My issue with Arena isn't actually those huge dungeons, it's all the enemies that show up, almost all the time. I wish there were a way to make them less frequent.

I'm the sort of gamer who likes downtime. I like battles & challenge, but I also like some breathing space. TES 1: Arena doesn't give us much of this, not in most dungeons, anyways.

On the other hand, one of the great things about Arena is that it's pretty much bug-free, I've noticed its coding is very solid, for an older game which was made without much budget, and probably not much beta-testing, either, since only one guy did most of the beta stuff back then. Todd's first job, lol.



What sort of character have you got here? I can see he's more of a fighter than a magic-user. Also, what version of DF do you use? I mean, is it from a floppy disc, or from Bethesda's website? I've got DF on the Anthology disc set, one of these days I'll finally get to try it.

Shining in the Darkness for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) had a spell you could cast that gave you some breathing room by keeping monsters away for awhile. Loved that spell.


*points at self with both fingers*

-Me too!

That´s why I loved Oblivion so much coming from Doom 3. No more scripted attacks and no more constant fighting!!

I love just walking around the towns in Arena, talking to various people

Yes exactly, Crow. In my case, I came from Tomb Raider, which is ultra challenging sometimes. In comparison, Oblivion and Skyrim are not as hard, but this is okay. I like the lack of frustration in these games.

Oh, and you can stop pointing at yourself now. hee hee.

Daggerfall's dungeons aren't an improvement if you prefer a less stressful, slower paced environment. They can be quite brutal indeed, especially when populated by Vampire Ancients, the bane of my avatar's existence. He's ill suited to cope with any powerful caster, but those things are the pits. Finishing a quest with them around can be a lessen in frustration, as my avatar is experiencing first hand in his ongoing assignment for the Temple of Kynareth. With a custom-built uber character and a bit of game savvy it can be a walk in the park, but my avatar is far from uber.

I deliberately created him magically gimped. He can cast self-made watered-down versions of many spells, but lacks the magicka for powerful magics. Some spells are totally beyond him, such as teleportation. That's no biggie for me, as I enjoy finding my way out of Daggerfall's labyrinthic dungeons, as well as the challenge of completing missions within sometimes alarmingly tight time constraints.

While not gimped as a warrior, he's not uber in that regard either. I sometimes wish made him a bit more powerful, but suspect I'd soon grow bored with an avatar who walks through dungeons without chipping a fingernail.

Here he is, holding his beloved Daedric Warhammer, as of April 2015. At most he's one level higher now, if that. (Even discounting my hiatus, he levels very slowly.) The magic item that buffed his intelligence to '100' has long since broken. He still hasn't found Daedric gauntlets to finish out his armor set. Note also that I goofed up and show 'Decrepit' as both character and class name.

As to game version, I'm a fan of DaggerfallSetup, which includes all official patches, numerous unofficial patches and fixes, and additional content. Comes pre-configured with DOSbox, making installation a breeze. I suggest you accept all additional content with the possible exception of DagSkills, which is more cheat than fix, raising skill-caps from 100 to 200.

Nice to see your Daggerfall avatar, Decrepit. He looks like he means business


The DaggerfallSetup is recommended and can be accessed in the pinned thread as well as Arena. I´ve downloaded both myself but only played one so far.

Early game discussion. I am loving it! The cool thing about Daggerfall (from what I'm hearing) is that it's like a modern TES game, in the sense that there's so much else to do, I won't have to jump into the Main Quest (whatever that is) for a good while. Another thing about Arena is that other than the Main Quest and some random fetch / capture / kill quests, there isn't much else to do. I can RP my character running around towns or the countryside for awhile, but that only lasts for so long.

Yes I saw the "Decrepit" class, how does that work? Are there Majors and Minors? What are his Majors and Minors, if so?



Lol, this is pretty much how I game with Renee Gade I in Arena. She's a Battlemage, and spends most of her time invisible, so I don't have to deal with fight after fight!

Good news! I managed to find some stone tablet in the last temple RG1 was in! This tablet was guarded by a puzzle-door, and I guessed this one right after only 3 tries. Now .... to the Halls of Collossus, where the next staff piece is supposed to be.

There's something to be said for stealth. Though my Cyrodiilic avatar nowadays seldom employees it in the execution of his normal daily routine, earlier in his post incarceration career he made regular use of stealth. Come to think on it, he still relies heavily on it during his periodic cleansings of Rockmilk, though the ideas is 'not' to avoid combat but to achieve a tactical advantage. My Daggerfall avatar utilizes it in tougher dungeons.

