It's out and reviews are starting to appear. Gamespot gave it a 7.3, which is surprisingly low I think. Any impressions from you folks? Desslock, you out there -- the embargo is lifted, you can talk about the game now. :)

I'll sound shallow when I say this, but the graphics are terrible. They detract from my enjoyment. I haven't played it enough otherwise to really have too much to say about it.

What do you mean when you say the graphics are terrible? Poorly drawn?

- Alan

>Desslock, you out there -- the embargo is lifted, you can talk about the game now. :)

I'll post some thoughts at my page later today...

Stefan

I can see where Mark is coming from, though I disagree with the strength of his reaction. I initially found the look of Arcanum to be ugly--brown, flat, sort of like Ultima Online without half the colors. But that was mostly from the demo. Once you get to a city bigger than Shrouded Hills, the settings are much much better. And I've always loved the static art and items in the game.

No, it's the characters and animation that are less than optimal, shall we say. Movement is jerky and silly looking and the characters themselves look rather like rejects from Fallout--the half-ogres inparticular remind me of supermutants. And the grass and ground textures outdoors are not terribly inspiring.

But for me, I got over this real quick. The setting, the mechanics, the detail, and the dialogue are all first rate IMO. While real-time combat is useless except for quickies against vastly overmatched nuisances, the turn-based combat mode works well--at least as well as in Fallout or when you play Baldur's Gate stuff with autopause on.

I also think the game gives you great flexibility to carve your own path, and the quests are some of the better ones I've seen. Yeah, you still have your share of "Fed Ex" stuff, but the game does a stellar job of disguising that and weaving such things into the fiction. And given the limits of all CRPG questing--each one has to have a tangible reward, and each has to be appropriate to the mechanics of the game and the level of the characters--I think Troika did a fine job here.

Personally, I love the game. I don't have the time to focus on it as much as I might if I was less busy, but I've still managed to make about level 18 and move a good ways through the story. Ben here has finished it and the review for us, and he ended up at level 40 somthing (the cap is 50).

The graphics are not state of the art. They do, at times, detract from the game. I will grant you that. For me that wasn't nearly enough to spoil it for me, but your mileage may vary. I would only suggest you try and find a screenshot or two of city areas and other parts of the game beyond the beginning before you make up your mind (though I admit, a game where the first portion is the ugliest betrays a lack of understanding of gamer dynamics).

The graphics suck! They are so bad. They are the worst ever. They're not as good as Quake 3, Max Payne or Black and White. Why can't I have the graphics like Starships Unlimited or Europa Universalis or Avernum? Those graphics rock! The graphics aren't as good as Diablo 2 too. They aren't as good as Balders Gate. Even roguelikes have better graphics then Arcanum. I'm just going to warez the game, since I deserve graphics like Dungeon Siege in every game I play.

And Gamespot gave it to high a rating. 7.3? Those guys must be in bed with Troika and Sierra. I was expecting LESS than a 3! How can they be so lenient on Arcanum?!?! Its the worst game ever!

ahhhhhhh

etc

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Quote:

I initially found the look of Arcanum to be ugly--brown, flat, sort of like Ultima Online without half the colors. But that was mostly from the demo. Once you get to a city bigger than Shrouded Hills, the settings are much much better.

---

how come Greg Kasavin gave Max Payne a 9.2? Max Payne deserves an 11 and Arcanum a 1! The graphics are awesome! Graphics make me go crazy! Max Payne is game of the year folks... its got the matrix slo mo ... its all good in the hood folks with Max Payne.

ok ok Im friggin sick of Max Payne ... THIS IS THE DAMN GAME thats pissing me off... Everybody raving over a game shorter than Star Trek Elite Force. WTF?

etc

Arcanum is the best RPG that I've played since the Fallouts, which are (for me) the best RPGs I've played on the PC. Love the setting, great writing, interesting story and characters, and you get over the graphics pretty quick (although I never thought they were "bad"... a bit dated, maybe, but about on par with Baldur's Gate 1 in most respects). It does get a lot better, visually, as you go along, particularly once you start to visit some different environments.

Mechanically, it's almost a dead ringer for Fallout. You can safely ignore the realtime combat option (although it's handy for getting through cakewalk combats quickly), and then it works just like the Fallout action system with a few extra twists (you can spend more action points than you have, for instance, but it costs you Fatigue).

Unlike Fallout, it's pretty solid. There are a few scripting glitches, but far less than either of the Fallouts had (and Arcanum is larger than either of them). One troublesome problem is that the waypoint system sometimes fails to work in the town minimaps. Other than that, I've not had much luck in trying to break the game.

I'd recommend it. In fact, I just did.

Hey mtkafka, I didn't comment on the gameplay, just the graphics, and I didn't give the game a rating. If I was reviewing it, I'm sure my review would factor in the poor graphics and animation and result in a score that would be lower than if the game had fantastic graphics and animation.

Max Payne I'd give a 4/5, knocking off a bit for the game's brevity and horrible writing. Otherwise, it's very good.

Arcanum so far I've not been all that interested in playing since I don't have to review it. It starts off with a bad first impression with the dated graphics, too much dialog that really isn't all that interesting, and having to kill a bunch of wolves, with the inferior animation sucking away whatever little excitement you might otherwise get from clubbing wolves.

It's like when you start a novel and the first chapter is boring, I suppose. The rest of the book may be great, but how many people will get beyond that first chapter? Fans of the author, hardcore fans of the genre, etc.

I'll pipe in real quick like to say that I think Kasavin really nailed it with his review.
Arcanum is more about potential than great gaming.
Trokia hasn't quite got their ducks in a row yet.

But... "Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura"
I freaking love that subtitle.

-Andrew

Hmm, it looks like me and Ben against the world here :-). I thought Troika nailed everything but the graphics/animation with Arcanum. It's one of the best CRPGs I've ever played, right up there with the Fallouts (better than Fallout 2, maybe not quite as good as Fallout), better than BG, on par with BG2 (for different reasons), and almost as interesting thematically as Torment. IMO, of course.

Okay. I agree based on the demo that the graphics are sub par... and maybe im being a little defensive... but its games like Arcanum that MAKE me glad to be playing PC games. Theres nothing else out like it. I just think a game like Max Payne (getting all the raves), and Arcanum due to its graphics, getting some shaft (and from rpg fans too!) is a little disconcerting. No doubt they could have spent time with a better 2d graphics engine...

Kasavin review does make its points, he does implicitly say in his review that Arcanum is not his type of game (and Max Payne probably is with his glowing review of it). But I still dont understand whata reviewers Tilt is! Cmon! Gamespot should just go the 5 star (ala CGO), they have good reviews, those numerical ratings never made sense to me! Like whats the difference between a 9.1 game and a 9.2? a .1? howso? Tilt that!

etc

No, I'm with you Rob... I am EAGERLY awaiting this game and was surprised with the graphics (should be today or tommorrow for me from FedEx). I just think the constant delays and the "looks old" graphics have blown Arcanums hype for some people.

BTW, Max Payne I'd give a solid 5.1 out of a 10! ...or a 2.505 out of 5 stars! any action game that predmonantly features grey textures and crates galore (and one days gameplay) gets a negative Tilt out of me!

etc

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Quote:

Theres nothing else out like it. I just think a game like Max Payne (getting all the raves), and Arcanum due to its graphics, getting some shaft (and from rpg fans too!) is a little disconcerting.

---

---

Quote:

Kasavin review does make its points, he does implicitly say in his review that Arcanum is not his type of game (and Max Payne probably is with his glowing review of it).

---

"Kasavin review does make its points, he does implicitly say in his review that Arcanum is not his type of game"

I don't know man, unless there's some deep, deep Jeff Goldblum in Deep Cover double secret probation undercover shit going on there that I'm missing, I just don't see it. Whatever problems you may have with the review, I really don't see any subtle evidence that Kasavin doesn't like this sort of game. Unless you watched the video review and concluded that someone that handsome couldn't possibly spend all his time playing video games. In which case, point to you sir.

Speaking of Jeff Goldblum, I watched Death Wish 1 over the weekend. The horror of the scene in which Charles Bronson's wife and daughter are raped has aged especially badly because the leader of the rapists is a very young Jeff Goldblum. I don't know about you, but on my list of things incapable of causing terror, Jeff Goldblum is just below a cotton ball.

Oh. My. God. Kasavin is ..finger.. lickin ..good lookin! Well anyway, I didnt mean there was some Deep Cover conspiracy! Hey people have there own biases, game reviewers do too... like for graphics, story, gameplay etc. Like I thought Max Paynes graphics were not THAT great, others think its great. So maybe i should reword it and just say Kasavin thought the graphics were a letdown ... thats all!

"On the other hand, if you're serious about role-playing games--so serious that you don't care about graphics but instead just want to immerse yourself in a different world and try to explore it, perhaps even exploit it, as fully as possible--then Arcanum is well worth the investment of time,"

And why didn't Desslock review it? He did review the Fallouts... not to say Kasavin is a bad reviewer! Its just that, you know, Desslocks the rpg dude.

etc

Oh yeah, you're a hotty Erik. I've seen pictures of you... in fact I have one right on top of my monitor!

etc

"I don't know about you, but on my list of things incapable of causing terror, Jeff Goldblum is just below a cotton ball."

Dunno, Brundle-Fly worked for me.
I was amused seeing him in Annie Hall, on the phone, asking to be reminded what his mantra was.

Now,
So far as Kasavin's looks go, I have no opinion. But my wife had this to say: "He's all right looking. Should smile more."
I think that's it in a nutshell. Greg, why the always glum face?

-Andrew

Has everyone checked out all the kooky background material Troika has on the website? The Tarantian at the bottom of the page is a pretty amusing parody of a 19th century newspaper; the "wax recording" of Franklin Payne discussing his trip to the "Isle of Despair" is pretty amusing.

Regardless of the actual quality of the game, Cain is better than anyone at background material; the manual's almost as good as Fallout's, and still has a recipe in it.

I just read Kasavin's review and I really have to wonder what the hell he expected.

'Combat is a major part of Arcanum, and for the most part, it's simply awful. You can choose from turn-based or real-time combat and readily toggle between the two, but neither option works well. Real-time combat happens in a frantic blur, as all parties involved hack away at each other to the death. The haphazard, too-quick animation makes Arcanum's battles look unintentionally comical--it's like watching people mill about stiltedly in some turn-of-the-century movie played at double speed. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be a deliberate effect, since there's nothing flattering about the dated, washed-out, low-resolution graphics found throughout Arcanum. Since the real-time combat is practically uncontrollable, you'll usually have to stick with the turn-based option. It's a very basic system that lacks meaningful tactical options and essentially limits you to pounding on the enemy by attacking as many times as your total number of action points will allow. As in the Fallout games, you can't even control your party members directly, though you can give them a few basic battle orders.'

So, uh, combat plays like Fallout. Which is bad, apparently.

'Meanwhile, a thief, a magic user, or even a technologist armed with some newfangled rifle might have a much more difficult time in many of the game's inevitable battles. Fortunately, such characters do have some means to bypass a lot of the combat.'

What's the appropriate response to this? "Duh?"

He may have a point about Technologist's having crap for combat weapons, but I haven't played it enough to know yet.

'Those who manage to get past its drab presentation will find a lot to like in its unique setting, open-ended gameplay, and long, replayable single-player adventure.'

'On the other hand, if you're serious about role-playing games--so serious that you don't care about graphics but instead just want to immerse yourself in a different world and try to explore it, perhaps even exploit it, as fully as possible--then Arcanum is well worth the investment of time, money, and effort.'

Who the hell are these people who buy role-playing games for graphics? Here's a quick summary of his review:

'Sure, it's highly replayable, lets you complete quest in multiple ways, and you can do zillions of things with your character design, but it's still not that great. I mean, the interface could use some work and the graphics are bad!'

