphics and game mechanics and complexity of Morrowind back in 2002. would have been such a revolutionary game that WoW a couple years later would be seen as a childish copy.
I wish we could have a hybrid in-between the two. I like a hand-crafted world but Bethesda maps are SO small it takes me out of any immersion. There is a hill in Oblivion where you can see like 3 or 4 cities, an old lady could do the walk in like 5 minutes. In Skyrim someone says Riverwood is "a few miles from White run" ROFL try a few hundred yards. In New Vegas (I know its not made by Bethesda but same map) there is a mission to get the radios in the NCR camps working.... radios? there is LITERALLY 2 camps that are so close they could talk with 2 cups and a string. Fallout 4, the "swan pond" is as big as the swimming pool at my apartment complex. Stuff like that KILLS the immersion. I would like to see hand crafted areas, but in-between them large procedural generated areas with some encounters in them. I don't want a "lake" to be the size of a pool or a town to be made of an inn and 2 houses, I don't want an Inn to literally be 20 feet from the scary haunted crypt. Guy could shake hands with the "ghost" from the rear window. KILLS immersion for me.
Yeah. I'd rather a video game have a city, instead of being like a shrunken-down suburbia, have it be a wholly made-up city around 10 square miles and lodged between mountains and ocean, and have it seem like a place that could actually really exist.
No, I don't think a hybrid would have worked. It would have messed up development too much and besides, I don't care how small their maps are (not that I agree with you to begin with), I like the detail that goes into them. People always jerk off New Vegas, but it had one of the dumbest map designs in any open-world game I've ever seen. It intentionally forces you to travel in a linear path counter-clockwise around it and then by the time you hit New Vegas it feels like there isn't actually anything left to explore. I mean yes, there are dungeons to enter and a few buildings and so on, as well as the DLC content expanding everything for the better... but other than that? Nada. Zilch. It's the worst fucking design imaginable for an open-world map. Fallout 3's map may be fairly small when you actually check the scope, but it is fun to explore and you are not limited towards one direction. The Capital itself is more linear because of all the wreckage blocking around the internal city areas like the entrance to Underworld, but the rest of the Capital Wasteland is pure and free exploration. You can even go find your dad right after you leave the vault if you want to and the game doesn't completely break! No, sorry, I just don't agree. I do agree with what someone else said that it would have been nice had they pursued this kind of game on the side, though, as an additional series within the Elder Scrolls IP. As new ideas continued to foster, they could have easily begun to implement some of the concepts into the main series and improved them somewhat, maybe even leading to a proper coop system before Skyrim. Not to mention tiding over fans who are waiting literal *YEARS* for the release of the next mainline Elder Scrolls title.
@@Lucifronz You are free not to agree, but I do not agree with you. Fallout 3's design is awful. The world just levels with you, so if you go to a Supermutant area at level 3, they have pipe rifles and super low HP. Why not just have rats and scorpions there then? There is ZERO challenge in Fallout 3 because you CAN go everywhere from the start anywhere you go is tailored to your level. You have the freedom to go anywhere in Vegas, you don't HAVE TO go counter clockwise, but if you don.t you will die if you don't know what you are doing. You can absolutely do it, it's just much harder. I like open world games but the world should not level with you. There should be areas where you just strait up lose, no matter what you do at low levels and this forces the player to "git good" as they say, up your skills, find better gear, enchant it, have potions etc. The problem with Bethesda's games is I have all these way to get stronger but really, I don't need any of them in order to beat the game, it's too easy. Also again for me personally the tiny maps ruin immersion. A swan pond the size of my swimming pool isn't detail, its stupid.
I hate what Skyrim did to the lore with dragons, it was supposed to be the Mythic/Merethic era, but somehow humans were run by dragons since forever ago? What, did the Nords come from Atmora where they were free from dragons, come down to Skyrim to defeat the Dragons' elven servants while the Dragons do nothing, all for the privilege of then being enslaved by them also? why don't elves have dragon legends or ever mention them? they fucked up the lore so they could have stupid big lizards and have a chosen one character. and they make no attempt to disambiguate this in-game. no amount of multiverse/dragon break shit excuses this. no wonder people prefer the character of morrowind.
In reality it’s just that Todd and Emil are more than happy to retcon lore in order to distill a game down to whatever is marketable and trendy at the time. They’ve done it to fallout as well sadly. Also oblivion was supposed to be jungles then Todd saw LOTR and made it a regular medieval fantasy setting.
I like it a lot, but I think of it more as a 70s fantasy look. Skyrim has this style but they replaced all the colors with gray and black and made it boring.
I had a Playstation and a nice library of games. One day I stopped at a Blockbuster and accidentally found Morrowind, I bought an Xbox just for that game. I've been an Elder Scrolls fan ever since.
I really appreciate you talking about the specific creative differences in lore, not just story and game design. I'll definitely check out the interview
I think the wishes and plans for the alternate TES 3 was way too big. Looking back now, the game would be niche even for that time, and I do not believe it would garner a big following with that times technology and if it did get a good amount of following it would be out of date very quickly I think, due to the rapid advances in the gaming technology at that time. And I am personally very happy that Morrowind became TES 3. And I don't think we would have TES 4 Oblivion and TES 5 Skyrim as they are today without Morrowind. And if memory serves me right; Battlespire and Redguard did not do so well, don't quote me on that one though. But imagine if that other route for TES series would been a huge flop. Then I guess we would never see that wonderful universe expand like it has today. That would have been a huge loss in gaming and entertainment. Just think of the millions upon millions of hours spent in these games across the world :) So as stated in the beginning of my comment I think the plans of Julian Lefay was to grand, and the route of Todd Howard with the smaller handcrafted course was the better one. Which Bethesda got known for. Even though the brand have gotten a bit of a smudge nowadays, Bethesda is mostly known for their epic and wonderful handcrafted worlds with many interesting stories told through quests and scenery unrelated to quests in which the scenery is used for storytelling and is given to the player to ponder upon by some level designer or the like. But this is just a bunch of ramblings from a very longtime fan of the TES series... Thanks for a very interesting video which brought up a bunch of memories regarding both the games themselves and Bethesda as a company.
