Unofficial Arcanum Patch (Original Thread)

[Grump]

It does mean if you want to complete the quest of destroying "The Scourge", a hexed sword, you have to dismiss any "good" aligned characters while you kill them all. Maybe that is what was intended, too be one of those annoying quests. I bet if you kill the slave master the slaves will still attack you and when you attack back the good NPCs will be upset again.

Yes I reported this earlier, they will attack you even after you kill the 'master'. And it will still damage your reputation..


Other bugs

The same thing happens if you give the wrong answer for the Ancient Game. You get attacked but your reputation still is damaged.

The girls at Madam Lil's act as if you've visited them specifically even if you slept with another girl.

 

[Depressed Construct]

I have a request to everybody who's testing (or even simply playing) the game now. I'm going to make potato plants and lemon trees to have regeneratable inventories, and since they aren't prototypes but unique containers, I need a full list of all of them in the game.

I think posting only Shrouded Hills' plants is meaningless at this point. I'll pay attention to it and write complete list.

Anyway, PC half elves now use elven art just like NPC half elves, for the sake of consistency.

Why not vice versa? Character creation screen when you choose "race - half-elf" says: "In build and appearance, they resemble their human parents more..."


Oh, and please read an update to my previous post.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Anyway, PC half elves now use elven art just like NPC half elves, for the sake of consistency.

Why not vice versa? Character creation screen when you choose "race - half-elf" says: "In build and appearance, they resemble their human parents more..."

Because it's impossible to do so with out editing them all one by one, and it's obvious it was meant to be so, as I believe the developers knew what they were doing when they put all these NPCs. I assume PC half elves received human's art by mistake, and somebody who was writing descriptions for PC races was mislead by that.

 

[Depressed Construct]

I assume PC half elves received human's art by mistake, and somebody who was writing descriptions for PC races was mislead by that.

I don't think so, because manual says: "Half-elves tend to show the physical build of the human parent...". Along with race description from the character screen "In build and appearance, they resemble their human parents more..." it makes sence. I suppose the person responsible for placing npcs did a mistake.

 

[Donovan]

Also, there is some inconsistency on whether it is creature singular or creatures plural.

This is easily explained. The miners don't know what the hell is killing people there. Nobody came back alive. But once you find out that it was a family of spiders then they are referred to as "creatures".

That is how I interpreted it as well, but the three lines I mentioned are inconsistent with that. They are all singular but take place after the quest is complete, making his follow-up question (which uses the plural) seem odd.

 

[Faceless]

How can you dispute the claim that the person who wrote the race descriptions made a mistake due to the fact Half-Elf PCs were given human art by siting those same descriptions as evidence to the contrary?

Anyway, I've found another problem with Madam Lil's girls:
If you recover quick enough from a session with one of the girls and move back to the entry quickly, floats will appear above every one of the girls' heads as if they had been the ones servicing you.

This might not be an issue worth fixing, but I think it would be nice all the same:
If you are playig a Half-Orc and call Gar a coward then he will insult you back and you can end the dialogue ends with the PC's next line. You can then secure his freedom from H. P. Parnell. If you talk to Gar again, you can tell him you've secured his freedom, and if you're evil he will reject the idea of travelling with you. At this point you can say "but we had a deal" even though you never made one with him.

I'd suggest adding two new options for the player in place of the above (provided the above conditions are met):
1. Free Gar
2. Combat

 

[Donovan]

On the issue of half-elves, the manual goes on at length about them and their appearance so I don't think it should be discounted. Here are the relevant sentences from the appendix:

"The issue of any such union is a person who shows some traits from each race, but fully belongs to neither - a fate universal to all hybridized individuals."

"Half-elves tend to show the physical build of the human parent, but this is not always the case."

"At times they can pass as fully human or fully elven, but they can almost always be spotted by the trained observer by a blend of features which is common to neither race. Even when they are small in stature, they have ordinary human proportions and lack the elongated arms, legs, fingers and toes of an elf. They almost always show the pointed ears of the elven parent, and may also have some of the classic elven complexion, but the color of the hair will often give away an admixture of human blood."


Most of it says that they look like both, so I don't think there is sufficient justification to make any change. If anything, the bodies should have the human proportions while the faces can be either, which probably supports using the human models with half-elven portraits as was done with the PC.

As for why the NPCs use elven models, there are already plenty of humans and very few elves in the cities where you find half-elves, so selecting elven models for the half-elves creates a more varied landscape. I think the way they did it is probably best, even if it is slightly inconsistent (or at least odd that the PC tends towards the human end of the scale while all NPCs tend towards the elven).


Other relevent (but not very definative) facts:

The cluebook agrees with the manual.

Half-elves get the same +1 to Beauty as elves.

Half-elves can have facial hair but I see no sign that elves can.

 

[Depressed Construct]

How can you dispute the claim that the person who wrote the race descriptions made a mistake due to the fact Half-Elf PCs were given human art by siting those same descriptions as evidence to the contrary?

