Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

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Werewolf
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Werewolf »

Dalebvr wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:35 pm I really wish we hadn't lost the old Bethsoft boards. They were almost a development diary for DF, including the compromises they had to make due to time, or the fact that the tech simply wasn't up to the idea at the time. After almost 40 years I can't begin to quote, but a lot of the things mentioned here were discussed a lot then. I can't wait to see what Ted and Julian can crank out on the Unreal 5 engine.
Old Bethesda boards? That’s new to me.

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MrFlibble
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by MrFlibble »

Dalebvr wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:35 pm I really wish we hadn't lost the old Bethsoft boards.
What was the address? Any chance anything was preserved by the Wayback Machine?

A while ago I collected some Wayback Machine links to fansites, and I think that maybe some of them contained links to messageboards, but those were unofficial IIRC.

dutchovenfarts
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by dutchovenfarts »

the old Bethsoft boards had a lot of things that the devs clarified from Arena and Daggerfall. It was before the first facelift around 2003 or 2004?

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MrFlibble
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

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I just looked at Wayback Machine snapshots of www.bethsoft.com from 1996-2001 but none seem to have any forum links.

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Werewolf
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Werewolf »

I may have mentioned this before but Arena felt more complete, Daggerfall had way more content but felt unfinished

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jayhova
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

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I refreshed my memory with Youtube walkthroughs of Arena. The dungeon sounds are way creepier and the dungeons themselves are spookier. I missed Arena's flavor text in Daggerfall. Flavor text gave a more DM lead feel to the dungeons. Puzzles and riddles were nicer. Monsters in Arena scared the shit out of me, especially liches. The map had roads on it. A dead chick would talk to you in your dreams.
Last edited by jayhova on Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

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Werewolf
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

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jayhova wrote: Sun Aug 28, 2022 10:51 pm I refreshed my memory with Youtube walkthroughs of Arena. The dungeon sounds are way creepier and the dungeons themselves are spookier. I missed the flavor text in Daggerfall. Flavor text gave a more DM lead feel to the dungeons. Puzzles and riddles were nicer. Monsters in Arena scared the shit out of me, especially liches. The map had roads on it. A dead chick would talk to you in your dreams.
Arena had a better art style then Daggerfall. Daggerfall had it’s share of great sprites and textures but many weren’t good. In Arena nearly every sprite was fantastic (except for the few pre-rendered ones.) Compare a weapon shop in Arena to Daggerfall. In Arena they have a unique atmosphere whereas in Daggerfall they look like any other building. Daggerfall’s sprites were all over the place and the towns, countryside, and dungeons were a big downgrade in atmosphere. And yep, Arena had roads, something Daggerfall only got with mods. Daggerfall is a better game for sure but Arena’s art style and atmosphere was on a whole other level. It’s like going from GTA 4 to GTA 5. GTA 5 was a bigger and better game then GTA 4 but GTA 4 had such a great atmosphere and tons of small things that made it impactful that while I spent more time in GTA 5 I still like GTA 4 for the atmosphere and small details. Same with Arena and Daggerfall.

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Werewolf
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

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dutchovenfarts wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 2:38 pm magic items were better in Arena too - half your jewelry had a choice between protection or increasing attributes, an the other half were for spellcasting. similarly plate armor had a decent choice between going with a higher material, or using a plain enchanted one instead, which often was the better choice. of course there was enchanted plate of better materials, but those were either extremely expensive or extremely rare. Daggerfall's magic items were mostly crap, practically pushing you into the mages guild or Julianos to make better items, since you can't buy magic items for the most part.
Same for potions, basically join either a temple or the DB to get potions and make your own.

class restrictions were handled better for weaponry, as it was per weapon instead of a class of weapons. Like mages could only use a dagger or a staff. In Daggerfall, mages could use warhammers lol.

spellcasting felt a lot better. x1.5 and x2 spell points were sufficient unlike in Daggerfall. This was due to how spell cost related to level, and it drastically decreased the costs early on, along with boosting spell power - by level 5 spell cost was 20% of the original cost, and level 10 only 10%. The skills in Daggerfall didn't decrease spell costs enough, making spell casting crap in comparison until much higher skill levels or using exploits.

also minor note, the faces for races were a little better in Arena - more variety, less same looking.
Arena seems to have more magic items in loot piles, and weapon shops sold magical items. In Arena you could have access to some magic abilities even with a non-magic class with magic items in loot piles and magic items at the blacksmith. It made non-magic classes still be more then just slashing everything with a sword and drinking health potions. Someone should make a mod to add magic items to shops.

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Magicono43
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by Magicono43 »

You can already find magic items in shops, but they are relatively rare and only normally found in pawn-shops. You can also use the magic vendors for the mages guild if you are a proper ranking member and the same for the temple of Julianos.

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MrFlibble
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Re: Things that Arena did better then Daggerfall

Post by MrFlibble »

Werewolf wrote: Sun Aug 28, 2022 11:11 pm Compare a weapon shop in Arena to Daggerfall. In Arena they have a unique atmosphere whereas in Daggerfall they look like any other building.
But, equipment shops in Arena are the only kind of shops in the game (if you don't count temples and mages guilds). Whereas Daggerfall has many different shop types with different layouts, and I'm pretty certain that some are unique to armourer and weapons shop types. So I can hardly imagine this being a valid point.

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