Unintentional endorsement paragraph:

'The way that the game shifts to accommodate your play style is actually quite impressive, and you'll pick up on this only if you actually try the game as different characters. You'll then notice how nonplayer characters respond differently to you depending on your race, appearance, intelligence, manner of speech, and gender. Combat will either be the brunt of the challenge or hardly any of it. Locked doors may be a difficult obstacle or a joke. Different quests will be available to you depending on who you are.'

I have to agree with Mtkafka - he certainly writes as if he doesn't like RPGs. Wierd.

>if [Kasavin] doesn't like this type of game, why the hell is he reviewing it? Desslock writes for Gamespot last time I checked. (*waves* Hi Stefan! :)

and

>And why didn't Desslock review it? He did review the Fallouts... not to say Kasavin is a bad reviewer! Its just that, you know, Desslocks the rpg dude

...just to be clear, Greg Kasavin is definitely a huge RPG fan -- I think it's his favourite genre, and over the past couple of years he's reviewed a number of major RPGs for GameSpot, including Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. In fact, it's because of his interest in the genre (and the fact that, as a full-timer, he can get a review of an RPG online much quicker than I could/can) that he's really GameSpot's RPG guy now, not me (with Andrew Park doing massively multiplayer games). He did give me the opportunity to comment on the review before it went online, incidentally.

Stefan
(who now probably isn't going to get his own comments up until Friday's update)

I really don't understand all the complaining about Arcanum's combat, how the real-time mode is "too fast" or it's too hard to "control". I played all the way through Arcanum and used real-time combat 90% of the time. In my mind, it wasn't signicantly different from the real-time combat one would find in Icewind Dale or Diablo II.

As for the "dated" graphics, who cares. Look at the graphics for Diablo II (pre-expansion pack); they weren't that hot either. However, I don't play RPGs to gaze it awe at curved surfaces or T&L-enhanced graphics. I play them to experience a massive, sprawling story in which I am the primary participant. And that's exactly what Arcanum delivered.

--Billy

For one thing, the major coolness to Arcanum is the setting. Its the most original setting for a pc game since the Ultima Worlds games (the martian/lost worlds one). Also, if this setting excites you check out Castle Falkenstein. It is a similar setting... as well as the dark Thief 2 setting. The idea of fantasy meets the industrial age is COOOOOOOOL. plus i trust the fallout people to flesh out the world more than any other rpg developers. Just imagine having Tesla/Edison/Dr Frankenstein meeting the likes of Gandalf and Elrond,... tons of creative ideas for mods too! metal robots and vampires. and if you take it to america... the wild west vs crouching tiger dragons!!!!!

I love alternate earth settings...if done well that is.

etc

Oh yeah, Nikolai Tesla RULEZ over Thomas Edison as inventor!!!! YEAH BOY!!!!!

http://www.mall-usa.com/BPCS/grant_tesla.html

before studying for an english degree i was supposed to be an EE... but i was lazy... uhm.

Did you know Tesla could split the world in half with the earths wavelength!?! he was mad!!!!

etc

Tesla lost it in his later years - he became absolutely obsessed with using incredibly high-power Tesla coils to distribute power instead of power lines. The method worked, but it was unbelievably inefficient (the received power falls off as the square of the distance from the transmtiter) and you pump a possibly dangerous amount of power through everything within a mile.

There's some kooks out there that have "the car that runs on water" conspiracy theories about how the Rothchilds, Edison, and Satan Himself suppressed Tesla coil power for Diabolical Purposes. It's right up there with zero-point power on the Kook-O-Meter.

Edison did discredit Tesla though, thats a known fact. AC power was in direct competition with Edisons DC power. In fact, if we were to use DC power today, you can bet that only the well-to-do would be using electricty. And Edison convinced many scientists and fundraisers that Tesla was a kook (though he kind of was!). Anyway, thank Tesla for AC power... that alone is what makes the world turn. Also considering he invented (without the credit) radio, radar, wireless telecommunication, wireless guidance AND the Tesla coil. PLUS, its been pretty much documented he was able to produce a mini Earthquake at his lab in New York City!

Even without the conspiracies, Tesla is DA MAN!!!

etc

Personally, I think the graphics suit the gameplay just fine. They're not state of the art, to be sure, but I think the game has enough depth and detail to make up for stunning graphics.

'PLUS, its been pretty much documented he was able to produce a mini Earthquake at his lab in New York City!'

Uh, huh? Whatever.

"The rest of the book may be great, but how many people will get beyond that first chapter"

That's what reviews are for, I guess. I never would have stuck it out with Starships Unlimited if Tom hadn't given it such a glowing recommendation. I'm glad I did, though, because it's a great game.

"It's a very basic system that lacks meaningful tactical options and essentially limits you to pounding on the enemy by attacking as many times as your total number of action points will allow."

I found this a little puzzling. The combat is almost identical to Fallout's combat engine, and has as many (or more) tactical options as any other RPG. The attacking as many times as your action points will allow is a vast oversimplification. There are plenty of things you can do in combat--cast spells, use healing items, make called shots, lure enemies into traps (which you can fabricate if you are a mechanical technologist)... I'm not saying his opinion is wrong, but if Arcanum lacks tactical options, then so does every other RPG on the market.

Same deal on the quests and dialog. Yeah, there's a lot of dialog in the game. But it's well written (in fact, this is probably the best-written RPG I've ever played on the PC), with interesting characters and a great story. There isn't much voice acting, but I'm sure that's a budgetary thing--the game is awfully long, and the script is probably four or five times as long as, say Baldur's Gate 2's. If you like your RPGs to be light on story and heavy on combat, ala Diablo, then this is not the game for you. As for the quests--I think they are terrific. Another case of "what game is he comparing it to?" He says they fall short, but I can't think of another RPG that has quests that are more interesting, with different quests for different types of characters and multiple ways to solve them. If Arcanum falls short in this regard, then every other RPG out there falls far shorter.

His statements about the feasibility of non-melee loners is just incorrect. I played throught the entire game as a technologist and used only pistols in combat, and I did quite well. It's true that you find more magical equipment in stores, but that's because technologists make their own equipment (and the stuff you make is always better than the stuff you buy), while magical characters have to rely on finding stuff or buying it. I never had a problem with ammo being short--it's cheaper to buy than arrows (for the damage it does), quite plentiful (I typically never ran shorter than 200-400 rounds), and you can fabricate it yourself out of very common items (saltpeter, which sells for 2-3 gold, and charcoal, which you can find in trash bins). Guns do less damage than melee weapons, on average--the balancing factor is that you can use them from a distance, and thus do damage without exposing yourself to attack.

In fact, I'm awfully impressed by the number of different options you have in terms how you play the game. My first character was highly Intelligent and Charismatic but not very sturdy (Dex 8, Str 7 at the end of the game). I made up for it by specializing in guns (which allowed me to avoid toe-to-toe fights) and attracting lots of followers to help out. There are certain combat situations that you can bypass altogether through other means--at one point I sweet talked one character into telling me about a secret passage that allowed me to skip an entire dungeon full of nasties. Now I'm replaying the game with a more magic-focused character, kind of a magic-using thief. So far, it's going well.

As for the visuals--they seem to bother me less than they do other people. They are dated, certainly, but they are hardly an atrocity against art. They fall about on par with Baldur's Gate (the first one), with tiled graphics instead of hand-painted backdrops but better lighting and color depth. The characer animations could certainly be better, though.

I'm glad a lot of people seem to like Arcanum. I'm mildly surprised that the response has seemed to be so unanimously positive, though, because a lot of the problems I wrote about in my review did detract from my experience with the game, and seem like they'd affect a lot of other people too. I expect that as more people actually get further into the game, and as more people who wouldn't like it go out and buy it based on the gushing praise it's been getting, the reactions will cool down overall.

It's ironic that there are already so many glowing reader reviews of Arcanum on GameSpot. Most of these presumably come from people who pirated the game.

It's disappointing and amusing to me at the same time--there's probably a word for that I'm not thinking of right now--when I get accused of fundamentally not liking or understanding particular genres that I review games in. I've been playing computer role-playing games since I was about eight. Ultima V and Fallout are my all-time favorite games, along with a couple of choice fighting games.

In some ways, I'm used to getting flamed for my reviews of role-playing games. Basically, whenever I give a highly anticipated role-playing game a score that's anywhere below an 8.5, I expect to get to criticised. Previous examples of this include my reviews of games like Ultima IX, Final Fantasy VIII, Vampire, and Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. Even Deus Ex, which I gave above an 8 but below a 9. Role-playing gamers are zealots.

On the one hand, I'm surprised my skin hasn't grown thicker after doing this for so many years. What do I care? But I've seen forum threads and reader reviews that have said I'm biased, that I'm a "mongrel", that I "obviously" haven't played the game, and that my review was shallow, among other things. To all that I say, Geez Louise. Of course personal attacks are disappointing to me, especially since, in fact, I spent so much time not just playing through the game thoroughly but also writing, and re-writing, the review.

On the other hand, it's just business as usual, and at the end of the day, I think my review painted a complete picture of Arcanum that was suitable for GameSpot's broad audience. I wasn't reviewing the game for those who'd already pirated it, after all.

--Greg

Reviewing is usually a thankless job. The folks who agree with you say "well, of course, what else would he say?" while those that disagree say "you're an idiot." All you can do is own your opinion.

FWIW, I agreed with you takes on the other games you mentioned. Just not on Arcanum :-).

Greg, I think one of the problems you have, and it's nobody's fault (unless you can call Desslock's strong reputation a "fault"), is that there's obviously a popular conception that Desslock is GameSpot's "RPG Guy." Even knowledgeable regulars on this board made the assumption that since Arcanum was a major RPG release, Desslock would be doing the GameSpot review.

It's very understandable, really. Desslock has more than earned his reputation as RPG authority, so when readers see anyone but him doing the GameSpot review, the kneejerk reaction is "who the hell is he to be writing this?" Of course, none of them will bother to look into your own RPG credentials.

The zealotry aspect just compounds the problem. We've already had threads here discussing the fact that most hardcore gamers read reviews just to see their own opinions affirmed. And I'd add that I don't think all the criticism you've received so far is just the warez crowd. I'd guess a fair amount of it is fanboys who haven't even played the game at all yet.

God knows I've been cool on a few games that other reviewers seemed to like, but I don't think I qualify as a zealot. It's not my intention to accuse you of not liking or understanding the genre, or to make personal attacks; I merely stated that I don't understand your criticisms. I still don't. Like how, specifically, was combat lacking in tactical options? Or to be more clear, what RPGs do you feel have better (or even more) combat options? The turn-based combat system in Arcanum is almost identical to the combat system in Fallout (albeit with fewer called shot locations, and with the addition of Fatigue), which in turn offers more options than the combat systems in either of the games you mention (Baldur's Gate and Diablo II).

The balance issue is trickier, simply because there are so many different characters you can play (it would be impossible to even try all of them). Still, I did play through the whole game with almost exactly the type of character that you claim is unfeasible, and didn't find it particularly difficult. Folks here at the office are playing a variety of different types of characters (straight mage, dwarven mad scientist) and they seem to be working out just fine. You need to adopt a different approach to the game depending on the type of character you play, but as with Fallout, that's part of the charm.

If you didn't like the game, then you didn't like the game. I won't argue with that. I can even understand why some people wouldn't like this game, although I wouldn't have guessed that it would be for the reasons you mention.

"there's obviously a popular conception that Desslock is GameSpot's "RPG Guy."

Perhaps that's only because Stefan makes himself so visible. Greg has reviewed as many, if not more, major RPG releases for GS as, if not than, Stefan.

"If you didn't like the game, then you didn't like the game."

How do you get that he doesn't like the game from a primarily positive review?

