Arena - Who's still playing?

[JaggedyJack]

First time post! Been a long time Elder Scrolls player and now I have decided to celebrate Elder Scrolls Online by playing all the Elder Scroll games starting with Arena! Not sure I will do Redguard or Battlespire but maybe. Going to start Arena with a Kahjiit Assassin, should be a good challenge. Came to this site to get refresher tips since I havn't played Arena in a lonnng time so I am ready for some nostalgia.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

All I can say is "Good luck!" Arena is a very difficult game.

[Linkuya]

Linkuya, when you say "hard to get into" do you mean the game's ability to keep your interest? The difficulty of learning the controls, or the difficulty of the first dungeon?

Aside from each individual's level of patience and ability to focus, with a few 'hints' and an approach that relies on diligent saving, it is not too bad. The class of character you choose is a very important factor.

I've been playing it for about a week now, just creating characters to explore and do research for the wiki, but I would offer the following advice:

1) If you are using DOSBOX, push F12 until your screen performance is around 18,000 this will greatly improve the responsiveness of your movement.

2) Go to the wiki pages for the different races and classes and spend some time with the descriptions. Understand what the strengths and weakness of each race is and which classes are best suited for each race. Sometimes there is more than one answer. Make a note of what abilities are important for each race type. When you choose to 'select' the class, the game will tell you what two characteristics are important for that class to succeed. Write it down.

3) Don't just take the first set of statistics for your abilities you get from the game. If you click on 'Done' it will give you to option to 'Reroll' ... do so a few times until a) you get more than 12 free points to spend and b) the starting high statistics are in the two abilities the game told you were important for your class. Be patient.

4)Right after you create your character, before you move anywhere ... press F1, then 'Next Page', find your weapon and click on it. That will equip the sword/dagger/staff you were given. Escape and click done, then make sure there is a sword or staff showing on the right side. Practice click-holding the right mouse button swinging the sword around. Try all directions and get an idea how to get it to poke, slice, slash and stab the opponent before you face them.

5) After you get the key, stand in front of the locked door, push the ESC key and SAVE your game (I usually call it Imperial Dungeon Start). If all goes badly, you can always start from here.

6) Open the gate, step into the dungeon and turn to the left (you may find the arrow keys easier than the on-screen arrows/mouse controls). You will see a pile of loot on the floor, hit ESC and SAVE again, this time as 'Before Gold' or something like that. Once it is saved, click on the loot and see what you won. If you don't like it, hit esc and load the file you just saved and try again. Once you get what you want, hit ESC and SAVE as 'After Gold'

7) So, when to save... Before a loot stash, after the loot stash, once you are healed 100%, anytime you are uncertain if an enemy will be behind the next door, when you are about to walk into the blue light and exit the dungeon (dungeon-End), and just after you pass out of the dungeon into the new city (even if it is dark, save first, look for an inn afterward).


If you find yourself getting lost (and you are looking at the map as you go), there are links in the wiki to an image of the dungeon you can print out ... and write on. Use all the help you can.

When it is daylight (or at night if you find the Priest or the two gals in the red-light district) put your sword away and stop an NPC. Click 'where is?" and make a list of every Inn, Temple, and Store in the town ... and the Mages Guild. Now start at the upper left (NW Corner) and go to every building on the map that has a Brown square sticking out from a maroon door square. That is a Sign for an Inn or Store or Temple. Visit everyone, and note the location on the list of names you got from the NPC. Now go to an inn and talk to a Bartender and get a mission to Work on. Do the delivery missions until you have lots of gold to buy some potions of freedom, health, cure disease, and complete your set of armor (including a mace/flail for skeleton killing). once you have yourself prepared ... go out of the town and look for a red X where a dungeon is and explore. The dungeon will give you more XP so you level up. You will need to have higher health and stamina to travel more than one town away (more that 3 days).


But have fun. I hope this helps a bit and encourages more to give the game a try, it is really a lot of fun if you are patient.

Wow....... I'm sorry I didn't notice this earlier!
Thank you for this, it's really helpful.

[Darius]

Started Arena yesterday as part of an Elder Scrolls marathon I'm doing so count me in. First DOS-era game I've played and I'm loving it.

Help a newbie out, what stats should I focus on as a Dark Elf Battlemage?

[Linkuya]

Magic, Strength, Intelligence, Destruction Alteration, Conjuration, Blade are all stats I would think would be wise to focus on.

[JaggedyJack]

Started Arena yesterday as part of an Elder Scrolls marathon I'm doing so count me in. First DOS-era game I've played and I'm loving it.

Heck ya! Since starting Arena last week I have been having a ton of fun playing it almost non-stop (except when I have to go to work or sleep) and did a epic all day Arena marathon over the weekend. It was tough in the beginning as I did die a lot as I can only wear leather armor but can use any weapon. So after gaining some levels I starting working the artifact quests and I was able to pick up the Ebon Blade, Chrysamere, Auriel's Bow, the Ring of Phynaster and toped it off by getting Oghma Infinium (don't know if using the artifact exploit is considered bad taste in playing). My Kahjiit Assassin is now a roving death machine in dungeons as I critical hit almost every other strike, only a Lich or Medusa can kill me now. By the way I nearly jumped out of my seat when I heard the Lich scream, my sound was up a little too much and it sent chills up my spine.

