WAC Beta v0.1 - Downloads, comments, suggestions

[Sethsryt]

Or maybe the higher the rank, the more 'civilized' and 'clean' it looks. The churl armours might look even more rough then the vanilla.. Maybe faces or eyes on them as the Daedra spirit in it still wishes to 'come out' or free itself from its imprisonment. It ain't nice to spend your immortal life for nearly 100% as armour for some low trooper..
And higher ranked armours more towards the Morrowind type of armour, with all kinds of ornaments and glowing runes and such. That way you could also see in an instant that you really do not have to worry about that rough armour wearing brute, but that those glowing runes seen just around the corner in one of the many halls of the Sigil Towers will be your doom.

Maybe even that if you destroy some lesser Dremora armour it changes back into its original shape, a Daedra from one of the many daedra spawn lists.

Ah, got killed again by an Imp Brute. Those buggers kill me with just one of their burning balls of fire.
My health counter go's down, and even with a spell like Blood of the North it keeps going down. Frightening.

[Waalx]

hI didn't remember that (with a few exceptions) I DO have a complete list of the WAC animals in Exel format. Forgot I did it.
I said I had 500 instances, it's actually 777 instances total in this count, and it's missing the horses, and a few others I made while working on the arena..(a leopard and some weaker looking felines since they are famished. ).

So that must be well over 800 instances now with the horses and the arena.

Here's an html conversion of the Exel table the first green row is the creature name and count for one male, second row is the males variations on, third row females, fourth is their youngs.

You will notice the males GREATLY outnumber the females. That's because the subject creature or animal look too sexless, so I didn't make a difference in those cases. Shouldn't be taken as sexism...

All Animals.html

it figure.. I forgot the zombies count in the list...the number is higher!

[Dazu]

Hi all,

I started a new character earlier this evening and although the starter dungeon felt way too easy (too many potions, weak enemies...) As soon as I came out and head to Vilverin, I saw what WAC was about. I absolutely love the "ragged" (in a good way) look of bandits, with their masks and fur armor covered with pouches and daggers. This will surely be a strong contrast to all the shiny stuff already existing.

I experienced my first painful death when I was cornered by 3 horned dinosaur like beasts: I can't remember the name, I died too quickly :p The first one gave me a disease that prevented me to move so I was literally a sitting duck.

Now onto the testing part. First, I've not browsed the 65 pages, so please don't hurt me if what I put forward has already been said

I'm not sure how the levelled lists work, but I think that the player has access to really good gear maybe a bit too soon and I'm not talking about the free stuff at the sewer's gate.
For example, the first archer I fought had some nice enchanted arrows with 50 damage health points and some demoralize effect as well. A sure kill at level one, and a good way to make good money. The same archer had an "ebony commander cutlass" (or something close to that) worth 1500gp. Inside Vilverin, I grabbed a bow worth 2300gp.
From what I understand, the enemies are somewhat uncapped compared to the player so that could explain getting some good stuff, but I just want to be sure I did not messed something up.

One last thing before I go to bed:
In the container outside the sewer, there are 3 iron helmets with the same name, but they have 3 distinct looks: one is opened and has horns, another is closed and has horns, and the last one has no horn and is opened IIRC. Have you thought about giving them distinct names, like: horned iron helmet? it is a bit wordy but at least it gives an idea to the player what he's about to get.

Good night all!

[Mormacil]

I think naming them all the same makes sense. A bandit just improvised on the helmet etc. It's still an iron helmet.

As for gear, the values are not balanced yet and yes most enemies are unleveled. This also means you can die from a single strong arrow.

[Vocha]

W told me to post this here.

Just thought I'd give you some of my thoughts on WAC, I played it for a bit at work today.

What I was impressed about:

Obviously, the creatures are amazing, and the variety is insane. A few that really caught my eye were the Timber Wolf, it's texture was amazing (!), the RoadRunner, I had a fun time chasing that one. Really, the creatures as wonderful. Gerbils, Blue Mouse all the tiny creatures especially were great.

