'>>10857361
Never play old series in order of release. This is common sense. You have it all wrong, you don't make a character in some way to make it smoother, you start with a non-retro one to do it.';

'>>10857361
It's not even bad, holy shit. It's worst attribute is bugs that fuck you over, but the game itself is basically daggerfall lite. Yes, go check uesp.ner for insight into the game and creating a good character. Iirc a dude recently made an arena "deep dive" that tells you neat lityle magic spells to maje if you cant be arsed to read the wiki. I also think zaric zhakaron has an arena guide of sorts.';

'I've never even seen a screenshot of Arena. I guess that's saying something?';

'Would you willingly subject yourself to Legends of Valor, too?
Come back and tell us how it went.
If you survive.';

'>>10857524
It basically looks like a shitty daggerfall lite.';

'>>10857361
Arena is fun and simple. Just play the game, get to Fang Lair, if you don't like it then move on.

But I think Arena is worth playing because its short and simple but Daggerfall is also pretty much more of the same. If you can't play Arena, you aren't going to have a good time with Daggerfall anyway.';

'>>10857763
I think the main difference would be that playing Daggerfall in current year is painless because of the Unity port.';

'start with virtual hydlide';

'I played all the games in order as they came out, starting with Arena. I'm from Bethesda, and they were really popular in the area, so everyone here played them. I'm not even 40 yet so I'm not a geriatric or anything.

I think Arena is the best game in the series. It's the only game in the series that sets out to do one thing and does it right. It does dungeons. There are no distractions. There are no guilds, there are minimal sidequests, there is almost no story. You go to dungeons. You go to towns to sell junk. That's all you do. The dungeons are very fun. They're complex, but not too complex - not Daggerfall stupid. But they're simple too, with clear beginning and endings - but not Morrowind or Oblivion or Skyrim simple. They're large, but not sprawling. Some of them have gimmicks. They're fun.

It doesn't get bogged down in anything besides what it sets out to do. It's not like Daggerfall, which tries (and fails!) to simulate a real world. It's not like Morrowind or Oblivion, which has a huge, sterile world full of lifeless, walking Wikipedia articles. And it's not completely railroaded like Skyrim. It never sets out to do any more than it does, which is dungeons. It's a dungeon game.

It's also the only game in the series where classes are completely unique. In the other games, classes are basically a spreadsheet - get THIS ability and THIS ability and THIS ability! In Arena, only the monk gets special hand-to-hand bonuses. Only the ranger gets additional melee damage every level. Only the sorcerer regenerates when enemies cast spells at it. You build your character around these weird, unique abilities and see how far you can take it.

So I like it. It's a fun game. If you like dungeons, you'll like it. If you're looking for a big, simulated world like the other games in the series try to do, you probably won't.';

'>>10857502
playing a non-retro elder scrolls will never prepare you to play a retro one are you dumb.';

'>>10859071
Yeah it fucking will. If you're not used to bobbers or dungeon crawlers whatever you want to call old games, then playing any RPG will get you closer.';

'>>10857361
The biggest issue I had with this game was that it has a repetitive structure. Go to town -> dungeon -> next big town -> last dungeon in area -> move on to next area -> rinse and repeat. Reminded me a lot of Assassin's Creed 1. Other than that, I thought it was a lot cooler than I heard it was. It was the first game where I saw a lot of negative reviews about it and disagreed with all of them. It's not a perfect game, but it has a great charm to it. I wish there was another game out there like it that completed it's true ambitions. I thought the random world map was a cool concept if you decide to explore it.';

'>>10859115
you do realize back in the day we didnt had the non-retro games to prepare us and we did just fine,those of us who arent retarded at least.';

'>>10857361
Damn that katana bitch is fuckin top notch';

'>>10859670
whoop dee dee, we have them now you fucking ignoramus';

'>>10859663
No one plays these games, so someone with a following saying it is bad/good will just cause sheep to say the same thing. People who never played Arena or Daggerfall said the same things about Daggerfall years ago; that it sucked and the series only got good with Morrowind. Now people who never played Arena or Daggerfall say Daggerfall is good(but Arena still sucks).';

'>>10857763
I played daggerfall to completion but then bounced off arena
I can't really remember specifically why. Getting out of the starting dungeon in daggerfall feels like an accomplishment which kinda connects you to the world in time to let you care about the open simulated world stuff. Arena immediately feels a lot more videogamey and less intriguing';

'>>10860531
*This was long before the unity port too';

'>>10857361
>How can I make my first time experience wtih Arena as painless as possible?

