So Arcanum is a pretty fun game...

Tube

Probably. I haven't booted it up yet. Anything I should look out for first time out? I was thinking about playing a magic type dude.

dispatch.o

I think you should look at a few class guides first to be completely honest. It's not exactly a balanced game, and the life of someone who relies on things that sound cool (GUNS) can actually be frustrating bullshit.

Fiaryn

For the most part, Magic is easy mode so you should be fine. The trick is not to diversify too much because you've only got so many points to work with. Focus on your prereqs for spells, maybe Necromancy Black and the Force school and you'll be horribly overpowered.

Also Charisma because you need it to have lots of followers.

Worst case scenario, recruit Dog and watch him slaughter everything.

zhen_rogue

Arcanum patch info:

Official patch (to v1.74):
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/patches/arcanum_en_1074.exe
"mandatory - fixes game breaking bugs (lots)"

Unofficial patch:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/fixes/UAP081229.exe
"fixes dozens of bugs and restores lots of omitted content"

Resolution patch:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/highres/HighRes1.1a.exe
"allows a user to play v1.74 and unofficial patched version in any standard/widescreen resolution"

And Magika is DEFINITELY the easier way to go as a first-time player. Recommended.
Also, don't try and be a hybrid, you'll run out of points really quick and be lackluster at everything.

Demerdar

Good luck with that game

Tylerbroor

If you want a power build with your mage type, pick harm as your starting ability and only boost your mana (or equivalent term, I don't recall) upon level-up. Then once you've established your dominance, have fun with charisma/persuasion. Talk thoroughly with a half-ogre in the bar of the first town you visit with CHA + 12.

This game is fucking awesome. Melee is easy, Magic is medium, and Tech is hard as far as builds go in general. Get as many characters in your party as you can.

Zednom

If you really want to break the game, pick the first black necromantic spell (harm I think it is), and spend the rest of your points on spells, to increase your spell power. Pick the background where you trade your soul or whatever for more spell power. Hotkey that spell, and use it non-stop.

EDIT: Beat to the punch !

Morkath

zhen_rogue wrote: »

Arcanum patch info:

Official patch (to v1.74):
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/patches/arcanum_en_1074.exe
"mandatory - fixes game breaking bugs (lots)"

Unofficial patch:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/fixes/UAP081229.exe
"fixes dozens of bugs and restores lots of omitted content"

Resolution patch:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/highres/HighRes1.1a.exe
"allows a user to play v1.74 and unofficial patched version in any standard/widescreen resolution"

And Magika is DEFINITELY the easier way to go as a first-time player. Recommended.
Also, don't try and be a hybrid, you'll run out of points really quick and be lackluster at everything.

Also make sure you use multiple save slots, even with the patches I had a bad habit of getting my saves corrupted/blocked.

Axen

I loved Arcanum. That is all.

edit- I think there were a couple Fallout easter eggs in Arcanum. The Brahmin was one, not sure of the others.

Couscous

Axen wrote: »

I loved Arcanum. That is all.

edit- I think there were a couple Fallout easter eggs in Arcanum. The Brahmin was one, not sure of the others.

Most of the desert area later in the game.

davincie

I hope you can handle awful graphics.

zhen_rogue

davincie wrote: »

I hope you can handle awful graphics.

Were you also upset that most of Hemmingway's works weren't illustrated?

L|ama

Playing this for the first time this year made it basically unbearable, but made me realise how much easier and less tedious games have gotten over the years. It didn't help that I tried to go gunslinger but I just sort of closed it one time and never felt like opening it again.

davincie

zhen_rogue wrote: »

davincie wrote: »

I hope you can handle awful graphics.

Were you also upset that most of Hemmingway's works weren't illustrated?

There is a difference between a book and a game of which the graphics were ugly even by the standard set at the time of release.

PolloDiablo

I was really fascinated by the character creation process, and I liked a lot of stuff about the game. With another year of development it could have been one of my favorite games of all time. As it was, I got bogged down sometime in the first major city, and just gave up. As far as I remember, there wasn't any major plot hook by then, and I didn't really feel like wandering around looking for quests. And as cool as a blind gunslinger sounds, it is the least viable character in the history of rpgs.

