Update #42: Avellone's Let's Play Arcanum

[Shadenuat]

So the path to the future is open, but be prepared you who deny the

Eternal Glory of Elf-Mages! Your path will not be kind to you.

Nah. I could name a few builds which do not rely on magic anyhow but kick major ass. Not to mention you can do a pacifist run, although that would require some meta knowledge (but what game does't). The game is unbalanced, but not in a way that only mages are powerful, although they are the most powerful out-of-the-box.

 

Also, people seem to have some unnatural predisposition towards classes even when they are playing completely classless game. Nothing's wrong with playing a fighter who uses Temporal to speed himself into slashing machine, or thief with gadgets, or gunslinger who casts Entangle spell on his targets, or any other hybrid, really.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Shadenuat

[The Guildmaster]

  I love the fact he loathes elves. L0L

 

Still, he is shameful in the way he approaches RPGs as a player. At least the way he plays Arcanum it is clear he doesn't take it seriously at all. Which, in some ways, is a good thing in terms of getting L0LS out of this.

 

Then again, I absically watched all 50min+ of it so I guess I got soemthing out of it. L0L

 

 

P.S. Why wans't this update sent to mah email like the others?

 

The e-mail updates went out late for some reason last night, but hopefully you've gotten them now?

[The Guildmaster]

Please improve the video quality. I've been doing Let's Plays of Infinity Engine games for a long time and my videos have the best quality on Youtube. It's not complicated and doesn't require much time. Here is how I do it:

 

- In Fraps, check the "Force Lossless RGB" box - this helps with red text on dark background

- Download and install the following tools, in that order:

1. Virtual Dub http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

2. x264vfw http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/

3. Lame ACM MP3 codec http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Lame-MP3

...

 

Wow Zeckul, thank you! I'll pass that along to Adam and Chris for our next update!

[Zeckul]

 

Please improve the video quality. I've been doing Let's Plays of Infinity Engine games for a long time and my videos have the best quality on Youtube. It's not complicated and doesn't require much time. Here is how I do it:

 

- In Fraps, check the "Force Lossless RGB" box - this helps with red text on dark background

- Download and install the following tools, in that order:

1. Virtual Dub http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

2. x264vfw http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/

3. Lame ACM MP3 codec http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Lame-MP3

...

Wow Zeckul, thank you! I'll pass that along to Adam and Chris for our next update!

I wrote that at work without the actual tools in front of me, so I got some of the names wrong. Let me give this properly:

 

 - Fraps: under the FPS tab, select "Hide overlay" so we don't see the frame rate marker on the video

 - Fraps: under the Movies tab, check "Force lossless RGB capture"

 - Virtual Dub: in the "Video" menu, select "Full processing mode". Do the same in the "Audio" menu.

 - Virtual Dub: in the "Video" menu, select "Compression...". In the list that appears, select x264vfw, and click "Configure". In the x264vfw configuration dialog that appears, under "Rate control", select "Single pass - ratefactor-based (CRF)". In the box below it, type 22. Click Ok and Ok again.

 - Virtual Dub: in the "Video" menu, select "Filters...", click "Add...", select "Resize", click "Ok". A configuration dialog appears, select "Relative" and put at least 200 there (same number for width and height). In the "Filter mode" drop-down select one of the "Precise bicubic" modes or "Lanczos3". Click Ok and OK again.

 - Virtual Dub: in the "Audio" menu select "Compression...". In the dialog that appears, select "Lame MP3" and 320kbps CRB Stereo. Click OK.

 - Hit CTRL+MAJ+F7 to queue the rendering operation.

 - Hit F4 to view the Job Control window, the rendering operation will be there, click Start.

 

Profit.

[LadyCrimson]

- Virtual Dub: in the "Video" menu, select "Compression...". In the list that appears, select x264vfw, and click "Configure". In the x264vfw configuration dialog that appears, under "Rate control", select "Single pass - ratefactor-based (CRF)". In the box below it, type 22. Click Ok and Ok again.

VirtualDub is great for simple gaming videos. Still use it myself.

Do you happen to know if the x264vfw compression result in a smaller file size respective to quality than Xvid? Does YouTube like it better?

I've always used the xVid-mpeg4 codec for game/YT stuff because I'm used to it and it doesn't have any listed limitations...never bothered to figure out what settings would give similar results with the other codecs available in my VDub list.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

 

- Virtual Dub: in the "Video" menu, select "Compression...". In the list that appears, select x264vfw, and click "Configure". In the x264vfw configuration dialog that appears, under "Rate control", select "Single pass - ratefactor-based (CRF)". In the box below it, type 22. Click Ok and Ok again.

VirtualDub is great for simple gaming videos. Still use it myself.

Do you happen to know if the x264vfw compression result in a smaller file size respective to quality than Xvid? Does YouTube like it better?

I've always used the xVid-mpeg4 codec for game/YT stuff because I'm used to it and it doesn't have any listed limitations...never bothered to figure out what settings would give similar results with the other codecs available in my VDub list.

