Arcanum vs Baldur's Gate 2 (including ToB)?

Sorry, I prefer a little depth in my gameplay. I expect my statistics to actually do something in the game. If my character is stupid, I expect the game to reflect that aspect. If my character has a low charisma, I expect to see that as well.

After all, Fallout, which is a real cRPG, had that a full year before BG came out, and three years before BG2.

Most reviews these days are purchased, in case you haven't noticed.

Fallout Tactics got good reviews, it was abyssmal.
Black & White got rave reviews, it the very definition of tedium.
Sacrifice got great reviews, and it's gameplay was nothing more than Rock, Paper, Scissor with vibrant colors.

And there's many, many more games that have recieved reviews they didn't deserve because of perks to reviewers as well as advertising dollars.

 

I was going to respond to masterxfob's post, but what's the point? He said he won't check this site anymore, so why bother? Oh, yeah, because its late and I don't feel like going to bed yet. :smile:

Whether you like one game or the other, neither,or both, what it comes down to is its all a matter of opinion. None of whatever side will be able to convince someone on another to change their opinion. All we're doing is exchanging views. Don't you do that within your circle of friends over all sorts of topics, be they games, sports, books, movies, whatever? That's all this is. No reason to take it personally or to insult someone else--unless they really deserve it. :smile:

Hell, I've enjoyed most of the games we've talked about. Sure, many of them have flaws, but I overlooked them if the game was FUN for me. #1 CRPG of all time for me? Fallout followed closely by Fallout 2. FO because it was original and immersive....FO2 because, as a sequel, it accomplished the rarest of goals: equalling and, in some places (such as control of NPC's) improving on its predecessor.

As for Arcanum, yep, I've enjoyed it, flaws and all. But I'm getting bored with it now, even though I've never finished it. For me, the story is everything, and, to be honest, the story of Arcanum just isn't capturing me. Sure, I could wander the world and do whatever I wanted without doing the main quest, but that doesn't interest me. I'm sure plenty of other people disagree with me, and I say to them, Play on! Enjoy! For isn't that what these games are all about? Whether I like a game or not is irrelevant to their enjoyment.

Don't know if I'm making much sense. Too hard to concentrate...long week at work coupled with too much fun tonight makes for an incoherent Wookie. :wink:

 

about time

Now was that so hard? You presented an argument and gave specific examples to back it up. That’s all I’m asking for. Just telling me that one game uses graphics in gameplay better doesn’t tell me HOW is uses them better. Granted, you still didn’t say how it’s easier to size someone up in Arcanum but it was addressed in later posts so I’m not worried about it. Those 4 points I’ve quoted are good and I agree with you on them. But I think BG2 has other graphical advantages that I will address later.

While pondering the whole “sizing up� issue I had a thought about how creatures are presented in Arcanum vs. BG2. In Arcanum, you can see the level and a heath/fatigue % of any creature in the game. In BG2, all the info you get is what type of creature it is and a relative state of health (uninjured, barely injured, badly injured, or near death). Each has its advantages and disadvantages in combat. Obviously the specific stats givin in Arcanum gives a tactical advantage in that you know how tough an opponent is ahead of time as well as exactly how much damage each of your attacks does. Functional, but not very realistic. In BG2, you have no indication of how tough any creature is other than how he looks and a general idea of his health, much more realistic. I don’t have a problem with either system but I tend to like BG2 a bit better.

That’s strange. I never had that problem when I played BG. I can only figure it was one of these 4 things that caused your characters to ignore you.

1) They were under some spell effect. Most likely not since you would have noticed that but I figured I’d throw that in just in case.
2) They were unable to reach the character they were trying to heal. To cast a healing spell you have to stand next to the character you are trying to heal. This can sometimes cause problems when there are barriers between the healer and who he’s trying to heal.
3) Casting time. As you know, spells in BG take time to cast after started. You have to make sure that you start the healing process early enough that the character isn’t killed before the spell goes off. Also, depending on what they were doing before you gave them the command, they may be finishing or recovering from their last action before they can start a new one.
4) AI scripting. I’m not a big fan of AI controlled characters so I would stay away from the scripting. I tried it once with my thief and didn’t care for it. The problem is that sometimes you want a character to do something different than the programmed script which can cause problems. It’s much better to leave the scripting out and stick to complete control.

These are the only things I can think might be the cause of that problem. If it’s a bug than I guess I was just lucky since I never had problems with it.

I agree. The journal system in BG1 sucked bad. Fortunately, the journal for BG2 has been greatly improved. There are now separate pages for quests, completed quests, story notes, player entered notes, and each entry has a red header to make browsing much easier.

Perhaps I haven’t explained myself as well as I could, so I’ll take another shot at it. I agree that graphics do not make the game. Some of the games that I have enjoyed the most had really crappy graphics. On the other hand, some sucky games I’ve seen looked absolutely beautiful. However, graphics can add to a game making a good game a great game.

The key here is really environment. A good combination of graphics, sound, and music can really add to the feel of a game. Imagine this scenario: Your party enters a cave to find winged daemon standing next to a pool of molten rock. The room is scattered with human bones including a bone altar in one corner. As you enter the daemon attacks. Your party fights the daemon using swords, bows, and magic which eventually kills the daemon after a long battle. Now imagine that there are 2 games that use the exact same system and have this exact scenario in them. The first game has average graphics, the cave uses the same tiles for the entire floor, the lava pool is a red circle, the altar is a plain table with a skull on it, the daemon is a red human with wings, and there are no graphics for magic. The only sound in the game is the same grunt when someone is hit, and there is no music. The second game has a cave with great detail including stalagmites and other irregularities in the floor as well as a red hue emanating from the lava pool. The pool itself is a bubbling red and orange pit with steam rising, the altar is a large pile of bones shaped in a circle with a large pole in center that impales several skulls facing different directions. The daemon is 3 times the size of a human with large batlike wings, looks like a blood red mutated tiger with large claws, and has black streaks covering his body. Each spell cast during the battle is accompanied by an amazing graphical depiction of what the spell does. A low rumbling from underground lava streams can be heard as well as the sounds of air rushing out of the cavern. Each step taken by the party can be heard, the daemons steps have a low thud, and each type of attack has its own unique sound, there are unique sounds from each character when he is hit as well as a deep roar from the daemon when he is hit. As the battle wages, intense and furious music is played that sounds like it was played by the London Symphony. As far as gameplay goes, both these games are the same. So which game would you prefer? Obviously, the second game would be more fun to play. The combination of what you see and hear can add greatly to how a game feels. In the first game, if you hadn’t faced a daemon before, your reaction when you saw it would most likely be a mildly curious one as you wondered what the heck it was. In the second game, your reaction at seeing a huge evil looking beast that towered above your party would most likely be “Holy sh#t!� Arcanums graphics are fine but there is a sameness feel to everywhere you go. The sounds are ok but add little to the environment. The music is ok but gets to be repetitive and also doesn’t add much to the environment. BG2 on the other hand had an amazing look, great sound effects, and had music that could easily be used for a great movie soundtrack. Does this alone make BG2 a better game? No. It does make the world seem a lot more alive though. As far as the functionality of the graphics, Arcanum does have some advantages. I agree that how light effects accuracy, walking surface effects prowling, and several other features of Arcanum give it an advantage as far as "what you see is what you get". I’m not arguing that at all. As stated several times before, each game is superior in some ways and inferior in others. To judge any game (in this case, which is more fun) you have to consider several different categories of what that game offers, and how they work together as a whole. This is just one category I feel gives BG2 an edge over Arcanum.

One las note on ratings. I have no doubt that game companies try to influence criticts in different ways to get a better rating for their games. I dont think this is what happened with BG. I say that for several reasons. First is that many times I have seen Games magazines line their pages with adds and articles for anticipation for a game then destroy it when it finaly comes out. Anyone remember Diakatana? Also, if BG really wanst loved so much it wouldnt have sold so many copies even with good ratings and BG2 wouldnt have sold at all. Saint may hate BG but that doesnt take away the fact that it is one of the best loved games ever.

 

I think the ideal game would be the one that allows to you to scoop up lava to throw at the the deamon, allows you to aim at a stalagtite above the deamon's head with a ranged weapon in order to knock it down on top of him, the ability to cast a spell on the bones that are laying around and bring them to life as skeletal warriors to help aid in your battle. Although Arcanum is not this sophisticated, it is still stronger in that area than the BG games, as after all, the environments in the BG games are paintings, and the lack of interactivity with these paintings, other than opening and closing doors, is a constant reminder that you are playing a game. So let's say you have a game with the graphics quality of Ultima Pagan, however had many ways in which you could interact with the environment, I would find this much more enjoyable than a flat, shallow land with great lighting, music and sound effects. IMO-more interactivity and less restrictiveness makes for a better game, especialy in the case of an RPG.

