I suspected that that was the item, although I never had that scenario happen to me. But I assume that that is because I didn't have a negative reputation with any of the powerful people interested in said item, so they weren't going to threaten me unless I made a significant misstep.

I brought my mage character, Igodah Go^Pe, into Arena's Summerset Isles. Because after gaming with her in Morrowind, I learned her backstory includes something going awry (perhaps) in an earlier year, which is what Arena is all about. So I want to see what this could possibly be.

But then... I forgot how tough this game's tutorial dungeon is! Especially since she's a pure mage type, and low-leveled at that. She was practicing casting fireball in her cell. Thing is though, every time she casts this spell, that drains almost all her magic. She can rest safely though, at least I thought she could.

Eventually a couple rats found their way into her cell. No problem. She simply fried the first rat with a spell. But then with hardly any magicka left, this meant she was limited to using fists to attack the second rat.

But i couldn't remember how to use melee in this game! I totally forgot... pressing buttons doesn't do anything; instead, one must swing the actual weapon (for me this is the right joystick / most other PC gamers will be moving their mouse). Anyway, long story short, I got frustrated and so we'll have to wait before more Igodah adventures get revealed.

Fighting in Arena can be quite a challenge. I kinda like it now though, it's an interesting mechanic.

That very first dungeon is just too freeking hard, Crow. For a pure mage, anyway. I can remember my Spellsword was able to spend a lot of time in this dungeon. But for my mage who can't carry most weapons, and has very limited use with magic, that first dungeon is impossible.

So I'm actually gonna cheat, for once. I found a map so she can just get the heck out of there.

I may remember it wrong but I don't think I had too much problems even in the first dungeon. Had to be careful sure, and the rats were indeed dangerous, but I sort of missed it when I emerged from it. Had a Spellsword too btw.


INSANE levels of immersion in there!

If it was just rats or even goblins she could just take her time, but every time she rests (to heal Magicka) a warrior guy shows up.

Yeah, immmmmmmersion is up the wazoo, that is true. Even with those shoddy graphix, the tutorial dungeon is downright scary sometimes.

But the way magic works in this game, eventually she'll become untouchable. Shield spells basically stop the player from taking any damage for awhile, if I recall. Invisibility also causes enemies to pretty much disable their AI. They literally halt pursuit the moment we go invisible. It's not like in later games, in which they keep searching around for a few moments.

IIRC, there shouldn't be any enemies when you rest up on one of those raised platforms. I may be wrong but that's how I remember it.





Yes, magic is very handy in the higher levels, especially if you planned your self-made spells right. I use reflect damage and magic which not only prohibits my character from taking damage, it also kills whatever attacks him. I never have to use weapons!

Oh yes, I think you're right! Yes, the raised platforms! Forgot all about those! Thaks! I mean thanks!

If it makes you feel better, even my warrior had it rough. The Imperial Dungeons are no joke in Arena. I must have died at least 25 times in them on my playthrough.

But I agree with both you and Mirocu on immersion. I also think immersion in dungeons was done much better in Arena/Daggerfall than Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim, both through sound design and aesthetics. I wish we could have some foreboding areas again in the series where you can get legitimately tense. Hopefully that is something we will get whenever TESVI arrives.




As a pure warrior, I could only use magic through enchanted weapons/armor/accessories. I'll have to make a magic-focused character if I ever go to replay Arena. I usually hear fun things about it when you start getting empowered.




Unfortunately, I could not find a clip with sound, but "raised platforms" makes me think of this: https://imgur.com/gallery/G40XdXj

That's when you enter Easystreet

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm now dabbling in modded Daggerfall-Unity. To the plus, installing mods is a pretty simple procedure. The game-world can look darn fine depending on what you go with. Here's a several month old video showcasing what's possible:

Beautiful Daggerfall

As to game-play, it's come a long way since I last tried Unity years ago. To my surprise, my 'normal' Daggerfall save loads in Unity without issue. It's been 100% stable thus far.