Drop it and play Ultima Underworld instead. Arena tried to copy UW1 and failed.';

'>>10860691
Unfortunately I have autism so if I'm going to play a game from a series I feel compelled to play every entry in that series in order starting from the beginning and both Akalabeth and Ultima 1 look like dogshit.';

'>>10857361
skip daggerfall too, morrowibd is the first one worth playing';

'>>10860897
Halt!';

'>>10857361
Play Arena, skip Daggerfall. Just read a synopsis and a few of the lore books for Daggerfall.';

'>>10857361
Play them all, you coward!';

'>>10860897
>>10860917
I boldly hold the opinion that all TES games are shit and OP should play Fallout or Gothic instead.';

'>>10861018
OP here, already played every Fallout game and Gothic honestly looks kinda shit. I would probably try it if it was isometric but as it is I'm not interested.';

'>>10861039
>Gothic honestly looks kinda shit
Then TES is going to be even worse.';

'>>10861018
I boldly hold the opinion that all RPGs are shit, and OP should play Doom instead.';

'>>10861057
Doom is great but I like RPGs too because I don't have any friends willing to play DnD with me so vidya is the best I've got.';

'>>10861057
ofc the guy who hates RPGs also loves Doom.
>>10861082
Why not look around to find groups to play with? if you have a store near by there may be games happening there. Discord has plenty of people willing to play over Roll20. There are servers that also text only if voicechat isn't your thing. Hell, even try play-by-post roleplaying on some forums. If you're really, really desperate, there are in fact ttrpgs you can play by yourself, or optional homebrew rules for playing by yourself.';

'>>10861018
>>10861057
I boldly hold the opinion that all games other than TekWar are shit, and OP should play TekWar instead.';

'>>10861087
Or I can skip all that tedium and play an RPG video game, no muss no fuss.';

'>>10861112
Then you were never really about it.
Enjoy the virtual realm.';

'>>10861131
Fair enough, I'd prefer to play a game by myself that I have total control over than a game with strangers I have to compromise with. If it were my friends it'd be a different story but sadly my friends are too ADHD to sit around a table and role play.';

'>>10861087
>>10861087
play DOOMRL. but that's not quite /vr/ unless all DOOM spinoffs and WinXP games are /vr/.';

'>>10861307
Oh. I have brother. I'm a big roguelike guy. AlienRL too, in fact the guy who made both those games, Slash I believe is what he goes by, just updated his CastlevaniaRL game to have graphics.';

'>>10857704
It's comfy AF. And by the way, it's not randomly generated. It uses a seed to generate the same map every time, iirc from new insight into the game. So it's only slightly randomized. I still will say the NPCs are more fun to interact with than 99% of jrpgs. Once you meet an NPC they remember you.';

'>>10860867
Don't listen to him, arena isn't very similar besides graphically. UU doesn't even have a world to explore like in arena. Both are worth acting though, I'm not meaning to say UU sucks or anything.';

'>>10857502
This guy gets it.

>>10859071
It prepares you better';

'>>10857502
I agree. Play them in reverse order so that every time you start a new (old) game it will feel like a signifficant advancement on the last as the ideas and systems are innovated and iterated upon in logical and imaginative ways.';

'>>10860897
Correction: Morrowind is the last one worth playing';

'>>10857361
If anyone tells you to skip the older entries in a series, they don't actually give a shit about retro.';

'>>10860505
>No one plays these games
Based on this topic, it seems that you are incorrect.';

'>>10863206
Literally only one person has given a good faith response.

>>10859010';

'>>10863223
That's not what we are talking about retard. Nice try though.';

'>>10857361
I beat it fairly easily as redguard warrior, just have to get used to the controls. EZ mode is mage though.';

'>>10859010
Based and rare take
I actually prefer Arena to Daggerfall for the reasons you described. It's just a more tightly crafted experience that doesn't try too hard like DF.';

'>>10861530
>UU doesn't even have a world to explore like in arena
UW2 has 7 isekai worlds.';

'>>10858682
I still play daggerfall in dos. Arena is more like a fever dream, which I enjoy. Exploring the wilderness is actually engrossing. You come across all sorts of cool shit. Churches, houses, graves, taverns, farms, etc... I also enjoy the music and I mod arena for more character customization';

'>>10857361 26 yr old Zoomer here. I have played every ES excluding battlespire. Favourite is Morrowind. Arena was great and definitely worth playing as an ES fan, even though it's pretty light on lore and Daggerfall is certainly a better game. The pulpy fantasy influences like Conan are more pronounced and the gameplay is a simple dungeon crawl. The main story dungeons have a fair amount of variety. And its basic design allows for fun spells to be utilised like Passwall to cheese through goofy sections. Music is also nostalgic as fuck. I wouldn't spend much time in the wilderness as its very samey. I'd plow through the main quest if i were you.

Like i mentioned some sort of mage build will make the game significantly easier. Healing yourself and onehitting shit from distance is pretty legit. Think i went battlemage after reading it was easy.';

'>>10859010
Zoomer poster here. Wish I'd read this reply before typing my post. It's a great summary of Arena's place in the timeline.

>10859010 it never sets out to do any more than it does, which is dungeons. It's a dungeon game.