Sometimes I wish I was an old head and could really appreciate Daggerfall. I know and respect that the world and mechanics are insanely cool and in depth but, that pet tiger mission. Brutal. I'm pretty sure Lefay is developing another game in his style. Perhaps that'll be my chance to fall in love with his design.
I stand for searching of that perfect balance between generated and handcrafted world. I am huge fan of Morrowind and it is my #1 favorite game of all I ever played though I totally agree that it always lacked procedural part. Most of things I imagined to improve that game included procedural elements. As a good example there is "travellers" mod that makes the world feel a lot more alive and less static, with totally random characters moving around the cities. Goddamn I wish those random characters also had random quests and dialogues as well.
Both developmental models were ultimately flawed in the long run. Julian's foreshadowed modern MMOs and SaaS - every franchise a vehicle for forcing monthly subscriptions down a consumer's throat wherein the task of generating meaningful interaction with the software is left up to the playerbase itself under the guise of 'social gaming'. Meanwhile, Todd's is the state of modern TES (and, unfortunately, Fallout): rehashed iterative installments that innovate on little and oftentimes accomplish less compared to the installments that came before them. Neither were capable enough visionaries to head a truly great franchise.
Tbh I don't think Todd is that different I mean look at starfield, it's arguably the closest thing to a daggerfall that we've ever had. I think it's about the people who work with Todd and how much creative power Todd has over a given project. I think there's a balance to be made and if bgs can find that balance of what makes these design philosophies great then I think tes 6 could be one of the greatest games of the decade. The issue is do we have faith in BGS to fix their problems structurally and philosophically? I hope so lmao
It was Oblivion that got me into Morrowind and Morrowind that got me into Daggerfall. I always wondered how I would perceive Morrowind and Oblivion if my first game played was Daggerfall.
I find it hard wrapping my head around the idea that Todd's team was pushing for more unique lore when some of the coolest and most memorable (and actually comprehensible) lore in TES comes from the in-game books written by Ted Peterson; whereas under Todd's stewardship, the lore was gradually getting more and more generic until it hit the rock bottom in Skyrim.
Unfortunately with moving to Morrowind is that we got an Elder Scrolls that just feels smaller and doesn't really push videogaming further. However the Morrowind style of open world is ultimately what led to pretty much ever open-world game today from GTA to Witcher 3 to Elden Ring.
Morrowind didn't push gaming forward? If you didn't know, most RPGs from around the time branded themselves as "Morrowind Killers" and gaming as a whole took many things from ESIII.
I don’t think Elden Ring took inspiration from Morrowind considering Fromsoft has dabbled into an open world interconnected system with Dark Souls 1 and even that game took alot of inspiration from Kingsfield
@@todd2.08 They took inspiration from TES, just not Morrowind. Skyrim actually. Miyazaki mentioned in a few interviews about Elden Ring that he played Skyrim as preparation for creating a fully open world game.
So theres this ARG of New Vegas called Dr B0sch, and my theory states that Morrowind failed to save Bethesda as a company, resulting in Interplay buying bethesda and absorbing them. This is the Morrowind I imagine came out in that world.
If you haven’t already seen it, I HIGHLY recommend watching Indigo Gaming’s interview with Julian LeFay. Link in the description.
There ain't no link to any such interview in that description, bro
@@adamcampbell9806 i guess he forgot to put it there
@@adamcampbell9806hey bro it's been added now👌🏻
To what could have been. Thank you for the information.
Also The Rageaholic's video which has some of these same ideas, the thumbnail has basically the same title.
Crazy to hear that Todd pushed for a handcrafted world instead of procedural generation, when my least favourite thing about Starfield is the procedural generation
Starfield is not bad because of generated worlds, it is the least of its problems.
@@KingLich451 the generated worlds is one of the biggest problems LMAO
@@KingLich451 Bethesda's bad writing post-Morrowind was manageable because the worlds were still fun to explore. By removing the exploration factor through procedural generation, it made the bad writing unbearable because that's all that's left.
@@LazarusBellOblivion writing is good though
@@LazarusBellEmil isn’t a bad writer, he’s a complacent one. He’s competent when writing small, self-contained stories. He’s bad at writing big, expansive main quests with branching paths, though, which is exactly what he’s expected to write. He hasn’t really improved since then, preferring to stick with the familiar rather than really test the limits of his ability.
And now Julian's heading The Wayward Realms which is pretty much Daggerfall 2, in theory
Seems to be more of a spiritual successor than a Daggerfall 2 but I’m very excited for it nonetheless!
I just hope he finishes it!!
thanks bro, i just wishlisted
And it's currently vaporware until proven otherwise
@@LordVader1094ks drops soon?
Honestly I would love to have the elderscrolls go in the direction of Michael kirkbride his ideas and fantasy ideas are amazing it feels so alien and...unnerving and I love it
Kirkbride has been more active on the forums, but don't underestimate the contributions of Ken Rolston and Mark Nelson on the concepts and world design. They are less present today, but their part cannot be overstated.
@@notthedroidsyourelookingfo4026
Agreed. They were massively important in presenting the quests and in-person motivations of most of the characters.
I personally dislike Kirkbride style very much and i am happy that nowadays ES is in a middle ground between tolkienesque and alien. His hand felt very forced in the lore and it seemed edgy for the sake of it.
