Game News Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #50: New FAQ, New Arcanum LP Season

[catfood]

...aimed shots? In Arcanum?

Yes. Only through the keyboard and I would need to look it up again to remember what they are.

Yeah, you could use aimed shots with the , and . other keys around that area of the keyboard. It's most likely mentioned in the manual.

 

[Jasede]

 

[St. Toxic]

You seriously never used aimed shots?

 

[Jaesun]

It's page 60 of the manual:

, - Head
. - Arms
/ - Legs

 

[Lancehead]

I knew of the aimed shots, but never bothered to use them.

 

[Jasede]

Well, I never read the manual.

 

[BobtheTree]

I never found range that viable in Arcanum. Tried gun characters twice. Seemed better to go the magic/melee mix.

 

[Niektory]

Well, I never read the manual.

You should. It's a very good read since it's written in character and filled with lore.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah, the manual is very well done.

 

[Jasede]

I played Arcanum way back when I was a poor kid and my Christmas presents consisted of burned CD roms my brother slipped me; that's why I didn't have the manual. Would be cool to pick up a sealed, boxed copy. I dig those. (I always open the seal, though- I feel like these cool old boxes exist to be opened.)

 

[MasPingon]

I actually want to go play Arcanum again now.

I actually started playing it.

So did I, with a speech character. Can't get past ore golems in black mountain.

By the time you reach Black Mountain Clan mines with a speech build character (high int, high cha, high persuasion), your party can be made up by 5-6 characters, including:

Sogg (melee)
Magnus (melee)
Virgil (magic/melee)
Jayna Stiles (healer)
Geoffrey Tarellond-Ash (magic)
Dante (healer/melee)
Gar (melee)
Dog (Worthless Mutt) (melee)
Vollinger (firearms)
The Bane of Kree (melee)

And you can't get past the ore golems?

I guess, I went there much earlier than intended.

Wait a sec... bane of kree? o_O

So did I, with a speech character. Can't get past ore golems in black mountain.

Leave your companions at the entrance and run past them. There's a scroll of teleport you can use to exit the mines without backtracking too.

Oh, thanks. I'll try that.

Bane of KreeTorian Kel

Pretty sure you have to be evil to recruit him.

Torian, Geoffrey and Vollinger will join you if your alignment is -20~ iirc, if your alignment remains at 0 or below they'll complain but stick around.

Dante, Magnus, Jayna and Dante will join you if you're positively aligned, but won't leave unless you dip below zero, and if you have high charisma or positive reaction items, you can persuade them to stay.

My original point stands that by the time you get to Black Mt Clan mines, if you're playing a diplomat build, you should have a sizeable party of 5+ characters.

I did not even come across that many recruitable NPC's before i got there (actually I went there right away after I talked to Gilbert). I had only virgil, sogg and magnus. I also met the Geoffrey (after i've given up on BMC until I leveled up and got moar companions ) and did his quest, but he said i'm ''too noble''.

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[Anthony Davis]

My point has been made I think. This is why I enjoy Chris' play through. A game doesn't have to obtuse to be awesome, just I the case of Arcanum it is both obtuse and awesome.

 

[ironyuri]

My point has been made I think. This is why I enjoy Chris' play through. A game doesn't have to obtuse to be awesome, just I the case of Arcanum it is both obtuse and awesome.

I never discovered aimed shots in Arcanum and I've finished it a few times now, so you're definitely right about that. This gives me another reason to fire it back up. Maybe a knife-thrower who ran away from the circus this time round?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Heh, reminds me of reading an Arcanum review in a magazine where the reviewer reduced the final score among other things for not being able to export a singleplayer character to multiplayer. Leaving aside that it's actually possible (although I think this one isn't even mentioned in the manual), it's pretty retarded in its own right.. but hey.. game journalists.

 

[tuluse]

ironyuri, arcanum, ironyuri, arcanum... why do I have this feeling in the back of my mind that these two things are related for some reason?

 

[lokus]

Well, I never read the manual.

Reading game documentation is pretty much necessary for every pre-Windows RPG

 

[Zeriel]

Yeah, it's kind of crazy thinking back to DOS games, in this era of not just "make game mechanics streamlined" but "make game mechanics so dumb that it is literally impossible for your grandma who has never touched a computer to ever, ever fail at this game".

 

[Jasede]

Well, I never read the manual.

Reading game documentation is pretty much necessary for every pre-Windows RPG

Now that's a lie.

"Complex" games I played without a manual/online help:

Wizardry 1/6/7/8
JA 2
X-Com/TFTD
Transport Tycoon/Theme Park/Theme Hospital
Dungeon Keeper 1/2
Syndicate/Syndicate Wars
Lands of Lore
Privateer
.
.
.

I played all the famous DOS games - all of them - without a manual. We didn't have any money and could only buy crappy used games or play what would trickle down from Pirate Mc Brother.

I am not trying to say I am particularly smart. I am trying to say that kids don't need manuals- they try everything out anyway - including mashing random keyboard buttons until it works. Privateer without a manual, for example. You HAD to mash every button on the keyboard in order to operate the ship and switch systems. Still beat it, no manual or anything.

Honestly, I feel like I was smarter then than I am now. I'd try everything until it worked. And then I'd know how to do it. Now I'm just lazy as shit and go like "Uh, how do I block!?!?".

 

[FeelTheRads]

Honestly, I feel like I was smarter then than I am now. I'd try everything until it worked. And then I'd know how to do it. Now I'm just lazy as shit and go like "Uh, how do I block!?!?".

Fucking true. I'm goddamn popamole now.

 

[Hobz]

It's just that you've got a full time job now, you're too busy being a grown up to waste time like this anymore. Nothing wrong about that... developers have to tell you how to block, hell they should add an auto-block option, as long as it's just an option it's not hurting the game.

...

Oh sorry, wrong forum.

 

[Jasede]

Ah come now, we still all love difficult games. But that magic of reading the manual or figuring out things by trying everything isn't really there anymore. We don't play games like we used to when we were teenagers.

 

[Zeriel]

I do. No-life turbonerd loser reporting for duty.

 

[Jasede]

 

[Hobz]

Ah come now, we still all love difficult games. But that magic of reading the manual or figuring out things by trying everything isn't really there anymore. We don't play games like we used to when we were teenagers.

When I was a kid I used to rent most of my console games for the week-end at my video rental shop. Reading the manual on the way home was part of the magic, and a good way to spend time away from the console to prepare for actual game time.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I didn't have a manual for any of my C-64 games. Learned to play them through trial and error, and yes, sometimes you had to go through the whole keyboard to see what buttons caused something to happen and memorize those keys.

Later, on PC, learning to play Falcon 3.0 and Gunship 2000 was a bitch but possible. Which is why I'm always so amazed when people complain that games are difficult to "learn". I'm pretty sure I don't have an IQ of 140, that's for Cleve only.