Oh 'phew' I'm glad I read this. I recently had the notion that I should try walking from Amol to Winterhold once my character gains more confidence. So good thing you posted this, thanks.

No worries, Renee. Just plan your spells and level them up till you drop and your character will breeze through undead like Van Helsing

What do you mean by 'level them up?'

Spells level up in Arena. I talked about that on the first page

I am still buffing my Arena toon with plenty of menial grinding. I'm not touching the Main Quest until she's good and ready. She got bored inside of town though, and decided to venture outside. Found an inn to stay at. She got bored here too, though. There was attacked by just one mage, and one lizardman, and this is after hours of roaming around the inn. Sheesh, she'd see more action if she had stayed back in Amol!

She decided to go exploring in the dark. She would try to stick to paths, but at some point she got lost, and now she can't find the inn. But she did find another place; an ordinary house. I learned awhile back that it's possible to bash doors with our weapon, and this can be used to break into places. So this is what Renee did. Inside this home, an orc is her first encounter.

The game said 'Stop Thief!' when she broke into this house, but honestly, she's just looking for somewhere safe to be, since she can't find the damn inn.



Yeah, if she was bored, she was no longer so after staying in there. There were no occupants in there except that orc. And every time she tried to rest, she'd get interrupted by rats, or other enemies. Some of these were tough. A ghoul (I think) showed up and this sucker was too strong. RG wound up dying.

She later found her way back to town (in the dark!) somehow. Stayed here for a few hours, rested, tried to look for work but there is none, so she's out exploring again. She found a small crypt full of rats. She scored big time here: no other enemies other than those rats, and lots of gold, like 300 gp or so.

That´s what happens if you try to camp inside someone´s house, same as in a dungeon. I used that alot to quicker level up my character. The only safe places to sleep at are inns.

Just when I think this game's starting to get easy, it'll throw a curve at me. RG1 met a spellsword, and this lady nearly killed her, even though Renee is Level 7 and she's been seeing spellswords since Level 1. And I know why this is. It's because enemies in this game have a larger variety of health and damage possibilities. For instance, and orc can have as little as 15 health, but as much as 40, at any level. It can do as little as 2, but as much as 12.

So just imagine meeting a 40 hp orc that the dice rolls 30 to 40 hit smashes several times in a row. That's one way to get your toon pwned in no time, assuming he or she is not buffed with good stats & loot.

Winterhold is .... well .... really hard to find work in. It's not like Amol, where every other NPC points you to a place to make some easy gold. NOBODY in Winterhold has pointed her anywhere, instead they say "another Nord down on her luck" or something snarky like this. But just as she's thinking of leaving town she finds the palace, and the King offers her 2,310 gold. Just find some lady who's been taken to a lair southeast of Winterhold, and it's yours.

This is gonna be tough, but we're gonna go it. Renee just stocked up on health potions. She's going to try to find the lair during daylight, during the day there might be an enemy here and there, but they rarely show up.

Oh, and Renee was 'scairt' because it was the first time she saw a ghoul. That sucker gave her some sort of disease, and boy was he hard to take down.

I swear, Renee. Just like tmar keeps dragging me back to Fallout 3 so will you drag me back to Arena!

RG1 reached Level 8. I got her the Invisibility spell in celebration.

How long does it last?

I forget, and I'm not playing right now. I'm pretty sure it's 5 rounds + 1 extra round for each level. I forget how long a round is. Um.... I think a round a minute in real-time. EDIT: That is what my old DnD Player's Handbook (circa 1978) says, and I'm pretty sure Arena is heavily-based on DnD's rules. So if this is true, she can remain invisible for quite some time.

I haven't actually used Invisibility yet during combat. I wonder if making any actions causes this spell to disrupt, the way it does in OB and Sky. I'll soon find out

That is one thing which cracks me up, a lot of random quest-givers are like "oh yeah, I'm a great warrior, but I hurt my sword-arm. Even though it's broad daylight outside, and baddies only come out at night, I still need your help. Can you escort my niece to the XX for me? It's right across the street. I'll pay you 116 gold for your trouble!"

