At long last, this is the first look at ArenaFall Enhanced, the quest mod I've been working on over the past few months. When initially released by Sappho20, I enjoyed playing it for what it is but I had a few ideas for how to improve it. With their permission, I took the task upon myself without any prior knowledge in the Daggerfall modding scene. It's been a long process of learning the limitations of the engine, asking for help from the forums and various modders more capable than I and bashing my head into the walls but now, finally I feel the mod is ready for play testing. Half of the quests are "finished" and in a stable state but as I will explain more later in this thread, progress and finishing the mod will be faster if I get some feedback on any bugs and softlock issues, of which there are a couple already which I'm struggling to iron out for various reasons. The main quests from the prison escape/Fang Lair up to Halls of Colossus are complete and ready to play. I will possibly return to them to change the story or expand upon things once the final quest is completed though.
First things first, if you want to play ArenaFall with minimum changes and closest to the experience of the original TES Arena, I invite you to just play TES Arena on DOSBox, or use Sappho20's version. ArenaFall Enhanced is taking the original story and expanding upon it to hopefully make it an experience more akin to the later entries in TES series. As such, this may not be to everyone's taste. That being said, I tried to be as lore friendly as possible, using story elements from the official timeline and lore that were barely expanded upon by Bethesda. For example, the enemies encountered in dungeons/bosses etc are a mix between Arena's original enemies and if the dungeons are encountered in other entries, such as Skyrim (Labyrinthian), or Elder Scrolls Online (Fang Lair, Mines of Khuras, Crypt of Hearts) those enemies. Also, Daggerfall Enemy Expansion mod has just been updated and some of the enemies in TES Arena are tuned to too high a level in that mod to put them in the dungeons for the approximate level of the player (hell hounds for example are too strong for Fang Lair. It is the second dungeon when player level will be 2-5 most likely and they are something like level 15). This means, instead of minotaurs, hell hounds and the like in Fang Lair, you will encounter skeletons and lizard men (canon enemies) with a unique boss and Tharn's minions will be a certain low level Daedra, not hell hounds. The spoilers end here, as I want you to experience the mod for yourself. I just want to give an idea of my thought process behind my choices.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE TRYING THE MOD:
The mod "Daggerfall Enemy Expansion" is required or the quests will fail upon trying to either spawn the enemies in, or attempt to start the quest, as it adds enemies from Arena into Daggerfall, which I have scripted as part of the quests. I repeat - the quests will NOT function correctly without it.
I have used locations from the mod "New Canon Locations" but while it isn't required, you will have to remove the locations from your StreamingAssets\WorldData folder if you already use the mod. It adds locations from Arena into Daggerfall, which I have also scripted as part of the quests. The quests will NOT function correctly without it.
These locations are - locationnew-cryptofheart-57.json locationnew-fanglair-52.json locationnew-khuras-5.json locationnew-stonekeep-11
Remove them like this, so if you want to uninstall and still have the locations you can just put them back into the WorldData folder -
Pic 1 -
Pic 2 -
More locations may be used in the future but I will be updating this post/the Nexus post when I progress and finish the mod respectively.
The mod "Autosave" is recommended in case of crashes. I will explain more at the bottom of the post about this.
The mod "Fixed Dungeon Exteriors" is recommended in order to make the quest dungeons look better in some cases.
The mod "Open Cages - No more Immersion Breaking" is recommended because you can be teleported inside of a cage at one point.
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create foe _foe_ every 0 minutes 1 times with 100% success
change foe _foe_ infighting trueI invite people to please send me the name of any "prison" dungeon anywhere in Daggerfall that aesthetically looks MORE like the Imperial dungeon from Arena than the one I currently use in the first quest, so that I can add it as a permanent location to teleport the player to upon starting the quest. Perhaps then I can get around the "Smaller Dungeons" needing to be selected problem. I am sticking to The Prison of Trystinak in Glenpoint for now, as it has sewers, isn't too sprawling and massive and upon exiting "teleports" you to the uninteresting but central to the Iliac Bay, Glenpoint region via the use of a Shift Gate. As you play through the mod, Shift Gates are central to the Arenafall Enhanced plot.
The setting "Alternate Random Enemy Selection" is recommended in the Advanced DFU settings is recommended in order to have varient mobs in the dungeons. Unless you just want thousands of skeletons for some reason.
