Unofficial Arcanum Patch (Original Thread)

[Depressed Construct]

All monsters have idle animations, in any rotation. Orcs have them as well, but other humanoid races don't have them (they still have animated combat stances though).

Thanks for clarifying it.

 

[puppyonastik]

Yay finally got another couple hours of free time to do some more bug hunting.
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v080510---- Playing as a severely retarded (int 2) Female Elf bow-a-zon (bows suck) named "Drool"
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* After accepting the Ale quest from Miranda Tears in the boil, and you go straight to see Pollack before completing that quest... You speak to the Half Ogre Guard watching the door, the conversation goes as such:
(7) I need to see Pollack!
"Oh It's you. yeah, He's expecting you."
(20) Wait...
"Go in, any trouble, you're dead."
However, as soon as you go through the door, Pollack attacks you. This does not make any sense after the guard tells me that I'm expected. I think it would be appropriate for the guard to turn you away before you finish the ale quest.
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* Right after getting the quest to find the stolen painting and then accepting the quest to steal the crystal ball from Mrs. Toussaude, the player's dialog options act as though they didn't just hear of the robbery when speaking to Mrs. Toussaude.
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* Found mistakes in the lone dwarf's dialog who resides in the black mountain mines:

(48) "My traps keep me safe our homes must be protected to the end of days much evil afoot."

It should be, "My traps keep me safe. Our homes must be protected to the end of days. Much evil afoot." (One could say that "There is much evil afoot." would be the best grammar, however it seems to me that "Much evil afoot." is inline with the character's "dialect".)

 

[MaskedMan]

Some more bugs, still playing as a half-orc female:

- Human guards in Dernholm:



You shouldn't get the third option until after you have asked who is in charge.

- You can address Daniel Hallaway, the in keeper of Blackroot, as a gnome, which he clearly isn't.



- The Liam quest: When you first meet Mrs Cameron with a low reaction you seem to know her already. You can question her normally and start the quest.



After closing the gate and completing the quest you get the option to start her initial dialogue:


The low reaction seems to mess up the dialogue.

- Not sure if it is a bug, but the factory foreman in Tarant has gold in his trading-screen as a non-purchasable item. None of the other traders are like this.

- You probably know this, but the auto-load isn't functioning properly. In the manual under key-bindings it says that F8 loads the game from a predetermined save-slot, the one you save in when pressing F7. As it is it just loads the last game saved, regardless of whether it is in the quick-save slot or not.

Found mistakes in the lone dwarf's dialog who resides in the black mountain mines

I think it is supposed to be like that. He is borderline insane, and the rest of his dialogue is pretty disjointed too...

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

* After accepting the Ale quest from Miranda Tears in the boil, and you go straight to see Pollack before completing that quest... You speak to the Half Ogre Guard watching the door, the conversation goes as such:
(7) I need to see Pollack!
"Oh It's you. yeah, He's expecting you."
(20) Wait...
"Go in, any trouble, you're dead."
However, as soon as you go through the door, Pollack attacks you. This does not make any sense after the guard tells me that I'm expected. I think it would be appropriate for the guard to turn you away before you finish the ale quest.

Yes, there were some missing conditions in that dialogue. Fixed it. Thanks for reporting.

It should be, "My traps keep me safe. Our homes must be protected to the end of days. Much evil afoot." (One could say that "There is much evil afoot." would be the best grammar, however it seems to me that "Much evil afoot." is inline with the character's "dialect".)

But could it be intended so?

- You can address Daniel Hallaway, the in keeper of Blackroot, as a gnome, which he clearly isn't.

I'll replace the "good gnome" with a "good sir" if there's no objections. A "good man" fits as well, but I did a search through all dialogues in the game, and a "good sir" occurs much more often.

And about Mrs. Cameron

The low reaction seems to mess up the dialogue.

Yes, there were wrong conditions for low reaction lines.

BTW, it seems to be important to test the game with an ugly/discriminated character as well, since they get special lines. I'm playtesting a completely retarded (IN1) half ogre right now, but I'm going to start a really ugly but charismatic character once I finish the game. We need to test all possible character builds.

 

[garren]

Hello.

Playing my second time through the game, when I get to the Black Mountain Mines and get the eye gear there, it only adds +1 perception, while it's supposed to give +2. When I played through the game the first time it gave the correct bonus.

Here's a link to the save, just when I acquired the eye gear.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Playing my second time through the game, when I get to the Black Mountain Mines and get the eye gear there, it only adds +1 perception, while it's supposed to give +2. When I played through the game the first time it gave the correct bonus.

