I think it'll be quite a while before I get to enjoy the results of grinding. I never play this game in long goes (unlike other TES games) as the grinding can get a bit tiring. Even still I 'm really enjoying it

Where are you, Vital? What province?

High Rock, still. Wind Keep to be precise, near the Hammerfell border.

Hey does anybody know where Arena puts character saves? On my comp I'm seeing this...

C: \\ Program Files (x86) \\ Bethesda Softworks \\ Arena \\ Arena...

that last Arena folder is packed with files, but I can't tell which ones (if any) are saves. I'm going to transfer my saves to a different computer so I won't have to start the game all over again.

Never mind, I went ahead and started all over again at the beginning. This time Renee Gade I has found a battleaxe. She's also chosen Battlemage for a class instead of Warrior, which is what I chose on my old PC.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Apr 20 2014, 07:06 PM

mirocu, can I sometimes post my stories from Morrowind in this thread?

Renee, did you find where those saves are? I don´t remember but I can check so you know next time So you started over, huh?


I decided it´s way overdue for Morrowind to have its own CU thread anyway, so I went ahead and fired it up so feel free to go nuts there!

Cool, I'm excited you'll be posting some MW stuff here, Lopov.



I was trying to figure it, it seemed like saves can't just be cut & pasted like they can in later games. I read something about needing to mess with the hex editor, and that's as far as I got. [censored] that. I'll just start over. *shrugs*

So yeah, I started a new game, but it's still RG1 at the helm. I am glad she's Battlemage instead of a Warrior. Having the ability to heal up makes all the diff. RG1 has (so far) managed to...

1). Find a general store in the town of Amol. She sold her battleaxe along with a 'Mark" (whatever that is), and a couple other items from the starting dungeon. The Mark earned her quite a bit gold, somewhere over 400 gp. That's way more than anything which can be sold from Oblivion or Skyrim's beginnings, the difference is that Arena also has a steeper learning curve. It's a tougher game, so surviving the Tutorial feels more rewarding.

2). RG1 also found a temple and healed herself up.

3). She found the Mage's Guild, and bought a couple Stamina potions, along with a Light spell.


I recently did some reading about the early days of Bethesda, which is pretty fascinating. Arena was supposed to have shipped for the Xmas '93 season but the small staff of Beth was having some difficulties, so the game didn't ship until March of '94. Only 3,000 copies initially were produced I think, and it looked as if it would go nowhere. But every month people kept buying it, its reputation spread by word-of-mouth mostly. Thank goodness, otherwise we'd all be playing something else

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Apr 23 2014, 04:02 PM

@Renee - The Arena savegames can be copied and pasted just as easily as with the other games. You´ll find them in the main directory, scroll down and you´ll find them somewhere in the list. They are called SAVEGAME.00 - SAVEGAME.09

And thanks for the brief Beth history lesson

This post has been edited by mirocu: Apr 23 2014, 09:23 PM

Awesome I found the saves ye speketh of. And you are welcome about the history lesson. I also learned that during Arena's day, there were literally dozens of other RPGs out there. Some were great, some were mediocre, some were gems but they did not get noticed by the masses. A lot of games flopped, which drove gaming studios out of business during the '90s.

But nobody had made something on the scale of Arena. There wasn't really anything new in Arena: several other games also had 3D, 1st person perspective, and things and people you could interact with, and also full-fledged stat / class systems. But none of these others were as massive as Arena. And this is the part that early TES gamers must have been wowed about the most... like wow, I can go anywhere and do anything?

I'll have to post a link to the article I read yesterday at work.

Imagine coming from Wolf3D or Doom where you can only run and shoot, to a game where you can talk to people, buy and sell things, get rich and powerful and maybe even bother to go fetch the emperor. Minds must have been so blown indeed!

If it were possible to play A & D in the 3rd person, I'd definitely try them. But being forced to play in the 1st person doesn't appeal to me, also I get dizzy if I turn around a lot.

Thanks for the history lesson Renee

I vaguely remember hearing some of that information before but I can't remember where :lol :

I think people loved Arena and Daggerfall for their lore and open world. From what I know these games were much more setting based than other RPGs of their era and this gained them the cult following that ultimately made Bethesda a mainstream success.

