Arcanum Chris Avellone Arcanum LP

[RK47]

I'm trying to play past where he's at so I don't get cool things spoiled for me, but this game is so fucking wonky with its critical misses.

Well, in Arcanum you are severely punished for having low skill with the weapons. As it should be, I think. Non combat characters would have a hard time getting into combat...who would have thought... o_O

 

[Excidium]

Yes, if you go try to stab someone without having received melee traning you'll hurt yourself, drop your weapon and knock yourself out.

 

[Ninjerk]

I started a character with 1 in Firearms and a critical miss lost me like 80 bullets (at the crash site, no less). That's reasonable?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

80 is a lot of bullets in a world where you don't start with assault rifles and dakka guns.

 

[Ninjerk]

The shitpistols fire really fast for some reason.

 

[Roguey]

I'm trying to play past where he's at so I don't get cool things spoiled for me, but this game is so fucking wonky with its critical misses.

Turn difficulty down to easy.

 

[m_s0]

Nope, guess you are mixing it up with the BG iron crisis; but the blacksmith asks you to get him some refined ore and brings up the Toone Mine during the conversation.

Nothing needs to break on you in BG either - the iron crisis is just there and you hear about in one of the first few text dumps in Candlekeep - which doesn't matter at all since you can still take the quest in Nashkel regardless of anything.

 

[Surf Solar]

Nope, guess you are mixing it up with the BG iron crisis; but the blacksmith asks you to get him some refined ore and brings up the Toone Mine during the conversation.

Nothing needs to break on you in BG either - the iron crisis is just there and you hear about in one of the first few text dumps in Candlekeep - which doesn't matter at all since you can still take the quest in Nashkel regardless of anything.

Mundane weapons break a lot in BG 1.

 

[m_s0]

What I was saying was that it's not a quest trigger.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

To be fair to Avellone, crap like the rats in the temple at the start is pretty lame. I mean, does that little dwarf have to fight his way through every day to get out? And the bed in the bank is more lazy level design. Actually, I always found Shrouded Hills quite boring.

To be fair to Arcanum, Avellone's previous works have included similar stuff. Baldur's Gate Torment or Kotor 2, anyone? Never fought any filler trash mobs of animals there. And while in my initial playthrough of Arcanum I had similar gripes about the dialog trees' forcing you to say certain things, (I can't think of a single game Chris has worked on that hasn't forced the player to say things a certain way on occasion) I'd have to say Arcanum's dialog has far more meaningful reactivity than that of similar games of the time.

Arcanum's dialog is less about "what it says" and more about "what it does". You can be pretty sure that picking a dialog option is going to lead you down a different path vs just being "roleplaying" flavor. I personally think that the developers' budget was far better spent writing dialog paths that lead to different consequences as opposed to 3-4 different options for each node that all lead to relatively the same result.

Games like Alpha Protocol, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect embody the opposite philosophy at times and in the end it makes it feel like you are watching a movie with a set plot and you can choose whether the film's star is snarky, mean, a goody-goody etc. It can be enjoyable and the customization helps you to better identify with what's going on in the plot, but it makes it feel as if your choices have no real meaning, causing the game to seem less interactive. Thus it wastes a large amount of the potential of the gaming medium which, by its very nature, should be highly interactive.

Bah, why am I preaching to the choir? Anyway...

God, this guy sucks at gaeming, huh guis?

 

[Roguey]

I mean, does that little dwarf have to fight his way through every day to get out?

As seen in the videos, the rats only go hostile if you stay there for a prolonged time. You can go in and out without aggro'ing them.

To be fair to Arcanum, Avellone's previous works have included similar stuff. Baldur's Gate, anyone? Never fought any filler trash mobs of animals there.

Not Avellone's.

Games like Alpha Protocol...embody the opposite philosophy at times and in the end it makes it feel like you are watching a movie with a set plot and you can choose whether the film's star is snarky, mean, a goody-goody etc.

Nearly all of AP's dialogue choices result in a different scripted reaction and/or changes to an indirect reaction system i.e. your reputation with that person.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

I mean, does that little dwarf have to fight his way through every day to get out?

As seen in the videos, the rats only go hostile if you stay there for a prolonged time. You can go in and out without aggro'ing them.

To be fair to Arcanum, Avellone's previous works have included similar stuff. Baldur's Gate, anyone? Never fought any filler trash mobs of animals there.

Not Avellone's.

Fixed. He did work on BG: Dark Alliance though, right? *gag* And Kotor 2's trash mobs of animals were just as annoying as rats.

Games like Alpha Protocol...embody the opposite philosophy at times and in the end it makes it feel like you are watching a movie with a set plot and you can choose whether the film's star is snarky, mean, a goody-goody etc.

Nearly all of AP's dialogue choices result in a different scripted reaction and/or changes to an indirect reaction system i.e. your reputation with that person.

Been a while since I play AP. I remember some of the preview material talking about how you could choose different responses like if you wanted to be Jack Bauer or really snarky James Bond etc. I also remember some choices that were pretty reactive, but then I remember ending up in the same ending over and over with minor differences. I'm always captured, just a different bozo saving me etc. Probably not the best example, but who gives a shit? The point of that part was to criticize the idea of meaningless larpy dialog in general. Which is why I included Mass Effect and Dragon vagina. *I'm happy, sad, snarky, racist. Move to the next plot node...* Boooring.

 

[Roguey]

Fixed.

Better.

He did work on BG: Dark Alliance though, right? *gag*

Just writing I think.

And Kotor 2's trash mobs of animals were just as annoying as rats.

But they were extraordinarily easy no matter your build, making it palatable to Chris.

I also remember some choices that were pretty reactive, but then I remember ending up in the same ending over and over with minor differences. I'm always captured, just a different bozo saving me etc.

