Arcanum Arcanum Multiverse Edition

[Junmarko]

Thanks for posting about this, Junmarko! Greatly appreciated!

No problem man

By the way, if anyone wants to just play Vanilla Arcanum(with UAP of course) - Here's how you can fix performance problems:

Spoiler

-use this DDraw replacement.

Fixes all performance issues on Win 10/8/7 (Abnormal loading times etc...) It's a must! :D

Download: "DDrawCompat v0.2.1"

EDIT: Also, right-click on the arcanum.exe (desktop shortcut if GoG), hit Properties, then edit your Target window to include this, including the quotation marks:

"C:\GOG Games\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe" -no3d -scrolldist:0 -scrollfps:70

DDrawCompat

Introduction
DDrawCompat is a DirectDraw wrapper aimed at fixing compatibility and performance issues with games based on DirectX 7 and below on newer versions of Windows (Vista/7/8/10). Games using DirectX 8 and above for rendering are not affected as they don't use ddraw.dll. DDrawCompat does not use any external renderer (such as OpenGL), nor even a newer version of DirectX. It only changes how DirectDraw (and GDI) is used internally. Since older versions of Direct3D (v7 and below) also rely on DirectDraw, DDrawCompatmay be useful for those renderers as well.

Installation
Download the latest binary release from the repository's releases page. Unzip the file and copy the extracted ddraw.dll to any DirectDraw based game's installation directory, next to the main executable file. If the main executable is in a subdirectory of the installation directory, you must put ddraw.dll in the same subdirectory.

 

[T. Reich]

Only retards bash combat in Arcanum, because people in the know remember

What about new players, eh? They're not people in the know, and they're the ones that will face firsthand the shittiness of Arcanum's combat.

Also, your whole argument rests on the fact that there are a handful of uber spells and items that render the combat meaningless? That doesn't make the combat unbashable, it doesn't make it good. It reduces its annoyance by basically having ways of trivializing it, IFF you know about them.

Only retards do not bash combat in Arcanum. It is objectively bad. And uber spells/items, plus the unbalancing factor of having a small or big party are additional reasons for that.

Yeah, bad wording on my part.
What I meant to say that claimimng that Arcanum is bad because combat in it is bad is retarded.
It sure is clunky as fuck and annoying in average.

However, it doesn't take much to become a person "in the know".
If you're playing as a mage, it's sound logic to grab at least some sort of offensive skill right at character generation. Harm happens to be the easiest accessible damage-dealing skill among all magic schools, and it happens to work on every early enemy.
Likewise, while ogres aren't immediately available, orcs (the lower level spell in the same school) are, and they're quite competent even in the beginning.
Broken Hills already gives access to the great punchy companion in Sod Mead Mug.
And techies will have pretty much immediate access to a good self-crafted revolver and (found) grenades.

Acquiring the rest is pretty much a matter of sound character progression and a bit of in-game research on what's available to you.

In the end, trivialising bad combat is a good thing because then you can focus on the good stuff.

 

[Brancaleone]

Thanks for posting about this, Junmarko! Greatly appreciated!

No problem man

By the way, if anyone wants to just play Vanilla Arcanum(with UAP of course) - Here's how you can fix performance problems:

Spoiler

-use this DDraw replacement.

Fixes all performance issues on Win 10/8/7 (Abnormal loading times etc...) It's a must! :D

Download: "DDrawCompat v0.2.1"

EDIT: Also, right-click on the arcanum.exe (desktop shortcut if GoG), hit Properties, then edit your Target window to this, including the quotation marks:

"C:\GOG Games\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe" -no3d -scrolldist:0 -scrollfps:70

DDrawCompat

Introduction
DDrawCompat is a DirectDraw wrapper aimed at fixing compatibility and performance issues with games based on DirectX 7 and below on newer versions of Windows (Vista/7/8/10). Games using DirectX 8 and above for rendering are not affected as they don't use ddraw.dll. DDrawCompat does not use any external renderer (such as OpenGL), nor even a newer version of DirectX. It only changes how DirectDraw (and GDI) is used internally. Since older versions of Direct3D (v7 and below) also rely on DirectDraw, DDrawCompatmay be useful for those renderers as well.