The swords and other weapons were great as usual, they're pretty much the base of this after all, how it began. I love how the scabbards are so detailed and have little daggers on them and such.

But really the thing is was most impressed about of everything was the armors! They're extremely cool, with all the gadgets and knives and whatnot. Seriously, top notch. Don't think I've seen any mod in the history of Oblivion to have armors as cool as those, and the mages robes too of course. This is by far my favorite part of WAC.

The ingredients and pelts, this is something Oblivion has needed more of since day one. Great work. I especially liked the gorilla brain. Funny stuff.

What I didn't like:

Bugs, obviously there are alot, it's an alpha so it's to be expected. Some land tearing, ALOT of wrong spelling, some glitches with the armors and even some vanilla armors, some creatures don't attack even though they're supposed to be hostile.

Some of the creatures are very very out of place, and feel silly to me, the hulk and the greenies stand out the most I think, but also the hill giant.

The NPC's, I don't see the point of having them there, they just seemed like boring generic FPS hoggers. I just killed them to get them out of the way.

The goblin camps, this is a great idea, brilliant in fact; but I think you overdid it. Too much clutter with too many goblins and too much stuff. Also it was impossible to enter some of the tents in a couple of the camps.

The torture devices, the models and textures are great. But I don't understand why they're placed all over the roads everywhere? It made it look very grim and unnerving, maybe that's your intention. But it seemed out of place.

Alot of stuff was unfinished, of course, it's an alpha. I'm just saying, some stuff was left over from testing and such.

Some things were missing icons, or had vanilla icons.

Some vendors had alot of swords for sale even though it didn't make sense, like the guy in the Merchant's Inn in the Market District. That guy barely has 50 gold to trade with, and yet he has a huge collection of Orc swords and others that are worth thousands of gold, doesn't make sense. He's just a bar and innkeeper, he shouldn't have any swords. Just daggers or knives if anything.


Hope I'm not being too critical, just giving my honest oppinion.
--------

All in all, it's a huge piece of work you've put together Alex, must have cost you many many days of labor.

I can see you're an artist though, you have talent and creativity to the max, but you lack a little organization. But it's an alpha, so things will change I'm sure.

I've certainly gotten alot of inspiration, especially from the armors and creatures. I'll include lots of those for sure.

Have a nice day pal!

[Waalx]

W told me to post this here.

W? W???? please that sound too much like Bush.

Bugs, obviously there are alot, it's an alpha so it's to be expected. Some land tearing, ALOT of wrong spelling, some glitches with the armors and even some vanilla armors, some creatures don't attack even though they're supposed to be hostile.

That's a bug with too much AI going on in the same cell. This will take some time to solve.

Some of the creatures are very very out of place, and feel silly to me, the hulk and the greenies stand out the most I think, but also the hill giant.

The Hulk..hehe. well that's actually a quick test I made. I agree it,s out of place. Greenies. No way, they are one of my favorite critter in WAC. The only 100% custom mesh & textures I made so far I think. Hill Giants are too numerous at the moment I want to reduce the spawn rate and move them close to the borders.

The NPC's, I don't see the point of having them there, they just seemed like boring generic FPS hoggers. I just killed them to get them out of the way.

Are you talking of the Crowded Roads NPC? Just un-check that esp in your load order and they won't bother you no more.

The goblin camps, this is a great idea, brilliant in fact; but I think you overdid it. Too much clutter with too many goblins and too much stuff. Also it was impossible to enter some of the tents in a couple of the camps.

last august while on pre-alpha, I have been told that what I made originally as Goblin camps where too empty and boring. They are many indeed, but it's either that, or I make camps with 3 tents only, and THAT would be boring. Watcha want? It's hard to balance stuff like that as the game engine isn't really made for this kind of close proximity of several NPC/monsters.
You shouldn't expect to be able to empty a goblin camp at level 1, you could, but they are unleveled, it can be possible once, and the next time you will get owned.. so you can get very powerful foes, or mediums, or mostly weak, or all at once. And it,s a bit like I want it, for the player to not know what to expect. Sometimes you may enter a camps that have very few individuals too, depending on the leveled list spawn percentage. That is not final however as I have some more fiddling to do.