 

x264 is preferred via youtube for compression to quality ratio. 

[Baeus]

I have a feeling he's going to have a pretty rough time of it with this build once he gets out of wolfland.

[Nonek]

A quick loot courtesan tip, you're missing a small amount of loot by not taking everything from enemies bodies (the Kite Shaman's sword etcetera,) to do so either switch manually to their paper doll or just press the big red arrow take all button.

Edited February 14, 2013 by Nonek

[LadyCrimson]

x264 is preferred via youtube for compression to quality ratio.

XVid works/looks fine most of the time, but with long videos (15+ minutes) the amount of compression I tend to need to keep the file size smaller so I don't have to upload 500+MB doesn't work well with YouTube I guess. Or something, I'm no codec expert. If I ever get into doing a lot of vids for a game again, I might try the other.

[Zeckul]

 

- Virtual Dub: in the "Video" menu, select "Compression...". In the list that appears, select x264vfw, and click "Configure". In the x264vfw configuration dialog that appears, under "Rate control", select "Single pass - ratefactor-based (CRF)". In the box below it, type 22. Click Ok and Ok again.

VirtualDub is great for simple gaming videos. Still use it myself.

Do you happen to know if the x264vfw compression result in a smaller file size respective to quality than Xvid? Does YouTube like it better?

I've always used the xVid-mpeg4 codec for game/YT stuff because I'm used to it and it doesn't have any listed limitations...never bothered to figure out what settings would give similar results with the other codecs available in my VDub list.

In theory, yes, x264 is way better than any xvid encoder. I haven't personally tested, I just go for the best.

[anek]

The next time Obsidian does a kickstarter, I know what one of the stretch goals is going to be:

 

$ 10,000,000

Chris Avellone will dress up as an elf, pointy ears and silly costume and all, and sing one of those high-pitched elvish songs from the LotR soundtrack.

[Darth Trethon]

Hahahahahaha.....that was hilarious, bloody brilliant. I have to say Chris' commentary was pure brilliant.

[DaWu]

poor update. I dont want to see someone playing a game like arcanum....hope for a better update next week

[Tychoxi]

poor update. I dont want to see someone playing a game like arcanum....hope for a better update next week

 

It's not "someone", it's *MCA*!

It's not "a game like Arcanum", it's *freaking* Arcanum!

Edited February 14, 2013 by Tychoxi

[Monte Carlo]

Although I love MCA as much as the next fan-boy, I don't much care for Arcanum and would like to see an actual update.

[Shadenuat]

No! I want to know if MCA will **** the sheep or not!!

[AwesomeOcelot]

I think it's one of the strengths of these old games that they don't force you to listen to the dialogue if you don't want to. My instinct wouldn't be to pace the subtitles with dialogue because some players read ahead, just let the player choose what they want to do.

[Lysen]

I think it's one of the strengths of these old games that they don't force you to listen to the dialogue if you don't want to. My instinct wouldn't be to pace the subtitles with dialogue because some players read ahead, just let the player choose what they want to do.

 

It seems that developers somehow forgot about this. It is also a matter of production costs, I think.

[Labadal]

Although I love MCA as much as the next fan-boy, I don't much care for Arcanum and would like to see an actual update.

I personally think we have been spoilt with weekly updates. You can also see it this way: There might be things from Arcanum that could be implemented in Eternity. It's only a few days 'till the next update anyway!

[Rostere]

I'm really enjoying Avellone's commentary. However, I don't remember the UI being that hard to learn. Maybe he should play around a little and learn the UI before the next update?

[LadyCrimson]

 

Although I love MCA as much as the next fan-boy, I don't much care for Arcanum and would like to see an actual update.

I personally think we have been spoilt with weekly updates. You can also see it this way: There might be things from Arcanum that could be implemented in Eternity. It's only a few days 'till the next update anyway!

Weekly updates are certainly a higher frequency than I was expecting...so I'm fine with them using one, once in a while, to showcase something else besides game development. I'm not really into Arcanum myself, but I think it's fun to listen to the commentary anyway.

[Longknife]

Yeah, **** elves.

[GhoulishVisage]

I too am fine with them taking a bit off of the regular updates, it leads to less filler updates so they can gather some really good stuff to show when they do show it.

Once a week really is a hard pace to keep up, and I'd be perfectly happy if every second week Avellone's Arcanum LP replaces a regular update.

[Labadal]

I too am fine with them taking a bit off of the regular updates, it leads to less filler updates so they can gather some really good stuff to show when they do show it.

Once a week really is a hard pace to keep up, and I'd be perfectly happy if every second week Avellone's Arcanum LP replaces a regular update.

This LP will not have any effect on future updates according to Avellone's twitter. It will be its own thing.

[Osvir]

Fan-service update, totally okay with it. Not gonna watch this as I haven't finished Arcanum (don't want spoilers, haha I died to wolves too). Watched a lil bit, sounds like it's going to be fun

Edited February 16, 2013 by Osvir