I was introduced to the Elder Scrolls back in 2006 with Oblivion, and I realized that I had gotten Morrowind a few years earlier but never played it. So now I have completed Oblivion and am in the middle of Morrowind, but decided one day, now that Arena and Daggerfall are free, I would start from the beginning. I have or will have several questions for the first 2 chapters, since they are quite different from the 3rd and 4th games.

Question 1- what does it mean when it says "Save VS magic"? I dont remember seeing this phrase in Oblivion or so far in Morrowind.

This is the only question I have right now, but I was planning on keeping this thread for any future questions I might have
Thank you

Save VS magic is a term that comes over from DnD.

In the earlier games, willpower plays a larger impact on resisting spell effects, when you resist on a willpower chance they call it a save VS magic.

Ahh, kinda like "Save yourself Vs a magic attack"? I think I get it.

Another question: are there trap doors in dungeons in Arena? If so I cant open them. For that matter, I cant pick up items on the ground or manipulate anything on the ground because it is too low to be able to "reach." How do i do these types of things? There was also a key I wanted to pick up one time, but couldn't do it.
Thanks.

No, the trapdoors are just decoration.

If the object is an object (aka not parto f the ground texture) take a step back a bit till it is high enough in the screen to get the cursor over....it is a bit tricky at times.

Question 1- what does it mean when it says "Save VS magic"? I dont remember seeing this phrase in Oblivion or so far in Morrowind.

In Arena, there are five sources of offensive spells: fire, cold, electric, poison, and magic. If you are hit with a fire-sourced spell, you save vs. Fire. If you are hit with a magic-sourced spell, you save vs. Magic. Force Bolt is an example of a spell that will make you save vs. Magic.

That said, it's really not something you have to worry about. You don't have much control over it. As the previous poster said, get your Willpower up and you'll be taking care of it as much as you possibly can.

Ok, next, I am on an artifact quest and Im sure this is a bug, but a persistant one- when I try to go up the stairs to the next level in the dungeon, it goes straight to the travel map instead of the second level of the dungeon. This doesnt make sence to me. Anyone else have this problem, or is this really a bizzare part of the quest that I totally don't understand?

There are two doors on each floor of the map, a blue and green ones (if you look on the dungeon map) do both take you to the travel map?

Yup, wrong stairs. That's the way you came in by.

Um...yeah, I feel stupid. Im not very far in the game and still getting used to the map. That is the way I came in. Thank you.

Ok, heres one for ya- I am migrating my Arena install to a different folder. I first used the preconfigured Arena/Dosbox install, but now decided I wanted to install dosbox separately and then arena, because there are multiple Dos games I want to install so I thought it would be better to have one install of dosbox. After much tinkering I got arena to run, and with sound. Now my question is: if I move the names.dat file and then all the save files, citydata.000, state.000, etc and then the same for my other save slot citydata.001, state.001, etc, why wouldnt it work? When I start the game, it doesnt recognize those saves. Even after I moved the names.dat file, which I would think still contains the save slot data. Is there anything else I can/should do? Thank you.

If it makes a difference, I named my saves with numbers. For example post1stdung64 and post1stdung65 which actually got named to citydata.64, state.64, etc and citydata.65, state.65 , etc. But I still would think the names.dat file should recognize the saves, its the same data, just a different folder.

Ok, just remembered that there were save files in this location:
C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Arena
There are files with .00, .01, etc and with .64, .65 extensions.
First, why did these save files get saved here, and second why do some have the .00, 01, etc and some have .64, etc
both times I installed Arena, they both used Dosbox, though, the first time it got installed to the c:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Arena folder
and the second time it got installed to the c:\Program Files\Dosbox.... folder.
Strange. But thanks for any help.

Sorry, dont mean to be annoying but now have a problem with installing Daggerfall. I got the game installed, but trying to update/patch it is a pain. It get to a point where it says
"This program will fix a problem with duplicate town names in the world." "Do you wish to proceed" [I type Y] and then it says "In order to run this program the file maps.bsa must be installed..." And then it asks for my Daggerfall CD. I mounted d to dfcd\dagger\arena2 , which is where maps.bsa is. I verified it by "dir"ing the current directory after mounting it, and it is infact there. For some reason it looks to me that it can't read it. I'm thinking it has something to do with that damned Vista and its security BullS***. I'm sorry, but I have hated Vista since I got it soon after it came out. Anyway could this be the problem? I hope I installed it correctly, Im pretty sure it is installed ok. Any suggestions? Again, thank you. And by the way, I do try to look up things before I post, but usually can't find anything.

First, why did these save files get saved here, and second why do some have the .00, 01, etc and some have .64, etc

I have no idea how those got there. That makes no sense to me. But anyway...

*.00 = save in slot 1
*.01 = save in slot 2
etc.

*.6? = temp files is what I'm pretty sure they are, but I'm not betting my life on it or anything...you can safely ignore them w.r.t. restoring a save


I don't really have a lot of DOSBox expertise, so I can't help much w/that. I can only suggest that for this particular purpose, when you run DOSBox, you do it by right-clicking on the DOSBox icon and selecting Run as Administrator.

Ok, so no matter what I named the files in-game, the save files are always [name].00, [name].01, etc? That makes sense. Thank you for the reply. I found those .00, .01 files a few levels into the AppData folder within my user folder. I think that is where they are kept when installed in Vista.

Update: For anyone who wants to import their previous saves into a new installation of Arena, I moved all the .00, .01, etc save files from the appdata... folder into the arena install folder (the first install was a pre-configured installation including dosbox in one install, so I think thats why the saves got put in the appdata... folder) But then I started the game and tried to load a save game and all the save slots said "Empty." I decided to click on the top one just to see what would happen. My save loaded. I knew that I had used the top slot for sure, thats why I tried it. So it seems that as long as the slot file (ie .00) is in the arena folder, the name wont show up in the slot selection screen, but the save will load. I just resaved within the game.

Ok, so no matter what I named the files in-game, the save files are always [name].00, [name].01, etc? That makes sense. Thank you for the reply.

You're welcome.

I'd like to stress, for those who might come upon this thread later, that there is not just one .00 file or just one .01 file; there are many, and they all comprise the entirety of the saved game (as I implied in my previous post in this thread).

The in-game names are stored in another file which IIRC is called NAMES.DAT. Whatever it's called, that file is not important w.r.t. the saved games; even if you don't port it over, your saves will still be good. They just won't have those convenient names you gave them.