Arcanum: Dead World *new Tarant screens*

[soggie]

Is that videos extracted from Arcanum?

 

[Monocause]

I suggest using google docs or other cloud-based software for coordinating tasks and work with everyone else. Simple e-mail won't work.

Also, try to set a clear deadline for each and every task. Draw up a list of clearly defined tasks (this is really important, don't have people waste their time and motivation on figuring out what they're actually supposed to do) and have everyone assume responsibility over a part of them - and make them do it themselves, assign tasks yourself only when it's necessary, ie. when there's some tedium that nobody wants to do. People have it easier to motivate themselves when they do something that they chose to do.

fe.
Badly explained task: "Dialogue writing: browse the list of NPCs, pick one and write some dialogue"

A clearly defined task: "This week we're supposed to be done with dialogue for Nix, Robert and Liam. These are fairly important NPCs so you'll need to put some effort into it.

Next week we'll doing a bunch of minor NPCs but that'll be a breeze, just a couple of lines for each. I'll provide extra details when the time comes but you can already start thinking about some lines for shopkeepers, gardeners, soldiers etc. if you can spare the time"

Next, try to draw a hypothetical timeline and try to divide the tasks accordingly and in a logical fashion so that each week has a similar workload to the next one while going along the plan without setbacks means that every week an important part of the job gets done. In your case I'd believe that you'd want to have fe. a quarter of Tarant done in one week, another quarter in next week etc. Once Tarant is done you focus on a village, then on wilderness areas or something. You get the logic.
It serves many purposes, one of them being that if people work on different areas of the project they'll pester each other or you for resources or advice that will be considerably more difficult to provide. If all of you are working on the same quarter of Tarant you'll face less problems.

Be an arse in general. If someone's falling back, pester him with e-mails. If he keeps giving you the "sorry i've got a cold/rash/uni/life" excuse, drop him from the team and find someone else ASAP. That's where the cloud-based software really shines - you already have a complete database of what's done and what's still pending completion. That database required no additional effort as it was a part of everyone's job and will make miracles when you need to fill someone in the project's status.
Also, don't be afraid to kick someone out if he's not exactly falling back but is generally underperforming, ie. the job he does is of sub-par quality or if he's a pain to communicate with. Such people are a hindrance to work with and usually mean that everyone else must do at least part of the stuff for them (fe. fixing grammar in dialogue, bugfixing scripts, remaking some graphics etc)

You really need to focus much of your effort on proper management. Whenever there's a project to be done good ideas are ultimately secondary to good management - after all, it's better to have a finished mediocrity than design a masterpiece and abandon it somewhere along the way.

 

[Crypton]

I suggest using google docs or other cloud-based software for coordinating tasks and work with everyone else. Simple e-mail won't work...

You put so much effort in that "giving advice", and nobody even bothers to reply or thank you

btw, very wise words and advice, thank you

To Kloaked Klingon Figure: How its going? still in progress?

 

[BethesdaLove]

Well! Thats running like on fire! Will check back next month.

 

[MikeJahn]

Looks promising, I am very pleased with this because I like Arcanum a lot.

 

[oscar]

What's happened with the Magic - Technology schism? Has the destruction of most of the infrastructure that technology depended on thrown the balance (canon wise of course, in game magic is far superior) more to the middle, or even in magic's favour?

Have the Victorian norms and manners survived? Or has much of mankind regressed to the Dark Age?

I would love to help with lore and quest ideas.

 

[MikeJahn]

What's happened with the Magic - Technology schism? Has the destruction of most of the infrastructure that technology depended on thrown the balance (canon wise of course, in game magic is far superior) more to the middle, or even in magic's favour?

Have the Victorian norms and manners survived? Or has much of mankind regressed to the Dark Age?

I would love to help with lore and quest ideas.

Considering Tarant is in a state of civil war, and Tarant was basically the city that was spreading tech all over the continent I am guessing magic would be making a major come back. I recall that magic was getting progressively weaker due to the rise in technology and there were a couple of higher level spells that had been completely forgotten, perhaps it'd be possible to discover these again?

 

[oscar]

Hmmm the main decider of whether magic will make a real resurgence would be the fate of the mages at Tulla, where all the serious magical training and research was. There were hedge wizards who could do the odd spell here and there and street performers who knew some Illusion magic trickery but the only place with powerful wizards was Tulla and, to a lesser degree, the Elf lands.

Shrouded Hill had a steam engine and most towns had electrical lamps so we can guess most of Arcanum was decently advanced. Will the technologists who could run these and the infrastructure that kept them working still be around? Or will it be only in a few lucky areas, with most of Arcanum regressing to feudalism and forced to rely on manpower again instead of machines?

Firearms, in game, could be interesting. With bullets and rifles being highly expensive and rare? This being so have people abandoned them for more easily constructed bows and arrows? Or perhaps blunderbusses and home made muskets are the order of the day, often low quality and smokey but packing one hell of a punch and made to take any kind of vaguely round bullet. I recall one anecdote about Maori warriors running out of musket balls and using hardened seeds as ammunition and even the Aztecs managed to create musket ball casts. As you may of guessed, I'm hoping you manage to make firearms not as useless compared to melee in game :D

 

[MikeJahn]

The only time I messed with guns is back in 2000 when Arcanum was first released and I recall that I was disappointed by higher end guns because they didn't have the rate of fire of earlier guns. That is the guns I built earlier fired like machine guns when I played in real time but the heavier damage guns fired "normally" but ended up being crap cuse they were slow. I don't know if the bug still persists, or if it really ever was that bad but if it still exists it's probably worth looking at.

 

[oscar]

I (and I think most people here) generally only played turn-based, with real-time being such a clusterfuck. Real-time was useful for fighting rats and wolves though. Were guns more powerful in real-time perhaps?

 

[MikeJahn]

I (and I think most people here) generally only played turn-based, with real-time being such a clusterfuck. Real-time was useful for fighting rats and wolves though. Were guns more powerful in real-time perhaps?

Far more powerful - you could fire a lot more before enemies would close the distance.

 

[oscar]

Yeah in turn based you were lucky to get a single shot off. Doing both turn-based and real-time in the same game was pretty terrible for balance.

I assume CF shall be doing his mod solely with turn-based in mind? Someone ought to do a mod that completely fixes and balances combat, but with a disclaimer saying "Hey if you DO play this in real-time, balance is going to go to Hell".

 

[MikeJahn]

Yeah in turn based you were lucky to get a single shot off. Doing both turn-based and real-time in the same game was pretty terrible for balance.

Yep, melee and throwers benefited a lot from turn based while ranged people got a lot of use out of real time. The balance was completely different depending on what you chose, it was rather disappointing.

I assume CF shall be doing his mod solely with turn-based in mind? Someone ought to do a mod that completely fixes and balances combat, but with a disclaimer saying "Hey if you DO play this in real-time, balance is going to go to Hell".

Well to be fair ranged weapons are complete crap in tb so there needs to be some sort of buffs made to them in TB. Also another annoying thing is that there is no D&D-like system of attacks of opportunity which meant that your meat sheilds couldn't actually block enemies from running at you and real time really was the only answer.

 

[Muro]

Just stumbled upon and read this thread.

A post-apocalyptic Arcanum sequel? Why, a most brilliant idea for fan-made module indeed. No news on the topic for four months, though, both here and on the website. That plus the fact that the Game Demo ETA counter obviously speaks nonsense doesn't leave one with much hope, but there's no harm in asking:

Was the project abandoned or is it still being worked on?

 

[Andyman Messiah]

 

[Lord Rocket]

Why isn't CF getting heaps and heaps of shit for abandoning this? Come on people.