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Bethesda Gives Away The Elder Scrolls - Arena

Posted by simoniker on from the back-to-the-oldschool dept.

Dan L writes "In celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the classic Elder Scrolls PC RPG series (Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, yada, yada..), Bethesda has offered up the original DOS version of The Elder Scrolls: Arena for free download. Also, there is a rather cool contest to win some original game art, or some top of the line video cards and sound gear."

6 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It looks like it's time to upgrade my CGA card.

  2. Way to go BethSoft by Vaevictis666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And for an old Dos game, they even provide a link to the DosBox emulator so all us that don't still have the good ol' 486 still up and running :)

  3. Re:if only.. by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know, at one point I was sure that GPLed old games would languish (and that might still be the case, if the dev population is sufficiently thinned out by masses of releases), but games like Marathon, Quake and Doom have certainly not suffered from being GPLed. Quake in particular has been improved in some amazing ways.

    Honestly, I'd sooner that they'd opened the source but kept the data files commercial.

    Lucasarts enjoyed a bunch of people buying their old games after the ScummVM people implemented ScummVM and made the Lucasarts games run (with new features and goodies) on a modern platform. Lucasarts didn't have to pay a penny.

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    May we never see th
  4. Re:Free not Free Enough by oskillator · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Emulators such as DosBox ensure that binary-only games will be runnable forever, on any platform someone cared enough to port the emulator to. Emulators currently won't help much for the games listed in that article, but that's really just a matter of time.

    The inability to produce tenebrae-style variants is a shame, though.

  5. Re:Free not Free Enough by Nasarius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are potential legal issues with releasing the source. For example, all the code has to be audited, just in case one idiot programmer copied some code he shouldn't have and Bethesda gets sued. And as long as DosBox remains active, there's no worries about losing ability to play the game.

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    LOAD "SIG",8,1
  6. Re:Bugs and balance issues by ikkonoishi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While in Morrowind with the alchemy system the way it is you can easily munchkin yourself.

    Ash Yam + Bloat = Increase Intelligence Potion

    Increase Intelligence Potion + Ash Yam + Bloat = More Effective Increase Intelligence Potion

    More Effective Increase Intelligence Potion + Ash Yam + Bloat = OMG I R TEH GENUIS Potion

    Once you get int over lets say 2000 any potion you make is twinked.

    Restore Health 324 points for 1399 seconds. Value 43523
    Fortify Strength 577 points for 2424 seconds. Value 23999