Tube

...you can play as a blind gunslinger?

davincie

You can also play as a retard and people will treat you differently.

Damascusxie

The game was pretty fun in my opinion. There's elves, dwarves, and a fertility cult orgy you can take part in. The build I went, which was rogue with time spells got pretty wtf powerful with the action point system, as later on I had enough action points to literally stab everything to death on screen in one go.

Craigopogo

I love this game because you can play a guy who wears a three piece suit and shoots elves with a revolver.

The true meaning of Christmas is in there somewhere, I'm sure.

Bursar

davincie wrote: »

You can also play as a retard and people will treat you differently.

Yes, especially when your very bestest friend in the world starts hating you because you can't pronounce his name right. A low-int playthrough of the game is fantastic.

Phoenix1985

People often espouse this game, but I always felt it never really lived up to it's potential. Like there was just too much land being filled up with way too little, especially in the filler-tastic forest-areas that basically entailed you beating on a bunch of wolves forever.

Of course, going tech, which looked like the cooler way to go, probably didn't help my first playthroughs. It's not a bad game, but not quite the astounding one that fallout was, for instance.

But, in truth, you're never really going to end up completely screwed or anything. Even if you do diversify, if you manage yourself well enough in battle you should be fine.

Craigopogo

The tech side of things is kind of a pain in the ass for a while, but is worth developing. The higher end gun and armorsmithing items are great, and you can get some kick ass schematics, like a lightning ball gun.

Magic is pretty strong right from the start, but it always felt like I was ignoring part of the setting by playing a mage. You can't ride the train once your Magick rating is too high, for example.

zhen_rogue

The most amuing playthrough is definitely a melee character with an INT as low as you can possibly get it.
The dialogue options all change based on INT, and they get really funny when you hit 2 or so.

Iriah

Cardboard Tube wrote: »

Probably. I haven't booted it up yet. Anything I should look out for first time out? I was thinking about playing a magic type dude.

It is a very fun game. It is sometimes very hard, and it takes a while before your character breaks the level barrier and the game turns in to easy mode. It'll happen eventually, just not very soon. If you do find you've slipped behind the curve, you should know that the easiest way to level up is not to do quests, but instead to just set a gigantic path on the world map and run in to random encounters. If you do all the quests in tarant you'll find yourself about level 9 or 10, which isn't quite enough for the Black Mountain Clan quest, so that might come in handy.

Also, head to Ashbury ASAP and pick up a certain party member. You'll know which one when you get there.

Drakmathus

I've never played a magic character, but don't you want to do real time combat if you go magic? You're mage will dump 5 or 6 castings before anyone gets on top of you and by that time they are usually dead.

Craigopogo

The real time is more of a pain in the ass, if you have high WP and a decent Magick rating it won't matter much, you'll be able to blast pretty much everything to bits with Harm.

Stolls

Honestly, real time is too fast to manage for me. Projectile weapons that aren't bullets will not hit moving targets (e.g. arrows, Bronwyck's gun), and it makes it even easier for melee critters to get in close and chew your face off. In the early game, nothing short of divine intervention can save you if you spawn in a random encounter next to a few were-rats.

It's not impossible to do magic wrong, but it's more useful right off the bat. Black Necro is a solid offensive pick with a couple interesting utility spells, like being able to talk to the dead, and Harm never stops being useful. Techies, by contrast, have to build stuff that's useful, which requires finding components and sometimes spending a lot of money on books. Pure gunslingers usually don't anywhere important without a point in explosives, which allows them to make molotov cocktails and bullets from junk you find in garbage cans; molotovs are essential for things that shrug off bullets, or in the event of a melee rush.

So, yeah. Arcanum is a hard game to recommend, but I love it to death all the same.

Drakmathus

I like to think of Arcanum as the swan song for the fallout 1/2 engine.

PolloDiablo

Cardboard Tube wrote: »

...you can play as a blind gunslinger?

Yeah, but it's about as effective as an actual blind gunslinger would be.

