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When speaking to NPC's, the highlighted letter is a keyboard shortcut for the options. They all seem to work...except one. "E" for Exit during generic conversations. I have to mouse-click the button or press <esc>.

People in inns are rude. Except for the barkeep and the minstrels...and the occasional monk. Any other characters show up and let you talk to them in an inn?

Time in Arena is 1/12th of real time. Or at a ratio of 1 to 12? How do you say that properly? 1 minute in the real world is 12 min in-game. 1hour in the real world is 12 hours in-game. So a day in Arena lasts ~2hrs real time. (It's possible that computer speed and settings could alter this some, but it appears to be tied to the system clock.)

Checking the time in Arena, will actually "stop" time in Arena. ...So will any other option that pauses the game.

When fast traveling, you will arrive at your destination in the same portion of the hour, but a different hour of the day. (a number of days later, usually) If you leave at 8:30AM, you will arrive at 10:30PM, 6:30AM, etc. This also appears to be tied to the system clock. If you mark the time after a fast travel and then reload and travel again, the hour will move incrementally in a specific direction. More testing would be required to pinpoint it exactly but there are easier methods to change the time of day, such as resting. - The game notice mentions "under current weather conditions". Does the number of days actually change, or is this what the hour change is supposed to represent?

The two towns closest to each other are in High Rock. Old Gate and Thorkan Park are listed as 40km travel distance. This is actually important when asking the question; "Can I walk to the next town". To travel 40km would take apx. 10hrs in-game and apx. 1hr in real time. However the game will crash or start glitching with anomalous behavior, long before you get there. I became aware of mine after about 30min. So it's impossible to test.....or is it? Winterhold sits at the edge of the Sea of Ghosts. Why not just take a stroll down to the beach. Well, 60min real time walking N and no beach. The ocean is kinda hard to miss. If I can't make it to the beach at the edge of town, it is safe to say I could never reach the next town.

Related to the above: The map out in the wilderness is labeled with the town you are currently near, and it doesn't change. Seeming to indicate that this wilderness only pertains to this town.

Also related to the above. You can write notes on your map when in dungeons and cities, but not when you are in the wilderness. I wonder if this was actually a design choice to help foster this perception of size.

If you talk to an NPC and then quickly enter a shop, you can drag the NPC into the building with you. - Skyrim vibes anyone? - (Okay, ...so I've only seen it happen once.)

Blacksmiths....are HUGE!!!

The grey places on your map are elevated areas. If there are no enemies nearby when you get on top of one, you can rest/camp until you are fully healed. There is a sense that it feels immersion breaking, but I'm pretty sure it is part of the game design. It's mentioned as part of the in-game tutorial when you first get near one in the sewers. "This looks like a good place to rest." (something like that). I was in pretty bad shape and chose "rest until fully healed". 36 hours later I was good to go. (okay...that seems a bit excessive)

The palace location inside a city looks a bit like a hole in the wall on the map. If you are in the wilderness, it "is" a hole in the wall. you can enter the city through the hole, but it's a big empty space until you go back outside and enter it proper like.

I'm loving having you here!

I think weather does indeed affect the number of days it takes to travel-- but whether or not it does so (sorry for the pun!), it seems like a quest-giver will always greatly exaggerate the time needed to complete a quest, or perhaps their estimate is based on the worst possible weather conditions; I'm not sure. As long as you leave right away, go straight there, perform your task, and go straight back (if the quest requires returning to the quest-giver), you should easily be able to complete it well before the deadline. You can rest in the dungeon while you're trying to perform your task, but I would recommend not leaving the dungeon in the middle of your quest to travel to a town for whatever reason-- or if you must, try to keep it to a minimum-- because that will just gobble up chunks of your allotted time.

As for sleeping on any raised surface, that usually works great in most dungeons or buildings, but it isn't always a guarantee of safety-- especially in the Imperial Dungeons where you start the game and encounter the in-game messages that let you know about this.

I've found that sleeping in the many so-called "safe" niches in the walls of the Imperial Dungeons can still result in getting attacked by rats and such-- which can present a slight problem, because the rats might be "inside" the stone such that you can't see them, but they're still able to attack you, although you can fight back; it's just hard to know which direction you should be facing as you try to kill them.

What I've found is that the safest way to rest in the Imperial Dungeons is to go back to your cell and sleep on the raised platform or "bed" where you found the key. If you do that, you won't be attacked, ever-- at least, I've never been.

As for inadvertently dragging nearby NPCs into a store with you, that can also happen when you travel to a dungeon. They never stick around to help you, though-- the cowards!

And as for the hole in a city's surrounding wall where the palace gate should be, that can a great way to get an unobstructed view of the surrounding landscape or the night sky, because there are no buildings or trees inside the city, and if you move toward the center of the city then the walls will disappear when you get far enough away from them, giving you a clear view of the horizon-- assuming the weather is clear-- and any mountains and celestial objects.