Speaking of whom, my Daggerfall avatar made no progress in resolving his primary objectives for quite some time. He waited patiently to be contacted by agents for the major players involved. And waited. And waited. It dawned on him that said contact might not materialize. That being the case, he decided to revisit those players, who, last he canvased them, gave him the cold shoulder. One such player, I'll not say which to avoid spoilers, netted new info. He now has what he needs to soldier on.

He has, however, decided to hold off for the time being, until he rises one rank in the Mages Guild, which will open up the magic item maker. He's two skill-ups in Restoration away from that. Weak as he is in magicka, those skill-ups won't be a walk in the park.

I should mention that his stay in Dunore Laboratory wasn't as harrowing as we feared. Nor was the assignment itself quite what it seemed. The same can be said for his Mages Guild task to guard the Hall against Daedric invasion. He got two enchanted Daedric round shields from that one.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Oct 28 2015, 11:47 PM

My avatar decided to take advancement in the Mages Guild seriously and devote himself almost exclusively to raising Restoration. This was done. He now has access to the guild's magic item maker. Thus are he has made:

. . . a gem enchanted with item repair and 50% extra carrying capacity, active while held/worn.

. . . a gem enchanted with armor strengthening and extra spell points, active while held/worn.

. . . a Daedric dagger enchanted with Recall (anchor/teleport) when cast.

. . . an additional item repair while held/worn enchantment. (They are supposedly cumulative.)

. . . a gem enchanted with Water Breathing when held/worn.

I'm a bit leery of how effective the two repair enchants will be. The others have already proven their worth.

When I left him last night he was deep within a dungeon on the Emperor's business.

I like the dagger of Mark / Recall. I've heard this is a good spell to have.

... Gem of Water Breathing; so this means we can drown in Daggerfall, eh? In Arena, we can swim, but we can't drown.

I don't remember exactly, but I think Daggerfall starts dropping your health immediately you submerge, rather than Oblivion's period of breath-holding first. Or maybe it was instant death after you couldn't hold your breath any more. Anyway, one countdown only. And unlike Oblivion, if you surface and re-submerge, the spell keeps going.

Daggerfall also has a different water-walking spell, in that it helps walking through water (higher speed) rather than on water. Useful in totally flooded dungeons.

Most players would try and wear items enchanted with both "on equip", so water is not an obstacle, and you don't need to cast. The downside is that they wear out even when not in water, unless you swap equipment.

Oh, the horrors of game mechanics

Interesting. I see. Well in that regard, Arena does have a sort of condition for swimming in water: we lose Stamina as we swim. We lose it pretty slowly though, so it's not really a "breath meter" like it is in later games.

I must say, I am impressed with Halls of Colossus so far. It's not the usual run through a maze, which is mostly unfilled with anything but monsters. Instead, there are six keys we must find, which unlock a final door where I'm assuming the next staff piece lies. So in other words, the entire dungeon is a maze, but it's also a huge puzzle.

.. .. there are enemies all over the place, but so far they've been easy to deal with: lizard men and rats and lesser creatures like this. It's been awhile since I've seen these easier enemies.

This post has been edited by Renee: Nov 2 2015, 11:39 PM

Most players will likely create a character with enough magicka points to cast Anchor/Recall via spell, so not need to invest in an enchanted item with this ability. My avatar is not so gifted. Admittedly, he now has enough magicka via an enchanted item which increases his magic pool. But he's rather not rely on that buff being constantly available.


In Daggerfall characters take no damage while submerged so long as their breath holds out. Once exhausted death comes quickly, with next to no grace period.

As to the ability to repair enchanted items, you are right in that this is not available in the vanilla game as installed. However, my research into item enchantment unearthed this juicy tidbit. I quote . . .

"Another very useful enchantment is the "Repair" ability. If you have such an enchanted item equipped, the health status of a damaged item increases by one level after about 8 hours of rest (example Almost New → New and so on). Sadly, this doesn't work while loitering or during fast travel. Items with the "Repair" ability work additively, meaning that by equipping two items the repair time is halved and so on. This form of repair is very useful to mend magic items (including artifacts), because these can't be repaired in other ways and get worn out after some time of use. The magic repair effect was removed from the game during a later patch, but it was provided again since patch 2.00. However, you must add the line magicrepair 1 to the Z.CFG file in your Daggerfall game directory to make it work, otherwise only non-magical items will be repaired in this way. The repair modus starts with the items you have already equipped and works then from the top of your inventory stack (wagon included) downwards. So, if you want a specific item repaired, position it at the top of your inventory or wagon stack. Drop all other items to the ground if necessary, until you only have the item you want repaired in your stack."