>Greg has reviewed as many, if not more, major RPG releases for GS as, if not than, Stefan

Yep. Appreciate that perception, but as I posted yesterday, Greg is definitely "GameSpot's RPG Guy" these days, not me. The baton was essentially passed just prior to last year with Planescape Torment, because of Greg's interest in the genre and my inability to review games as quickly as a full-timer like Greg. I actually gave up most of my game writing early last year.

Apologies for the indulgence, but here's a comparison of who wrote GameSpot's RPG reviews over the past few years to prove the point:

1997 Me: Fallout, Ultima Online, Battlespire, Betrayal in Antara, Diablo: Hellfire
1997 Greg: none

1998 Me: Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate, Might and Magic VI, Return to Krondor
1998 Greg: none

1999 Me: Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, Lands of Lore 3, System Shock 2
1999 Greg: Everquest, Final Fantasy 8, Planescape Torment, Revenant, Ultima 9

2000 Me: Nox, Diablo 2
2000 Greg: Baldur's Gate 2, Deus Ex, EverQuest Kunark and Velious expansions, Icewind Dale, Vampire

2001 Me: none
2001 Greg: Arcanum, Diablo 2 Expansion, Baldur's Gate 2 expansion, Icewind Dale Expansion

Andrew Park did most of the MMORPG reviews missing from the list above.

Stefan

'On the other hand, it's just business as usual, and at the end of the day, I think my review painted a complete picture of Arcanum that was suitable for GameSpot's broad audience.'

I think this is what's throwing us for a loop about the review, Greg: what's the broad audience you're targeting? The Diablo II crowd, the Baldur's Gate II crowd, or (to pick a ludicrously hardcore example), the Nethergate crowd?

Myself, I'd imagine a RPG review should be written for people who play RPGs, somewhere around the BGII/Daggerfall/Lands Of Lore area. If you write it for a Diablo II audience, I can see where you're going with the review, though, so I retract all my confusion and insults. ;0

Kasavin, I never intended to mean that you didn't prefer crpg's. I do think you made your points clear in your Arcanum review (compared to most of the recent Arcanum reviews on the net, yours has the most depth and detail of the gameplay), and its well written, but it can also be argued ... I'm still awaiting my copy of Arcanum and still havent gone past the demos end, so i really cant argue for or against it (who knows, I might end up hating the game).

And if Desslock had written the same review you wrote, I would still have raved mad like a zealot! aye, crpg fans CAN be zealots ... just look at comp sys ibm pc rpg. I'm one of them!

Also, I'm kind of a poseur crpg fan since some of my favorite crpgs i never really finsihed (daggerfall and mm6 being the biggest).

And how can anybody argue against a negative review of U9? that game deserved a fish in the face!

etc

Greg Kasavin said "Ultima V and Fallout are my all-time favorite games..."

This is the part that rubs me wrong about your review. It seems to me that the negatives you mentioned in the review are all present in Fallout as well.

I haven't played the game yet, so I'm not saying you're "wrong". I'm just wondering where you are coming from.

Again, I agree with a lot of Greg's points (thus far - I'm only 20% of the way through the game) but I have to mention this:

No offense Greg but this is one of the funniest lines I've ever seen in a review:

"The game takes place in a fantasy world undergoing an industrial revolution, much like the United States during the Victorian era in the late 19th century."

I love the idea that these United States circa 1890 were a fantasy world. ;>

-Andrew

Oops, I meant I'm 70% through the game.
Anyway, I agree with Greg's comments about the graphics, the animations (particularly combat), and I really agree with this section right here:

"The combat is poorly balanced--characters with high strength and dexterity can easily take on swarms of powerful enemies with just a light melee weapon or even without one, and they will also gain experience levels faster than most any other type of character, because experience in Arcanum is gained not from defeating enemies, but just from hitting them. Of further note, party members gain levels only when you do, but you don't gain any experience when they hit--this reiterates the superiority of lone melee fighters over other possible character types, who'll either have more trouble successfully hitting foes or will rely on their party members to help do the dirty work. Meanwhile, a thief, a magic user, or even a technologist armed with some newfangled rifle might have a much more difficult time in many of the game's inevitable battles. Fortunately, such characters do have some means to bypass a lot of the combat."

I also agree with Dulin that this is primarily a positive review. One problem with Gamespot's ratings is that something awful like WWII Online can get a 5.9, which makes it harder to read a 7.3 as a good score. For example, at Gspot Arcanum is "as good" as Anarchy Online at launch time.

I think this is due to Gamespot's mathematical scoring system. I don't have a lot of experience using those, but I find them self-defeating. Reviewers either plug scores in honestly and get sometimes weird results, or they plug numbers in TO GET a certain overall result.

-Andrew

BobM wrote, "It seems to me that the negatives you mentioned in the review are all present in Fallout as well."

Bob, I suppose you're probably right. Fallout had some balance problems, and a lot of bugs. Also, a lot of people thought it was short.

Fallout also came out in 1997. Visually, it looks as good if not better than Arcanum. A lot of its characters are much more memorable. Its combat is better, too, as (among other things) the differences between melee and ranged weapons was much more pronounced. (In Arcanum, my half-ogre character can backstab, with an axe, large groups of enemies to death in a single turn.)

In my review of Arcanum, I consciously tried not to directly compare it with Fallout, as for the most part, I don't think it compares favorably. More importantly, Fallout is four years old. To compare the two games would be to accept that the role-playing genre shouldn't advance from year to year, much less from half-decade to half-decade. I personally think that it can and should.

Jason McCullough wrote: "Greg: what's the broad audience you're targeting?"

Everyone who plays computer games. In fact, a lot of different kinds of people read GameSpot. A lot of people don't immediately know the difference between games like Icewind Dale, Torment, Diablo II, and Vampire like you and I do. As a reviewer, whose job is to help people make intelligent purchasing decisions, I try to never lose sight of that.

A lot of people aren't even familiar with what role-playing games are. Those who know what role-playing games are, know what Arcanum is, know what Troika is, want the game, drew their own conclusions, and pre-ordered or pirated it before any reviews were even published, aren't my target audience. I have absolutely nothing to offer these people.

Desslock, other RPGs I've reviewed for GameSpot over the years include Meridian 59 and its first expansion, Ultima Collection, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Shadows over Riva, Blaze & Blade, The Ultimate RPG Archives, and Rage of Mages and its sequel. True, you got to do the good ones those first few years.

I've reviewed a lot of console RPGs as well, such as Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Parasite Eve, and Parasite Eve II. The summation of my experience only tells me that console RPGs and PC RPGs could stand to learn a lot from each other.

The first thing console RPG's could learn is to not make random encounters so frequent. I cannot stand to play console RPG's because of this point. The fights are meaningless and repetitive. More often than not, I try to 'RUN' just to avoid pressing the A button over and over.

Frank, Amen to that. Random encounters are basically the reason I all but lost tolerance for console RPGs on several occasions. They really, really bothered me in Final Fantasy VIII, so much that I couldn't really get past them and enjoy the story. Some of the best console RPGs are the ones that cleverly avoid traditional random battles--Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross come to mind.

I'm surprised more people aren't annoyed with all the random encounters in Arcanum (especially since the combat is weak). They're just a waste of time by the end. Magic users can fortunately gain a teleport spell, and there's some rapid transit, but for most characters, there's also just a lot of walking, staring at that nicely drawn world map.

'I'm surprised more people aren't annoyed with all the random encounters in Arcanum.'

This is probably because they're pretty easy to run from if you don't want to fight, assuming it's not a "first level character gets killed by wandering demigod" situation. Once you got to the midgame levels in Fallout, for example, you could almost always flee combat with trivial damage. It also took about 5 seconds to do so, and you'd get maybe one or two random encounters between towns.

Compare this to trying to walk down the damn street in any Final Fantasy game - apparently the act of moving sends out "attract everyone within a hundred miles to stab me" waves.

The time it takes to deal with them is also pretty low - I maybe spent 5% of the game in Fallout II in random encounters, tops. In console RPGs, it sometime degenerates to upwards of half the game.

Jason, I think the thing that's most frustrating about random encounters in games is that they come out of nowhere, abruptly. In Arcanum and Fallout, they at least seem natural enough--in terms of Arcanum's game time, as you wander the map, you're really only fighting every day or two, which seems reasonable. But in a game like Final Fantasy VIII, you'll be walking by some lovely pond, and will have to face umpteen giant mechs (or something) out of nowhere before you can cross from one end of the screen to the other.

RPGs are all about suspension of disbelief, aren't they? And man, nothing takes you (me, anyway) out of the game like getting constantly thrown from an overland map to a side-view combat screen.

It's strange that this is still accepted as a convention, since it harks back to really old games like Dragon Warrior that were just as much about leveling as they were about anything else. I remember reading many glowing reviews of Skies of Arcadia for the Dreamcast. It seemed like all of them would only incidentally mention in the last paragraph how there were constant random encounters throughout the game. That one point completely turned me off to the game.

Not to mention idiotic animae characters. "Yeah! We won! Everybody pose and embarass the player!"

Skies only had one thing going for with with this adult, and very jaded, roleplayer and that was the kinda cool ship combat element. They handled that with simplicity but it still worked well.

Otherwise I stick to CRPGs and even very few of them. For anyone who longs for meaning and depth and remembers great sessions around the table with friends - go back! Turn off that computer! Abandon all hope ye who enter! ;)

The closest I've found to those experiences are roleplaying text based MUSHes played via telnet with other folks who know how to roleplay or one of a few CRPGs like Torment (story and concept) or Daggerfall (a game that acts like a storyteller (GM) by letting you make your own adventure and destiny by reacting rather than straightjacketing). Arcanum may enter the lists but I need to play it more before I commit.

I can't figure out the specific description of what seperates console RPGs from PC ones - complexity, depth, and story don't sound right. Console games tend to be more linear, I think, or at least they feel so. Anyone?

I certainly agree with that assessment. Then again, definitions seem to be in the eye of the reviewer or the hands of a publisher's spin team. I've seen things called roleplaying games that have left me poleaxed.

A large part of it is that PC RPGs play more like tabletop RPGs. D&D and the like. Hell, I remember when we first got Wizardry...

"D&D on the computer!" we cried.

Console RPGs seem to have been born somewhere in between linear adventure and turn-based strategy land. None of them play like a pen and paper RPG.

Well, there that and then the whole "US and Japan are different" reasoning...

-Andrew

Jason wrote, "I can't figure out the specific description of what seperates console RPGs from PC ones."

I've always felt that referring to the difference in the genres as being fundamentally defined by the platforms is a fallacy. What's really at stake, I think, is that one set of games (for the PC) is mostly designed by Americans; and the other set (for the consoles) is mostly designed by the Japanese. The differences between PC RPGs and console RPGs have a lot to do with design philosophies and cultural influences, and not as much to do with the platforms. Granted, some of the more complex PC games certainly wouldn't work well on consoles.

PC RPGs definitely place a lot more stake in player freedom. Japanese RPGs are generally more about a sense of "being along for the ride," for lack of an eloquent way to put it. One isn't necessarily better than the other--I like both approaches and basically see them as two completely different genres. In general, Japanese RPGs could probably learn a lot from American RPGs' focus on depth and interactivity; American RPGs could probably learn a lot from Japanese RPGs' sense of style and production.

Yep, that'd be it.

Greg wisely said: "Fallout also came out in 1997."

Greg, when you put it that way (plus everything else you said), I agree with you. You've honestly changed my opinion. Fallout is 4 damned years old and it is hands down better than Arcanum? That is pretty sad. Sad that is that way, and sad that most people (myself included) accept(ed) it.

If we're going to get more of the same, it should be at least as good as its predesesor. Yeah, I know I mispelled that.

FIRST IMPRESSION P0ST F@GGG0TZ!!!

My friend's email:

'Ugh... shitty combat system, jerky, unwieldy controls, a map system that's difficult to use.

But... interesting character creation system, well written dialogue, and a promising open-ended Fallout experience.