Installation
Download the latest binary release from the repository's releases page. Unzip the file and copy the extracted ddraw.dll to any DirectDraw based game's installation directory, next to the main executable file. If the main executable is in a subdirectory of the installation directory, you must put ddraw.dll in the same subdirectory.

Junmarko, is it worth firing up another play with the Multiverse Edition? Are there significant differences compared to Arcanum+UAP?

 

[Keye_]

I think I'm going to start a new game because I accidentally quick saved right before a bunch of high level enemies rip my party apart and I'm a one save kind of guy. I have a question about appearance and reputation: how important is reaction? I was wearing Dread Armor and all the NPCs make fun of my character but I don't know if it's causing me to miss out on dialogue options, etc.

Initial reaction is not that important. As long as your reaction doesn't get so low that people attack you on sight you should be fine. (and even that can be a way to play, I did a playthrough where I just killed everyone on sight) Replying in a friendly way negates the bad reaction most of the time. Also, wearing a fancy suit when talking to NPCs will get you better reactions, go browse some clothing stores.
Arcanum isn't a game where you can experience everything in one playthrough, don't worry about missing things.

Have you read the manual? It's worthwhile and will explain almost everything.

 

[Ismaul]

Yeah, bad wording on my part.

Admitting mistakes.

What I meant to say that claimimng that Arcanum is bad because combat in it is bad is retarded. ... In the end, trivialising bad combat is a good thing because then you can focus on the good stuff.

This we agree on.

My point is that it's not bad for new players to know that the game's combat is shit, that they need to skip/trivialize it, and how. No need to idolize the game so much, it has many other great things going for it, players just have to actually get to them and see them for themselves. And everything we can do to that end is a good thing. Otherwise they end up quitting too early, like I did at first, before they see the awesome world-building and C&C, thinking the game is shit, and we don't want that. I think even MCA would've needed that advice lol

 

[Junmarko]

Junmarko, is it worth firing up another play with the Multiverse Edition? Are there significant differences compared to Arcanum+UAP?

Sorry man, my last play through was between 2012/13 - so for gameplay/ruleset tweaks, I'm too rusty to make a reasonable comparison.

As far as bugs, this has definitely wedged one serious problem into it that I encountered last night. Save files can be corrupted during certain actions and it's completely unpredictable, which is a worry. Same symptom every time, in dialogue with an NPC, your companions disposition towards you will radically shift (to numbers like -92346243424) and they'll kill you. However, it hasn't happened since I stopped experimenting with the launchers various tweaks. So, get it to whatever settings you're happy with first, then start playing properly. (Just hard-save a lot incase too!)

My settings:

Spoiler

But, over the years, Arcanum has become more of a headache to get running properly on modern systems, especially for new players. This just overrides all that.

So, I'd say yes, purely on the factor of convenience. The launcher and all the options it gives you, are handy - and if these guys see that it's becoming popular, they'll just keep making it better.

 

[Brancaleone]

Junmarko, is it worth firing up another play with the Multiverse Edition? Are there significant differences compared to Arcanum+UAP?

Sorry man, my last play through was between 2012/13 - so for gameplay/ruleset tweaks, I'm too rusty to make a reasonable comparison.

As far as bugs, this has definitely wedged one serious problem into it that I encountered last night. Save files can be corrupted when doing certain actions and it's completely unpredictable, which is a worry. Same symptom every time, during dialogue with an NPC, your companions disposition towards you will radically shift (to numbers like -92346243424) and they'll kill you. However, it hasn't happened since I stopped experimenting with the launchers various tweaks. So, get it to whatever settings your happy with first, then start playing properly. (Just hard-save a lot incase too!)

My settings:

Spoiler

But, over the years, Arcanum has become more of a headache to get running properly on modern systems, especially for new players. This just overrides all that.

So, I'd say yes, purely on the factor of convenience. The launcher and all the options it gives you, are handy - and if these guys see that it's becoming popular, they'll just keep making it better.

Thanks a lot, man. In any case, I always play solo, so I won't have to worry about my companions attacking me.

