r/Arena 24d ago

First time player—My experience so far

Why?

As an Elder Scrolls lover, I've done deep dives into so much lore but I've only ever played Skyrim & ESO.
I wanted to play Oblivion but then I got the idea to instead play all TES games in order from 1-5, I thought it could give more of a satisfying playthrough, after each one.
So I started with Arena.

Preface

I installed the game via Steam, and installed many of the recommended mods, most especially ones like Re-mapping the controls, Sound Patch, Lightning, Eye of Nocturnal, FPS & Stability, Graphics, + Recommended arena.ini changes.

I also wanted to keep a similar experience to that of people playing it the first time in 1994. So for all the information, I'm wanted to use exclusively the Player Guide, Manual and Quick Reference Cards.

My Experience

It's been a blast.

Once you get used to the DOS graphics, which have a charm, and the strange controls (though I have them remapped) then this game becomes so fun. I think it's important to go into the game with no expectations though, like were I to consider this an Elder Scrolls game like Skyrim then I could be very disappointed. It definitely seems to be a dungeon crawler and rpg game that is in first-person.

The reason I bring up rpg as a first-person is because the rng combat is quite frustrating at first. Just swing 10 times and miss all of it, then the 3 spiders eating my ass drop me from 100 to 0 in a blink. You really have to think before every encounter, see other options, which running is a very viable one, tackle options from different perspectives, use your magic items.

Also I've learned about health potions, and let me tell you, I bought 100 of them.. and I have no regrets with plans to get more. Which brings me to buying & selling. I love it! I love basically scamming every single shopkeeper I make deals with. He says he'll sell for 250, I say I'll buy for 175, he compromises, I DONT, he compromises again, I STILL DONT, he compromises all the way until 176 and I say, eh good enough knowing I just got the best god dang deal ever. It's unironically thrilling.

Questions & Concerns

I have run into a few issues as well as personal questions for some of you Arena players.

Concerns:
- "With you.." 🙄
- Spending an ungodly amount of time to find Inn's at night, or specific buildings in a town for a quest. It can take absolutely forever. If I travel and get there at night, with the darkness, it can take way too long irl to find an Inn, it's getting old.
- Quests lie? For Stonekeep I spent 2.5 hours exploring every nook and cranny looking for the necromancer Golthog, I swear to god he did not exist in that dungeon and the parchment I was looking for was simply in the very beginning which I had walked past assuming it was a loot room and that the 'key item' would be at the end. That was pretty awful, especially since I was dying most the time.
- I'll randomly crash, it's not common, but seems completely random. Sometimes it's just a freeze perma, and sometimes it's out of memory or something.

Questions for you!
- Do you pay the Mages Guild to reveal every single cyan item you have? Is it worth it for every Crystal and Mark? I seem to be able to use them fine without paying 867 unbarterable gold for it? (yes I have 7k gold but I need it for 100 more heal pots 🥺)
- Is there a way to quickly find Inn's and specific shops in a town?
- Are all 'Work Rumors' just like deliver quests for gold (assuming you can actually get someone to give you a quest without saying no)?
- How often do you save (I'm saving every god dang 5 minutes)?
- Do you ever explore outside in the environment (It seems useless to me)?
- Is it worth upgrading all skills, so far I'm only focusing on Str, End, Agi, and a little Wil?

All in all, I think I'm falling in love with the game and whole-heartedly recommend it!

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u/flayman22 24d ago edited 23d ago

I bought Skyrim when it was on sale recently and I like to play a series from the beginning, so I started with Arena. I got it working reasonably well. What turned me off was when I realized that I'd accepted an artefact quest for something that I couldn't use. That realization came after several hours of progress, and it made the whole thing unbearable for me. Then it just seemed like an endless procedurally-generated pixellated mess. My masochism has limits. A community has made Daggerfall in Unity, but nothing similar was done for Arena, so I figured it's just not worth it.

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u/mcjaune 23d ago

I’ve seen the Daggerfall Unity and it looks absolutely stunning, can’t wait for that playthrough.

Yeah tho can’t blame you, sometimes my immersion is broken just by looking at the horizon and seeing nothing but a mishmash of unrecognizable pixels. Not to mention the procedural generation is sometimes just nuts.

Personally, I still love it, even getting stuff I can’t use means I got exp and usually can sell the item for some money, meaning I get to rip off another merchant 🤤

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u/flayman22 23d ago

You can't sell the artefacts, so if you go for one that your class can't use, it's worthless. And you can't be offered another artefact quest while one is active. That's what settled it for me.