Also, if a city has two or more city gates then you can leave through any of them and they will take you outside the city on that side of the wall-- that is, outside the north wall, east wall, south wall, or west wall. But if you turn around and go back into the city, you will always find yourself transported to just inside the "main gate" (as I think of it), or the gate you always arrive through when you travel to that city.

I like to pretend that these quirks-- the gap in the wall where the palace gate should be, the mysteriously empty or missing city if you go through that gap, and the multiple gates to enter the city which all magically deposit you at the same entry point-- are all magical protective measures put into place by Tiber Septim when he conquered and unified Tamriel, to help ensure the safety of the cities and their inhabitants, since any invaders who try to sack a city will either find an empty field inside its walls (if they go through the gap in the walls), or will be forced to enter through a specific gate so they can't enter from different directions and it will be easier for the guards to meet them headon and repel them.

There's also a graphics glitch where the city gates can be reversed-- the left side of the gate is on the right, and the right side is on the left. This can also happen with the palace that's seen through the palace gates. I'm not sure, but I think it might have something to do with which city wall (north, south, east, or west) the city gates or palace gates are in. I originally saw it happen when I went in through the gap in the wall and explored the empty city, so I thought it was just caused by being on the "wrong side" of the gates so to speak, since technically you're still outside the city and so are looking at the gate from the "opposite side" than where it was meant to be viewed from. But I've also noticed it with a few gates inside of some cities, so I'm thinking there are specific graphics for the left and right sides of certain gates, and if you're on the "wrong" side then the blocks are drawn with what the game considers to be the correct graphic for that block, but you're seeing them from the other side if you follow what I mean.

You can also see this with certain walls inside of dungeons, such as where there will be a large engraved picture of a dragon that takes up four blocks. It looks correct when viewed from one side, but one of the panels is usually a secret door and if you go through and look at the engraved picture from the other side then the image looks jumbled.

Finally, there are two things I've noticed with regard to exploring the outer world outside of cities.

It seems that the area around each city is fixed, rather than random, at least up to a certain distance from the city, because it seems like you can travel to a given city, go outside, and always find the same inns, temples, farmhouses, barns, cemeteries, mausoleums, towers, forts, dungeons, lakes, roads, and so on, even if you delete and reinstall the game, or just delete all of your saved game files and start a brand new character with no existing saved game files.

Also, you can explore in a certain direction, going quite some distance away from the city, and then turn around and go back to the city, finding it just where it was before, and just as far as you'd gone away from it, passing by the same terrain and features you'd passed by on your way from the city. But it can be very difficult to walk in a straight line in a given direction, due to trees you have to dodge, buildings you have to go around, and so on, so it can be easy to lose your way and miss the city if you aren't careful.

But it seems like once you go a certain distance away from a city, things either start to get random, or maybe the map is designed so it wraps around in some weird fashion, because you can just keep going on forever as though each city has its own "infinitely large" outside world to explore. And when you stray too far from a city, the little settlements that you can encounter will start to exhibit weird graphical glitches.

Pressing F2 lets you see the coordinates of your current location within a city or dungeon. But if you press F2 while walking around outside a city you'll notice that the coordinates wrap around between (if I remember correctly) 32 and 95, such that the X and Y positions will go 93, 94, 95, 32, 33, 34, or something like that. I'm hoping or planning to map the outside areas around each city, and I assume that these wraparound coordinates reflect the boundaries between different building blocks of the outside world, because you can see how different formations-- roads, intersections, settlements, and so on-- will be used again and again, similar to how each random city-quest dungeon is formed by two side-by-side squares (left/west half and right/east half), how each outer-world dungeon is formed by four such squares (NW quadrant, NE quadrant, SE quadrant, and SW quadrant), and how each city is formed by different city blocks that are reused over and over again.

And one last comment: Once in a while you'll come to a city where the palace gates are completely blocked by one or more buildings, making it impossible to go visit the local ruler and see if they have anything they'd like you to do! There are three types of cities, each with its own icon on the map-- the large city-states (8 per province), the medium-sized towns (also 8 per province), and the small villages (16 per province). Each is made up of a certain number of city blocks, arranged in a large square grid, but the exact number of city blocks can vary-- that is, one city-state might be a bit larger than another-- and there is usually a bit of extra space between the outermost rows and columns of city blocks and the city's surrounding walls. This extra bit of "buffer zone" space varies in width from city to city, and in some cases can be missing, or in other cases it might not be wide enough to allow clearance between the side walls or abutments(?) of the palace gates and the building(s) in the city block that's adjacent to the palace gates.

Trippy!!!

I did notice the magical transport to the city main gate. (I like your immersionation: The ability to pull out lore explanations for things.)