Got 5 staff pieces and am just enjoying doing random dungeons and taking missions from the rulers of the city states (soooo much gold to be had). Currently I am level 15 and I think I am at this point I could just go after the last staff pieces now for the win. Jagar Tharn doesn't stand a chance!

Bigest items that have helped me through this all are the Marks of Light and the Crystal of Passwall. These two items alone make getting through the dungeons much easier..... maybe to easy. I hate puting restrictions on myself but I have to say it was much more intense being in the dark.

[Darius]

I have all from Arena to Skyrim installed, patched, configured and even modded slightly, I'll be going through them all over the coming months as a mage\stealth-based Dark Elf female. In Arena currently taking my time doing side quests, collecting multiple artefacts with the exploit (the only 'cheat' i'll be using) between the main quests. I didn't find any passwall items yet and I envy you :c

[Linkuya]

I found Arena to be pretty tough, though I haven't touched it in a while. Once I wrap up Morrowind I may get back to it.

[JaggedyJack]

Here I thought I was getting to where my assassin was strong enough to survive anything and then I went into the Crypt of Hearts for the 6th staff piece. At that point Arena took my sweet roll and slapped me in the face telling me that I am very weak. Everything from Lichs to Wraiths and Vampires started beating the crap out of me. Open a door.. death. Turn around a corner.. death. Picked up some treasure.. death! I think I died to one Lich 9 times before I finally killed it. Had to pop every artifact boost and resistance potion to survive the unending wave of spells it would throw at me. But even if I survived the spells it could still come up and hit me which was almost instant death, maybe like two hits. Its good though because I was becoming lax on my game saving and almost lost 30 minutes worth of exploration and fighting because I ran face first into a vampire.

Well, gotta keep pressing on, still two more staff pieces to go and then its off to confront Mr. Tharn himself.

[Linkuya]

Does the game auto level with you?

[JaggedyJack]

What I have read and seen in the game is as you level you encounter the tougher monsters (not so much those monsters getting stronger themselves). Starting low level you get things like the rats, goblins,minotar, humans (warriors, spellswords, ect) and the occasional skeleton. Once you get into the higher levels (I am at level 18) you start to encounter the tougher mobs like Lichs, Medusas, Wraiths, Vampires, ect; along with more numerous of the previous monsters like skeletons. I sometimes encounter 3+ of those at a time now.

I am not sure if the dungeon spawns based on the character level or if it spawns monsters based on the dungeon itself. I could try and go back to Fang Lair and see if I get the tough mobs I am facing now or if they are still the weaker ones. I break into houses to rest up and I encounter golems and medusas all the time now where before they were all weak goblins or orcs.

I estimate I will be level 20 by the time I gather the remaining staff pieces and head for the Imperial Palace. So I would say there is definatly level scaling to the game but only monster based. What would be really interesting is find out if one were to be say level 50 (not sure if this is possible without cheating) if the Lichs would scale with that or if they would remain the same strenth as at level 20.

[Linkuya]

Cool.
I also could never figure out how to pick locks.

[JaggedyJack]

I believe any class in the game can pick locks however the thief classes of course do it better. To pick locks you go up to any door in the city and click the door and it will display a message saying how difficult it seems. You then use the "Pilfer" icon and click on the door to lock pick it (there is no minigame to it, basicly a role of the dice). Burglers are the best at it and Assassins I think are the worse at it as far as the thief class is concerned. As you level it becomes easier to pick locks. If you fail to pick a lock to many times guards will come after you! Well only one gaurd really. As a low level thief it can be an awesome way to not only gain levels fighting the mobs inside the houses but some gold too.

[Linkuya]

I remember laughing when I read: "This lock has nothing to fear from you."

[JaggedyJack]

lol ya, I still get those from time to time. More or less I now see "This lock is laughable at your skill"

[Linkuya]

Seriously?
So, how would you say Arena stacks up against the newer Elder Scrolls titles?

[JaggedyJack]

Arena has its own charm but when comparing it to the newer elder scroll games it really is.. ugly lol! I was 14 when I first played Arena and I remember being wow'd by it and thinking it was the greatest adventure game ever which it was at that time. I use to play the Ultima Underworld games as well so they were very similar. I would say the difficulty is where Arena now stands out compared to the newer games. When you go into a dungeon you have no marker indicating where the item you need is and some of these dungeons are huge. Just the last one I did took me over an hour just on the first level of the dungeon to find the stairwell that lead to the second level... out of four levels total. The fact that even now at the level I am at I can encounter a monster that will wipe me out in under a second, no chance to heal or retreat or fight. No auto save either lol. Comparing to Skyrim I felt most of the "dungeons" seem'd very liniar though thats not nessicarly a bad thing, its all about presentation which Skyrim did very well in my opinion.

