A long long time ago

I can still remember how

That music used to make me smile

And I knew if I had my chance

That I could make those people dance

And maybe they'd be happy for a while...

The year was 1993 and a young man named Mr. Howard (yes, he's named that) placed an add in a forum on CompuServe- the world's first open meeting place online. I bet you thought it was AOL. 

"New gaming company needs Beta Testers. Must be willing to work hard, for little to no compensation on new PC Game.

Not yet released." (That's not really what it said, but my old man passed away so I'd have to dig up one of the testers and none of us are like that)

My father, a.k.a. The Old Smaug Himself thought it sounded like good fun (he was Polish, but something like 5th generation so we thought it was hilarious when he did solidly Polish things like that), and decided to try out his relatively new degree in Computer Science by betaing a game. Against all odds (it wasn't really, but I never told them that a little girl placed a phone call to her friend to boost sales when the company hit a rough spot - and if that's ever you don't tell either- start ups only make it on their own in this industry), the game succeeded well enough that it's sequel could continue production.

My Dad loved working on those games. The SysOp for their CompuServe forum, Scorpia, we found out, was a brutal reviewer for Computer Gaming World and a great moderator. As a result, the girls who were testing stuck around as well, and some of my feedback on design etc. found a home. If you're wondering why you'd call up someone who could probably talk to someone about something like that- it'd be because there was a gaming company out there that was kickin it pretty hard and, oh by the way, they had girls working for them. The only other company that was really doing that was Sierra (that we knew of), and Williams didn't have the heavy boys club D&D influence, they used the more appropriate medium of fairy tales.

My Dad continued to test the sequel (Daggerfall) and I continued to play around with everything from perspective to clothing, until I got approached to be in the game. All of the other testers were going to make it and, despite being thirteen, they said they liked my handle as well, and asked could they use it? 

I thought that being in a video game was about the coolest thing that a computer nerd (I went to a montessori so they were pretty ok with me being nerdy) could have, so of course I okayed it, and my Dad read through the stories that Mara wrote for the King Edward (my son) book quests. I had a half-elven lover (it just made it past my fathers disapproving re-reads) and a lot of the normal stuff got cut. As a result, my story would up being considerably more substantial, and I had a lore heavy, but still scandalous, background as a runaway Queen. I was an anti-villain, a rarely used trope (my father, of course, was the Dragon God of Time). 

The majority of games at that time were hand coded together- there weren't "all element" engines like Unity or Unreal, so the process was laborious, things had to be imported and put together, and that required a lot of work by the programmers. But we all knew we were at the cutting edge of PC Gaming. We were working on open world immersion, and something that would be the precursor to VR. 

Daggerfall carried over Arena's first person perspective and Dungeons and Dragons style gaming. The game is built around modular type play, rather than a typical role-playing emulation. You began in a dungeon, fought your way out, and explored a world that could fit Ultima VII's Britannia in it's back pocket. While there were unrealistic aspects- like your cart of holding- they were looked at fondly, due to the overall nature of realism that the game presented.

You could not only choose a class, but also a race- and it was dependent on your place of origin. You got to dress your character up in the loot you discovered and your humannequin looked like it had stepped out of a castle to pose. Running, jumping and fighting all used mouse interaction to make the game more immersive. It was one of the first of its kind, so it was trying out everything possible to plunge the viewer into the game.

Problems? Due to the hand coding and size, the characters experienced repetitive dialogue except when questing. If you're wondering why you constantly hear the same jokes about the series, it's just the template for the NPC interaction. You're not here to make friends, friend. You're not here to gather a party, or bond with the townsfolk. You're here to have a home away from home, slay monsters, acquire loot, and eventually- when you stop sidequesting, save the world, kingdom or king, in some sort of way.

In Daggerfall that way is by helping out your Emperor who's got a Liche where a King should be, and its presenting an awful conundrum. Unfortunately the Emperor mostly talked to his wife, and needs the letters recovered so that the situation can be dealt with, and one of his Kings can be laid to rest. There are six possible ways to do this, and 46 possible ways to get to that point.

If that sounds different from almost every other game you've ever played- that's because it is. You're essentially wandering around in someone else's world, just as you would with a DM, and making the story your own.

Kudos, Bethesda. You sold over 50 million copies of the series and it's still going. And I'm still working in the gaming field as well. Over 25 years later.

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