The torture devices, the models and textures are great. But I don't understand why they're placed all over the roads everywhere? It made it look very grim and unnerving, maybe that's your intention. But it seemed out of place.

It's out of place if you think of vanilla Oblivion. If you think of the Dark Ages and how grim it was back then,..it fit. People are partial on that one, some like, some don't. I will probably try to make it an option later.

Some things were missing icons, or had vanilla icons.

I say that myself in the read me

Some vendors had alot of swords for sale even though it didn't make sense, like the guy in the Merchant's Inn in the Market District. That guy barely has 50 gold to trade with, and yet he has a huge collection of Orc swords and others that are worth thousands of gold, doesn't make sense. He's just a bar and innkeeper, he shouldn't have any swords. Just daggers or knives if anything.

I need to check that guy (and other RS merchants). The price of RealSwords are to be adjusted WAY down. All of them.

Hope I'm not being too critical,

nope.

I can see you're an artist though, you have talent and creativity to the max, but you lack a little organization. But it's an alpha, so things will change I'm sure.

I'm extremely disorganized, and I'm totally on goldfish mode while on WAC. I pass from one things to the next. (although I must say I pass from one block of things to the next). Yet I have over 14 gb of work files for WAC backed-up at several different places. Not SO disorganized.

[Forgotten]

Had to redownload WAC 0.05 a couple of times as I was getting corrupt archives. Third time is a charm though.

Many more arrows have this problem, including the arena arrow set.
...
Edit:
I just read Varieties of the Daedra again, the in-game book.
I wonder, Waalx, will you make the Dremora spawning in Oblivion more alike the ranks in lore?
If I would be level 20 and go to Oblivion, I would encounter 10 to 13 Valkynaz and Markynaz. While every Oblivion plane should be ruled by a Kynmarcher, or at least ONE Markynaz, not 13 xD

Maybe like, spawn a lot of "Patrols" which include many churls, some caitiffs and a few Kynval. Maybe led by a Kynreeve.
Give every tower a small patrol troop and one kynmarcher.
Every Oblivion plane is led by a Markynaz, so in every Oblivion plane you got to at least face one Markynaz.
Then give every gate the possibility to spawn one Valkynaz and give every important gate a Valkynaz. They shouldn't venture outside unless with the last few stages of the Main Quest and a few occasions when there is an important outbreak. A great fight might be led by a Valkynaz. But they should be strong and extremely rare, they are princes after all.

Of course, with the vanilla set up, at later levels, the Oblivion planes would become a piece of cake. But if you would make the Dremora a little stronger/smarter and make the patrols bigger it would still be a good challenge after a while. Especially when the patrols get bigger and the dremora slightly stronger when the player character becomes stronger.

Just a little idea, but it would make the Oblivion planes a lot more realistic. Churls shouldn't be rare at high levels, as Valkynaz and Markynaz should not be like.. In bigger numbers then Caitiff and Churls.

I would have to agree. Vanilla Oblivion is far too linear in its levelling of creatures and items. I would prefer seeing increasing numbers of Churls and Caitiffs at higher levels, accompanied by higher level dremora, rather than a straight and linear progression from Churl to Valkynaz spawns. This way you would still get a slightly increased challenge in the Oblivion gates as you progress through the main quest and Mehrunes Dagon's invasion picks up pace but the types of creatures featured in the spawn distribution wouldn't seem too unnatural and out of place.

Also, there are still a number of different types of daedra, mainly from Battlespire, that were left out of Oblivion for some reason or another. (Thinking of Vermai, Herne, Morphoid daedra etc.) A few of the Battlespire daedra classes were actually featured in Oblivion as well though, such as the Xivilai (represented by a single unique daedra in BS).