Great advice on using the invisible cities for celestial observation. Thank you for that. I was going to call it the "disapparated" city, but some might take offense to an HP reference - so I came up with my own. The "perdu enciente". Don't google translate that. It will either assume it's Spanish and give you "remain on", or give you the first entry for French and give you "lost pregnant". Though that's pretty close, image wise, if you're thinking of a pregnant belly protecting a baby inside. They "are" words from French, with "perdu" meaning "lost" or "hidden" and "enciente" referring to the fortification around a castle or city or a reference to the enclosed area.

In my hour walk to the north, two unique things happened. Everything, seemed random, but similar. Then it seemed out of the blue I was near some area that I hadn't seen before. These robed figures that were neither monks nor wizards. "This is new." I haven't played through much of the game, so they were "new to me".
After about 30 minutes the terrain started repeating. (I was also testing the clock so I had the detail turned all the way up to see if the game speed would affect the time.) It wasn't just similar - it was EXACTLY the same. Cemetery, statue, hut - Cemetery, statue, hut - Cemetery, etc. Looking at my map paused my clock, so I tried to never open it. I wanted to keep heading north, but I wanted to investigate, so I started heading NNE. Pretty soon....Cemetery, statue... When I finally hit my 1hour mark, I opened my map to find the exact same sections, up, down, left, right - as far as I could see. I decided to see what was in the hut and found that it was a special dungeon. One where you have to map it out. My save from outside the dungeon locks the game when I try to load it and my save in the dungeon is fine, but locks up if I try to exit the dungeon. I want to explore the dungeon, but my hour walk gave me my first taste of what it means to be "fatigued". Health potions fix my health but not my fatigue. I can't find any raised platforms to rest and if I jump in any water...I drown. I was actually happy with the climactic ending which made up for my numb fingers that had to keep the "UP" key pressed.

Two new additions to my list:
The UESP 1.06 original version download from Bethesda is not the same as the download Bethesda currently hands out, but the game is the same. It's just the installer, and you actually have to create a Bethesda account during installation (already had one). So I ran some file comparisons. Anthology, The Bethesda download, the UESP download, and updating 1.03 using the 1.06 patch are all identical 1.06 games. ---Okay...yes....everybody already knows that....but now "I" know that and don't have to consider if I should test if some glitch is different with a different 1.06.

And finally
Um.....did I....(sighs)..(ponders)....did I just ride my horse to Summurset Isle?

Interesting occurrence with the repeating terrain and buggy dungeon. I suspected that some sort of repetition might occur once you got far enough away from a city, or some sort of randomization, something that allows the outside area to just "keep on going... and going... and going" like a certain pink bunny.

As far as your Fatigue, I prefer to call it Stamina as the later games do, but Arena calls it Fatigue-- except when it sort of doesn't. Stamina makes more sense to me, because if it's Fatigue then I think it should start out at 0 when you're well-rested, and increase as you become more fatigued. But it starts out at maximum and drops as you lose stamina and become more fatigued, so I think it ought to be called Stamina.

You can lose Fatigue points very quickly in the Imperial Dungeons by swimming too much, which will eventually cause you to drown if you're in the water, or drop from complete exhaustion and die if you're on dry land. Since your Fatigue points are determined by adding your Strength and Endurance, your ability to maintain your Stamina-- sorry; your Fatigue points-- will either improve or remain low as you level up based on whether you put any points into your Strength and Endurance. My preferred level-up strategy in any TES game is to try to max out Endurance first, followed by Strength, or sometimes both at the same time. But when I watch people play Arena on Twitch, I see a lot of players ignore Endurance, and to a lesser extent ignore Strength, so they can put points into their other attributes as they level up.

You can buy Potion of Stamina from the Mages Guild to restore your-- ahem-- "Fatigue," and for spell-casting classes there is a Stamina spell that does the same thing. You can also find or buy gear-- armor, shields, weapons, and spell-casting items (marks, crystals, bracers, and rings)-- that are enchanted with the Stamina spell effect, to let non-spell-casters cast the Stamina spell. But I never buy or keep those, because you can restore your Fatigue points by resting, so I prefer to just rest often to keep my Health and Fatigue points up at safe levels.

By the way, the following is slightly off-topic from your post, but on-topic for the thread title. As I was searching the UESPWiki for information related to "fatigue" and "stamina," I saw the following note:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Glitches ... lee_Combat



I know another workaround for this glitch, which I got from an old archived version of the bethsoft.com website, so I would call it "the official workaround." Unfortunately, when I was searching through the old archived pages a few weeks ago I was unable to find this information anywhere-- IIRC it was on a FAQ page related to Arena-- so I can't provide a link to it.

In any case, the official workaround is to UNEQUIP YOUR GAUNTLETS. If you try to swing a punch at an enemy while wearing gauntlets, it will (always? almost always?) crash the game. But if you take off your gauntlets, you can apparently punch at enemies as much as you want without crashing the game. I've tried it, and it works.

This might not be that important for Knights, since they auto-repair their gear while they sleep (a neat trick, that). But it's important knowledge for classes that can't auto-repair their gear. The preferred workaround might still be to carry plenty of extra weapons-- since most weapons do more damage than your fists-- in case the one you're using breaks, but the game will still crash if your weapon breaks suddenly during melee combat and you swing a punch before you can switch to a different weapon.