@@viniciusvyller9458 I know and I do like it but I would like at least a bit more of that alien who knows if he had his own franchise it would be some weird fantasy sci-fi thing. I just like his ideas but can see how it won't fit with the imperial city and morrowind his some crazy alien country where they go to the moon with bees. (Edit: I also notice that we are subscribed most of the same channels you have good taste)
If he had his own game, yes, could be good stuff, i just get taken out of my classical RPG playstyle when he keeps bringing his in RL gnostic ideas, and how those lore facts that should be mysterious and ambiguous are brought up by you run of the mill farmer NPC.
And thank you for the compliment :)
I'm glad they went with what morrowind eventually became.
I agree, I feel like TES would’ve ended up being a niche series that eventually faded away if Todd and the others didn’t step in, but I would still absolutely play this hypothetical TES 3
@@ceedott Not sure it would've become a niche. There weren't many other first-person, massive open-world RPG's in 2002. Most of the others were either with an top-down or isometric view, or in third-person. Plus the interactivity with all the possible items in a fully 3D world was, and still is one of the series' greatest strengths.
@@ceedott Besides de niche aspect, I feel that TES lore would be way more... generic, if it wasn't for morrowind and the worldbuilding it created.
Even oblivion, the most "generic" province, is wacky as hell compared to most fantasy, and skyrim, well, it's just fantastic. I'm glad they managed to give it a unique identity instead of just "fantasy vikings".
Overall, Morrowind, I believe, gave The Elder Scrolls the identity we love today.
I would prefer this as a spin-off between morrowind and oblivion
@@ceedott TES is a niche series xD, we big fans of TES just don't see it but actually, a game being an RPG already is very niched.
I wouldn't want that game *in place* of Morrowind, but I wish it had come into existence *as well*! The two concepts have so little in common, and would have played to different audiences, too.
I wish the creative differences remained on the team. The best ideas usually come from equally assertive people who heavily disagree with each other, trying to find a compromise.
Now we have a series that just follows Todd's philosophy of open world theme parks.
The sort of online experience that Julian imagined, npcs replaced by players, sounds a lot like what Fallout 76 *tried* to do.
And turned out to be a shitty idea
The early premise of Fallout 76 may work as a single player RPG, where all the human NPCs you trade, interact, accept quests, recruit as followers and even romance are your fellow vault dwellers.
@@tilofuder5182 Not a shitty idea inherently, the signature Bethesda Jank scuffed the entire experience as Bethesda is known to do, and it certainly doesn't play well with a concept that requires a lot more finesse and talent to do in a way that works.
@@davidfrancisco3502 Putting the success of your game play in the hands of players is a HORRIBLE idea. It would end up being nothing but a cry fest and everyone would leave lol.
@@MrBottlecapBill Discovering what happened to the humans outside the vault to die out, the survivors a to run away and then getting rid of the menace that caused the problems would be the first and second act. The humans returning would be part of the third act.
Like it or not, Todd Howard (at least definitely at some point) has incredible creative ideas. Morrowind was so amazing partially because of his very direct and substantial role in its creation. In fact, Morrowind, compared to later games like Skyrim and ESPECIALLY Starfield, had a very small and tight-knit group of developers. This sense of camaraderie and most likely a common goal, as well as the fact that Morrowind HAD to be good to save Bethesda from going bankrupt (Bethesda was on the verge of extinction from lack of success with previous games), PLUS the fact that all the developers were thinking of what themselves and players would want to play (rather than investor suggestions), PLUS PLUS the straight-up creative genius of the people who worked on the game, all came together to create the greatest (In my humble opinion) fantasy role-playing experience of any video game EVER. As the games go on, you can tell that Todd was getting less and less involved by their visible lack of creative effort and far more mass-produce-able approach.
Not saying Todd didn't contribute, but Ken Rolsten, Kurt Kuhlmann, and Michael Kirkbride deserve way more credit for Morrowind's creative direction than Todd. He was just more willing to accept crazy ideas from his team because the company was about to fail
@@throckmortonsmith I can agree with that. I was merely pointing out the coincidental decrease in quality that seems to correlate with Todd's level of direct involvement with the games.
Back in those days games were made by a bunch of people sitting in one big room, talking to each other and constantly exchanging ideas. In the AAA world of "products" with "departments" with stiff management, and "market research", all that stuff, it's just not possible to work this way anymore. POV you're a level designer today: your task for this sprint is to put furniture in levels X, Y and Z. The writers are in another building in another town, you don't even know them in person, and the people who made the furniture have already finished that sprint so they can't make changes based on your suggestions (their team leader would kill them anyway).
@@reddmst I wish games were still personal and made with love
I don't dislike Todd in the least. Ignoring his surprisingly massive charisma, I think he and his team are very talented world-builders, and even if I don't think their stories are going to shake the foundation of storytelling, they are enjoyable enough.
I just think the company is going to shit because of greed and incompetent developing. Having good ideas doesn't mean you're a good developer. Making fun games doesn't mean you aren't a shitty publisher.
Their games are unpolished, rushed messes that have to be cleaned up by modders *every. fucking. time.* and it's getting tiresome, all the while they continue to screw over people as they scam them out of shitty pre-order rewards like nylon bags instead of canvas, or implementing paid mods in their own platform after Valve told them "nah, this idea didn't pan out so we're canceling it" and removed the entire system from Steam due to massive backlash.
They are creative, no one can deny that... they're just also bad at what they do and kind of assholes.
And then modders were born
I loved daggerfall. In highschool i had a save that mapped a whole lotta cities.
Fav memory was making weird spells and being a wereboar vampire.
Was disappointed to find morrowind had gone in another direction, but loved it just the same.