Only thing is, years and years ago I had managed to change the settings so that molotov/grenades hurt everybody, not just enemies, and I don't know whether I can do the same modification to Multiverse. I should give it a try.

 

[Junmarko]

Only retards bash combat in Arcanum, because people in the know remember that we have:
1) harm spell
2) looking glass rifle
3) pyrotechnic axe
4) summon ogre spell
5) up to 6 party members equipped with said murdertools, clearing most mob encounters in a heartbeat
All of which are accessible soon after getting to Tarant and completing a few non-combat quests to get the necessary levels.

Only retards bash combat in Arcanum, because people in the know remember

What about new players, eh? They're not people in the know, and they're the ones that will face firsthand the shittiness of Arcanum's combat.

Also, your whole argument rests on the fact that there are a handful of uber spells and items that render the combat meaningless? That doesn't make the combat unbashable, it doesn't make it good. It reduces its annoyance by basically having ways of trivializing it, IFF you know about them.

Only retards do not bash combat in Arcanum. It is objectively bad. And uber spells/items, plus the unbalancing factor of having a small or big party are additional reasons for that.

Agree with both of you to some extent.

Combat was initially unbearable to me back in the day too, only because it throws you off in how un-confident the game appears, having two implementations. With the most incomplete and bare-bones one, "Real-Time-With-A.D.D", being easily enabled on the fly, by pressing Space-Bar (lol) - traditionally used as "End-Turn" in a large majority of turn-based games. Habitual reflexes like that, can be annoying to a lot of people when fucked with - and Arcanum doesn't allow any key-rebinding...

However, once you spend a little bit of time adjusting to it and getting a character build you enjoy, it's actually not as bad as it appears. It does the job and is charmingly satisfying at times.

It can be fun getting into Tarant street-fights when you're a gunslinger as well. Executing two half-orcs that try to mug you, in the middle of the street outside a state library, all in this Victorianesque one-of-a-kind setting - is fucking hilarious. Especially when the somber violins start playing again

But, I love Turn-based + GURPS style games anyway. So my bias is probably off the charts to many.

 

[Brancaleone]

However, once you spend a little bit of time adjusting to it and getting a character build you enjoy, it's actually not as bad as it appears. It does the job and is charmingly satisfying at times.

If it only had some kind of (even basic) AI (I mean actual AI, not the current percentage based random thing) especially for enemy mages, and maybe a change in the experience gain (for kill instead of for hit), it actually might be decently good.

Drog, hear my plea!

 

[iZerw]

I just cant get into this game, the combat is so....shitty. Am I doing something wrong..? Pisses me off because all I hear is how great this game is, but I just cant imagine forcing myself to play through such shitty combat for tens of hours.

I can totally understand you. The combat is shit. The best thing you can do is to follow this guide and go with charisma/throwing build so only your companions deal with the combat.

 

[Goral]

Combat is skippable in Arcanum for the most part so I don't see a problem here, you can just run away and only do the quests that don't require brute force solutions. There are also builds which make combat trivial and builds which allow you to skip combat without running so...

 

[Junmarko]

You don't really need to install regular game, the "mod" is actually Arcanum itself

Please don't wake the sleeping gimp

 

[biggestboss]

I'm in Black Root and I got a quest to get a free room for life at the inn. Once I get the free room, can I use it as a psuedo stronghold and store my belongings in the containers? Or do the containers get "emptied" periodically?

 

[DavidBVal]

Does this include russian trojans that will decide my vote in next election?

Even if it does, installing now.

 

[Ramnozack]

I just cant get into this game, the combat is so....shitty. Am I doing something wrong..? Pisses me off because all I hear is how great this game is, but I just cant imagine forcing myself to play through such shitty combat for tens of hours.

I can totally understand you. The combat is shit. The best thing you can do is to follow this guide and go with charisma/throwing build so only your companions deal with the combat.

That is a solution, but I don't want a game where I have to skip all the combat, like I said before, I just played Shadowrun Hong Kong and the vast majority of fights in those games you are incentivized to skip so the result is very little combat is a decently large game. I can't read another interactive book right now. I need to kill some shit.