So non-Knight classes might want to avoid wearing gauntlets altogether, or else wear gauntlets but always keep a close eye on the state of their equipped weapon.

Absolutely - Keep em coming. I like your other post which feels more like a shared journal. I find it quite an encouragement to others to share what they have been doing...and also...to play the game. I added this one to add all the little factoids that may never find a page to appear, but I find them humorous and entertaining - and very often helpful to have a bigger picture.

Thanks about the stamina fatigue Stamina Potion. I need to consider that, if I plan on taking any more hiking trips.

I've also been interrupted when resting on a platform, but it was extremely rare. I've even had success in the sewers. I need to test if that is a 1.07 difference, or my special formula of walking to the corner and turning around and then backing into it and arranging myself so I have the widest view (probably not). It was the one time I was still close to the edge that I got interrupted. In the sewers, my problem was them spawning in before I could rest...and yes; that seems to be the worst dungeon for monsters clipping through the platforms. It could just be an experience difference. I wonder if LUC has anything to do with it.
(Breaks into song..."What's LUC.. got to do...got to do with it?" ..."Who ..needs ..a ..ledge...when ..a ..potion ..is taken?")

I wanted to start one called "Lore and Order - dunn-dunn". To list all the thing we have in TES lore, because it was first in Arena. I thought of the perfect name as I was going to sleep last night, but this was all I could come up with after I woke up. I created a post in a "not-to-be-named" forum about Arena and a moderator deleted it. To be fair it was more of a statement than a discussion point, which is the primary function of this particular forum. But it was his additional comments that got me thinking. "Talking about Arena is referencing a very old game and before most of the lore was established"; basically saying it isn't relevant. That's kind of like saying the Sun isn't relevant. It's there everyday, everyone knows that. It doesn't really impact my daily decisions. True, but if it never existed.....umm?.. Arena is the skeletal system for TES. Sure most people believe we could do without the coccyx and a few people have an extra rib or finger, not to mention all the other bone disorders, and malformations...but it's kind of important.

I usually prefer to sleep in a similar way-- go to the corner of the room (elevated or not) and turn around so I'm facing diagonally to get the widest view. I vacillate with respect to choosing a corner with a brazier in it, because if my rest is interrupted by an attacker I'd like to be able to see them well, but depending on the size and shape of the room and which corner the brazier is in I might get a larger view of the lit area by picking one of the other corners instead.

But with regard to the Imperial Dungeons, I've spent a lot of time there, and while it can be safe to sleep in the various elevated niches throughout the dungeon, it's basically a roll of the dice, and in my experience the only indisputably safe place to sleep is back in your cell on the elevated "bed" where you found the key.

As far as lore is concerned, my personal philosophy is that it's often difficult if not impossible to fully reconcile the differences that have cropped up in the lore from game to game, therefore it's probably best to view the lore on two different levels-- overall or across all of the games in the series, and individually where each game exists within its own separate "lore-verse."

There are fans who are so wrapped up in the lore that they can get really upset if one of the TES games (they're looking at you, ESO!) adds content that they consider to be "lore-breaking," but I personally think that's the wrong attitude. It's certainly their right to feel that way if they wish, but the reason I think it's the wrong attitude is because they're choosing to accept the version of the lore from a particular game, or group of games-- usually the "holy trinity" if you will of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim-- as being the only version of the lore that matters (or that matters the most, anyway), even if parts of that body of lore don't fully fit within or completely conform to the version of the lore from earlier games.

In my opinion, the only way to view the lore without driving yourself bonkers quibbling over conflicting details is to accept that each game has its own lore, and that as each new game got added to the series the developers were more or less free to pick and choose the specific bits of lore they wanted to retain from the earlier games, or which they wanted to drop, or which they wanted to keep but modify as desired. Taking that view, it's perfectly okay that Arena specifically says each era lasts for 1000 years, whereas later games changed that as they saw fit; and that Arena's NPCs mention gods and goddesses who got dropped from the pantheon of later games; and that some cities changed their names a bit, or got moved to different spots within their provinces; and so on.

I finally remembered. "Lore and Behold". I think "Lore and Order" is a littler more humorous, especially if you add the "dunn-dunn". (Even if it is just groan humor). But "Lore and Behold" was also relevant. Behold....take another look at Arena. It has more than you think.

We probably wouldn't agree on everything....that would be kind of weird....but your view of lore seems to fit in my ballpark.

I like how the many of the early things that were clearly abandoned or changed, but now we have lore books that make it normal. The Khajiit in Arena and Daggerfall, clearly have human faces. The Khajiit in Daggerfall have visible tails where they do not in Arena. ....That's okay - says the lore books. We have all kinds of Khajiit versions. The Khajiit in Arena were of the Ohmes variety, and the ones in Daggerfall were the slightly larger and more cat-like Ohmes-raht. There's even a statue in ESO depicting one.

