TES I: Arena - A Complete Retrospective

foreign ER came out and when I first played it I was thinking sweet this is a really nice dungeon hack game the game starts you in a dungeon where you spend your first few levels and then I got out into the Wilderness and I was like you have to be kidding me I can go anywhere do anything this rules I came across a river walked along it found a boat sailed it to a small island where I found a crypt went in killed skeletons and found a great magical item there was that single small experience that hooked me taught Howard 2004. the first Elder Scrolls a game forgotten to Time by many with Daggerfall having a second wind in the last couple of years finding new fans amongst those who joined the series at a later point is it time for the first game to have its chance at Redemption over the next few hours I'll be trying to answer that very question by deconstructing and analyzing everything this game has to offer for Miss tumultuous development to its gargantuan Game World this is the complete retrospective and Analysis of the Elder Scrolls 1 Arena Jeweler arena is the next Generation in computer role-playing gaming entertainment this may just sound like posturing from a naive team hoping to sell their new game and in some regards that would be right but to First understand Arena as a game and to how it came to be we must first part ourselves into the RPG climate of the time the early 1990s feeling brave tonight How brave I got the heart it's Mars to play the parts go ahead make your move jump into the magic Whirlpool turn the whole Kingdom upside down you hear a laughing sound not too far away does my Elven Lord tell me anything the three-dimensional adventure to aggress the Idol's tools I'll go first and drive a steak before computer RPGs there were the original role-playing games Dungeons and Dragons being the most famous example but by the time Bethesda had a few titles under their belt in 1991 there was a vast array of these tabletop games to choose from and the video games they had inspired on the classic top down series of Ultima to the first person Adventures of Wizardry much like their Inspirations these games were full of intricate systems built upon formulas and dice rolls random number generation was a necessity of the genre instilled into the 90s crpg fans let's start from the very beginning in the office of a small gaming developer based in Rockville uh close enough I guess the story goes that Tamriel itself began as an in-house game of DnD amongst various Bethesda staff also the company said during Arena's 10th anniversary celebration the truth is a little more nuanced interviews with Julian lafaye lead programmer on Arena have revealed that while TT RPGs were indeed played at Bethesda the world of Tamriel itself was not used instead elements of their tabletop games found their way into Tamriel as they were designed in the world separately indeed both Ted Peterson and lafaye confirmed that working conditions and crunch time at Bethesda didn't allow much time for group gaming during Arenas development Tamriel and its provinces were instead created as a huge map Drawn across a large roll of paper designers and other members of staff were encouraged to come over and place down a location at the own discretion like a birthday card added in towns cities seas and countries leading to many names that are direct references to other fantasy Works Peterson remarks that a lot of the Tamriel locations were inspired by various classic works of fantasy like King Arthur and other Old English Tales the most obvious example be in these Somerset Isles based on Somerset England he said in retrospect that he shudders at some of the placeholder names that were left in the design and that still exist within the Elder Scrolls to this day while many Liberties have been taken with Tamriel through the five Mainline titles for the most part the map has remained unchanged to what was originally drawn up in that office being far from the first crpg Arena did not of course take all of its inspiration purely from pen and paper games it didn't even start as an RPG to be exact just as with my Daggerfall video a lot of the groundwork for my research was already done by Morris Ernst Jacob while I have gone deeper and wider than his retrospective on the game his essay was a fundamental basis to my own findings Our Story begins with a few young programmers working under Chris Weaver founder of Bethesda softworks the average age of the professor team at the time was barely 25 all very young and extremely motivated creatives lafaye himself flew to America from his home country of Denmark to become a game programmer stating that he was only ever interested in creating games the Faye worked on most early titles at Bethesda from the sports games that the company found the majority of its early success to determinate the games which lafaye described as a huge learning appearance for him he was floundering when he set out to make these sci-fi first-person shooters learning on the job how to accomplish such a task he attributes this time to his realization that games need more than just programmers they also need a clear design lafaye subsequently hired Vijay Latchman as a game designer with such a young team High ambition and overzealousness were a given following the generally positive reviews and decent sales of both Terminator games and Latchman and lafaye bonding over their love for fantasy and role-playing the two started brainstorming for what would become Arena her Duo proposed their fantasy RPG idea the quest Reaver who shot it down stating that the market was too saturated and that Bethesda was a nobody in that genre he was right they were mostly known for their sports games going back to the drawing board the concept was reworked into an action-based Gladiator game set in a fictional world where the player could control a team of four combatants fighting in various Arenas eventually being proclaimed egrand Champions Weaver greenlighted this reworked concept and development began in late 1991. Ted Peterson wrote that when he first joined Bethesda Arena was on the back burner while they developed a 3D engine for it nowadays they could build on an engine like unrealable Unity but if you wanted working technology back then you have to build it yourself for months Arena languished more an idea than an actual game this engine was an evolution of the 3D raycasting system lafaye had developed for Terminator 2029 modders have decompiled Arena's source code to find out the majority of it is written primarily in assembly right in the code this way was incredibly efficient but can become more and more unwieldy when trying to work with complex 3D texture mapping and the like which explains why this hodgepodge engine was later abandoned in favor of writing a completely new one for Daggerfall Latchman described Affairs of softworks at the time as small with about 12 people 6 programmers two designers and four artists with people coming and going on a part-time basis just to help out with specific projects the designs and ideas behind Arena were constantly changing throughout development Peterson was tasked with writing flavor text for each of the cities to play as team of Gladiators could visit these original City intros can still be found in the game files among other artifacts of the original Vision some standout cities are Dune and blacklight Doom stands forever challenge if you dare for we are the blades and we will defeat any who come to our door blacklight holds the northern tip of Morrowind and to the east is dagoth ur in all its fiery Glory as you can see Concepts like the blades and degoffer while existing only in name at this point had already been introduced to the series at such an early time a time before this game was even an RPG interestingly these original City descriptions show that every city had a gladiator team waiting for you to challenge them the same principle was later planned for Oblivion with an arena to be in every city and just like here that idea was discarded during the development of the game as the team's Ambitions grew so did the number of role-playing elements players could walk around the towns visit Inns and stores to stay in shop at and take side quests and go to dungeons for them to practice their skills in soon enough the importance of the tournaments that the game was first conceived around became less and less of a priority the side quests as with the town descriptions were delegated to Ted Pearson while the designs in Tech were still being constructed I began diving into creating what we called side quests even though most of the gameplay was meant to be taking place in the Arenas the idea was that you could earn extra gold and experience by doing missions for the various Royals in the provinces they were randomly created following basic formulas go to this dungeon and kill this monster for this amount of gold escort this person to this location for this amount of gold find this item in this dungeon and so on I turned out text to give these quests a little flavor which sometimes had specific antagonists who would try to stop you they were fellow Gladiators you'd also face off against in the Arenas and they had evocative names like the dark brotherhood the Thieves Guild the Mages Guild and the under King there was no particular backstory to any of them just a suggestion of what kind of encounters you might expect when you faced them it was these side quests that gave the team the direction they needed in playtestine we found that Arena combat wasn't popular but people seemed to love the side quests and yet another design pivot we decided to make the game all about these missions and alter the story Saudi Arenas weren't Arenas anymore but legendary dungeons hidden throughout the Empire just like that Arena the Gladiator action game was dead an arena a team-based first-person role-playing game was born something that would more closely rival Titans of this CR PG industry at the time New World computers might in Magic and surtex Wizardry the latter who quite infamously laughed at Peterson when he told them that Bethesda the guys who made sports games and mediocre movie Titan Shooters was going to try its hand at an RPG this isn't as condescending as the story may seem though Peterson has made it clear that it wasn't a laugh of superiority but more of a friendly laugh at the naivety of the young team surtech would know better than anyone the pitfalls of creating complex crpgs with 1990s computer technology and here were some guys who wanted to do it with none of that experience so Tech were the wise veterans trying to calm down the over-ambitious and excitable new recruits and excitable they were indeed lafaye had some big Ambitions now that Arena was an RPG he explained how he wanted to add a lot of what he enjoyed from tabletop RPGs the leveling systems combat systems to hit Armor class zero systems and so on a common saying from fans and devs at the time was that the best computer roleplay game you're ever going to play is about as good as the worst pen and paper that shouldn't be so what is it about a dungeon master and playing within a paper that works that doesn't work in computers his goal was to identify what it was about being a dungeon master in a tabletop game that didn't translate into a video game concluding that the game needs to be able to adapt and incorporate what you have done previously into the gameplay ahead of you so that you are building your own story you are forging your path this is the idea that the quest system and the structure of the world grew out of he wanted to make a dungeon master in your computer they didn't just want to take what others had already made and make it better but instead try to create a game that was unlike anything else they didn't achieve this with Arena however the game was more limited than they originally hoped but they did get closer to that philosophy with Daggerfall and it was the main driving force be behind that game in a December 1993 issue of computer gaming World editor-in-chief Johnny L Wilson described how the side quests were randomized creating a computer-controlled dungeon master while technically true his description in particular gives the system more credit than it deserved he states that the quests remind him of wasteland with multiple ways of approaching them and mentions that factions can help or hinder you on your quests this holds more true for the sequel than in Arena while the gameplay didn't reach their Ambitions with Arena they were still pushing the limits but for graphics for the time instead in 1992 Ultima underworld was released it was a crushing blow to the team and lafay in particular he knew he couldn't match the 3D engine they had created in time for a holiday release in 1993 so he focused on improving the graphics elsewhere light and effects weather Dynamic puddles with Reflections magical spells that react with the environment and a 3D game that spanned the entire screen not just a portal all while the Faye didn't try to take much influence from rival games when it comes to his programming the design team took a different approach using the Ultima games especially ultimate underworld 1 and 2 and other RPGs and inspiration Peterson recalls a game called Legends of Valor that got pitiful reviews and didn't sell well but stood out to him for its free-form nature of gameplay allowing the player to have complete control over their Journey as they explored its large single City a clear influence on the cities of Arena and Daggerfall when Peterson joined Bethesda lakshman and lafaye already had this action game concept for arena but based on how they interviewed Peterson it seems clear that they had planned to push it closer to its final RPG destination during his interview he was asked if he knew what AP holder was along with other various DND terminology indeed the team were even said to have turned away prospective interviewees if they weren't aware of DnD and RPG intricacies Peterson reiterated that this didn't apply as much to the programmers who were often chosen based on who was the cheapest to hire such is the way of small companies sadly he had a funny story where one of the programmers who wasn't so in the know of medieval gaming terminology had accidentally input an inventory item as a Long's word foreign there were two markets in particular that Bethesda aimed at during the 90s one of course being their home Market of the USA and the other being France a French gaming company was able to get access to marketing screenshots of Arena from a far earlier Bill than any other Publications from this article we can learn more about the brief period of time in which Arena was a team-based RPG the article states fighting alone is boring the players should be supported by a team of other characters while this method of play was eventually removed there were still references to it in the final release strings of code within the exe refer to team leader or team member 2 greenshots from that French magazine showcased an early iteration of the UI we see the crystal tower but the artwork is different from the final release including live dragons flying around which were later removed a second screenshot shows that the bulky interface could be minimized notice also the extra icons that don't appear in the final game a shield some kind of Team character sheet and dialogue buttons journalist David pipes described the team-based system after seeing a preview from Bethesda in 1993. it is a first-person perspective role-playing game again with very good graphics and sound and a party to accompany the player players will control multiple characters in combat in real time they will be able to plan tactical actions and instruct the others to follow through then watch it happen as they fight that December 1993 issue of cgw mentions the party mechanic AI only three months before release meaning that this was removed very late in development and could have even contributed to the game missing its original Christmas release date although there is a discrepancy between the article and the images it uses they don't show a party so it may be that the information the author was working with was outdated compared to the screenshots supplied to the publication speaking on the removal of this system Peterson said that it was originally carried over from the Gladiator version of the game but it was too cumbersome and didn't make sense for their new RPG idea so they can pressed it down to a single player single role as they felt that the micromanagement hurt the immersive experience they were trying to craft honestly the more I find out doing my research it's a miracle that the Elder Scrolls as we know it existed at all had Arena been any of the other possible games that it was in its early stages the series could have been entirely different or never had succeeded enough to continue at all briefly they even planned on making Arena an online multiplayer game but it was far too complicated for the early and slow internet at the time Latchman gave an interview with PowerPlay in 1994 where he revealed a list of features that they had to scrap we wanted to create a real Arena where players can fight against NPCs and win gold and prizes we also wanted to include the option of playing via Network and having a party with bargaining higher in firing Etc of course we couldn't integrate all of this Peterson also verified this originally teams of four would join up to battle in the Arenas but early on the technology that connect your game to others wasn't good enough so it had to be dropped two drum up hype Bethesda would send a series of early Alpha and beta screenshots to various Publications these June 1993 images show an even earlier version of the UI using quickly drawn placeholder icons the character names aren't displayed and sometimes neither are the characters again we have the Crystal Tower from the somerset Isles but here the later removed dragons can be seen spit in fire the second screenshot shows what appears to be a hideout for the party the third being some sort of treasure room then a comfy looking Tavern and finally what seems to be a kind of evil or dark Temple all of these early screenshots are used in digitized versions of real art it seems that early on it was intended to use these digitized screens for the build and Interiors similar to some other games from the time although they had dropped all Arena combat as the marked in boxer had already been designed the original premise behind the marketing called for a fantasy action game about fighting in a Coliseum With An Origin be in male RPG enthusiasts hence these decisions such artwork is time consuming and costly to recreate usually being hand drawn and airbrushed given the time period digital art software was available which allowed for faster and cheaper editing but it was less than ideal for creating such intricate artwork itself especially by artists who were trained in and better skilled with more classic methods and so the game went to Market with a cover that doesn't have much relation to the game Health Within [Music] there were a whole lot of canceled features and seen as Arena went through the process of being free entirely different games this project had more than its fair share starting with this hand graphic which was extracted from the full game but isn't used it looks like it was used when casting spells but was possibly removed so the player could cast a spell while having their weapon out there are also graphics for Shields being used in combat in the final game Shields act as an additional piece of armor for those who can equip them rather than physical items that can be used to block or hit like in Skyrim in the CD version of arena there is an unused Auto map feature but this may have just been for debugging either way it looks similar to the auto map using Terminator Rampage which was built on the same engine comparing some of the earlier screenshots to the final version it seems that the graphical quality was actually better in the earlier builds with Graphics in a higher resolution and with full use of the 256 color palette most noticeable on the heads-up display the game was pushing graphical capabilities at the time especially with its refusal to use the limiting view boxes that other titles had confined themselves to so these changes were probably for optimization originally there seemed to be more influence from DND too with the inclusion of a Beholder alongside this early promo screenshot the enemy is also mentioned in the INF files of the retail release indicating that this one may have been another late removal during development nudity also appears to have been planned with this hidden image being covered in game which is funny considering that nudity is included in the games with these box Arts but not the one with this French magazines seemed to be the ones that got all of the coolest early shots for arena this one contained in what looks to be Lord Bell or another similar demon from d d and here we see an early version of a lich notice how these screenshots don't have any UI either possibly just because one hadn't been implemented yet but it would have been cool if they were playing around with a full screen View mode like the one Daggerfall would later include one cut feature in particular literally transformed the layout of Tamriel forever even after the developers tried to retcon this change in Daggerfall in this preview screenshot of Morrowind Province we can see that this fast travel screen featured a fourth button that the retail version is missing we don't know what this button was for but we do know what its inclusion changed when looking at the preview screenshot of the map of Tamriel you can see that Daggerfall city is located on the iliac Bay just as it is in the second game we're looking at the retail Vision the city has moved further west why did it move because of that additional button it would have covered the entire city the correct location on the iliac Bay was used in Dangerfield but as oblivion's collector's edition codex Maps were designed using Arena as reference Bethesda accidentally re-recorned the city into this position which was then carried through into Elder Scrolls Online resulting in the game which is named after the city to be the only game with its original location joystick magazine September 1993's article on Arena includes a rare picture we can see credited artist Jerry Perryman using models to create 2D photography of a 3D scene the little studio for photo shoots was set up in the office basement with the in-game animations being shot in stop motion down there the models used in this photo were from his and lead artist Kenneth Mayfield's Warhammer collections he and Ken were collectors of Miniatures and you can find references to these every now and then in game such as the die Shield which was from Mayfield's Personal Collection and whose artwork was drawn by him a rough translation of the French article states to achieve the graphics of the Elder Scrolls Arena befesta softworks users among other techniques Scale Models cities Landscapes and certain scenes are reconstructed and then photographed before being transferred to a computer graphic designers can then have fun reworking the result these 3D photographs aren't seen anywhere in the final release but they may have helped helped the artist when it came to working with perspective in a 3D space something that the team had only worked on with two games previously to varying results and two varying results in Arena 2 for more I remember there aren't any 12 foot tall human races in the Elder Scrolls the sexualization of arena is no secret it's the first thing you see when you're showing the box art this was pretty common in the early days of fantasy board games and video games but by 1994 this was still seen as pretty cheesy by critics in January 1993 nobody was talking about Arena and there weren't any magazines that gave a direct hint to the game however in an article in cgw covering Bethesda softworks as a studio you can see lead artist Ken Mayfield draw in a suspicious artwork a woman dressed like a gladiatrix since Bethesda was only publicly working on Delta V and Terminator at the time this art can only belong to Arena the topic of scantily clad women doesn't end with the cover either we no doubt prostitutes were originally planned for Daggerfall and a screenshot from May 1993 indicates that the same may have been true for arena as well another screenshot displays a slave market featuring a mostly nude slave girl and the first screenshot revealed in the character sheet uses a female wood elf known as jahana looking more like an 80s hair metal singer than a sorcerer a great deal of the concept artwork was painted by David Lee Anderson his work was mostly used for building interiors and the pre-dungeon introductions his concept can be seen as the background imagery on the pages of the official strategy guide I couldn't confirm this but I believe that Anderson was the artist behind the cover art as it visually feels very similar to some of the images displayed on his website computer gaming World used the cover for one of their Publications but they attributed the artwork to David meanham who isn't credited on Arena at all you probably already know this but the US cover-up was referenced in oblivion's Imperial City Arena Mr knee suggests the themes that is the French version of Arena used a completely different and honestly more appropriate cover by artist Sandrine Gaston this fits a lot more with the action RPG that players ended up playing speaking of ports the French version wasn't the only official non-english version of the game despite only the boxing manual being actually translated this Korean version was published by SKC softland a typical Korean publisher in the 90s over in Japan a Sega Saturn magazine has brief mentions of a Saturn Port being made by SoftBank which was seemingly canceled early on now I can only read this using Google translate so excuse how broken it is but these appear to be promotional articles based on rumors or leaks of information out of SoftBank this article mentions that Arena could be softbank's first satin game and then describes arena with a few embellishments such as the game being a hit in America likewise the copyright was attributed to Bethesda so this page isn't very reputable I do like this anime version of the front cover though much more appropriate for the series it was vital that Arena made a name for itself and built up hype for its release and while it was all for naught with initial sales being poor it wasn't for lack of trying as we've already seen there were multiple preview articles in magazines cgw met with Bethesda at their small Booth during the 1993 summer Consumer Electronics Show they mentioned how on the show floor crowds were assembled around the large screen displaying the Elder Scrolls chapter 1 the arena Gamers haven't heard much about Bethesda soft rocks in recent days but they are pushing 3D technology the best news about the arena for role players is that the attention to character generation and story may be the most careful design work since Roe Adams consulted with Lord British on Ultima IV character generation is story based Gamers really case study and react to the situation as they believed their character would react then detailed statistics are generated from the results of the quiz to be honest part of this was clearly false advertising from Bethesda as Arena's story is nothing the right home about but the appeal of the character creation stands out while this question-based system isn't particularly seen as groundbreaking to the fans of the series The induced verbatim in the sequel and only being brought back again for more wind until being abandoned it goes to show that some believe that these character stories generate an exercises added to the appeal of the role play in the main appeal at the time as you can imagine was the size of the game they post that it has over 2 500 magical items and the potential to mix and match them as well as more than 400 adventuring locales to explore these are hyperbole there are lots of items just not that many and there are hundreds of locales just not 400 nor are they really worth exploring joystick Magazine's preview article was much the same brought in the game for its sheer size and the charm of its Graphics going as far as to say that the 3D environments put a powerful realism at the surface of a rich and complete story but truly games have never looked so real holistic in late 1993 after the announcement of the delay something unusual happened the old screenshots would be an updated without anyone noticing these screenshots Were Meant to display arena in the best light possible the only problem was that the interface was entirely different from the release version rather than grab some new screenshots they just took the old screens and copy pasted the new interface onto them these kind of fake screenshots are not uncommon and you can equate them to the fake or I guess and banished gameplay trailers of today here you can see that Michael kirkbride created some for Morrowind too with his concept art being a reference for a render of the final game that never really existed by moving the release of Arena to the next year something funny happened with the title screen of the game too on the final release title screen you can notice some subtle hidden black text at the bottom by editing the image we can see the original copyright text with the year 1993. what's strange about this is that it was seemingly deemed faster the paste new text on top rather than just edit the original I could only guess that maybe the original file was lost I've mentioned that they missed the holiday 1993 release date and we already can guess the reasons but what is bizarre is that it's hard to pinpoint an actual release date for the game at all Wikipedia says March 25th based on Bethesda announcing the 10th anniversary on that day but they've already been proven to get this wrong before as it's basically impossible to nail down the date stores started selling the physical game back then we can thank internet piracy for the truth there are many different versions of Arena that were cracked and released online by various groups and with different version numbers some even contain Patches from before the 25th of March it gets even more complicated when trying to discern what was a full release just a demo and somehow versions that aren't quite betas but also aren't a full 1.0 release first we must lay the groundwork of the early internet we're going back to a time where the web archive Wayback machine is useless the because it didn't exist but also because the internet was completely distinct to how we know it today at the time Bethesda had a few ways of communicating with fans with the main one being there BBS or bulletin board system this is a lost form of internet in which was kind of similar to Tenny text users would dial into BBS and could read the latest news or download files and software gaming magazines use these to distribute trailers and promo shots for readers and Bethesda would have done the same hence how we have access to those 1993 promo slideshows Bethesda released physical demos of Arena or at least that is what we can ascertain from the dot bat file supplied with a demo I found online there are no pictures of these demo discs online but this implies that there must have been one the demo could also be downloaded online via those bulletin boards as could the later released patches so we know how the demo got out there but that's just one disc worth of content for game that required eight yet somehow Pirates got a hold of a full install before the official release date we are about to embark on our adventure of a legal software activities and old school internet drama and rivalries Razer 1911 is a Norwegian Wares group founded in 