Some types of named daedra seem to use a common nomenclature consisting of class followed by a unique name (for example Xivilai Anaxes from the vanilla Oblivion MQ and Xivilai Moath from Battlespire.) Adding in a few unique daedra, as Bethesda did in Battlespire (example: http://www.imperial-library.info/tsobs/ ... r%20Jabran), at various points in the main quest to break the sheer monotony of fighting all those nameless, faceless and cloned daedric enemies could perhaps spice up the progression of the main quest a little bit. Adding in some more uniqueness here and there would certainly make things more interesting when trudging through all those endless oblivion gates. (And doing that would also present an excellent opportunity to add a few unique, legendary weapons or pieces of armour to the storyline.)

Perhaps reading through the storyline of ES: Battlespire in the Imperial Library could provide you some inspiration when starting to flesh out those dreadfully boring vanilla Oblivion gates with a bit more structure and lore?

But I know you have a lot on your table right now and plenty of small bugs to iron out in the latest alpha first. I will give WAC 0.05 a good go and see if I come across any bugs that still haven't been mentioned here.

Cheers, UQF

[Waalx]

While I completely agree that the random Oblivion gates become boring over time, the problem is exactly that, they are random.

Making unique references is thus tricky. You have 7 random gates (+ the 8th Hircine Hunt plane). There's only so much I can do to add diversity to those 7 planes that are recurrent over and over anyway.

It's a good concept but it would need me to make more Oblivion planes for this to work. To make too much in fact, as you can get some 90 something gates that spawn in Cyrodiil if you don't do the main quest early.

[Vocha]

The Hulk..hehe. well that's actually a quick test I made. I agree it,s out of place. Greenies. No way, they are one of my favorite critter in WAC. The only 100% custom mesh & textures I made so far I think. Hill Giants are too numerous at the moment I want to reduce the spawn rate and move them close to the borders.

Ah well, I guess I can tolerate the greenies, they are pretty funny after all. Truth is though, they sort of freak me out, they're very creepy.

Moving the hill giants out of the way would be good yes, I ran into one right outside of Weye, that's pretty weird.

Are you talking of the Crowded Roads NPC? Just un-check that esp in your load order and they won't bother you no more.

My bad, I was testing everything so... Good that that's modular.

last august while on pre-alpha, I have been told that what I made originally as Goblin camps where too empty and boring. They are many indeed, but it's either that, or I make camps with 3 tents only, and THAT would be boring. Watcha want? It's hard to balance stuff like that as the game engine isn't really made for this kind of close proximity of several NPC/monsters.
You shouldn't expect to be able to empty a goblin camp at level 1, you could, but they are unleveled, it can be possible once, and the next time you will get owned.. so you can get very powerful foes, or mediums, or mostly weak, or all at once. And it,s a bit like I want it, for the player to not know what to expect. Sometimes you may enter a camps that have very few individuals too, depending on the leveled list spawn percentage. That is not final however as I have some more fiddling to do.

My advice, move the goblin and gnoll camps to an interior cell. And then spread the clutter and bonfires and such out just a little inside there. That way, you'll save FPS, and make things more easy to fight and navigate around.

It's out of place if you think of vanilla Oblivion. If you think of the Dark Ages and how grim it was back then,..it fit. People are partial on that one, some like, some don't. I will probably try to make it an option later.

Well, they weren't out of place everywhere, it's just that it was everywhere, if you know what I mean. it was at nearly ever road. And every junction, it'd definitely be cool to have it on some roadsides, or at old forts and scary places. Just not on the beautiful roads to Anvil and such.

I say that myself in the read me

My bad then.

I need to check that guy (and other RS merchants). The price of RealSwords are to be adjusted WAY down. All of them.

Sounds good. I think it'd make sense to add the swords to the blacksmiths and such that sell swords anyway, but not to the innkeepers and alchemists and such like it is now.

I'm extremely disorganized, and I'm totally on goldfish mode while on WAC. I pass from one things to the next. (although I must say I pass from one block of things to the next). Yet I have over 14 gb of work files for WAC backed-up at several different places. Not SO disorganized.

