Arcanum

[Minchi]

Does anyone remember this game it was made by Tim Cain a fellow worker from Fallout franchise. I was wondering will you guys decided to go back to this tile and decide to make a remake or a sequel to this awesome game at all? There are a lot of fans just waiting for the day that their favorite game will be remade into something better. I hope that one of these days it will come back with a bigger bang. I hope this bring back some memories of this game o3o...

[Volourn]

I liked Arcanum, but it bombed like the rest of Troika's games. I doubt it'll be getting a sequel from anyone anytime soon.

[Enoch]

Arcanum had a pretty interesting world concept, and some of the quest design was rather good. And I loved the soundtrack. Further exploration of those strengths would make for an interesting sequel.

 

But none of the characters were particularly memorable; the pacing was terrible, with huge difficulty spikes creating points of frustration; and it featured quite possibly the worst RPG rules system I've ever seen. I give it some credit for elegance in the equivalency of attribute points, skill points, and spells/schematics. But half of the concepts they built into their character system appeared to have been thought about for a grand total of 45 seconds. ("We need two more items to make this ability area symmetrical with all the others... What do you mean, 'make them useful in gameplay?'" ... "Yeah, it totally makes sense that 18 separate hits for 2 points of damage each should yield several times the XP as one hit for 40 damage. And screw those guys who let their companions do the smashing for them!") RPG fans generally have a quite high tolerance for broken rule systems. But even we have points beyond which anger at the rules clouds our enjoyment of the game.

 

And, on the broader point, Volo is right. Games that bomb like Arcanum did generally don't get sequels (especially those whose developers subsequently go out of business after 2 more bombs).

Edited April 13, 2011 by Enoch

[Tale]

What about those monsters that broke your weapons when you attacked them? I had no clue what was going on for a while.

[Morgoth]

Nice setting, but horrible game.

[kirottu]

Main quest was horribly presented. Go to area -> defeat all enemies until you get to the end of the area -> talk to the npc who tells you where the next area is. Repeat.

[Gromnir]

arcanum were a fantastic game, right up until we loaded it onto our hard drive. as with all troika releases, arcanum were conceptually intriguing, but the actual execution were lacking. a steampunk world as the setting for a game being built by some o' the same guys who developed fallout? sign us up. *groan* horribly balanced and often obtuse seeming rules? forgettable cast o' characters? buggier than a tijuana sweatshop? is a whole laundry list o' things that troika did wrong with their initial offering, but the most damning criticism we has o' arcanum were that it were boring. is no patch or mod or revisionist history that can fix boring.

 

side note--

 

while fo and fo2 did not bomb, the sales o' those games did not justify fo3. nevertheless, for years uncle fergie struggled to find a way to get fo3 made... and bethesda finally went ahead and made a fo3. heck, according to one former interplay/black isle developer, fo sales did not actual justify fo2. is not bottom-line sales that justified fo3. actual reason for fo3 getting made is 'cause developers wanted to make fo3. has arcanum engendered that kinda passion? from the time fo2 were released until fo3 finally hit shelves, it seemed as if there were always a developer who were working on or pursuing a fo3. can the same be said o' arcanum? fo3 reveals that lack o' economic success need not forever damn a sequel. that being said, fo3 is clearly an exception. planets had to align.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited April 13, 2011 by Gromnir

[Amentep]

I liked some of the ideas behind Arcanum but felt the execution of the world left a lot to be desired.

 

I'm also not sure even if there was someone who wanted to pony up the money for a sequel if it'd be easy to get.

[Tale]

I did like the spells. Speaking to the dead? Teleporting to wherever? It'd be nice to see those again.

 

Utility magic is increasingly underrepresented. I think Morrowind was the last game I played with any. And the best it got was Mark, Recall, and Levitation.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Tale

[Slowtrain]

Too bad it was so insanely buggy and unbalanced. Otherwise it could have been a classic. As it was it was still pretty good.

[Amentep]

I didn't like the bug that ate my inventory (including quest important item that caused me to have to restart).

 

I also didn't like that technology was, essentially, underpowered when compared to magic and that magic basically trumped everything else anyhow (melee combat, etc).

[Slowtrain]

I also didn't like that technology was, essentially, underpowered when compared to magic and that magic basically trumped everything else anyhow (melee combat, etc).

 

 

Agreed.

 

I don't know who Troika hired to playtest the game balance, but odds are they went down to the local zoo and had some chimpanzees play through it a couple times. Nothing else can explain how horribly and randomly unbalanced the game is in almost all areas.

[Volourn]

Nonsense. Arcanum is a greta game and people exaggerate flaws. Bunch of Obsidian and BIo fanboys proabbly who don't understand the awesomeness of ARC.

 

Go play your pathetic BG2s, PSTs, and APs.

[Lexx]

Arcanum is one of the best crpgs made by mankind. I've replayed it again just two weeks ago or so, with my half-elf technocrat. You've got some great c&c in the game and most of the quests aren't as bad as people talk about it in here. Also I really like the crafting system, because it is so simple and yet you can create a lot different items.