1986. that still operates to this day if you're unfamiliar with 90s internet vernacular a Wares group is a group that specializes in Internet piracy in February 1994 notably a month before the now accepted release date Razer 1911 uploaded a cracked version of Arena included in the cracked files was a DOT nfo file calling out the Rival Wars group trsi Razer 1911 declared this is the final sales version of Arena the very cool new Ultima underworld looking game from Bethesda softworks about a week ago trsi poured out an uncracked beta version of this game so here is the final for all you guys that had problems with the beta this was an especially bad look for trsi as it was at the time seen as bad practice among Wars groups to leak beta versions of games so somehow trsi got hold of a beta version of Arena but how well it turns out it may not have been a beta at all as this is internet drama it wasn't as simple as Razer 1911 was making it out to be according to her novel rival group backlash who released their own cracked version a few days later the Razer 1911 release was just a duplication of the trsi release with their dot nfo claiming that TRS eyes was not a beta and that Razer 1911 had duped their full release crack even finding out this information was hard enough as I have for the most part secondary and sometimes only tertiary sources to work with the following information may not be true but it's the best we have in a forum discussion about Arena Dover was researching The Oddities around the release dates he says that the very first version of the game is a trsi floppy rip which dated the 31st of January 1994 but this version was only available to download of bbs's after the 17th of February how did trsi have a full game rip before the apparent release date at over 20 megabytes Arena had to be sold on eight floppy disks somehow someone within trsi must have had access to the physical copies before they hit store shells or stores were selling the game much earlier than March 25th Dover goes on to say that backlash released another version on the 15th of February and Razer 1911 released their own version on the 24th of February what's interesting about all these versions The a.exe in all three releases have different sizes and version numbers where these crackers get in different versions of the game Razer 1911 proudly mentioned that their version lacked some of the bugs from the so-called beta version that prsi was using is it possible that last minute changes to the game were being made as they were being sent out to Distributors Todd mentioned that the floppy disks were burned in-house at Bethesda we would burn him in the basement we had the disc replicators so this may be a reason for the minor discrepancies between the versions a known version which Dover claims was released in stores was from the 2nd of March which was already patched to 1.03 with a different size and version again from the cracked versions if this is true then we have a legitimate copy of the game 23 days before the official release date not to mention that the first known patch was on the 26th of February day one patches may be the case now but it would be pretty weird for Bethesda to publicly release a patch a whole month before release we can at least confirm that the game must have been out before or on the 26th of February even the fourth patch was released over 14 days before the anniversary date the earliest known reviews of the game were in joystick magazine in March 1990 4 so the game was also in the hands of reviewers before the official release date although that is more common to be fair with the 31st of January 1994 being stamped on the TRS icraft version we can only conclude that the game was released around that time it is possible that they got a hold of an early copy for a distributor but we will never know with Bethesda releasing patches on the 26th of February we know it must have been before then either way it was definitely before the Wikipedia date it seems most likely that by sometime in late January Arena was out on store shells and the Pirates got the hands on it as fast as they could having missed the Christmas release window whether by one month or three didn't matter the game was launching at the worst possible time and the initial sales reflected this it was one of them for those whose worst selling additional releases Terminator Colin 2029 operation colon scour sold better as an expansion pack than Arena did initial sales we were sure we had screwed over the company and we'd go out of business fortunately PC Gamer us reported in late 1995 That Word of Mouth did the trick the game starved RPG fans looked at Arena loved it and spread the word sales rocketed Awards and accolades rained down today more than 18 months after publication the game is still selling and still being played avidly Arena had become a sleeper hit in the crpg niche I know I made this joke a ton in the tag-aful video her The Gamers buggy because Bethesda but when every game in the series is buggy it can't help but notice the consistency yes arena is buggy but come on most games with that tumultuous development with just three programmers and two beta testers would have had the exact same issue it wasn't for a lack of trying to fix them with patches released every other week for months now it doesn't remove the fact that on release the game was a broken mess and if you would Savvy about patches then you were stuck with a game that was at times unplayable MFL insufficient bait oh well um great what's happened there is the game has crashed and I haven't saved in a while yeah nice surprisingly or maybe not so bethesda's bugginess was almost a part of the culture once Peterson wrote law to explain a bug in Terminator 2029 by Julian lafaye jokingly approved of this quick fix claiming that it's not a bug but a feature a joke you can see attached to many instances of Elder Scrolls glitches we had a bug in the game where because of some Collision issue the Terminators would sometimes walk through walls so we weren't sure if we were going to fix this before the aim was published so I threw into the manual a thing where I said there are reports that Skynet has developed technology to allow Terminators to phase through solid material and be on lookout for this you know he shared this with Julian and he said yep now you're a real game designer as soon as you've decided that this bug might be a feature and figured out a way to work the lore around that a review from computer gaming World in early 1994 notably before many of the patches had been released mentioned that they ran into a a number of game breaking bugs in the side quests they were sometimes impossible to complete due to travel and taken longer than the time set to return to the quest Giver the software wasn't stable either even after three patches in just the first two months they tell the reader to make a habit to save as much as possible to not do so is to only hurt yourself which is actually true enough even without the bugs to be honest a month later the same publication continued to call out Bethesda for the bugginess of the game after another two patches were released they complained that there was a clear lack of play testing and that the game was being released far too early which was probably true the devs didn't have much choice but the game haven't been already delayed further proof of Arena's Rush development can be seen within 30 seconds of loading up the game Uriel septum VII is erroneously called septum IV at some point the name must have been changed I guess seventh sounds more convincing than fourth but the change that was made on one slide was not carried over to another these years are wrong too but that's due to a retcon of the timeline made in Daggerfall rather than a mistake where the devs here to be fair to the FAE he is more than aware of the state the game released in and made it clear that bug fix in such big games is much harder than people realize just identifying and isolating the bugs in the source code became an almost impossible task for the small team of three programmers he said it always felt like either they never had enough time or enough people to release the game in a better condition these issues were for the most part fixed with the updated re-release the deluxe edition which came on a single CD ROM instead of floppy disks it added new 3D CG video sequences full voice acting doing cut scenes and contained a slightly altered ending removing some lore yeah but there's no peck on their own law just one year after the original release this has the Accolade of being Todd's introduction to the series straight out to Joy and Bethesda he was tasked with overseer and helping the test the CD-ROM version of Arena as his first assigned alignment when Todd Howard was first brought on to Bethesda was for arena CD While most of the bugs were fixed some remain such as a memory leak issue that is still present even when emulated through dosbox using hand to hand as a weapon can cause the game to crash too and there are still a few visual bugs like getting stuck in the ceiling when using levitation or the sun becoming a ghastly mass of broken pixels perhaps this is a Daedric trick to horrify the citizens of Tamriel some bugs must have either been too difficult to fix or the team had ran out of time as within a readme text file found on the disk of the deluxe edition we can find an additional troubleshooting section not published within manual it describes fixes for getting stuck into a wall which include reloading a game and hoping for the best or having to restore a previous save my favorite is the fix for not being able to find an artifact quest in which they detail why the bug happens and then tell us to just not do that great fix boys Bethesda seemingly tried to cover up the bugginess stating in an addendum to the manual that came of the CD-ROM deluxe edition although Bethesda has put tens of thousands of hours into test in the Elder Scrolls Arena there may still be some bugs looking undiscovered I'm sure the two creditor testers did try their best but I highly doubt that there was tens of thousands of hours of testing no offense to them even his addendum has bugs with a troubleshooting guide question being copy pasted verbatim the deluxe edition did thankfully remove the copy protection from the game if you aren't aware of how old-school copy protection worked before pieces of often very intrusive software attempted to make sure you weren't pirating classic floppy disk games would ask for some kind of information only someone who bought the game would have access to like a word on a specific page in the manual which is how Arena handled it once you try to leave the start in Dungeon a pop-up would prompt the player for the price to a spell or potion the finest information you would have to look in the game's manual get it wrong on two occasions and the game would close down as you can imagine those bulletin board systems may get in this information pretty easy foreign was a disaster waiting to happen with the hard work of all those involved it did eventually release sometime in early 1994 and the sales were less than Stellar until much later in the year but what did game journalists think of the game today most people couldn't care less about what a game magazine rated something but with the internet as young as it was for many the only way they could get information on a game was through these Publications all through Word of Mouth we'll be going through these critical reviews as they'll contrast nicely to my much more modern interpretation it may surprise some of you just how good many thought the game was in PC Gamer us Bernie e summarized Arena as a stunning technological achievement believe in that if Bethesda could give this game a better storyline you might have the best FRP ever designed the first person RPG landscape at the time was apparently quite lacking without any games of note being released since ultimate Underworld 2 Arena came out at the ideal time according to Yi he calls it simply stunning with high praise for the graphics but also admits that the view controls aren't as sophisticated as ultimate underworld with no ability to lock up or down Yi was very colorful with his writing this paragraph feels like it could be reviewing Skyrim Bethesda has created a true virtual world using light source and in shadows two magnificent effect puddles on rain-stoked streets reflect lightning bolts in the distance fog snow and Mist impair your vision As you move through the countryside you can discern Caverns lit by firelight in the distance and peek through keyholes before entering potentially dangerous rooms it should be noted that while you can look through keyholes it serves no gameplay Advantage as you can't see anything past some blurry wall textures based off of this acclimation unsurprisingly later that year the magazine named Arena the 18th greatest game of all time the editor applauded it as the Next Generation role player that will satisfy both newcomers and Veterans alike Barry brenzel of Electronic Entertainment wrote while the Elder Scrolls chapter 1 Arena has nothing revolutionary to offer in role-play and fantasy it is nevertheless a worthwhile game for the sheer death of its Quest capabilities that far outnumbered the competition computer gaming World reviewed the game twice giving it a brief few words in their April 1994 issue stating they hadn't had enough time with the game to give it a full review and following it up with a four-page review in the May release the April article says that Arena looks like a cross between ultimate underworld and Might and Magic World of zine with both depth and sophisticated 3D Graphics it's summarized with this may be the biggest world in terms of gameplay that will reach store shells this year with a rich and compelling storyline and setting the main issue was more critical pointing out the basic Trope ridden writing of Arena Peterson explained that he used these negative reviews to fuel his attempt to diversify the plot of Daggerfall and to inject more abstract lore into the series he wrote that the reviews for arena were pretty good but as a writer it pained me that the lackluster cliched plot and Game World was called out I made it my mission to create the most complicated story I could wrap my head around subverting expectations wherever possible demons were now called Daedra and while scary not universally evil the underking a boogeyman reference in Arena was given a sympathetic backstory and every other faction you fought in the first game became a group you could join while that May issue lambast the story it was also very praiseful elsewhere it again Raves about the graphics magic effect and frame rate cult favorite reviewer Scorpio was particularly impressed by the spell Creator and how it created versatile and beautiful luck in spells she liked that there aren't any level requirements for the main quest or any level limits at all strangely enough the question-based Character Creator was seen as a big plus helping to build a role-play and backstory for the player character even the rudimentary rumor system was highlighted which I think goes to show how the computer RPG genre was still very much in its infancy even though it was over 10 years old at this point she congratulates arena for not just chasing fast combat and beautiful visuals but also remembering to stay true to RPG elements such as Story characters and player interaction ensuring they pleased both crpg fans and those who want the graphical pyrotechnics of its Rivals saying that if Arena captures the imagination of other Gamers like it has captured mine it may well be the game that establishes the formula for new RPGs she was early with claiming that it was Arena to be the one to do this but she wasn't wrong when it came to the Elder Scrolls they have gone on to completely define the modern Western RPG genre since Playing devil's advocate to this praise in PC Gamer's case boonie Yi didn't even finish the game I'm not saying all game journalism Miss Paul but this certainly isn't a great look despite some of the harsher reviews later that year Arena went on to win cgw crpg game of the year award although Dottie journalism strikes again with the article completely speculating that Vijay lakshman's inspiration was to combine the perspective of Doom with role-playing elements ignoring that not only had many games already done this previously but also the fact that Doom released when Arena was originally meant to these screenshots were circling before Doom was out how do you take influence from something that you don't even know exists also that's Ted Pearson not Latchman Germany was another big market for Bethesda alongside France where their press were equally as praiseful with Arena scoring in the 70s and 80s in multiple Publications it wasn't a clean sweep there were still some that had their gripes with the game while reviews were generally positive and sales did later improve like any creative the geyser fezder thought they could have done better their experience developing Arena motivated them to improve every aspect of this game with Daggerfall when asked what they would change if they were not limited by technology budget and release date Peterson said it would have been nice to make the cities more distinctive but we had to reuse so many assets to populate a continent we had no idea that side quests were going to be so popular that people would be running around doing Quests for Kings instead of following the linear progression of dungeon to dungeon to defeat Jaeger Farm I don't remember how many side quests I wrote but it couldn't have been more than two or three dozen so it got pretty repetitive that and the pressure to get the game out quickly meant that we didn't have much time to beta test thus Arena was released very buggy which didn't help bethesda's reputation for quality products and unfortunately it didn't help later when Daggerfall was released just as bug ridden Arena was certainly derivative of a lot of games our experience system was straight out of Dungeons and Dragons and the gold box games from SSI between the influencers of Ultima underworld and the legends of Valor we weren't doing anything too new we just did it bigger much much bigger an idea between two co-workers eventually grew into a Goliath project that in an alternate reality would have destroyed a company on the cusp of unprecedented success fortunately the timeline we live in was much more forgiven [Music] thank you here we are the beginning of the Elder Scrolls select a new game gives us two options select the class or answer a series of questions to have the computer decide which class best suits our personality based on the answers there is no in-depth class Creator the best feature in the entirety of Daggerfall had no predecessor which actually makes that one even more impressive in my eyes unlike later Elder Scrolls games where players are generally allowed to immerse themselves into any kind of odd bold hybrid archetype that they like the classes here are instead a lot more restrictive on what you can do within the game they follow the basic fantasy stereotypes Warriors can't cast spells Majors can't wear heavy armor etc etc reviews commended the Q a options for the feeling of role-playing that it grants which I guess is true however outside of this reason and morbid curiosity it is the worst way to pick a class simply because the game's difficulty is closely tied to your cloud us it is likely that whatever choice is made for you via this questionnaire will not be conducive to a first time player before we get into the nitty-gritty of the classes let's cover the Character Creator it is for the most part similar enough to its sequel starting with our character's race there are again no Orcs or Imperials but all the others are here Noble Breton snobby hials elusive wood elves Dark Elves Nords humans who like face paint and Eels with legs yeah Beast races had a long way to go while Daggerfall we find them closer to their modern iterations these khajiits are not it yes the Canon includes them but come on this isn't what most think of when you hear cat people as for the argonians they are a little closer to where they would end up but they just look wrong not scaly enough and the faces are cursed outside of Aesthetics your race will have important consequences to your attributes as well as each one come in with a unique racial ability such as the overpowered and immune to paralysis which will turn one of the most dangerous spells in the game into nothing or there's the ability to climb six foot tall walls a little bit faster the choice is yours the attribute differences aren't massive but every little help in the early game can add up notably your choice of sex will make a difference here unlike Daggerfall with male characters sometimes being stronger or with more endurance while the female equivalents are faster or smarter the differences are still quite minor just resulting in a 10 point difference in the correlated attribute which is easily negated with an enchanted item or just by leveling up it really only matters in your first three to five levels the biggest Choice one should consider when picking a race is that unique racial ability as their effects will be helping or hindering you to the end of the game to briefly cover each race Dark Elves are the all-around race they're good at just about everything with their starting stats spread out evenly they also get a plus one damage bonus to melee and ranged attacks and every four levels which can give classes that are limited to these weapons a little more stopping power High Elves have naturally High Intelligence willpower and Agility as you can guess they make a great spell casters and they are blessed with that op immunity to paralysis that ability is very nice though you will likely want to avoid making non-magical classes with this race due to their poor strength and endurance bretons may seem like another class best suited to be spellcasters because of their High willpower and intelligence but they actually perform even better as non-magical classes this is because brettons only take half damage from all spells and on a successful save roll can resist the spell completely nullifying the number one threat to warrior-based classes who cannot cast their own Shield or spell absorption magic the downside to this is that they start with low agility strength and endurance which are the most important two non-magical classes still that racial ability makes up for it red guards are ideal for those who want to use a bow and melee weapon combination they have a plus one to the hit chance percentage and damage for daggers and Bows every three levels as well as having good attributes for combat what else are the all-around best for melee classes as they also get a plus one to hit chance and damage every three levels but for all melee weapons combined with a high start and Agility their other stats do leave something to be desired though Nords are not really that worthwhile they can resist cold damage but that is not terribly common outside of the story dungeon set in the Nordic Homeland at least with high strength and willpower they can make good Warriors and okay spell swords the Beast races are again lacking argonians can swim quickly and have good intelligence so they're well suited to the spell casting classes that rely on said intelligence they aren't awful just not the best choice ankajits are best avoided except for role-playing reasons they bring little to the table aside from higher and the ability to scale walls quickly which is rarely a problem in gameplay these guys are kind of awful unfortunately once you have made your decision you can select your facial appearance I can now better appreciate the art style shift made for Daggerfall as these are a lot more basic there are some okay looking characters but even the ugly ones won't matter as you will likely be covering up with a helmet eventually just try to make sure you don't accidentally pick one that stares into your soul the entire game Jeff here glares at me with hatred for giving him his name it's time to tackle those classes this is a 90s game and the manual was included with the intention of being red and as was the fashion at the time it's bloody massive and it has to be because choosing your class can make or break your playthrough so you're going to want to Choose Wisely there are three overarching classes the warrior the Mage and the thief you may be familiar with these of course they are ripped straight out of Dungeons and Dragons beneath these overarching classes are the subclasses these have certain benefits over their pairing classes with some disadvantages to boot take the Bard for example the ultimate master of none they can critically strike and use Thief skills better than most classes yet not as well as the thief classes they can fight in melee better than Mages yet not as well as the warrior classes and they can cast spells yet not as well as any of the Mage classes a true middle child of a class what does your choice entail well well it's just like picking a race your attributes will change and some of the classes also come with unique abilities but not all of them this does mean that some are greater than others and the special abilities aren't as a lackluster as some of the racial ones either Knights can repair equipment without a blacksmith barbarians are immune to poison and acrobats decrease an enemy's chance to hit them it isn't all positives though classes also come with restrictions this usually equates to being unable to equip a certain type of armor or weapon but a few classes have extra disadvantages like the sorcerer who cannot regenerate spell points that's still better than the warrior and Thief classes that can't use magic at all though to part the classes into simple terms the warrior builds are the easiest to play they have a strong early and mid game but struggle to keep up later without the aid of expensive and rare magical items or potions due to them lacking the ability to cast spells to do the same the Mage builds have a tough early game due to their squishiness but they be become Gods when they reach a point where they can throw devastating damage and spells at will all while healing and protecting themselves with other forms of magic and the thieves they aren't the greatest not only are they Limited in what armor and weapons they may use they are also all expectedly very squishy the high movement Speed and Agility does make up for this lack of survivability up to a point at least in the early game they can Excel critical strikes combined with a naturally High chance to hit makes them a glass Cannon but by the late game the advantage has been outpaced by the sheer dominance that magic offers the actual stealth mechanics don't exist when it comes to dungeons either a thief's Nimble feat won't work in these dark depths you won't be able to sneak past an enemy nor attempt any kind of stealth attack they mostly suffer because they were too faithful to their roots in Dungeons and Dragons they're a utility class that fries on accomplishing Feats that other characters can't the problem is that while they are a God in the early game the further along you get the harder it becomes to deny her Majors can just use magic to do everything a thief can do but better they seem to exist as a challenge for those who have mastered the game a breath of fresh air for experienced players that can now enjoy a couple of new activities in the game world that they didn't have access to with the Warriors or Mages I say this because new players won't have the game knowledge necessary to make the most of them magical items specifically those found in the Mages Guild are game changers but a novice to the game won't know that a returning player then will be Savvy enough to Rob this Guild blind for the advantages these Grant much like DND an attempt to balance the classes and hence make these weaker builds more appealing was made specifically in how fast each class levels arena is actually it's a game I love and it's very very elegant if you look at the first one where it's just an XP based system do this get XP level up very classic role-playing game arena being a classic crpg doesn't have any kind of fancy Dynamic leveling based on skills it is simply kill a bad guy then gain experience or complete the quest then gain experience eventually you hit the amount of experience you need and you have level up each class is assigned an XP threshold that determines the rate in which they progress this is the main form of balancing in the game the stronger classes like the Mages are in band e the slowest threshold for leveling without grinding side quests or seeking out every mob in a dungeon they may soon find themselves under level for the next story dungeon they must face thieves on the other hand level much faster being in band a or C after around four hours of gameplay the player would have cleared the starting dungeon enter the town and then cleared the first main quest dungeon by which time they will have around 80 000 experience points this spots a thief at level 9 while a spell sword or sorcerer will be level 8. the difference may not seem huge at first but past level 10 every level requires 1.5 times the amount of XP than the last one by the mid game a thief can expect to have maxed out a few attributes via leveling up with the Mage being left behind this doesn't mean a whole lot however being a level 50 teen Thief when a mage would be level 12 means nothing if that same Mage can deal five times the damage with a spell all while protecting themselves with other magic this is a similar scenario to what appears in DND a thief in DND can backstab which requires them taking an enemy completely by surprise where their reward is doing less damage than a fighter does by just attacking the enemy head on the bottom line is no matter how good your Thief is the Wizards and visibility spell will be better than your chance to move silently or their spider climb spell will work better than your chance to climb the wall back to Arena and honestly I commend Bethesda for translating the DND Thief into video game form so well they just needed to tweak them after abandoning the original team-based direction for the gameplay as a Solo character they really struggled to get past the final story dungeons with her class selected we come to the dice roll screen this is intended to replicate the randomness of pen and paper games rather than rolling some dice the characters attributes range from 40 to 100 where you can then roll the digital dice for some small variances and a few extra points to sprinkle around as you see fit you won't be able to make a class as crazy strong as you could in Daggerfall but with enough patience you can give yourself a bill that will make your first few hours a little less painful each attribute is related to the multiplier next to it you likely will never get a perfectly balanced character sheet in the Character Creator so you will have to choose which attributes to sacrifice and which to buff wisely and not all attributes are made equal strength is not as important as it appears but should be kept high enough to prevent negative penalties the additional damage is nice but marginal compared to the effects that better gear or a higher chance to hit will have tankier builds may want to build this stat so that they can wear the heaviest armor and still carry a lot of treasure most Warrior classes should forego leveling strength until other more vital stats are maxed out and mages can all but ignore strength since magic can make up for the lack of it intelligence is absolutely vital to all majors and should be maxed out as fast as you can Warriors have no use for it thieves do benefit from it for stealing but they should build other stats up first willpower governs your chance to resist hostile spells and enemies throw a lot of spells