Issues experienced thus far:
My avatar's Daggerfall City home vanished. Not the structure itself, merely his ownership of it. Nor does it contain his vast horde of treasure. This blow is lessened somewhat by his bank account remaining intact. Discovered just this morning, some self-enchanted items appear to be missing. Not good, as he depends on those to compensate for being (purposely) magically gimped. He can cast, but his un-bolstered mana pool is so minuscule only the weakest of spells are doable. Got stuck between a bed and wall. Had to reload the save. To be fair, classic Daggerall has a way to get out of the those situations. Don't know if it carries over to Unity as I've forgotten its KEY.

As for what's up at the moment, he's currently in a dungeon, on assignment for Knights of the Dragon. Either I've lost my touch or dungeons are somehow more difficult to navigate in Unity. Whatever the case, my poor avatar finds himself rounding around in circles far too often.

So what is the idea behind Daggerfall Unity? I mean Daggerfall is already a free game. Why recreate it? Is it that Unity is a fully 3d game, where Daggerfall was all 2d sprites?

hmmm... I'm no authority on DF Unity, not paying it much attention until recently. I assume what you mention is part of it. To 'improve' its graphic quality to appeal to a broader audience, and allow the sort of modding so popular in later series installments. Me, I feel classic DF is fine as-is...well, with various fixes applied by DaggerfallSetup.exe. Still, I enjoy fancy graphics as much as anyone, more than some. And I'll admit classic DF's 'wilderness' is in definite need of sprucing up.

I believe it also allows for co-op and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head (and I think it will be 3D, yes). Might even be able to fix some long-standing bugs....Well, it's Daggerfall so probably not, lol.

But I'm really intrigued by the project and it's great to see that it is so close to done. What I've seen of it looks really cool and the graphical improvements are quite impressive all things considered. I'd definitely give Daggerfall another playthrough once Unity is finished. I don't think I've ever played a game with as much charm as Daggerfall.

Daggerfall was a mix of 3d and 2d. The terrain and buildings were 3d, but the NPC's, mobs, etc. were 2d sprites, and a lot of the clutter was, too. Arena was similar.

The remake looks like it's just higher-res everything, but the 2d/3d mix hasn't changed.

So what engine is Daggerfall Unity using? The Unity Engine? Or is it the Unreal Engine? Or is it still using the original Daggerfall engine?

It is indeed the Unity Engine. Here's its Wikipedia article.

Looks as if at least some self-enchanted magic items are still in inventory. Some remain to be found (nor not).

Thought there were issues with saving/loading. Turns out those 'buttons' are somewhat finicky. Mouse needs to be exactly positioned to press. Once positions are figured out, no problem.

Still assume avatar's Daggerfall City home didn't transfer. Not completely throwing in towel yet.

Installed Trees of Daggerfall. Nice visual improvement. Performance killer. Uninstalled.

My DF avatar now roams a dungeon for the Mages Guild, hoping to dispose of a rogue Mage. Earlier, he bought the ONE house DF City Bank has for sale. It's not nearly as close to the city's main shopping district as his old home (which was ideally situated), but beggars can't be chooser, as they say. (In classic DF, characters can of choose from a wide variety of houses.) Oddly, in-game 'button' clicking, which I found so tedious during yesterday's sessions, works like a charm today. Buttons aren't at all finicky. No idea what changed. I've done absolutely no DF updating since the 'issue' last appeared.

Tuesday Evening Addendum:
Despite being a far larger dungeon than his previous mission, my avatar had little trouble navigating its many corridors, finding and disposing of his target. I prefer classic DF's dungeon maps, finding it easier to get my bearings and find the exit/entrance. Maybe I'm just more comfortable with it, after decades of familiarity?

Finicky button pressing returned this evening. I solved it! Rather, I know how to correct it each time it happens. DF Unity is configured to play in Window mode. That window, at game launch, is very slightly smaller than the entire screen, and a bit off center. I click the top right symbol so that the window fills the entire screen, except for a blue bar at top and task bar at bottom. I noticed that, when doing so right away, before launching a save, there's a good chance finicky button pressing will plague me. When it does, I click to reduce the window to original size, then click to again to restore it. Voila. Buttons cease being finicky. Leastwise that's been the case the two times I used the technique.