That's still reactivity.

 

[Helton]

He keeps complaining about having to ask how much he'll get paid. This is such a retarded RPG trope anymore. Of course you ask how much you're going to get paid. You're not being asked by the poor widow to help move her sofa, FFS. These aren't the kind of things you do for charity. This is a wealthy doctor asking you you to help him fight bank robbers. A cop asking you to deal with the bandits he's too coward to confront. You're going to do those kind of things for free?

The devs already included one low-int playthrough. Isn't that enough?

 

[felipepepe]

That's why Arcanum is such a great game, it goes away from shitty tropes like "Good guy does for free, Bad guy asks for money". It's something that works sometimes, but making it the default dialog of every goddamn quest is just lazyness... and yet, MCA misses that lazyness.

 

[Roguey]

Josh converted Avellone to the light in regards to player character dialogues.
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/1597082409

Generally speaking, the more the author defines what the player says, the less freedom the player has to maintain his/her character concept. I call it "emotional/intent loading". The exceptions to this are for stat-, skill-, or perk-based unlocks since they demand a higher level of specificity.

http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/1611417193

The lines with specific intent were ones that didn't have to do with run-of-the-mill queries. I think you risk alienating a lot of people by adding secondary tone to basic questions and statements. It does give character to dialogue, but there's no telling if any given player will like the character that's being given. And if the only way you can ask an NPC what should be a straightforward question is to pick a line you don't like because it has a side-order of sass the author decided to throw in for chuckles, it can get irritating.

Chris hates being railroaded into being a jerk when he wants to make an inquiry and I don't blame him. Even though many lines in Torment and KOTOR2 also force you to be a jerk.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

"Arrgh. They're making me ask for money. I don't want to be greedy!" So you are a penniless blimp crash survivor and asking for a little money for an honest bit of work is greedy?

But hey, I loled much during this lp. Rock on Avellone, rock on.

 

[sea]

"Arrgh. They're making me ask for money. I don't want to be greedy!" So you are a penniless blimp crash survivor and asking for a little money for an honest bit of work is greedy?

I think the problem is more that forcing the player into any sort of personality role is not a good thing in a game where you have dialogue choices. It's not the fact that you can ask for payment that matters, but the fact that it's your only choice. There are a number of places where the game also forces you to pick a selection because the person who wrote the dialogue thought it was just so damn witty or clever, and that's another no-no.

 

[Helton]

Dog I feel your pain I really wanted to run around Arcanum as Pikachu and it really fucked with my roleplay that I was saying all these human words wtf devs cater tyo my playtyle!

Its a job. You don't ask strangers to help you fight off bankrobbers and expect them to do it for free. And who the hell would do it for free? Especially when the person is fully capable of paying (you're protecting the bank because he's got so much jewgold in there, remember). You're not even asking for payment. Payment is ASSUMED. You're just asking what it is. And any sane playstyle would. Why should devs cater to your retarded mary sue bullshit playstyle any more than they cater to my pikachu character? Do you expect them to add a "Pikachu" line at every dialogue node? LARP more, Avellone?

 

[Endemic]

Chris hates being railroaded into being a jerk when he wants to make an inquiry and I don't blame him. Even though many lines in Torment and KOTOR2 also force you to be a jerk.

Could you give examples where those two are railroaded like that?

 

[suejak]

He keeps complaining about having to ask how much he'll get paid. This is such a retarded RPG trope anymore. Of course you ask how much you're going to get paid. You're not being asked by the poor widow to help move her sofa, FFS. These aren't the kind of things you do for charity. This is a wealthy doctor asking you you to help him fight bank robbers. A cop asking you to deal with the bandits he's too coward to confront. You're going to do those kind of things for free?

The devs already included one low-int playthrough. Isn't that enough?

So it's a sign of a Classic RPG that the only dialogue option is "What's the pay?"

Cool. New Codex, new idiots.

 

[Helton]

Cool. New Codex, new idiots.

Exceptional introspection. I commend you. Now if we could only teach you how to read...

 

[Shadenuat]

Arcanum's dialog is less about "what it says" and more about "what it does".

Finished new Shadowrun I really agree. Every dialogue there has 3+ options, so you always can be good, neutral or a jerk. It's very fun to talk to characters and see their reaction, it's like real roleplay.
But in the end, your roleplay means shit. I'd rather take 2 responses which lead me to 2 outcomes, than 7 great written ones which lead me to 1 outcome. And Arcanum really has that, I remember I was a bit shocked when I chose to tell the truth to dark elves in the quest to find elvish tombstone... after I discovered back in Tarant the cold body of lady who hired me to get that stone.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

"Arrgh. They're making me ask for money. I don't want to be greedy!" So you are a penniless blimp crash survivor and asking for a little money for an honest bit of work is greedy?

I think the problem is more that forcing the player into any sort of personality role is not a good thing in a game where you have dialogue choices. It's not the fact that you can ask for payment that matters, but the fact that it's your only choice. There are a number of places where the game also forces you to pick a selection because the person who wrote the dialogue thought it was just so damn witty or clever, and that's another no-no.

No, no, I agree with that. I just don't think it's 1. a deal breaker when you consider all the choices and consequences you get in return for the devs putting their primary focus elsewhere (not that those things are mutually exclusive, just that iirc troika was a small studio with not a lot to work with in the budget department) or 2. greedy to ask for money for doing a job.

 

[Roguey]

Chris hates being railroaded into being a jerk when he wants to make an inquiry and I don't blame him. Even though many lines in Torment and KOTOR2 also force you to be a jerk.

Could you give examples where those two are railroaded like that?

I don't have any kotor2 examples off-hand but here's Torment

Your options are an overwrought compliment, the same overwrought compliment but it's a lie, and an insult.