a starting character won't need it as much but getting high willpower should be a leveling goal for warriors and thieves Mages can ignore this somewhat thanks to do ability to cast all kinds of resistance spell absorption and shield spells agility then is the most important stat for everyone since it determines your ability to avoid physical attacks and land your own everyone should try to get enough agility to give their character a plus one or higher bonus to hit an evade Warriors need more agility as they fight up close so it's advisable to get plus 3 or 4 as early as possible and thieves need to focus on maxinus out for the plus 10 evade in physical attacks will be necessary to rectify their squishiness speed speed up just your movement speed which can be helpful for Mages and thieves that may find themselves needing to run away from an encounter that is not in their favor archers and other classes that can use bows benefit from an increased fire rate too bows aren't that good anyhow as most combat in the game is up close and no matter your speed start you will never be faster at back pedaling than an enemy is at walking towards you not to mention how goofy this first person Sprite is they do have specific use cases such as firing at enemies over water or chasms but a spell or Enchanted item can do the same and won't require you to go into your inventory to change weapons every time endurance is a vital stat that is necessary to everyone since it adds a set bonus to increase your hit points at each level it's best to Max this out first if you need hit points since the bonus only applies to your health pool when you level up and is not retroactive plus four per level will be awesome in the early game but not a huge help by level 12 for example personality is all but useless it does have an impact on bartering with NPC shopkeepers but you can get away of ignoring it until everything else is maxed out finally we have luck the Forgotten stat in every Elder Scrolls it helps in many small ways most notably by improving the quality of the loot you find it's only worth investing into if you have some extra points it is wise to avoid a luck penalty if you want to find decent loot which is very important in the early game a lucky build will likely walk out with better weapons armor and accessories than an Unlucky One when you level up you are given several additional attribute points to distribute the amount of points you get Is Random so you can try and save scum this if you care about maximum efficiency often it will be around three to five points so you will need to choose between a balanced approach to increase in attributes or focus on just one and moving on to the next this is part personal preference but also based on your class a mage will want to increase intelligence as fast as they can four additional spell points the recommended bills touted online for beginners is a male red golf night Red Gods have a great combination of strength endurance and Agility while the night class applies to overpowered immune to paralysis benefit as well as that repair item buff Knights also begin with a d18 hit die a tabletop rule that calculates your starting number of Health points d18 is not the highest but will make you tankier than most the downside is the slower rate of leveling in band D and the inability to use leather you are a knight so leather wouldn't have suited you anyway this beginner recommendation is based on the incorrectly printed manual yeah the manual isn't true in some places likely due to the ever change in development of the game in its final months the uesp correctly states that red guns only have a plus free to hit chance and damage with daggers and Bows so this racial ability is lost on a night class alternatively then you can use a female wood elf for their bonus damage with all all melee weapons with the trade-off being the Lesser early attributes compared to the red God these beginner build options are ideal for helping a new player to get accustomed to the game they're tanky enough to have a fair chance in the first dungeon and hit hard enough to gain some experience and get a hang of the combat which is exactly what I did when I picked up Arena a few years back this playstyle is limited immensely however by the lack of magic magic is one of the most fleshed out features in Arena and cutting it out of your playthrough will hamper The Experience actually all Magic based classes will have an easier time in the later game due to how powerful the magic system is this is reflected in the time and experience it takes to level up but even with this attempt at balancing Magic based classes are still your best choice for an easier and more Dynamic run you can sneak around with invisibility cause massive damage across a distance heal yourself during battle and protect yourself with defensive spells other classes can simulate these abilities with potions and magical items yet their supply of both will be the limiting factor with no way of replenishing them whilst in a dungeon a mage class can simply rest in an Alcove to be back at full strength magical items also do not scale with levels as spells do meaning that a weapon with a powerful fire spell may be strong during the early game but becomes less useful as the player levels up a major spell does not have the same weakness I played Arena blind on stream in preparation for writing this video and for that I used a male high elf spell sword named Bob an amazingly creative name I'm sure you can tell as a Heil he was immune to paralysis and as a spell sword he could cast spells had a relatively High starting pool of health and could use any weapon he pleased generally any Magic based class will be playable combine that with a race that has the ability or attributes that best suit said class and you'll be fine after some leveling and kicking yourself out with good gear as long as you pick a class within the Mage or Warrior structures you're going to have an okay time just don't go picking a thief for your first playthrough as there are only 10 save slots you may be wondering how you can test or play with a few different builds while also keeping multiple saves for each character it isn't as simple as it is in Skyrim or Daggerfall Unity but it can be done just manually taking a stroll to your game files you can find all 10 save slots neatly positioned copy and paste them into a folder for each of your characters and then reverse the process when you want to play them this way you can play with various builds without having to sacrifice on save slots it's not a streamline but hey it works just remember to update your character save folder once you're done you don't want to override a play sessions worth of progress by accident with your build created we start the game out as a prisoner no surprises there The Story begins in Earnest with a cutscene we'll be covering the plot and who this is later on so let's just stick to the gameplay for now the starting dungeon is an abandoned sewer filled with low-level goblins and rats think Oblivion but not as pretty given that both of these are the Imperial City sewers oblivion's intro filled with the same enemies we find in Arena is very likely to be a direct homage to this original game Arena's goblins do have jaundice though this hellhole is intended for the player to train in it's filled with somewhat easy enemies to defeat and gain XP from multiple loot piles to give you a boost of golden gear and a variety of terrain and Concepts to teach you the general dungeon Design This terrain is broken down into three tiers the floor which is self-explanatory the underground of tunnels streams and Lava Pits all of which can be dropped into the travel around and avoid enemies and then the rain raised alcoves these let you rest without the worry of enemies randomly spawning near you and it wouldn't be a crpg without hidden doors lots and lots of hidden doors these were bad enough in Daggerfall but at least you could notice them with a Keen Eye good luck doing that here they are identical to every other wall texture leaving you to click mindlessly if you want to find one your map is the only clue so in the red door indicator wherever a hidden door can be found as we already know the Arenas of old were replaced with 18 unique hand-designed dungeons it is only by completing each one of these that the player can achieve Victory which means that arena is the closest to a pure Dungeon Crawler that the Elder Scrolls Mainline Series has since there are no joinable factions and only a few side quests the biggest source of your income and the gameplay in general will involve plundering dungeons the world outside of the cities is infinite so you will never run out of dungeons a plunder even after beating the main quest compared to daggerfall's random Affairs these are a breeze offering a decent Challenge and a good source of Loot and experience points for the mid game the side quests yep you guessed it they lead to dungeons too these dungeons appear on the Travel map and are a lot larger than the ones found in the wilderness but they are still easy to navigate as opposed to Daggerfall exploring dungeons isn't a chore in Arena which I really enjoyed as a bit of a completionist there is something satisfying about filling in the entirety of the Auto map and knowing that you have seen everything there was to see before venturing onwards with the neat ability to leave notes on the map I found an odd amount of pleasure in filling in the map with the names of the rooms I had discovered notably in dungeons that were designed to look like an actual living environment the first main quest dungeon takes place in an abandoned keep you enter a large Throne Room surrounded by bedrooms Beyond The Throne there is a grand water feature with fountains and statues Delhi council meeting room dining room kitchen royal bedrooms and dungeons sure they don't look that amazing but it's fascinating to see bethes to put in the effort into environmental design in Arena and then said design would later be a highlight of the modern series these are the pixelated beginnings of something great the general tip for Dungeon cooling is to hug the walls fill it in the walls on the Auto map first gives you a general layout of your surroundings making it easier to check for hidden areas that you might otherwise miss the relatively smaller dungeons in Arena actually promote exploration because they aren't too daunting it is more than possible to fully explore the floor of every dungeon even the story ones without getting too lost other than to speed up your progress Arena isn't relying on a guide where Daggerfall kind of is getting lost is much less of a worry with enough determination you can find everything in a dungeon something that I cannot say for Daggerfall with its 3D map that is as much of a hindrance as it is an aid the hardest hurdle for most of arena bar under dated Graphics is going to be the controls this is an old game and without a modern engine update we're stuck with the original control scheme there is a mod that switches the default keys to a more modern layout which I highly recommend it takes the old arrow keys and remaps them to wasd not to mention that Arena has jump maps to J and if you want to jump forward you have to use shift J there was never a time where I needed to only jump up you are always jumping forward logically the mod map forward jump to the space bar and updates the menu hotkeys into more modern locations these alterations do not change how the game controls though and it's about as rough as you may think for a nearly three decade old PC game designed at a time when RPG combat usually involved clicking an icon and hoping for the best wanting to be more involved and with its action game Origins Arena has you swing your mouse in various directions to attack it looks crazy because honestly it is but it's surprising how fast you get used to it Daggerfall had this too but the unity version thankfully had an override to remove it my critique from that video remains true here the concept itself isn't the worst other games use similar idea is two great results but Arena's implementation is tiresome and void of the immersion they probably intended wiggle in your mouth simply isn't Fun and doesn't add to the gameplay in any meaningful way what small changes to your attacks the various swipes make is neglected by how unresponsive the system often is swiping horizontally to the left May register as a diagonal or yanking downwards as a Thrust you're better off swiping side to side rapidly to maximize attacks per second rather than trying to strategize based on this table there isn't any Mouse luck either that wouldn't come until the sequel not that you need it this is a 2.5 d game similar to Doom if you want to hit an enemy above you you need only aim in their general direction and the game will do the rest because of this pivoting left and right is associated with the keyboard the A and D keys if you're using the remap mod you can still strafe using q and e but strafing isn't as useful when you're unable to look around at the same same time if you don't like using the keyboard you can also use the mouse to move and look around but this is far inferior and will most likely get you killed you have to scroll the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen and then left click to Pivot or move as your attacks are also tied to using the mouse by holding on the right click and Swinging your weapon you are unable to Pivot or move between attacks as you can when using the keyboard so it's best to Simply ignore this option outside of attacking the mouse is needed to navigate the HUD and the UI you can access all of these using hotkeys but I found just clicking the icon you needed to be the more natural way most of the time you can't remove these icons like in Daggerfall anyway so we may as well get some use out of them overall the UI is easy enough to understand a massive tip to speed up navigating the menus is to press F4 to remove the pixelation transition that plays between every menu I have no idea why this is left on by default as it only slows down gameplay for no apparent reason I guess people were just happy to watch this over and over again back then also you will need to right click the map icon to open the world map this is the only icon that has an alternate function I like to believe this exists as a way to determine whether someone has read the manual or not because there is nothing to indicate this to the player otherwise incidentally that PC will review by Bernie Yee applauded the controls for their fluidity and for feeling natural times really have changed I will admit that while it becomes tiresome this mouse-based control scheme is still cool for how Dynamic it looks the main issue you will find is just how slow Everything feels I confirm that this wasn't an emulation issue no matter what the game runs at a low frame rate which builds onto the clunkiness of the game the controls aren't necessarily delayed but they sure feel like it when the game is pinned at 20 FPS running the game at higher clock speeds rectifies this issue but as a result the entire game runs faster as well making the already difficult combat even more stressful if you're a speed demon when it comes to gaming this may work for you but for everyone else we're stuck with the lower frame rate experience win arena is a small 3D program that uses Arena's assets to show off its functionality it isn't a full remake like Daggerfall Unity although one is in the works which we'll look at later I'm bringing up this small program to highlight just how smooth Arena could look if the game had the ability to run at higher frame rates it looked smoother obviously with the biggest difference being just how buttery the controls are in comparison as mentioned when Arena wasn't a remake sadly instead mostly being a tool used by Arena enthusiasts to extract data from the game such as these animations exploring the starting dungeon showcases these animations in action which was surprising to me because you don't often see these other angles of the mobs they usually rush you head on so you will only see that single head-on view angle just look at how jacked that Goblin is and how cursed the side profile of his head is other old-school Oddities can be seen in the magic and item menus once opened you cycle through a list of spells or objects if you want to cast a fireball you need to click on the spell icon find the spell from the list select it and then click on the screen where you want to fire the spell this makes playing as a magic using counter a little more difficult than just swinging a sword as the cursor isn't locked to the middle of the screen as in modern Fierce piercing games but instead lives independently of the player's view with a melee weapon you just need to swing and anything on screen that is close enough to you will be hit with magic you need to be wise enough to fire a spell where you think the enemy may move to in the few frames where the spell will be traveling there isn't an in-game tutorial or anything that would help someone that doesn't have access to the manual to learn all of this you either read it or struggle good thing we now live in a world of online guides and videos like this one there are no speed controls either no walking nor running just the default movement based on your speed attribute depending on your build you may find movement painfully slow or so fast that you often overshoot where you want to go just like learning anything you do eventually grow accustomed to this and all the controls for that matter it may be Stockholm syndrome I admit yet by the end of my 26 hour long live stream playthrough the controls were a second nature to me I really didn't feel like they were that bad outdated short but not poorly implemented if only the game ran a little faster then they wouldn't feel so clunky for the first couple of hours of acclimatization exploring the sewers further we come across piles of gold clicking on them will access the treasures within that's how you activate everything by simply clicking on it doors NPCs Keys simply hover over it with the cursor and click smaller objects like those keys can be a bit finicky you have to be very accurate when it comes to the loot sadly the artwork Sprites you see here are greatly exaggerated rarely if ever will you actually find gold armor and weapons altogether compared to other Elder Scroll games that only allow characters to wear limited kinds of jewelry and accessories there are a lot more equipment slots reserved for players in Arena you can wear a mark bracelet braces belt ring torque amulet and Crystal equaling an additional eight items you can wear alongside your armor find an unenchanted item can be a bit hit and miss as you will be unable to identify what exactly said item actually does until you consult an expert within the major skills this carries over to the actual material of the item too meaning that you could come across an ebony Amulet of strength but the only way you will notice in the field is by equipping it and flipping back to your character sheet to identify any changes to your stats these numbers by the player model are your armor rating but higher isn't better instead Arena uses the Falco system meaning to hit armor class 0. a tabletop rule form Advanced to DND the higher the number the worse your defenses are you want to get these as low as you can individual armor pieces will affect the area of the body that they are covering and some accessories notably ambulance belts bracelets and torques will apply a buff to all areas with their strength determined by the material that the trinket is made of you will want to get as many high level Enchanted items as you can through your playthrough not just for their passive bonuses but also for the ones that have active effects braces crystals marks and Rings provide special abilities with limited uses such as powerful spells this means that a class that is unable to cast magic can still have access to some magic through these objects after you've exhausted the sewers for all they can offer your characters should be level 3 to 5 depending on your classes XP threshold their bags should be filled the brim with gear and loot too exiting is easy enough make your way to the Blue Portal in the west of the map and step through it as both the uesp and steam versions use the CD-ROM deluxe edition the old DRM questions mentioned earlier have been removed just be careful approaching this area before you want to leave it's easier than it should be to accidentally fall through this portal before you're ready there are a few minor bugs like this throughout none of them are serious issues but you will want to keep an eye out for them as you play lest they may get you killed this is a 90s Western crpg thus it would be very strange if it wasn't hard Arena isn't impossible or anything veteran Gamers may even scoff at me for calling it hard but for most people I think that's an accurate description overcoming this difficulty though is greatly satisfying Arena's difficulty curve may look like a cliff with a massive jump up after the beginning dungeon but that doesn't mean you won't be able to climb it technologically the first hurdle is that the game runs fast but didn't I just say that it runs slow it manages to beat both the FPS is locked at 20 which makes the controls feel slow but the simulation runs fast even when ran at the correct CPU clock speed this is an issue it may be less of a problem on original Hardware but from what I've seen this is a problem in most instances his discrepancy can be best seen when looking at the NPCs moving around the city just look at them goes zooming around what this means for difficulty is that at first it will feel like the monsters run like Usain Bolt and attack a million times a minute only one sound can play at a time too so you may not be able to tell you're being hit from behind if an Ambient sound is playing meaning that it is only the shaking of the screen and the rapid depletion of your health bar that will let you know that someone is behind you as they attack so fast if you aren't careful you can die before even turning around if this screen shaking is too subtle for you you can alter the effect by pressing F3 to be more severe or to be replaced with a flashing red screen saving as much as you can then should be obvious there isn't any form of quick saving though get used to going into the menu to do it manually it might seem like a pain and it is but it's very much worth it nothing is worse than losing a few hours of progress because you forgot to save the game I'm dead I'm dead I didn't save it I didn't I I didn't save also be careful careful when doing this quickly on a few occasions I accidentally exited to the main menu in my hubris combine that with not having saved for a while and it was a recipe for a bad time this oh yes don't forget to say that's a good point oh you see what I've done there guys is a hit new game if you're feeling a little scummy saving can be exploited for your own benefit loot is randomized upon picking it up if you save the game before clicking on it you can keep loading until you find something you're happy with with high enough luck in game and in real life you can find major game loot in the Imperial sewers whether that's worth the time sink and inherent lack of immersion tied the safe scum is up to you Arenas combat relies on dice Falls more than any other in the series despite this you can easily play the game without any of the following in-depth information just as I did on stream for my blind playthrough knowing how the game operates may not be necessary but it can always be helpful not only for approaching the game with a different perspective but for simply appreciating the complexities happening off screen as you wildly swipe a 5 frames per second sword animation at an 80 pixel by 80 pixel Sprite we'll start with saving throws certain characters will be more Adept at evading and reducing damage to themselves than and others this is affected by the save and throw a random number between 1 and 100 that is calculated every time an enemy attacks the player when rolled the number must be higher than the minimum amount for a saving throw to activate in our example Bob the level 10 spell sword has a save and throw threshold of 72 against fire damage if the number roll is below this threshold then no changes are made and Bob receives the full damage of the attack if the number is above 72 then the save and throw activates and Bob only takes half damage the thresholds change between Class types acting again as a form of balancing where these stronger Mage classes will be less likely to avoid damage opposed to Warriors and especially thiefs the location where the enemy hit makes contact with the player's body is calculated via an additional dice roll where different values indicate where you take damage this can greatly vary the damage you receive based on your armor values as long as you remain fully armored then this variant will have little impact for hitting the enemy we have the formula to hit based on 12 factors including your level agility willpower and luck among various others like the enemy's armor value and shield bonus this calculation only applies to the player though which is why as you level up and find better equipment you will notice that you end up going from missing most of your attacks two hitting nearly everyone monsters instead have a flat rate of 20 chance of hitting you which actually doesn't sound so bad it feels a lot higher when playing the game itself the damaging deal is a separate dice wall again based on your weapon or spell if Bob's long sword has a damage of 2 to 16 then the number rolls will be between those at best you hit for 16 points and at worst for only two critical hit chance is then calculated on top of this based on your class and level these crits will always be the maximum amount of damage that your weapon can hit for all in all as long as you pray to the RNG guards every night you will be fine you'll be biggest goal should always be in getting the best weapon you can hitting the enemy as many times as you can and avoiding damage as much as you can it's just the same way to play any RPG really regardless of all these hidden dice roll systems where in use the best gear level up your stats and save before every fight and you can't go wrong speaking of gear relatively it's fairly cheap in Arena after you leave the starting dungeon the money that you are able to make from selling the loot you found will be enough to kick yourself out with all you will need for the next four levels or so a welcome change from the RPGs of the era that would commonly ask for your life savings just for a piece of epoxy leather armor instead you can immediately start saving towards what matters go into the major skills and buy in everything in sight the enchanted items are alluring but your first aim should be stocking up on those sweet potions you will end up chugging these a lot due to game balance issues it is quite easy to go through 20 or 30 health potions in difficult stretches of dungeons by the late game not to mention that Mages will be perpetually low on Mana having to rely on restore power potions to keep their blue bar topped up during combat even with a full armor set jewelry and Potions eventually you will die it is an inevitability then Jacob off on the big bad guy will appear to gloat about having defeated you confront me ultimate price don't you love it when they rub the salt into the wound get used to hate in this man interestingly the difficulty of the Dungeons and my wish to avoid Fawn laughing in my face had me prepping for each one as if it was a difficult encounter in The Witcher I got the latest armor and weapons repaired by current ones bought the best potions and made sure I was fully prepared to take on the next obstacle in my way you won't allow it to be casual or carefree as in the later games each Adventure could be your last so you better be ready for the worst this is a level of preparation that I hadn't before had to worry about in The Elder Scrolls and is honestly quite welcome the cause of your many deaths will be the monsters and many of them there are the roster isn't as varied as others in the series being mostly generic fantasy beasts but that doesn't stop them from being formidable opponents certain enemies cannot be hit without higher level weapons and can be immune to or even healed by certain kinds of Elemental spells and materials I'll cover the full Mastery later they may not lock it by their old school designs but they are some of the most dangerous foes you can face in a Bethesda title Peterson mentioned that they had chosen to deliberately introduce difficult enemies to the player early on an inspiration taken from the second level of ultimate Underworld 2 where the player walks into a frozen pond where the enemy suddenly become too powerful to kill you could then return much later when you are stronger to get the satisfaction of Revenge over a foe that was once a problem for better for worse a lot of the idea that came from the early Elder Scrolls having the possibility of running into some things you really just have to run from was inspired by that because we liked the evolution of you then having the satisfaction of kicking their ass later on you will encounter stronger and stronger enemies as you progress but none of the dungeons you visit will have any sort of bosses to fight except for the final one some characters that probably would have been bosses are mentioned in dialogue and flavor text before and inside the dungeons they just don't actually make a physical appearance in game probably a cut feature at least you don't have to worry about preparing for a boss until the end of the game be warned though level scaling does exist but only for human enemies they will continue to hit harder as you level but so will you as long as you continue to improve your weapons and Magic you should be able to keep up this isn't an oblivion situation luckily all non-human monsters will stay the same level throughout which results in some great payoffs when you get to decimate enemies that once filled you with fear unlike the later games cities are not perfect safe zones where you can lick your wounds not all the time anyway if you are unlucky enough to find yourself arriving at one during the night you will be attacked by any number of bad guys from humans to Lizard Man to the undead the local populace will inform you of which one you might encounter if if you ask for General rumors being able to identify a Tavern is a skill one must learn immediately and with the variation of architecture across Tamriel that's easier said than done you must also be wary of diseases which can be caught by fighting infected enemies generally rats or rotting corpses you can tell if you're ill poisoned or magically cursed by looking at your character portrait which changes color depending on the Affliction you have caught a lot of diseases in Arena not only affect your attributes but can kill you over time with the realistic fast travel time between destinations that can often take over a few weeks this can be a problem if you don't have a means of curing a disease you may not make it back to town without dying the only way to remove these illnesses is to use the appropriate potions or spells or in Desperate Times visiting a temple for healing if you ever make it to one that is the difficulty isn't just limited to physical combat there will also be times where you will have to use your brain each story dungeon is blessed with a riddle that one must answer to attain the McGuffin you were sent to find these are surprisingly hard I may just be dumb though you can find the answer with a quick Google search nowadays but what could you do in 1994 if you weren't fortunate enough to have a network connection well that's where that official strategy guide