I can't quite decide what to make of this game. What do you think?

BTW, are you still playing that dwarf technologist? I started to play a half-orc fighter/mage, but the combat system is so lame I'm thinking of switching to a technologist/diplomat. Besides, I chose to be female, and I look really fucking stupid whacking things over the head (with a rapier, no less) while wearing a purple dress. Let my peons do the fighting... I'm busy building bombs.

Oh, one more thing. You can't play a female halfling!!! I'm outraged! How am I supposed to play a halfling lady of the night? I had the garter belt and everything.'


Mine:

'Yeah, I have no idea why you can't play midget women. Supposedly the jerkiness and interface crud will be fixed by the patch.

It reminds me of Fallout, except without the extreme gun ranges - even gun combat is pretty close up now, so you can't play the slow-paced sniper. I think the Sniper Rifle in FO2 would go out to fifty fucking squares - I could hit people from a screen and a half away. I don't like the combat style, as you constantly feel like you're being hurried along - that the space button *both* switches between turn-based and real-time and closes any windows you have up, so I'm constantly fucking up combat. Why the hell don't they have button remapping, either?

I'm still using a 20 int dwarf, and I'm not sure what I'll do when I max out guns. Apparently gunsmithing isn't really that necessary, as I see guns for sale. Maybe Spider manufacturing.

Still fun though, I was up until 2 last night playing it.'

Jason

[quote]FIRST IMPRESSION P0ST F@GGG0TZ!!! [/quote]

Ahhh... you've been to somethingawful.com and now you too are l33t liek JeffK.

Definitely, you are elected captain of the clownboat.

Long rambling post based on this entire thread:

The graphics are horrible. The original Fallout is better looking, and so is the infinity engine game of your choice. Hard to imagine a release in the second half of 2001 looking this poor. And, no I dont buy RPGs for graphics, but when there are plenty of products YEARS older that are superior, it makes you wonder what in the hell happened. What were the developers thinking? Can the people behind Fallout, 4 years ago, truly be happy with the look of this game? I mean, despite this being Troika's debut, it isnt like they are some guys working out of a basement, they have a lot of talent there, and an impressive resume, if only from Fallout. And then Sierra, while being a company I personally love to hate, is part of the package, and it isnt like they are broke or some second rate publisher. This is a high profile CRPG, and the graphics, as well as every part of the game, should reflect that. The graphics are not up to snuff.

Other things that could have been tweaked. The interface. Yeah, I know there is a patch coming, but christ it is a DOG. They got almost nothing right from inventory management to view size to non-intuitive hotkeys. You name it, it is flubbed. No mouse speed setting really burns my ass, especially when my normal desktop is twice as dense pixel wise. It makes navigation with the mouse a chore.

The XP system is broken too. XP for every hit/damage to the enemy? Come on, for a game that touts a skill based and diverse character development system as one of its highlights, this is a big problem.

NPC AI is typical of most games where it is overimplemented...that is to say it is broken. They use horrible combat tactics, and have questionable taste in gear. "Hey Virgil, next time instead of whiffing three times, how about a heal spell to put my intestines back in my abdomen, ok?". You can not give them near enough direction as to what skills/spells to use, especially outside of combat. You should be able to ask them to buff you, heal others, prowl etc.

There really is a lot to the game though. It is crazy how many different ways there are to play through it. One of the downsides to that is that certain combinations make the game far too easy. Go all melee, or offensive magic, and the game is cake.

They nailed the style and atmosphere they were shooting for. And yeah, the website is pretty cool. Lots of good stuff to read.

I liked the voice acting a lot, and the music is good too. It really adds to the atmosphere.

The manual is a mixed bag for me. I like how it is written in the same style, and on first examination it is nice and thick, but it really leaves a lot to be desired, and barely scratches the surface of some of the games finer points. Big manuals should be spiral bound too.

I do think the combat suffers because the game cant decide if it wants to be TB or Realtime, adding a pause with action points doesnt make it work by default. Especially in TB where the relative action costs are not at all balanced. Spells cost too little APs, so does movement. In fact, ranged combat is reduced to a 1 round strategy, because any melee opponent you piss off can close on you in 1 turn unless he is hemmed in by his fellow baddies, in which case they will just close on you themselves. The realtime combat, while a godsend for all the lame random encounters late in the game (why would level 4 shit be caught dead near my level 40 party? God knows I dont want to kill yet another Kite scout), is really just too fastpaced to be practical for all but the most trivial of combats. Usually before I can choose a second target, one of my guys (or me!) is dead, or all of the enemy is dead.

Still, all negatives aside, it is the best 2001 CRPG I have played, edging out ToB. Not that I have played a lot this year though. ToB, LoD and Arcanum are the only ones I can remember.

It bothers me that Troika/Sierra lied about the warez version not being the actual final gold master build. What is the point in that? To dissuade people from pirating, or to coerce people into preordering a supposedly stable game?

It bothers me even more that they would sit on a game with as many bugs as this one has, for three months and counting, and not have a patch ready for the retail release. To me, that shows contempt for your customers.

olaf

Hey, it's Olaf, the pirate from comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg. Everyone say hi.

Olaf, you can't very well expect Sierra to say that the warez ISO is the same as the shipping version. I think we can let them off the hook for this.

Interesting observations about the game, though. Are the skill paths really that imbalanced? That would be one of my main concerns. Skill-based games are very hard to balance. Still, for single player I guess it doesn't matter that much. If you can march through it easily with one path or have a harder time with another path, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Har!

Well, I think it would have been fair for them to say 'Yeah, the gold got out.' It happens to all games, it was just really noticeable in this case because the retail wasnt anywhere near to being available. Why lie about it? Like I alluded to earlier, what was their intention in claiming that there was a 66 build of the game? I think it was to convince people that the game wasnt as buggy as it really is, and I have a problem with that.

olaf

"console RPGs and PC RPGs could stand to learn a lot from each other. "

Thats a good point. I think Summoner and Anachronox were crpgs that almost got it right with a console feel (Septerra Core did it the best imo for a crpg akin to a console game), though they all lacked the open ended character development of crpg. And only Final Fantasy Tactics comes closest to taking the open ended character development from crpgs (unless you consider that the general console rpg has the bards tale/wizardry fight-parry style of combat down pat). If crpgs had as much of a popularity as consoles rpgs in japan, I'm sure we'd be seeing bigger budget rpgs here. or maybe thats how i see it.

BTW< I think FF7 is one the best rpgs ever... its the console rpg that got me into console rpgs! I ended up playing FF 3- 9 becuase of it, and backtracking thru some others (thru ... ahem... roms).

im totally off topic here...

I'd agree that FF7 is probably the best console RPG that I've played (although I actually played it on a PC), although there's one I've had my eye on...Has anyone played Aidyn's Chronicles, for the N64. It looks...intriguing. I must say, it looks like a CRPG adopted to a console, yet still retaining some of the console flair. If I actually played console games these days, I'd have it for sure...

There is a problem with pure 'production values' and bottom-up style CRPGs (that, like Daggerfall, are more responsive to the goals and deeds of a player character) - the more a designer vests in writing particular dialogue, creating elaborate sets of given locales, and making compulsory narrative cut-scenes the less room there will ever be for a player to be able to choose a path for his character.

How many places will be included if any given one requires considerable man-hours to create? How much choice in the matter of where to go can you give a player? How many NPCs with how many possible reactions and interactions will manifest if each one requires voice acting and most of them end up in cinematic cut-scenes? How subtly can a player's decisions influence a plot, or more importantly create though his own actions, if the entire narrative must be scripted so storyboards can be made for all the illustrators and cut-scene animators?

This isn't as much a problem for top-down style roleplaying games and they exist because they can lavish that sort of attention to a prewritten story and characters. I'd lump most CRPGs as well as console RPGs into this category but as Greg Kasavin suggests CRPGs at least often attempt to mimic real roleplaying games by offering the illusion of more options and 'paths' to follow.

However that illusion pales in comparison to a bottom-up system that is created with the goal of reacting to a player and presenting him with the compelling vision of a virgin world on which he can make his own mark. The only cut-scenes predictably possible in such a world are one for death and another for taxes.

I don't think it's a case of the skill paths being imbalanced so much as a case of having so many skill paths that you're bound to find some are more powerful than others in certain respects. If your goal is to power through the game in the simplest fashion possible, a pure melee meatgrinder is probably going to give you a much easier time of it than a high charisma firearms specialist and riverboat gambler type. But both are feasible, and unless you're only concerned with how easy or hard the fights are, you should be able to have fun either way.

When I first saw the beta for this game I said oh my God, it's ugly. When I got the full game I said oh my Got, it's still ugly--at least until you get to Tarant, where the tilesets are actually very nice. The items look good, many of the later towns look good, and even some of the monsters look pretty decent, but yeah, the animations bite and God help me if those half-ogres don't look like recycled supermutants. Master! Master!

I'm puzzled as to why the game looks as hoary as it does, and I'm confused as to why a team that created the pretty damn good Fallout interface passed this congealed mass of confusion off on us. And yet...I love the game, and think it's on par with BG2 as an RPG. For different reasons. But I love it.

"How do you get that he doesn't like the game from a primarily positive review?"

...and...

"I also agree with Dulin that this is primarily a positive review. One problem with Gamespot's ratings is that something awful like WWII Online can get a 5.9, which makes it harder to read a 7.3 as a good score. For example, at Gspot Arcanum is "as good" as Anarchy Online at launch time."

The rating is fairly positive, the review is definitely not. In fact, in light of the text, the rating (7.3) seemed overly high. To me, it read as a very negative review. This was reinforced by statements such as "No one aspect of Arcanum is particularly successful." That's not the sort of thing you say about a game that you like. Nearly every paragraph in the review leads in with a criticism, and some of them are harsh (combat is poorly implemented and unbalanced, the game is ugly, the story isn't interesting). I can't imagine how anyone could walk away from it thinking "that was fairly positive." Unless you only judge reviews by the numerical score, which I don't.

"Fallout also came out in 1997. Visually, it looks as good if not better than Arcanum."

Having just replayed Fallout, I'd disagree. I'm guessing that most of the people making this claim are remembering Fallout through the rosy haze of nostalgia, because while Arcanum's art style is very similar, the actual graphic quality is a fair bit better (mostly thanks to a higher screen res and higher color depth--Fallout was an 8-bit game). But this is a mostly subjective issue.

"To compare the two games would be to accept that the role-playing genre shouldn't advance from year to year, much less from half-decade to half-decade. I personally think that it can and should."

The problem is that all the RPGs that have come out since Fallout 2 have been a pretty big leap backwards for the genre. I love the BG games, and the Diablos, but they are all fairly standard RPG fare. I think Arcanum builds on Fallout's strengths, which is more than any other game has done in the last four years.

"Fallout is 4 damned years old and it is hands down better than Arcanum? That is pretty sad."

Is it? It's better than Baldur's Gate 2 as well, or Diablo 2, by my reckoning. Civilization is ten years old, and it's better than most of the strategy games on the market today. So what?

"The XP system is broken too. XP for every hit/damage to the enemy?"

I really fail to understand what's wrong with this. You guys do realize that the XPs that you get are directly based on the amount of damage you do. And also (and this is an error in Greg's review) you do get XPs when your followers kill a creature, even if you never strike a blow personally. That's right out of the manual, but you can confirm it in the game--watch your XP bar during combat.

The reason they did this, obviously, is to make non-combat oriented characters feasible. If you can attract a few "bodyguards," you can still accumulate experience from combat. I got through the first third of the game that way (I was busy building my Int and Cha, and focused little on my combat skills). If you have a combat-oriented character, you can participate more in combat and thus get even more XPs (but you may have few opportunities to earn XPs elswhere, having focused on combat skills). So how is this system "broken?" People keep talking about how much it sucks as though the reason should be obvious, but it isn't obvious to me.

