Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

What would you think if Larian makes Arcanum 2 next?

VerSacrum

Educated
Joined
Aug 19, 2023
Messages
280
Location
Switzerland
just imagine if BAizuo game journos discover about how Arcanum portrait Gnomes.
Or edited photographs of CSA generals as player/NPC portraits
Or edited NSDAP posters
Or the "wheel clan" dwarves using a swastika as clan symbol

etc.
 

Nikanuur

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Mar 1, 2021
Messages
1,771
Location
Ngranek
What I think is I'd get permabanned from Steam forums very quickly :P

God of Gaming forbids them from getting their brutally clownish claws on this magic-meets-steampunk jewel. Virgil would've been remade a lizard necro-lesbian searching for his gendernalia, fireballs would leave surfaces, and instead of an almost noir-like atmosphere, we'd have half-ogres delicately clutching roses while listening to Britain's Got Talent Tier C level of love song praised by the community as if Mozart and Beethoven's baby's got resurrected.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,992
Location
Flowery Land
Follow Tim's original plan: make it Fallout 3 with flintlock pistols.
FO76_PercussionPistol.jpg

:troll:
Yes, I know it's a caplock in 76
 

Froila

Educated
Joined
Feb 1, 2021
Messages
154
It will be Arcanum with good combat and bad writing. Something like a compliment to original game. Arcanum′.
 
Unwanted

Cologno

Unwanted
Joined
Jan 3, 2024
Messages
293
What I think is I'd get permabanned from Steam forums very quickly :P

God of Gaming forbids them from getting their brutally clownish claws on this magic-meets-steampunk jewel. Virgil would've been remade a lizard necro-lesbian searching for his gendernalia, fireballs would leave surfaces, and instead of an almost noir-like atmosphere, we'd have half-ogres delicately clutching roses while listening to Britain's Got Talent Tier C level of love song praised by the community as if Mozart and Beethoven's baby's got resurrected.
Add to that all the meme shit to market to the BG3 base, influencers, and the Reddit crowd (though, IDK, that place is dying off and becoming irrelevant). Sven might turn himself into a pussy again to sell the thing.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
13,184
looking at dos1 -> dos2 -> bg3, larian kept butchering their crafting system.
As thing stand I cant imagine them adding a lot of clutter to already horrible inventory ui and introduce structured recipes in horrible console like ui that we currently have.

However, maybe its an opportunity to fix one of their weak points?

Also gentlemen you keep forgetting that arcanum didnt have toilets in their world, something that larian would fix for sure
 

502

Learned
Joined
Mar 28, 2020
Messages
307
Location
Ankara
I'd expect sheep sex, bear sex, golden bear sex... Plus lazy storytelling through "funny" item descriptions.
 

Skinwalker

*meows in an empty room*
Patron
Village Idiot
Joined
Aug 20, 2021
Messages
12,800
Location
Yessex
Must they rape EVERYTHING?!

Arcanum was kind of pro-modernism and proto-woke to begin with, lots of RAYCISM IS TERRIBLE and MUH FAKE RELIGION themes in the game. I can only imagine to what depths of propagandizing THE MESSAGE this would be taken in the hands of woke studios like Latrine or Foulcrap.

Of course, the (((gnomes))) side-plot would be the first thing to never be mentioned or acknowledged.
 

Hydro

Educated
Joined
Mar 30, 2024
Messages
530
For some weird reason I don’t find this to be that bad of an idea. That would require them going into the territory of being subtle though, which in turn would require Larian to fire 75 percent of their staff including Swen Vinke. Other than this they should be fine and surely will elevate the visual side of the universe.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
15,170
Location
Eastern block
I doubt anyone could replicate such a bleak, melancholic version of steampunk. No way in these SJW times. Maybe some solodev with passion.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
15,170
Location
Eastern block
Imagine Larian's goofy touch on something like Arcanum lol. Swen Cucke should have a skill called "Teletubby touch" - immediately renders any IP to use E rating
 

v1c70r14

Educated
Joined
Feb 8, 2023
Messages
268
Location
The Zone
Arcanum was kind of pro-modernism and proto-woke to begin with, lots of RAYCISM IS TERRIBLE and MUH FAKE RELIGION themes in the game.
Liberal, you're smarter than this. I'm not saying the developers weren't making the game with some of these intentions or mindset, although according to Tim Cain many developers didn't fully agree on what they were doing and didn't share the same vision and that's how you got so many different themes in there. Troika was located in California after all, so no, I'm not going to say you're entirely wrong. What you lack is nuance.