comes into play were all the games deliberately made more difficult so that they could sell their own strategy guides maybe but who's to say Todd Howard actually said he doesn't know how anyone could finish the game without a hint book I guess it's a good thing they released an official one then representing the uesp in the review of the Codex scientia Pete Ryan didn't have much positive to say on the guide it is for the most part filled with duplicate useless or trivial knowledge fortunately for the players there is some desirable information buried in its depths there were d demon portions of the Codex on the maps riddles and artifacts section the rest of it is dross some of this criticism is unwarranted for example Ryan says there were tables and formulas for everything from Save and froze to chances of a critical hit but unless you plan on getting a job programming at Bethesda I can't see any reason why any player would want this information clearly he forgot that these would be very useful for a YouTuber nearly 30 years after the guide was released while you don't need this information to play the game these are the kind of behind the scenes calculations you expect to see when using a guide for a tabletop inspired RPG so I don't really understand his gripe here he was right in saying that the riddle answers are some of the best inclusions and would have been one of the few ways to find these answers back then albeit Ryan says that he believes that most of Arena's riddles can be solved with about 5 minutes of forward if the answer isn't immediately obvious ouch that hurts I struggled a bit more and I would like to admit in this video all that struggling can be neatly tucked away in these stream archives granted he does admit that this section is worth the cost of the whole Buck without the readily available online guides we have today I'd have to say that he was right especially when every non-random dungeon map is included with Legends for everything from enemy locations to the positions of key pieces of loot the design here is a bit questionable though the icons for normal Loot and Quest items are nearly identical but I am just nitpicking here speaking of maps exploring is practically impossible without them thankfully the in-game Auto map ensures that you will never get lost the dungeons were designed on grid paper to follow a simple to implement layout that ends up very maze-like in-game without this map the endless samey looking tunnels would be almost impossible to navigate the Aesthetics between dungeons can vary greatly and some do have unique and recognizable areas to help guide your exploration but for the most part you'll be hitting M to check out where you are and where you have been each dungeon being filled with fog that limits your vision to a few feet in front of you doesn't help either this isn't even a tech issue just a design Choice a light spell instantly rectifies this issue yet another reason for spellcaster superiority navigation may not necessarily be a difficult issue for everyone but with modding game design favoring interiors that better funnel the player's gameplay down certain paths these labyrinths could certainly be frustrating on occasion if you're coming at them after Daggerfall like I was though they're like a breath Fresh Air with that said we should be grateful that our map was actually included many games at the time expected you to have a great memory or draw your own on grid paper as you go Peterson joked in an interview about how people criticize the Elder Scrolls would go in mainstream today but we thought we would go in mainstream by giving the player a map one thing modern Elder Scrolls has gotten better at is the stealth based classes with them being arguably the most fun builds you can run in Oblivion or Skyrim but as I lamented earlier oh boy are they bad here thievery is activated by pressing the pilfer icon and interacting with a valid Target via the NPCs who find scuttaling around Thief classes have an advantage in this activity but characters of other classes May engage in it as well pickpocketin is useless from a gameplay standpoint as these locals often don't have two septums to rub together to be fair it is a great way to find some comical messages if you're very lucky you can earn some gold this way but there are far better targets than the street Wanderers such as the blacksmiths or better yet the Mages Guild look at it stand in there mocking us for our inability the cast spells it would be a shame if we were to walk in and steal their best items worth upwards of 20 TK gold steelin is the easiest way to get money early game for the thief classes that will be successful in it that is the chance to succeed in stealing an item is based on a series of factors one your class thieves have a better chance than Warriors or Mages two your character's level the higher it is the better the success chance and three your agility and intelligence stats both of which increase your chance of success luck also has an influence as it does on every role in the game although its effects are much less noticeable to enter locked homes or chests we will need to use lock picking using the pilfer icon and then interacting with the locked object will start a lock pick and roll to try and open it successfully if the lock is too strong you can make endless attempts to open it but your role will never be good enough to do so you can resort to bash and the Treasure Trove open with your weapon which works for desperate Warriors but will damage the contents and equally damage your way weapon forcing you to go get it repaired more often all classes have a base lock picking chance of 25 percent which then increases with each level Thief classes have an even higher chance and the burglar subclass has such a high chance that by just level six most locks will be of no issue all the other buildings in a town can be accessed for stealing they are even roughly decorated but are not entirely convinced that anyone would want to live here not to mention that some such as the manners are downright bizarre looking more like a dungeon than a house which is fitting because from a gameplay standpoint they are that's right not only is the entire main quest A Dungeon Crawl but even burglar eyes in a house is one I'm sure you can see why this makes the already fragile Thief classes that much weaker they can't even steal in peace break it into a home as is likely to get you killed as it is to net you any gold no matter your skills as a thief with no stealth mechanics you cannot bypass these mobs as with the later games leaving us with the blacksmiths and the Mages Guild which can both be robbed from within their dialogue Windows what's to stop players from saving and loading until they successfully steal an item from a store then well the developers thought of this this is the only game in the main series to have restrictions on where the player can save taverns shops and temples are all out of the question too bad they didn't implement it for the Mages Guild the most valuable Target you could also just save outside the door of a store before going in and safes come that way if you want to play the game more legitimately you will have to face the consequences of a failed steel roll the target disappears and a town guard fully polished on ready to fight will spawn into apprehend you they will punish you for your crimes with a death sentence the guards won't arrest you like in later games they'll immediately try to kill you for even the smallest of felonies if you fail to steal a single goal piece it's time for your head to go on a spike from a lore perspective does kind of get a hand wave in the game's opening cutscene explaining that Jay garfunk used his magic to turn his minions into the Twisted counterparts of The Emperor's guard with that wooden I would argue that this only applies to the Gods in the Imperial City however these fellas out in the provinces must just love to keep the peace no matter who they need to kill to get it after playing Daggerfall first these attempts at halts hurt my soul oh oh how dare they try to compete with perfection oh oh if you're wise and perform your crimes near a gate or in a building you can simply enter a new instance and the crime will be white from the memory of everyone in Tamriel as there's no bounty system this is an effective way to avoid the law which means that even without saves government you can rob the Mages Guild of every Enchanted item they have in stock by walking out into the street whenever you fail and then enter in to try again I'd argue that's barely any different than just hitting load if this seems wrong for role-playing reasons you can even skip town and travel to the next one to attempt the crimed air it still results in the same outcome it sounds like I'm trying to justify saves coming and that's because in this instance I am if you're gonna Implement your mechanics so poorly they're gonna be abused even more so if the only difference between play and legitimately and abuse in the system is a few seconds of game time this is the only way to give thieves a fair chance they are designed to steal not enter a glory Dungeon Crawl thieves can't even earn XP this way only quests and fighting results in experience points stealing is a way to earn gold and gear only so I really don't feel guilty about this I've said that magic is the best thing about this game and that's because it's true every Elder Scrolls has slowly over time simplified magic losing many of the game-changing Fantastical elements that make magic truly magical levitation being the point that most bring up that has nothing on deleting and creating geometry as you see fit walls and Floors can be disintegrated or assembled at your whim are you stuck at a locked door that cannot be opened without a key that's no problem for a powerful sorcerer are the enemies closing in on you too fast simply melt the floor below their feet fill in pools of lava to form Bridges or erect walls to create a shield from approaching monsters these spells would be nylon impossible to implement in a game with realistic dungeon design games that have tried struggled with the concept or could never implement it in a way that wouldn't break something else CNS Bethesda struggles enough with bugs as it is something like this would be impossible time may not have been kind to Arena but this is one of the few Concepts that it can hold over its children Todd how it even called past will his best friend when he was testing the deluxe CD Edition nothing Rings navigate in a dungeon easier than tunneling through the walls as if it were Minecraft the advantages of being a spellcaster aren't just limited to dungeon Traverse or lever you also have access to a Litany of offensive and defensive charms Each of which can be customized to become overpowered to the nth degree within the spell maker off the rack spells from the majors Guild are the easiest to buy and use but they are not the best for the job they can deal a lot of damage up front but don't effectively scale as you level up a spell that deals 25 points of fire damage is strong against the spider when you're level 5 but will only tickle a lich when you're level 15. Arenas surprisingly Dynamic spell maker easily Rivals both of its sequels implementations when it comes to the power it offers it will be any Mage classes best friend you can create spells that reverse this damage skating issue but still caused a similar amount of Magicka to cast nullifying the need for these basic offerings the custom spells may have low initial damage but as they become more powerful as you level they will scale to help you in overcoming the more powerful enemies as you level up and will require you to resort to buying more and more spells as the difficulty increases this can be clearly seen in an example using Firestorm this is a mid-game destruction spell which due to the spell Point cost of Castanet won't be accessible to most Majors until they're around level 10 or above it deals 1 to 35 points of damage up front and an additional one to five points per level at level 10 then the best you can hope for with a perfect roll is 85 hit points not bad but it can be better my Homebrew fire hurricane spell costs a similar amount of spell points to cast but is far better by the end game it deals just 5 to 15 points of damage up front but has an additional 25 to 40 hit points per level where Firestorm could only hit for 85 hit points at level 10 fire hurricane can hit for 415 hit points a massive difference and honestly something that can become pretty unbalanced the only form of balance in for this is the cost of the service fire hurricane came in at nearly 10 times the cost of Firestorm My Level 10 however when you will actually start needing these nuke-like spells you should be flushed with gold from Luton dungeons if you aren't then a few side quests will earn the cash needed it will be more than worth the time investment the same holds true for all kinds of spells shalador's mirror for example is a high tier magic reflect spell that has a base chance of 40 to reflect which increases by two percent per level for the same spell Point cost you can create spell that has just a one percent chance at base level but scales by 15 per level meaning that at just level seven you will have 100 chance to reflect all damage which makes the custom spell not only superior but the best it can physically be you would need to be level 30 for the same 100 reflection with shalador's mirror the spell maker really makes the late game far more palatable liches and the like become much easier to best in combat and the high Purchase cost of these Mega spells actually gave me the motivation to grind out side quests and random dungeons you can't become a full God however there is a limit to how powerful you can make this custom magic when it comes to the spell Point cost the highest pool of Magicka you can get is 300 using the sorcerer class these Lads are the original apronax birth sign as they can't heal Magicka without potions this is a hard trade-off to make as the restore power potions they need to rely on are often very weak any spell cells that have a higher cost than 300 will forever be uncastable spells do get cheaper to cast as you level so a spell that requires 301 spell points at level 5 will be usable as you get stronger but just be wary of this number if gold is not your restriction most of the time you'll want to be able to cast more than one spell per full Mana pool so keeping the spell Point cost down is a priority combination spells can be particularly devastating I really liked my custom Medusa Venom hex which combines paralysis with a poison over time effect this was more expensive to cast but was very satisfying to watch as a monster that once gave me trouble would be frozen in place only to slowly lose Health until they died the best bang for your buck both in gold and spell points is to focus on pure Firepower arguably there isn't any reason to paralyze an enemy if you can simply one shot them but that isn't always as fun the one downside with the spell maker is the UI Dagger Falls wasn't much better with more wins being the easiest to intuitively learn in my opinion Arena's spell making interface is pretty cluttered I personally struggled to tell what was just text and what was a button until I learned what everything was still this minor hurdle is more than worth overcoming Skyrim's craft and exploits are Infamous it's only poignant that its great great grandfather was equally as broken by overflowing the spell Point cost to over 65535 the number will be set to zero allowing you to create ungodly Atomic blasts that can be cast for just five spell points even the gold cost resets you will need to be cautious if you plan to break the game this way though the spell maker is very unstable oh and the game crashed well um don't mess around with the spell maker because the game will just give up just to capture gameplay for this section I crashed six times when I got too cocky with increasing certain parts of his spells effect Bethesda were trying to prevent the Eternal champion from attaining Kim I assume outside of the spell maker most of the Spells found in Daggerfall and more wind are here you can damage attributes resist elements to an invisible cure any ailments to yourself light up the environment lock and open doors and containers silence enemies absorb enemy spells into your Mana pool or vampire away enemy health and fatigue for yourself unlike in the other titles in the series in Arena you can actually cast spells while paralyzed too which makes the Cure paralysis spell useful and not a redundancy magic was more balanced in Daggerfall it's evidently clear that they went a little overboard with the magic in Arena and tried to later curb their mistake of making Majors far more fun and rewarding than being a warrior or a thief oh this is a review from of Skyrim how people see your game you know what are the things they pick out and say well that's what's important what's very interesting about this review is I actually changed the word of it I changed the words Arena to Skyrim so that review is about the first Elder Scrolls the experience of that franchise is still the same through all of the games there has an entire world to explore here but what is that world actually like and what is there to see do and experience let's start with our first introduction to Tamriel back at that blue portal in the Imperial sewer after teleporting through it you find yourself in a town of your racist native country Hammer fell the Red Gods Skyrim for Nords and so on as is Elder Scrolls tradition from here you can go and do whatever the game will let you you don't need to follow the narrative you can frankly ignore whatever those cutscenes were imploring you to do you can go live your life well kinda this isn't Daggerfall and it is by far the most limiting of the mainline games let's take a walk out in the countryside to show you what I mean [Music] here we are taking a nice walk outside of the city into the aptly named Wilderness arguably arena is one of the biggest games ever made a statement that Reigns true for any game that relies on endless procedural generation despite the manual stating as much you can never reach the next City without the use of the travel map interface you are instead stuck in a Perpetual Loop of land that surrounds each settlement some online articles even make fictional statements about the world being around 6 million square kilometers large I can't blame them too much for this inaccuracy the game manual does say that it's possible to walk from one settlement to another I guess Bethesda were hoping someone wasn't determined enough to try it enter how big is the map a fellow YouTuber that has tried it lo and behold the manual was indeed false I tried it myself too 2. leave an arena running for hours with the w key pressed in and yep I had the same result the Wilderness never connects to another city and you never move on the map always remaining where you started the type of procedural generation used isn't something comparable to modding games that use processors under the same name where Minecraft uses complex algorithms and biomes to create vast worlds Arena has a more simple approach an approach that a mighty CPU would be able to handle the Wilderness is made of 66 hand-designed blocks that are interconnected using a basic algorithm that stitches them together based on a seed that follows the first four letters of the local settlement's name what this means is that the Wilderness isn't random it will always be the same for that Province the Wilderness around rihad will be the same for you as someone else with an entirely different copy of the game as the seed is based based on those first four letters settlements with similar names will have identical exteriors such as rock Grove and Rock Park in blackmarsh the wilderness doesn't continue forever either it only tries to make you think that it does each settlement is surrounded by a maximum of 64 by 64 of the handmade blocks after enough time you will run into a city Only the finer it's the exact same one you started from it's an endless loop with the only end goal being to reach the glitch lands which is why I tried it after two hours I never got there though so you'll have to be happy with this uesp screenshot these handmade blocks contain all sorts of locations to discover and venture too ruined mausoleum's farming communities and unexplored Cave a bustling suburb an abandoned Tower or a Lord's country estate it's a dangerous area even in daylight but the reward for exploration are enormous also says the strategy guide I'm gonna be honest it just doesn't hold up there isn't any intrinsic motivation for going out of your way to find most of these the existence of a farm or suburb may be interested in 94 when the idea of a huge Wilderness was unique but now there is no need to find these places computer gaming World gave this part of the game quite High esteem saying that this was one of the rare games that had a world worth exploring with the reasons being the great graphics Dynamic time of day and active weather systems that change from clear to rain to snow and more for the time this was true the manual points out that the player is able to see a spectacular sunset in the hammerfell desert one of the infamous black Marsh thunderstorms crashing through the Lush rainforest and a quiet morning in Skyrim after a late night winter frost you could go through the entire game without looking at any of these as you could in real life but would you want to Ted your salesmanship is obvious from this paragraph but sadly this did not hold up against the bitter Wheel of Time the extrinsic reason of trying to find a reward for your efforts of exploring the Wilderness will lead you to the dungeons grips and castles the Codex scientia makes a point of mentioning there can be a Wizard's Towers or lich's mausoleums too but bar the layout differences the goal of grinding experience and finding loot Remains the Same a thief could theoretically find riches in a Lord's estate but they could do the same in town so why make the effort of coming out here even when arguing for role-playing the limitations of the game systems makes exploring Limited at best arena does shine in areas but this outside world just isn't one of them that doesn't mean you should completely write off the Wilderness it does have one purpose it has a lower chance of nighttime Random Encounters than the cities do the in-game reason for this is that brigands and wandering monsters consider cities to be open game at night while the people of the Wilderness are more spread out so the enemies don't bother with that area as much if you arrive at an unfamiliar Town late at night and aren't sure where to find the closest having to get out of the dangerous streets you can instead slip outside the city Gates and rest out in the open pretty safely and there are the random dungeons I mentioned combat is one of the fastest ways to level up and doing gold with most cities having a minor dungeon or two not far outside the main gate these strongholds are not too difficult to find and personally I find them more fun to grind out levels on than some of the early side quests which we'll look at later since you can revisit them every day to face new enemies and find more loot they can be a good source of consistent income for a new character this is the only kind of RP that includes the Wilderness that feels right to me becoming an amateur adventurer who strolls out for more loot after a night of licking their wounds in the Local Tavern you will be needing to heal that way too while the enemies are generally low level because can still put up one hell of a fight at this early time in the game because of the way the Overworld is generated there are potentially hundreds of dungeons players can explore however they mostly conform to the same layouts and on anywhere near as dynamic as Daggerfall Crypts are just one level full of locked doors they often don't contain enemies but if they do it will be rats wolves or at worst some low level Undead like a skeleton be wary that Elitch's Mausoleum may look the same on the inside but the exterior will give it away as the name implies you will find greater Undead foes in these castles and towers are larger at around three to four stories but they follow basic floor plans of a corridor with rooms shooting off of it following the corridor will bring you to the staircase up to the next level while entering the rooms will bring you to the enemy encounters and treasure piles that you came here for then comes the underground caves these are similar in size to the main quest dungeons without the interesting handmade layouts instead being the result of an algorithmic amalgamation of what futile sets the designers had made for the game to utilize being the largest of the three archetypes these dungeons are the best source of gold for adventurers as a glorified Dungeon Crawler Arena was well aware that this is what a significant number of their 1994 audience would be playing the game for with the manual pointing the player towards a cavern south of Eberhart to cut their teeth on Arena may be the biggest game in the series both in reality and in law but exploring outside of the towns is only reserved for the hardcore fan or the Retro addicts who want to experience some of the earliest vast open world first person gameplay ever made outside of these two groups you may find yourself better off staying in a city foreign [Music] ERS may be amiss but towns are better as they would need to be because these will be the hubs for everything outside of the story dungeons they exist for the purpose of getting you ready for your next delve sources conflict on whether the towns were randomly generated or handmade but it doesn't matter too much either way as they can become a bit samey over time seeing as there are over a hundred of them I'm leaning towards them being mostly random with some minor human touches in places I should mention that as with Daggerfall these cities non-story dungeons shop names and so forth are not randomly generated on the Fly they will remain constant within the game your copy is identical to someone else's instead they were randomly generated back in bethesda's office in 1993 or 94 during development you've got to hand it to that original team these towns offer way better variety than Daggerfall while they are all walled and sit on a flat plane like that sequel the variety of the architecture is greater as you would expect with the game encompassing so many cultures Nordic towns feel appropriately cold and North European with dark stonework and snowy streets hammerfell's Desert Cities reflect Northern Africa's whitewashed flat roofed buildings and High Rock is filled with all the English wood-framed domiciles albeit these differences don't reflect the modern law black Marsh for example still follows the same human style structures as any other Province still the difference in Aesthetics does help with the illusion now you are in a different country to where you were previously NPCs will also change race depending on location although again this does not meld very well with modded law Dark Elves will be dressed like bretons but with gray skin and so on red guards are certainly the most enlightened of the races with their choice of acceptable Outdoors Clover and that's for sure we can only hope that these return if the Elder Scrolls 6 is set in hammerfell cities feel a little more real in Arena too with ports canals distinct districts for the rich with hedged Gardens protecting them from the dirty masses and static NPCs that help give some life to the world from prostitutes advertising the local bed and breakfast preachers given sermons outside of a temple gang members blocking your path in Alleyways or a street Peddler selling their Wares and more past their uncommon Sprites and animations they don't give any kind of unique dialogue but their inclusion does help sell the city as a lived-in location at least to some degree let's not kid ourselves there's only so much these retrographics can pull off overall the random generation isn't too obvious except for times when you enter a hedge Mage that leads to Nowhere the clear use of random generation comes with the names of the stores or Inns oftentimes a town will have buildings with similar names which can cause a problem for those with memories that aren't too great there are times where the stores filled with the worst gear or dub quality Wares although you could interpret this as a shady store owner lion to make his shop look more appealing or the reality that the round of generation got it wrong there are three sizes of settlement cities towns and Villages they all contain the same kinds of buildings but you are more likely to find work in the bigger towns or cities than in a sleepy Village on your town map all building entrances will be marked as a red square apart from the palace which is a gap in the surrounding Town walls you can type on the map to Mark interest in places or buildings or simply right click on the door of a service building to have the game do it automatically for you when first entering the city there is no way to identify which building is which via the map it's realistic I guess but I'm glad Daggerfall understood that a color change can go a long way in making navigation less frustrating in Arena you will have to rely on the various architectural styles to determine a building like these red buildings in hammerfell indicating a Tavern these are different for every region of Tamriel with some being more obvious than others ends in Skyrim are the hardest to find in my experience with the only tell being the windows covered in Moon decorated shutters it's these surface buildings that players will find themselves using the most there are five types equipment stores temples taverns the Mages Guild and the castle generally there will be multiple of the first three but there is only one major skilled and Castle per City equipment stores are arguably the most important as these will be your means of securing cash to use elsewhere they can be identified by the frost weapon signage and their unique exterior which again varies by architectural style so you will have to learn it for each province but once you know it you can spot these easily walking inside and we're greeted by some flavor text and the best damn song in the game A variation only May main theme [Music] foreign it's only 60 seconds long and plays on a loop but it is by far the most epic track you will experience as you play ahead of us stance Chad himself a nine foot tall Goliath his height is likely just an error in calculating how big he should be but this mistake has cemented him as one of the coolest nodes in the series there's nothing to show that he actually is ignored but look at him what else could he be also he either comes from the biggest family of brothers ever or can teleport because he is the Smith in every single store in the game clicking on him will open the dialogue menu and from here we can buy new weapons and armor or sell what we have found during our quests as you go to sell an item the full price will be shown on the list this is an unobtainable number however even with 100 personality you will only be able to hit 99 of this once you start a purchase or selling process the Smith will give you his price and you can even accept or try and change the offer to be more in your favor bargaining is an interesting mechanic here working closer to real life than the other iterations we have seen in the series The player starts by whittling down the shopkeeper who will retort with a middle ground and you go from there slowly eeking the price down to something much more comfortable this means you can really get your bang for your buck in the early to mid game being able to save hundreds of gold coins although by the late