Heh, it's a callsign of talented artists that, it's because you use the one side of your brain alot more. (Or so I've been told. You prolly know better than I eh? ) If you need help with spelling or such, I'm pretty good with the CS, so I could clean up your stuff if you need it.

[Forgotten]

While I completely agree that the random Oblivion gates become boring over time, the problem is exactly that, they are random.

Making unique references is thus tricky. You have 7 random gates (+ the 8th Hircine Hunt plane). There's only so much I can do to add diversity to those 7 planes that are recurrent over and over anyway.

It's a good concept but it would need me to make more Oblivion planes for this to work. To make too much in fact, as you can get some 90 something gates that spawn in Cyrodiil if you don't do the main quest early.

Unique spawns in the random Oblivion gates would probably have to be done through some scripting. One could (taken into consideration that I'm not much of a scripter so all of this is theoretical at best) use a hidden quest that advances to different stages every time a rare special "trigger" creature is spawned by special creature spawn points placed by WAC at strategic "boss" points in each random Oblivion gate. After a triggering an OnLoad event a MoveTo command could place one of the unique daedra (called by each particular quest stage the hidden unique daedra spawning quest is at) at that special "trigger" spawn's location. The originally spawned "trigger" creature could then be killed and MoveTo'ed to a location where the player won't encounter it. Each quest stage called by the hidden unique daedra spawn quest would thus provide a different unique daedra spawn.

All of that is a highly theoretical solution at best though and would probably need a decent scripter to pull off without botching something up or adding to savegame bloat.

Cheers, UQF

[Sethsryt]

A little post from me on the Daedra:

Interesting thing about Daedra and especially Dremora is, they are Immortal.
So if you would make some unique Dremora and Daedra, like Scratchy the Scamp and Xenobia the Xivilai, it would make sense if you would meet them twice or three times when you close all those gates. Just because they incarnate again and again, especially when you encounter them outside of the gate you don't need to be surprised to see them inside a gate again.

So maybe a few spawn points, one or two in every gate, which can spawn a unique Daedra? If you make around 30 or 40 Unique Daedra, and in your MQ run you encounter 90 gates.. What about making it a 50 to 30% possibility to encounter a unique Daedra. Which can range from lowly critters like Scratchy the Scamp to highly, rune wearing warlords like Xenobia the Xivilai.

Meh, only the Daedra realms aren't such a problem with unique creatures and npc's since in lore those beings can come back from the murky Waters of Oblivion.
The problem might be the non-daedra. Since you are unlikely to face anything non-magic the same twice. A necromancer you might encounter one or twice again, maybe with an aura of rot, but a mundane bandit lord..


By the way, great job on the Marauder Lord Armours. They really look and feel special and grand.

Hehe... And the greenlings and greylings are for my opinion great. In every lore and myth, circles of stones are places were strange beings come, and places you avoid unless you are looking for trouble. They aren't called doomstones for nothing... Vigdis, my lovely Nord Barbarian avoids those places, after one encounter with the things..

Meh, back to Oblivion, Vig's going to run the short way, through the wilderness, to either Cheydinhall or Chorrol.

Keep up the good work, I can't wait for another update. ^^

[Waalx]

Extremely interesting addition Mr. Sethsryt.

Immortality is the key.

That completely solve the idea of unique beings. No, I won't make 40-50 different unique people. Yes I will make 7 x2 =14.

7 lords. 7 underlords. 14 different, meaning two in each gates. And those gates are their kingdom, so you may wreak havok in their place, they tidy up after you, shop around for a few souls, and are back on business with you next time you visit.

the rest will be Dremora leading Xivilai around in patrolsm + the low-life critters such as scamps, cherubs, hell hounds, demonlings, etc..


Designing the 7 lords and underlords will be lots of fun for me. However ..this will wait till after many things. RS Gladiator, WAC updates...

[Forgotten]

Extremely interesting addition Mr. Sethsryt.

Immortality is the key.