 

The combat is ****. But I don't really care, as I never really go the combat way anyway. My main suit of armor is a tuxedo and a tophat. A real man fights with words and not with weapons.

 

I don't know who Troika hired to playtest the game balance, but odds are they went down to the local zoo and had some chimpanzees play through it a couple times. Nothing else can explain how horribly and randomly unbalanced the game is in almost all areas.

 

Troika was in crunch-mode from morning to evening. They just lacked the time for any deeper polishing. This was the case with all of their games.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Lexx

[Volourn]

"Arcanum is one of the best crpgs made by mankind"

 

I agree. Top 25 for sure.

[Starwars]

Arcanum is in my top 5 RPGs. Sure there is some bad stuff (the combat could certainly do with a tune-up) but it's probably my fav game just in terms of making up a crazy character concept and go for it. Screw balance, balance is overrated. And being able to actually roleplay is sadly underrated.

 

Awesome, awesome game.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Starwars

[Slowtrain]

lol. I'm usually the one getting beaten on for supporting Arcanum.

 

It was a pretty decent game. The worldbuilding was great, some of the quests were interesting, I liked the idea behind the character development system.

 

But the flaws in the game were brutal. I still enjoyed it, but it was teeth-grinding at times.

[Volourn]

No.

[Amentep]

I loved the setting for Arcanum. But to my mind its only two steps removed from Lionheart which I also liked the setting to; the big difference being that - Arcanum's inventory bug notwithstanding - it was generally playable whereas Lionheart IMO became utterly unplayable after Barcelona.

 

Combat in Arcanum wasn't just unbalanced - it was tedious. Painfully slow in turn based, two fast to properly react to in non turn based. And it also had the same problem the Fallouts had of combat triggering because of something you couldn't see on screen and having to wait a couple of turns to see what was attacking you.

 

As for role play - they made a quest about a gnome conspiracy to create half-ogres...which if you're playing a half-ogre your PC has no extra comments on, IIRC. There were a lot of great moments to use skills and reactions but it could have been a lot better in that department too since there are a lot of combat sections that can't be talked out of.

[Jaesun]

While the sheer thought of Obsidian being approached by a Publisher to do an Isometric turn-based game makes my inner child squeal in utter delight.... that's never going to happen.

[Volourn]

"I loved the setting for Arcanum. But to my mind its only two steps removed from Lionheart"

 

Nah. Arcanum has flaws but is awesome. Lionheart just plain sucked.

[GreasyDogMeat]

"I loved the setting for Arcanum. But to my mind its only two steps removed from Lionheart"

 

Nah. Arcanum has flaws but is awesome. Lionheart just plain sucked.

I thought Lionheart was great until you left the city. I don't think there has ever been a game that has gone down hill as fast as Lionheart did once you left the city. It was like two different companies had made each section of the game.

 

By the way, did all the voice actors in Lionheart have lisps or do you actually pronounce Barcelona as Bar-THA-lona. I always thought you pronounced it Bar-saw-lona.

[Crazy Tuvok]

Gotta say I'm a bit surprised that this game does not receive more love on these boards.

 

My problems with its flaws (which get exaggerated in every discussion about the game I have ever had) absolutely vanish upon playing it.

 

It is a masterpiece of actual RPG in a CRPG. Nothing in the last 15 years comes close for genuine role-playing in a CRPG.

[Hurlshort]

I played through Arcanum a couple of years ago with a fan made patch that increased the resolution and a few other things. it was also way more stable than when I first bought it. It was a great experience, one of the best RPG play-throughs I've ever had. The character design was awesomely realized.

 

So I'd say Arcanum just suffered from what many huge RPG's do, they are buggy messes that take years to clean up.

 

Still, it doesn't have the name power that Fallout had, so I doubt we will see a team revive it. We are more likely to see a similar Steampunk IP that pays a bit of homage to it than anything else.

[Gromnir]

Troika was in crunch-mode from morning to evening. They just lacked the time for any deeper polishing. This was the case with all of their games.

 

yeah... this don't make sense. troika's lack o' organizational acumen did indeed lead to many o' their development woes and their endemic tardiness in meeting deadlines, but arcanum's peculiar release were resulting in a relative unique story o' developer and publisher incompetence. anybody recall the translation debacle surrounding arcanum? arcanum were "finished" and set for a release date... but that date got pushed back months 'cause it were not translated into some inconsequential continental language... german or italian or somesuch. is understandable why sierra would not release the english version and delay the carpathian release, but the fact is that due to some ridiculous translation hold-up the publisher should'a foreseen, arcanum were having its release delayed not weeks or days, but months. arcanum lack o' polish were particularly startling given the fact that troika had far more time to bug-hunt pre-release than they had any right to expect.

 

the problem with revisionist history is that some o' us were following the development as it happened.

 

HA! Good Fun!