game the time save of just skipping this tedious task will be worth it as you will likely be flushed with gold anyway you can save extra gold with good timing by using the festival dates marked on the calendar at the back of the game's manual you can use special holidays to receive half prices or even access to a few services for free the removal of the importance of holidays is a curiously missing feature in later games they all keep track of the day to use in in-game calendars yet only the first two games take advantage of it to change the player's gameplay experience even if it is only to this minor degree the holidays are not only mechanically useful but they also add a lot to the World building something otherwise lacking in Arena feast days celebrations of the new year and Morgan's special anniversaries to name just a few oddly enough despite everything else being random store inventory isn't random by using the uesp you can actually track down weapon and armors with special enchantments when it comes to some of the strongest late game items this is your best shot to secure something rather than looting and hoping for the best by right clicking on an enchanted item in your inventory you can find how many charges it has left and if it is damaged for a fee the blacksmith Will Repair any broken items which will also restore the charges of any enchantments back to full replacing or I guess proceed in the soul gem mechanic this isn't particularly costly but does take a few in-game days so be prepared to use a replacement for a while or sleep the days away in an inn until it has been repaired unlike the sequels the player is stuck with one type of under cloven to wear for the entire game jewelry isn't visible and as play armor is the only armor that can have different materials it is only these subtle changes in color that give the player any form of customization over their character barred the faces in the Character Creator your default clothing depends on which class is chosen at the beginning of the game and your race you'll want to get the best armor that your class allows to have any chance at survival anyway so this difference will soon be covered up this game is certainly not ideal for those who enjoy their fantasy attire with some fresh gear and our pockets full of gold from selling our loot to the equipment store we can head over to the temple for healing priests can cure any disease or poison afflict in your character and for a fee offer a blessing blessings are a minor buff that is stored internally as a stat that normally sits at zero you can't identify the stat in game or if you even have the buff active it's possible to lose the blessing by simply saving and loading the game too yeah this mechanic is fairly bugged it works by slightly increasing your chance to hit an enemy based on the amount of money you donated for every five gold pieces the buff is marginally increased and it lasts around one month of in-game time from when you paid for it this gameplay system is futile though as due to another bug the buff is also applied to enemies only very tanky builds that can take the extra punishment for Monsters may still find worth in a higher hit chance but for most this obviously should be avoided the castle can be seen far off in the distance as you approach the gates in the wall just kidding it's actually a Sprite a few inches away from your face inside you will be greeted by the local Leader's personal guard and at the end of the throne room the Lord lady king or queen themselves stronger characters will be able to access the better pay inside quests from these Nobles but at this early game stage they will just ask you to come back later the Mages Guild is the only Guild built-in available and can usually be identified on the town map by its unique size and shape and the eye sign that hangs on the outside a symbol still used by The Guild even in Oblivion inside you will find the most stereotypical wizard possible wherein his night sky pajamas and pointy hat these guys sell potions magical items spells and give access to that Mighty spell maker Majors can also identify the magical items you pick up in dungeons changing them from a vegan named Blue font to a specifically named orange or red one because of these Services you will be spending a lot of time here the potions are invaluable throughout the game especially as finding them in loot is pretty rare they also weigh nothing so there's no harm in stocking up with as much as you can the magical items are extraordinarily expensive but if you can't cast spells they are worth it identifying them is just as expensive sadly a good way to identify an item without actually paying for it is to use this eye watering number as a guide If an item costs a few hundred gold to identify then you know it can't be too good if it costs an arm or a leg then it's worth your time to try and find out what it does our last service building is the Inn Tavern or Public House the pub These Fine drinking establishments are ran by portly men who are very thorough in their cleaning process yeah some of these animations are quite odd even footage played done real Hardware highlights that their lack of frames has them playing out way too fast speed from this bar keep 2D beggars in the streets as this was never patched it probably isn't a bug and instead an amusing design Choice my only guess is that each frame of Animation is being played using the same playback speed so a 10 frame animation cycle looks more natural than a two or four frame one as seen with these folks around the bartender you will find all sorts of clientele to converse with however the patrons are as rude as you would expect they're quick to dismiss the player regardless of their race gender or reputation they really do love to bring up your race though the only people worth talking to are the bartenders and the minstrels as at least these guys aren't too harsh in served free purposes the first to be in access to lodging the player can rent a room from the bartender for up to 99 days at a time while you can choose the size of your room this won't make any difference gameplay-wise and only exists as a way to burn extra cash as you role play as tamriel's richest person the second purpose is that they act as a hub for the low level quests the proprietor has a chance of holding a job that the player can accept Tavern quests won't require the player to leave town and mostly don't involve combat making them ideal for the first few levels of your playthrough the third service is what a pub exists for alcohol you can purchase and drink from a number of intoxicated beverages drunkenness comes in stages with each stage increasing your strength endurance unlock while decreasing your intelligence agility speed and personality stages will infinitely increase and if any of your stats reach zero you will die of alcohol poisoning so be careful not to overdo it the speed at which your attributes increase and decrease is calculated based on the price of the alcohol resulting in the more expensive options essentially being stronger than cheaper ones just as Spirits are stronger than beer in real life your alcohol tolerance is calculated using your endurance the higher it is the harder it will be for your character to reach the next stage of drunkenness each stage lasts one in-game hour so the effects can be easily removed by sleeping or fast traveling due to this you won't be able to use alcohol to buff you for the majority of the main quest dungeons as they require long distance travel but you can use it for the ones in the wilderness and for the final dungeon of the game located within the Imperial City counteracting the perceptions you may have based on the later Elder Scrolls games it is actually bretons who have the highest tolerance to booze in Arena their tolerance is so strong that at 100 endurance a bug results from the hidden tolerance number being too high causing the price of a drink to no longer change the effect it has on your attributes resulted in them either having no effect or the opposite effect as normal or sometimes one drink being so exceptionally strong that it can result in instant death all of this just works it's not I'm not kidding the various room sizes and the mostly useless alcohol buff debuff are the few life Sim elements in Arena with all other services existing only for their direct relation to the main gameplay loop as we saw in the development section it's clear that the towns and cities worry after forts to the main purpose of the game outside of the folks in the taverns NPCs fill every city walking around seemingly living their lives if you have your weapon drawn they will even run away from you in fear if you come to them in peace instead they will stop to greet you and offer the player some Aid in the dialogue menu we have two categories the useful and essential gameplay features that exist to make Town Gameplay less of a chore and these useless things each NPC may have his or her own name and profession but it doesn't matter if NPC Wendell is a butcher Baker or Candlestick maker the non-player character's identity has no bearing whatsoever on your interaction with them or your quest and as a result conversations consist of isolated questions and answers about directions never developing to reveal any unique characters in the Overworld rumors suffer the same fate even worse is that an argument that these bits of flavor text exist for role-playing Falls flat too as they're all rather lifeless in their brighten boiling down to random notices of war or other pieces of nonsense that have no bearing or reflection in game they weren't much better in Daggerfall I'll agree the majority of random NPCs and both don't hold up to the illusion of a living world acting more as a simple method of conveying information to the player if they need a quest or or lost they all walk in signposts that happen to have names and jobs or so they say as they aimlessly run back and forth as you will be required to chat to these speed walking locals whenever you need directions or tips on where to look for work the Town part of the game does become exceptionally repetitive and tiresome I often just chose to use one town per Province as I made my way through the story that way I didn't need to constantly learn the layout of a new town and could get my bearings to some degree NPC names don't follow modern Elder Scrolls law very well either the name generator may appear random but many of the names are direct references to other fantasy works and history as with the town names themselves argonians are named after ancient Greek mythology and Roman history High Elves after Tolkien threatens from King Arthur and so on the intelligent races of Tamriel aren't its only inhabitants Arena's bestory may be small but that makes each enemy easier to recognize and remember by the end game you'll be able to identify a mob by the tiny pixelated mess it makes in the distance there are five categories humanoids beasts Undead Elementals and demons humanoids cover all human enemies from knights to Mages but also include orcish Bandits goblins and the lizardmen once believed to be related to argonians these many dinosaurs are usually found harassing locals in Towns at night beasts vary from the lowly rat to this gigantic Simpsons character I mean Minotaur keep an eye out for the Wolves normal ones may be easy enough but the magical kind such as the snow wolves and hellhounds can pack a punch especially to an ill-prepared player although both are considered fairly low-level monsters and have low HP when you're surrounded by a group of these beasts and they're blasting you with frost spells or Fire magic you better hope for some extra protection a good defense is casting a spell reflection shield with any luck deal damage themselves so you won't even have to touch them if you don't have any means to reflect spells you need to get as close to them as fast as you can they do less damage in hand-to-hand combat even more deadly are these spiders if you don't have any potions or spells of resist poison cure poison or free action AKA cure paralysis then you are straight up not going to have a good time the chance of Contracting a paralyzing poison is not that high maxing out at 15 percent but it's never convenient when it does happen you are best off approaching spiders at a distance using a bow or targeted magic spells or do as I did and choose a higher for their inbuilt immunity to this hellish curse the strongest of the beasts is the Mighty troll which is clearly just a mutated mile look no idea how these guys are meant to be related trolls hit hard are immune to Fire and can only be killed with magic damage of any other kind will only knock them out where their health will regenerate until they stand back up they are one of the few enemies that can be easily telegraphed by the regenerating text that pops up as they spawn in the undead are obvious with skeletons being the lowly fodder zombies in the middle and the Fearsome Lich reign in Supreme overall he first Undead you will encounter is the ghoul in the Second Story dungeon where they can end many a run with their high damage and ability to inflict deadly diseases as with spiders you'll want to use potions to prevent or cure these afflictions silver armor is also immune to all diseases so wearing some can be a great help too being Undead silver weapons do double damage to All in This category so if you must fight them in melee having a silver weapon just for these guys can come in handy ghosts are the bane of all Mages as they will drain your Magica even if you cast a shield over Flex spell note that ghosts and a couple other monsters like race and vampires will vaporize when they are defeated meaning that you can't loot them you can get around this by casting a paralysis spell on them before they die this will cause their bodies to remain in known where you can Harvest any treasure that They Carried loot scales with the monster it was held by so this is worth the effort Raves are more powerful ghosts with a more devastating punch but they don't drain Magicka make any reflection Spell particularly useful against them vampires are the second hardest mob in the game and are only present in the last couple of dungeons any weapon that isn't Dwarven quality or above will be useless against them and they have a chance of giving some particularly nasty diseases that can easily kill you after your battle with them cure disease potions and spells will be a must by the time you encounter these guys just like with the trolls vampires also slowly regenerate Health until they're killed off by a magical attack a non-magical attack will only make them unconscious for a few moments if you are a thief or Warrior and don't have Enchanted items that deal magical damage your best bet is to avoid them or knock them down and run they have the second highest pool of Health at 500 hit points too so plan accordingly and be prepared for a long battle if you see two of them good luck to you the liches are vampires but even harder all weapons below mithral quality are useless on them they cannot be fully killed by non-magical memes and have 750 hit points resist shock spells and potions are effective against them as their main spell is electricity based they can also be silenced and paralyzed which makes them sit in Ducks once you have neutralized their source of damage on you you can fight back pretty safely even if their tankiness means it will take a while the elemental enemies are formed of the free Golems Stone ice and iron this is just not right I have no idea how these slipped in they look like a Sprite better suited for the Terminator games on a fantasy RPG I guess we can wreck on these as some kind of Dwemer Centurion type design but man is it weird the ice and iron golems have an aura of damage surrounding them that will hurt anyone close ice Golems cast exclusively Frost based spells so they can easily be neutralized with a resist cold potion be wary though a fight in any Golem in melee they are particularly strong and hit hard in hand-to-hand combat ice Golems are weak to fire spells while Iron Golems receive just half damage from fire and frost spells and are actually healed by shark spells like some kind of giant Elder Scrolls magnet Photon stone golems don't have the damage auras but they do throw powerful large Boulders from a distance so it's best to rush them and engage in melee even if they do hit hard shock spells will do double damage to them too finally we have the demons need last three enemies the game has to offer in its relatively limited roster of 23 monsters homunculus are like the Forbidden baby of a dragon Lin and an imp they may be small but they pack a lot of damage behind their magic resist shock spells and potions are most effective against their electrical bolts their low strength does make them easy to fight up close fire demons are essentially the proto-day drafts huge dinosaurs that breathe fire and Tower over anything else you'll need mithril or better to harm them and they're immune to fire spells popper resist fire potion and paralyze them so you can laugh as you chip away at their 350 hit points we end with the Medusa knees are these spiders on steroids you will be paralyzed when fighting these guys they are one of the few monsters that are resistant to paralysis and other magic so you can't rely on a reflection spell to protect you melee will be your best bet and you will need a lot of free action potions as I'm sure you can tell paralysis is strong which is why using it to your benefit while avoiding it yourself should always be a priority that covers every being that you can face in combat I brushed over humans because they're mostly boring past their comical art of being a phase 1 Iron Man or Merlin the Wizard just hit them hard and you'll be fine of course there is one more enemy jaygar fan but we'll cover him when we get to the story section with over 20 hours of gameplay just following that story need limited number of monsters that you come across again and again as you play does become repetitive the game does fortunately drip feed them to you over time so each dungeon generally introduces you to a few new ones by the end though you will have seen them all and you will know what's worth spending time fighting or just avoiding if you can the world of Arena doesn't compare to the later games then but that was going to be obvious lafaye said it best when starting a series your goal is to make a good game not a unique one you can be as original as you want and it can still be what you need to do is not an original game you need to do a good game if it's original great that's an extra bonus on it but first it has to be good there's a reason why vanilla is so damn popular because people like vanilla they understand it they get it and get into it they know it they didn't have time to focus on law or diversify in their world outside of generic fantasy their focus was creating an action RPG that was fun to play and compared to the competition it fits right in with them being just as fun as many other early 90s role-playing games you can visit the swamps of black Marsh all the deserts of hammerfell in all the graphical Splendor the 1994 could muster filled with hundreds of mechanically identical towns and dungeons that dot the map there may main problem is the lack of any intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to do so there isn't much beneath the giant map the world of Arena isn't a continuous connected land worth exploring Mighty Midway point of your playthrough your character will be close to an Unstoppable force with very little reason to go looking for Side Opportunities to make money or grind experience and as far as the virtual tourism goes once you've seen one town in each province you will know what to expect the textures may change but for the most part the hundreds of locations are interchangeable clearly the game revolves around the main quest which is why even the developers were amazed when playtestine revealed that people enjoyed these side quests so much the world may be Barren but at least these offer something to do within it side quests weren't something new to crpgs but reviewers did make a point of mentioning that Arena did have many many more than any other game they had played at the time but more isn't always better every side quest is randomized come in with the problems associated with that the people involved in the locations you must visit and the time you have the completed by are determined by the computer the task set for you can be one of several types each with a few variations of the general flavor text that said randomized elements sit within Peterson mentioned that the choice to use random quests came out of a necessity to accommodate the sheer size of the game World handwriting hundreds of them wouldn't have been feasible especially as they were already constrained by file sizes he says that he found it difficult the right quests this way as it was a guarantee that players would eventually reach a point where they are playing the same Quest again just with different people and places involved a pointer is the main weakness of Arena's quests this system also limited the type of quests that could be written as the quest had to be easily broken down to its most basic components for the algorithm to change the parameters within he expressed that with the limited time that they had to make the game whether the player could have 10 good unique handmade quests versus 100 random quests wouldn't matter because they would eventually end up playing the same ones over and over again regardless it's the downside of such a large World it needs an impossibly large amount of content to fill it asking NPCs for work will direct the player to an in or the local Palace Tavern Quest are the fastest and easiest with the least reward only 50 experience points per level and usually under 100 gold pieces Royal quests require more time and skill to successfully complete the compensation reflects this the high level ones can reach the height of 10 000 gold pieces or more with an experienced reward of 500 XP per level when you accept the quest it is added to your quest log what's this in the bottom left you can print out the quest log this highlights the old school mentality that Arena follows as a modding gamer I look at this scrolling list and consider it hard to navigate with the limited screen real estate this is easily remedied when you can just print out the whole thing to have as a reference in front of you unfortunately I couldn't get this to work through dosbox before the 1.07 patch printed out the quest log was actually the only way to keep more than four quests at any one time the log would start to write over itself once the file had hit 2 megabytes in size the quest would still be active you just wouldn't have any way to check on it so this print button existed as a workaround for that problem until it was later repaired right there aren't enough Quest types and the ones that do exist are so hampered by Simplicity and their dull gameplay Loop not except in these Quests for any reason outside of the utility they Supply in gold and experience quickly becomes a chore of course the utility is the only reason that they exist they weren't trying to make them anything more than that but it still hampers the gameplay experience for fans who don't want to just focus on the story there aren't any overarching plots character development or anything associated with a good side quest in a modern RPG we'll start with the tavern quests these are exceptionally easy never leaving the settlement you are in and boiling down to a fetch quest of finding where the exact building you must go to is located you could only do that by following the V directions from the locals until you stumble upon it each one follows a general item delivery item retrieval or escort format I'm sure I don't need to explain explain what these concepts are and either way they are nearly identical the only difference is being the purpose for the quest contained in a paragraph or two when you first find the quest Giver where Dagger Falls side quest flavor text was seen as a positive by me that doesn't extend so well to Arena these are much more simple in design and frankly just not as interesting to read the time limit for Tavern quests is two days which is way more than you will need even in a massive City finding a location will only take a few real-life minutes equating to maybe half a day in game Max these quests are the easiest way to quickly earn a small amount of gold even though you'll only gain a little bit of experience for each completed Quest it swiftly adds up until you reach around level 5 by this point performing these quests is way more hassle than it's worth the best way to maximize your efficiency when performing this menial work is to find a small village with a limited number of of service providers as they are so small there is no need to speak to a villager to find a quest as you can simply take a tour of the limited number of taverns until you find the one with a job time in Arena passes at a ratio of 1 to 12 where one minute of our real world time equates to around 12 minutes of in-game time with this in mind and with the average Tavern Quest taken around 5-10 minutes you can complete four to six quests during daylight hours before you will need to spend some of your hard-earned gold to stay the night at an inn it's possible that the CPU clock speed setting of your dosbox installation could alter this passage of time to some degree so I may be slightly off but from my test and it appears to be tied to your system clock the quests do get a bit more interesting with the noble quest which are only offered by the ruling Kings or queens of the towns and cities most of these smaller locations won't usually have one of these rulers but the main cities of a province are more likely to the chance of receiving these quests grows five percent per level starting up naught percent at level one this helps prevent under level players from accidentally falling into a job that may have no chance of completing players will also need a decently High reputation which can be increased by performing the easier Tavern jobs or by progressing the main story a low reputation either from ignoring your responsibility as the local Pub's Uber Eats driver all by BNA nefarious individual who steals and murders will result in a Royal Quest Giver informing you that they do have some work but that you aren't the sort of individual that they can trust to perform it these quests are difficult and will usually result in a random Dungeon Crawl and combat against tough enemies if you are Level 10 or higher you'll be able to do most of these quests with no issue just be cautious attempting them below that not all of them are dungeon romps however some of them are you guessed it our favorite fetch Quest even the Nobles need to use some random nobody to recover or transport some object for them the player will be required to travel to a foreign settlement to do so and the time limit will reflect this journey though it will still be tight not leaving you much leeway to get distracted when you arrive at the correct town or when you rest in an inn there is a chance that you will be attacked by an outlaw faction that is mentioned in the flavor text when you received the job these can be the Thieves Guild Dark Brotherhood or others even including the blades these guilds may have only existed in name at this point but fair Do's the Bethesda for being consistent who would afford some throwaway bad guys in their first RPG would be cornerstones of the series all these years later Peterson explained that they were added as general concepts of antagonists and that their names were as much law as they had sometimes you are asked to capture the criminal this one is self-explanatory it involves finding an apprehending an outlaw you are directed to a random dungeon which is placed on your world map all of these world map dungeons share the same footprint with randomized layouts the staircases are located in these same locations so finding your way around isn't too much of a hassle the player must explore each floor until they find the delinquent attacking them to add them to your heads-up display as a prisoner I mentioned it in the daggerful analysis but I am so thankful we don't have to physically escort them like in the later games a floating head is much easier to babysit the law breaker isn't too hard to fight the real danger of this Quest is the random monsters that spawn in on the same floor as them which can vary from a Minotaur on the weekend right up to a lich this is chosen regardless of your level too so if you get a Lich on your only level 10. good luck to you running past them to get the criminal and then running away a will be your best chance rescue quests are essentially the same but instead of finding an offender we are saving the air to the local Crown the dungeons in this type of quest are only one leveled and feature a random boss monster in the same room as the person who needs to be rescued this boss follows the same Randomness as the capture the criminal Quest but is much harder to avoid due to their close proximity to the person you are saving some of the quests removed the NPC entirely and have you explore in the dungeons to find the final high-leveled mob you need to kill in a hunt these are a hard fight I made the mistake of accepting my first one at level 7 and it was a homunculus an enemy you won't see until Level 12 or so it was a bit of a butt clencher there are a few more but they're all just escort quests which indeed highlights how mundane this part of the game is foreign despite most background law of Tamriel not being established many of the classic artifacts were introduced in Arena these would go on to become recurring items of power such as the necromancer's amulet which is particularly important during oblivion's Mages Guild questline others later were tied to the aedra and Daedra who did not currently exist for example the ogma Infinium appears without a single mention of humeus Mora in some cases an individual mentioned in an artifact Quest had the privilege of becoming a Daedric prince but we fear is mentioned in regards to the ebony male but only as an unstable dark Elven goddess each artifact is tied to select provinces in Tamriel the ebony male can only be found in Black Marsh and the staff of Magnus only in elsewhere or volume wood you'll learn about these objects by traveling to the provinces they can be discovered in and then asking the locals for rumors eventually one may know of an artifact and direct you to someone who knows more in a Local Tavern from there you receive the location to a dungeon that contains a map to the real location of the artifact which is another dungeon following a randomized layout there's certainly a pattern here due to the artifact's small size finding them can prove difficult don't be surprised if you end up filling in the entire map trying to locate them unlike other quests if you reject these quests you will have the opportunity to reconsider and visit the tavern again to accept it BND Capital province of the Empire the citizens of cyrodiil will have rumors concerning any artifact regardless of the province it is found in making the Imperial City the most convenient way to find these artifact quests the Imperial City is noticeably not as Grand as it is in Oblivion as this Cosmopolitan City doesn't have any Noble quests and fewer Tavern quests than the cities in the other provinces the locals here are more likely to have an artifact quest in their Rumor Mill keep asking various NPCs and you will eventually find the one you are looking for without using exploits you can only have one artifact at a time barring the artifacts that are not contained in the player inventory such as the agma Infinium which disappears after you reap them Awards it