Hoping ES6 revisits the old games for inspiration and blends some of those concepts in a way that 'just works'
As much as I love Morrowind and the modern 3D TES games I long to see the universe where they all went the same direction as Daggerfall as technology progressed
I long for a world that they weren't scared to continue making their worlds unique and full of life. Oblivion and Skyrim felt so generic fantasy compared to previous games. I felt so much more tension between the natives and the empire in Morrowind than I did during an apparent civil war
@@RNS_Aurelius it was still a huge step away from the idea behind Daggerfall. Morrowind felt like a disappointment at launch, because of this, to me. I've since come to enjoy it on its own, but it doesn't hold a candle to Daggerfall.
I found Morrowind a tolerable compromise between the depth of the previous game, and the despicable "streamlining" that would be the future of TES.
why though, what's the point? in a playthrough in an open world sandbox styled game you can realistically explore a hundred of dungeons in a 10-100 square kilometers area. what's the point in generating a thousand of very similar dungeons in a 100000 sq km area? even a well balanced game like witcher 3 would benefit from smaller size with even more personal touch to its world. what i'm saying is there's no intrinsic value in size itself and if the size is limited then there's no need in procedural generation. where it shines is in competitive repetitive gameplay like heroes of might and magic 3 - randomization in set parameters is the goal bacause you play hundreds and thousands of short sessions instead of one long and complete playthrough.
@@EasyGameEh You definitively have a point there, especially concerning scale. On the other hand some sort of random world generation, if done very well (something I have yet to see), could make for a much less repetitive explorative gameplay. In all its current iterations, procedural generation, unfortunately, is simply used to avoid the work of a manually crafted world, it seems. Which creates a very soulless experience.
You're saying imagine what could have been. I'm thinking imagine what could still be. With projects like Dagger Fall Unity, and Open Morrowind, the latter actually bringing multiplayer to TES3, it would he cool to see some talented modders try to make a TES2.5 that's more of a spiritual successor and bringing trough all the mentioned features like multiplayer, and cross game character saves.
Ted Peterson and Julian Lefay are working on a game just like what you mentioned, a spirtual successor to Daggerfall called The Wayward Realms. It's not an MMO or anything but they do plan on having a drop in co-op option for those that want it. It's supposed to be 500,000 sq Kms, twice as big as Daggerfall! They have a kickstarter going atm which will help fund an early access version taking place in the starter island of 140 sq kms, so that they can get interest from publishers.
@@justurboi3806 That certainly sounds interesting I'll have to look into it. And honestly thank God they aren't going the MMO route. On top of the ridiculous costs it takes to actually make and maintain MMO which usualy leads to preditory business tactics, I've never been a huge fan of them cause it usually either means a grindfest, or it has some kind of mandatory pvp so it just ends up revolving around a lame meta, or both.
@@doc4011 yeah I’m glad they didn’t go mmo either. I don’t like that formula at all. The kickstarter ended the other day btw and they reached the goal, so we should have the early access late 2025
I am happy with what we got, but as a Daggerfall fan I probably would have enjoyed this hypothetical game as well. I am excited for Wayward Realms since it seems like it is building off of the Daggerfall formula.
0:30 Just seeing footage of this game gives me chills. People don't understand - for those who love this game (and especially played it when they were younger), 'Morrowind' is like a different reality... almost a second life.
It's funny and kinda sad... sometimes I tell people I lost a part of my self to morrowind like a lived an important part of it inside he game... here I am with kids, wife, house and a great job... but I still feel it is true.
Even now, more than 20 years later, whenever I boot up Morrowind it feels like I'm returning home.
Yeah. Morrowind is a good game in its own right, but it doesn't feel like a successor of Daggerfall.
Praise Todd as much as I like Daggerfall morrowind is a masterpiece and so glad the Daggerfall team left otherwise this alien masterpiece never would have happened
Exactly. Their departure was a blessing.
@@BlackSailPass_GuitarCovers I’ve seen what their doing with wayward realms and honestly I think they lack creativity. Everything they do is so derivative. Of course oblivion is when tes took that turn a bit but pushed their way out of it with Skyrim and eso. But the Daggerfall team while Daggerfall is a good crpg it just lacks that alien feeling / depth that morrowind had.
Both teams are good at what they do and I appreciate both. But morrowind was lighting in a bottle, and blessings for Todd Howard and Michael kirkbride for their amazing vision.
Still though I find it quite interesting how starfield is much more akin to arena and especially daggerfall as a rpg. Especially when you consider todd had definitely a significant amount of creative control over this game compared to other titles.
I don't think Todd has every fully left the old 90s crpg philosophy, I just think the new people that have came in has shifted the balance.
@@ciaranmck4469 I don’t like sci-fi so I didn’t play Starfield but I think … it was an experiment that didn’t seem to work. I think they were using it as a test to try things out for tes 6, clearly what they were doing didn’t go to well so, it gives them time it turn the ship in another direction.
Lmao. Todd being in charge was a curse that fell on the whole company. TES franchise is in a decline ever since Daggerfall. The version of Morrowind by Kirkbride was much better. Not this generic and shallow sh*t made by Todd. Especially Oblivion.
The uniqueness and culture presented in Morrowind was absolutely the way it should have gone. Its world building still stands out today as the best.
I wonder who invented cliff racers in Morrowind. There's a special place in zhell for such a person 😂😂
with this level of quality and knowledge, dude you should have hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
that's very flattering lol, thank you :)
I'm honestly quite glad that we've got the Morrowind we know and love. While I do love Daggerfall (it being my first TES game and all), still it's very generic. The first two installments were more of a Dungeons & Dragons, than it's own thing...
People keep saying this, but all the games Except Morrowind feel very generic like DnD.
@@insertname9736 doubling down on this comment ? All anyone is saying is arena / Daggerfall bland and generic morrowind amazing masterpiece no one is mentioning post morrowind works. That’s all in your head
@@LostHorizons0 Morrowind is also bland and generic.
really cool video man! I knew Morrowind had been reworked but I had no idea how different it was originally going to be!