My avatar seems a better climber in Unity. A good thing.

My DF avatar accepted what we feared might be a difficult assignment for the Temple of Kynareth; find an item in a dungeon. Completion time-limit was seven days. Travel time to and from dungeon was two days each way cautiously, one recklessly. With some misgivings he opted cautious. (Mainly to allow full mana recovery following a practice session just prior to heading out. He could, of course, have skipped practiced. That's rarely his way.)

With time so short, he couldn't dawdle during the search. As luck would have it, he seems to be regaining something of his old prowess at dungeon delving. The item was found in minutes, almost within the blink of an eye. (Appropriate, since the item in question was a Basilisk's Eye.) He faced a number of tough foes during his short adventure, nothing he broke sweat over. Once found, he chose to walk to the entrance rather than teleport to his anchor, so short was the distance. Another spell practice session occurred once outside. He then 'cautiously' returned to Daggerfall City, turned in the Eye, banked, sold a few ingredients, stored a looted Daedric claymore in his DF City home attic, and returned to the Temple to buy a Destruction Magic spell practice session. We separated afterward.

I enjoy DF Unity more each play session. DaggerfallSetup.exe remains a perfectly acceptable way to experience the game. But Unity with mods has its pluses. My only real regret is losing my avatar's original DF City home with hordes of valuable loot stored inside. Leastwise I think it's gone. It certainly isn't where it used to be.

Earlier today I watched as my DF avatar completed a dungeon crawl he struggled with quite some time. His mission; destroy a Lich for the Fighters Guild. The dungeon was massive. Turns out, his target was very near its entrance, down the one corridor he somehow overlooked before heading further in. Found it in a room with four or five Vampire Ancients. Speaking of which, the dungeon was full of those dratted things. During a rest, he realized he'd caught plague. Downing a potion of cure disease straight away took care of that.

Once back in Daggerfall City and his reward claimed, he accepted an assignment from a merchant that was not what it seemed. His second contact translocated him into a dungeon cage. What saved him was being able to teleport to his Anchor within the previous dungeon. He then traveled back to the City, talked with his assignment's first contact, then tracked down the traitorous second contact (fled to another town) and exacted revenge. I left him afterward.

A nice change in Unity: When looting, the selected function defaults to MOVE rather than EQUIP. It's also been absolutely stable. No crashes whatsoever. That might, of course, be at least partly due to me using a DaggerfallSetup.exe install for the base game from which Unity works its magic. Speaking of magic, I'm now sure my avatar lost no self-enchanted items kept on his person (or in his cart) during the move to Unity. Any such items stored in his original DF City home are of course lost, as ownership of that house did not transfer. I researched it. Yes, as of now Unity's character home options is very limited (compared to classic DF).

My Unity avatar's just-finished assignment saw him combing a vast dungeon to annihilate hordes of invading Daedra. That's what he was told to do at any rate. When all was said and done, there was only one Daedra, summoned by a Mage, who solicited the services of Knights of the Dragon to dispose of it before her guild found out. As this task wasn't as contracted, my avatar was awarded near 2k gold for services rendered. (KoD normally offers no reward when its members perform chosen tasks.)

I assumed this was gonna be your typical DF slay-multi-foes-in-a-dungeon assignment. In that case, my avatar would need to rest within the dungeon repeatedly. During each sleep, one quest mob would spawn nearby. Rinse and repeat until all required mobs die. Was quite surprised when the all-dead-now message appeared following the first kill. Was happy my avatar elected to teleport back to his anchor at dungeon entrance following the kill rather than walk back, his normal practice, as we'd traveled a LOOOOONG way to find the Daedra in question.

Hey this game does look nice, and it's good to see you're writing some updates again, D. I used to read all your Oblivion Decrepit Avatar updates a few years ago.