 

[Luckmann]

I'm in Black Root and I got a quest to get a free room for life at the inn. Once I get the free room, can I use it as a psuedo stronghold and store my belongings in the containers? Or do the containers get "emptied" periodically?

They're safe.

 

[GloomFrost]

I had other plans for tonight but what the hell. Downloading!

 

[YES!]

Only retards bash combat in Arcanum, because people in the know remember that we have:
1) harm spell
2) looking glass rifle
3) pyrotechnic axe
4) summon ogre spell
5) up to 6 party members equipped with said murdertools, clearing most mob encounters in a heartbeat
All of which are accessible soon after getting to Tarant and completing a few non-combat quests to get the necessary levels.

2 and 3 are shit. Harm is great from lvl 1 to lvl 100, and there are much, much better guns than looking glass and much better weapons than pyro axe.

But you are somehow trying to make a case that super easy combat is easier with what you consider to be good weapons.

I love Arcanum, and Fallout 1 and 2, and Bloodlines with all my heart and soul - but none of those games have good combat objectively. Unless people think that too easy equals good. I think the most OP build is throwing with the Abala Star (or whatever it is called) and 20 dex, the magic shoes with +5 speed that are common, other + speed magic items you get, and haste spell. You can kill hordes of enemies and still have almost full AP when done.

Sierra demanded Arcanum have RT combat so they didn't do so bad considering the hybrid RT/TB mode. But for some reason Tim Cain really loves to let you be able to save during combat in his games. Now, even if these games had hard combat, being able to save during combat makes pretty much any encounter completely doable with enough reloads.

Then you have the offshoot - ToEE with its brilliant encounters and specifically designed for Ironman. Off course, the almost fully avoidable but not if you don't read up on it issue of the ironman save file being corrupted kind of spoiled that - but not for true aficionados of the genre.

 

[vortex]

By the way, if anyone wants to just play Vanilla Arcanum(with UAP of course) - Here's how you can fix performance problems:

Spoiler

-use this DDraw replacement.

Fixes all performance issues on Win 10/8/7 (Abnormal loading times etc...) It's a must! :D

Download: "DDrawCompat v0.2.1"

EDIT: Also, right-click on the arcanum.exe (desktop shortcut if GoG), hit Properties, then edit your Target window to include this, including the quotation marks:

"C:\GOG Games\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe" -no3d -scrolldist:0 -scrollfps:70

DDrawCompat

Introduction
DDrawCompat is a DirectDraw wrapper aimed at fixing compatibility and performance issues with games based on DirectX 7 and below on newer versions of Windows (Vista/7/8/10). Games using DirectX 8 and above for rendering are not affected as they don't use ddraw.dll. DDrawCompat does not use any external renderer (such as OpenGL), nor even a newer version of DirectX. It only changes how DirectDraw (and GDI) is used internally. Since older versions of Direct3D (v7 and below) also rely on DirectDraw, DDrawCompatmay be useful for those renderers as well.

Installation
Download the latest binary release from the repository's releases page. Unzip the file and copy the extracted ddraw.dll to any DirectDraw based game's installation directory, next to the main executable file. If the main executable is in a subdirectory of the installation directory, you must put ddraw.dll in the same subdirectory.

Does DDrawCompat v0.2.1 works with Icewind Dale 2 ?
Thanks

 

[DavidBVal]

I love Arcanum, and Fallout 1 and 2, and Bloodlines with all my heart and soul - but none of those games have good combat objectively.

Aw not this again. FO1 has decent and fun combat - for a 20h game not centered around combat.

 

[Macbeth]

Hello everyone,

So if you have any questions about Multiverse Edition you may ask here. But please don't expect too friquent answers, ok? But I'll try my best.
Project is in work. Update will arrive rather soon.
Mainly my job is translation of texts from english to russian and back. So if you'll find any mistake you can kick me to fix it.

And we're really thankful to all guys for their previous projects like UAP and Grand Fix on which base we continue our work with Arcanum.

Conсerning Steam or GoG. We've made our repack separately from that platforms. Our re-pack is absolutely stand-alone version of the full game. And it can be downloaded from torrent trakers.