Anyway, Renee is in Dawnstar, which (in Arena) is a vast walled town. A city, actually. 250 years (or so) later in TES 5 it becomes a rather downtrodden village that hasn't even got a general store. She is ultimately headed south to some sort of mine, where she is supposed to rescue somebody. Assuming she does so she'll make several thousand gold.

EDIT: To answer your earlier question mirocu: Invisibility is a joke! .... It only costs 18 pts of Magicka, and since the way magic works is so basic, there is no skill requirement like there is in later games. Best part: casting Invisibility makes enemies give up instantly. Renee was about to get attacked by two rangers at once. She may have survived this encounter, but surely she would have to use all her resources (Health & Magicka) to do so. She's got a nice stash of healing potions and doesn't want to drink 6 or 7 of them just to outlast a couple rangers...

Decided to try Invisibility. The rangers literally stop what they're doing. No effort to try to search (as in later games) at all.

Morning Star 1, 3E 390




Happy New Year, Renee Gade I! .. Like she said (in so many words, ha ha), she is currently headed south to the Province of Elsweyr. Some guy in a tavern in Winterhold promised to tell her where a magic staff (Staff of Magnus) is hidden. This staff has magical power; apparently it regenerates health and magicka. This will be a good item to have once Renee is tackling Fang Lair.

Here is what UESP has to say:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -
In-Game Description: The Staff of Magnus, one of the elder artifacts of Tamriel, was a metaphysical battery of sorts for its creator, the Arch-Mage Magnus. When used, it regenerates both a mage's health and mystical energy at remarkable rates. In time, the Staff will abandon the mage who wields it before he or she becomes too powerful and upsets the mystical balance it is sworn to protect.
Discovered In: Elsweyr, Valenwood
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
All of this sounds great, problem is Renee had to pay close to a thousand gold just so that NPC would divulge info on where the staff is hidden. So hopefully she'll find it. In any event, it'll be good to get out of Skyrim finally.

`

So Renee is on the main quest now? Interesting. I might do the same with Thor when early winter sets in...

Cool! Hope you get back to Thor.

She's going to do the MQ eventually, but has a desire to become strong and worthy first. And from my perspective, I don't want to just jump into it and try to 'beat da game', I am taking my time.

By the way, I've been using Fraps to take screenshots here and there. There's some hilarious dialog in Arena, just some of the things NPCs say crack me up. We just met some guy who said...

"I'm Erik Haronsson, I've been here for awhile, I know everything there is to know about Riften."

So Renee says "Where's the Mage's Guild?"

"I'm really not sure, try going west and ask there."

I mean seriously? .. There's only one Mages Guild in each town, and you don't know where it is, especially after claiming to be a know it all?

Another thing I'm noticing is that as Renee travels south to Elsweyr, she's been going from town to town instead of fast-traveling the entire way.

Right now she's still in Skyrim. It's interesting to see that there's some variety & differences in the villages and towns, even in this early TES game. For instance in Winterhold, Windhelm, a lot of other northern areas, there will be frost everywhere. It's often snowing. Well in Verminwood and Riften the air is foggy. There are rain puddles and grass instead of frost patches and snow. I like how there was an effort made at subtle variety like this. `

Yeah, claiming to know it all and then say "I don´t know.."


Are you sure the frost and snow isn´t because of the calender? I thought there always was going to be snowy in one town but after some time it was all green which was when I checked the calender and lo and behold, it was summertime...

Today I briefly visited Arena

I´m planning to get into it again as I´ve said and I´ll begin with my usual routine; breaking into homes and fight monsters, just to get back in shape

Wow you break into homes eh? .. I've been wanting to try playing a Thief class character, maybe I'll do this casually. But I only have so much free time so...