 

same here at the start I was really into it
but after a week the storyline just started to bore me, in prievies games I was too fascinated with the world presented that I never got really bored.
But in Arcanum I get a feeling everything is samey, I just stopped having an interest in it. I just played on to get this darn thing finished, And the last boss? What a joke, In baldurs gate or in fallout atleast it was a challenge yes bosses were very hard. but that was a major plus.
Oh and to you people just dashing the flaws of baldurs gate. I don't know if anyone mentioned this before but Eat this: the line of commands, the little script space below. in BG I knew everything what was happening to my party who had curses who was injured and for how much, who casted a spell. and all
the same goes for fallout only there it was better. But in Arcanum, the "floats" are hardly enough, since many people get curses
and minuses to their char and don't really know where they got it from. But the journal is better. But I hate the fact that I have to scroll through tons of papers in the rumor section to get to my latest. I mean it should save the page I was last on.

 

You must've realy liked Fallout, but I agree, Fallout is one of the better RPG's that I've played. Excellent character creation options, excellent opening to the story, excellent combat, but for some reason I can't bring myself around to completing the game. I dig it out every now and then and get a little bit further in it, but find myself never spending enough time with it, which is a shame as I have Fallout 2 still sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be played.

 

wow, now that's a shame. I'm happy I'm going to be playing Fallout: tactics today as soon as my brother brings it to me. Finished it already but what the hell

 

hi

I had to quote this part of your post just because I find it a bit amusing. Isn't the fact that you're staring at a computer screen and clicking your mouse a reminder that it's just a game? Actually, I think I know what you meant but I still found that statement a bit funny. No offense intended.

I do have a bit of a comment on your overall point though. I understand that more interactivity can make things more realistic but so can a convincing environment. For example, have you ever played the PSX game Silent Hill? That game was one of the spookiest games I've ever played. It's not an RPG but still lacked a lot of the interactivity that many on this board have criticized BG for. Now this game could have offered more interactivity but without the graphics and sound, it would not have been near as spooky and as a consequence, not near as fun. I know that a lot of people have said that they would rather have the interactivity than "pretty" graphics, but sometimes (depending on the game) environment can be just as important. The perfect solution of course would be to have both.

One last thing. In our debate about open endedness, I have to say that there is such a thing as being too open ended. This doesn’t necessarily apply to Arcanum since I haven’t played the game enough to make that decision, but it is a possibility. The reason I say this is because if there is too many options in a game it can become confusing and even boring if there isn't a clear path to follow. Sometimes there comes a point where all a player wants to do is continue along the main story line. If there are a million options of things to do, and only 5 or 6 lead down the main plot, it can be very frustrating trying to figure out which ones to choose without a clear indication. Again, I have no idea if Arcanum has this problem but I'm hoping it doesn't.

 

I played the original Silent Hill, the game was ok, mostly due to the creepy environment effects, but it was one of those games that you move through rather quickly and has no real replay value-definitely a Blockbuster 5 day rental IMO.
I just picked up Jagged Alliance 2 Unfinished Business, this is another example of an interactive environment, in fact, in order to survive in the game, it's necessary to take advantage of the environment, this teamed with many options of movement and actions for the players leads to almost infinite strategical possibilities making JA2UB worth playing through a second time, as you more than likely won't experience everything the first time through. Continuing with UB as example, we could give the game the BG engine and turn all interactive environments into simple, flat, painted backgrounds, changing a thinking man's game into just another shoot em up, while we're at it, we will also alter turn based combat into real time battle thus discarding turns and action points. What you now have is a modern day version of Ikari Warriors, designed to force the player to overcome the AI with brawn and quantity, not quality, as well a game that is only worth playing through one time.

Such was the case with the Might and Magic series, the M&M game that I played on the Genesis back in the day, had left me wondering what the main plot was, it was too open and too large, the same went for the first in the Daggerfall series (I believe it was called 'Arena') the game was to overwhelming without any main path to follow and became boring, there were times spent just walking for hours along the outskirts of a city that led to no further advancement. I can safely say that this is not the case in Arcanum. Arcanum is condensed enough to allow you to easily follow along with the main quest yet, also run off on others if you choose to do so, only to simply pick back up on the story again when you wish to continue.

 

in arena didn't you have to find parts of a staff or a sword?

 

Good evening gentlemen,

First, sorry for my English, it is not my genuine language.

I read most of this debate, and as I just finished Arcanum and finished a long time ago BG 1 & 2, I consider myself able to intervene.

I played RPG during 10 years, and have a certain experience about AD&D and others pen and paper games.

I begun RPG on my computer a long time ago, with text based games on Apple IIC.

I just want to say that it's a classical debate. What is BG2 ?
It's just the traditionnal "save the princess, dude, and you'll have this sword!".
The storyline isn't worth a penny and is just a pretext to what we call in French "grosbillisme" (a kind of character which is limited to his equipement, and only concerned about XP...).