bestows upon your attributes once you have an artifact you will not be given any new artifact quests I did mention that this was without exploits so not All Is Lost if you have chosen to chase an artifact you later regret obtaining as they are very powerful they have been balanced by being limited once their abilities have been used a number of times the art of fact will eventually break where it disappears and then reappears somewhere else in the world to be found again if you choose to from here all the artifact quests are re-entered into the rumor mill and you are free to earn them once more if you are instead happy with your choice thankfully the blacksmith can restore the enchantment as a regular repair apparently he is the most skilled Smith in the entire realm the game balance choice of limiting the player to just one artifact at a time can be used to explain how the artifacts are acquired by various people and protagonists across the franchise's timeline these magical items have minds of their own where they travel across Tamriel to be found by the next worthy hero certain classes are barred from some artifacts in which case the quest will never be offered to the player most Mage classes cannot use archery for example hence they will never see any rumors to retrieve oriel's bow the artifacts are split into four categories Alma weapons jewelry and miscellaneous for armor we have two Shields and two cureses ovial Shield is an ebony Shield that reflects spells and heals the player when used spellbreaker is a Dwarven Tower Shield that reflects spells and silences enemies the ebony male and the Lord's male are largely identical both cast in spell Shields the ebony male has a general Shield spell and also resists fire while the Lord's male can cure poison and heal the player over time as well these armor artifacts are weak compared to the others they can be replaced by potions and spells with no issue the weapon artifacts are better the two-handed weapons of chrysamir volendrang and the staff of Magnus have decent physical damage for their weapon fields and are enchanted with helpful protective spells volendrong's paralysis spell is the most helpful though given non-spell casters a consistent method of stopping foes in their tracks the one-handed Ebony Blade has a similar damage output to chrismere and can be used alongside a shield arguably the wisest choice of the two with its lifesteal spell acting as both an offensive and defensive charm orviel's bow is the best artifact in this category as it can never miss archers are a viable option with this bad boy its fire enchantment will nearly always be a one-hit kill too unless the enemy rolls a successful save roll these artifacts are more like it but again unless you are a non-magical class spells can do the same some of the materials don't work as you would expect with these two the Ebony Blade looks like ebony but only has the physical damage stat of the much lesser steel however it will still be able to attack enemies that still cannot so it's this weird amalgamation of the two this may be a balance in attempt or a mistake but it only strengthens my argument that the weapons and armors are aren't your best choices the same can actually be said for the jewelry category but the high enchantment numbers these artifacts have means you won't be repairing them as much as the armor and weapons they also weigh nothing the Ring of Khajiit is perfect for thieves and assassins boosts in speed while casting invisibility The necromancer's Amulet is helpful for mage classes and is perfect for the sorcerer class due to the amulet spell absorption enchantment the warlock's ring is best suited for warriors due to its very strong spell shield that cannot be achieved through potions which leaves the Ring of fine Master as the odd one out it's the perfect defensive artifact nevertheless potions can do the same compared to its contemporaries this ring just really doesn't sound worth it unless you are especially squishy even then I think the other ones are more worth your time finally we have the miscellaneous artifacts the agamo Infinium the skeleton key and King organum's Coffer that third one there being the worst it sits in your inventory preventing you from getting another artifact and only gives the player anywhere from 1 to 100 gold a day this can be abused by spamina in a Tavern as you sleep but getting money isn't that hard without it not to mention that after acquiring just 10 000 gold from it it disappears The Skeleton Key is limited only by the game itself you simply won't need to actually pick many locks during your adventure thiefs can benefit when burglarizing a town but that's about it the chests you find in dungeons can be broken open might bashing them or just skipped the luyu would have found can be replaced on normal loophiles everywhere else not to mention that by around level 5 to 6 most Thief classes won't have any problems with locks and they will still be too weak to attempt to grab the artifacts from The Dungeons it is hidden within before this bringing us to the very best artifact in the game the ogma Infinium this bad boy gives you 50 attribute points to distribute as you see fit and then promptly disappears meaning you can get another artifact or go find the ogre again and again Max not your stats at a relatively low level if being overpowered is your goal then using the following artifact exploit will be right up your aisle first max yourself out with the agmo Infinium then find an artifact you want from the other categories let's say the Lord's mail get it and then use it once and have the blacksmith repair it as the item is no longer in your inventory the game will be none the wiser and start giving you artifact quests again now you can get a shield like spellbreaker pot that in the blacksmith and go get yourself a weapon like the Ebony Blade with those free with the Smith we can grab a piece of jewelry or two you can actually get a ring and the necromancer's amulet remember the make a note of the blacksmiths you are using at this point you don't want to forget where you left or your artifacts finally you can then acquire the skeleton's key at which point you will be the most powerful Arena character of all time by the time you get all of these you would have leveled up like crazy from all of the dungeon crawling too it does beg the question as to why you would actually do this the story missions will now have no Challenge and even jaygar found the final boss will be a chump to the God you have become then again being overpowered especially when you aren't supposed to be will always have its Allure the spell maker can give you just as much power with less time so pick your poison or even use both if you want I will admit that even those weakling Thief subclasses are a blast to play when they have geared themselves up to be the second coming of Helen or white strike foreign Ty of Arena's side quest roster the compliments I paid to daggerfall's random Quest structure don't extend to this game the window dress in writing isn't as interesting the quest objectives aren't as varied and the rest of the game isn't broad enough to carry these lackluster missions even when the rewards are awesome as with the artifacts you can play the entire game by predominantly ignoring them and only focusing on the main quest these missions all exist in a microcosm that have no effect on the world they feel disconnected from the story you have been compelled follow since you hit new game without a sense of progression whether that be from achieving new ranks within a guild or unlocking new Services as you become more powerful there is rarely if ever any urge to embark on the majority of these mundane side quests the developers weren't blind to this issue in his Indigo gaming interview Peterson discussed how compute the dungeon Masters have always struggled to replicate the heart of tabletop games Arena's algorithm-driven tasks be in a prime example where the creativity of a human DM has been hampered by far too basic formally Arena did try its best with the non-linear freedom of the infinite quests despite how limited they are in retrospect Lafayette Peterson were passionate to avoid bad tabletop experiences where the DM always railroads the player into the story they have written and refuses to invent a story based on the player's choices this is why failing quests running away saying no or merely aimlessly exploring the Wilderness is all allowed an emphasis that has become the backbone of the series mole wind Oblivion and Skyrim Garner their widespread in love due to the freedom that Arena first implemented needless to say those games tweet way more effectively those options may exist here but past their early game utility practically all side quests are a waste of time and worse boring [Music] Daggerfall excelled in its ability to portray the atmosphere and Ambience that it wanted despite the flaws of its age Arena feels as it does with all of its other aspects all the ingredients are there but they haven't been combined as well as they would be in the sequels the ingredients however are still good the soundtrack and the main theme is another Masterpiece from Eric hebling Grand Majestic and is perfect for Fantasy as any other my only issue with it is that it isn't played enough you can listen to a looped variation of it in the equipment store but the full unaltered version is not played in game variegated to the opening menu they should have gone the more windfroot of having it play during gameplay the tunes of the outside world complement Daggerfall with their Charming light-heartedness some even returned in the sequel dungeons maximize their use of ominous drone in bass tones a company in the dark visuals perfectly something about these crunchy 16-bit notes alongside the pixelated hellscape around you evoke a sense of irinaster only vintage media can [Applause] thank you like comparing classic horror with any Myriad of modern horror films or better yet a blown in the dark with umbrella corpse that lack of visual Clarity promotes the human imagination to fill in the gaps I immediately noticed how the developers were able to construct a truly menacing environment with so little before getting accustomed to the game I found myself creeping slowly around fearing what may be hiding out in that Darkness the atmosphere is broken by one additional aspect that is a necessary inclusion but when not done correctly it can break any emotion that the foreboding Ambiance has set up and that's the sound effects Daggerfall Morrowind even Oblivion not to mention hundreds if not thousands of games across the decade have utilized publicly available sound libraries in the Elder Scrolls case the Hannah Barbara sound FX Library 2200 sounds to choose from for all situations sound design is expensive even more so with a further back in time you go and without these Commercial Sound packs games would be lacking a lot in the audio department that doesn't however excuse bad sound choice and even worse broken implementation some reviews pointed out that all non-human monsters have unique sound effects attached to them that help the player identify what they may face before they see them and sure enough this is true but they aren't into tip whatsoever spiders minotaurs and especially ghouls don't sound like one would imagine even when you see them right in front of you producing the sound [Music] it leads to a disconnect from an otherwise great application of oppressive dungeon crawling to make matters worse only one sound effect can play at a time when you swing a weapon it will make the appropriate sound effect and your character will even snarl and Rule to express the effort but when you're confronted an enemy if they make a sound you will be silent worse still your character grunts in pain when hit as an indication that you are taking damage if there is another effect playing at the same time however then you will receive no audio feedback causing you to spin wildly as I try and find where you are receiving damage from if you notice you are being hit at all that is as the dungeon music mostly sits in the background to promote the Gloom of the caverns you're within you don't often notice when it has been cut out by the fury of battle this does become obvious when you come across a few of the rare ambient effects that stop it dead [Music] as with Daggerfall there isn't any Combat music but as combat outside of dungeons is more rare its lack of inclusion isn't as easy to notice the dark dungeon soundtrack already feels like a combat track at times given a little feather in Arena's cap Ken Ralston a key member of the game design and unwriting teams for Morrowind and Oblivion gave Arena praise for its Ambience exclaiming each time I love the creaking doors squeaking rats and long swims in flooded tunnels my final complaint which is true for many game soundtracks is that it isn't long enough you will eventually come across these same songs a lot during the standard 20 hour playthrough leading to them growing from new to familiar to finally be an either ignored or disliked due to the number of times you hear these same 60 seconds of Lupine music only the very best of the songs avoided this fate for myself in my case being the main theme and sunny day [Music] foreign the whole soundtrack comes to a poultry one hour which is why you are even a host of songs in the background from the rest of the series thank you avina's main quest is the only Mainline story to take place in the entirety of Tamriel due to this in law the entire length of the main character's Adventure took 10 years fortunately it only takes around 20 hours for the player there is a lot of early installment weirdness here most of the series lore doesn't exist or is only present in name or obscure imagery this leads to a number of elements that would be either ignored or retconned in the sequels most obviously being the strange beastery and that Orcs at this point are just rip-off tall Keynotes dumb enemies with no more substance to them it may surprise some of you that despite how old the game is the plot is not as dated within the law in fact it takes place only 34 years before the events of Oblivion with those first four games happening within a single human generation I will be referring to the player as the Eternal Champion he does have some other names which we'll get into as well as the fact that he is canonically a he something Bethesda has since avoided with race sex and name being left up to play a discrepancy in later games but not here the story was sidelined resulted in it feeling more like it belongs in a linear game because that's exactly what it was for in a 2001 interview Peterson laid out that the story developed that there was an evil wizard named jaygar Farm who you could only defeat once you made it to the final tournament in the Imperial City we eventually dropped the whole tournament idea altogether and just focused on the quests and the dungeon Delvin in the end we had a game that almost didn't resemble our original idea at all it was a hardcore role-playing game with a story that didn't match what it had become which meant that the game titled Arena no longer had any Arenas the lore friendly explanation invented for this was that Tamriel was so violent it had been nicknamed The Arena despite it never being called that ever again in an attempt to make the game seem more like a crpg than an action game The Elder Scrolls was added as a prefix it was Latchman who came up with this idea although in the words of Peterson I don't think he knew what the hell it meant any more than we did it was very much just a fantasy inspired name tacked on as an afterthought the game was developed on such a huge scale that we had to work in Broad strokes and the smallest adjustment would have massive consequences to the world we were creating a continent developing Arena was like playing one of those God games like Civilization hence making anything more than subtle last minute changes to the story was out of the question they were stuck with what they had and could only change information such as background law in the manual the main change that they had made was that they needed a reason for the player to visit all of these dungeons that had replaced the tournaments so the staff of chaos was created as a McGuffin to drive the plot using the same premise the designers had used previously in The Terminator games the player has to find parts of the powerful item rebuild It Go fight the final boss and then win the game Peterson said that had he been given a little more time he would have come up with something more original but they were past the brainstorming point and needed the squeeze their creation into whatever would work before we take a dive into the plot I want to lay some groundwork for the world we're about to step into this isn't Tamriel as you know it by test two the world isn't too different from the later established law of the Todd Howard era but this first entity doesn't fit as well differences in the law are common which is to be expected starting with the lack of any colovian humans AKA Imperials not only are they not playable but they don't even seem to exist the Imperial province of cyrodiil is stated to be a Melting Pot with no one dominant race and the Imperial City is inhabited by a mixture of races from the other provinces with name and conventions that are drastically different from the later established Latin inspired Imperial names the only character in the game that is confirmed by the sequels to be an imperial is Emperor Uriel septum himself it's easy enough to hand wave this as the Imperial City be an extremely Cosmopolitan and who is to say these bretons and or Nords aren't Imperials anyway that doesn't change the fact that this isn't the Imperial City as we now know it nor is this balmora or Daggerfall or Whiterun a symptom of random generation and a focus of quantity over quality we can't blame Bethesda for wanting to spend the time to make these cities more interesting in the sequels and let's be honest I'm sure we're glad that they did there was only the barest mention of how dunma or Ultima religion works with no mention of the concept of myrrh religion in general has completely changed from later titles future law attempts to acknowledge the more complex systems of Faith introduced in Daggerfall but none give any Credence to Arena's various temples leaving the Egyptian and Christian symbolism behind well I guess the Christian symbolism did come back the dwarves are treated more like Tolkien dwarfs and the Dwemer most fans would know from Red God onwards they were the one fancy race that we had included and I think that none of us were playing DND at the time had wanted to be a dwarf so we're just like okay well we should probably mention them but not give you the option of playing one if for some reason you're a dwarf fan they exist and we have Dwarven Metal and we have Dwarven armor and things like that further influence comes from Lovecraft in one of many references throughout the series in Arena the homage appears as one of the rumors where an NPC will ominously claim that the Elder gods are coming and that black Marsh will burn for its sins despite these allusions to Real World Books no in-universe books exist to be collected or read either except for the ogma Infinium but even then that is only included as a gameplay tool instead of a means of increasing player immersion some later lore tries to add flavor to Arena's generally lacking story but in doing so conflicts with the game itself the Imperial simulacrum the name for the time period that arena is set in was said to have seen much political unrest and several military conflicts between provinces this is not seen in the game itself despite the fact that the player visits every single province in the main quest you can try to excuse this by saying that the hero was probably too busy running around collecting pieces of the staff of Chaos to notice the events going on around them which is such a lazy explanation that you can just apply it for every difference in this list really I can't blame Bethesda for doing what they did confining themselves to the lore of a game made in such a small time frame and under these circumstances its development had would not have resulted in a universe anywhere near the depth so many of us have come to love Wendy Kratos themselves admit that Arena's story is nothing special with their retcon and ignoring and rewriting their own law with the sequel we have to come to the conclusion that these small tidbits of more seen an arena should either be ignored or taken at face value as random information to be mostly forgotten the world may be different but Tess has made every effort to keep the story Canon and so unless stated otherwise everything else I will cover in this section is official Arena's in-game law isn't too in-depth mostly contained to a slideshow that plays as you open the game and after you start a new game it is instead the manual which holds the law we are interested in and there are two backstories for us to interpret the English one and the French one the accepted belief is that the French story was translated from an old version that had been scrapped and reworked into the story found in the English manual You could argue that this means only the English one is Canon but Bethesda has never stated that the French one is defunct that French version covers the law of Tamriel including the conquets of Tiber septum and the motivations behind jagothan's plan to capture Uriel the English story instead plays out the first few minutes of gameplay in a much more detailed manner than his shoning game it introduces the player character the ghost of Ria silmaine and why you must escape your imprisonment to stop Farm as each version doesn't really conflict but instead complement each other I will be using both as we explore Arena's story I will not be referring to Future game law unless I specifically say so so any mentions of details like the Imperial City sewer the Imperial Guard or the Amulet of kings are all referenced to in the official materials linked to Arena or from within the game itself hopefully this will not only show how developed the Elder Scrolls law actually was so early on but also helped this next section 2 stand alone without needing to know any additional Elder Scrolls law for which there is a ton it all all kicks off on the Fantastical date of the 399th year of the third era awaken in beneath the Imperial City in a small cell located in the sewers the player is visited by a ghost introducing herself as Ria silmaine she tells you that jagoth found a powerful battle mage has usurp the emperor and his ruling in his place to defeat him the Eternal Champion must assemble the eight parts of the staff of chaos which have been dispersed across the continent of Tamriel it's a predictable fantasy setup a plot structure as old as time but still an efficient way to establish the game's framework and Payson who are we exactly we are a young man named Tallinn Tallinn isn't anyone of note so little threat did he pose that Thon had him thrown into a cell within the sewers rather than the Imperial City prison not even his weapon or gold had been taken he was left with no food or drink expected to die a slow and helpless death tolland's Association to the emperor is via his pupilage under Ria silmain a powerful Mage and the current interim Imperial battle mage installed by her own teacher Jager Farm anyone linked to Farm's old life before he banished Uriel septum and took his place as the emperor needed to disappear even if they were some undertrained teenager like Talon this is the only Elder Scrolls where the player character has been named for you you are Talon whether you want to be or not also claims the English manual if you had a Keen Eye you may have noticed that talin is the name used in the promotional screenshots this could have just been presented as an example identity as several other names were also featured in other official screenshots not to mention that you can name thyself whatever the hell you want in game regardless it later became a policy a Bethesda to avoid canonizing the identities of player characters including the Eternal Champion via a retcon this has the positive effect of helping to strength the player's own personal experience and immersion with the series with the problem of leaving these heroic characters largely boring when mentioned retroactively in law you can't exactly give a personality to a blank slate this isn't Canon but a cut slide which is still present in Arena's files explains that septum's head of the Imperial Guard general warhaft was originally intended to be the legal guardian of the player here he is formally addressed as tarlin warhaft and it can be assumed that the player was named after him he bids you on your 17th birthday to go forth into the land and return as a full member of the royal household the young tallin traveled through the eight provinces and saw a great many things decided at last to turn his feet towards home a greater more experienced man with this being cut and the backstory changed so that talin is now instead an apprentice to reassil main it can be assumed that the player is not as well traveled or accomplished as proposed here General warhaft is still referred to as the player's father in one of the character creation questionnaire scenarios this ostensibly canonizes that warhaft is the Eternal Champions apparent biological father it seems to be a retcon artifact accidentally kept in however as general warhaft was later cut from the ending of the CD-ROM release yet this change didn't extend to the game's opening meaning that his sudden disappearance from the plot does confuse matters either way you are stuck in a cell with no way out until your old tutor returns from the dead requiring your AIDS [Music] as we know this game is very different from the others in the series and that extends to the cast there are four main characters that matter reassilming the Eternal Champion Uriel septum VII and the Baddie J Garth on you meet other people as you travel the continent but you do not come across any characters that are remotely memorable kings and queens give you quests but their name or even the city they lead will blur together even Daggerfall with its only slightly less technological limitations was able to have a better cast of characters alas an arena-based action game had no need for a lineup of important people and so the RPG it became lacked them too we've already introduced The Eternal champion and as his story is Arena's story itself we'll come back to him later real cell main is the supporting main character she'll talk to you the most throughout the game only rivaled by Fawn once The Apprentice of that villain real silmain was a battle mage killed some time before the beginning of the game Ria had learned of what Jager had done to the emperor and when attempting to tell the Elder Council Jago used the power of the staff of chaos to kill her this didn't eradicate her presence however with her strength in the Arcane Arts she is able to appear as a spirit with wonderful stop-motion animation she guides Tallinn through his quest to the locations of the staff unable to physically affect the world she cannot help him past Condren a key to talin's cell in the beginning and creating a portal to teleport him out of the Imperial sewers Ted Peterson revealed that silman's actor was likely one of the two female programmers who were working at Bethesda at the time based on the employee photograph we can conclude that she is played by Jennifer Pratt however we do not know if this extent ends to the voice acting Pratt is credited as a voice actress on a series of point-and-click shovelware type games so we can assume that she probably was this may very well be someone who simply shares the same name as her so take this with a grain of salt after Tallinn escapes she appears to him in his dreams to give the latest information she learns about the staff of chaos although via knows what the pieces of the staff are hidden she can only provide vague information at best Thailand must find the entrance to them on his own after collecting all eight pieces of the staff of chaos Ria presumably travels to a furious haven't lost her magical connection to noon takeoff Thorne is the Imperial battle mage of Uriel set in the seventh and Arch traitor to the Empire he serves as the final boss where he is practically invulnerable with immunity to all elements and the highest health pool in the game by far in Dagger Falls the real Baron Zaya farn is described as part high elf part dark elf and part of the Gods only know what ESO shows that ancestral Farms are known to belong to Old nibbony's nobility this discrepancy has not been explained and could be a product of barenziah's imagination based on in-game depictions he appears either human or high Elvin in nature from the third era 389 to the third era 399 the Uriel V was held captive by farn as he reigned over the war-torn Empire we do not entirely know what fawn's goals or personal accomplishments were due in his reign as they were not notable enough to enter any history books in the first few decades after septon took the Ruby Throne he aggressively expanded Imperial influence into the Eastern provinces as uriel's close advisor Jay God brought a shrewd Council that complemented the emperor's ambition in these endeavors where he greatly benefited from Farm's Arcane powers and wisdom it was his subsequent imprisonment by farn that slowed septum's contentious ambition transforming him into the well-loved final emperor of the septum lineage he would become one theory behind Farm's plot is that he grew jealous of Uriel who eventually surpassed his battle mage advisor in balancing the skills of threat and diplomacy where fawns rolled and became less important as time passed it also suggested that farm was just carrying on this facade of an outpaced counselor feeding uriel's ego and earning his complete trust while he created plans of his own several people were reportedly held captive as the result of fans efforts but the only one we know to have died by his hand is his own Apprentice this I won't be covering septum's role as a character because he barely has one and due to the vast majority of his law being written after this game for his purposes here he is the ruler of Tamriel and that is as much as we need to know that's all the main characters it really highlights the difference between Arena and its sequels for centuries different factions battled in Petty Wars and border conflicts until in the second era 896 Tiber septim crushed all those who have hosed him and took control proclaiming himself as Emperor now 492 years after Thai reception took control and kept the peace the land of Arena has a new threat the emperor Uriel septum VII celebrates his 43rd birthday but jealous Hearts Desire the throne phone had spent many years at his prestigious post but ambition controlled the wizard jealous of the all-encompassing power the emperor possessed he would devise a cunning plan to dispose of septum and install himself as the leader of Tamriel this wouldn't be a simple coup however the people were loyal to the septims who had ruled the continent in one form or another since Thai perceptins rise to power it was through the leader of the Imperial Guard that farn had the idea behind his conspiracy General warhaft decorated soldier and Master at Arms was recounting stories of his youth to a table of The Emperor's closest allies as a budding Warrior he had met and befriended Martin the blade no not that one he and Martin were good friends trying to illustrate the benefits of teamwork to those around the table will have to describe how they were once ambushed by a group of Bandits warhaft was injured so Martin cast an illusion spell upon himself changing his opinion appearance to that of the Bandit's leader amongst the confusion