It is the 10th day of Second Seed, 3rd Era 390 in Renee 1's game. She just finished plunging into a couple of dungeons, and is now in the Elsweyr village of Rimmen, selling her wares. She found a mithril longsword (ooh) which she's going to keep, but she's going to see the ebony helmet she found. She's a Battlemage, so she can't wear it anyways. She also found dozens of unidentified potions, a couple of magical items, and made over 2,000 gold during this one trip out-of-town.

She's eventually headed to a mine where some sort of map is supposed to be found. This map shows the location of the Staff of Magnus, or at least some pieces of it.

Breaking into homes to fight monsters is a great way to get experience. If you break your armour or run out of potions you can always go to the right place without having to backtrack etc


Those little trips can sure fill up your coinpurse

You aren't kidding, Crow. Holy crisis I played some Arena last night before going to bed, check this out... Renee sold that ebony helmet ... guess how much she got for it?

30,000 gold!!!

She already just over 3,000 before walking in that shop, which (up to this time) was the most she ever had in her life. I couldn't believe the profit margin. Sheesh, I really think she holds the personal record for most gold-in-pocket out of all my characters in any TES game.

Anyways, with all this gold, she went on a crazy buying spree, of course. Bought a couple magic items, and visited the Mage's Guild for the Spellmaker. Made several new spells: Create Wall, Destroy Wall, a mega-Shielding spell with nearly 200 hp, and a Spell Reflection spell that should come in handy when she faces those who try to get her with spell-damage.

What class is your character?

30K for just that helmet?? Geez!


Battlemage. I like to use both weapons and a lot of magic

What´s Renee again?

Renee is also Battlemage. It seems like one of the easier classes to play, despite the lack of available armor. The original Renee (on my old computer) was a Warrior I think, but it's just weird not having Magicka. I don't think I could dungeon-dive in Arena without at least the ability to heal up.

Yeah, that 30K helm almost seems like a glitch. I had to count the number of zeros being offered by the smith three times just to make sure my eyes weren't going bad. And what's weird is after Renee sold it to him, he listed it (for sale) at 7,500 gold or somewhere around there. So it's probably a glitch, but a welcome one. She's never going to have to worry about running out of money, ya know?

Once she´s higher levels she´ll have more moneyz than she´ll know what to do with, just like any Beth game

I think Thor has about 250.000 gold, plus tons of Magicka Restore potions

250,000? Yikes! What level is Thor?

25, and I think that´s gonna be his last. It will take too much grinding to reach level 26. Just going from 24 to 25 was a huge painstaking grind

Edit: It was actually 292,027 gold...

How do you all get so much gold?

I like the way leveling is nice and slow in Arena. It's this way also in tabletop games.

Taking stuff from enemies when grinding up levels and then sell

I like leveling as an idea and I enjoy it in all Beth games really Do you mean that Arena´s way with XP is close to the tabeltop games?

Edito: Been playing for awhile now and it´s fun. I do a lot of quests for the Lord of Dunstad Grove plus a little free-roaming. I think it´s kinda hard though to find dungeons out in the wild.

Have you ever found one of the staffs? We are looking for the Staff of Magnus, and it is supposed to be in a lair called Vojridon in Black Marsh. We are definitely in this lair.

I found this weird-looking image, which I've never seen before. I am thinking this has to be the staff. We've been though this entire dungeon. Yet when we try to grab that burning-looking thing, nothing happens. Or if we grab the monster-looking thing, nothing happens.

I am just wondering if this is what the staff is supposed to look like.

I´m not on the MQ so no, I haven´t. Strange that nothing happens when you click on those things, are you sure you stand close enough? Is there perhaps a hidden room visible on the map that you haven´t been in or a staircase you didn´t notice?

This is not part of the MQ, the Magnus Staff is an artifact quest. I did click on the thing up close, far away, side to side, up and down, you name it. It cannot be activated. I went on a mad search for a picture of Arena's Staff of Magnus (so I know what it's supposed to look like) but I can't find anything on Google or UESP, or anywhere else. The main thing that comes up is Skyrim's Staff of Magnus, of course.

