Importing ARENA Characters to DAGGERFALL
Bethesda01
Date: 3/1/96 4:43 PM
Priority: Normal
TO: Judy Weller
Subject: Arena Import Msg
------------------------------- Message Contents
-------------------------------
My name is Ted Peterson, and I'm the chief designer on the
forthcoming
computer role-playing game Daggerfall, the sequel to The Elder
Scrolls: Arena. We are deeply entangled in the endlessly entertaining
process of digging up and squashing bugs in the gadzillions of lines
of code, and we're moving more forward than backward (always a good
sign) in this traditional rite. There exists, however, one issue
we've
been arguing about in-house since the beginning of the project. Only
one feature needs to be fully implemented: Arena Character Import.
We intend to make it possible for players who own Arena and have a
saved game to "port" their Arena character over to Daggerfall.
Because
Daggerfall handles characters differently (it is a skills-based
system
instead of a class-based system, for example), the port will not be
perfect. Obviously, we will try to make the port as perfect as
possible, but our contention lies with characters of enormous power
who are ported over.
The problem is game balance. While Daggerfall has over fifty monsters
and other combatants of varying strengths, and though in Daggerfall
reputation and affiliation matters as much or more than raw power,
there is a point when either challenge level or game credibility
takes
a nose dive. Sure, a 300th level spellsword might have the dickens of
a time fighting an army of ancient vampires, but, as a regular random
encounter, they do seem rather unlikely.
At what point, if at all, should a ceiling be placed to limit the
power of characters ported to Daggerfall from Arena?
Bethesda Softworks is a divided country over this. We have basically
two camps -- "We Told You So" and "Father Knows Best." Most of our
opinions fall somewhere in between these extremes. "We Told You So"
advocates no ceiling at all to characters ported from Arena. There
would be a simple message in the game, "Your character might be so
powerful that this game may be too easy," and if the player still
wanted to port Bloodstroke The Demi-God over, fine. "Father Knows
Best," on the other hand, advocates a strict ceiling. Any character
over 18th level would be ported at 18th level (or 17th, 19th, 20th,
therebouts), gold would be limited to 10,000 gps (or therebouts), and
other means would be taken to ensure that any character ported to
Daggerfall would have some challenge level at the beginning.
The reason for this lengthy disertation is that we want your opinions
on this.
So, let me know. What can we do to keep you from feeling "ripped
off"
(or "neutered," as one desciptive letter-writter called it) while
still maintaining a challenge level for all players?
Thank you in advance for your commentary,
Ted
Michael Kozlowski
>Author: Ted Peterson at Admin
> At what point, if at all, should a ceiling be placed to limit the
> power of characters ported to Daggerfall from Arena?
There should be no ceiling. Some people get their kicks out of
playing with demi-gods. Let them.
My advice: Just pop up a message warning imported super-characters of
the consequences of their actions. If they choose to ignore it,
well... it's their game, now isn't it?
Setting arbitrary limits is rarely fun for the player. Don't do it.
--
Michael Kozlowski
mlko...@students.wisc.edu
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kozlowsk
Michael Lewchuk
I'll just put in my 2 cents here: I'm not against importing huge powerful
characters from Arena to Daggerfall. However I am against having Daggerfall
being just another Arena. Shouldn't a more powerful guy go up against more
powerful monsters? Eliminate the weaklings entirely (especially rats, which
caused a game bug which eliminated movement capability because you were
standing "on", or rather "in", the rat).
Perhaps a compromise: a character level and stats suggested by the game, which
could be custom tailored by the individual. If your character is level 20,
there is no reason that you shouldn't be entitled to the benefits of being
level 20, which means 19 levels of allocating skill points wherever you want to.
If you intend to clamp level at 20, please don't insist that my level 30(?)
character must get 66% in each of his skills. Let me customize them. Check
out the old gold-box AD&D system: randomly rolled stats which could be adjusted
as the user wished.
I'd like to see dungeons more tailored to specific themes. This is something
I enjoyed in Arena. In ice castles you had ice wolves. Near lava pits you
could have demons, fire dogs/wolves, imps, and so on. Monsters tended to
match the area selected for them. Depending on your level you could be faced
with one or two of the weaker monsters, or many higher level monsters.
Oh, and don't make the intro dungeons easy. Learn from Bard's Tale 2. It had
a starting town with a starter dungeon with orcs and such. The town was set
for high-level characters, but the dungeon was to allow new players to get the
hang of the game's combat system and to build up their characters to a high
level. No weaker monsters were present ANYWHERE except in the intro dungeon.
