Pretty much what people said in this thread previously

Just reconfigure the controls to a standard WASD layout, basically reconfigure everything, I did the same thing when I played the game, I don't really know what was going through Bethesdas head when they set up the game like this but the default controls are terrible.

Before you can even start to play daggerfall you have to spend 10-20 minutes setting up the controls and making sure it works for you well, which is well worth it considering the hundreds of hours you will spend on this game if you get into it...
I'm a person that loves playing magic users in RPG's....

I thought Morrowind was tough with regards to casters...Ooooh boy, that game seemed like paradise after I played Daggerfall, mages are so incredibly underpowered in that game from the start it's not even funny
well that's Bethesda for you...they have their work cut out from them thanks to the fans

It's funny how some people don't even think/consider playing certain ES games without installing mods, which count in the Bazillions for each game...
I would have to disagree here, I played many PC games back then that had very good controls...
I think I'll take a screenshot of this, since it made me laugh

In all seriousness though, daggerfall was an incredibly abitious project but it had many things about it that made it tough to get though/enjoy at times....like some of the things you mentioned above...

I prefer to see it that we have at least some standard today rather than being spoiled.

Won't AutoHotkey or similar applications help at least? The scheme may be outdated but choosing your own customized hotkey setup usually helps. A lot.

Cybermage was only bad if you insisted on not using the mouse - if you remapped the keys, it was actually quite decent. It was one of the first FPS games requiring you to use your mouse (CyClones did too with a similar system though).

I think that was the biggest issue. A lot of people were uncomfortable using the mouse in a FPS. It essentially meant switching the movement controls from right hand to left hand. By the standards back then, demanding mouse look was a "shitty control" like if you could play a game today only properly with a gamepad.

How long until its out? and if it does, does activating the game is just a click of a button instead of entering a code?

Here you will find all about it

http://xlengine.com/whats-going-on/

Nevermind, ninjad by Simon.

Mah controls. Works very well, I think.

Of course, the real challenge is finding dwarven weapons or better so that you can hit those damn harpies.

funny (and sad) enough, the best way to do this is to go to a province you dont care about and kill town guards. They'll drop pretty much any quality armor/weapon. I think it scales fast with your level.
Oh, though also if you answer the character creation questions right you'll start with an ebony dagger.... which is riiiidiculous.

What?! I thought the early Elder Scrolls (I play Arena more) had a pretty good control system for an old game. Both my friends pretty much hate classic game yet they played the death out of Arena cause of the control system, the mouse swing system is pretty cool.

As for me I most play default in games, don't know why but everything must be vanilla for me in a game. I only begin to use mods in my second playthrough, even unofficial patches but I suppose I'm just weird.

That's pretty much what I did. I think I remember that I had Mouse 3 set to activate cursor - assuming that's what toggles mouse look.

Ouch. I'm complete opposite. If there's anything that can be added I use it. I don't think you're the one in the minority though, playing the way the developers wanted is quite common.

I played a little bit of it awhile back, and I seem to remember finding a fairly workable control scheme after spending some time remapping everything.
Same here. Although I do install unofficial patches if they just fix some stuff and don't make any real changes.
I found them to be archaic, but workable once you got used to them. Basically the same as System Shock's controls. I could see the game being massively improved with a mouselook mod like the one for SS.

I suppose some games are crying out for unofficial patches, like Dwarf Fortress for example.


sorry I don't know how to take off the italics now :)