Arcanum Chris Avellone Arcanum LP

[St. Toxic]

Ok, so I made some progress:

I've placed a bunch of red balls out there north of Morbihan. Now what? Which button should I push? Should I toggle between map views with the buttons on the left? Should I press the completely irrelevant scroll button? Should I click on the compass perhaps? How about click on the little window with my character? Maybe click on the two decorative non-buttons next to the scroller? Well, that was all pointless. How about the BIG FUCKING BUTTON with a picture of RED DOTS, ARROWS and an X right above it? Let's see what the status field says when I hover over it. "Action: Toggle Walking Waypoint Path". Hmm, that is cryptic. I don't know, I think I'll play this game some other year.

 

[buzz]

You're making it sound like what you described doesn't sound a bit convoluted and weird. You have to notice the map button turning blue, and Action: Toggle Walking Waypoint Path sounds a bit off. Compare it with Fallout where you just walk to the red-shaded edge of the map, then you click on the map to go where you want, the character goes there and worst case you click on the triangle to actually enter the location.

 

[Ninjerk]

The combat is what made me walk away from Arcanum.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

You're making it sound like what you described doesn't sound a bit convoluted and weird. You have to notice the map button turning blue, and Action: Toggle Walking Waypoint Path sounds a bit off. Compare it with Fallout where you just walk to the red-shaded edge of the map, then you click on the map to go where you want, the character goes there and worst case you click on the triangle to actually enter the location.

Virgil initiates a dialog with the player and freaking tells him to use the blue globe. Also, who cares if Action: Toggle Walking Waypoint Path sounds off? It's one of only 3 buttons on the screen. Sure it could have been designed a bit better, but it's hardly rocket science to figure it out. *Click, click, click.* "Oh, that's the one."

Of course, all this is moot if you just skim the manual to the part about the map, but hey, what video game writer would actually want to read, right?

 

[buzz]

I'm just saying that I can understand someone's confusion if he's like Avellone and like you said, hasn't read the manual neither tried to understand the UI a bit before playing the game seriously. He also starts his blind playthrough with a "social" character which by default should be a mistake in all RPGs.

 

[RK47]

Make him play Alpha Protocol then.

 

[Lancehead]

Chris Avellone ‏@ChrisAvellone8h
2 Arcanum playthrough blocks coming up to make up for lost time. Be prepared. Or not. Either way.

 

[Grimlorn]

Yeah, there are a couple on the net
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7PtpC3qL-Q

Hmm yeah, there's no unreachable spot for most bosses in the game. I remember fighting Taurus the first time, finding myself smart because I was on the tower then the fucker jumped right next to me

Played through the game a couple times before watching people fight Taurus demon up the ladder. First time fighting him he knocked me off the wall, so I simply fought him next to the door so he couldn't push me off the wall.

 

[SwiftCrack]

Chris Avellone ‏@ChrisAvellone8h
2 Arcanum playthrough blocks coming up to make up for lost time. Be prepared. Or not. Either way.

Woop.

 

[St. Toxic]

You're making it sound like what you described doesn't sound a bit convoluted and weird.

Sorry if describing the necessary actions required for successful world map travel makes the process sound less complicated than it apparently is.

You have to notice the map button turning blue,

You can plot courses on regular maps too using the same process, if you want some practice or just get tired of scrolling. Works wonders in Tarant if you have to run back and forth a lot. In my humble opinion, a button with a map on it that opens the map screen is hardly all that strange for an RPG, and noticing that icons in the GUI change shouldn't take that much awareness. As noted by others, the game already has the equivalent of a "USE WORLD MAP NOW" tool-tip via Virgil.

and Action: Toggle Walking Waypoint Path sounds a bit off.

It's no conversation starter, but it does explicitly indicate that the red shit you smeared over the map is a so-called Waypoint Path, and that pressing the button will Toggle Walking, hopefully along the aforementioned Waypoint Path. If redding that is teh hard for you, there's also an illustration right above it with a path already plotted and arrows between the waypoints, indicating motion. If this was a puzzle in a primate experiment, those little fuckers would be swimming in bananas.