"Bossfall" and other mods that change the way enemies are spawned are incompatible with "Daggerfall Enemy Expansion", so please look at the mod page for that info and don't ask me.
My goals for the future of the mod are as follows -
1 - Finish the quests. I'm currently working on The Crystal Tower, so four more staff pieces to go and then the ending in the Imperial Palace dungeon.
2 - Play through TES Arena and get the correct cutscenes with the protagonists name as "Champion". In the cutscenes Ria Silmane will refer to the player by name and the protagonist is canonically refered to as "The Eternal Champion". One video is missing from ArenaFall, possibly more, so after getting one of the staff pieces (Labyrinthian) there is a missing video from Jagar Tharn. Sorry for that.
3 - Learn how to create dungeons from scratch. The Imperial Palace should be impressive and unique. I will try but the info online how to do this is confusing... Any collaboraters also welcome and I would credit you for the help.
4 - Attempt to use the lava asset/texture from the Mantellan Crux for the Mines of Khuras, Volcanic Caves in general and the Morrowind quest in Red Mountain/Dagoth Ur and the Imperial Palace maybe, as it is "corrupted" by the evil Jagar Tharn in Arena and like a Daedric area. Maybe I wont do this but it's nice to think about.
5 - Change the asset for certain dungeon doors when they are Shift Gates to a teleportation stars texture like in a mod for red brick teleporters on the Nexus. I'm not sure if this is possible but it would make the appearance of them stand out and not just look like every other dungeon.
6 - Bugfixes. This is a big one. There is for example, a major bug on starting the Fang Lair quest whereby if you fast travel to anywhere ONCE and then to the city where the quest starts SECOND, the quest will fail to start upon using the item and you have to fast travel again and back to the city for it to work. This is probably quite common because the player may travel to a nearby town to sell gear and do quests, then travel the distance to the city mentioned in the quest and wonder why it wont start. This can happen on subsequent quests too, so I would advise saving before you start the next quest by using the item. I think this is because the game doesn't recognise the Places/People used in the quest to be in the location...
7 - If I'm still active when this potentially happens in the future, I have seen some talk about expanding the Daggerfall map to other provinces in Tamriel. You can imagine the possibilities with this integration. Problem is, you literally visit every province in Arena, which I doubt will ever happen. One can dream though. If, for example, only one province gets completed or partially implemented, I will have this quest send the player there through travelling to change up the whole Shift Gate motif a little. I would also of course make the dungeons there. Cyrodill would be perfect as it houses the final dungeon. Tharn could be stopping the player from using the Shift Gates and you must travel the roads encountering his guards along the way. Cyrodiil is also likely to be the one of the first to be created if this does happen (or the rest of Hammerfell/High Rock/Skyrim) as it is aesthetically relatively close to the Iliac Bay aesthetically/topography wise.
8 - Finally, when loading midway through a quest, any enemies from Daggerfall Enemy Expansion spawned via a quest command will spawn in as a rat/s, the default enemy. This is something that is a problem with the base game itself and as I understand, a work in progress by the developers of Daggerfall Unity and a known issue, so we will just have to wait for this fix to be implemented into the engine. It can be quite jarring but theres nothing I can do about it. To avoid dissapointment at an exciting boss moment ending in a rat slaughter and easy win, my recommendation for now is to not save midquest and just try to soldier through it and not die
I have tried to split the quests up into individual smaller quests when bosses and special event mobs spawn in to make them spawn as the intended enemies but in some instances they will still be rats. One day this wont be an issue but for now, that will have to do I suppose.
One option is to use the "Autosave" mod I mentioned earlier in case of a crash or death midway through a quest. Since I've split up the quests into sections like Fang Lair 1,2,3, dying to a boss and reloading a previous save may still spawn the boss correctly.
Until the rats issue is fixed I have made a spoiler section on the Nexus with where it is ok to load a save.
I hope that all makes sense!
Credits -
Sappho20 for creating the original mod with the barebones quest structure that made this all possible!
Hazelnut for providing the script used to add permanent locations to use in the quests. HUGE help. Without this I probably would have abandoned the mod at that point.
shotgunBuckaneer for the locations in "New Canon Locations"
Kab and Kamer for creating "Daggerfall Enemy Expansion".
Any of you who test and give feedback. Be nice!