No hidden rooms, I did check the map. Renee 1 has a Remove Wall spell, so she even dug through the walls a bit looking for ... just anything she could find, but there's nothing. We may have to abandon this quest.

It sucks because I got all excited. You know how it is in this game, right? You spend all this time trying to achieve something, and when you finally do, it's SO rewarding, so that's why it feels really lame to have to possibly abandon this one.

I just got a quest myself that seems to be broken, can´t get the Mages Guild guy to hand me a scroll. First time that happens to me.

It would suck if you had to abandon this artifact quest. Hang on for awhile, maybe someone else knows what to do here.

I don't know if this helps but I found a screenshot where a warrior is holding the Staff of Magnus. Scroll down until you see the pic.

Link

Okay, that helps a bit. Where on Earth did you find that??? I probably spent about an hour trying to find some Arena site with pics.

That write-up is interesting to read too. I'm reading it right now, I'm sure it'll help. I don't know what the heck that thing I found is supposed to be; I've never seen anything like it in Arena before, that's why I assumed it must be the staff.

Where did you go to get the artifact quest, Renee?

It started way up in Skyrim actually. Some NPC gave us a rumor, and this rumor took us to Elsweyr, where we found a map in one of the major dungeons. The map said the Staff of Magnus (not the Staff of Chaos) is found in a major dungeon in Black Marsh.

But I went on UESP, and this site said we can only find the staff in Valenwood or Elsweyr. It does not mention Black Marsh at all, so maybe this quest is broken.

This was one of the things I noticed when reading that blog, that it's supposed to be either in Valenwood or Elsweyr but definitely not Black Marsh. I did some more googling but can't help you any further. Maybe you should write a rant mail to Bethseda, cursing them for making a bugged game.

OH yeah Lopov you got that right. I'll rant and rage and tell them I'm never buying another Bethesda product again until they FIX this.

Exactly what has now happened to Thor from Valhalla! Only his quest is to find Warlock´s Ring, also in Black Marsh. Maybe he´ll run into Renee...

This is actually the first time Thor has been outside of Skyrim since his jail break. He first had to go to Morrowind to go through a five-level deep dungeon to find the map and right now he´s standing just inside the Black Marsh dungeon

Yeah wouldn't that be funny if they ran into one another? Anyway, I just went on UESP, which says Warlock's Ring can be 'discovered' in Morrowind or Elsweyr. Not Black Marsh. Maybe they are talking about where the actual MAP is discovered though, you know? Not the artifact itself.

By the way, isn't it neat traveling through different provinces? As primitive as this game is, I like the way each province has a different feel. We've only been in Skyrim, Elsweyr, and Black Marsh so far. I like visiting the dungeons, but also going through plenty of towns & villages, and also exploring the local (random) wilderness outside of towns.

Well, I found the map in Morrowind and it told me the ring was in a Black Marsh dungeon so that´s all I have to go on. I´ll search it through and if I don´t find it at least´he´s been to two more provinces, albeit he´s only seen the insides of dungeons

Update: I did in fact find the Warlock´s Ring inside that Black Marsh dungeon! Goes to show you apparently cannot trust everything you read online, Renee!


But can you trust this...?

Oh wow, so you DID get that ring? Was it inside a chest? Or was it inside that weird flaming thing pictured a few posts above?

Renee 1 is not doing so well. She foiled yet another quest. This time she's in Black Marsh. The quest was: she needed to deliver something to a village in Black Marsh. Fair enough. The village was easy to locate, and she had 32 days to get this done.

So she goes to the village. Takes 12 days. Wow, that was easy. She starts searching all over the place for her quest location (which is a shop called Adventurer's Merchandise or something such). She can't find the shop, so she asks an NPC. In the dialog option, there was no shop in this town called Adventurer's Merchandise.

So we had a brainstorm. Are we even in the right town? *facepalm* turns out we weren't. There are two villages in Black Marsh with very similar names. I forget the name of the place, but it's easy to get them confused. Dangit. And it would have taken 25 days to get to the other place. 12 + 25 = 37, five days too long.