And, yes, I do mean "weaker". Many mid-low and middle level monsters were
also eliminated because the characters had gotten to such a high level.
Generally my point is: you can't make a fight between a 30th level spellsword
and an orc "fair", so don't try to.
Btw, if you want to handicap the spellsword, limit the number of mana potions
he can take into a dungeon, or make mana potions ineffective when used by
multi-class mages. :)
Michael Lewchuk
lew...@cs.UAlberta.CA
NFLed
consequences
of importing a high-level character. "For example, importing a 10th
level
character may inhibit the excitement level of many of the early
dungeons. In
this case we would suggest that you use our 'semi-port' option which
will set
the power of your character at a level which we feel would not inhibit
the
excitement level of the game...."
By the way, we (rpg'ers) really appreciate your including us in the
discussion of
this and any other issue in the creation of Daggerfall.... :)
Lohann
>> I disagree. For me the best part of Arena was being able to make powerful
>> spells. It really made leveling worthwhile since spells became both cheaper
>> and more powerful without limit. (I especially enjoyed making spells whose
>> cost truncated to zero. I really looked forward to reaching a level where
>> I could add another spell to my zero-cost collection.)
Any way you look at, there are people that enjoy killing everything
easily in sight and there those that enjoy a challenge.
I really wonder how hard it would be to give people a choice at the
start whether to have either of the two options.
You can choose to have limits set on the cost of spells or not i.e. as
you develope, spells become easier but never THAT easy or they become
progressively easier and continue to do so.
That way you can choose to start with a challenge or not.
Kenny Lok
>Oh, and don't make the intro dungeons easy. Learn from Bard's Tale 2. It had
>a starting town with a starter dungeon with orcs and such. The town was set
>for high-level characters, but the dungeon was to allow new players to get the
>hang of the game's combat system and to build up their characters to a high
>level. No weaker monsters were present ANYWHERE except in the intro dungeon.
>And, yes, I do mean "weaker". Many mid-low and middle level monsters were
>also eliminated because the characters had gotten to such a high level.
>Generally my point is: you can't make a fight between a 30th level spellsword
>and an orc "fair", so don't try to.
But I think it's not a matter of fairness. High-level player may just
encounter weaker monsters when adventuring. However, the monster
should recognise the difference in power and smart enough to run away.
This would make the game more realistic.
Kenny
Susan
> two camps -- "We Told You So" and "Father Knows Best." Most of our
> on this.
> So, let me know. What can we do to keep you from feeling "ripped
I suggest all characters start near the bottom but some
interesting awesome distinction be made or offered to those that
survived playing "Arena". If this were noteworthy enough I might even
play "Arena" in order for my character to achieve this distinction
when I played "Daggerfall". Perhaps some different character or armor
type or land or a kingdom could be given to the character?
Maybe it doesn't matter but I don't like the idea of starting
something new and challenging by being invincible. Okay, give 'em a
few more character points to use or a few more gold pieces. :)
ALSO, related to importing characters. It suddenly occurred to
me how much fun it might be if two people who played Daggerfall
separately might join some of their characters together and play the
game during a visit. In other words, I export my Daggerfall
characters to disk, drive down and visit a friend, import my
characters into her game, and play together this way for hours on end.
When finished I could export my characters out of her game, delete
them, or leave them for her to continue to use. Wouldn't this work
easier and better then playing over a modem?
I haven't played much RPG since then but a friend has got me
interested now in Daggerfall.
* Susan * <Sus...@ix.netcom.com>
Susan
>through the game and be able to play with all the other people that
>are online at the time... (now that's a logistics nightmare) for
>travel, I would have to think about something like teleport gates like
>in the might and magic xeen series... it would be really neat to go
>into a bar and find a party to go adventuring with...
You have gone to far with my question. I don't want to do this
over the modem. I only want to be able to import and export
characters into (from) someone's game and play my characters with his
or her characters. Please keep this thread on track as I would love
to get Bethesda's feelings about doing this. I don't think it would
be difficult to do.
* Susan * <Sus...@ix.netcom.com>
Lars Deutsch
>
> Author: Ted Peterson at Admin
> power of characters ported to Daggerfall from Arena?
>
> two camps -- "We Told You So" and "Father Knows Best." Most of our
> advocates no ceiling at all to characters ported from Arena. There
> would be a simple message in the game, "Your character might be so
> powerful that this game may be too easy," and if the player still
> wanted to port Bloodstroke The Demi-God over, fine. "Father Knows
> Best," on the other hand, advocates a strict ceiling. Any character
> over 18th level would be ported at 18th level (or 17th, 19th, 20th,
> therebouts), gold would be limited to 10,000 gps (or therebouts), and
>
> other means would be taken to ensure that any character ported to
> Daggerfall would have some challenge level at the beginning.