I think I like "Lore and Order" better than "Lore and Behold," but the "dunn-dunn" isn't needed.

I was going to post more to clarify my view of lore, because some of what I'd said sounded like it could be taken the wrong way, but I'll have to organize my thoughts first.

Are you "trying" to pick a fight? You never talk about politics or religion......or lore. Them's fight'n words.

Just like the games technical world mechanics brought me into Skyrim, the lore books drew me into the fantasy world mechanics.

I have the right to remain silent (but not the ability), anything I say can and will be used against me. I've always liked that second part. "can and WILL be used against me?"...."I like puppies".....AHA!!!

I believe lore has many facets. When person A is speaking from one angle and person B is speaking from a different one....friction is bound to occur. Even when the truth is, they both agree with each other, but they are overly concerned that the other person is going to go too far to the left or the right. "I think it's hot today." "Well, I think the suns hot." "Well, I think she's hot."

I think many people don't understand the science of history. Or rather, completely set it aside when they want to prove a point. My last lore discussion was about my post that mostly talked about how you can't beat someone over the head with what you "know", because it is subject to change. However, I left one sentence in that said; I do believe, however, there are some things we "can" know, but even those are subject to change. He started arguing about how we can't "know" anything. I started pointing out things he would correct me about if I spouted things like Tiber Septim was actually a Khajiit. He eventually decided to go all in and bring it to the real world and prove his point by stating that we can't "know"anything about history...and basically we can't be "certain" of "anything".

I promptly ended the conversation with a prayer of Stendarr and followed with "Go in peace, my brother." Why? Because I had won. - If you can't be certain of "anything", how is it that you are "certain" that I'm wrong? It sounds good in an argument, but it has no practical value. Everything you do during the day proves you don't actually believe what you are saying. - We often apply Imperical science erroneously to historical science and erroneously apply philosophy to both and vice versa. From which perspective are we speaking and does that perspective actually apply to the topic we are discussing? Am I speaking about the IRL copyright laws? Am I speaking from the perspective of someone within the fantasy world? Am I speaking from the stand point of a person who is experiencing it as a story? Am I speaking from the perspective of someone who has the right to have my own imagination? If a hundred people agree that some piece of lore is true, it doesn't mean it is. I probably does...but not absolutely. Every statement about lore comes with an unwritten exception clause whether we believe it our not.

All that is to say this: If you pressure me (not you-you, but a person who wishes to argue to the bitter end) I can easily and correctly fall on the philosophical side that you can't be certain of anything.



"I do believe in fairies...I do....I do." Not the creepy kind of believe or the Monster's and Mazes kind. But the kind that made D&D famous and also infamous. The kind that wrote The Lord of the Rings and Foundation. The kind that created The NeverEnding Story and The Princess Bride. The kind that created UESP and the kind the created TIL. If I can find a Bosmer that tells me that they made the Green Pact with Hircine (which I did, by the way) - Then there's even room in the world for the C0diacs and Morrowind mushroom tokers and even....even people like me who keep throwing real-world science and philosophy in the mix...simply because it's fun.

--I believe Tamriel has "an" existence and you can visit and know things about it.--

My personal stance about the lore is that Bethesda and ZOS, being the creators of TES games, are essentially at liberty to do whatever they want in a TES game-- within reason.

To use written fiction an analogy, one of my favorite authors is L. E. Modesitt, Jr., who has written a number of different series as well as standalone works. His largest series is the Saga of Recluce, and it uses a very particular system of magic and spans a number of different continents and islands. If I were to buy a new novel that's billed as being "the newest book in the saga of Recluce," only to discover that it takes place on the world of the Corean Chronicles, yet uses the system of magic from the Imager Portfolio-- two of his other fantasy series-- I might still enjoy the book as some kind of "crossover" work bridging those two series, but I'd be very disinclined to accept it as belonging within the Saga of Recluce as advertised.

Fans of any series-- be it a book series, movie series, television series, or comic series-- expect there to be a certain degree of continuity and consistency among the various individual stories of a particular series, otherwise they're likely to become unhappy with the person or persons creating the series. Many fans are willing to accept changes in a series if they didn't particularly like some facet of it that got dropped, and are more interested in the new or changed facets, but they generally expect the series to stay "true to itself," or conform to the rules that it's developed for itself and stay within the boundaries that it's established.

Comic series are probably the worst offenders in this regard, followed by movie series, for the simple reason that the different works in the series tend to be written and produced by a series of different creators who have different creative visions, rather than by the same creative team who stick to the same creative vision. When a series is taken over by or handed to a new person or team, the works can be quite different than the previous works in the series, often leading to the series being divided into distinct subseries according to the dominant storyline and principal members of the creative team. The series might get a reboot, or it might simply choose to ignore certain facets of previous stories-- but the fans still expect some continuity and consistency. For example, if Spider-Man were to suddenly start dressing and acting like Superman, the fans would be in an uproar about it-- and so would the attorneys from DC Comics.

