Why not make it a full MMO, while you’re at it? Hogwarts Legacy 2 could be the WoW-killer we’ve been waiting 20 years for!

Bastion, etc, are from SuperGIANT Games.

I should add that I’m using the GOG version

That might be your problem. For one thing, the tutorial indeed continues after you escape Privateer’s Hold, and among other things, tells you how to fast travel. You are absolutely not intended to walk places on the world map, even though it is technically possible.

https://www.dfworkshop.net/migrating-away-from-gog-cut/

“If you play using the “GOG Cut” release of Daggerfall Unity, please consider this version is now almost two years out of date and comes preloaded with dozens of mods. It’s buggy, slow, and completely changes how the game looks and plays. The Daggerfall Unity development team did not assemble the “GOG Cut” release and in no way recommend it to play Daggerfall Unity.”

For reference, the GOG Cut uses version 0.13.5, and you can see on that page that DFU recently released version 1.0.

Playing unmodded DFU, I do agree with many of your criticisms. The game is very punishing, the full tutorial still doesn’t explain many important game mechanics (like the need to rest regularly, or that you really ought to buy a cart asap), character creation is extremely obtuse, and the amount of freedom at the beginning of the game is a bit overwhelming. Still, I found that after I got to a big city, joined a guild, and started doing quests the game starts coming together. I’m still not sure how much I like it, myself, but there’s clearly a ton of depth here, if you’re willing to take the time to learn the systems.

Did you figure out that you’re intended to rest in dungeons to refill your resource pools? That was something of a revelation for me.

Daggerfall Unity is extremely impressive from what I’ve seen of it so far. I am interested in what he comes up with.

Sounds kind of like gambling to me. Put a lot of money in and maybe get something cool out of it. Thinking of it that way at least makes some sort of sense.

Every time I read about this game I wonder who the hell is giving them all this money.

Three other competitors didn’t survive what were supposed to be non-lethal qualifier duels on the day before the finals. One player tragically died right after winning a duel to a random explosion from their Goblin Rocket Boots. Another Goblin malfunction killed a player who was an official spectator for the fights.

I am so glad I clicked through. This is great stuff.