My question (because I haven't watched the entire video) is did they vary the way towns look, according to different locations? Because that's the one thing that used to bug me about DF, every town looks the same. Gigantic world, yes, the actual terrain and architecture ...

Looks awesome though, the brief snippet I watched.

My character pretty much confines himself to the Kingdom of Daggerfall, so I've not experienced whatever cityscape differences there might or might not be. I do know buildings in different Kingdoms can have different skins (textures), and I seem to recall some buildings in a more desert-like Kingdom that don't appear in Daggerfall. And of course building appearance can alter slight when blanketed by snow. I suspect the sort of variety you crave was beyond what Bethesda chose to provide. It's possible Unity might allow modders to create unique shells for every structure. I've not yet seen a mod that tackles this.

As for my Unity avatar, he's in another dungeon, searching for a scroll as tasked by a Daggerfall City tavern keeper. Lots of Daedra Lords there. Those buggers take a lot of punishment before going down!

Sure. The two or three devs who made Arena managed to do this though. Each province has its own look in that game. Towns vary too. I remember going from north to south in Skyrim for instance. Up north (Winterhold for instance) the architecture was somewhat different from what was in Riften. The weather was different too. Snowy up north, but more fog (and maybe rain) down south, if I remember correctly.



Yikes, Daedra Lords! :devil: I would love to see a picture of your DF avatar!

1

Here he is, as of this morning. Bear in mind that while the rest of the character screen has been graphically improved, no mod enhances character 'paper dolls.' If I read the Unity Workshop forums correctly, one might well be on the way. But it ain't available yet.

He's level 27 here, if memory serves. All decked out in Daedric, some self-enchanted.

Wow no kidding, so daedric armor exists in Daggerfall too. I wonder how long it took for him to piece that set together?

I will post a picture of my last character too, who I think is a Redguard named Rowan Tushoor. It's been ages since I've played this game unfortunately. I should give it a second try if I get bored of the newer games.

Updated to the latest Unity version the other day. One very obvious improvement is in-game text, which is now smooth and quite nice looking. It's a big update, with lots of fixes, most of which are beneath the surface.

As to my avatar, he's done quests for several guilds and one civilian quest. Oh...he levelled, dumping all 5 points (of a possible 6) into Intelligence.


Took him a good while to find a complete set of Daedric. Gauntlets were especially elusive. He had everything else for RL months before finding those. Were his LUCK higher, I suspect he might have gotten them sooner. At one point he was looting Daedric right and left. That stopped. He still gets Daedric weapons fairly regularly in certain dungeons, but armor remains relatively rare. Nice thing about Daedric, other than its protective value, is that some pieces sell for a fortune, and it can hold strong enchantments.

Updated Unity to its most current version. Only change that jumps out and shouts 'look at me' is in-game fonts, which are now ever so much nicer. That and a new selectable option allowing us to choose Guild Quests from a master list of multiple quests rather than ask multiple times until one is offered we like. As of now, I think I prefer the old way, but this might grow on me. I'll give it at least a few more play sessions before reverting back...if I do.

Came across a bit of possible quirkiness relating to a certain DFU mod. Not in-game, but how some of its files behave. Need to post about it on its official Unity Workshop forum thread and see if what I notice is SOP for this new Unity version.

Sounds neat. I wonder how they were able to change the way quests work, if source files for DF were supposedly lost? Well, I suppose they'd have to build an entire program which can basically hack into the game.

A recent short video on a possible spiritual successor to Daggerfall.

As for my DFU avatar, He recently disposed of a maverick Mage, as assigned by the Daggerfall City Mages Guild.

Nothing new on the unity front. Well, I decided to revert to traditional quest assignment rather than the menu list. I'm sure lots of folk will prefer the menu, but for me it makes it too easy to select only those quests that appeal, rather than getting saddled with tasks I'd rather not do. (Or ask over and over again until something I like pops up. I don't mind that, should I opt to do so.)

Yeah totally. For me it always depends what the character wants to do.