he convinced the bandits to turn away where he and wolhaft then made their escape it was evident to farm what he needed to do if he kept septum alive Somewhere Out of Sight he could use his Mastery of Illusion to replace the emperor and finally harness the power he knew he deserved to guarantee that the plan worked far knew that he would also need to banish the Imperial God and especially General warhaft according to the manual farn can't just kill the emperor because it would set off magical alarms what was likely quickly added to awkwardly fill in the plot hole of why Fawn wouldn't just kill Uriel septum eventually became the reason for why the emperor's assassination three decades later was so bad for the realm killing the emperor would have been a terrible idea as farn would be incapable of wielding The Amulet of Kings resulted in the forces of Oblivion breaking through unless one of the emperor's sons was crowned instead which is not what Fawn wanted the only problem with fan scheme was that the council would surely note of his absence as he tucked to the throne under the skies to rectify this he asked Uriel for a leave of absence in which he could focus on his magical studies none the wiser septum granted this request but noted that a temporary replacement was needed to fill the position Jager advocated for real silname to stand in his stead she had studied as his senior Apprentice for years and importantly she wasn't as powerful as Fawn should they ever need to fight each other now that he was out of the palace Thon waited for a few days to pass and then requested an urgent audience with the emperor and his guard opening a portal for the Royal to teleport through with septum and his guard away from the city Farm casting seal beneath their feet which quickly lit up as walls of fire emerged around a small company of men the traitorous battle mage conjured a group of demons around him and cast his Illusions in turn each demon replaced a member of the Imperial Guard finally Fawn cast a spell on himself perfectly imitate and septum in typical villainous fashion Jago explained how he had fooled the emperor and what he had in store for him septum was to be cast into Oblivion into a realm explicitly chosen for its time warping effects Thor nuda eventually the emperor would die of natural causes where the amulet would then alert the council to avoid this he had picked a realm where Thai moved much slower than on Moon by the time Uriel had finally perished centuries would have passed and the amulet's alarm Bells would fall on deaf ears Uriel in spite of his excessive Pride could only stand in awe and frustration at how meticulous farn had been mean in the preparation of his plan soon enough he and general warhaft were teleported into Oblivion Farm quickly Strode on top of the seal he had cast slamming the staff down completing his spell not a lot about the dimensional prison septum and War half were Captain is known but we can extrapolate based on uriel's public account from the Elder Scrolls IV the emperor said he remembered nothing of the dimension but an endless sequence of awaken and sleeping nightmares during that time he believed himself to be dreaming and had no notion of the passage of time on the whole Uriel seemed not so much unwilling as incapable of describing the experience but it is clear that it changed him the emperor became conservative and pessimistic whereas the policies of his early life were bold and rash this change being our reaction to and revulsion from the early teachings and Council of farn the dimension that Uriel septum was trapped in is theorized by some to be May wound Dagon realm of Oblivion and that Thorne had been making deals with maroon stagon for power essentially claiming that Arena's plot is one of dagon's many failed attempts to take over Tamriel that guy really can't catch a break as I was researching The Story one question I had was why he split the staff I mean from a law perspective the gameplay reason is obvious I doubt farn chose to split it so that Gamers From Another Universe could pot it back together to defeat him we know the game was heavily inspired by DND the staff of chaos itself seems to have been plucked from an official campaign centered around an artifact known as the rod of seven Parts the fully assembled Rod reads and Latin though chaos Reign let Justice be done behold law is King within Arena the staff of chaos is an ancient relic of Untold power said to have been forged from the essence of the land itself making it nigh indestructible which explains why Fawn didn't just dispose of the staff completely only the staff would be able to reverse the magical Exile of the emperor unable to destroy it fond did the next best thing drain and the staff of chaos of its power and imbue in its energy along with his own life force into the jewel of fire a magical artifact he would keep protected in the Imperial Palace he'd then split the staff into eight pieces and cast a curse of banishment onto each segment dispatching them into the darkest and most dangerous places in Tamriel if one were to relocate the staff and reassemble it they would find it to be utterly useless without the jewel of fire fond's plan was bulletproof if it wasn't for a young man he had imprisoned below the capital of his Empire thank you to defeat phone the player takes control of Thailand as they travel across the provinces of Tamriel gathering information on where these eight pieces of the staff of chaos may be you will even end up visiting important locales you will know from the later games like Delvin into vardenfell's Red Mountain Skyrim's Labyrinthian and concluding the quest in the Imperial Palace albeit a much less impressive depiction of it Ria's first message to Tarling gives us another overview of the story in case the opening sequence new game cut scene and manual weren't enough they really made sure that the player understood their task left to our own devices in the sewer via will invade our dreams again after we hit Level 2. it is he or she gives us the location of the first piece of the staff Fang lair in hammerfell Province other than that vague knowledge she is unable to help us it is up to us to discover exactly where fangler is teleporting through the shift gate into Tamriel and kitten out ourselves as best we can Tallinn travels to hammerfell to investigate where this forgotten dungeon may be hidden which means pestering peasants aren't hoping for the best soon enough one will direct us to the town where we can learn more this will be the same pattern we must follow throughout the entire main quest best described as repetitious yet monotonous fits just as well as you will come to see once we arrive in rihad tollid is directed to the local ruler who may know the location of this Fang Lair nothing is that easy though she'd love to tell us where it is but she isn't entirely sure she does know where a parchment that can help us decipher the location is too bad that it was stolen from her by golfog the dark a goblin Chieftain it is up to us to retrieve it goldthog's Lair is Stone keep despite this flavor text imply and otherwise we will never meet goldfog due to the bosses being cut from the game this is where the difficulty leaps up Stone keepers filled with powerful enemies notably minotaurs skeletons and ghouls the latter of which surround the parchment we must recover through trial and error the player must learn that leveling up and stocking up on potions items and spells is a necessity to progress through the story Stone keeps difficulty spike is markedly steeper than the latter dungeons an intentional Choice by the designers following their time with ultimate Underworld 2. the handmade dungeons of Arena are superior to daggerfalls in almost every way they're more aesthetically unique between each one have layouts that won't require you to have a degree in read and latitude and longitude and they even come with environmental storytelling Stone keep is a great example this Grand Castle surely can't be The Hideout of a goblin King well it wasn't always before the Goblins invaded this was a keep filled with people a lord his family their servants and many more when golfhawk dug his way in the people tried to escape first bowing themselves into the bench rooms and then using goldfog's own Goblin tunnels as they fled eventually finding themselves trapped on an island in a cave adjacent to the keep where they were murdered through the atonement of their deaths they Rose from Beyond the graves as ghouls determined to fight any Intruders who dare enter their new home it was this Lord who held the parchment and it is on that haunted island that it can be found following the environmental story takes you around the entire dungeon on a tour as you navigate the doomed path made by the people of stonekeep By ignoring the story you will probably stumble across the destination much faster be it only a few rooms over from the main hall that you start in I will admit that not all of the main quest dungeons are so elaborate with their environmental storytelling but a lot of them are if they do lack a storyline they make up for it with an exclusive aesthetic neat layout or new gameplay mechanic after grinding a few levels outside of stonekeep the now stronger Tolan is able to fight off the powerful Ghouls and claim his prize returning the rihad the queen will reveal the location of fang Lair the Dwarven Hall seems abandoned long ago its stone walls crack in with age and neglect somewhere within its dank depths lies the first piece of the staff of chaos fangler is a bone thrown to Fantasy fans who like dwarfs these aren't the Dwemer well via red Conan they are but they don't share much with that advanced race instead fangler is a generic abandoned mine we see tram tracks deep trenches tunnels and ladders it's not the largest dungeon in the game but it is the largest Harlan has faced so far it is a challenge to explore the tunnels and mine shafts each one enumerated alphabetically from a to F that should make navigation easier but it really doesn't environmental storytelling has taken a back seat here except for the few messages that help give some gravitas they're usually the classic dnd-esque fantasy Affairs Ike can't say they dramatically change the experience but they do add to the atmosphere it's the main difference between these older classic crpgs and newer Games Arena and Daggerfall are still holding onto that tabletop methodology where modding games can Implement real Ambiance with more detailed visuals and sound design that is to say where Arena uses a piece of text to tell you of distant scrapes and clicks Skyrim would just played out audio one is obviously more immersive than the other and is where technology helps newer games shine they don't require as much imagination progressing towards the staff piece tallin discovers a puzzle we enter a prison on each side a cage containing a spider at the end we finally ladder down blocked behind a magically locked door the key to this door is held between one of three cells it is up to us to determine which one contains the real key Val must prove by worthiness to proceed to the underdog ah The Riddles I mentioned earlier to be honest these aren't too hard I'm not that good at them I'll admit but that's a skill issue even if you get the answer wrong you need only battle a few monsters to guess again until you get it right I applaud the game design here for allowing this failure heading down the ladder we enter an intimidating Cavern of fire and fury walking towards the central room to uncover another riddle after racking his brain Talen opens the door and so I'm gonna do that oh my God [Music] welcome to Arena when I said to save all the time I meant it tricks like this are often thrown at the player to keep them on their toes potions and spells of resistance will be your best friends for a reason [Music] typically throbbin as if deceptively throbbing as it's waiting to be connected to the other seven pieces from an A that's an interesting word to use right okay those innuendos only get worse from here on out I refuse to believe that Latchman and Peterson were not aware of what they were doing there as Tallinn backtracks fruity Dwarven maze he is intercepted by a vision from Jay garfan using the same ability of silmane he can Infiltrate The Eternal Champion's mind unlike his old Apprentice he isn't here to give advice but to instead stop you in your tracks [Music] after the vision concludes we are attacked by one of Fan's minions he will pull this trick each time we collect the staff piece each time becoming more and more desperate if you're a speedrunner after grabbing the parchment from stonekeep and returning to the queen of rehad instead of going to fangler as intended you can go back to Stone King to collect the parchment again where picking it up will give you the first piece of the staff of chaos the game stores each main quest item in a sequence meaning that you can just repeat this step leaving stonekeep returning and then picking up the next piece of the staff until you grab the final item the jewel of fire that should be in the Imperial Palace by touching the jewel or what the game thinks is the jewel they end in cutscene plays and the main quest has been completed you gotta love these kind of bugs especially in classic games warps skips and glitches is what makes speed running so fun to watch and learn the ease of this one if you can beat those ghouls at least makes Arena speedrun one of the easiest in gaming by far the easiest in the Elder Scrolls not the fastest though that still goes to Morrowind after leaving fangler Rio will contact Harlan in his dreams with her findings the second piece is held deep within a great maze built by Arch Mages shalador that name should sound familiar for Skyrim fans apparently shanador lived in the nearby Fortress of ice from where we may be able to discover where the hidden Labyrinthian may be toning can't be as great as people say he is because it isn't that hard to find it's right here Ria doesn't point us in the direction of the Fortress of ice given the name though Skyrim the Frozen homeland of the Nords is the obvious option asking around the province we are pointed towards Winterhold wow it's just as I remember it in the local Mages Guild The Guild leader tells us that some Knights have stolen a stone tablet that they needed to complete a map to the Labyrinthian guys it's right there it's not even that far from your city conveniently the knights are holed up in the Fortress of ice it's funny how that happens we enter The Fortress and are treated to that to that dirty tactics use the triggers back in Fang Lair this is used quite often with enemies placed just out of sight perfectly positioned to kill you in mere seconds resulting in an annoying amount of trial and error as with stonekeep the route we want to take is actually quite short if you ignore the rest of the dungeon even shorter with pass wall that's true for every dungeon when you have the ability to destroy walls though it's at this point in the playthrough where you have to make a decision do you focus on achieving your goal in the most straightforward way or take the time to explore the dungeons to their full extent both options have their advantages using a guide to be as efficient as possible will lower the amount of frustrating deaths and the inevitability of getting lost but you will soon be under leveled and under geared for the next dungeon exploring every inch will result in loot gold and experience points that will only make the game easier for you but does take a lot of time these dungeons despite being and well designed are still huge it was standard for the time period and anything smaller would have been disappointing to the hardcore crpg fan but man being locked up underground for a lot of the game can get repetitive even if each story dungeon strives to be different working our way down to the second level we are apprehended by the Rogue Knights that stole the tablet I say Knights but these look closer to the Mark 1 Iron Man suit I mean no offense to the artists but I know from their other works that they can do way better than this look at the guards in the Palaces or general warhaft what the hell happened to these Lads that made them into Chrome cans on legs before we can retrieve the stone tablet we are faced with yet another riddle the pattern is now clear and will be the same for the rest of the game Rio informs us of a big dungeon we ask around about the big dungeon and are sent to a mini dungeon to find some item that can help reveal the big one we answer a riddle recover the item and are then send to the big dungeon where we answer another riddle find the staff piece and rinse and repeat eight times it's best not to think about the tedious structure and instead focus on enjoying each dungeon for what they offer this is a glorified Dungeon Crawler after all it's ultimate underworld or Eye of the Beholder or any other one from the thousands that exist the difference is that Arena also happens to have an Overworld Hub to chill out in Arena is unlike the other Elder Scrolls in this regard Daggerfall was deeply rooted As a Dungeon Crawler too but the Overworld had more gameplay to offer if you enter Arena understanding that it's a Dungeon Crawler then it stands well in that category and is where most fun is to be had but as a traditional Elder Scrolls as we have now come to know it it doesn't fit so well with the stone tablet collected the Mages Guild can direct Harlan to the Labyrinthian this is the most torturous dungeon in the game I like to call it Daggerfall light I'm sure you can see why what makes this place even worse is Arena's map I've sung its Praises yet it has a vital flaw the raised areas and tunnels are the same color you'll be following a path that looks like it should head to where you want until you hit a dead end because where your raised walkway ends a tunnel below you keeps going despite this Labyrinthian has the best environmental storytelling in any Elder Scrolls dungeon pre-mole wind if we do as the intro message says and continue through the central door we find the backstory behind us Grand Maze and our initial task this is the tale of two brothers who sought the secret of life they ventured into this Labyrinthian wary from war and strife the first was Keenan the Elder a strong and cunning man he quest for riches and jewels yet found fate had other plans the second was moguesta dim and few knew what he was worth they saw only the lumbering giant not the child who was blessed at Birth the few they told of their plans begged them to desisted their feet but the brothers were test disposal to the north for till then they had known no defeat this is the tale of two brothers who failed to the secret of life forever held by two riddles which led to the prize and a witness Cannon and shot as a knife Two Brothers Two mazes and one piece of the staff of chaos to reach our prize we need a key for a locked door approaching the door explains our objective moguvres the dim though he's a boar holds the only key that unlocks this door to find the riddle you must find the sun start your fateful search behind door number one explore in the first level will reveal two staircases to The Mazes below starting with moguesta dims each maze is designed relating to the intelligence and size of the brother who was trapped there mogress is half on the right is more simple in layout due to his own Simplicity like in many small underground tunnels or low sealant walkways accounting for his tall stature Kane and the eldest maze is the exact opposite the Labyrinthian lives up to its name you will get lost which is why I say there is no shame in using guides for games like this after finding mogress's key defended by his ghost we can open that locked door to reveal a second door Walter troll Kanan the wise hold more to be seen a key and a riddle and a test in between it's back down we go through the other staircase to kanan's far more menacing maze with kanan's key we can grab our second staff piece talin is that bit closer to defeating fan vollenwood is our next destination silmane has located the staff piece in the elding Grove said to be the birthplace to all the forests of Tamriel Thailand is expected to have to ask around the free Elven provinces in hopes of someone knowing where he may learn about the Grove our destination however is the capital city of Eldon route Ria is a master of Arcane arts and ancient law but not of geography it seems surprise surprise the people of Eldon root are well aware of the location of the Elden Grove but the waddells hold the growth sacred and are not too Keen to have an outsider snooping around in there the local Queen proposes that if Tarling can help her locate the source of power behind the evil witch Celine then she shall direct us towards the Grove the sorcerer Celine makes her home in celine's web the name is a clue to the type of enemies you will encounter and a prompt to heavily invest in any means of preventing paralysis the cut bosses hamper the game again the player expects to come across these named individuals but never will why isn't Celine Garden the key to her power she can't have been that much trouble for the wood elves if she is this apathetic towards the most vital aspect of her very being talin recovers the heart of Celine from an island that suspiciously looks like a platform perfect for a mage to wage battle against the player seriously it's clear that bosses were intended it's a shame that they didn't attempt to even put in a half-baked option a generic Mage up here would have at least let the player make the assumption that that must have been Celine instead of there being no one face us after presenting the jewel to the queen of Elden root the location of my personal favorite dungeon in the game is presented to us Elden Grove is proof to me that arena is better than Daggerfall in at least one place and is what I've been rattling on about throughout this story section these dungeons are so superior to the sequel's offerings they are distinct if you played some footage of Daggerfall story dungeons other than ethereus you'll be hard-pressed to distinguish them from the random dungeons in the game they use the exact same tile sets Arena instead makes each story dungeon diverse enough from the last that they are not only memorable but I can name them just by looking at the footage I don't even need to name the MP4 files for this video I can simply scrub through the recorder and instantly recognize a dungeon because of how particular its presentation is they have character that helps them stand out not only against that sequel but against other games in the genre elding Grove is a perfect example of that starting on the surface is a haunting Forest the darkness of the regular dungeons is replaced with mist and fog the red eyes of wolves appear as they rapidly close the distance and the level feels peculiarly open compared to what we've been used to there is room to move here and rather than feeding claustrophobic we are instead treated to something more reminiscent of the Hedge maze from The Shining traveling down into the roots below the Grove we have Arena's closest approximation of a water temple endless canals flow through the cavern connecting to a large underground Basin where the staff piece can be found for many this will be their first introduction to a mechanic mostly hidden in the rest of the game the use of row boats to speed up water travel these boats can be found in the wilderness too but with its random nature and general uselessness you'll seldom find one out there after another riddle the third staff piece is within our grasp the throbben of the ebony Rod is faster now as though hungry to be reunited with its brethren they really like using that word inan admittedly not very shock in twist we have found ourselves trapped in this room with the only door out predictably facing us with a riddle after answering correctly we can begin the long Trek Back to the entrance for all the upsides of these dungeons this is their vital flaw there is no means of traveling out of them quickly no recall no teleportation to the entrance placed conveniently near the end just a ball and walk back the way you came our next stop is the halls of Colossus a structure built to honor a race of giants though none have been seen in the land for ages this dungeon is located in elsewhere so I'll let the cats off on this one maybe they haven't ever traveled to Skyrim to see that Giants are very much still around even Daggerfall instantly wrecked onto this law we must first travel to Corinth come on that isn't even fantasy they just straight up decided yeah let's just drop a Greek city right there air our first Quest comes again from the Mages Guild who have again lost a stone tablet that will conveniently locate the halls of Colossus these time constraints placed on the writers is apparent had Daggerfall not been such a step up in this regard I would have called this out as lazy Peterson has made his woes with Arena's story clear a last minute Edition drawn up to replace the original story following the same MacGuffin based plotline he had used in Terminator 2029 that said I can't let the fact that Holland is doing this same task again go it just feels a bit too flagrant the tablet is being held in the temple of agamanus a three-storied fortress this one is fairly generic I'll admit I'm not going to bring up any more of the riddles as they are in every dungeon you can safely assume that as soon as Tallinn has grabbed an item or staff piece that a riddle was answered on one hand these were fun puzzles to figure out surely beaten the monotony of Skyrim's attempt to block off certain areas of its dungeons as far as Dynamic game design goes they soon become predictable in their placement changing from an enjoyable brain teaser into an annoyance the Mage uses the tablet to locate the holes and Hauling can March towards the fourth staff piece it goes without saying but between each dungeon you will be performing a bunch of chores as you prepare for your next Endeavor this is what I was referring to when I mentioned that it can feel like playing The Witcher on the hardest difficulty each dungeon is a monster contract that the player must brace themselves for preparing their equipment identifying and selling loose so that they can use the powerful items they found or buy new ones stock it up on mutagens I mean potions and generally make ensure that no matter what happens in the dungeon you will have a method of dealing with the issue it's the result of the difficulty of the game rarely if ever have I used this mentality in later Elder Scrolls or in maybe Morrowind which used its relatively High early game difficulty to ensure that the player ended each possible combat scenario with caution the halls of Colossus is the ultimate troll dungeon if you thought the locked doors in the Labyrinthian were bad look at this six doors 6. this is where password comes in handy rather than finding six Keys dotted around this huge first floor you need only delete the walls right up until the last door this isn't an oversight by the developers they can easily block your ability to use password with impenetrable walls as they do so on the level beneath this one they just choose to punish those players who haven't gotten the hint about the power of these navigational spells yet retrographics don't make a game bad but they can make it frustrating when they harm the experience and that is the case with these keys and their low resolution from a distance they are almost impossible to see and even when getting close they aren't always obvious making this feel like a wild goose chase after collecting the fourth staff piece Ria's next message warns tall in or with these in his possession he now shines like a lantern in the dark allowing the usurper to locate and attack us with his minions more often this doesn't seem to have any bases in game I didn't encounter additional ambushes although the monsters that farm sent after we find the staff piece did get stronger the fifth piece is locked in the Crystal Tower of semester Isle a structure so large that it dominates the skyline of Western Tamriel surely the location of this dungeon isn't the issue right I wish off we go to another major skill to find a scholar who can help us find this massive Tower hour the writing is aggravatingly falling apart as quests appear to be duplicated we frame in the quest would have made more sense like needing to locate a magical key to enter the tower as no one has been able to in centuries but no it is yet another rehash of the same tasks that we have had up to this point the stone tablet has been replaced with a diamond locked within the Temple of the Mad God later that become Shale go off but for this game he remains unnamed the temple is nothing special I presume that development time was focused on fleshing out the main dungeons by this point and not these mini Ones Still they have more environmental storytelling put into them than Daggerfall a large Central treasure room seems to be our goal yet after we enter a note on the floor informs us that the diamond was moved after the monks that worshiped the Mad God were concerned that someone may come to steal it don't mess around with these monks either they may look innocent but they are highly trained in deadly Kung Fu the Mage happy with his his new diamond helps tarlin pinpoint the tower oh into the fact that he didn't need a stone tablet and that the diamond doesn't seem to have any magical properties I like to believe that the Mage has instead scammed us into finding a piece of loot for him to add insult to injury the intro screen starts by reading the crystal tower dominates the area Rising like an accusatory finger pointing at the sky above disconnects between law and gameplay such as this leave a bitter taste in the player's mouth how are we meant to believe that this structure is a grand Triumph of tamrielic architecture if tala needs a mage to find it the original artwork had those dragons circled in the tower their inclusion would have thrown a wrench into the law of Skyrim I'm sure Todd and Co were thankful to see that they were removed from the canonical imagery I give props to the art team for illustrating the tower corresponding to its description a structure that reaches along into the sky this isn't either any Tower situation you can even see how oblivion's design team being paid homage to this artwork in the white gold Tower which in laws said to be modeled after the crystal tower no props however goes to the eso team who smoothed it over despite redesigning the durani tower to block how it should the story with this dungeon is that the Mages that inhabit it are performing research animal research on Arena's bestory Tomlin can find them locked in individual cages with a plaque describing their strengths and weaknesses one cell is empty and has a hastily etched plaque with tarlin's name on it possibly added by farn himself he was described in Daggerfall as being part high elf which may explain his knowledge of and ability to enter the crystal tower the fifth piece is held on the top floor with floors changing weather systems to reflect the magical nature of the Tower with a rocky mountainous floor succeeded by a snowy drooling crusted one after collecting the staff piece jaygar is actually impressed with our Feats implored in our ability to survive the Crystal Tower and Endeavor that itself would be considered Legend tallin must travel to High Rock for the sixth piece Ria has advised him to locate the Crypt of hearts for once we aren't go into the Mages Guild but instead to a religious Temple dedicated to the Mighty God of Seth the Brotherhood of Seth holds the only map to the Crypt of Hearts lo and behold they lost it the initiate who fled with this vital piece of paper is said to have gone completely mad ranted about how the emperor has been kidnapped and that