Last I saw, she was on some other quest. One of those "my sword arm is hurt, I can't deliver this satchel across the street with all these dangerous enemies around (in broad daylight), can you deliver it for me?" quests. Congrads to Thor for finding the Warlock's Ring.

Like the map, it was inside a very snassy chest





He sends his thanks

But in fact he has no use of it so if Renee 1 wants it, tell her to go to Dunstad Grove

My battlemage has finally decided to take up the search for the Staff of Chaos. She is now in Hammerfell. She'll do some preliminary asking around for Fang Lair, but I already happen to know she's in the right place, this time.

I had a rather vague dream about Daggrfall last night by the way. Don't remember any of it, except the jump in complexity from one game to the next was the theme of this dream.

So Renee 1 is doing the MQ? Nice

Yeah she's is doing the MQ. Got into it last night, gamed until 2:30 AM. She is now in Hammerfell, and Queen Blumbaka told RG1 to go to a lair called Stonekeep. RG1 got deep into this lair, and I got to the point that I was gaming for so long I couldn't see straight! Stonekeep seems to be designed for a lower-level character. It's full of goblins, wolves, rats, orcs, and a few lizardmen. These enemies are all walkover-material for my Level 12 Battlemage. She's barely using any magic, and has a mithril cutlass backed up by a silver mace, so it's mostly a huge a$$-kicking fest.

You know what I realize? A lot of people say these early dungeons are tough, and in a way they certainly are, but in another way they're not so bad. As long as I cheat use the map. They're all based in a rectangular grid, which means each level has a sort of 'confinement'. I would say Oblivion's dungeons are actually harder sometimes, assuming no map / compass is used. The only thing tough about Arena's dungeons is that they're so massive sometimes.

I'll bet Daggerfall is the same way: everything is based inside a huge rectangular grid. OTOH, I bet DF has some better traps, and the monsters will be harder to deal with, because I HAVE heard how DF's dungeons are the toughest. We shall see though.

Anyways, Renee has to find some sort of stolen item for Queen Latifah Blumbaka, and once she brings this item to the queen, the queen will be able to discern some sort of map (something like this) and will then reveal where Fang Lair is!

I guess what people mean with the early dungeons being tough is regarding the enemies. They can certainly kill a low-level character with ease (think about the tutorial dungeon). As for the dungeon itself, I use the standard labyrinth method of hugging either the left or the right wall and eventually you find the correct way

Oh wow, that's an interesting technique. I sometimes use a 'radiant' system. Everything is either left or right. Enter dungeon, make a left, is there a door coming up on the left and the right? Choose the left one. Leave that room, go left. Passage dead-ends to turn around and go through the door that's now on your left... See what I mean? it's like the character is radiating through the dungeon, one passage at a time.

Of course, there are plenty of times we are forced to improvise. Sometimes you gotta go right. Or left.
\

Middas, 1:31 PM, Evening Star 2, 3E 390

My infamous battlemage has returned to Rihad, where she is to present a scroll to Queen Blumbaba or Blumbaka or something. She managed to find this scroll in Stonekeep, and so the Main Quest is off to a great start!

I have fallen behind on updating this thread. RG1 found the first piece of the Main Quest staff a couple weeks ago. It was in Fang Lair, in a room guarded by a word-puzzle. I cheated on the word puzzle by going on a search engine and typing in its question. It went like this.

Neither fish nor flesh
.. Feather nor bone
but still has fingers
and thumbs of its own

The answer (which we can type into the game's HUD) is



After I cheated I realized that if there are any more word puzzles, I want to figure them out on my own. If I really think about it, I could have figured that answer.

Anyway, so last night I was gaming Arena again, and we were Ice Fortress. Again, there was another word-puzzle, once we found the correct room to search.

I touch your face
I'm in your words
I'm lack of space
And beloved by birds...

What am I?

This time, I guessed the answer right! Took me about a couple minutes of thinking, but it sure felt good to beat dis game just a little bit more.