"In fact, ranged combat is reduced to a 1 round strategy, because any melee opponent you piss off can close on you in 1 turn unless he is hemmed in by his fellow baddies, in which case they will just close on you themselves."

The only reason this wasn't also true in Fallout is because many of the NPCs and monsters in that game also used ranged weapons. In Arcanum, NPC/monster ranged attacks are rare, so most of them try to close immediately.

The key here is to use your followers to engage the enemy, while you shoot from a distance. Obviously, if you have no followers, enemies are going to close on you and reduce the practicality of ranged weapons (or at least eliminate the advantage of being able to attack but not be attacked back). As for AP costs, they are almost identical to AP costs in Fallout for similar tasks, with the addition of the Fatigue system (which I rather like).

I have to admit, I'm perplexed that some hardcore RPG-ers have such a negative reaction to the game. I agree that Fallout was a better RPG--in fact, it's my personal favorite RPG or all time. But I'd probably rank Arcanum second. I enjoyed it that much.

'Why lie about it? Like I alluded to earlier, what was their intention in claiming that there was a 66 build of the game? I think it was to convince people that the game wasnt as buggy as it really is, and I have a problem with that.'

Should we really care, Olaf? I mean, the game isn't that buggy; I've seen maybe three people complain bugs/performance, and one of them was trying to play it on a 4 meg video card.

As far as this lieing bit: What's Sierra supposed to do, in an ideal world?

I'm annoyed that I can't patch it, for one thing, without losing my game.

If they need a patch, I understand, but, according to Sierra, this patch kills saved games. So it screws all the pirates (yay), it screws all us reviewers... and it'll screw anyone who starts playing when the get home and checks for a patch, y'know, next week.

-Andrew

According to the developers on the message boards, the patch won't invalidate save games. I have no idea why they don't agree.

Really? Maybe I'll back up my save and give it a try. Sierra PR is telling me plainly it will invalidate the save... but I'd believe a developer first.

-Andrew

Is this game actually out in the stores right now? I stopped off at my local Best Buy and looked for it but I could not find it, even with the artsy box.

I hate how Best Buy is just never on top of PC gaming titles. I remember when the Diablo II expansion came out they ordered like 30 copies for the initial stock. What idiots.

I am still on the fence though on whether I am going to like Arcanum. The last RPG I played, that I liked, was Fallout 2. Since then no RPG has ever really impress me.

Also.. Speaking of too many random encounters, I am suprised no one mentioned Fallout Tactics. Geeezus... I remember you couldn't move a few inches across the world map with out hitting 20 encounters. Plus as the game went on it just got even more annoying since you would sometimes have multiple vehicles in you party and the maps were not friendly towards driving around. I went flippin' batty trying to manuver the cars off the screen before they would get swarmed by mutants or robots.

They did fix this in a patch by lowering the number of encounters which greatly improved the last 25% of the game for me but by then it was just too late since it already put a bad taste in my mouth.

Jeff

Hey guys,

Back when I wrote the Arcanum review for PCG I was told that the patch would invalidate save games. That was nearly two months ago.

Just yesterday, I spoke with my PR contact at Sierra and he assured me that it WON'T invalidate saves -- that extra time has been taken to ensure it.

So, there ya go (I hope).

-Vederman
PC Gamer Magazine
[email protected]

Best Buy is something of a hybrid between a software store like EB and a bulk dealer like WalMart - they rarely have games the day of release.

As far as Fallout Tactics goes: what a shitty, shitty game.

---

Quote:

I remember when the Diablo II expansion came out they ordered like 30 copies for the initial stock. What idiots.

---

Yup, I've never been dissatisfied with the Tulsa Best Buy's stock. They almost always have plenty of copies in stock, and regularly have the best price.

Of course, I'm rarely a release-day shopper, but...

Man, does my Best buy suck. Maybe I should offer to work for them ordering the PC gaming stock. ;)

Jeff

Not a bad idea!

You know, it's funny. When I saw the beginning of your post, on the "Last Day" page, all I saw was "Man, does my Best buy suck. Maybe I should..." and thought "Surely, he's not gonna say "Maybe I should move!" just based on the quality of Best Buy!! Man, there's a guy who's dedicated to his games!"

Heh. Anyway, that struck me as being kinda funny. But, then, it's 2:30 in the morning here...A lot of things are funny at this hour...

"As far as Fallout Tactics goes: what a shitty, shitty game."

I dunno if I'd go that far. However, I definitely would not recommend the game to people who weren't batshit about Fallout though. But if you weren't-- what the hell is wrong with you?

FO:T was all about the weakest part of Fallout (individual combat sets). The game degenerated into boring sniper-fests for me; lord only knows how you were supposed to keep your members alive otherwise.

Having played about halfway thru (guesstimate), I'm like Max Payne fanboys with this game. Best Crpg Evar! This game really knows rpgs. it feels like a pen and paper rpg, the balance seems right to me, and the gameworld is the best ive ever played... guns, magic, trains, baloons, undead, robots... and guns guns guns. the graphics, imo, are very nice... especially spell effects (only the player animations are its drawbacks).

before i jizz too much, i'll just say its easily the best crpg for me since getting windows 95 (post "classic" crpgs). it just plays right...

etc

I have a question: I just started playing my first rpg with the actual intent to finish it (I'm using it as a tool to fight my game related attention deficit disorder). I chose BG II (based on the conversation in the Desslock's guide thread last week). Did I make a mistake? Is Arcanum superior to BGII? If I only play one ever,did I make the right choice? I know this is pretty subjective, and I'm just getting to enjoy BGII, but have only put a few hours in so far, and could still make a change.

Thanks!

BGII is a fine game, indeed! I'm not sure it's the best choice if you have a history of not finishing games, though -- there's a lot to get bogged down by. Still, give it a whirl and see how you do!

So you know, I share your gaming ADD. Unless I'm writing a review, I often find it difficult to make it through a game before my attention wanes. I got about half way through BGII before that happened. On the other hand, I went all the way through Arcanum and then immediately started playing though again as a different character type without even bothering to catch my breath. (Granted, I knew I was going to write the review).

Still, in the end, it all comes down to personal preference. No one here is going to be able to tell you which one is "better," though the folks that do will probably pick BGII over Arcanum.

Have you started BGII yet? Are you having a blast? If so, stop worrying so much about which one is "better" and just play!

-Vederman

I'd recommend Fallout I as a "first RPG," actually. It's short, and the game design is "tight," for lack of a better description.

Yes, but get the Fallout patch before you start, as it *will* invalidate savegames.

- Alan

Thanks guys. I am enjoying BG II. I just made it to the city streets, and I think I'll be testing my staying power with it. I've tried Fallout a couple of times, and never really liked it. My chief complaints would be excessive use of the color brown, and lack of spells. I didn't realize I missed spell use until I started playing BG II, but so far it has been one of my favorite parts, and Fallout just doesn't have that going for it.

Arcanum will have to wait for approximately 300 hours.

Be sure to cast magic missile at the darkness!

Yes, magic missles -- but only if there are any girls there! ;)

-Vede

>Yes, but get the Fallout patch before you start, as it *will* invalidate savegames.

I think that was only Fallout 2's patch. In any event, always a good idea.

Stefan

Haven't played Arcanum yet -- it'll have to wait until I finish BGII and Throne of Bhaal -- but I do heartily recommend that you stick with BGII. I have never enjoyed a game so much.

But, I also agree that there is no right or wrong answer. It's all too subjective.

I got to change a disk!!! I made it up onto the streets of the city, and I have so many people sending me on quests my head is spinning. I had to turn one down, at least for now, so I could actually accomplish a few. Currently I'm just about to bail out Nalia's family, and boy am I mad that she didn't tell me beforehand what we were up against.

I've finally come to terms with what I hate about these games, and now what I love about them. I've been a pc gamer for 3 or 4 years now, but my true gaming history is as a D&D guy. As a ten year old in 1980 I roleplayed with a vengeance. The computer game RPGs aren't rpgs at all, not in comparison to the tabletop version, where you could choose to do whatever you like. Because of it, I've never liked the computer versions.

But, BGII is a blast because its really an rts game. I know Tom or Mark or someone has said this befoe, and I agree now. The rpg portion is just a pretty shell for small tactics battles.

Now then, if I only had some acid...

---

Quote:

But, BGII is a blast because its really an rts game. I know Tom or Mark or someone has said this befoe, and I agree now. The rpg portion is just a pretty shell for small tactics battles.

---

Jason McCullough said:

FO:T was all about the weakest part of Fallout (individual combat sets). The game degenerated into boring sniper-fests for me; lord only knows how you were supposed to keep your members alive otherwise.

---------------------------------------------------

It wasn't THAT hard to keep your guys alive. If you played Real-Time I can see that since the combat is so fast but all you needed to do was switch into turn based mode when things got hairy and fight your way out.

By the end of the game I was using the .50 cal HMGs and those anit-robots guns... plus I had a couple of snipers. I don't know how I would have made it through the game with my heavy weapon guys. By the end they had Big Gun skills around 200%.

As for BG 1&2... I have been tabletop gaming for 17 years, mostly D&D, and BG never did it for me. I just felt like it was some complicated RTS game. Also I had to CONSTANTLY pause combat just so I could get my head around what was going on. It was an immediate turn off for me.

Jeff

"Also I had to CONSTANTLY pause combat just so I could get my head around what was going on."

Actually, I kind of like this part. I think if it were strictly turn based the game would slow down to a bore. And you just gotta pause to see whats happening. Its fun to pause and see what just happened, retune everyone's actions, and let em go again.

I didn't like Fallout at least partially because the battles were only my guy and his gun against the world. And it is brown. All brown.

Plus, I think the fantasy setting just lends itself better to this style of play (I know, thats just my opinion).

But speaking of opinions: the PC Gamer guys who made their top 50 list of games had to be on crack. Combat Mission as number 50!!?!??! And Fallout is higher than BG?? Please! Hehe, just trying to stir up some contraversy (although I'm serious about those two above points).

I'd certainly rate Fallout higher than the first BG (which I only sorta liked--BGII was much better). In fact, Fallout is my favorite computer RPG, period. In fact, it's one of my favorite computer games of ANY genre, ever.

Stirring up controversy is the whole point of doing a "top games of all time" article, though, so you can hardly fault Gamer for coming up with some controversial choices. I disagreed with many of them: The Sims ranked higher than SimCity? Deus Ex as the ~#10 game of all time? Black and White at #18 (or on the list at all, for that matter)? But that's the purpose of the article.

Most of my problem with FO:T, Jeff is that the game always ended up being:

a) staying at the absolute maximum range and sniping everything to do death, as otherwise your characters will get killed

or

b) doing anything else and getting killed. Melee characters get butchered unless they're taking on enemies one-on-one while sneaking, and short-range heavy-weapons characters just get disintegrated by criticals

Without boring sniper tactics, you seemed to be guarenteed to lose at least a character per mission, using either realtime or turn based. Maybe there's something amazingly wrong with my play style, but I didn't have these problems in Fallout.

controversy......thanks, I so knew that looked wrong.

About the BG games, being able to pause when I wanted was a major boon. The end result is that the battle feel frantic, but manageable. This was the experience I wanted from the games, so I don't have any problems with it.

As for FO:T vs. the previous Fallout games, there are several subtle changes. For example, FO:T combat takes place vs. fortified enemies over longer ranges. The developers also modified the criticals to cripple rather than simply damage. I'm not sure if that sort of scenario suits me, but I usually play a sniper character anyway.

- Alan

>The developers also modified the criticals to cripple rather than simply damage

That feature was in the original Fallout games. I'd also rank the original Fallout over BG1, by the way. I actually recently replayed Fallout and am messing around with BG1 now -- Fallout is definitely far more replayable. The interface in BG1 is pretty hard to take after the BG2 improvements.