I enabled magic repair. I feared doing so would cheapen the gaming experience. Thankfully such is not the case. Not for me. One thing I learned early on . . . it takes a LOT of items enchanted with Object Repair to make repair practical. especially if your avatar carries and uses a decent number of enchanted items. One Object Repair item can't keep up. My avatar now wields five such items, maybe six. (He combines them with other enchants, so that one ring is enchanted with Armor Strength plus Object Repair, a diamond contains four magicka boosts plus Object Repair, his Daedric Warhammer has Featherweight, Wizard's Fire on strike, and Object Repair, and so on.) Even with so many Object Repair items, the resting requirement can be risky during quests with tight time limits. And of course there is the initial monetary investment, though this will pay itself off over time.


As for my avatar, he's progressed the Emperor's mission and finished another round of Guild assignments. Well, almost finished. He's hunting a giant in Belladausa Coven for the fighters guild as we speak. It's been a worthwhile quest in that he has already looted three (!) Daedric cuirasses. His toughest recent assignment was for the Knights of the Dragon. They once again sent him to a dungeon filled with Vampire Ancients. Man do we hate those things!

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Nov 3 2015, 12:51 AM

I have the repair option turned on in mine as well. The usual repair mechanism via smiths is too cumbersome compared with the later games' DIY option. My Orcs use about as many pieces with it as you do.

Yes Orcs, I made a mod for that.

My avatar has completed another round of guild/organization assignments:

. . . For a civilian merchant he found and returned with a book hidden within the Ruins of Greencroft Manor.
. . . For the Temple of Kynareth he searched for and returned with a missing Temple member lost within Castle Hawkwing.
. . . For the Knight of the Dragon he searched for clues of the whereabouts of a missing Knight within the Tower of Buckingston.
. . . He stood guard over a meditating mage at the Daggerfall City Mages Guild.
. . . he tracked down and disposed of a Gargoyle within the Ruins of Old Carololda's Farm. Come to think on it, he might still be working on this one. (I was very groggy when I left him last night.)

None of these were walks in the park, excepting the Mages Guild assignment. Surprisingly, despise a heavy investment in Enchanted Item creation, he is now just shy of having 7mil septims in his bank account, thanks to a decent number of Daedric drops, including cuirasses. He now rarely bothers to loot even mithril unless a given mission is otherwise devoid of decent spoils.

He wants a second item enchanted with the four seasonal magicka increases and Repair Object. (We understand that Magicka increases stack, and know Repair Object does.) All that holds him back is lack of a diamond to put the enchants on.

He leveled, putting most of his six points in Wisdom (bumping him up to '70', for added magic resistance) and the remainder in speed.

I've heard mention of a mod that does this. Is it yours or do more 'playable orc' mods exist?

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Nov 4 2015, 06:26 PM

I haven't heard of any others. The tools are primitive for modding Daggerfall, so not many would bother, but when I found that I couldn't play an Orc without doing so ...

Today I finally got back into Arena!

Immediately took on an assignment from the Lady of Dunstad Grove to deliver a note to the Thieves Guild in a town five days south. Attacks from a riviling Lady occured and a few other random ones, but Thor did ok. His spells are so good practically nothing can threaten him, as long as he uses them that is..

ghastl.ey: That sounds like a neat little mod. I bet that must be tricky getting it to work. Well, for me it would be.

Decrepit: Wow 7 million??? You might have tmar beat for the most amount of gold in an ES game. My character in Arena, Renee Gade, usually has somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000.... it's always fluctuating between those two amounts, because she tends to blow a lot of money on inns. She'll rent a King's Suite for instance for like 10 days, and only stay there overnight. Part of her RP, I guess. She also buys a lot of Healing and Restore Power (Magicka, basically) potions ... which is necessary in this game, of course, since resting in dungeons can be difficult.

mirocu: welcome back. How far into the Main Quest have you gone? Or are you doing the MQ at all?

This post has been edited by Renee: Nov 4 2015, 04:48 PM

As per m,y usual routine I´m totally ignoring the MQ

I reckon I should since there´s really not much else to do in Arena, but I´m simply not interested anymore in following long plotlines