Graphics should be 3d; New Races like monsters, undead, etc; multiplayer should have more fun and bigger maps; new weapons; new classes; bigger world; new skills; enhance magic and technology scheme.
Okeeey let's start from the beginning: - 3d graphics - not sure about that. NWN style was hidious for my taste. Only if they make a good graphic engine. - New races like monters, undead - ehm, don't we have them already? :roll: - multiplayer - didn't try - won't comment this one. - new weapons - Big YES for crossbows, bardiches, halabards etc. - new classes - hm, what exactly do you mean by that? New tech and magic schools? - bigger world - yup - new skills - like above - enchance magic and technology scheme - i agree, and let team tech companions the ability to learn found schematics.
Actually, I love the graphics in NWN, although I'm not sure it would go well with the traditional Arcanum.
I think monsters is what you mean here, not races (in the playable sense, at least). There wouldn't be much of a point in playing as an undead or as a random monster. People in the gameworld react very clearly to your Beauty scores. If you're already hated as an Orc, what would they feel if you were an undead? You'd be the death of the party, but not much else. Of course, if you're using races to describe just new types of monsters instead of playable races, then yes, it's a thought. There weren't classes. The system was skill-based.
3D when done right is great. Saying its only good in first-person shooters is a weird thing to say, considering 3D worked very well for non-FPS games like The Nomad Soul, Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, Metal Gear Solid 2, Soul Reaver 2, Dungeon Siege; and also worked well in RGPs like Gothic 2 and Morrowind.
An enormous advantage of realtime 3D graphics is that it relieves artists of lots of labour making different armor/race/weapon/direction combination animations. With 3D you can even make neat things, like character becoming visually more "bulky" according to it's strength and, say, more beautiful according to it's beauty. Van Buren and Jefferson promise a quality 3D engine that will look at least as good as Fallout did, and that's something. Camera rotation also enable such features as, say, multi-story buildings and realistic terrain. Magick / Technology is indeed a great design, but I think it needs lots of refinement. I would like the sequel to allow more intricate merging of Magick and Technology, and I actually hate to choose my side in this conflict.
When I say 3D engine, I mean NWN or Morrowind-style; not ToEE style. As I said, I loved the particle effects of the NWN's 3D engine, and the rest was good too, but Morrowind's 3D engine look awesome! The landscape looked almost real. However, I don't like Morrowind due to it's sucky story, which is hard to keep up with; not it's graphics, although I was disappointed at the effects they used for enchanted weapons. They would have been much better if they had used the particle effects that NWN used.