No comment on Fallout, I only dabbled with that game, but I think the difference between Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 is remarkable. Bioware really listened to criticism and made a vastly superior, tighter, and better game. Particularly in terms of story. BG2 manages to tell a very tight, interesting, story while still affording you ample freedom. I think in that way BG2 is a high-water mark.

Ok, thanks for listening.

-Andrew

---

Quote:

The developers also modified the criticals to cripple rather than simply damage.

---

By Jason McCullough wrote:

Most of my problem with FO:T, Jeff is that the game always ended up being:

a) staying at the absolute maximum range and sniping everything to do death, as otherwise your characters will get killed

or

b) doing anything else and getting killed. Melee characters get butchered unless they're taking on enemies one-on-one while sneaking, and short-range heavy-weapons characters just get disintegrated by criticals

Without boring sniper tactics, you seemed to be guarenteed to lose at least a character per mission, using either realtime or turn based. Maybe there's something amazingly wrong with my play style, but I didn't have these problems in Fallout.

--------------------------------------------------

Hmmm... I had this problem when I was a little too Rambo but once I started employing a little more tactical style to my planning I didn't have much of a problem with guys dying.

Here is what i did:
1. Always have a team of six.
2. Split them into 3 teams of 2 or 2 teams of 3.
3. KEEP THEM TOGETHER! (Atleast in the tough areas).
4. Diversify you teams skills. I had two pure HW guys. Two EW guys. And Snipers who started in small arms but moved to energy weapons.
5. Use the FORMATION MOVE! This can help prevent your guys from blasting one another.
6. And above all USE SOME TACTICS!

I don't mean to sound all punny with number 6 but I can't stress enough this point. You HAVE to use cover, crossfires, Fire Concentration, and movement.

Once I got the hang of it I rarely had someone die. Oh and make sure you have someone with an UBER Medic and Doctor skill. If any get really shot up in combat heal them up. Also.. ALWAYS buy out the stimpacks when you can. You can never have enough.

I would usually run the game in Realtime mode until things got hairy and then I would hit the key to switch to turn based.

Another thing.. Once you get your Heavy weapon guys past 150% they are insanely deadly with the M2 Brownings (50 cals). I used those bad mommas until the end of the game.

Also.. For close range the auto-shot guns with EMP shells just ROCK. Oh yeah.. My HW guys always carried rocket launchers for back up weapons. Heh heh...

Just my 2 cents.

Jeff

I am with everyone who said Fallout was better than BG. I didn't even like BG much. I hated the endless open wilderness areas that you had to "lawnmow" to make sure you didn't miss anything. BG2 completely fixed this by the way they implimented the travel system. Click on the place you want to go and maybe a few random encounters but you would get to an important place. BG2 may be the most improved follow up game ever.

-- Xaroc

>I'm still secretly hoping that Bioware will retroactively patch BG to allow a high-res mode

Black Isle actually seriously considered doing so -- Icewind Dale essentially used the BG 1 engine, so when they were improving the engine for the Icewind Dale expansion, they were considering trying to do a quick fix for BG1 as well. Ultimately, however, they decided it would be too much work. I dunno, it might actually restore some shelf-life to the game.

'6. And above all USE SOME TACTICS!'

Maybe I'm just not patient enough - I really had no desire to spend more than a hour or two on each individual map. None of Fallout's battles lasted more than 5 minutes, for example.

I really did use what I thought was wacky and useful tactics, and I'm not a slouch at these genres. Inevitably, I'd click a pixel too far and a robot/mutant with a M60 would burst out of hiding and vaporize somebody.

I may be the wrong target market here, though: I had no desire whatsoever to play Jagged Alliance II.

RE: BG 1&2.

I, personally, would rank either of these about my Fallout experiences, just because of the universe. I'm in love with the fantasy setting, and I've never seen it portrayed so well.

Sitting here thinking about it, I don't think many of the improvements from BG1 to 2 will make it impossible to replay the original, but I haven't tried it, yet, either. So maybe I'm wrong.

Agreed, though, that 2 was a phenomenal improvement over the original -- which, I didn't think was possible while playing the first one. Actually, though, I didn't mind the "lawn-mowing" like most people did. I thought it was kinda fun, and helped to turn up some interesting items, and, for me, improved the role-playing experience, just because I felt like I got to take every step with my character, and I liked that. At first, I missed it in BG2, but the more I play, the less true that becomes. But it seems neither superior nor inferior to me, now -- just different.

I've done precious little tabletop role-playing, but have been a crpg addict for years, and I think BGII is the best thing I've ever come across. I've heard the statement that it's little more than an RTS, but it just doesn't feel that way to me. Sure, there's a little of that influence, but no more than in the Ultima games (before 8, anyway), and they always felt purely RPG. So does BG, to me.

"I may be the wrong target market here, though: I had no desire whatsoever to play Jagged Alliance II."

Now that is *blasphemy* in my church. God how I loved JA2.

"Elliot, you eeediot!"

---

Quote:

I hated the endless open wilderness areas that you had to "lawnmow" to make sure you didn't miss anything.

---

Oh, I'm sure JA2 is fun once you get into it; I just couldn't bring myself to care about playing it after looking at the zillion-page faq for it. That, and a trillion individual cells I'd need to conquer.

Plus, I'm afraid it'll turn me into a Blakemore-style libertarian. I remember seeing USENET posts about "God I love shooting people in the head" back when it came out.

JA2 was great until halfway through. By then you've got functioning teams set up and all the 'cool lines' that make the NPCs interesting are stale. Oh, and insane weapons start appearing and all the encounters begin looking the same.

Baldur's Gate mainly appealed to me for its nostalgia factor ("Yes, I remember when roleplaying was like this with modules and dungeons and stuff!") but it was a game well 'within bounds'. The story and prescripted characters only allowed for so much grazing out of the fence before you had to herd yourself back inside.

Fallout I never played but will one day. Fallout 2 reminded me a good deal of Baldur's Gate but with wittier writing, more interesting 'random encounters', and a better illusion of freedom through the character generation system. The combat system, however, was weaker and offered too little control over NPCs.

Frankly, I'm enjoying Arcanum as much or more than any of these titles so far. It could just be the setting that's attracting me but the flexibility of the engine is very good at handling many different paths and types of characters. The NPCs do seem to respond better than in Fallout2. And there are called shots for all the 'Blakemore-style' libertarians (whatever that is) out there. :)

>I don't think many of the improvements from BG1 to 2 will make it impossible to replay the original, but I haven't tried it, yet, either. So maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, it's not impossible, but more dated than Fallout, in my opinion. Since the NPCs in Baldur's Gate boot around at speeds determined by your computer speed (no AMD/p4 jokes, please!) they run around like crazy on new computers.

By the way, just to update what I posted yesterday -- I don't think that Interplay has abandoned the idea of re-releasing an updated version of BG1, the idea is just on hold, possibly until Interplay releases a big "BG Pack", which is tentatively planned for next year.

Stefan

Compared to FO:T, JA2 provides a better play experience. I didn't care much for JA2 when I first played it, but I was hooked when I got to the mid-game. The early portion doesn't give you enough toys to play with, and the late portion can be ridiculously difficult.

I prefer engagements to last between 5 and 30 minutes. Fallout (1&2) and BG (1&2) were great in this respect. JA2 dragged out a bit, but so did X-Com when I think about it. 101 Airborne would have been fine, if not for the endless traipsing across the countryside.

Glad to hear that Arcanum does a better job with NPCs. This has been one of my peeves lately.

- Alan

Better than Fallout 2 :). It really doesn't offer the control of JA2, BG or, least of all, Airborne 101. I don't mind terribly but it might have added another dimension to tactical encounters.

'Fallout I never played but will one day.'

Stone the blasphemer!

Anyone remember Chaos Gate, the Warhammer 40,000-themed tactical combat game? I played it about a year after it was released and was quite impressed, if not because of the combat itself then because of the satisfyingly strong depiction of the Warhammer 40K universe. I never finished it all the way, but spent lots and lots of time playing. Plenty of interesting tactics--lots of really, really powerful weapons. It was just about as much fun as games like X-COM and Jagged Alliance 2 were for me--in some ways more so, since I'm partial to Warhammer 40K. Then again, I'm partial to JA's Ivan.

By the way, just so I don't veer too far off topic--if you're still playing Arcanum and really want to abuse the combat system, create a half-ogre and choose "ran away with the circus" as your background. Now put two points into his strength to bring it to 20, and then put your last point into dexterity. Buy a rapier, which is extremely fast, and can actually see you through the whole damn game as this character. For your next several levels, concentrate on boosting dexterity to 20. Then bring strength to 24 (the limit) and max out your dodge, melee, and backstab skills.

It's really, really sick. And if you like that, I've got a great Fallout character along the same lines.

'Anyone remember Chaos Gate?'

Oooh, that was a *great* game. Man. I played it through three times on the hardest difficulty; you could actually get away with losing a character in combat occasionally, too. The amusing cartoony graphics helped a lot, too.

'It's really, really sick (Arcanum super-melee character). And if you like that, I've got a great Fallout character along the same lines.'

A friend of mine created a charcter named Punchy McCrotch. He spent the entire game of Fallout II punching people in the crotch until they died. If I remember correctly, he also had a 1 int, so he got the Moron dialog set.

Yep, I still have Chaos Gate. The interface for outfitting your troops was a bit of a pain and it didn't handle elevation in a very friendly manner, but those are about the only real complaints I had with it. Nice game.

"That's what reviews are for, I guess. I never would have stuck it out with Starships Unlimited if Tom hadn't given it such a glowing recommendation. I'm glad I did, though, because it's a great game. "

Ummm, how exactly? I downloaded the Demo and was bored to tears by the game. You click the button, the spaceship flies somewhere, *click*, it flies back...and that's all there is to the game.

Punchy McCrotch - I can't stop laughing. Hey, I think I might adopt the Moron dialog set at work!

Here's my ADD thing kicking up. Now that I am a BGII lover, which is better: Icewind Dale or Planescape Torment? Its like being a kid in the candy store, and there's two more candy stores right next door. Of course I'm only 7 days into this game (char time), so I have a lot of perservering to do.

"Ummm, how exactly? I downloaded the Demo and was bored to tears by the game. You click the button, the spaceship flies somewhere, *click*, it flies back...and that's all there is to the game."

Congratulations! You played the game for ten minutes!


"Icewind Dale or Planescape Torment?"

Icewind Dale: I kill orc.

Planescape Torment: Substitute for literature.

Another evaluation (though I've played neither, I'll start one after I finish BGII and TOB):

Icewind Dale: $39.99
Planescape Torment: $14.99, if you're careful.

Considering I've heard people rant and rave about both, I'll pick up the cheap one first, and hope that Icewind Dale is cheaper due to its sequel after I finish Planescape Torment.

At the very least, if you're going to spend $40 for Icewind Dale, you should wait for the inevitable gold version that will include the expansion and the free downloadable expansion. I wouldn't be surprised if we see one this Xmas season.

Bruce, are you criticizing both of them, one of them, or neither of them?

Chaos Gate had an excellent tactical system as I recall. I wouldn't say realistic but I'd say flexible and fun. The Campaign game was an interesting mix of scripted 'adventure' scenarios and random map battles which really helped replayability.

Still, the missing element was a deeper campaign game like X-Com's which may not be a fair criticism as nobody else has figured out how to do it since including the X-Com license holders.

>if you're going to spend $40 for Icewind Dale, you should wait for the inevitable gold version that will include the expansion and the free downloadable expansion

Yes, especially since the expansion pack adds 800x600 resolution, and the drop away interface panels of BG2. It's definitely worth waiting for that.

Icewind Dale and Torment are actually very different games. Icewind Dale is a straightforward, linear, dungeon hack -- lots of leveling and garnering loot, with a pretty decent story to boot. Planescape Torment is a slower paced game, with a lot of text to read, but more open-ended (both in terms of where you can go and what you can do), with an excellent plot.