Let us examine your take on the religion as depicted in Arcanum for example. There are altars which you can visit and get tangible boons from, there are sorcerers that have a highly developed cosmology and a system of functioning magic, you can literally speak with the souls of the dead. So as far as all that is concerned it's not a materialistic setting. What you probably have in mind instead is the Panarii religion that you get tangled up in, where it is revealed the guy you're supposedly a reincarnation of is actually still alive and what he said at the time was ritualized and misunderstood over time until thought divine. Maybe that's fedora tipping, or maybe that's Lucius Caecilius Firmianus some three hundred years after the death of Christ writing about the pagan gods being kings that were deified. Was he a modern? There is objective and measurable good and evil in this setting, that plays into game mechanics, without the superfluous order and law dimension of D&D, and the villain or potential nemesis turned ally, goes on a gnostic rant about how manifestation is inherently evil and how he found this to be the case after descending into the Hades or Hell/Heaven of the setting.

The issue of racism is likewise not very straightforward. Some races have higher INT than others, for example, and the game tends to portray racial archetypes, even if there might be a twist or two on that, so as not to have us suffer bland characters. Like the dwarf companion Magnus that is alienated from his people due to urbanisation, but at the end of the day is a dwarf first. I remember that the first time I played the game I left a quest alone for long enough, and I think it was Tarant that had been laid waste by Orcs, and they had mass murdered everyone. Dark elves are evil, orcs are stupid but strong, gnomes are really plotting and scheming, Humans were all White. Of course there are stances presented within the game against racial tribalism, but that does also go with the period, I don't know if you've read many books from the Victorian era, but that's not anachronistic. It's more of a problem that with the benefit of hindsight, looking at what London for example turned out like, or even California, after following these humanist and progressive egalitarian principles to their logical end led to, you now find it unpalatable.

But isn't that what the game is all about? It's your Tolkien-esque fantasy world at dawn of an industrial age with all of what that entails, and the shrines to the old gods lie forgotten in the dark corners of the world. It's a world of displaced dwarves and orcs and of fading magic. Tarant the cosmopolitan urban metropolis thrives even as a large part of the city is falling into criminality with racial gangs in its slums, meanwhile Dernholm is falling into neglect, with its armoured knights and more feudal way of life, the world of Tolkien dying out and being replaced with rationalized and efficient living. But towards the end of your adventure you've already seen what lies waiting no matter how much progress there is, when you visit the sunken ruins of Vendigroth, laying buried in the inhospitable sands, echoing the buzzling streets of Tarant but now silent, faded and rotting newspapers spelling their fate.

Arcanum isn't a game about religion being fake, or racism being bad, it has so much more heart and soul than that.

 

Skinwalker

*meows in an empty room*
Patron
Village Idiot
Joined
Aug 20, 2021
Messages
12,800
Location
Yessex
Skinwalker, you're smarter than this. I'm not saying the developers weren't making the game with some of these intentions or mindset, although according to Tim Cain many developers didn't fully agree on what they were doing and didn't share the same vision and that's how you got so many different themes in there. Troika was located in California after all, so no, I'm not going to say you're entirely wrong. What you lack is nuance.
Explains the shizo plot that bounces you around between twenty different mystaries that all get abruptly cut and redirected to something else. It's like the aftermath of a writers' battle royale. Oh, and the final conclusion? Muh morally gray super-sekrit villain who wants to DESTROY ALL LIFE IN THE WORLD coz muh suffering or something.

There's a reason that the specifics of Arcanum's plot are not as fondly remembered as that of Fallout, Planescape, or even Baldur's Gate. Or VTM:B, for that matter. There's a lot of good stuff in there... just blended together with a bunch of preachy liberal bullshit.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom