Arcanum Sequel?

[Harry Easter]

Arcanum was my favorite game for a long time. 

 

The world is a good example how to take familiar clichés and creating something deep and unique. For me, the world just works and with Troika deconstructing all the old tropes, they created one of the best (maybe THE best) story in an CRPG.

 

Was the combat crap? Yes.

 

Were some companions wasted potential? Yes.

 

Did I still love the quests and the endings? Yes.

 

A sequel would be nice and I would envisioned it like this:

 

All good endings came true and all the superpowers of the continent go to war, because they are at the peak of their power and there can be only one. It would be like WW1 with steamdriven machines and magic and the player tries to stop a cult of necromancer from escalating the war too much (since they would profit the most of it, because dead soldiers are the best recruits for undead armies). Simple set-up, but it would work as a standalone plot and a good callback to the first game. 

 

I would polish the graphics a bit and turn the combat-system into a turnbased system. Done. Perfect.

 

But after seventeen years, I think a spiritual sequel in a new world with new lore would work better. After so much time a real sequel could never top whatever I created in my mind^^. 

Edited May 14, 2018 by Harry Easter

[Orogun01]

I think all you have to do is go to Turn Based and level up Harm a bit and you can't be touched in combat.  In real-time pretty much everything could kill you if you didn't click enough.

 

Also I hated the how weapon durability worked

Disregard this, dump everything on Force until you get Disintegrate and load up with mana potions. Also figure out a way to make money without looting your enemies cause they'll be dust.

[Keyrock]

I have a love/hate relationship with Arcanum.  I like the characters and writing and absolutely love the setting, but I hate the mechanics with a passion.  It's as if the developers couldn't decide whether to make the game real time or turn-based, so they tried to marry the two systems and the result was something that failed spectacularly on every level imaginable.  Also, the imbalance between technology and magic is so ridiculously large that I wonder if any sort of play testing was done at all.

 

I would love to see a reboot or sequel that kept the great setting and atmosphere and had combat that wasn't complete and utter dog feces.

[Lexx]

The game was meant to be turn-based, but remember: Back in these days, real time was THE THING and every such game required it. Turn-based was dead to the mainstream. Heck, makes me remember the early days of not yet released Fallout 3. The internet was exploding in a warfare about turn-based combat. So, so, so many people thought turn-based system existed only due to technical limitations. Some of the articles and youtube videos that spawned about it still infuriate me today when just thinking about them...

 

... anyway, that's why Fallout: Tactics, Arcanum, etc. got that ugly and ****ty real-time combat and a botched (optional) turn-based combat. You just can't make a game that features both mechanics. This never worked out so far.

 

 

Gotta thank the new X-Com games for bringing back turn-based combat, I guess.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Lexx

[HoonDing]

Harm Harm Harm Harm Harm Harm Harm Harm Harm

 

[Ophiuchus]

The game was meant to be turn-based, but remember: Back in these days, real time was THE THING and every such game required it. Turn-based was dead to the mainstream. Heck, makes me remember the early days of not yet released Fallout 3. The internet was exploding in a warfare about turn-based combat. So, so, so many people thought turn-based system existed only due to technical limitations. Some of the articles and youtube videos that spawned about it still infuriate me today when just thinking about them...

 

... anyway, that's why Fallout: Tactics, Arcanum, etc. got that ugly and ****ty real-time combat and a botched (optional) turn-based combat. You just can't make a game that features both mechanics. This never worked out so far.

 

 

Gotta thank the new X-Com games for bringing back turn-based combat, I guess.

Good point. I often wondered if Arcanum's real-time combat setting was shoe-horned in because of Diablo 2's huge success. The game also shipped with rudimentary multiplayer (which I'm not sure ever worked).