I get a kick out of visiting places like Riverwood in Arena as it is this sprawling metropolis with many INNs and Stores while in ES:V its a tiny little village of one store and a INN. Same with any of the cities though, none of them seem small in anyway and all of them have palaces with a King or Queen in it.

I like the game now purly for nostalgic reasons and challange. I think its a game that any fan of Elder Scrolls should at least attempt to play just so they can see how far the game and programming in general has come. It gives a new appreciation for what we have now and where the series is heading.

[Linkuya]

Riverwood is in Arena?
Where does Arena take place?

[JaggedyJack]

Arena takes place over the entire continent of Tamriel and is currently the only Elder Scrolls game to do so. You will visit every provience in the game on the quest to collect the staff pieces. There are like a hundred or more cities in the game and if you do quests there can be thosands of dungeons to go to though most are mirrors of each other except for the developer created dungeons which are for the main quest line. I think it would take a week or so of real time to walk from one end to the other end of the continent so it is a good thing they had fast travel back then. But ya in Arena there is Riverwood, Windhelm, Winterhold, Solitude, pretty much all the major cities are there and again they seem like giant cities compared to now.

Go to Morrowind, Hammerfell or Skyrim and you can visit all the cities you have seen in the new games, though of course they are very diffrent looking. For the most part they are in the same locations in the proviences too.

[IgorVonDame]

There are 256 different 'Settlements' in the game, 32 in each of the 8 provinces. There are three different sizes to them, City-states are 6x6 blocks, Towns are 5x5 blocks, and Villages are 4x4 blocks. By block, I mean a city block containing an array of different buildings. This modular system is a common programming device and you can see a good example of it if you look at the Daggerfall wiki map images, as the blocks were extracted there with a utility. The size of the town has nothing to do with the name of the town either, the only thing in game that points to the three sizes are the icons on the fast travel map and the naming of the stores will use 'city-state' 'town' and 'village' as part of the generated name ( as in 'The city-state Sundries ). I am often amused by it, since the developers forgot to capitalize the variable when they made the macro that names the buildings, each word in other store names is capitalized.

Just a word of caution, you cannot actually 'walk' from one city to another, the game will crash due to memory limitations from the randomly generated terrain. You have to use the fast travel.

With a screen resolution of 72 dpi, the graphics look primitive by today's standards. But with games like Minecraft re-introducing generations to coarse graphics with exciting game content, it is not a major drawback in my opinion. Just like Castle Wolfstein and DOOM provided many hours of gameplay because of engaging encounters that required strategy and preparation to survive, Arena provides a very satisfying challenge for those who seek it.

I've often received more joy from a game by thinking outside the box of the original intent of it. For example, in addition to playing through the main and artifact quests as each of the available race/class combinations, you could also make up games of 'how many houses can I loot before I am caught' or 'can I make it through the next two level dungeon without resupplying potions' or 'can I do a quest for every palace in the province'.

Above all, be patient, save often, and have fun!

[Linkuya]

I will definitely try this game again after I finish up with Morrowind.

[Darius]

Dark Elf Spellsword now at lv17 with 4 pieces of the staff. Diverting from the main quest in search for artifacts. Chrysamere and Ebony blade are stored and currently making my way to Auriel's Shield.

Also got Oghma Infinium a while back, 50 free attribute points ^_^

[Linkuya]

The Oghme Infinium was in the original?!??!
The Elder Scrolls never ceases to amazing me.

[JaggedyJack]

It is amazing some of things you can do in this game for it being so old. I never thought to look at the game as compared to Minecraft lol. I am horrible though and have texture packs for that game, just in the same way I modded the heck out of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Most for textures and graphic appeal.

I have no idea if this has to do with the monster scaling but I finally made it to the final dungeon for the last staff piece. All I can say is wow, nearly wave after wave of monsters. Death around every corner... literally. It did get to the point I would walk a few steps and save. I am level 20 now and I am popping potions like a mad man. Indeed one has to be very patient and save often in this game. One thing I recommend is re-mapping the controls in DosBox to emulate the WASD controls of today. It took me a few minutes to figure out but it makes a world of difference when playing. It makes typing a little weird at first for example in DosBox to type an "A" I need to hit the left arrow key since I switched the two, however it really opens the maneuvering in the game up and I am have started strafing around spells to avoid take direct hits. Much easier then using the default arrow keys to move.

Ya the Oghme Infinium is in Arena and is one of those must get Artifact pieces in my opinion. When I got mine I was able to max out my agility and get more into strength. Ebon blade and the Phynaster Ring have been my two best artifacts next to Auriels Bow. I haven't investigated this yet but is it possible to get the Oghme Infinium more than once?

[Darius]

The Oghme Infinium was in the original?!??!
The Elder Scrolls never ceases to amazing me.

Auriel's Shield, bow, spell breaker, chrysamere, staff of magnus and Volendrung also make an appearance in arena :3

-sigh- Some bad news, seems items vanish after being held in the repair too long, I need to re-get them

EDIT: I 'used' Auriel's shield and it gave me immunity from everything. I put the shield for repairs and hours later (200+ days game time) have received no damage from anything.....