Magic and technological items' bonuses are adjusted by your magic/tech aptitude. Your character must be not tech enough to receive the full bonus.

 

[garren]

Oh snap. :D

Well, that's that then.

 

[Kingston]

Hey Drog, you're famous. Don't know if its been posted already.

www.pelit.fi has some news on you!

http://www.pelit.fi/index.php?id=66&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=1084&tx_ttnews[backPid]=58&cHash=f9f75ea1d8

"Arcanum - Steamworks and Magic Obscura is a [great rpg] (not sure how to translate that) and under its technically poor surface beats a big and warm heart. Drog Black Tooth has taken seriously to patching Arcanum.

The finding of bugs and their squashing is still midway, but already sir Drog has gotten a lot of good work done. He has, among other things, restored missing endings and disabled sprite mirroring. So characters basically have 40% more animations than before.

The patch removes the neccessity of a CD, so it doesn't matter if your newage machine can't spin that old cd.

The patch can be found on Pelit.fi and RPGCodex(!!!)"

 

[Jora]

www.pelit.fi has some news on you!

I wrote that on their message board. Nirvi, in his infinite wisdom, reposted it on the main page.

(BTW, he wrote this in his editorial in the April issue: "... Kun Vince pisti näytille videon pelin vuoropohjaisesta taistelusta, nykymoroonit kommentoivat sitä omalla, jäljittelemättömällä tavallaan. Vince antoi tarmolla takaisin ja lopulta Rock, Paper, Shotgun sivusto julkaisi Vincen haastattelun, jossa tämä paikkansapitävästi kommentoi niin roolipelien kehitystä, vuoropohjaisuuden estetiikkaa kuin muitakin kiehtovia aiheita, kuten pelimedioiden sokeutta. Nousin ruudun ääressä seisomaan ja taputin, enkä ollut yksin. Suorat sanat ovat nöyristelyn, teeskentelyn ja nepotismin vallitsemassa pelimaailmassa niin harvoin nähty vieras, että Vincen Age of Decadence sai julkisuutta, jota ei voi rahalla ostaa.")

 

[puppyonastik]

Found mistakes in the lone dwarf's dialog who resides in the black mountain mines

I think it is supposed to be like that. He is borderline insane, and the rest of his dialogue is pretty disjointed too...

It's is "disjointed", yes. However, all his dialog has seemingly proper punctuation, except for this one line. It seems to me as though it was a line thrown in at the last second.

But could it be intended so?

It's questionable, thus the only thing I changed was the punctuation.

 

[Langolier]

All monsters have idle animations, in any rotation. Orcs have them as well, but other humanoid races don't have them (they still have animated combat stances though).

Are you sure? I could have sworn that I've seen my human characters scratch the back of their head a few times in the past.

 

[Earth Nuggets]

Nah, the only animation for ART files featuring humanoid characters (anything listed under critter in the DAT file) in their standing positions are the rotations. However, as Drog said, all other creatures (anything listed under monster in the DAT file) have idle animations.

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

Thanx Drog, really appreciate the effort, this patch made me install arcanum again.

Btw the mayor in Balck Root, when you don't get the quest to get his dagger the first time around and finish conversation, then you don't get to talk to him again, he only gives you floating text when you click on him, is that intended or just another coding typo.

 

[Marco]

The Liam quest: When you first meet Mrs Cameron with a low reaction you seem to know her already. You can question her normally and start the quest.

There's something somewhat similar with the Charm spell. I remember using it on Ristezze and Lukan in Shrouded Hills before talking to them for the first time, it increased the reaction but also gave me dialogs where my char seemed to know them already. Not sure if the spell is bugged, or if it's the way it is intended to work.

 

[carlstar]

Low int with high reaction mod character talking to Ristezze.
First time you meet him he says something like "oh good a moran get away from me" so i choose the option of "(sniff)Me go then"
Then go talk to him again and he says that he is happy to see you.
That whole idea of him hating idiots just doesnt exist after the first time.

 

[Mareus]

Drog, I have a question. I just installed Arcanum, and installed patch 1.0.7.4 and your fix patch. But there is one bug that I noticed. I cannot turn off the auto run option. I press auto run off and done, but whenever I check again it's on again and there doesn't seem to be any way to make my character walk. I know it doesn't sound important, but to me it is.

 

[Kingston]

www.pelit.fi has some news on you!

I wrote that on their message board. Nirvi, in his infinite wisdom, reposted it on the main page.

