Quick Start Guide for Arena

This is a guide to help new players get on their feet, and start playing Arena so they can proceed with the main quest without much guide usage.

Getting established.

Before I get started I just wanted to share these links to these great optimization guides on steam. I highly recommend installing and configuring these guides before starting the game. They will improve the experience a lot. Please give credit to these creators with a like and a favorite, and an award if you're feeling generous.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2805123591

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2800218957

Also I have not figured out how to make this game run on 1080/1920, so if anyone knows how feel free to clue me in on the comment section I would greatly appreciate it.

Right so I'm not going over how to make your character or how to get through the first dungeon in the sewers. These are all self explanatory if you are stuck in the sewers consult a different guide. I didn't need one you just kill rats and goblins while checking the map with TAB. Find the portal the lady makes for you, but make sure and level up first you can't get through the portal till you level.

Once you get out of the sewers, that's when the confusing parts begin and the game basically tells you, figure it out.

If you get out of the sewers two things could happen, it will either be night time, or day. If its nighttime you're in danger. Don't panic. Just save game to a different slot from your main save, then find an inn, how do you find an inn?

Well the starting town you will be in will be pretty bleak at night. So its best you just head to the town you need to be and find an inn there.

The first town you need to visit is in hammerfell, in rihad.


See your map here on the screen, right click it and you will bring up the continent map. You can also bring up this map with ALT+M.


From the map click on hammerfell, then rihad, then on the bottom left on the screen you will see 3 tabs, press on the horse one and confirm to instantly travel to Rihad.


Now that you are in Rihad its time to find that inn, if you are still damaged from the first dungeon. If you arrived there at night, save to a different file right away. Now look for the many priests who are standing around at night. If you get attacked you will probably die so just reload.


Course if you wanna skip all that you can just go to where the unfortunate treasure is marked on my map. But talking to the priest will teach you a few things.


The Priest

Ask him where the nearest inn is.

If you speak to him and go down to where it says nearest inn, he will either tell you what direction it is, or mark it on your map. Keep asking priests or npcs where the inn is and eventually one will mark it on your map. This works with all places of interest so if you need to know how to get somewhere in town keep asking around till someone marks it. It seems to happen more often if you are closer to where this place is.

So once you get to the inn, talk to the barkeep, the short bald guy cleaning a mug of course, and he will sell you a room. Select the amount of days (1 is usually good) and then you can go find an elevated position to rest. Don't matter where it is, you can even rest on the tables where people are drinking, you'll end up in a bed either way.

Now once its day, you can relax nothing will attack you in town during the day and you can focus on the main quest now. What you will want to do now is ask around about the fang lair, eventually an NPC will tell you about the palace, and tell you to go ask there. You can ask around about the palace and the location. But to make things easier I'll just tell you where it is, its furthest southeast right inside the bottom wall. You should see some gates distinguishing its location.


The Gates to the Palace

Once you talk to the queen in the palace she will tell you to go to stonekeep the 2nd dungeon. You can now travel there instantly the same way you got to rihad.

Magic and Gear

Now that you can freely go between stonekeep and town, you may notice that besides rats the enemies in stonekeep are pretty strong, so this section will explain how to get a foothold and farm xp/gold.


See the 2 rooms on the left and right when you start the level? They both have gold and gear piles in them. As well as rats. Simply grab all the gear and gold from these piles, and if you want leave the dungeon, or explore a bit more at your peril. Be aware that the farther in you go the more likely you will encounter wargs, orcs, minotaurs, and other hard hitting foes. So starting out I suggest just killing the rats, grabbing the gold piles, and heading back to town.

Now in town, do the same thing you did with the inn, but this time ask the location of the mages guild and equipment stores. The mages guild is easy to find its in the center of town in a large building. It also has an eye on the sign out front can't miss it.

The Eye

The gear shop, well there's several and one of the npcs should point you in the right direction. Once you find it, its a good idea to buy a full suit of armor if you can. Also sell anything you don't need to the armorer. You cannot sell items to the mages guild just so you know.

Depending on what class you picked, you can either get leather armor (mage and stealth types) or chainmail (warrior melee types) so buy whats appropriate. Feel free to check out the weapons if you want but you can usually find good weapons on your travels.

Be sure to buy armor, you don't want to go into a dungeon naked.

Once you have sold all items you don't need and geared up enough, go visit the mages guild. If you are a mage type you can buy some very nice spells or power potions, which will restore your magic points so you can do magic.

There's some really nice spells but I'm not going to go into all of them, however I would recommend looking into orc strength, shield, free action and open, levitate is also good. orc strength and shield are great buffs, free action will break paralyze which can save your skin a lot. Open will open locks and chests, and levitate will allow you to float above water. This is useful if you want to fight enemies on ledges where they can't reach you. Mages can simply blast them with fireballs safely so levitate can come in very handy in places.

Power potions are also a great buy and pretty cheap, but remember to buy 5-10 at a time if you have the gold they don't restore much mana. You can also identify magic items you find in dungeons such as rings, amulets, and bracelets (among other equipment). So sometimes its a good idea after leaving a dungeon with tons of loot to visit the mage guild first for identifying.

Well that's it, now you can freely move back and forth between rihad and stonekeep. The dungeon may require some grinding and leveling as the enemies defending the objective (ghouls) are not easy. So grind, take your time, enjoy the game, and goodluck.

[Unseen]

Close to 4k views and 100 favs. I had no idea this guide would help so many enjoy this classic. At first I thought arena would be to much of an undertaking but I really enjoyed it. Hope I helped more people enjoy it.

[Unseen]

You're welcome you can also check out my daggerfall starter guide but I really have to recommend the unity upgrade it makes daggerfall feel like a remaster.
They have an open source for this one that adds some nice modern features but its not done yet. I hope this one gets a good mod like daggerfall unity.

Without unity daggerfalls full of a lot of bugs arena was a bit better imo at playing vanilla.

[fudglover]

Thanks man, you've helped me fall in love with another elder scrolls game. (:

[Unseen]

It’s a great game for it’s time, with this guide hopefully you won’t need much help with the rest. But I must warn you about the crystal tower there is a locked door that can only be opened from an enemies key drop. I did not know this at first. The key is suppose to be on a troll according to the official guide but for me it was on a golem. So when you get to crystal tower be sure to check every dead monster even ones you wouldn’t normally check.

[Dr. Mrs. Pancakes]

Great guide, loving this game so far!