Torment definitely got higher overall ratings at most pubs (and a lot of RPG fans have it on their "all time best" list), but it's also a little more demanding to get into. Icewind Dale is easier to get into, but probably less rewarding and pretty forgettable.

Jagged Alliance 2...I'm still futzing with it, because I am taking it slow and enjoying all the side quests and exploring the whole world, but also because when I became a father free time evaporated.

Brian made some good observations, and there is a part of the mid-game where your mercs are leveling everything in sight. But I'm getting past that point now (criss-crossed the map and now taking Grumm, with about two more cities to go before the end game) and I notice that the enemies are getting tough again. They're using grenades and mortars when they can, and I'm seeing more of those camoflaged ace types. Night no longer seems to offer the same security it did earlier in the game.

The sound bits can get old, but what's interesting is that they're different depending on how you build your team. If you rotate a few different mercs through your campaign, and swap members of teams around as they work together, you'll discover interesting things about the personalities, who they like, what they know about the land, and occasional hints at romances. I wouldn't call it artificial intelligence, but clearly the designers put a lot of up front work into building the characters.

I really hope the developers can find a way to continue the series.

"Bruce, are you criticizing both of them, one of them, or neither of them?"

Yes.

Thats what I thought.

i choose neither or both. is that a good game? i played it before yesterday. tommorrow we shall see! that whats i though as well.

BTW, Arcanum rawks my world. My hands are jealous. uh oh.

etc

I have played and replayed all the Bioware games sevaral times, exept Planescape. I palyed that game through once and I'll tell you something. This is the only crpg that ever caused me to feel really choked up at the end.It was like reading a great book.A truly unique experience which is only revisited occasionaly when memory dims.
I have never felt so emotionaly involved in a game.
I still use the sound sets for enhancing other Bioware titles. Try combining Vhailor with an undead hunter, or Annah or Morte with different characters.
I will buy Arcanum, if only because Fallout 1&2 were so good that I feel I owe Troika a shot. Hopefully, the patch will address some of the more glaring deficiencies. As for graffics, I still play the Gold Box games ( just love true turn based crpg's). Give me a good story line and/or serious replayability and I will put up with any amount of retro graphic.

>I have played and replayed all the Bioware games sevaral times, exept Planescape

Not a BioWare game.

>because Fallout 1&2 were so good that I feel I owe Troika a shot

The Troika developers had nothing to do with Fallout 2.

">I have played and replayed all the Bioware games sevaral times, exept Planescape

Not a BioWare game.

>because Fallout 1&2 were so good that I feel I owe Troika a shot

The Troika developers had nothing to do with Fallout 2."

Anonymous, you are right on both counts. My apologies to Black Isle are herewith extended.

I think Arcanum is too hard and too frustrating, interface-wise, to stick with. Trading items with multiple members of your party is a horrific exercise in tedium. And every third random encounter is impossible to win.

Here's the early game mechanics in a nutshell:

1. Deliver packages for 20 minutes, earning a few dollars. If you're lucky, you'll avoid pissing off a level-30 tavern patron who will kick your ass just for saying hello.
2. Buy 15 each of health vials and fatigue restoring vials
3. Attempt to move to another location on the world map. Reload six times after running into a pack of three level 38 grizzly bears that kill each character with two swipes of the paws
4. Manage to get to your destination without a random encounter. Run into a level 20 lantern fairy (or something) who beats on you until you're almost dead. Somehow survive after 5 reloads -- and after using all your health/fatigue vials.
5. Two seconds later, run into an even harder creature that you cannot beat without going back to city, FedExing a few scrolls, and spending every last cent on more vials -- after 10 reloads to avoid random encounters.

Fun? Nah, my weekends are too short. Whatever promise the game has is obscured for me by the tedious gameplay and cludgy interface. I'd rather play BG2.

I'm trying to play a gunslinger type, and the beginning of Arcanum was pretty obnoxious. Once I hit about level 15 or so, I finally started to feel like I had a foothold, and started to enjoy the game. I very nearly returned it several times though. I read that they toned down the guns for balance reasons, perhaps they over did it?

Anyway, now that I've gotten my stats bumped up enough to survive, I'm enjoying the game quite a lot. Still, I'm having the feeling I would be doing a lot better than "surviving" if I had played a melee specialist or a mage type. The golems in the Black Mountain mine were ridiculous - how a tech charater is supposed to effectively deal with them is beyond me. I was reduced to saving and reloading after every shot, to make sure each did at least 4% damage and that I didn't get hit by them (I could get killed in three hits).

Finally, is anyone else getting their saved games corrupted a lot? I certainly am. One corruption caused me to lose 4 levels when I had to revert to an old save. The Ancient Temple/ Dragon Pool areas especially caused a lot of corruptions. Completing the quest in these areas actually lead to a problem where every save thereafter would be corrupt. I noticed that them item you use to complete the quest was staying in my inventory after its use - I imagine that it was supposed to dissapear after use, so I tried dropping it before saving and that cleared it up. Then I'll have my gun or Magnus' Featherweight Axe occasionally just decide to disappear from my inventory. Shades of Fallout in more ways than the obvious design.

-Matt

"The Troika developers had nothing to do with Fallout 2."

Cain was sorta Lead Assistant Developer with Fallout 2 before leaving. He did have some input in the design of Fallout 2 (as did some of the others who left with him).

Also, playing Arcanum as a gunslinger is slow in the beginning. But IF you get the right schematics and have high tech skills, some of the later guns are REAL REAL powerful (you have to build them)! And in the Black Mountain areas i used the fine (or fancy) pistol, as solo, and in RT constantly running back and shooting the golems. I used about 500 bullets though... possibly more since i had to go back to Tarant a few times. Probably one of the few times in Arcanum where I used RT combat against HIGHER level monsters and it worked!

Overall, in Arcanum, I'd rate difficulty for BASIC class archetypes like this...

Melee - (VERY easy to buildup)
Mage - (fatigue is the only major concern)
Tech/gunslinger - (slow start, possibly strongest late game)
Thief - (hardest if you stick with it, have to spread points to alot of skills, backstab with melee can be deadly with the right weapon. though then you are melee/thief..)
Diplomat - (prolly hardest of all, most quests resolve in combat... it helps to have one a weapon expertise).

etc

>. I read that they toned down the guns for balance reasons, perhaps they over did it?

I wrote that, and I definitely think that's the case. It kind of takes away the appeal of the setting when guns just function like decent missile weapons. Hell, they don't function any better than the slings in BG2.

Stefan

-> It kind of takes away the appeal of the setting when guns just function like decent missile weapons. <-

It just sort of saps the fun out of the game when you keep shooting from two feet away and get results like this:

96 (hp)
96
94
94
90
88
85

Why should it take 85 bullets to kill someone (or something)?

"I was reduced to saving and reloading after every shot"

This is one of the things that will kill an RPG for me. Having to try something, save, try something, restore, repeat, etc. completely removes any potential for immersion in the game world.

I agree with mtkafka on his character class assessment. The annoying thing about the game is that it's even harder to play a tech character the first time through because you don't know where the found schematics are, and which ones of them are good.

I should have played it through the first time with a different type. Oh well; now that I have the machine gun I'm set.

Yes, trying to be a gunslinger in the demo clinched it for me... to NOT buy the game.

DeanCo--

Hey, does anybody know how to get the buttons for different skills to show up on the bottom of the intereface window. When I click the "Skills" button on the lower right side it shows the same four skills and I can't rotate to any of the others so I can't use them in the game. REALLY annoying!

Also, one of my followers has lockpick but how the hell do I get him to try and open stuff up?

I will admit the interface in Arcanum REALLY leaves more to be desired.

I am playing a gunslinger also and it is hard as HELL. I have a charisma of 12 so I have four followers to help me out, and trust me I need them. I still get ganged up on and get the snot kicked out of me now and then but I haven't had to reload as much as you guys have.

Also, I have spent most if not all of my point in raising my stats, since I really don't know how to use any of the skills AND I can't get them to appear on the bottom of the screen. *sigh*

Jeff

There's three buttons in the lower right corner of the non-fullscreen interface that list all the skills. To have your follower lockpick, you need to have one on your belt and "follower skills" turned on; try to lockpick whatever you want yourself, and any follower with a higher lockpicking than you will run over and do it for you.

Use the F1-F6 hotkeys to micromanage your followers. You can normally bait enemies into attacking your tank followers, as they mostly fight whoever was closest when they first went hostile.

Hmm.. I have clicked on those buttons already. I said before "When I click the "Skills" button on the lower right side it shows the same four skills and I can't rotate to any of the others so I can't use them in the game."

I will take another look. Also... I haven't noticed this "follower skill" button. Man the interface just sucks ass. Also the manual is utterly useless. No table of contents. No index. How the F'ck are you suppose to find anything? Grrrr....

I believe the mysterious "follower skill button" is on the Options screen.

What other skills are you trying to use, jshandorf? Repair, disarm traps, lockpick, and that other one I can't remember are the only skills you can manually use. Everything else is automatic.

I can only see four skills tiles at the bottom of the screen after select the main "skills" button in the lower right. I know for a fact that one of them isn't lockpick. I think there was "pickpocket", "disarm trap", "repair" and one other...

Now that I think about it maybe you are right. Crap. I am at work so I will have to look at again when I get home.

As for this "follower skill" button. I haven't seen that at all. Is that one in the lower right corner also?

Disabling/Enabling followers to use their skills if they're better than you at it is in the Options menu.

Who on earth came up with the interface for this game? Yeesh.

You engage the locksmith skill by using your lockpicks. Put your lockpicks in a quick action slot and use it from there.

Thanks! Sheesh, I'd been trying to figure that out for the longest time.

A pox on the interface... thhhhpt!

Hey guys,

A friend of mine has a very wierd problem with Arcanum's resolution.

Apparently the game is displaying in a higher resolution setting than his monitor is or it is not formatting correctly.

The problem is that once he starts up a game about 2-3 of the entire video border is outside his screen and he can't see it.

Has anyone else heard of this problem?

BTW he is a computer wiz, like me, and has tried everything to fix it but it is a no go.

Jeff

It's the refresh rate, probably. Arcanum starts up in either 640 or 480 at the highest refresh rate the monitor video card combo supports.

You can manually force the refresh rate to whatever you want by running dxdiag->more help->override.

Maybe.

He has manually changed the monitor resolution on the desktop to all the settings but no go.

I will tell him about what you recomend.

Thanks!

Jeff

Here's a tip for Technologists having problems surviving fights: take the molotov cocktail skill.

These little bombs work wonders. Not only do they do heavy damage to everyone except friendlies in the area, but they blow the targets away from you (so they spend all their action points running back to engage instead of attacking you) AND throwing one costs almost 0 action points (throw 10-12 in one round and your low-level tech guy with amateur throwing skills can kill that troop of 30th level Orc bandits no problems. Of course, now you have to spend the next 10 minutes dumpster diving for rags to build more bombs...)

The fact that the molotovs don't damage friendlies in the area seems strange to me, as does the weak damage from most guns in the game. It's almost like they tried to balance out tech combat as a last minute afterthought...

Well, I finally managed to dodge saved game corruptions long enough to make it to the Wheel Clan. Another damned mine full of golems... At least that Bronwyck (sp) gun I just built makes short work of them. Unfortunately, I have to tell my party to wait around while I take them out single handedly, or they'll just smash their weapons to bits. PLEASE let this be the last mine I have to drudge through. My hopes aren't too high though, as the dwarves have mentioned two other dwarf clans. I'm guessing they'll both have their own multi-level mines. Maybe I'll get lucky and one of them will have a sewer instead.

-Matthew

Use the F5 command to have them back off and not attack. I agree, though, the overuse of mines is really annoying.