Getting back to the lore of TES games, Arena established the land of Tamriel, its nine provinces, the cities within those provinces, and the eight races of people inhabiting eight of those nine provinces. It also laid some of the foundations for the history of Tamriel.

Then came Michael Kirkbride, Todd Howard, and others who formed the creative team for Daggerfall, Redguard, Morrowind, and Oblivion. (I've excluded Skyrim because apparently Michael Kirkbride wasn't involved with that game.) Although these games stayed within the basic framework of the land, provinces, races, and core history that were established by Arena, they also dropped some elements, changed some elements, and added some elements of their own. For example, Marduk the Good was discarded, but Sithis was kept and expanded upon. Some spellings changed a bit; some cities disappeared or relocated or changed their names; some races changed their appearances; etc. But because Tamriel was still recognizable as Tamriel, and its principal races were still recognizable, the fans of Arena didn't go out and buy Daggerfall only to proclaim that "Hold on-- this isn't The Elder Scrolls; it's something else!"

And since the "new and improved lore" continued to be expanded upon in a self-consistent manner over the next several games, and since they make up about half of the body of works in The Elder Scrolls series, their version of the lore has become accepted as "the" lore. Any bits of lore from Arena which differ significantly from "the" lore are now viewed as falling "outside" of the lore to a certain extent.

I prefer to take the stance that all facets of the series which have remained consistent throughout all TES games form the overall lore, or the core lore. Certain inconsistencies between the games might be explained by saying that different spellings fell into disuse and were replaced by other spellings, or certain cities of a province were destroyed or abandoned but were later rebuilt in another location, or things like that. Thus, the core lore might encompass some of the inconsistencies without fans needing to take the view that game X broke the lore of games Y and Z.

And on another level I think it's okay to say that each game has its own variation of the lore, which falls within the parameters defined by the core lore, but which is-- to a certain extent-- free to vary somewhat from the nitty-gritty details of the other games in the series.

In a way, it's unavoidable that the lore needs to allow for some variations and inconsistencies, since the events that occur within each game are centered around the player's character-- and each player can have a character who is vastly different from other players' characters, not to mention each player being able to create a myriad of different characters. The sequence of events, the significant choices made, the in-game dates on which the main quest and all of the various side quests are completed, can differ significantly from player to player and character to character. And if we the players are shaping the very history of Tamriel with our actions and decisions then how can there be a single body of lore that encompasses all of the inevitable differences unless we allow that the lore itself is malleable and subject to change?

Anyway, it's true that the core lore of the series is an integral part of the series' success with its fans, just as any book series, movie series, or other type of series attracts fans because of their love of those things, those broad strokes and detailed facets, which give that particular series its own special identity among all the other series which are out there.

But I think we also need to realize that the lore is a living body of work that grows and evolves from game to game, and that it's inevitable and perfectly acceptable for inconsistencies to occur.

This is the only statement that I get a little nervous about. I actually agree with you on all these points, and including this one, but I tend to clarify that I leave room for the logical extreme, regardless of how unlikely, as long as it is still true. From this perspective I explain that "within reason" is subjective. And the logical extreme is that Bethesda are at liberty to do whatever they want - even if it's NOT within reason. I believe they shouldn't. I believe that I should voice my concerns on their forums and other methods to make my preferences known to them (in polite fashion). But I believe that ultimately anything they do is FULLY within their right and liberty.

Case example: VOLTRON

When the cartoon series Voltron appeared in 1983 it was about these human piloted robot lions that could then join together to be a large single humanoid robot fighting machine. With season two it was about these human piloted vehicles that could then join together to be a large single humanoid robot fighting machine. Another season and they're spaceships. Now that it's an established pattern it makes sense, but not in 1984. The first two seasons; and the only thing in common is robots that can join together into another robot. The story ideas were based on two separate Japanese series, but after heavy editing for American TV they were practically unrelated to their original counterparts. Other than the name Voltron you could have slapped that on Transformers or Gobots and said it's the same thing. "NO IT'S NOT"...but they can still do it.

The real point is.....is it good enough. If it's good enough, it just fell into the realm of "within reason". I was done. "Nope, this isn't the same; and it's not very good; and I don't like it. Fortunately for Voltron, many accepted it and they gained new fans to replace old ones because the stories interested different sets of individuals.



Just adding that I like those and very much agree.

The main problem I have with taking the lore "too seriously" (which, of course, is a subjective judgment) is that if you want to get upset with (for example) ESO for taking liberties and bending or breaking the lore, then I think it's only fair to get just as upset with all of the games that came after Arena for taking liberties.