That completely solve the idea of unique beings. No, I won't make 40-50 different unique people. Yes I will make 7 x2 =14.

7 lords. 7 underlords. 14 different, meaning two in each gates. And those gates are their kingdom, so you may wreak havok in their place, they tidy up after you, shop around for a few souls, and are back on business with you next time you visit.

the rest will be Dremora leading Xivilai around in patrolsm + the low-life critters such as scamps, cherubs, hell hounds, demonlings, etc..


Designing the 7 lords and underlords will be lots of fun for me. However ..this will wait till after many things. RS Gladiator, WAC updates...

Definitely a welcome addition to the oblivion gates! Should make them a bit more fun to explore.

Cheers, UQF

[Sethsryt]

Thanks, happy I could help out a bit.

I wonder, will you call them Lords/underlords or will you keep to the Kynreeve, Kynmarcher, Markynaz and Valkynaz officer castes?

Kynreeve could be the leader of a fighting unit, Kynmarcher could be an Underlord, and Markynaz an overlord.
Could be interesting to make all the Valkynaz a unique name.

Maybe a few good books also available in game to get to know the 'spirit of the daedra'. For Daedra are much more interesting then the vanilla game makes them look.

This is how the Dremora views the world and itself around it: http://www.imperial-library.info/obbook ... edra.shtml I really love this book, and it made me enjoy playing Dremora characters.

This is a more outside look on the Daedra, especially the ranks in the Dremora society: http://www.imperial-library.info/obbook ... edra.shtml

And a few more books on Daedra: http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/#daedra

Really, can't wait to see all that you got in store in the game Waalx. I won't play in the Arena until the Waalx arena things are out. I wonder, when you are the grand champion, do you still get matches against other npc's? I found it kind of 'boring' to fight only minotaurs and such creatures. There is a real difference between fighting beasts and weapon wielding opponents.

[washington]

Hey Waalx!
About the summon djiin spell, how did you made it? Because it overwrites summon imp to me. I'll check it out later in TES4Edit.

[Waalx]

Thanks, happy I could help out a bit.

I wonder, will you call them Lords/underlords or will you keep to the Kynreeve, Kynmarcher, Markynaz and Valkynaz officer castes?

Kynreeve could be the leader of a fighting unit, Kynmarcher could be an Underlord, and Markynaz an overlord.
Could be interesting to make all the Valkynaz a unique name.

Maybe a few good books also available in game to get to know the 'spirit of the daedra'. For Daedra are much more interesting then the vanilla game makes them look.

This is how the Dremora views the world and itself around it: http://www.imperial-library.info/obbook ... edra.shtml I really love this book, and it made me enjoy playing Dremora characters.

This is a more outside look on the Daedra, especially the ranks in the Dremora society: http://www.imperial-library.info/obbook ... edra.shtml

And a few more books on Daedra: http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/#daedra

Really, can't wait to see all that you got in store in the game Waalx. I won't play in the Arena until the Waalx arena things are out. I wonder, when you are the grand champion, do you still get matches against other npc's? I found it kind of 'boring' to fight only minotaurs and such creatures. There is a real difference between fighting beasts and weapon wielding opponents.

yep I will keep the original caste names.. I just don't know them by heart

The Arena... It's so different already. But it will change even more. I'm going to try to paint an image without showing you an image:P

Standing in front of the Arena, you are now greeted by Hungolin, who now sat day or night behind his 'Munera' desk. To his right stand a mountainous Orc gladiator, Hungolin bodygard.

In vanilla the left door led to the Blue team blood work. To the right it led to the gambling pit.
Now the left lead to the yellow team side of gambling, and the right to the blue. To enter the arena as a combatant you must use the door carved in the Arena Gate just right of Hungolin desk.

That door lead you to an empty arena where some gladiator (or you) may train during the day. Right in front of you in the other side of the arena ring, stand two tall doors, blue and yellow. Each lead to one half of the arena just under the combat ring (this lead to the blue team bloodwork).