I just made a contrary statement. Now by the law of noncontradiction one of us is wrong.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Another little thing concerning Ristezze, with nomal-int character: line 105 (found out about Schuylers already), his responce "... A very important piece of puzzle, eh, my friend? Ristezze has been very free with information, no? What have you to offer Ristezze?" doesn't make much sence. I think you shouldn't be able to ask about Schuylers again if you got the information you needed.

The line doesn't appear if you already got the information. I believe you used a potion of intelligence after you finished the quest as a dumb character. Please don't use such method for testing, since normal characters and dumb characters often use different local flag checks.

 

[Depressed Construct]

I believe you used a potion of intelligence after you finished the quest as a dumb character. Please don't use such method for testing, since normal characters and dumb characters often use different local flag checks.

Ok, I won't abuse the game this way anymore.

 

[Faceless]

Found another instance the "Thank you, mum," dialogue option.
It came up in conversation with the Human Female wearing a yellow dress in Annabelle's Gallery in Black Root. I had selected the rumour option prior to it. Once again I couldn't make it occur again.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Found another instance the "Thank you, mum," dialogue option.
It came up in conversation with the Human Female wearing a yellow dress in Annabelle's Gallery in Black Root. I had selected the rumour option prior to it. Once again I couldn't make it occur again.

It's one of the generic responses and can appear in any dialogue. Is something wrong with it?

 

[Faceless]

Mum is the British and Australian spelling for a person's mother.
It's only other meaning is to call for silence. So yes, it is an error.
Should be Ma'am.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

It's one of responses to the villager class, here's the whole list:
{1350}{Thanks, ma'am.}
{1351}{Thank you.}
{1352}{Thank you.}
{1353}{Thank you. I am much obliged.}
{1354}{I am most appreciative, ma'am.}
{1355}{You have been most gracious.}
{1356}{You are most gracious, ma'am.}
{1357}{You have been most kind.}
{1358}{You are most kind, ma'am.}
{1359}{You have been most helpful.}
{1360}{You are most helpful, ma'am.}
{1361}{You have been most generous.}
{1362}{You are most generous, ma'am.}
{1363}{My sincere thanks, ma'am.}
{1364}{You have my gratitude.}
{1365}{You have my gratitude, ma'am.}
{1366}{Many thanks.}
{1367}{Many thanks, ma'am.}
{1368}{I am grateful.}
{1369}{I am grateful, ma'am.}
{1370}{I appreciate it.}
{1371}{I appreciate it, ma'am.}
{1372}{Thank you for your time.}
{1373}{Many thanks, dear woman.}
{1374}{Thank you, miss.}
{1375}{Thank you, miss.}
{1376}{Thank you, mum.}
{1377}{Thank you, mum.}

I thought it sort of makes sense to call a villager "mum", but I'm not a native speaker. What do other people think on this?

 

[rroyo]

I can't see anything wrong with the occasional "mum". Coming from the right character it even adds a bit of realism.

That's just my two cents worth.

 

[The Vanished One]

According to my dictionary:

mum (4)→ ma'am.

edit: the other two dictionaries don't mention this though. Wikitionary doesn't mention this as well.

 

[TheLostOne]

Could just be a colloquialism of ma'am for peasant folk. That's how I interpreted it and it doesn't bother me.

 

[Faceless]

Hmm... my dictionary didn't mention that.
I suppose I'll just have to get used to it.

 

[denizsi]

In Turkish, it's common to call an old woman with observable signs of rural traditions, the equivalent of "mum" or "mom" from mother, as a sign of sincerity or as a node to acknowledging her wisdom or compassion. I've heard the same goes for at least another language as well, though I'm not sure which one. So maybe something similar might be true with English too (even if it was definitely used to replace "ma'am" in the game)?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

"Mum" means nothing other than "mother" here in the UK (or Scotland, at least, but I'm pretty sure it's the same everywhere), and if you were to call a random woman "mum" you'd get some bloody weird looks.

 

[The Vanished One]

My dictionary could be wrong. After all it does have the same name (Hazon) as this thing, which is quite... weird.

 

[TheLostOne]

Not trying to say it's an accepted usage in modern English. I was just giving some leeway in the dialect used in an alternate fantasy world.

Some fantasy books I've read have people in small villages calling any woman in her middle years "Goodwife" regardless of their marital status.

It's not that outlandish and never bothered me when playing.

 

[Fez]

Is that just today though as we're talking about pseudo-Victorian age. I would imagine you'd get a lot of strange looks if you spoke and behaved as if you were in that era too.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

What about this sentence (from Garret's dialogue)?
"It's in the trunk, over near my bedroom door."
Should it be "It's in the trunk, over there near my bedroom door."?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Is that just today though as we're talking about pseudo-Victorian age. I would imagine you'd get a lot of strange looks if you spoke and behaved as if you were in that era too.

Well, yes, fair enough, but it'd still be singularly jarring in a game to see what appears to be my character calling multiple random old-lady sprites his mother.