Arcanum is the 2nd Coming of the Christ and the 8th Wonder!

There's an entrance in the southernmost lighthouse actually. That's where I went into the 'old sewers' and worked through it up to the Orc nest thing which I left alone thinking it's some other quest. A couple of days ago I was back there and couldn't be fucked to go back to the lighthouse exit so I killed my way out...

I left the human noble alone (he attacks on seeing me). Who is that guy and is he in any quest? I've been reading newspaper reports about some half-orc agitator or something with a price on his head. Anything to do with it?

 

Yeah, but that are the new sewers...
The old sewers are a lot more dangerous, with a hell lot of tough creatures.

 

Was that inside the boil or some other place where you came out?
Sounds interesting...

 

In the North Boil yes. I don't remember any other usable exits.

And those are the Old Sewers. The New Sewers is the tiny map which you can access from many points in the city (near Smythe's Gun Shop is the one I use to store my phat lewt).

 

Yeah, new sewers was to jefklak.

And there is also an exit to the south boil, the Ogre camp.

 

Ah okay, i'll have to replay the game again then my mind is getting foggy

 

So is one of the Tulla quests the originator of the "Equip the ring" line? I'm making my way through Fa'al Kin's maze, and the solution seems eerily familiar.

 

My favourite Tulla quest is when you have to find that aprrentice who had to find a water gem, then found it, came back and got rejected because he changed so much towards the technology side.

I just love Fallout nostalgia!

 

Ladonna, do you mind explaining the whole dwarven attack on Tarant? And how can you recruit the king? Do you need to have maxed out persuasion in order to do it? Two times I played through I didnt spot any options, but perhaps I missed them.

I also went back to him after I discovered what happened to BMC because I was hoping I could have an option of explaining to him what the situation is. But he only repeats his one liner about regretting what he had done or something like that.

 

TWD: you did talk with his son about the stone and the form (sorry, German version here, dunno of they fumbled the translation...) ? do that before you speak with him and you should, at least, get the option to recruit him...

 

Stone and Shape it's called. [I never buy German versions of RPGs as the English versions usually have a much better athmosphere... must be the language ]

That's some kind of Dwarven Philosophy. You need high persuasion and also an intelligence at least over 10 [15 or so would be best, I can't remember how much I had] so the dialogue options show up. Then talk to Loghaire about this philosophy. Tell him all the dialogue options which contain these stone and shape thingies. He will see that he has to go on, and then gets back on the throne. Later you can recruit him, after you did this. If you screw the conversation, he will never return from his exile.

 

Heh. You know, I didn't even think about that. Very cool!

Tulla seemed pretty short. There are certainly enough mages hanging out to provide some intrigue and back-stabbing.

 

I must say I never liked Arcanum. I actually finished it once, but, as far as I remember, the story was mediocre, and to be honest I don't even remember how it ends. It does, however, have a few solid quests and several good jokes, and the music is superb.

Technology is not really featured very much in the game- few enemies use it, and I can't seem to recall any quests that are allow the use of tech skills. The magic, on the other hand, is the kind of flashy fairy-tale omnipresent unrealistic Baldur's Gateian magic that I hate. Technology opposed to "magic" in the sense of tradition, rituals, shamanism and/or occult magic would have been cool. Instead, we get a flashy fairytale world with a few out-of-place trains and guns.
Even if you consider this criticism to be too harsh, I would still maintain that instead of contrasting the modern and the typical fantasy world in an interesting way, Arcanum's world is simply inconsistent and unbelievable. Basically, the player (i.e. me) does not know what to expect - for me, the world never felt real, and I never "understood" how it works; something I could easily do in an inferior game like BG.

I don't really like the character creation, mostly because you use the same points both for attributes and skills. For me, this made char. progression feel unrewarding, slow, and directionless.

And finally, the graphics and interface were simply atrocious. I really don't care about either, and the prehistoric Betrayal at Krondor and the endless-inventory-scrolling that is Fallout are some of my favourite games. But Arcanum's interface is incredibly clunky. The screen is horribly zoomed in (actually, as zoomed as in PST, but I never noticed it there), which makes it a chore to find anything and orient yourself. Combat is boring in TB, where you just click attack attack attack or harm harm harm or shoot shoot throw bomb because I'm underpowered shoot. The RT mode, for some reason, was ridiculously fast, and you couldn't control anything.
The artwork is also really bad. All the buildings look the same, the featureless maps paling in comparison to PST's brilliant artwork, and, in my experience, really detracting from the believability and immersion - something that Betrayal at Krondor's shitty graphics never did.

All in all, the game had potential, so perhaps my disappointment makes me dislike more than I should (hey, the music was great though), but I really can't say I think it's a good game, and saying that its storyline is better than the one in PST is, in my humble opinion, bullshit.

 

Your humble opinion is noted.

Now explain to me how the world of Baldurs gate 'worked' where Arcanums didn't.

The character creation is made that way so that you couldn't be the staple of todays fucktard RPG's: Master of everything. In Arcanum, you slowly grew your character, and had to play to your strengths while dealing with your weaknesses. There is a character editor out there for the more...action...oriented player.

The RT combat sucked. The turn based combat was lacklustre to some degree, and could have been done better. The interface was ok, and the graphics did the trick: Notice how much more GAME there is. A much better outcome than shallow shit and flashy graphics. Find another RPG with that much game in it.

As for storylines, I liked both. However I much preferred the choices to be made and different outcomes of quests, etc in Arcanum. Torment was a nice game, but it did run on rails.



TWD: You might have to be a Dwarf, it was some years ago, and only the intrepid few (lucky?) have found this one. Its there though, don't worry about that. As others have said, you have to be charismatic and intelligent.

 

You know what annoys me about Arcanum? That the dialogs are always missing commas before names!

And Troika could have spent less time doing different icons in 2 views and added, oh I dont know, 2nd stories to the buldings! Specifically the rich area of Tarant.

 

Yet another old game that I will have to try and buy somewhere.

Arcanum never appealed to me before now. It's one of those games where some people think its good and some people think its so-so. On the strength of this thread, and the distinct lack of any decent new RPGs, I think I will give it a shot. If I can find it.

 

Arcanum seems to be one of those games where you either love it, or hate it. The game had the potential to be something great, but there are a number of flaws which can seriously detract from your overall experience. Some people can forgive or play through these flaws, some can't. Its true of most things. Personally, I thought the game was a lot of fun, but I can certainly understand other people's problems with it, and why they had trouble playing through it.

 

no ...the first impression of the game is fantastic , lots of choices to be made on character creation. Then the combat starts and everything went to hell.