Stolls

One of the best parts was giving that one quested bow from Qintarra to Raven and having her shoot about 20 arrows in a single turn. Then she'd turn into a water thingy, try to just punch something, whiff both times, and promptly get murdered.

The moral of the story is the AI has a slight problem with the big picture.

Buttcleft

tube is a terrible person.

First he gets people hooked on Alpha Centauri, now he's pulling out Arcanum.

He's gone nuclear on us.

What have we done to deserve this.

Kitsurubami

Arcanum has one of the best musical scores of any game I've played.

You can download the soundtrack from the artist's website here. It's in high quality MP3 form, and best of all, it's totally legal!

It's good enough that I also downloaded the scores from that site so I can learn to play the appropriate parts on my violin.

I don't think I got past the halfway point of the game before I lost the CD, and I haven't been able to find a copy since. I'd gladly pay to try it again, as clunky as the interface was.

Tube

I picked the origin where you get some elven armour, but I just started so I can reroll if that's bad. I put some points into willpower and int and bought one spell and a staff. Is that good?

Clevinger

Are there any major fan patches that balance the game like those Vampire: Bloodlines ones? I kinda want to replay this, but not if it's the same broken mess I played back in the day. One time was enough for that shit.

SageinaRage

Oh man, I was just pondering starting a new rpg from my backlog today, but I started Temple of Elemental Evil , and after playing it for an hour, I'm thinking something else instead, and now this thread pops up. Clearly it is fate.

I started it a while ago, made a dwarven grenade/molotov slinger, it worked out pretty well when I could actually find scraps to make things out of. Meticulously digging through every trash can in Tarant didn't really feel so epic, and I didn't get far. Did any of the patches fix the retarded ai behavior? Like the first healer dude wasting all his mana trying to heal a mechanical dwarf, as every single spell of his fizzles?

Awesome music though, I loved the soundtrack. And good voice acting as well, from what I remember. Way better than ToEE at least.

Morkath

Buttcleft wrote: »

tube is a terrible person.

First he gets people hooked on Alpha Centauri, now he's pulling out Arcanum.

He's gone nuclear on us.

What have we done to deserve this.

I'm expecting him to pull out deus ex for new years.

At least he is choosing good games.

Demerdar

I love my oldschool RPG's.. but this game played terribly.

I just.. couldn't do it. I couldn't stomach through the horrible combat. Woe is me, right?

TekDragon

Option 1: Melee class with magic that boosts your stats and haste. Absolute wrecking ball.
Option 2: Tech class with tech balance mod. Much harder, but great towards mid game and on.

Find yourself a guide on GameFaqs and play the game with that guide open at all times. You WILL miss out on 80% of the content without a guide. Stupid shit like not picking some insane conversation path will lock out entire quests.

Tylerbroor

This will be your friend. Only reveals tidbit after tidbit, informing instead of spoiling. Good thing to check if you've hit a brick wall or if you're curious about an area you think you've cleared.

Stolls

Cardboard Tube wrote: »

I picked the origin where you get some elven armour, but I just started so I can reroll if that's bad. I put some points into willpower and int and bought one spell and a staff. Is that good?

Good stat allocation, though if you want a slight boost from the start I'd recommend the bookworm background; I believe it pushes a point from perception to intelligence. On your next couple of levels you may want to put a point into dodge and maybe melee.

Trainers throughout the game can give you bonuses based on your skill. For instance, with a point in melee, a town guard can make you an apprentice in that skill, and then it costs fewer action points to take a swing. Apprenticeship in dodge means your enemy has a higher chance to critically fail. That kind of thing. Both are dirt cheap to acquire and can save you a lot of grief in the early game.

But anyway, your starting build is fine. Intelligence and willpower are your important stats for spellcasting. Willpower boosts your stamina and determines what spells you can pick when you gain a level, while intelligence is important for dialog and determines how many spells you can keep going at once. Clear out the starting area with Virgil until you get the hang of the controls, and remember that if combat ever gets stuck somehow you can switch between real-time and turn-based combat with the spacebar.

Buttcleft

My first time through Arcanum I went Technologist and I think I had

an army of Automatons and Poison/Medic Spiders.