Completed Arcanum LP [Tech/Evil][Fortified with memes][Finished]

[Egosphere]

I always thought Arcanum's story was about death, human lives and ideas beeing fleeting and mortality and pain. It is the main theme that runs from the first quest you find in the game and if you combine Loghaire (who is neutral observer on the matter), Virgil (who is positive) and Kerghan (negative) speeches it seems like it repeats itself in sort of secret holy trinity.

Or maybe it's all other the place, but after Virgil's resurrection it always clicked for me. He is probably the most important character in the game, even more so than the villain and always echoes everything that happens including talking back to Kerghan in the end.

This is a good argument to remove the karma metre from the game. Evil Virgil never dies and you don't get to hear his perspective on the matter, which is pivotal in your understanding of the flaws in Kerghan's logic.

 

[Shadenuat]

Karma is definitely Fallout artifact. Mag/Tech aptitude should have been karma, as well as reputation, traits and races.

And being a Gnome. Pick gnome and all your dialogue options get replaced with sleazy and evil options.

 

[vazha]

Fantastic LP, loved it!

 

[CappenVarra]

 

[Egosphere]

I'm taking few months off, but I might do another lp this year. Anyone have anything they'd want to see memed to death?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

On the topic of Godhood, what does that end entail exactly? I never actually did it in my 3 playthroughs.

Men either.

I'd take Blackroot over Shrouded Hills, but that sounds about right. A big town with a couple of smaller ones is par for course, really. Arcanum over-extends itself with Tarant, Caladon, Ashbury, Shrouded Hills, Dernholm, Blackroot, Tulla + the dwarven clans + elves + non-trivial settlements like the penal colony and Roseborough.

I always forget Blackroot is a thing.

I too, agree that Arcanum over-extends.

I thought that the first time I played it, but I think Arcanum's animations don't do the sprites themselves any justice. The sprites are fine in Arcanum, and there are far more gory death animations than first meets the eye: decapitations, cutting in half, exploding ribcages etc. which work not just on humans, but also on the bestiary. The problem seems to stem from the speed of the animation itself. Fallout's animations would be slower, so you could take in all of the details, whilst many of Arcanum's animations are too fast. You decapitate a guy and you might just catch a glimpse his head fly off his shoulders, but the game doesn't doesn't spend much time on the details. Perhaps duplicating some of the key frames to draw out the length would have worked. Perhaps the sheer quantities of beasts you encounter in Arcanum led to the animations being sped up to give combat encounters a respectable time frame. The absence of any sound effects beyond a standard groan or yelp from your moribund enemies doesn't help matters.

Hmmm... could be. Animations in Arcanum are ridiculously fast, I don't understand why they did that.

I do think that Arcanum is somewhat of a "Trash Mob" game compared to Fallout. Too many combat encounters, too many useless combat encounters with shit monsters. Even the random encounters are 99% fast combat romps with shit monsters.

I was impressed by the fortresses, though. I forgot how many unique ones there were. Ashbury, Dernholm, Caladon, Wheel Clan, Bate's Manor, Void, Vendigroth. I guess they somewhat make up for the boxy, cookie cutter buildings that house the Tarant University and Zoological societies.. Fallout 2's other great advantage lies in multiple storeys. New Reno casinos look great.

Yeah, they really went all out at these kinds of unique places.

Its kinda sad when you compare the normal buildings that could have been easily terrific if they gave them a bit more work.

 

[Black]

I never understood how going into the void and returning to Arcanum (through not PC's means) allow your character to become a god. Wut.

 

[CappenVarra]

I'm taking few months off, but I might do another lp this year. Anyone have anything they'd want to see memed to death?

keep on Troiking and be fashionable in Bloodlines? anything non-Malk, I know that one too well...

 

[Baron Dupek]

It was so good I need to remind myself how to archive LPs like these like.
Splendid!

 

[Volourn]

The whole 'natural state is death' and 'world/people are better off not existing' is a wussy try hard wannabe edgy internet style of faux philosophy that writers use to pretend to be deep when it is as shallow as a puddle. Throw in the Dragonlance rip off choice end of being the last god/creature in existence after wiping everything out just oozes more try hardness.

That said, Arcanum is a great RPG. Plain and simple.