News on the DFU front:

Another DFU update has been released. From the several hours I've played it, I experienced nothing earthshaking, but some nice 'little' things. It supposedly includes lots of bug fixes.

KOW-DREAM, one of the game's most comprehensive graphics overhaul mods, has been updated.

Another mod, Trees of Daggerfall, has been updated and is at last usable. (It brought almost any system, including mine, to a crawl before the update.

As for my DFU avatar, he's constantly performing tasks for the four organizations of which he is a member, and occasionally for civilians. At present, he's deep within a dungeon (where else?) hunting a traitor for Knights of the Dragon.

31 Oct Addendum:
A new version of Post Processing Effects is available. Installed it this morning. The little I played looks promising, despite the game world never being in ideal atmospheric conditions to show it off well my entire session.

An under-five-minute video showcasing DF Unity and many of its graphics enhancement mods. I use these in my play-through but admit my game doesn't look nearly as good as this. Not yet at any rate.

Goodness, they really put a lot of work into this project. Is your game stable with all these enhancements?

Glad to see you're still playing Daggerfall, Decrepit. A trooper, for sure!

Stable as can be. <nods> To be fair, DaggerfallSetup.exe, which I now use as the base install from which Unity draws, is quite stable on its own, even with its bells & whistles enabled. Unity is more glitch free. No light-source sound weirdness, for instance. Nor has my DFU avatar a fallen through the world...so far.

I can vouch for DaggerfallSetup.exe running stable. Unity just makes even more so and looks incredible. No more quest items buried in walls. I'm glad they kept the opening video intact. It's a classic which needed no enhancement.

My Daggerfall Unity avatar performed a task for the Temple of Kynareth, of which he is a high-ranking member in good standing (they can't afford chairs). They send him to a dungeon (duh) to acquire Giant's Blood. Took a bit of time, but he tracked it down no problem. The dungeon was full of vampires and Vampire Ancients - I don't recall him facing anything else - once a cause for great alarm but now no great deal so long as he avoids getting hit, which he was able to (except once) in this instance. As is often the case, he opted to trace his steps back to the dungeon entrance/exit, though he had a reliable anchor there.

Once back in Daggerfall City he turned the Blood over to the Temple, bought a Destruction training session - expensive, but doesn't normally need worry about funds these days - sold loot at various commercial establishments, banked, and is now at the Fighters Guild hall about to take an assignment.

As for me, I downloaded and installed the DF unity mod High Resolution Terrain Textures. I'm unable to audition the result as its winter in Daggerfall City. The mod is still beta, and lacks winter textures.

Ha ha yeah, even if they have chairs, no doubt your avatar won't be able to use them anyway.

High Resolution Terrain Textures, does it work well with Mountains and Hills or Distant Terrain?

I wonder this too, as I run Mountains & Hills. Hmmm....maybe I'll launch the game and travel to one of the southernmost kingdoms and see what's what.

ADDENDUM: Here's the mod's NEXUS page. Compatibility with Distant Terrain and Mountains & Hills is mentioned.

My DFU decrepit avatar completed three quests. Two were short and sweet, one more of a challenge, though he was never in any great danger of being bested. He's back in Daggerfall City now, about to accept an assignment from the Fighters Guild. On the way there, now far from his DFC home, I grabbed a screenshot showing off the above mentioned Hi Res Terrain Textures mod as well as other installed DFU graphics mods.

(image) Daggerfall City at around noon with graphics-enhancing mods. (image)

My DFU decrepit avatar completed a string of tasks for the four organizations of which is his a member. To my happy surprise, he at long last attained the rank of Paladin within the Knights of the Dragon, their highest honorific. He how holds top honors in all four organizations.

Right after that we had something of a scare when his reputation with those four establishments dropped from 100% to 99%. We suspect it had something to do with the three civilian tasks he recently completed. He's not done many of those, until now. (My very first DF avatar did lots of them. This one, not so much.) Be that as it may, a round of assignments brought his percentages back to max.