>
>
> on this.
>
> So, let me know. What can we do to keep you from feeling "ripped
> off"
> still maintaining a challenge level for all players?
>
If a player does not have enough self control he/she will start to use
editors anyway. So why force a limit on a player ? Every limit can be
circumvented.
RobRn
characters from Arena from two years ago?
Mag477
writes:
>Are there really that many people who have kept saved
>characters from Arena from two years ago?
>
>
Two years ago!! Hell, I just picked it up the other day. I am having a
blast with it.
Ebony Dai-Katana.........Never leave home without it.
Chris
Chris
Stevie Lee Martin
>
> Bethesda01 (bethe...@aol.com) wrote:
> : Author: Ted Peterson at Admin
> : Date: 3/1/96 4:43 PM
> : Priority: Normal
> : TO: Judy Weller
> : Subject: Arena Import Msg
> : ------------------------------- Message Contents
> : -------------------------------
> :
> :
> : My name is Ted Peterson, and I'm the chief designer on the
> : forthcoming
> : computer role-playing game Daggerfall, the sequel to The Elder
> : Scrolls: Arena.
> : two camps -- "We Told You So" and "Father Knows Best." Most of our
> : opinions fall somewhere in between these extremes. "We Told You So"
> : advocates no ceiling at all to characters ported from Arena. There
> : would be a simple message in the game, "Your character might be so
> : powerful that this game may be too easy," and if the player still
> : wanted to port Bloodstroke The Demi-God over, fine. "Father Knows
> : Best," on the other hand, advocates a strict ceiling. Any character
> : over 18th level would be ported at 18th level (or 17th, 19th, 20th,
> : therebouts), gold would be limited to 10,000 gps (or therebouts), and
> : Ted
> ......DELETED
I would like to import my character from ARENA into DAGGERFALL, but I agree with the postings
that would not like things too easy, If I wanted to go around from the beginning and play god
I could play DOOM, but I like to play god after I have gotten my butt kicked a few times, makes
it more enjoyable (=:.
I included some of the comments from Sever Jura, because the ideals where fasinating and if it would
not require to much re-engineering and delay the game could make game play really something special.
> While we're on this subject, you should definitely NOT have all random
> monsters in all areas of the game tuned to the level of the character.
> This is ridiculous... why would a person who was meeting low-level
> creatures like orcs for a while suddenly start meeting vampires in that
> same area, simply because he went up a few levels? Sure, it means that
> random monster encounters are always going to be a challenge, but it's
> greatly going to detract from the realism of the game... the player won't
> feel immersed in the world, he'll just feel like he's running through
> some kind of very large maze, where the difficulty level keeps going up.
>
> Real life doesn't work like that.
>
>......DELETED
> Jura
--
Stevie Lee Martin ***********************************
** What does the blind man see **
** Can it be naught but fantasy **
** So far beyond the reality **
** That I can perceive.. **
***********************************
slma...@nkn.net
mar...@ubaclu.unibas.ch
> Bethesda01 wrote:
>>
>> Author: Ted Peterson at Admin
>> Date: 3/1/96 4:43 PM
>> Priority: Normal
>> TO: Judy Weller
>> Subject: Arena Import Msg
>> ------------------------------- Message Contents
>> -------------------------------
>>
>>
>> My name is Ted Peterson, and I'm the chief designer on the
>> forthcoming
>> computer role-playing game Daggerfall, the sequel to The Elder
>> two camps -- "We Told You So" and "Father Knows Best." Most of our
>> opinions fall somewhere in between these extremes. "We Told You So"
>> advocates no ceiling at all to characters ported from Arena. There
>> would be a simple message in the game, "Your character might be so
>> powerful that this game may be too easy," and if the player still
>> wanted to port Bloodstroke The Demi-God over, fine. "Father Knows
>> Best," on the other hand, advocates a strict ceiling. Any character
>> over 18th level would be ported at 18th level (or 17th, 19th, 20th,
>> therebouts), gold would be limited to 10,000 gps (or therebouts), and
>>
>> Daggerfall would have some challenge level at the beginning.
>>
>> The reason for this lengthy disertation is that we want your opinions
>>
>> on this.
>>
>> So, let me know. What can we do to keep you from feeling "ripped
>> off"
>> (or "neutered," as one desciptive letter-writter called it) while
>> still maintaining a challenge level for all players?
