so i bought the elder scrolls anthology a while ago and have always wanted to play the first 2 games but never could get them to work so i guess i'm on here trying to get help for it so please tell me what to do so i can play them because i heard they were both amazing and i really want to play them

If you bought the anthology, it should contain discs for those games. They should self-install a workable dosbox version of the games.

You shouldn't need to download anything.

so do i just put the games in and they start up because that hasn't previously worked for me.

Have you never bought physical PC games before? You've got to install them first.

Getting the Anthology version of Arena started is tricky. I remember this. Putting the disc in won't cause an auto-prompt which gets everything running right away; I seem to remember having to go into the folders where Arena got installed (for me this was C: Program Files(x86) > Bethesda Softworks > Arena > ARENA) and then messing with one of the files in that folder. I don't remember which one it was though. Been too long.

Just Google the heck out of "Arena Anthology installation", that's what I'd do if I got desperate.

Strange, that never happened to me. I installed it from the disc autorun, it put a shortcut on my desktop, I launched it and it ran fine.

i put the disc in and nothing happens and btw yes i have bought plenty of physical copies of games before and know they need downloading

There's no downloading involved in installing Arena from a physical disc.

When you insert the disc in your CD drive, there should be a dialog that opens on your screen, allowing you to choose to install the software.

If that doesn't happen, you can navigate to the CD using windows explorer (I guess it's called "file explorer" in Windows 10) and then run Setup. That should start the installation process.

so do i need the game in my pc each time i play it or is it just in there?

The CD is not the game. It's not like a console. The game is on the CD, though. Some PC games require the CD to be in the drive when you play (even though it's not running from the CD at all, it's just to make sure you own it), however, with the rise of digital distribution (Steam, GoG, etc) that's no longer necessary and very few games still keep the practice. Arena and Daggerfall do not require the CD to be in the drive to play it after you've installed it. Morrowind and Oblivion, on the other hand, do. But if you bought the Anthology you also got Steam keys for Morrowind and Oblivion so you don't need the CD to be in the drive for those either in that case. Arena and Daggerfall are not on Steam, though.

TL;DR, no you don't need the CD in the drive when you play Arena or Daggerfall (as long as you've installed it).

so i was playing arena and i kept dying because i didn't know how to attack so can anyone help me with that?

Hold right click and drag up, down, left, or right. That messed me up too at first. Arena, Daggerfall, and Battlespire all use this control scheme. You get used to it.

Yes, you're using the mouse to directly control the weapon

ok thanks now i can actually play yay!

Yes, weapon swings are actually mouse swings, which is kinda neat. You'll get the hang of it. I use an Xbox controller, so for me, weapon swings are done with the right joystick + A button instead of with mouse. This is better than just a one-button mash like in later games, but I understand later games have more functions which are now mouse-delegated.

Yeh, this is what I was trying to say earlier up there. Maybe it's because my computer had Windows 8 at the time, but for me, I had to go into some sort of file on the disc itself to begin the install.

The right stick and the A button? What kind of mutated alien digits and advanced triple-joints do you have one your right hand to accomplish that incredible feat?? Lol

Why don't you just use the right stick button itself? Wouldn't that be easier?

It's just a matter of whether the Autorun check for discs is enabled in Windows or not. It's the same file that launches, you just run it yourself instead. Autorun merely saves time. It's nothing different.

This certainly is a different age. 15 years ago this was all common knowledge to PC users. That's not a knock at anyone just an interesting obersvation of how things have changed.

Computers have really become quite automated. We don't have to worry about much anymore, but at the same time we don't know how to fix it when things go wrong. Sure, we have to discipline Windows every now and then but it's nothing compared to setting up DOS for extended/expanded memory (two very different things) with EMM386 in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files. Or setting up multiple boot disks for different games or even programs (before autorun menus were created) to not load in certain drivers you don't need. The reason being it would hog all the memory and the game wouldn't run. Required lots of restarts, but luckily booting up wads quite fast in DOS.

I miss those days. It was a great feeling of accomplishment when you got things working. Made you feel so smart. Maybe that's why I love brutal Sierra adventure games.

Sorry, back on topic.

Yeah. Off-topic. Sorry. I think the OP has had his / her question answered though.