(BTW, he wrote this in his editorial in the April issue: "... Kun Vince pisti näytille videon pelin vuoropohjaisesta taistelusta, nykymoroonit kommentoivat sitä omalla, jäljittelemättömällä tavallaan. Vince antoi tarmolla takaisin ja lopulta Rock, Paper, Shotgun sivusto julkaisi Vincen haastattelun, jossa tämä paikkansapitävästi kommentoi niin roolipelien kehitystä, vuoropohjaisuuden estetiikkaa kuin muitakin kiehtovia aiheita, kuten pelimedioiden sokeutta. Nousin ruudun ääressä seisomaan ja taputin, enkä ollut yksin. Suorat sanat ovat nöyristelyn, teeskentelyn ja nepotismin vallitsemassa pelimaailmassa niin harvoin nähty vieras, että Vincen Age of Decadence sai julkisuutta, jota ei voi rahalla ostaa.")

Hah. <3 nnirvi.

I remember the original newspost on the site saying "Weller julkaisi tämän näytteen pelin taistelusta ja raivostui kun pullamössösulkupolvi dissasi vuoropohjaista taistelua."

Too bad Pelit went a bit down the drain when they started incorporating consoles into their coverage. Maybe I should start ordering it, if only for Nnirvi's commentary.

 

[MaskedMan]

I cannot turn off the auto run option

I had the same problem. Neither the walk button nor turning "always run" off in the options menu worked, but after experimenting a bit , alternating between num lock and the options menu I got it working again. Maybe you started the game with num lock on?

 

[Mareus]

Thanks, I think it will work then. Also one more question. Where can I download the 1280x1024 or 1024x768 resolution patch?

 

[Jaesun]

Regardless, the further testing showed more bugs. The larger field of view affects behavior of scripts, in particular the focus on "everyone in vicinity". E.g. now you can't dig up the grave in Caladon even at night, since the guards can "see" you even from their beds in the guard posts. The only way to fix it would be to alter scripts with this parameter, so they would do an extra check for the distance between objects. Moreover, there may be other bugs.

Due to this (and the UI problems as well) the mod won't be released.

 

[Cadaver]

Minor nitpick about Kietzel Pierce in Blackroots inn. He asks if you have travelled a lot. You can reply with "yes I have visited tarant" despite never been there.

Also, thank you very much for debugging this game. :D

 

[MaskedMan]

Typo in the book "The nature of Archaeological practices":
"Criteria as disparate as and objects color" - should be an objects color

Typo in the book "Psychological Treatise on Intolerance":
"If Jonathon had been able to persue his dream" - should be pursue

Kraka-Tur refers to the dragon as Belerogrim in his journal, while the map-location, the plaque outside of the cave, and the museum refers to it as Bellerogrim.

When talking to Thorwald about Gudmund he calls him "OreBender" - should be Ore Bender.

You can ask William Thorndop in Ashbury for healing, but he doesn't offer you any healing-options (not sure if this is because my character is too techie, or if he heals scars only).

It doesn't really make sense that you are able to ask Tarellond-Ashe why he is standing outside the cemetery (and go through the entire introductory dialogue) when you have already accepted his quest and retrieved the gem.


When first talking to Maximillian he says: "I do not know you half-orc, nor do I wish to know you" (random low reaction dialogue?).The polite answer is "Sir! Is this a way for gentlemen to speak to one another?" - Clarissa Vorak is not a gentleman.

 

[Depressed Construct]

Good job, MaskedMan.

But please, consider this:

NOTES TO TESTERS:

1. Run the game with -dialognumber parameter, it will show internal numbers for PC lines in dialogues. Right click on your desktop link to the game and add it. E.g. it'd look like "C:\Sierra\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe -dialognumber". It will be much more easier to report broken lines this way.

 

[MaskedMan]

consider this

But I just want to enjoy my Arcanum

Eh, I thought the game was pretty much fixed by now, that's why I didn't add it.
I'm beginning to see why this game is considered buggy... I'll run it with the numbers showing from now on, k?

 

[Icarian]

This is rather strange issue.

After founding out what happened to Black Mountain Clan, go talk to Bates. First say that you have info about Black Mountain Clan. Then if you choose the "They irresponsibly allowed their technology to spread to humans." line, he will answer with no voiceover. Choosing the "Your callous betrayal and theft of their technology doomed them." dialog path that leads to the same answer has same result.

But if you have saved the game in Bates room, reload save and ask him again. This time you can hear his voiceover.

EDIT: This is the missing voiceover line:

[He seems taken aback a moment, as he considers what you have told him.] By the gods, it is as I always feared! I doomed them all! [He is now sobbing openly.] What have I done? My youthful impertinence...I ... here's...some gold for your trouble. [He attempts to compose himself.] Could you...[he chokes back more tears]...do...something further for me?