>>
Another solution would be to pretend the character from Arena had retired after
saving the Empire five years ago (add five yrs. to age) and because he`s spent
the time in between mostly on women&drugs&similar he has 1) lost all his money
but a couple (e.g.5000) gp and 2) his prowess at whatever he used to be good
at, reducing him to level 1 (or maybe 5). However, he will keep the basic
abilities of his class as well as his equipment (which he stowed away for hard
times, which are the reason for his getting out of retirement). Also, if you
actually include the feature of being allowed to buy one`s own house, let him
have one already, the place where he spent the last 5 years. This, I think,
would give the player a fair advantage for having played Arena.
Duke Luke of Moorkh
Octarine Dragon
-==UDIC==-
GERBRAND . POSTER
taking its toll seems a reasonable story line, and making it a _story_
rather than an arbitrary "neutering" seems both fairer and easier to
swallow.
Really _any_ decent story line--be it illicit or even merely
inactive--could accomplish these goals. Perhaps during the porting the
game could even let the player choose from a variety of "retirement"
paths: during the past five years, the player-character lost all his/her
money on gambling, but stayed moderately fit; the player-character became
dissipated, losing less money, more experience, and much more reputation;
the character became a rich but portly merchant; the character was
jailed (injustly? or perhaps for the rampant thievery in Arena? :) )
leading to moderate experience, and a good rep with the underworld, but
little money; etc. etc. That way the player gets a choice, he does get
some advantage, and the whole event is more story and less arbitrary game
rules.
Good idea, Duke Luke.
Gary Poster
Mark Krischer
> > Another solution would be to pretend the character from Arena had retired after
> > saving the Empire five years ago (add five yrs. to age) and because he`s spent
> > the time in between mostly on women&drugs&similar he has 1) lost all his money
> > but a couple (e.g.5000) gp and 2) his prowess at whatever he used to be good
> > at, reducing him to level 1 (or maybe 5). However, he will keep the basic
> > abilities of his class as well as his equipment (which he stowed away for hard
> > times, which are the reason for his getting out of retirement). Also, if you
> > actually include the feature of being allowed to buy one`s own house, let him
> > have one already, the place where he spent the last 5 years. This, I think,
> > would give the player a fair advantage for having played Arena.
> > Duke Luke of Moorkh
> inactive--could accomplish these goals. Perhaps during the porting the
> game could even let the player choose from a variety of "retirement"
> paths: during the past five years, the player-character lost all his/her
> money on gambling, but stayed moderately fit; the player-character became
> dissipated, losing less money, more experience, and much more reputation;
> the character became a rich but portly merchant; the character was
> jailed (injustly? or perhaps for the rampant thievery in Arena? :) )
> leading to moderate experience, and a good rep with the underworld, but
> little money; etc. etc. That way the player gets a choice, he does get
> some advantage, and the whole event is more story and less arbitrary game
> rules.
i think you guys are on to somethine here. when i first read the
original idea, i liked it for it's humor value more than anything else.
but the second guys comments put them more into a realistic frame of
mind, and i think show that this is the best idea out of all of the ones
posted up until now.
after playing with the character generator from the demo, we can see
that the character's past is an important part of creating the ROLE in
the RPG. importing a character is important since it lets the story
continue from chapter one of the Arena tale. and i agree that this
should be possible without unbalancing the second chapter.
following along the above ideas i'd like to add the concept that "levels
are relative". there's no reason why level 15 in arena needs to
directly translate to level 15 in daggerfall. making the transfer a
2:1, 3:1, whatever (even perhaps optional) ratio might enable the
character retain his edge over a novice character, while not unbalancing
the game. it also can represent that decrease in abilities do to lack
of use:
"your character has been in semi-retirement until one day his old
friend, the emperor, calls you in for an important mission.
'...and so, there's no one else i can trust except for you' the emperor
says.
'but, my liege, i'm not the man i was when i rescued you those five
years ago. the only time i've drawn my sword since that day has been to
kee it clean and sharp.'
the emperor sighs, and looks deeply into your eyes, 'My friend, there is
no one else i can trust.'
you hold his gaze for a moment, and then smile and say, 'i've kept it
VERY sharp.'"
and so, you're five years older, not as strong, but a bit wiser. but
the point is that every loss of wealth or items or gain in reputation is
associated with a story about your past--in the same way the character
generator works for new characters
from a ROLE-PLAYING perspective, i'm now convinced this is really the
best approach than some arbitrary mechanical method.
--mark
waiting... waiting... waiting... just tell me daggerfall will be
released before the 18th of april so i can pick it up while i'm in the
states for cheap!