Arcanum, just like Torment, or Daggerfall, Arena and the beautiful Fallouts, give you another overview. It gives you a logical world where you can interact and a main spotline to investigate. But the choices are yours... You can be bad or good, dumb or clever, aggressive or persuasive, and it WILL change drastically your way of playing.

I never played again BG1 & 2 after completed it. I just can not wait to play again Arcanum with a different character, who would have a different way of seeing the world. It would be definitively a total new experience...

And it's only possible because of the maturity of this game. This debate is stupid. Why ? Because people who like hack and slash will always love games like BG. Same thing with ADD purists (hey guys, do you know there are other P&P RPG with largely better worlds and rules' system ???).

Other players, more experienced, with a certain kind of humour, would definitely adore Arcanum...

About the manual concern:
In an RPG, you are playing a ROLE ! You don't have a book with all the answers to every questions. If you don't find information inside, just ask people around in the game... like in RL...

Best regards,

 

Your English is far better than the credit you take for it.

 

I agree since the plot is not much in the ways of innovation. But hell in Arcanum you also end up saving the princess and getting the sword!

yes I planned to do the same but the infinite amount of shitty unforgivable bugs got to me first they just ruined the game for me it is not he times of Elite frontier
to forgive such things this is one of the most lame written games I've ever seen
the amount of things you can do and the possibilities are soo many the actually forgot to put some effort the the "stability" of the game engine.


and yes arcanum opened up new doors in rpg or reopened them since fallout2 It is much more complicated and intellect consuming than BG2 But I admire the simplicity of BG2 aswell, I know what is happening in that game, and what should I do, what happened.
and lets talk about difficulty. Hands down actually to troika for making the dummest boss in rpg history. Even after all the flaws I pointed out I still enyoyed the game. But I won't play it alot more since I'm not planning to make a hole in my monitor
if it ask me "are you sure you wnat to quit?" again without reason.




_________________

Anime Otaku
Morning Musume
Aikawa Nanase
Don't be Baka
Arigato Gozaimasu!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jinxed on 2001-09-24 23:37 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jinxed on 2001-09-25 23:17 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jinxed on 2001-09-25 23:18 ]</font>

 

Yeah, BG's are definitely good games, very well balanced, and quite fun.

But they are not the same kind of Arcanum.

I agree to what was written earlier in this thread: Arcanum might be compared with Planescape Tournament.

Diablo is, for me, a kind of son of Gauntlet, and BG's are games simple: like the first campaigns in D&D the storyline is so simple that it's amusing the first time.

Btw, the second BG has got the worst storyline I ever saw in an RPG... you have got a new brother !!! and a sister !!!
Extansion: you've got a lot of brothers !

How original it is ! Personnally, none of my Pen and Paper gamers would buy such a stupid story... Maybe when they were younger...

Basically this stoy, at least in BG1, is made to make feel the player powerful. And in BG2, to make him incredibly powerful.

In arcanum, I would say it's more complex: you've got the same feeling at the beginning: reincarnation of Nasdurin, the great hero, blablabla...
But quickly, you doubt. And finally, the philosophy of Nasdurin is: if you do what everybody expect from you as Nasdurin reincarnation, in kind of way, you are this expectation of hero.

This is all about: our act determines our fate. In BG, there is not deep points like this (and I love deep points...): you are Baal son, you have a brother to kill, so kill it. Whatever you do, you'll always be this god's son (at least !!!).

 

Much ado about nothing...

It all boils down to this: class-based character development vs. point-based character development.

Personally, now, I prefer just about any point-based system, regardless of its faults, because it requires more responsibility, ingenuity, creativity, insight, intellect, (add your adjective here) on the part of the player than any class-based system ever could.

Seriously, what god decided mages can't wield anything but a staff or dagger, or can't wear armor, clerics can only wield blunt objects, and warriors can't cast spells. Sure this may have worked in the '70s (do you know your D&D roots), but today we expect something more dymamic, not the old-school static.

It's really a matter of choice:
Do you want a pre-determined system to choose for you, or;

Do you want to choose for yourself?

 

on RPGs

I have to disagree with you there. I really enjoyed the BG story (especially BG2) and found it a lot deeper than just a “save the princess� plot. I can’t really sum up the story of BG and BG2 because it is so big and has so many sub plots that it would take several pages to describe. I could easily describe the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a “beat the big bad guy and live happily ever after� story. Doesn’t really do it justice does it?