Exactly.';

'>>10865037
Do you recommend any mods for Arena';

'>>10865096
There are very few, and the ones that exist are awful. Just play it normally.';

'>>10865096
>>10865114
Zoomer here, i didn't play with any mods. Not much need really runs fine on dosbox. Didn't encounter any bugs playing the bethesda.net version. Daggerfall is a totally different story.';

'>>10858682
Daggerfall was also a technical achievement at the time because a who chunk of the game is randomly generated.';

'>>10859010
I'm guessing you played Arena because boobs on the cover? That's how I got my dad to buy a copy when I saw an advert for it in a magazine. I was a teenager when it came out.';

'>>10866134
Nah, I was 6 when it came out and I wasn't interested in boobs. My dad just said, "Hey, a cool game just came out, let's go get it," and then we drove to the Bethesda building and got it. I didn't know anything about it, but it was pretty popular in the area.';

'>>10866130
A technical achievement sure but it doesn't really amount to much gameplay.

It's crazy that we're nearing Daggerfall's 30th anniversary and there's still no games that have tried to do what it did but better. It remains this dead branch of open world RPGs that leaves you imagining what could have been.';

'>>10866168
I think Dwarf Fortress adventure mode is probably the most similar game to attempt what Daggerfall was going for - a simulated world built around systems interacting with each other. Daggerfall is pretty half-baked in comparison, but Dwarf Fortress adventure mode is also pretty unsatisfying to play. I don't know. Maybe this vein of RPG just can't be done.';

'>>10866178
I'm not sure if Daggerfall qualifies as half-baked. Quarter-baked maybe?

I don't have experience with Dwarf Fortress but the presentation makes a pretty big difference. Sure, there are plenty of people who are fine with the roguelike format but it's just not the same as playing a 3d game in first or third person. I still feel like nobody has properly explored that path of open world RPG at least not well enough to say it can't be done.';

'>>10866178
I know I will get slammed for this but Dwarf Fortress is one of those games like Rust or Minecraft where you have to watch someone play for hours to truly understand what to do to really get the most out of the game.

I only played Rust for a small small bit and it's not retro. Played Minecraft a ton more and appreciated it for what it's worth despite the fact that I am not a Zoomer, I respect it a ton.

Back on topic though, Morrowind is what I started out with. It is small, but has such a gripping charm. When that game came out, I saw it on Toonami when they introduced the Xbox and PC version.

It was mind blowing and I had to play it. After trying to run it on shitty PCs we had at the time and failed, we got the Xbox and I immediately got it afterwards.

I never sunk so many fucking hours in a game. The exploration, the lore (even the fucking books were great), the crazy and easily abused alchemy system, the hilariously OP soul trap glitch, the main quest.

Man I could go on.

Morrowind is one of those games that you literally could just go out and do your own thing and not get completely fucked.

Daggerfall was cool and I played this in college but goddamn the dungeons were tedious. The Unity port looks awesome and I want to play it sometime on my Linux box maybe.

I tried Arena but I personally hate having to click on the sides of the screen to move. Very clunky and it just kind of ruins it for me. At least Daggerfall allowed you to free look like the actual Doom like RPG it is trying to be.

Oblivion was great and corny but the dungeons kind of sucked in a weird way plus caves gave you nothing. I am sure it is better with mods though.

Skyrim was amazing for exploration of environments but combat felt slightly clunky, and the repetitive voice acting was not great. Nor was the lack of actual decision making since most of the time, the player is steam rolled through shit.

I prefer Morrowind but to each his own.';

'>>10868124
Correction in hindsight, Doom like RPG maybe, more like Ultima Underworld clone';

'Some characters definitely suck. Yume, Galdorf, plenty of others. And hard mode is definitely pretty hard - especially in the boss fights. I haven't actually lost yet, but I've come close. It doesn't seem viable to use some of these crappier characters. Maybe more character building options become available as you unlock rune slots to make these bad characters more viable, but as it stands it seems like there's no reason to ever use some of them.';

'Arena is worth a playthrough but my god is it jank. Daggerfall is better.

I wish I could bring myself to play Battlespire past the second level. It's even on the Daggerfall engine but it just feels like ass. I wish someone would port Battlespire to DFUnity or some crap.';

'>>10868487
Wrong thread, sorry.';

'>>10868496
Agreed. Arena is fucking bad.';

'>>10865096
Just a few that fix some errors if you want

https://www.nexusmods.com/tesarena/mods/17
https://www.nexusmods.com/tesarena/mods/13
https://www.nexusmods.com/tesarena/mods/15';

'>>10868496
>Arena is worth a playthrough but my god is it jank. Daggerfall is better.
Daggerfall isn't much less jank than Arena. You've been spoiled by the Daggerfall Unity port that plays different from the original';

'>>10868594
Even vanilla Daggerfall is better than Arena';

'I've played almost all the Elder Scrolls games, and (except for Battlespire, which I don't count because it's not really the same thing) the only one I've beaten is Arena. I really like the rest of the games, even the later ones, but I always get lost in side quests and fizzle out. But the level of jankiness in Arena doesn't encourage lingering. It did have a lot of neat elements though - passwall, riddle doors, unique dungeons like the outdoor forest maze and the underground canals...';

'>>10862848
lol, I guess.';

'>>10866168
Space Rangers is basically what I imagined daggerfall progressing into';

'>>10870753
That's true, that's a good comparison.';

'>>10857361
Arena sucks';

'>>10861087
I don't actually think all RPGs are shit. All games are shit. Even Doom. Also, Doom is the only good game.';