Arcanum replay

You can almost guess the developer just from this sentence.

Man I haven’t played Arcanum in ages. You guys keep adding to my replay list. :(

To be honest, I never really understood the teeth-gnashing over power balance for character builds. It’s a single-player game, so the only effect on gameplay is that the game might be a bit harder or easier based on the character creation choices you make. But really, who cares? I actually sort of like the idea that some classes are harder to play than others. I wouldn’t mind seeing that incorporated as an actual feature in an RPG.

I agree with Ben. It’s pretty obvious that distintegrate will be overpowered. But it’s fun to go back and play as a straight gnome alchemist or something, where you rely on explosives alone to win fights (and maybe potions) instead of powerful spells and elephant guns. This game seems replayable, which is rare for an RPG. Honestly, I don’t see Mass Effect as replayable, but I admit I didn’t really get into it.

It’s not so much that Teleportation and Disintegrate are wonderfully, wonderfully overpowered (which they most certainly are). It’s that in a world where technology is overtaking magic (presumably because technology is easier and more powerful), the fact that magic is so much more powerful than technology doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Magic is better than technology when it comes to killing people. In the context of the story, I think it was obvious that technology was overtaking magic because technology was better at improving society.

but technology cause pollution, while magic is pollution free and can get rid of our trash by disintegrating it!

plus the sword that allow you the summon unlimited vorpol bunnies = win.

I don’t think it’s rare. Most hardcore PC gamers will replay their favorite RPGs once a year! It’s all about trying different styles to see how the game changes.

Bioware’s stuff seems to get less and less replayable though.

Yes, I should have clarified that I meant it’s rare today. Replaying RPGs used to be quite normal. I still replay the Infinity Engine games, Fallout games, etc. But I can’t really see myself replaying games like KOTOR or ME, even though there are meant to be things to encourage it. I don’t see how a different style would change ME all that much. But games like Arcanum, Fallout, BG2, etc. changed as you made particular choices.

You’re forgetting that in a game, you choose your life from the available choices.
In a real world, you’d be born into one with perhaps limited choices. Also, if we had corpse-animating necromancers here on
this planet running around graveyards, it would still not be a job for everyone. Some actually don’t want to be all-powerful,
just have a decent job which allows sleep now and then. I don’t like running away from the authorities all the time, lugging a sack
full of freshly excavated corpses!

Arcanum is replayable, because at the end you see a list of how the different factions did in the end.
Everything is supposed to be changable somehow, but perhaps not with just one character.
I’ll have to investigate widescreen support myself. If the resolution is changable, but hardcoded,
chances are good that you can simply set “1440x900” or “1680x1050” somewhere with a hex editor. I did that to Ghost Master.

With regards to hard (usually tech based) starts; I found that just about any concept is survivable if you let Virgil stick around; and most concepts can deal pretty well with the early game if you grab Sogg as well (This requires Charisma 9, so not all characters can do it.)

I’ve also noticed that a lot of the early quests are really easy to miss; doing things like the Doc Roberts quest can get much needed resources, as well as the line that leads to Dernholm early.

Oh man, I was just about to re-install Arcanum this weekend to fool around with.

One of my favorite games a while back. It had its flaws, but it was an awesome universe. I think I may just have to reinstall it tonight when I get home from work.

The issue is that in today’s world of so many games, it is unlikely that the average gamer will play through it more than once, maybe twice before moving on to the next one. This comment is really targeted towards a small niche of gamers who get really into a specific game and stay there.

This thread has finally inspired me to actually go out and buy it. The first time I played the demo, it really turned me off for some reason. The second time I played the demo, I enjoyed it, but I had trouble finding a copy. Now I just need to find time to play it.

Players who don’t play through the game more than once probably won’t even know that different character builds are more or less difficult than others.

I agree.

What I was trying to bring up indirectly in my post is that so often we as a hardcore gaming community focus only on ourselves and ignore the broader gaming audience completely. I’m all for ignoring them a little though.

I’m just saying that this is part of why the game didn’t do so well. Players who just happened to stumble upon the game wouldn’t really discover its depth before being turned off by its flaws.

Just read the Wikipedia article again, and read this old news (that’s new to me!)

In September 2006, one of Arcanum’s lead programmers and tri-founder of Troika, Leonard Boyarsky, divulged that the studio had originally commenced work on a sequel, going by the working title of Journey to the Centre of Arcanum, which would use Valve’s Source Engine. Development was curtailed by disputes between Sierra and Valve, resulting ultimately in the project being shelved.

Argh, that sounds like it would have been awesome (maybe a bit buggy).

And lo, it is done. (Thanks RPS!)

I actually missed out on Arcanum almost completely, but from what I’m reading now I am sorely tempted to hunt it down and check it out, particularly now a lot of the issues seem to have been ironed out.

Do! It’s a great game. The game mechanics (i.e. combat) aren’t up to Fallout standards, but I think the setting, story, and quests are easily as good as Fallout’s, and maybe even a bit better.

It also has one of the best soundtracks ever. I have it all in MP3 form, and still listen to it from time to time.

What, really? I remember playing it when it first came out and being decidedly unimpressed, but I’ll be damned if I can remember why. Perhaps the character development choices were a little frustrating? Bugs? Who knows.