Also I just realised that Arena was actually meant to be an arena game where you travel around Tamriel and fight other gladiator teams. It's probably common knowledge among you guys but I had no idea As the developers out more detail into the world and gave more options for exploration and side quests it became an RPG. They kept the name 'Arena' because they'd already marketed it as that. Then they came up with the whole "everyone calls Tamriel the Arena because it's so dangerous" thing.. If you go in the wiki it will often tell you the intended name for each city's Gladiator team.

And I also realised that the Arena cover is used as a poster for the Arena in Oblivion

mirocu: Doom is mentioned several times during that article (which I can't find now, of course) as one of the better games. I know it's one of your faves, right?



Yeah, and by the time Daggerfall came out, Bethesda had a good many fans waiting for it, so it was an instant hit. The only problems people had in those days was (obviously) tons of bugs, and also the fact that some gamers didn't have computers that could even load up the game! .. imagine that. But from what I've read, ALL games (especially RPGs) were buggy back then, and since the Internet was still rather new, it wasn't like anybody could DL a patch that took care of things.

The next 2 games that came out (Redguard and ... I forget the other one) weren't very successful, plus they weren't as 'open world' as Arena and DF, and because of this Bethesda was about to go bankrupt. But Bethesda's founder was a board member at Zenimax, and managed to bail the company out with fat pockets. Beth had to get it right for Morrowind, otherwise they'd be out of business for good. So thank goodness MW is such a great game.

This concludes today's history lesson. And there will be a pop quiz.


Yup, all of this is canon.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Apr 24 2014, 03:43 PM

The poster is similar but it's not exactly the same. Anyway, that was interesting to read about Beth's history, thanks Renee.

Speaking of Doom, it was one of the first games that me and my older brother played together, and we really liked it. It was difficult and scary at times, but we played it almost constantly until we finished it.

I saw the same vid about Bethesda's history as Renee. I think it was this one, that actually has five parts. It is almost an hour altogether, but well worth the time. It is a fascinating look into not just one of our favorite game developers, but also just a peek under the hood at how the industry in general works.

Like Renee said, Morrowind basically saved the company from bankruptcy. But it was Oblivion that really put the company on the map as a AAA developer, and of course Skyrim cemented it's position as a pop culture icon.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 24 2014, 08:51 PM

Oh actually the history lessons that I found were strictly text. Some website. Hold on, I think I can find it in a minute. But that's cool seeing that there's also a series of vids to watch. I'm going to do so in a few.

Here is an interview with one of Arena's devs, and here is a basic article which is also a good read. There is also this series of pages, which talks about the climate Arena was released into. Other games and studios, and what happened to them.

Isn't it wild that the guy who started Bethesda (Christopher Weaver) had what seems to be a 0% background in gaming? .. That blows my mind. He worked in government, and also in television, before starting his own computer games company out of the blue. He and some other early Beth employees were also responsible for creating the engine which the very first edition of John Madden football would use. EA (creator of John Madden) would basically rip-off Bethesda somehow, so Bethesda actually tried to sue EA for 7 million dollars. That's so crazy-awesome.

I get the feeling that by the time Arena was in production that Chris Weaver was probably only a minor player, if he was involved at all. He's never mentioned in any text I've read, except early on when Bethesda was mostly making sports games, and later on when he bailed Beth out from bankruptcy.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Apr 24 2014, 09:23 PM

So... does anyone have an update on either game?

Well I've only played Benethor a little and he's basically been going into people's houses and killing monsters to grind. I'm not sure the rogue is a brilliant class because he dies alot, it's incredibly frustrating... He doesn't so much damage it seems and he has little health and no magic. I have spent so much gold on healing potions Also the whole stealth thing isn't great, I've leveled up his intelligence, agility and willpower but he still can rarely open locked door..

This game is tough

It is tough but it probably will get easier. My character can withstand and kill almost anything by now but it was a long way to this point and I also have spent sooo much gold on restore health and magicka potions!

What level is he now?

Nine... Or ten..

I'll have to check

But yes, I'm sure he'll get better