I just found out by accident that right clicking on the follower character portraits, picking an action ("attack, fall back"), and then picking an enemy gives a command to just that NPC, allowing you to keep specific ones alive and have others continue fighting.

Am I missing something, or is this completely undocumented? It's fun, but this game could have used some polishing.

"I just found out by accident that right clicking on the follower character portraits, picking an action ("attack, fall back"), and then picking an enemy gives a command to just that NPC, allowing you to keep specific ones alive and have others continue fighting. "

I used to be able to do that too, but then yesterday I noticed that the character portrait disappeared - I miss Virgil's face.

1. I love the sheep at Madame Lil's.
2. The game interface bites donkey dicks.

How to disable random encounters:


Has traveling the countryside become a chore? The tedium of stabbing the endless stream of chump-change enemies got you down? Tired of absent-mindedly slaughtering them with the back of your hand? With this new frabulous invention at your beck and call, you can command genocidal elves to roam the countryside, killing everything that doesn't have a named map location for a home address. An orgy of genocidal rage, old chap!


http://www.terra-arcanum.com/council/articles/hackmod/

On a semi-related note, has anyone noticed how insanely screwed up the Sierra message boards are? Check out this thread about "we're all furries":

http://community.sierra.com/WebX?128@240.9q1OaZ5fuFQ^[email protected]

Yeah i used that thing J! thanks! actually i kinda edited the encounters for my other chars to fight mid level monsters around Tarant with a 50% frequency.

This game, despite some bugs, is hugely cool. I cant wait to see some of the mods to come out. I've been working on a semi copy of the Everquest world with different names...

etc

I described how to a friend of mine the game really feels like "My First Game Design." Sure, there's all sorts of neat things they *could* have done, but in acuality, you get:

The advertised magic vs. technology conflict is almost nonexistant. The plot is almost entirely cordoned off from the rest of the game, which gives it the odd Daggerfall-esque "hey, I guess I'll go do the plot now" effect.

The quest and rumors pages are practically useless, so I've resorted to hand notes. I have 70 pages of rumors and 30 pages of quests. Am I seriously supposed to keep track of all this when there's no useful sorting by location or time? It doesn't even keep track of what page you last had open between saves or go to the most recent page by default, so checking new rumors requires 70 clicks. It doesn't even track all "useful" information points you find in the game, or let you add your own notes.

Random encounters are too frequent, too easy, give no useful xp after level 20 or so, and are completely unavoidable for a melee character.

Towns are enormous for no apparent reason. It can take 15 minutes or so to run around the sprawling, empty environs of Tarant just to fucking identify and sell equipment. Whose bright idea was it to stick the identify woman a 45 second run from the entrance (that's if you use the steamrail system to speed it up). Would it kill them to have at least made the shops all in the same spot?

I'm not going to rattle off the bugs, since most of them haven't bothered me that much, and they don't bother me as much as the design issues. Well, except for the "any time you enter a large map the system refuses to precache tiles and locks up a for minute loading them when it turns out it actually needs them" video slowdown.

The game feels like $20 shareware, and not the good Jeff Vogel kind. Who'd Tim Cain hire to write this thing? Did the playtesting team not point out the sheer volume of annoyances in the game because they were intoxicated?

I also can't figure out what the friggin' point to the editor is. There certainly doesn't appear to be a way to add an overland world map, and if the development team knows, they're not telling. Therefore, any module you create is limited in size to whatever someone can stand to watch their character walk over - maybe twice the size of Tarant.

It's fun if you a) disable the random encounters and b) walk around town by turning on fast-turnbased and running in combat, thereby letting you get across Tarant in 30 seconds if the dreaded Tile Caching bug doesn't hit you. It's pretty sad that I need to do either. As it is, I'm on the verge of finishing with my gunfighter, and I'm not overly sure if I'll play it through again.

Finding new schematics is also one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in an RPG. The only way to pick up a large set of useful schematics is to sleep outside shops over and over in the hopes that eventually a shopkeeper will roll the necessary 5% chance to have the one you want in stock. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm going to hack up a version of the stores text file that'll have 100% chance for everything to appear in the store. Still, the objection stands.

You also can't access follower inventory in shops. All these "little" annoyances are starting to add up to overwhelming disgust for me.

"I described how to a friend of mine the game really feels like 'My First Game Design.'"

I'm agreeing with you more and more as the game wears on. It almost feels like every little thing you take for granted in a good interface was purposely examined and a conscious decision was made to make it obtuse, overly time-consuming, and limiting to the player. I find myself just wishing they had just lifted the BG2 or even more aspects of the Fallout interface outright (barring the lack of direct follower control, which is exasperating to me).

Right now, I have the feeling I'm going to beat this thing out of sheer determination and a lack of anything else to play. It would be one thing if the game was just sheer pain, you could just get rid of it and not think twice. But there IS quite a lot to like in there, low-level design issues aside. So, every time I tell myself "That's it, I'm not playing this damned thing any more" I'll come back to it a few hours later, after I've cooled off, grit my teeth through whatever was bugging me and hope a similar situtation doesn't present itself for awhile.

That Pools of Radiance game that just went gold suddenly got a whole lot more interesting to me. Any of you in the loop have any thoughts on that one?

-Matthew

Last month I played through BGI with a solo mage, and then BGII + Expansoin pack the entire way through. I think if I touch another AD&D game in the next year I'm going to throw up.

Heh. I picked up the BG2 expansion a few weeks ago. Since I had lost my saves from BG2, I decided to replay it from the beginning. I guess I have 1 more AD&D game to go before I reach my quota for the year.

At this point though, I'll settle for any RPG where I don't have to spend a surprisingly large percentage of my play time futzing with my inventory. Maybe I'm just too much of a packrat, but it seems like every RPG I get devolves into some sort of backpack organizing sim. In Arcanum, you get this weird Tetris-style puzzle game where you shift everything around until it fits and weight is distributed across party members to make sure no one is "Heavily" encumbered. Ever try to have a follower's weapon repaired when your inventory is really full? What a nightmare. First, you have to clear enough room in the player's inventory to fit whatever you want to repair. Once you get it repaired, you have to get in back into the follower's equipment, where the fun really begins. It seems he's gone and auto equipped a railroad spike from his inventory while I was having his sword reaired, and he doesn't have the room in his backpack for the sword to fit. So I have to drop some of his stuff on the ground until he has enough room for the sword. Now he has no room in the pack for the spike he has equipped, so he won't equip the sword until I force him to drop the spike on the ground. Once I finally get him with the correct weapon, I find that the shopkeeper has picked up most of what I had him drop. Kill me now.

-Matthew

Yeah. Daggerfall, of all things, was the only RPG that took inventory management to the logical extreme, and let you pull a wheelbarrow up a dungeon and load 'er up. If only everyone had learned.

---

Quote:

In Arcanum, you get this weird Tetris-style puzzle game where you shift everything around until it fits

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Why do you guys get all worked up over the game? Oh sure there are some gripes I have with the game too, but its not enough to make me feel disgusted or grit my teeth or nitpick every little thing.

Anyway, i agree that there is a lack of polish feel to the game, though i wouldnt call it a "my first game design" design.

For me, the interface is fine, could be better, but works fine. The randomness of schematics keeps the game a little more interesting for replayability... I'm almost done with the game it seems and i primarily STILL use molotovs, so the higher schematics seem to be intended as gravy or cool lewt for the seasoned players to achieve for.

My main gripe is the imbalance of the attributes. the amount of AP's and Dex, a 20 + dex char can move around the map like a SUPER NINJA. The AP should be cut in half. Tech is at a disadvantage because it is so much upkeep searching around for junk to combine items. My ogre circus melee guy, he got to the dark elf city in a third of the time my dwarf and mage got there. there is an imbalance, i think they have to make comparisons in damage for weapons and half the damage bonus on STR. I level 5 cougar is sometimes harder then a level 20 gun carrying monster because the damage a cougar does is high AND they have a high dex that causes a lot of dmg.

And XP should be decided like in multi, equally among the party not per hit (this might be my biggest gripe), and make NPC's not able to level above you, so they can level up to you in some time instead of being the same level below you as you got them.

anyway, this game still exceeded my expectation and is still my favorite crpg in a long time. I actually like the story alot, and how the universe is handled. Its almost like a fallout universe feel (that technology is the damnation of the world) clashed with Tolkien.

etc

"I actually like the story alot, and how the universe is handled. Its almost like a fallout universe feel (that technology is the damnation of the world) clashed with Tolkien."

Well, I don't really have any feelings about the story itself one way or the other, but I too am intrigued by the universe. Enough so that I'm sticking with the game in spite of the multitude of poor design issues. I guess I'd hoped that all Bioware/Black Isle RPGs would have rubbed off on this game more in terms of those little, low level design/interface issues. It seems that things which SHOULDN'T be any problem at all (such as getting into a follower's inventory in the buy/sell screens or controlling them effectively in battle) are much more obtuse than they really have any right to be.

About nitpicking every little thing: I can get a bit annoyed when people refuse to see games as more than the sum of their parts, but it sometimes seems as though there are actually MORE little annoying problems than there are enjoyable bits, which makes it a bit more difficult to dismiss the problems as negligible. And then you add those problems in character balance issues that you pointed out.

I'd say my overall experience with the game IS a positive one, which is why I'm sticking with it. I think I'm coming off harsher than I mean to mainly because of the save game corruptions I keep running into - I seem to be pretty much alone with this problem though. I hardly see it discussed on the Arcanum boards, so it must be a rare problem. Those problems are really the ones I was referencing when I said I "grit my teeth." I'm seriously getting them in every third or fourth new area I arrive in, and it makes me have to do some weird stuff and retry things several times until I finally come out with a clean save and can get to the next area.

-Matthew

'Why do you guys get all worked up over the game? Oh sure there are some gripes I have with the game too, but its not enough to make me feel disgusted or grit my teeth or nitpick every little thing.'

I get all worked up over it because Fallout was the Second Best Game Ever, and I kind of expect a bit more from Arcanum. Oh well.

I wouldn't confuse the freedom of play in Arcanum with that in Daggerfall. If you don't like choices then Daggerfall will never appeal to you because that's the name of the game. Arcanum is more standard, linear with sidequests, RPG fare. You can do pretty well with just sticking to the plot and doing the occasional sidequest. It also has, to its credit, a Fallout like system where NPCs react appropriately to you character and dialogue choices reflect your design.

I agree with the interface and technical issues and the more I think about it the more I realize they could have really done with the story. But all in all, it's a good deal more interesting than the usual thing and I'm glad I shelled out my dollars for it.

Evidently some people are doing stuff with the editor. I've seen related posts on usenet. Have no idea what though.

Has anyone tried multiplayer?

I hacked the shopkeeper files:

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/council/articles/hackmod

Using this forces shops to always carry at least one copy of every item they sell. No more resting over and over to get schematics.

Does anyone know who to get Technological followers to read schematics that you find?

I'm playing a mage but would like to have Magnus build some of the tech items from schematics that I find during gameplay. Placing the schematic in his inventory and asking him what he can build doesn't seem to do it - he never reads the schematics in his inventory.

I'm probably overlooking some obscure interface button somewhere that allows followers to read schematics...

Followers can't use schematics. However, as long as you're willing to blow money on enough skill books from the Tarant library, it's not an issue; they can make the necessary prereqs and you can use the books to make the final item.

Jason,

Not sure what you mean. The only skill books I've seen aren't in the library (which charges 1500 coins for a membership) but rather from a textbook seller at the University (the building with the phrenologist and the expert on the old gods).

I've purchased a tech skill book from him (I think it was chemistry) but was not allowed to read it - when I put the book in my hands, the arrows around the hand icon lit up red.

I'm playing a mage with no tech skills/aptitude whatsoever

Carrying those skill books in your inventory gives you a bonus of int x 1% to your skill. So, a 10 int character can build anything with spending a point as long as you have the schematic and necessary items.