Arcanum Arcanum Unofficial patch 2.0 released! (UPDATE)

[Black]

Fixed a mana calculation issue with the Teleportation spell, which made it not cost any charges if put on an enchanted weapon, like the Staff of K'an T'au.

This is terrible, getting that staff made playing as a techie so much more convenient. All the walking and crappy random encounters make me want to kys myself.

 

[Old Hans]

I had the itch to play this game lately, so I dug out the old CD case and OF COURSE the play disk is missing.

 

[Black]

I think I figured out what the problem with the new inherent Educator is. The game doesn't level up your companion's skill automatically if you're ahead of them, meaning keeping Virgil or Sogg from the beginning and getting Apprentice -> Expert -> Master correctly applies those skills to them.
But if you're Master melee and then get Loghaire, he won't be Master or even Apprentice despite meeting the requirements.

 

[Daedalos]

Why isnt there a good TB mod for arcanum yet?

 

[Reader]

Is it a bug or a feature?
Due to my build(or rather absence of it) I couldn't solve the problem with Lukan in Shouded Hills nor verbally nor by honest fight. I actually liked that. Then i decided to try a more ratty way and threw a dynamite at him from a distance. After a few seconds Lukan and one of his ogre goons exploded. Now i understand that Lukan is dumb and didn't make a big deal about dynamite near his legs, but why the second goon near the gate didn't reacted to the death of his comrades? I was able even to chat with him, he's not aggroing at all.
Not complaining, just curious how the game works.

 

[Yrvyne]

Hey Reader, are you the same guy posting over game's subreddit about Lukan?

In any case, yes the game drops some such blonde moments at times. You would expect them to react aggressively, instead they keep their non-chalance in check.

The reason is because the player's reactive radius would not have reached the NPC and therefore same NPC is unable to react as one would expect.

 

[Reader]

are you the same guy posting over game's subreddit

No, thats some other guy, I don't have reddit acc at all.

because the player's reactive radius would not have reached the NPC and therefore same NPC is unable to react as one would expect.

Ah i see. Thanks! So i assume that npcs have a radius too. And when npc calls for help not all the city guards come?

 

[Yrvyne]

To the best of my knowledge they do not have a radius in relation to the player.

It is, however, the player's radius that when it touches the NPC's tile, same NPC reacts accordingly.

So in the case above, the player may have been a little too far away (sheltering from dynamite's blast) and did not touch ogre's tile consequently for the ogre it was business as usual!

 

[Reader]

It is, however, the player's radius that when it touches the NPC's tile, same NPC reacts accordingly.

I understood why ogre didn't react. My question about npc's radius based on another case:
I accidently turned hostile to npc in her house. She called for help, guards came and killed me. At first i thought that when such situation happens then all guards in town become hostile to you. But now i'm curious did they react to my hostile status or her cry for help? It might open some opportunities for a lunatic playthrough.

 

[Yrvyne]

Oh so nefarious!

Well, it's always the player's radius that affects NPC. Many times have I murdered, quickly robbed then fled the scene. Only to return a day or two later to loot the chests.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Any news from Drog?
Did he survive the Covid?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Drog patched Covid. It now turns victims into trannies.

 

[Brancaleone]

Guise, I went back to dabble with SpellList.mes after so many years (to make grenades hurt the player as well) with latest UAP installed, but it seems like any modification to extracted /rules/SpellList.mes is ignored by the game. Anybody has any clue about what I am missing?

EDIT: nevermind, I'm an idiot. I was extracting the /rules directory in /Arcanum instead of /Arcanum/data

 

[T45 Paladin]

Many years later, and there are still too few RPGs that can truly rival the world building and story of Arcanum. With so much blandness in games these days, the market is surely ready for a spiritual sequel, even if it were under a different name. Someone just has to get to get the right devs and writers together. Easier said than done though.

 

[Baron Dupek]

You want better writing, dialogues and worldbuilding these days? In a world where people suck out social media and avoid any books, even shitty Harlequin-tier stuff?
Forget about it, it's gone.
It always baffle me that population grow so fast, yet it's harder (with passing time) to find anyone contributing anything valuable to... pretty much anything.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Arcanum had so much going for it with everything honestly. I mean, wow. When I first bought the game, I actually dreamt about it because of how it sucked me in.