Normally config.exe contains all instruments you need to run the game on any PC. First try AutoConfig, and if it'll not help then try to "play" with D3D, DXWnd, render and so on. It SHOULD work.

Because they are poorer, so chances are if you have a home PC, you belong to the smart segment of the population. And that computer is likely to be old and not compatible with new games.

Yep, right. I've just updated my ZX Spectrum. You know, "640K is more memory than anyone will ever need." (c) Billy Gates

If you change any options on this tab and ONLY click Run Arcanum, they won't take. Click Применить (RUS apply) first, then Run Arcanum.

Yes, apply. We'll fix that...


P.S. Please do NOT install any other mods on the re-pack. You will regret.

 

[Tigranes]

I enjoy Arcanum combat. It's not great. But I enjoy it. Most of it's down to throwing molotov cocktails around and putting to use the various guns and gadgets you've crafted, of course, rather than tactics.

 

[YES!]

I love Arcanum, and Fallout 1 and 2, and Bloodlines with all my heart and soul - but none of those games have good combat objectively.

Aw not this again. FO1 has decent and fun combat - for a 20h game not centered around combat.

There is a huge difference between decent and good. And I disagree. The game is way more than 20h for almost everyone. The first major combat location, the bandits who had kidnapped the young lady from the first town - I would say most people of average intelligence realize they can take out the whole army by save spamming. And then they do. If you consider that good combat, or decent combat, we will never agree on anything.

All the games I named I do not think have good combat, but it is way, way better than the endless hordes of enemies model employed by most of the most loved rpgs. The IE games, the Kotors, all the official content for the NWNs, Diablos, Dragon Ages, etc, had far worse combat.

Arcanum I didn't mind as I was always looking for new combat locations because I always needed points to spend on my character. Bloodlines was good at realizing your build through combat, and there are a lot of ways to go about it, but none of them are very challenging or require much thought outside of a handful of encounters.

When it comes to rpgs most people seem to either prefer really shitty and thoughtless combat or are just plain dumb enough to believe that if they like a game the combat must be good. But, with so many moving parts in real rpgs it seems as long as the combat isn't challenging and isn't total garbage its a win for the devs.

 

[YES!]

Hello everyone,

So if you have any questions about Multiverse Edition you may ask here. But please don't expect too friquent answers, ok? But I'll try my best.
Project is in work. Update will arrive rather soon.
Mainly my job is translation of texts from english to russian and back. So if you'll find any mistake you can kick me to fix it.

And we're really thankful to all guys for their previous projects like UAP and Grand Fix on which base we continue our work with Arcanum.

Conсerning Steam or GoG. We've made our repack separately from that platforms. Our re-pack is absolutely stand-alone version of the full game. And it can be downloaded from torrent trakers.

Normally config.exe contains all instruments you need to run the game on any PC. First try AutoConfig, and if it'll not help then try to "play" with D3D, DXWnd, render and so on. It SHOULD work.

Because they are poorer, so chances are if you have a home PC, you belong to the smart segment of the population. And that computer is likely to be old and not compatible with new games.

Yep, right. I've just updated my ZX Spectrum. You know, "640K is more memory than anyone will ever need." (c) Billy Gates

If you change any options on this tab and ONLY click Run Arcanum, they won't take. Click Применить (RUS apply) first, then Run Arcanum.

Yes, apply. We'll fix that...


P.S. Please do NOT install any other mods on the re-pack. You will regret.

Can you guys start working on adding content like more backgrounds and portraits to start off with? Just the vanilla selection is no good. We need more.

 

[YES!]

I enjoy Arcanum combat. It's not great. But I enjoy it. Most of it's down to throwing molotov cocktails around and putting to use the various guns and gadgets you've crafted, of course, rather than tactics.

I think why it is so successful as an rpg is because people can do so many things and really approach combat in wildly different ways. I've literally never thrown one grenade type object in the game. Or used any gadget in combat besides a tech made weapon like a firearm or melee weapon. And I almost never get too far as a tech because of the storage requirements and no teleport. Magic is the way to go in my opinion - the way better weapons and armor earlier and no storage needed.