Sire, the honored one has returned with another video!
You should do a video on how different Skyrim and the Nords were before TES V.
Tell me more
This was originally released on The Imperial Library not UESP.
I wonder what Julian LeFay might have thought of Star Wars Galaxies at its peak? It sounds a lot like what he was aiming for in his vision of the TES series.
Honestly watching this vid makes me really glad morrowind turned out how it did. I love wierd elder scrolls!
Thank you for dedicating more to this discussion. Two beautiful approaches to storying telling and empowering players to tell their own stories. Yet never captured again.
Cool video! Thanks for making it
Todd insisted on smaller play areas, less procedural generation, and what became the hallmark of elderscrolls: A world you can live in. And today, Julian lafey has the last laugh when Todd goes down that same route with starfield. I suppose the question now is: whose laughing now, Todd? You for proving it doesn't work at your own expense, or Julian for getting out when he did?
Morrowind: Van Buren
Maybe tamriel rebuilt will do this plot for whenever they get to doing summerset 🤔
Julian's vision for the game would have been awful for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Even ignoring that they would have been totally different games likely with entirely different settings.
I mean don't get me wrong, procedural generation isn't horrid and I like the idea that we could have potentially had some sort of implemented coop in the Elder Scrolls series (why we haven't gotten anything like it yet, idk, but I suppose we should probably be glad; Bethesda's engine could never handle it and they're not the best developers in the world when it comes to polishing their games). It's just that these games having hand-crafted worlds is what makes them so beloved. I am certain there is a strong following for the games before Morrowind, but I highly doubt they are as numerous or as enthusiastic as TES 3, 4 and 5 fans. And those games had genuine narratives of their own. Imagining if the series had gone procedural and focused on multiplayer... I just don't see the series being as successful as it is today.
Frankly, I think the series would have turned out quite boring in the long run, but maybe that's just me. I do enjoy a good narrative and I am not a huge fan of procedural generation in most games. It works in some cases, like Valheim, but not for games that emphasize story and world-building, not really.
Daggerfall remains my favourite TES and I cannot wait for Wayward Realms.
If I could ever travel across the multiverse, I'd find one where Tribunal was made instead of Morrowind and bring it here
Tbh I prefer handcrafted world which can be filled with lots of visual storytelling
I never liked proceduraly generated world of Daggerfall. It's literally my only issue with that game (except the size od damn thing) so I am glad they scrapped it for Morrowind
If Bethesda ever run out of ideas we NEED a morrowind remake with the mainland landmass of Morrowind
Have you ever heard about Tamriel Rebuilt? And OpenMW?
Exactly... that exists already
Imagine a 2 year turn around time on a TES game...
4:30 Oh God, the irony!
That old box art is amazing, its a shame it didn't find use elsewhere
This makes me want to play Morrowind again. Unfortunately, you can never really go back. That's the problem with nostalgia. Also, id have to fiddle with it to upscale the font again, and i dont remember how i did that, and it was still too small.
The Tribunal looks like the Shadow Lords from Ultima 5.
Julian Lefay is one of those old school gamers with.....sad...sad hair.
If only arena was replaced with that.
Surprised you didn't show the early poster for "Tribunal"
Is the UESP your main source for these alternative plots? I have a fantasy of making a total conversion for TES4 that better fits my expectations back in 2006, and I’d love some more inspiration.
Not exclusively UESP but in general yes, it’s a great resource. I include sources as much as I can in the video descriptions, usually.
Crazy off topic but what even is that haircut Julian Lefay was rocking back in the day I need to know so my barber can get me right
The original Tribunal plot actually sounds really cool and in line with the tone of the main quest of Daggerfall. I wish ES games would bring back more of the "political soap opera" vibes and cut back on the chosen one power fantasy stuff.
I don't think Daggerfall is any less of a power fantasy than the games that followed it (the player character is friends with the emperor; how much more elite can you get?) but I agree that I wish there was more of a focus on political intrigue and mystery. Morrowind definitely carried some of that over, but Oblivion and Skyrim both threw that out in favor of a more straightforward "the Empire itself is under threat!" plots, which I find myself much less invested in. Oblivion at least had impeccable atmosphere and great side quests. Skyrim had...great character customization? Which is awesome and all, but it doesn't make the rest of the game particularly memorable.
@@TheAtroxious Fair enough. I'm just tired of how much it has devolved into "You are the chosen one of all things and Tamriel's only hope for survival."
Procedural generation in of itself isnt a problem the way its used is.
It’s so weird for me cause Skyrim and Daggerfall are my two favorites, oblivion and morrowind are in an uncanny valley of enjoyment for me. Is this a hot take?
no, i did not know that eitherx). ty
Very interesting. I never played Morrowind but I’m a huge Skyrim fan and have watched many lore videos about both games and the franchise as a whole. It’s interesting to wonder what we could have gotten and at the same time a bit saddening to know of the untapped potential we missed-out on but I guess it’s the case of “not missing what you never had”… Still, a multiplayer Elder Scrolls Morrowind adventure would’ve probably been amazing.
They clearly had to cut alot foe budget and time
Nice vid
I am happy with what we got. Morrowind >>>>>>>>>>>> Sumerset Isle
Oblivion didn't have a hand crafted world. Much of it was procedural and it shows.
A modern daggerfall-like tes wouöd be so cool tho 😢
The developers of Daggerfall are working on a spiritual successor called "The Wayward Realms".
its so f*cked up that we dont have a daggerfall or arena remake, but yet we have The Last of Us remastered like 10 times now
I think its fair to say the vast majority of Bethesda game fans havent played any of the older games like Fallout 1 and 2, or Daggerfall, Arena, or even Morrowind. Such a massive opportunity for a remake/remaster with that in mind. Crazy the Bethesda bean counters havent realize the profit potential.