But people don't, and I get why not-- because

(1) the games which came after Arena maintained enough consistency in their lore that their version of the lore came to supplant Arena's version of the lore by sheer weight of repetition;

(2) much of what got dropped from Arena's version of the lore was derivative or too-familiar in nature, such as "Marduk the Good" who comes from the Babylonian pantheon, or the crosses beside some city gates which resemble Christian crucifixes; and

(3) the new bits of lore are of a more unique nature and help to give the series its own identity. Besides,

(4) Arena's version of the lore wasn't very fleshed-out, but the version of the lore from Daggerfall through Skyrim was much more detailed.

Is it just me, or do the zombies look like Hitler zombie clones. He even throws his right arm in the air every once in a while.

Blacksmiths keep good beat. I noticed today that the animation of him hitting the anvil seems to be in sync with the metal clang in the music. He does two hits for every one in the music though. When you first enter he may actually be hitting on the off beat, but after a bit there's an animation glitch and now he's on beat again. It keeps switching between on beat and off beat.

If you're one that numbers their saves; I finally learned to put the number on the left of the save name. When you click save the curser always starts on the left any way. Might as well save a few arrow keys.

I spoke to a mage who knew my starting town. At first I just assumed it was a default for all characters, but one time I started two Wood Elf Archers to test something and they had different starting cities. I just thought it was interesting that it seems they went to the trouble of making my starting city, something that would come up later in conversation.

I found if I locked the door to a room before taking a nap, I didn't get interrupted. Needs more testing though. And then you have to break the door down to get out.

"Yes Ria, I know I let you down, and now you have to watch all Tamriel rot because I went and got myself killed." Nothing like pouring salt on a wound.

I've developed a system that involves a lot of keystrokes, but I don't care because I like the way it works for me!

What I do is put the name of the city or dungeon I'm in, followed by the name of the province, followed by as many spaces as needed, and ending with the current date and time in YYMMDDhhmm order, with the city and province left-justified, and the date and time right-justified. The time is in 24-hour format (00 through 23), but I didn't bother to adjust it for DST; I just put whatever the clock said at the time, whether it was EST or EDT.

The very first save slot ("slot 0") is my character right after waking up in the Imperial Dungeons, and uses a different format-- the name, gender, race, and class of my character, entered with no additional spaces for padding, so it's centered.

Yes, I know it's a bit extreme (read: "crazy"); but it's been working great for me, despite the fact that each time I update my save in the same location I must cursor all the way to the right just to update the date and time.



I don't remember if I ever had my character's starting city come up in conversation, although his race comes up a lot.



That makes sense, but I never keep or buy any items that can cast the "Wizard Lock" spell, and I'm such an awesome tough guy-- I mean, my character is-- that I don't mind too much if my slumber gets interrupted. So far I've only briefly played a spell-casting character-- "briefly" as in "not long enough to visit a Mages Guild and see how the spellmaker works"-- but I've watched streamers playing spellcasters on Twitch and it looks like fun, so the next time I play a spellcaster I'll definitely learn the "Wizard Lock" spell.

Considering how many times I get confused about my saves, even though they mostly have numbers,....not crazy at all.

Absolutely. I'm almost ashamed I picked a Nord. It seems like I get more put downs than compliments. I'll have to see if I can capture what the mage says. I know he referenced Nimalton and said; "Yes, Nord, I know who you are." It seems like the characters close to their business/temple/mages guild, sometimes have unique dialogue.

I haven't either. The manual says they can be the most powerful characters, but that's a whole other level I'm not sure I'm ready for. I keep finding various "marks" and found a wizard lock, so I wanted to test it out. They don't weigh anything so I keep them around. It seems like I read that there is a "number" limit also. You can only carry so many items, but I can't remember right now.

Yes, there's a weight limit as well as a number limit. According to page 17 of the manual, you can carry a maximum of 40 items.

Yep, that's the one I was trying to remember. I kept thinking I wasn't able to carry the weight, but mostly it was because I was carrying too many. I finally counted them and sure enough; Forty. Although actually it was forty-one. When the King gave me a mission to take something someplace, there was a "writ" in my inventory as item number "41". I don't know if I had a glitch or if there is a reserve for special items. Considering there are seven listings visible, "42" would give you 6 full pages. (two reserve slots?) I'm actually kind of surprised that I actually had an inventory item for the quest.

...........

So it's obvious now, but it took awhile to notice that the world map has a clickable "exit" on the bottom right. I always just use <esc>.

Castle guards don't like to talk much.

Right-- as I mentioned in the other thread, special items like keys, the pieces of the Staff of Chaos, people you're escorting or have captured, and items like writs and banners and other things you're recovering or delivering are separate from your official no-more-than-40 inventory. I'm not certain if artifacts count as one of the 40, or as one of the special non-counted items. I have the Ring of Khajiit, so I'll check.

[Launches game and counts.]

Okay, artifacts do count as one of your 40 items, so if you've already got 40 "non-quest" items then you won't be able to pick up an artifact. And you can have only one artifact at a time.