It’s been years since I’ve played and PnP RPGs but I have played several different types. Mainly I played D&D, GURPS, Vampire, Star Wars, and a few I can’t remember the names of but involved cyberpunk, superhero, and spy type themes. Each had its advantages and disadvantages over the other but we usually stuck to either D&D or GURPS. Here’s my opinion of the advantages and disadvantages of each:

GURPS – GURPS uses a point-based system somewhat similar to that of Arcanum. The obvious advantage was that you could create any type of character you wanted with any combination of skills and advantages. The other nice thing about GURPS is that is was designed to be used with any game world you want whether it be traditional fantasy, cyberpunk, western, superhero, time travel, or anything else that can be thought of. The main disadvantage in my opinion was gaining points. Part of the joy of beating that huge beast that almost killed all your party is gaining a huge chunk of exp. that could put you up a level. In GURPS there is no exp. other than a few points given at the end of a play session at the GMs discretion. It works, but for me it just didn’t give the same sense of accomplishment as D&D. Also, while the choice of any skill was nice, I sometimes found that everyone playing tried to make a balanced character instead of a complete focus on one area. It’s nice to have everyone be able to cast a low level heal spell but usually it’s better to have one guy that can cast a bunch of heal spells including some more powerful ones

D&D – D&D as we all know uses a level based system with specific classes to choose from. I agree that it sometimes doesn’t make sense that certain classes can’t use certain armor or weapons. I also have some problems with the magic system. I would have preferred the ability to cast any of my spells but with a limit to the number I could cast of each level. You can do that if you are a sorcerer but at a penalty, and there isn’t a similar option for priests. I’m hoping that there have been some improvements made to this in the new 3rd edition. There are some advantages to the class system though. First off it keeps you on track to become a powerful wizard, thief, or whatever, and not spread yourself too thin. Also, it makes sure that each character is important in his own way. If everyone can cast healing spells, the healer might not be someone to fight for if he’s in danger. Along with that, there are some options to have multiple skills by wither duel classing or multi classing. One of the biggest advantages D&D has is the Forgotten Realms world. It is one of, and most likely the, most detailed of all the RPG worlds that has been made. It’s been developed over a couple decades and has had so many additions of history, mythology, towns, regions, and characters, that to read everything about it you would have to invest in more books than the average college student. Granted, the real joy of and PnP RPG is for the DM to make up his own campaigns, but with so much reference material available it opens up a lot more options and detail than most other RPGs do.

To sum up, everyone has their preferences when it comes to RPG systems. None of them are perfect, and each has benefits that others don’t. I just find it interesting that people bash D&D, yet it is the best selling RPG system ever. BG has been bashed on this site as well yet it is one of the most popular PC games ever made.

I don’t think the manual should answer every question but should at least be easy to reference and give detailed information of game mechanics. At least with BG I knew what advantages there were to adding another point to my longsword skill. In Arcanum, I have no idea what the difference is between a 3 skill in melee and a 4 skill.

 

Pool of Radiance

To add to my last post...

I was just looking at the web site for the Pool of Radiance game due out this week. It seems that some of those things I mentioned in my last post about D&D have been changed in 3rd edition. Clerics will no longer have to pray for spells and can cast any spell they know just like a sorcerer. Also, the multiclass system has been changed so that a character can choose which class to level in once a new level has been reached. There are also some changes in some gameplay issues like cover and concealment, and a bunch of other features. It looks like it will be a very cool game and I'm sure we'll all be debating about it very soon.

 

Fallout was originally going to use GURPS, but Steve Jackson didn't like the level of violence in the game, so he pulled out.

PoR2 looks interesting to me as well. From the looks of it, the 3rd Edition AD&D looks to have been designed with PC RPGs in mind, considering the sorceror class and other things.

 

Jinxed,
Can't remember too much about Arena as I didn't play much of it before trading it in. The name of the series is 'The Elder Scrolls', I just seen an advertisement for another updated adventure coming out soon, however, once again, it looks as if there is going to be a whole lot more of running around aimlessly, getting nowhere.

 

Just a precision:
My critics to ADD system is more nuanced about the 3rd edition of rules, largely improved imo.

Otherwise, I created a lot of rule's system during my player life, because I agree about the fact that every system has got advantages and disadvantages.
Nevertheless, I never succeed to create the perfect one :wink:

Otherwise, I would say that what is important to me is a coherent world (don't know if "coherent" exists in English). Something not realistic but believeable.

And in that way, forgetten realms are great, but so classical. Arcanum is some kind of fresh air, even it's largely inspired by a pen and paper game called Falkenkraut 1880 (I think)