I like the idea of using procedurally generated content in videogames, even have a uni project that's going to be related to it, but... It needs to be used in a context that makes sense and, to me, an RPG is the worst genre to do that. To me, an RPG is the epitome of heavily curated hand-crafted content in videogames. No genre should aspire to be 100% hand-crafted with great quality more than an RPG. So, I'm glad that Morrowind became what it is today.
Yeah, RPGs are all about the world and writing and little about actual gameplay. So having these two aspect be procedurally generated is kinda stupid. Nobody cares that the guns feel like shite in FNV because the characters and the quests are amazing and make up for it.
However, I understand why daggerfall had to be procedurally generated and I couldn't imagine it any other way. In the end, daggerfall feels more like a rogue like/ dungeon crawler than an RPG though...
There's some comedy in Todd Howard going from championing a handcrafted world, only to direct Starfield two decades later.
I'm one of the few people that like daggerfall more than morrowind.. 😅
I love the more mordern BGS games, but back in 2002 Morrowind was kinda a letdown for me. Morrowind felt small and dumbed down compared to the "Grand" Daggerfall.
Seems always weird when folks blame Todd for “dumbing down” the series when in reality he’s sort of the opposite.
Like say what you will about Skyrim and even some aspects of Oblivion but they were much expanded upon than some folks give them credit for, like the draugr, the Dovakiin, the idea that shouts came from the Dragon Language, Miraak, etc. or Oblivion with its Amulet of Kings and the way that Oblivion in general kinda works.
They blame him because he gives talks and shows his design principles. When I hear stuff like "less is more" or see him showing a mobile game that he loves and why he loves to play it. Where the reason being cool fanfare sound at the end of the level. Then you start questioning the guy. But people who know him say he seems like a nice guy. He also has a ton of experience even if he did make mistakes (assuming some of latest games are his mistakes) he is a successful game developer. Personally I love Morrowind and I am happy that he pushed for handcrafted world. Procedural generation is hard to accomplish right. There are not a lot of games that use it and are successful.
Amulet of Kings was introduced in the Elder Scrolls Arena manual. If by "the way Oblivion in general kind of works" you're talking about the planes of Oblivion, they were really fleshed out by Battlespire and Morrowind's in-game book "On Oblivion" more than anything.
With all due respect, you seem to misunderstand what the whole “dumbing down” conversation is about. When people say the games are being dumbed down they are talking about the gameplay and game mechanics
When Bethesda cared
Is your username a NorthernLion PUBG reference?
Kye-rodill?
Seriously?
The way Bethesda and Todd expanded on this critically aclaimed "Elder Scrolls 2" wasn't with Morrowind. Todd had other plans fot it...
People loved the ambition, freedom and roleplay element of the previous games? Well, Todd, who always knows better, was going to show them what they really wanted!
How about playing a mage in a dungeon? Or some pirate in a very small map without any roleplay elements?
Then, after accumulating failures on failures, Bethesda tried a desperate last move. This was some really crazy idea: "What if we gave customers what they want?"
That's how Oblivion was born... The rest was history! Todd learned its lesson and kept the concept of a half baked features and bugs. And Bethesda kept making more mediocre games every year.
The end.
It looks Julian LeFay wanted to turn morrowind into what starfield and games as a service are today, no thanks.
I mean, I feel like that's being a little unfair to Julian, his ideas were actually extremely ambitious for the time, and he actually has passion for what he was doing. Plus, everything I've seen of the Wayward Realms doesn't really reek of games as a service. While there was procedurally generated content in Daggerfall, there was also an active attempt to compensate for that in the game via the various other systems implemented to compensate for it, though I will admit many of the systems were not fully implemented simply because they were a little to ambitious for the technology of the time. That doesn't quite directly compare to Starfield. I never had to slow travel to the nearest settlement to the starting dungeon in Starfield because fast-travelling would cause the disease I picked up to kill me before I arrived, then had to trot over to the bank and take out a small loan to cure said disease from the local branch of the regional bank because the stores in said town wouldn't the type of loot I had, so I didn't have the money to pay the local temple to cure me. Plus, while I really love the story of Morrowind, I do also kind of miss the messy political intrigue of Daggerfall, and feel like Oblivion and Skyrim's plots should have had a focus on some good old fashioned LeFay style political intrigue, and a lot of the rumors from Morrowind regarding the Septim succession really feel like that was supposed to be the direction Oblivion was supposed to take. As for Skyrim, while I like the game, I feel like it would have been better served had the Civil War been fully fused into the main plot ala the Putting the Ghost of Lysandus to Rest/Finding the Emperor's Lost Letter approach from Daggerfall, along with the political implications of the War being spun off into a whole separate game system. Procedural generation and Mutliplayer alone do not "games as a service" make, especially when LeFay and Peterson seem like genuinely passionate about their work in most of their public interactions.
@@davidb7406 if you ahve played tamriel rebuilt, you KNOW for a fact that it doesnt compare to procedural generation and games should never be made like that, nobody likes radiant quests in skyrim and fallout 4 and this idea was taken from daggerafall. We dont know any more copy paste in games we need less.
If her first is not her first born; take a wild guess what other "first" a woman has in that time period that would be valuable enough to any male, to get them to do what she wanted...
It's a veiled reference to the fact on her actual wedding night, I highly doubt she was a virgin (and maybe as much a tacit admission that The Real Barenzieath may be the correct telling) given the racial stance on Dark Elven sexuality.
It's pretty much unconceivable that she'd be a virgin at that point. She was already married do King Eadwyre and prior to the events of the game, had a reputation as a notoriuos schemer, which in the case of dark elven females usually involved sexuality. Furthermore, Mannimarco was undead. What possible interest could he have with intercourse?