Compare it with Fallout where you just walk to the red-shaded edge of the map, then you click on the map to go where you want, the character goes there and worst case you click on the triangle to actually enter the location.

I've heard people complain about the triangles too; mainly that they couldn't figure out you had to press on the triangle to enter the location. It's just some brand of retards who never understood the inner workings of a mouse-driven interface. There was some video where MCA got the map screen open, but he essentially only looked at it without trying anything. An intuitive interface presupposes at least a certain degree of experimentation from the player and I think Troika did a decent job with that.

 

[imweasel]

Tim sucking is worse than Avellone sucking IMO.

Tim actually does suck, just not figuratively.

 

[Xor]

In MCA's defense, I remember being pretty baffled by Arcanum's interface even after I read the manual. I don't think I figured out how to read books until after I had beaten the game once. I remember being really surprised when I dragged a book over the right icon on accident and it lit up.
I probably restarted Arcanum 5 times just because of that fucking ore golem in the BMC mines, mostly because I kept making social characters thinking the game would be like Fallout 2 where speech is the best skill. I got my ass kicked over and over again until I went with a summoner build and just let my ogre kill everything. Then later I realized summoners suck ass and restarted with an archer/haste build that I think was the first character I beat the game with.
Of course, nowadays I've beaten the game at least seven times and I know it backwards and forwards, but MCA is doing this apparently without the manual and presumably without looking online for help. Yeah, it's pretty bad to watch him struggle to figure out the basics, but Arcanum isn't exactly the pinnacle of interface design.

 

[Starym]

If you had to enter 13 menus to reload in an FPS then your comparison would make sense.

How is the map in Arcanum 13 menus away? It's only a single huge blue globe away. Is it somehow a feat of intelligence for a person to notice that the map icon changes to a blue globe at the city limits, and that clicking on it opens a world map? And then, gasp, you click on the world map and red balls appear on the spots where you clicked, with lines between them. This is getting too much for me, I think I need a 4 month break from this game.

Hey, I was just employing your own technique of exaggerating everything tenfold! Seriously though the reload comment was weird and silly.

Still feel it's nitpicking to lament the map issue, the other complaints about his playing are valid, though.

 

[Ulminati]

Chris Avellone ‏@ChrisAvellone8h
2 Arcanum playthrough blocks coming up to make up for lost time. Be prepared. Or not. Either way.

 

[Stabwound]

Holy shit. At this point he'd be better off giving up than putting up another 2 videos of himself talking like he's being forced to read a letter before Iraqi terrorists cut his head off with a chainsaw.

 

[Hormalakh]

ITZ here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNOJ5DRO7uQ&feature=c4-overview&list=UU4xyf_Z-pEQOTaRVyjXfA1g

 

[garren]

omgomgomg 1 hour long

gonna be delicious

 

[Hormalakh]

He's thinking of doing a blog with his thoughts. BROFIST Brother None I give that idea a huge thumbs up!

 

[Ninjerk]

LOADING

 

[Stabwound]

If he dropped the youtube thing and played the game at his own pace with blog commentary on the game design itself, THAT would be interesting. Not an hour clip of him going "Fuck, Virgil! Attack the wolf! Why won't you attack the damn wolf!" "Virgil, you are useless. Damn, I died, time to reload."

Could give him the benefit of the doubt that having to play while being recorded is fucking him up, but you do get the impression that he's just not into the game whatsoever. Hard to motivate yourself to play a game on your off hours that you aren't enjoying.

 

[RK47]

He shd play New Vegas or Alpha Protocol. Heheh.

 

[St. Toxic]

the other complaints about his playing are valid, though.

No they're not. Go fuck yourself.

 

[Excidium]

In another universe MCA read the manual, rolled a decent character is now leaving Tarant after having a p. good time questing and everyone is happy and holding hands

 

[buzz]

not sure if I should watch this or re-watch Boyz n the Hood.

 

[Duraframe300]

Thanks BN. Now I don't have to make a thread.