I understand the reasoning behind not being able to carry more than one artifact. What confuses me a little is that you don't even receive quests to go looking for another one if you already have one. If I was playing for the first time and didn't have the internet or a BBS, how would I know there were others? "Hmm, nice artifact......nah, I don't want it. [chucks it in the bin] ...Oh....another one!" I wonder if the idea was intended for discovery as well as making another play through a unique experience. I greatly appreciate being able to look things up about a game, but I have to be careful I don't degrade my game experience. "Discovery", is one of the highest boosters of enjoyment when playing a game.

Keyboard shortcut keys during character creation.

I accidentally discovered this. Though this isn't all that helpful, considering that you still have to put your mouse in the same area in order to add the bonus points. I couldn't find a key that would affect the arrows.

Str <S>
Int <I>
Wil <W>
Agi <A>
Spd <D> "....oh...tricky"
End <E>
Per <P>
Luc <L>
Done <esc>
And the usual - on the Save or Re-roll screen you have the relevant <S> and <R>.

One helpful thing was for testing various "dice" rolls. I could just hit <esc><esc>.

This probably goes under "Useless Facts," which doesn't mean it's completely useless or uninteresting...

As mentioned in another post, you can get an unobstructed view of the horizon by going outside a city, circling around until you find the gap in the wall where the palace would be, going in through the gap, and going toward the center of the city so the walls disappear.

It's possible to see Red Mountain from any city in Morrowind, and its location on the horizon-- that is, its azimuth-- correctly varies depending on where the city is in relation to Red Mountain or vice versa.

I've been thinking about taking screenshots of the horizon as viewed from each city of a province and seeing if it's possible to identify the locations of mountain ranges based on where the mountains are depicted as viewed from different cities.

Perhaps most of the mountains are just randomly placed, and only Red Mountain is depicted at a specific azimuth according to where the city is in relation to it?

That "is" interesting. I would say that fits in the "overlooked" category - meaning interesting details or options that are there for our benefit and enjoyment, even if we never realize they are there. Having played some of the text based adventures and games like Kings Quest back in the day, I think it can be easy for us to look back from today and be a little critical of the game while overlooking the attention to detail and how much was squeezed out of very limited resources.

Lost in the Wilderness? Fast travel back using the world map. Instant teleport - does not add to your time.

When Ria S. is talking to you...don't click any keyboard buttons (often ends the dialogue)....use the mouse and click.

Standing Long Jump. Okay that's kinda cool. <Shift><J> However, if your curser is down in the menu section you won't jump. Move it up until you see the "X".

There's this note in the Codex Scientia that mentions if you cast a "freeze" spell when a Ghost (wraith...and others) is about to die, then you can loot the body, otherwise they evaporate/disintegrate and nothing is left. In the my post in another thread where I mention a guy punching Jagar Tharn, he mentioned he could see his life bar knocked down to "0" Do creatures have a "life bar"? Where is it or how do I get one?

Playing with the Demo, I noticed there would be some "Call of Duty" type blood splatter on the screen. (Perhaps Doom is a better reference.) Why don't I have blood splatter in "my" game. Well it's in the documents, but I don't think it is very noticeable or explained very well. {F3: Damage Response} in the Adendum or the ReadMe file. "Normal Roll", "Severe Roll" (apparently these are camera shakes) and then "Cross Hatch". Cross Hatch is apparently "blood splatter"....I mean "damage indicator"

Then there's F4 to keep the messages from pixeling in and out and F8 to toggle the compass on and off. I figure if I'm going to keep asking "Who are you?", even though it's pretty much the same message after awhile, then i can be patient enough to watch it pixel in. (However, when I'm testing, I wish I could turn it off during the intro's, but that's where it "doesn't" work.) ...Compass?....I've never been so hard-core, that I wanted to get rid of my compass. (Maybe for screen shots?)

There's this section in the manual that I really like. ---(Oh, ...I was just minding my own business, trying to play the game when i realized i never fully read the manual. I wanted to make an honest go of it. It's not my fault the Manual didn't match the game for starting Health and sent me down a 3 or 4 day technical trek down the wonderful world of "dice rolling")---- So...this section in the manual:

In The Elder Scrolls there is no absolute right or wrong. We have always held that the idea of “good vs. evil” is a bit cliché, however effective it may be for running a story. Things in the real world are rarely black and white. We did include an overall quest for those of you who wish to participate in the never ending battle of Light vs. Darkness. Failing this, however, only means that particular character or adventurer has met an unfortunate end, not that the game is over for the dozens of other characters you might otherwise have chosen to play. If you wish to become a thief who robs innocent nobles, fine. If you wish to play a warrior who makes it his mission in life to kill these thieves, that’s fine too. All we did is give the computer all the parameters of the Land, from NPCs and their motivations, to monsters and their treasures, to nobles and their quests. The rest is up to you.

I read this as..."Yeah, we created a 'main' mission, but that's really not the point." I think TES games have done pretty well with that. If you want to do your own thing....it can sometimes be possible to forget there "is" a main mission.