MMORPG with the graphics and game mechanics and complexity of Morrowind back in 2002. would have been such a revolutionary game that WoW a couple years later would be seen as a childish copy.
Bro... Todd stole Julian's ideas for both Starfield (procedurally generated worlds) and Fallout 76 (a world where NPCs are replaced by players)
julian did not come up with the concept of procedural generation lmao. shit has been around forever
00:00 No it’s not, it’s 2024.
"The year is 1996" Man I don't give a FUCK. Was Morrowind made in 1996? AM I HERE TO HEAR ABOUT 1996?!
that's it? that's the whole video? morrowind fans really seem to be running out of things to talk about
Morrowind already have complete multiplayer.
A short video on what TES could be if Kirkbride had his way would take at least 9 hours
@8:00 Perhaps in a different Kalpa, we *did* get that vision of Morrowind!
I wish we could have a hybrid in-between the two. I like a hand-crafted world but Bethesda maps are SO small it takes me out of any immersion. There is a hill in Oblivion where you can see like 3 or 4 cities, an old lady could do the walk in like 5 minutes. In Skyrim someone says Riverwood is "a few miles from White run" ROFL try a few hundred yards. In New Vegas (I know its not made by Bethesda but same map) there is a mission to get the radios in the NCR camps working.... radios? there is LITERALLY 2 camps that are so close they could talk with 2 cups and a string. Fallout 4, the "swan pond" is as big as the swimming pool at my apartment complex. Stuff like that KILLS the immersion.
I would like to see hand crafted areas, but in-between them large procedural generated areas with some encounters in them. I don't want a "lake" to be the size of a pool or a town to be made of an inn and 2 houses, I don't want an Inn to literally be 20 feet from the scary haunted crypt. Guy could shake hands with the "ghost" from the rear window. KILLS immersion for me.
Yeah. I'd rather a video game have a city, instead of being like a shrunken-down suburbia, have it be a wholly made-up city around 10 square miles and lodged between mountains and ocean, and have it seem like a place that could actually really exist.
No, I don't think a hybrid would have worked. It would have messed up development too much and besides, I don't care how small their maps are (not that I agree with you to begin with), I like the detail that goes into them.
People always jerk off New Vegas, but it had one of the dumbest map designs in any open-world game I've ever seen. It intentionally forces you to travel in a linear path counter-clockwise around it and then by the time you hit New Vegas it feels like there isn't actually anything left to explore. I mean yes, there are dungeons to enter and a few buildings and so on, as well as the DLC content expanding everything for the better... but other than that? Nada. Zilch. It's the worst fucking design imaginable for an open-world map. Fallout 3's map may be fairly small when you actually check the scope, but it is fun to explore and you are not limited towards one direction. The Capital itself is more linear because of all the wreckage blocking around the internal city areas like the entrance to Underworld, but the rest of the Capital Wasteland is pure and free exploration. You can even go find your dad right after you leave the vault if you want to and the game doesn't completely break!
No, sorry, I just don't agree. I do agree with what someone else said that it would have been nice had they pursued this kind of game on the side, though, as an additional series within the Elder Scrolls IP. As new ideas continued to foster, they could have easily begun to implement some of the concepts into the main series and improved them somewhat, maybe even leading to a proper coop system before Skyrim. Not to mention tiding over fans who are waiting literal *YEARS* for the release of the next mainline Elder Scrolls title.
@@Lucifronz You are free not to agree, but I do not agree with you. Fallout 3's design is awful. The world just levels with you, so if you go to a Supermutant area at level 3, they have pipe rifles and super low HP. Why not just have rats and scorpions there then? There is ZERO challenge in Fallout 3 because you CAN go everywhere from the start anywhere you go is tailored to your level. You have the freedom to go anywhere in Vegas, you don't HAVE TO go counter clockwise, but if you don.t you will die if you don't know what you are doing. You can absolutely do it, it's just much harder.
I like open world games but the world should not level with you. There should be areas where you just strait up lose, no matter what you do at low levels and this forces the player to "git good" as they say, up your skills, find better gear, enchant it, have potions etc. The problem with Bethesda's games is I have all these way to get stronger but really, I don't need any of them in order to beat the game, it's too easy. Also again for me personally the tiny maps ruin immersion. A swan pond the size of my swimming pool isn't detail, its stupid.
Thank god for Michael Kirkbride and Todd Howard then
I hate what Skyrim did to the lore with dragons, it was supposed to be the Mythic/Merethic era, but somehow humans were run by dragons since forever ago? What, did the Nords come from Atmora where they were free from dragons, come down to Skyrim to defeat the Dragons' elven servants while the Dragons do nothing, all for the privilege of then being enslaved by them also? why don't elves have dragon legends or ever mention them? they fucked up the lore so they could have stupid big lizards and have a chosen one character. and they make no attempt to disambiguate this in-game. no amount of multiverse/dragon break shit excuses this. no wonder people prefer the character of morrowind.
In reality it’s just that Todd and Emil are more than happy to retcon lore in order to distill a game down to whatever is marketable and trendy at the time. They’ve done it to fallout as well sadly. Also oblivion was supposed to be jungles then Todd saw LOTR and made it a regular medieval fantasy setting.
3:37 That image looks so painfully like any generic 90s rpg, I'm so glad that we got something way more interesting and unique.
Especially the "Xena: Warrior Princess" meets "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" costume aesthetic. Just... no.
I like it a lot, but I think of it more as a 70s fantasy look. Skyrim has this style but they replaced all the colors with gray and black and made it boring.
@@birdybird712 I mean at least Skyrim doesn't have bikini armor, though it does have boob plates for some reason.