I think it's possible with today's dev teams to actually have good writing. However, you just can't have too many cooks in the kitchen and you NEED someone to constantly edit / review it to ensure it fits the theme, AND you need someone to say NO to stuff that's out of place or too great of a scope expansion, etc. Consistency is key, by and large.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

It always baffle me that population grow so fast, yet it's harder (with passing time) to find anyone contributing anything valuable to... pretty much anything.

Same.

Not only did the population grow, but also the number of educated people. Yet I can only name 2 good books I've read in the last entire decade. What the fuck.

 

[zapotec]

I think it's time to Beamdog to step in and make a remaster.

 

[Eastwood]

I think it's time to Beamdog to step in and make a remaster.

There are some things you shouldn't even joke about.

 

[NJClaw]

I think it's time to Beamdog to step in and make a remaster.

Seeing how Bioware handled recent remasters, probably we should stop hating on Beamdog and thank them for snatching those licenses instead.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Arcanum DID have pretty sweet lore and writing and world. It's a shame the actual gameplay sucked MASSIVE arse. But that seems to be par for the course: PST, Witcher games, Disco Elysium, all of them kinda lacked in the gameplay department.

 

[CappenVarra]

Arcanum had so much going for it with everything honestly. I mean, wow. When I first bought the game, I actually dreamt about it because of how it sucked me in.

I think it's possible with today's dev teams to actually have good writing. However, you just can't have too many cooks in the kitchen and you NEED someone to constantly edit / review it to ensure it fits the theme, AND you need someone to say NO to stuff that's out of place or too great of a scope expansion, etc. Consistency is key, by and large.

i hear you: Arcanum is pure stardust dream spark material - if it doesn't get your juices going, it's time to look into the mirror and check whether you still have any soul left (punk)

the implementation leaves plenty to be desired, but if implementation details such as sprite mirroring (heya Drog you moron) bother you enough to overlook the intoxicating scent of muse pubes musk that permeates it... well, the rehab burnout ward is thataways

having that sort of magic happen nowadays is not a matter of knowing how to write or manage a team, it's about having a team made of people who have interesting dreams, you know?

corporate consumption drones dream only of politically correct electric sheep - that's why they feel the compulsion to make their waking selves so "quirky" and obviously vapid

we do not - i repeat: do not - need that kind of people in our vidyagames

 

[SharkClub]

Just finished playing it again, this time with the newest UAP. The locations are great, the world is great, the lore is great, the combat is awful. The usual Arcanum fare but with some extra polish thanks to the UAP.

But it got me thinking about how you could improve the combat, it certainly has a huge amount of issues. Inconsistencies in gameplay between the turn-based and real-time modes, stuff like some enemies that are super fucking slow in real-time due to animations somehow have a fuckton of AP in turn-based, so if you're on real-time you can cheese the everloving fuck out of the combat encounters with them by just kiting. Then you have other enemies that are super quick of movement and able to fly across the screen while you're struggling to click them in real-time mode. The AI fires bows/guns/spells faster than you can click your mouse in the real-time mode. The game is just horribly balanced and inconsistent and the core issue comes down to the fact that there isn't an internal "turns" system like even a RTwP game has, so how can you expect it to function in turn-based or real-time consistently when that is absent.

The obvious Codexian answer would be to do some major massive retardedly huge overhaul to all the systems and make it solely a turn-based game with polish in that direction, etc. The problem with this idea is that it'd be such a massive undertaking to get it close to even the basic level of turn-based combat in Fallout 1/2. The easier solution is probably to just have a combat pausing feature and "make it RTwP", standardize movement speeds and put a cap on how quickly certain actions (firing a bow) can be repeated in real-time. While a pure turn-based game with better combat and systems would obviously be preferable I think a polished RTwP game out of Arcanum is probably easier to achieve. Right now neither turn-based or real-time modes in Arcanum provide any satisfying or enjoyable gameplay, it's better to just stick it on easy mode and blitz through it in real-time because the combat is such a chore that it may as well be over quicker.

 

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

You want better writing, dialogues and worldbuilding these days? In a world where people suck out social media and avoid any books, even shitty Harlequin-tier stuff?
Forget about it, it's gone.
It always baffle me that population grow so fast, yet it's harder (with passing time) to find anyone contributing anything valuable to... pretty much anything.

This isn't true for me. My games are going to be good. Throwing that out there.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Arcanum is great lore + shitty gameplay, similar to Witcher 1. Always will be a flawed gem that could've been, never will be truly great.