Once in the blue team bloodwork, you will again see changes in the construction and layout of this room. The beds are all gone. There's Flavius, the Arena local blacksmith counter with all the arena weapons on display. On one other side you can eat at the Arena Mess hall, where they all eat. Grey Prince will not bash his weapon 24/7 anymore than the others. In that room also you will find Owyn in a diferent get-up, and by his side his pet leopard. Posters of arena rules and ranks are around him, he also have a more dignified set-up.

Ysabel is not at the same spot. Where she was is now the entrance to the Blood Pit. I'm trying to redo the Arena layout so it is logical, something it wasn't in vanilla. So the two bloodworks are the 1st level underground separated in half as you can see in vanilla. The Blood Pit is the level under. Blood pit is an almost all entierely new construction. It continue the cistern you can see in vanilla bloodworks, that is situated in fact underneath the arena central ring (the metal grid). So this tube or cistern goes all the way two floor down, down till it is submerged into the Blood Lake that is underneath the Arena. The Bloodlake also have a special meaning...

Anyway, once you get the door where Ysabel is in vanilla, you are in the Blood Pit, a construction that is wider in circumference than what is on top. A round corridor goes around a ring of stone. Two entrance both side of the ring let you either up on the level of the gladiators cabins where they sleep, or down in the ring.

Around the central ring are 8 large prison cell where various arena animals are being help captive. In the center of the ring, is the bottom of the cistern, a smaller caged ring in itself, The Pit. The Blood Pit level hence contain 2 types of combat rings in one.

Walking around is the very huge Beastmaster. He's the Blood Pit supervisor, and also one that can arrange fights for you down there. You will be given the choice of fighting a beast of your choice in the ring (from one of the 8 surrounding cages) , or you will be able to ask the Beastmaster to bring all prison gates down and fight every beasts. Or you can even ask him to fight them himself. Or you can ask him to fight a match against a fighter.

However, this doesn't end here, it in fact start here.. The Blood Pit is the place where you begin your gladiator career. Pit Dog fights are fought in the central ring, in very close quarter. At Brawler rank, you are allowed more room and the bars around the central ring will go down. Only once you reach the Bloodletter rank will you be fighting in public in the Arena. Afterward, all fight are outside in public, unless you arrange one with the Beastmaster down there. However, the way you enter the arena will be diversified, you will not always enter the ring the same way..

As for the Blood Lake, the blood being spilled in the ring serve a greater purpose. Hence the Blood lake, a magical contraption, that kind of retain all the blood spilled in the Arena. This blood has a purpose in that it is used in the Arena Phials, a special kind of healing potions that are distributed to arena combatants by their Headmasters when they win (the amount he give you will go up and the blood concentration in the Phials will go up three times as you progress. Flavius also sell it in small amount (no more than 3).

And yep. Don't worry about fighting only beasts in the arena anymore. NO arena fight is predetermined. You never really know how many or who is going to be there, except what you chose to fight. The rest are...a bonus.

Expect to always have to fight more than you are told you would. Human and/or bestial.

edit: You can fight your matches day or night as well. I broke the Arena clock

[Mormacil]

That sounds awesome... really awesome

[Sethsryt]

That sound great, seems that finally we get a real arena in the Imperial city.
All my time playing Oblivion I never dared to start the arena quests because all the fun would stop after the matches.
The only reward being an armour, but now.. It seems that we get great matches.

I wonder though, how would you become a slave?
And what about the Grey Prince?
How would a match look like? Would one only use blades, or also nets, spears and axes?
Would you be allowed to use magic?

I really can't wait till the Arena gets released.

[Haruko]

, I just started a game, as I finally got a new copy of Ob.. the emporer with a beard took some getting used to ... more later.

[Sethsryt]

He has a beard? Oo; !
I dear, I really need to make a new game again.. Maybe a good one of restart Sai'Kyn again. xD Poor Dremora mage got restarted two times then already. And she is so awful hard to begin with. A mage with the Atronach Birthsign.. Jikes.