some artifact named the staff of chaos is needed to free him if only they knew how right he was that doomed monk ran into a nearby mind to study the map and it's up to Tallinn to find him you won't be surprised to know that this untrained man of the cloth didn't survive very long in a lava filled sulfuric mine with lava replacing water in the tunnels of this dungeon non-spell casting builds are gonna have a considerably more expensive time having to rely on potions of resist fire to bypass them tearing the map out of the deceased Monk's hands we return to the Brotherhood to Mark the location of the crypt of hearts on our world map The Chill of death seems to touch your heart as you gaze upon the stone walls the Crypt of Hearts is an undead Den stocked with elemental Golems vampires and worse homunculi so many homunculi a flock of them got the staff down on the fourth floor making this one of the more difficult pieces to earn the other flaws have talent facing more lava float an island in a massive darkness and enemies that love to attack him over distance a mausoleum on the first floor actually fulfills my previous wish for half-baked boss fights where a generic mob is placed to act as a boss in this case When approaching an iron gate next to a skull icon a runic inscription reads sir Cullen fear may he at last rest inside we find a vampire next to an empty coffin this must be sir cullenfir who did not rest not until Tallinn came across him anyway another room seems to reference HP Lovecraft or at least his Eldritch style wear inscriptions on Temple walls Beyond a pool of lava are able to twist tallin's Force towards baser instincts as he reads them the sixth piece of the scrap of chaos slice Sly dude they must be doing this on purpose man slides into the needy complete Rod like a sword into a sheath I refuse to accept that they did not write these as innuendos we'll speed through the final two staff pieces the overall structure of the game's narrative doesn't change we must always face a mini dungeon and then enter the dungeon's cell main told us about to find the staff piece the next one being in Black mosh and a place called merkwood the mini dungeon here is the vaults of Gammon we are here to find a stone tablet the less we say about that the better the vaults don't offer us anything more than we've seen before being filled with the same mid to late game enemies merkwood is like Elden Grove turned up to 100 and for that reason I love it just the idea of having the dungeon be outdoors is exciting to me because so few of the Dungeon Crawlers I have played ever considered this option elding Grove had some open space but murkwood is an open space a massive foggy Arena littered with powerful end-game enemies like fire demons the issue isn't getting lost it's surviving your next few steps forward as you face a barrage of deadly spells thrown through the fog in the middle is a small hedge maze leading down to the staff piece out of habit I stuck to the walls in my first playthrough a strategy that usually works but mercwood's an orthodox design had me looping around back to the entrance and being confused it's a much needed rest spite helping break the monotony the player feels from the iterations of similar quest lines and the cause of analogous dungeons they do often Stand Out aesthetically with compelling layouts poised for exploration nevertheless there's only so many times you can walk through a bunch of corridors and rooms before fatigue sets in mirkwood's openness is much appreciated in a minor change of the formula it is now farn who informs Tolan of the final staff piece's location Fawn seems less so desperate and more so scared by now what does ria do in reaction to this information nothing she just tells us to find the entrance to day of Earth deep within the volcano of Morrowind degoffer you say don't get too excited the God himself isn't to be seen Instead This is the Dwarven dungeon He is building a cooler Con in Morrowind keeps the same name too although the designs are very different the king of ebenhardt will be our guide to find this lost ruin after Consulting ancient law he discovers that he needs to ring a magical Dwarven Anvil to reveal the entrance but to do so he needs a specific Hammer designed to strike it he sends us to recover this artifact known as giron's Hammer look at that a different Quest goal it has the same outcome but I cannot overstate how pleased I was to read a dialogue window that wasn't a simple rehash of all the others after the tedium of lost maps and stolen stone tablets this otherwise identical fetch Quest seems exceptional by changing the item and the purpose of us finding it this wouldn't be worthy of Praise normally it only is because of how banal the others were in comparison it highlights the issue of keeping the player motive evaded when they get that sense that they are just repeating themselves the hammer is deep within the black gate from work words to the black Gates I'm surprised the volcano isn't called Mount Doom Blackgate is the largest mini dungeon closer in size to a big one and it may even be bigger than some of them but without any precise method of measurement I can't confirm that there are three doors requiring a gem encrusted key that relates to the material they are made of very do mask in its design all three doors thankfully lead to the Hammer so we don't need to find all of them after delivering the hammer to the king he strikes the Dwarven Anvil producing a magical tone that indicates the location of dagoff er this may be an inspiration behind this aspect of morrowind's sixth house cult design [Music] the golfer has tall in climbing deep into the Red Mountain each layer becoming more volcanic in design and fraughted with further danger you need only look at these maps to see that this is one of the more interesting dungeon layouts with some suspect choices vampires and even liches are now part of the common mob roster this shouldn't be a problem had you taken your time with each dungeon but if you're rushing through them using a guide as I was in my on-screen playthrough it can be tough degoffer is the Perfect final test for Tallinn any earlier in the game in this volcanic ruin would have spelled his end it is only by The Experience he has gained the gear he now wears and the Magical abilities he has access to that he can take on this dungeon showcases decent game design when all my later playthroughs where I didn't rush so much I came to dagoffer at the level that the developers intended I found combat as equally demanding as it was in stonekeep displaying a good understanding of maintain and challenge as the player gets stronger you will still be often reminded that you have progressed when the odd Minotaur spider approaches only to be destroyed in a single hit I never found myself becoming complacent we'll find in the game too difficult except for times where I caused that issue myself nearing the end of his quest talin has the eighth and last piece of the staff of chaos bonding together with the other pieces to repair the artifact now we need to touch it to the jewel of fire in the Imperial Palace to release Uriel septum from his prison with the staff being useless without the jewel Farm gleefully rubs this into Talon's face knowing not the many years we have spent finding the staff piece has only left us with a stick drained of its power full of self-pride he directly challenges us to meet him in the palace after 16 dungeons at long last taling can have a true boss battle foreign she would cast an illusion spell on Tallinn to allow him to pass the guards outside the Imperial palace's Gates but this was cut Instead The Palace is left completely unguarded from the exterior which can be explained by farn hoping the faced Harlan in person Ria's cut message also requested that we do not harm any of the monsters we find within as they do not know what they are doing which is strange maybe this cup message would have made more sense with an earlier version of the story we don't have access to because in this version The Monsters within the Imperial Palace were brought there by Fawn himself via magic they aren't Innocent by any means they are quite the opposite with vampire and lich's Galore roaming the halls of the palace hoping to intercept and stop us from reaching the jewel of fire much like stonekeep the palace has been designed to reflect its everyday purpose there are bedrooms libraries offices and a large throne room where we must grind our way down through four floors flooded with end game mobs it's wise to bring double the amount of your normal supplies if you wish to survive this Onslaught if you normally brought 10 potions of heel true 20 will be the bare minimum for this final challenge the palace is accessed from the Imperial City itself so head into the local Inn to ingest a copious volume of liquid courage can be advantageous to improve your combat attributes this isn't advisable for Mages however who will need to keep their intelligence attribute high as tall and enters the palace Gates inebriated or not jegar has one last message for him by what you would call success in your journey across the empire for you have never faced a being as powerful as I your death shall be slow and torturous he isn't lying either once we reach the fourth floor our encounter with the strongest enemy in the game is imminent standard on an island in the middle of the chamber is jaygar fan ready to fight us the island is surrounded by lava and bear of any cover tolling can use to avoid Farm's powerful magic Peterson worked as a designer below Vijay and as such not every one of Peterson's ideas made it into the game in one instance we can be thankful that that was the case at the very end you reach the center of the arena with big bosses and it was a giant albino walrus I've always thought walruses were scary I mean they're basically like plugs with husks that's weird and creepy and everything to me apparently I'm in a minority that a lot of people think they're just goofy oh beside Fawn is our objective the jewel of fire that contains his life force and the power to release the emperor it is kept behind a magically locked cage and the mithril key needed to open it is stored in the northwest of the island if you have the skeleton key you can bust open the door and activate the jewel to finish the game immediately without that artifact you can Instead try to dodge the many silent spells thrown in your direction and use a spell to open the door a warrior can try to smash the door open with their weapon but this slower method will leave you vulnerable to fawn's devastating attacks if bypassing jaygar isn't your style you can like me choose to go toe-to-toe with the man who has forced us to go through this journey of Torment despite how foolhardy it may seem he can be defeated he has 500 hit points can see you if you cast invisibility and is able to easily silence spell casters from using their magic as well as easily paralyze the player from a distance this is the one area where a warrior is stronger than a mage closing the distance on farn will force him to switch to melee where he can only swing his feeble staff while he cannot technically be killed in combat as he will cast a protective shield around himself and disappear before he reaches zero Health points for all intents and purposes this does count as defeating him as he teleports away behind him he will leave the miffral key we need as it is only by touching the jewel that he can be truly destroyed it may not be necessary but this battle was a cathartic experience 3D cutscene no crash instead I think we might have crashed there you go 3D cutscene [Music] a child of the Empire I thank thee for my assistance I have a particular idea as to the question of your service in mind from this day forth Thou Art named The Eternal champion from thy hand shall be dealt the needs of the Empire I Uriel septum true infrared of tabriel who decree and thus make law arise rightful place we've found Wicked Witch of the West style dissolved into a puzzle and the Emperor declaren tallin as the Eternal Champion we have a happy ending for a decline in Empire the set of empire was seriously harmed during the usurper's ring Diego funds neglect and mismanagement of Imperial Affairs was later attributed to be the root cause of the notable decline in the Empire's economic Prosperity due in his 10-year Reign amusingly little is known of just what jagos sought to accomplish during this time other than power he wasn't suited to be Emperor whatsoever he never tried to replace the lineage either when fan passed of old age a septum would rise of the throne again Thorne is later attributed to helping mavun's Dagon especially in handed over the bowspire to the Daedric prince thus he may have helped Dagon to invade Tamriel earlier than he did during the Oblivion crisis that still doesn't help Thorne so he can't be an emperor of a fallen Empire and it's not clear what was in it for him normally Elder Scrolls law would try to fill in these gaps with extensive law books in later games but Thorne had gotten the short end of the stick kirkbride was planning to bring him back for Oblivion early drafts of the story for that game have a cult that worships farn and may room's Dagon working together to start the Oblivion crisis similarly to mancog Cameron and the Mythic Dawn that was all reworked and cut of course leaving Fan's Legacy to stay as it was in Arena without a clear goal past the desires of one man to sit on the Ruby throne as far as endings go it isn't very satisfying this is a dungeon this is a Dungeon Crawler however and for many of these games the satisfaction is being able to say you beat the game not whatever cutscene plays at the end as mentioned earlier the CD-ROM version omits general warhaft form this cutscene and even it unexplained whether or not he was saved along with the emperor after Fawn Was Defeated he was rescued in the floppy disk version where he also congratulates the player for their efforts after this game the only mention made of him is that he's written two books which he may have written before his capture they aren't worth reading as far as lorebooks go be an entirely pragmatic and only given an insight into the armaments of the Imperial Legion within the third Eva foreign tedious these aren't what you want to hear in regards to a grand RPG storyline having said that it works within the confines Arena has being a Dungeon Crawler first an open-ended open world RPG very much second simple fixes could have greatly improved the story to hold up better to modern day one diversify the quest layouts no more stone tablets or lost maps and more like the black Gate Quest even having a town-based quest like some of the noble quests where the Eternal Champion must travel to another city while being ambushed by fond minions along the way would have helped to split the monotony of head into a mini dungeon just to unlock the big one and two don't make the game linear rely on level based monster spawning as is used in the random dungeons to allow the player to visit a dungeon in any order they like similar to the modern Zelda games like with that you can railroad the player down the first two or three dungeons to let them get used to the gameplay Loop but then open up the main quest to let them visit any Province they want to chase a staff piece with these two fixes the plot could play out the same way without the tedium of receiving a dream completing a dungeon Quest go into another dungeon grabbing the staff piece talking the jagoth on and then repeating it all over again a plague that still affects some Modern RPGs to this day is the reward that comes with completing this Grand Mission we are named The Eternal champion and nothing else happens we defeated Jay garthan rescued the emperor and saved all of Tamriel for my tyrannical ruler yet people will continue to treat you like a nuisance when you try to talk to them there is no concept of fame or thanks for what we did due to Arena's shallowness there isn't any reason to continue playing after this point except for extrinsic goals such as finding all of the artifacts not to mention that by the fifth dungeon you will have close to the best gear in the game leaving you grinding to the end due to one of the core aspects of a Dungeon Crawler being the search for and acquisition of loot now being needless these issues weren't unknown to the developers and the reviewers were quick to mention them too the plot seems rather shallow compared to games like betrayal at crondor or Ultima 7 and could never stand alone as a story this is Arena's Saving Grace in that it doesn't rely on the story alone to sell itself to the player these side quests and multiple classes offer a few hours of gameplay to the Curious gamer without them having to invest into this lacking story if anything the story is just an end goal for those that fell in love with Arena's gameplay now has become the case with later Elder Scrolls games too despite bethesda's attempts to add urgency to their plot lines Dagger Falls less linear better written and far more intriguing main story was a reaction to Arena where Peterson was given time to explore the law and invent a plot line worthy of the player's efforts as it is only the most hardcore of Elder Scrolls fans will want to accomplish the deed of completing Arena today foreign ER hasn't aged well and without a completed engine conversion such as Daggerfall Unity we are stuck to emulating the game with dosbox the future may be here soon with an open source engine conversion being developed aptly named open Tess Arena the GitHub looks promising as does the dedicated YouTube channel showcasing each leap in development currently in Alpha the engine is playable but is only a demo of what to expect in the future there is no actual gameplay yet all locations and Interiors are accessible though the controls have been fully modernized and this isn't just a remap as with DF Unity they feel fluid and responsive NPCs are wandering the city streets and the Wilderness but cannot be interacted with yet fast travel is working and the player can visit any settlement or dungeon they want the Character Creator works too except that the character questions and player attributes aren't implemented but you won't be needing these anyway in time we will hopefully see this project come to fruition with the Elder Scrolls Community able to experience arena in a way that is more forgiven to the modern gamer not to mention that as an open source engine that the possibility for modding is opened up alas for now open Tess arena is a pleasant insight into the future that only has its useful playtestine being stuck with dosbox doesn't mean we are completely barred from Modern I mentioned earlier the Kiwi mapper to change the archaic control schemes to the wasd we all know and love there are more mods that can change Arena to be a tiny bit updated from the true 1994 experience just don't get your hopes up clean UI implements a clearer user interface inspired by Skyrim sterile black and white menus whether this is an upgrade is up to the user it removes a lot of the classic aesthetic in my opinion it may be useful for those who like more emphasis to be placed on the game window without being distracted by what's below yet it scrubs the game of its 90s crpg authenticity too much for my liking divine intervention is an admirable attempt to implement a former recall into the game hence the reference to the mall wind spell it's an external safe editor that must be opened outside of the game to teleport the player away from Peril and into a safe Zone he because of its work around nature it requires the player to save the game in their dangerous situation exit out of dosbox use the divine intervention program and then reload back into arena for it to work personally this is a very clunky method that ruins immersion I would instead advise a new player to follow the classic crpg tenant of saving often so they can retry their luck in those difficult areas or avoid them still it's a valiant effort that has its use for some I'm sure eye of nocturnal is a purely graphical modification that increases the draw distance of the game indeed before Daggerfall Unity a similar mod was once recommended for Daggerfall it's not a dramatic difference but it is a welcome upgrade beware however that this is known to cause slowdown on some machines in certain areas of the game it isn't necessary Arena's draw distance is already further the more wins but I will admit the Wilderness is a touch nicer to explore with it Skyrim sounds and some new music does as it says replacing a few of the sound effects and some of the exploration and City soundtracks with those from that fifth game my points from the clean UI mod remain here why remove what makes Arena Arena if you want to play Skyrim then you can do so better lighten brighten some of the overly dark areas mostly in the dungeons while retaining the Eerie aesthetic this is more personal preference for the individual player although I will mention that the darkness is a gameplay Choice Majors can cast spells to improve visibility in these areas I accept that forcing Warriors and thieves to find or purchase Enchanted items to achieve the same result is a bit unfair though so this mod can help facilitate those builds even if I never saw the need for it myself and we end on Tess Arena rematch which is the only essential requirement in my opinion there are a lot more mods for arena on the Nexus but I felt they weren't all noteworthy for this video you can find them yourself using the Nexus Link in the description if you are interested outside of mods you can marginally alter your dosbox experience by adjusting the dot ini file this can be done with all dosbox versions including the recent steam release changing the core speed of the emulation can help to marginally smooth out the low frame rate issues I highlighted and you can adjust the scaling and output methods to alter graphical Fidelity for your own personal preference all modify these sound card settings to change the instrumentation used for the midi tracks all of these however come with their own drawbacks changing the core speed makes the entire game run faster moving will feel more fluid but the speed of combat can make an already difficult game almost impossible fixing the core Cycles to 20 000 produces the most authentic experience and anything above 40 000 I found to be too fast so a happy medium between the two is best with the graphical changes some will prefer to keep hard pixels While others may want to adopt a smoother appearance it's all subjective I prefer to use normal three times which renders the game window at Double resolution staying faithful to the original's aesthetic while filling a modern high resolution display altering the midi instrumentation means that the tracks are no longer authentic to what Eric hebeling offered as a result some of the music especially the dungeon Ambience tracks sound more Awkward or may not play at all foreign [Music] [Music] my belief is that this option is best left as to default your installation came with graphically arena is what it is a 1994 game with doom style Graphics albeit not inspired by that game which would fit in for its time it wasn't the best looking but as the reviews mentioned it still had some impressive Tech 1994 was 1994 and today this is old old doesn't mean bad aesthetically Arena has a strong art style that being generic fantasy as with much of the other crpgs from the time it wouldn't be until Morrowind that the Elder Scrolls began developing a unique art style and even then much of Tamriel is still the generic fantasy that Arena established objectively analyze and outdated Graphics leaves a conundrum what counts as bad Graphics do you go by what was bad for the time then in that case Arena has good graphics as all the reviews made a point of Saiyan but if I told a 13 year old that these were good Graphics they would laugh in that case objectivity itself can age what was objectively good in 1994 is not objectively good in the current year if we go by art style objectivity goes out of the window to a degree as art itself is subjective is generic fantasy a good art style well yeah it wouldn't become generic if people didn't copy it had nauseum due to how iconic it is it isn't unique we can say that confidently that said many elements in Arena do stand out as being bad because of how awkwardly they have been implemented the Chrome Knights bizarre Iron Golems scanned images surrounded by hand-drawn imagery is very inconsistent on a whole it's fine with these few exceptions instead of arguing what counts as bad Graphics it's easier to argue on the age of the graphics and that is that arena is retro if a game will to release today looking like Arena it would be called retro styled rather than bad although on the other hand had Arena been released today it would still struggle against those modern retro games due to its low resolution and poor frame rate I discussed the music and sounds back in the ambient section and again these are old but not bad classic ad-lib chiptune Style music and effects you would expect from the time period the areas where age has become a problem is again in the implementation sound effects often have an annoying clicking sound before or after them and as I mentioned before only one effect can play at a time having a minor effect on gameplay an engine rewrite will hopefully Rectify these technological woes for now Arena's graphical and sound presentation is what will hold it back for a long time I'm sure a lot of us gamers are accustomed to Retro games won't have too many issues but more modding Gamers might yeah the Elder Scrolls chapter 1 Arena's Legacy on the world of gaming is obvious without it the Elder Scrolls wouldn't exist nor would the genre of open world grand 3D first person RPGs now this series helped make popular okay it may still have existed but not as we know it without the Elder Scrolls it isn't crazy to say that the game and Landscape as we know it would be different with a Titan of the industry missing from the lineup needless to say it was the later more successful games for Morrowind onwards that really popped the series on the map of the average gamer it's good to know though that the original devs were excited to see where the series was going after they had moved on from Bethesda Ted Peterson in regards to Morrowind back in a 2001 interview said I enjoy hearing about how the world of Tamriel keeps evolving becoming more and more distinctive the screenshots and concept drawings are wild a huge change from these simple all the English or Arabic Styles in Daggerfall I'm not very creative when it comes to architecture certainly in comparison the vocabulary is becoming more exotic too everyone's calling Dark Elves dunma and dwarves Dwemer it's fun from the point of view of someone who thinks of himself as one of the parents of the test games to see how the kid is doing while you're away Julian lafaye spoke of how he and Todd Howard who became the new lead of the series after the FAE left had very different perspectives on how to build the perfect computer RPG he claimed that the biggest difference between himself and Todd with game design is that Todd is all about scripting things out setting up stories on railroading players down the path he wants them to follow whereas lafaye was all about pushing for Endless Possibilities in reference to tabletop gamen he wanted the BD perfect dungeon master the one who will change the adventure based on the player's choices Todd instead is closer to a conventional bad DM who forces the player to follow what he has planned out before the session in spite of this lafaye does admit that clearly Todd's method is what Gamers wanted and what was best for the series and for Bethesda as a business the phase influence goes further than just the three games he helped make for the series too he helped hire Bruce Nesmith and Ken Ralston from the ttrpg wheels to come work on Whirlwind he praised ralston's game design in particular admitting that he has a lot of respect for the tabletop designers especially as they came to Bethesda with a much more mature and rigid idea on how to create games compared to the young and experienced and over ambitious teams that worked on Arena and Daggerfall and then there's the unsung hero VJ Latchman who is sadly often forgotten about when speaking of the history of the Elder Scrolls without him the game design behind Arena of dungeons surrounded by a sprawling massive Overworld they never have happened it was from his and lafaye's aspirations and enthusiasm for fantasy and role-playing that both the series we love so much foreign if you can stomach mid-90s PC graphics then I can give a middling recommendation to give Arena a shot while crewed by today's standards it is kinda astonishing that a role-playing game of its magnitude and ambition came around during the era of the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis despite that Arena today is a curiosity reserved mostly for the hardcore of classic RPG and Elder Scrolls fans alike if you're a collector then good luck The Limited original sales and now massive Fame of the series has caused Arena as a physical product to balloon up to astronomical prices I'd like to conclude this analysis and retrospective with an excerpt from 1994's issue 118 of computer gaming World which I think offers a nice glimpse into how even back then some could see the possibilities within this series overall arena is a game of amazing detail with spurts of Brilliance that can be lost in its huge scope the game is impressive as a first effort most of the pieces of a good crpg are there what is needed now is tightening of the code a little polishing up of the basic engine a little scaling back on size and the inclusion of some real role-playing elements with a solid storyline these are well within bethesda's abilities and their addition to future products would make the Elder Scrolls a dynamite series [Music] foreign after the Daggerfall analysis I never thought I could make the video as large as that again but here we are I hope you noticed the improvements made over the last year in terms of writing and structure it really has been my main priority well over 1 000 hours of work and passion has been poured into this video from playing the game taking notes researching writing recording editing and more the script was written as a true essay you can read this essay in its entirety by using the link in the description at nearly 50 000 words Google Docs even struggles to scroll through it at times if you would like to fact check me or peruse the many sources I have gathered you can do so there I would like to thank those within the Discord community and to all of you watching for your kind and supportive comments that spur me on to create better and longer videos for you now that we are in 2023 the Jeweler channel will be going for strength to strength with a keen focus on quality over quantity videos will be as high quality as they can be which means even more epically sized retrospectives covering games from Battle Spire to Diablo and Beyond in no particular order additional gratitude goes to Mickey D I finished the video game and the guy is over at Wayward realms as always thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Jwlar

Views: 659,964

Keywords: the elder scrolls, elder scrolls, elder scrolls documentary, making of the elder scrolls, history of the elder scrolls, jwlar, arena retrospective, arena review, arena deconstructed, arena analysis, tes 1 arena, the elder scrolls one, the elder scrolls 1, the elder scrolls arena, the elder scrolls chapter 1 the arena, The Elder Scrolls: Arena - A Complete Retrospective, jwlar arena, elder scrolls analysis, the elder scroll 1, TES I: Arena - A Complete Retrospective

Id: Ese1L24QlDk

Length: 264min 11sec (15851 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023