@@hedgehog3180 Oh, I see what you mean. Totally agree. I was thinking more fantasy vs realism art style.
@@hedgehog3180It has the Forsworn armor set.
I had a Playstation and a nice library of games. One day I stopped at a Blockbuster and accidentally found Morrowind, I bought an Xbox just for that game. I've been an Elder Scrolls fan ever since.
I really appreciate you talking about the specific creative differences in lore, not just story and game design. I'll definitely check out the interview
I think the wishes and plans for the alternate TES 3 was way too big. Looking back now, the game would be niche even for that time, and I do not believe it would garner a big following with that times technology and if it did get a good amount of following it would be out of date very quickly I think, due to the rapid advances in the gaming technology at that time.
And I am personally very happy that Morrowind became TES 3. And I don't think we would have TES 4 Oblivion and TES 5 Skyrim as they are today without Morrowind. And if memory serves me right; Battlespire and Redguard did not do so well, don't quote me on that one though. But imagine if that other route for TES series would been a huge flop. Then I guess we would never see that wonderful universe expand like it has today. That would have been a huge loss in gaming and entertainment. Just think of the millions upon millions of hours spent in these games across the world :)
So as stated in the beginning of my comment I think the plans of Julian Lefay was to grand, and the route of Todd Howard with the smaller handcrafted course was the better one. Which Bethesda got known for. Even though the brand have gotten a bit of a smudge nowadays, Bethesda is mostly known for their epic and wonderful handcrafted worlds with many interesting stories told through quests and scenery unrelated to quests in which the scenery is used for storytelling and is given to the player to ponder upon by some level designer or the like.
But this is just a bunch of ramblings from a very longtime fan of the TES series... Thanks for a very interesting video which brought up a bunch of memories regarding both the games themselves and Bethesda as a company.
If Daggerfall had better dungeons I would support this.
Give us back loot carts, todd.
It would be cool if you actually had to organize expeditions, hire people solely to carry loot, etc. Basically a farming simulator but with dungeons.
You can use mods ya know who remakes the dungeons?
@@SwedishEmpire1700 I know, that's not what I was talking about though. The video was about design philosophy.
Sometimes I wish I was an old head and could really appreciate Daggerfall.
I know and respect that the world and mechanics are insanely cool and in depth but, that pet tiger mission. Brutal.
I'm pretty sure Lefay is developing another game in his style.
Perhaps that'll be my chance to fall in love with his design.
I stand for searching of that perfect balance between generated and handcrafted world. I am huge fan of Morrowind and it is my #1 favorite game of all I ever played though I totally agree that it always lacked procedural part. Most of things I imagined to improve that game included procedural elements. As a good example there is "travellers" mod that makes the world feel a lot more alive and less static, with totally random characters moving around the cities. Goddamn I wish those random characters also had random quests and dialogues as well.
Daggerfall is the James K Polk of games
In retrospective it's ironic how Todd pushed against a bland and generic game design
I'm going to have nightmares about that alternate timeline; Skyrim wouldn't exist.
I wasn't paying attention, can you repeat that?
NOT first hell yeah
Both developmental models were ultimately flawed in the long run. Julian's foreshadowed modern MMOs and SaaS - every franchise a vehicle for forcing monthly subscriptions down a consumer's throat wherein the task of generating meaningful interaction with the software is left up to the playerbase itself under the guise of 'social gaming'. Meanwhile, Todd's is the state of modern TES (and, unfortunately, Fallout): rehashed iterative installments that innovate on little and oftentimes accomplish less compared to the installments that came before them.
Neither were capable enough visionaries to head a truly great franchise.
Tbh I don't think Todd is that different I mean look at starfield, it's arguably the closest thing to a daggerfall that we've ever had.
I think it's about the people who work with Todd and how much creative power Todd has over a given project. I think there's a balance to be made and if bgs can find that balance of what makes these design philosophies great then I think tes 6 could be one of the greatest games of the decade.
The issue is do we have faith in BGS to fix their problems structurally and philosophically? I hope so lmao
It was Oblivion that got me into Morrowind and Morrowind that got me into Daggerfall. I always wondered how I would perceive Morrowind and Oblivion if my first game played was Daggerfall.
Fast forward 20 years plus and we got Starfield: loading screens and procedurally generated fish-bowl-like limited access areas
the morrowind we have now is perfect in every way ❤
thank god this never happened
I find it hard wrapping my head around the idea that Todd's team was pushing for more unique lore when some of the coolest and most memorable (and actually comprehensible) lore in TES comes from the in-game books written by Ted Peterson; whereas under Todd's stewardship, the lore was gradually getting more and more generic until it hit the rock bottom in Skyrim.
Unfortunately with moving to Morrowind is that we got an Elder Scrolls that just feels smaller and doesn't really push videogaming further. However the Morrowind style of open world is ultimately what led to pretty much ever open-world game today from GTA to Witcher 3 to Elden Ring.
Morrowind didn't push gaming forward? If you didn't know, most RPGs from around the time branded themselves as "Morrowind Killers" and gaming as a whole took many things from ESIII.
I don’t think Elden Ring took inspiration from Morrowind considering Fromsoft has dabbled into an open world interconnected system with Dark Souls 1 and even that game took alot of inspiration from Kingsfield
@@todd2.08 They took inspiration from TES, just not Morrowind. Skyrim actually. Miyazaki mentioned in a few interviews about Elden Ring that he played Skyrim as preparation for creating a fully open world game.
So theres this ARG of New Vegas called Dr B0sch, and my theory states that Morrowind failed to save Bethesda as a company, resulting in Interplay buying bethesda and absorbing them. This is the Morrowind I imagine came out in that world.
I'm gonna guess "first" means virginity.
Daggerfall is overrated garbage with nothing to do