His self-enchanted Daedric Dagger wore out. Wasn't expecting that. As that's how he normally casts Mark/Recall, we replaced it ASAP. Not with another Dagger. Instead, he enchanted the Daedric 'boots' he wears. With those on his person (the Dagger was in his inventory but not worn) it will be auto repaired by another worn enchanted item. In truth this is much ado about nothing. I enabled Unity's Repair Magic Item option, so a Fights Guild smith can fix it. Additionally, he can cast Mark/Recall conventionally. He simply prefers to not waste mana.

I'll say DF Unity has done in a short time what I never thought would be possible. The game really does look good and plays so smooth.

Congratulations, Paladin! That's great, how long did it take to achieve this rank, Decrepit?

There's no way to know. The play-through has been in existence for years. It has endured breaks of varied length during that time. I've no easily found physical / digital record(s) of when it began.

As I recall, 'guild' advancement consists of:

1) Reaching required levels in a number of 'guild' related skills.

2) Reaching and maintaining a certain level of reputation with a 'guild', largely through 'questing' but other factors come into play.

3) Time plays a small role.

My avatar splits his 'quest' time equally between four organizations, and nowadays adds 'civilians' into the mix. He also does occasional quests for nobles. (He doesn't much like noble quests, as they tend to be on the shady side.) These days he's not working on the 'main' quest, though he lacks only its final 'dungeon'. Split quest-time equals slower advancement in any one organization / faction.

Since last post, he completed another round of assignments. The most interesting was the most recent, due to some uncertainty as to whether or not he fulfilled job requirements prior to exiting the dungeon. (He did.)

Here's a recent image captured just prior entering a dungeon, taken either not long past sunrise or early dusk. My money's on the former.

(image) DFU Dungeon Entrance (image)

really nice Dungeon Entrance scene! How do you take the pic? I am able to only get one screenshot per session.

I play in full-screen windowed mode rather than true full-screen, so can utilize the Windows Snipping Tool.

My DFU avatar continues to perform tasks for the four organizations of which he is a member, along with occasional 'civilian' tasks. He just finished a 'special' quest, initiated by a note found on the body of a standard-task target mob. The end result was his acquiring a special Staff. We almost ignored the quest, as he has done it before, and had the Staff in his possession. My guess is that this is something overlooked during the switch from conventional DF to DFU. Be that as it may, all went well. He now has two like Staffs in his inventory. One is now housed in his wagon, and will eventually be stored in his DF City home.

My DFU avatar just hit a meaningless milestone. He reached save-700. This play-through has of course had far more saves than that, likely numbering in the tens of thousands. But the majority of those were overwrites, keeping the same number as their immediate predecessor.

As for save-700, Daggerfall City Fighters Guild tasked him to dispose of a Loup, holed up in Ruins of the Moorhart Farmstead, which is, of course, a labyrinthine dungeon. We were a bit worried, as we are whenever facing a werebeast, as neither he nor I wish to see him join their number. As things turned out, there was no chance of that. The dungeon was populated by humans and ghosts. Not a werebeast in sight. At least not in section we visited. It helped that, for once, his branching choices were spot on. Several minutes after entering the labyrinth he entered a large room containing three human warriors and a caged grizzly bear. The warriors were surprisingly resilient but eventually fell to his sword. The caged bear, though no Loup, triggered suspicion in both of us. He decided to bring it down with arrows. This done, we received conformation from on-high (a quest update box) that the bear was indeed the dreaded menace. As is his normal practice, he walked back to the dungeon entrance/exit rather than teleport. Once outside, he depleted his remaining magicka/mana practicing Thaumaturgy, returned to Daggerfall City, bought a Destruction practice session at the Temple of Kynareth while waiting for the Fighters Guild to open for business, reported quest completion and accepted his monetary reward, sold loot at a nearby shopping district, banked, and stored several items in his Daggerfall City home. Best I recall, that's where I left him.

We're still on save-700, which won't advance until after he accepts his next task, barring unforeseen complications. If all goes according to plan, his next assignment will be either for Knights of the Dragon or a civilian task.