So, I started playing Arena today and while I haven't finished the first dungeon yet, I have died a few hilarious deaths.

Anyhow, I leveled a few times, and I could never put my finger on if you always get the same amount of attribute points when you level up. I mean, do you always get the same amount of points, or is it rolled? Is there a max level? I've played morrowind and oblivion, and their leveling systems annoy me, and it was a happy surprise that arena had a different one, I just hope it's not luck based.

Also, I play the downloaded version on dosbox, and I've tried setting the CPU..whatevers to 10000 and 15000, but it still feels a bit weird. I've watched a few videos, and the movement of the character seems to be about right, but my mouse pointer moves as if it skips a lot of frames, if you get what I mean. Frame skips is set to 0. My specs is 1.8Ghz, 512mb ram, ATI Radeon 9600. Also; when I press buttons, be it opening doors or clicking on menu stuff, it takes a few tries. Pressing hotkeys works well, though.

EDIT: Also, where do I set the view distance?

I recommend using DOSBox with a dynamic core and 22500 cycles. That's the configuration that ships with my front-end, and I have been told it works fine that way. However, your CPU speed concerns me, as I just tried Arena on a friend's P4/1.90GHz system with 512MB RDRAM, and it played horribly no matter what settings I used. Then again, I was using GL when I tested it, and it runs twice as fast on his system using DirectDraw. Maybe try that?

You cannot set the view distance in Arena beyond using the "detail" slider.

Alright, thanks a lot man. Walking and opening doors and all that works great now, I can't believe I actually played a bit with those old settings now that I've seen what it should be like.

However, I am a bit of a 'noob' when it comes to computers, so how do I switch to DirectDraw?

EDIT: Oh, and the only thing I found that works not-so-well is when I write text for saved games.. When I write long lines it takes a while for the text to appear, but what the hell, that doesn't matter.

Go to your DosBox folder in C:\program files, open the DosBox folder and look inside for a file called "dosbox CONF" open it with notepad, then scroll down to 'Ouput' change Output to this:

Output=ddraw - Then click on file at the top and scroll down to 'save' to save the changes.




I hope that's noob friendly enough for ya

Ah, yeah, I might be a noob, but I'm not stupid!

Thanks.

Anyhow, I leveled a few times, and I could never put my finger on if you always get the same amount of attribute points when you level up. I mean, do you always get the same amount of points, or is it rolled?

It's rolled, between 3 and 6. Also your HP rise is rolled.

Is there a max level?

Possibly, but you are unlikely to hit it.

I've played morrowind and oblivion, and their leveling systems annoy me, and it was a happy surprise that arena had a different one, I just hope it's not luck based.

MW and OB didn't have luck-based, but luck-based would annoy and they annoyed? ::shrug::

Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all calculated your level based on your skills. There was no experience involved. If you were a warrior, for example, and you increased your sword, blacksmithing, and heavy armor skills a few times, you'd gain a level. They did this based on the concept that makes most experienced-based RPGs kind of lame. If a thief foes out and kills a bunch of goblins, why is he a better thief? Thieves use lockpicking, pickpocketing, and stealth skills, not monster-slaying skills.

Arena is the oddball on the main storyline since it uses experience points to determine leveling instead of skills.

that is true

Arena is the oddball on the main storyline since it uses experience points to determine leveling instead of skills.

I'm aware of all these facts. I was merely pointing out how some folks are very hard to please.

I know, I was just explaining it for him because he didn't seem to understand the leveling system in the latter games.

Hard to please? You misunderstood me. I just said I didn't like the leveling system in Oblivion and Morrowind. Then I said that it was a happy surprise that it was different in arena, but I hoped it wasn't luck-based, i.e, rolled.

And I fully understood how to manipulate the leveling system in oblivion and morrowind so that I got the best character one could possibly have, but I found it very boring, since you have to control how much you run, how much you jump, how much you hit with your sword, how much you hit with your fireballs, how much you... Well, you get the picture. It was easy, but if anything it didn't make it more seamless, just more unnatural, to me.

This is probably because I want to feel stronger when I level up, and I want to be godly at max level. These games aren't supposed to be like that, I guess, you just get a little better at whatever you spend your time doing. I didn't like it. Gelsiah's for morrowind is great, though.