Arcanum 2 Total Conversion?

I think it is safe to assume we will never get Arcanum 2... I come speaking as one who has played it endlessly and would probably do many illegal things to get Tim Cain to make it were he not working for NC.

That said we may be able to spark some attention from developers (*cough* valve, monolith, ubisoft, lionhead studios, irrational games *cough*) if we made a good effort to show that we want more of this game world.

Personally I can't think of any better way whatsoever than to build a total conversion mod in the name of a sequel (or prequel).

This would require alot of work however I think it can be done if the right people were willing to join and we advertised in the right places.

So assuming we could collaborate the people we would need to find an engine to put it on. Personally I think that the oblivion engine would suit these needs perfectly (it would also give us some much needed PR as many people have the game and the modding scene is desperate for good oblivion mods), but I'm willing to use any game you all can come up with providing I own it or its not overly expensive.

Hopefully this could convince a developer to purchase the licensing rights to Arcanum. If not then we have another wonderful steampunk game.

I would be willing to work as long as it takes to make this and use any good suggestions you guys can give me so long as they don't change the basic premise of the game, but I wil need some help.

I will be taking modeling classes this year however for the moment I can't model worth s**t. Basically I can't do this alone. I won't let it die but if no one else can help me build it then it will take considerably longer seeing as we are recreating/constructing a space the size of Arcanums original game.

In terms of storylines I say we make it a contest as to who can help us build the most open world with the most original storyline like the original arcanum.

 

Thanks, I really am serious about this though. I did consider the source engine (I am a source fanboy but it can't handle an mmo sized world). I would suggest morrowind however I think that that particular engine needs a break from its modding community. I have a small amount of experience at modding but I've worked with a lot of Oblivion mods and I have a basic idea of how to use it (it also has a lot of base models we could work with). If we can get a list of good engines then I'll make a poll on it and see what you guys want to make (please note that I'm not going to make it on a really old game morrowind would be fine but I want to have something to showcase what can still be done with the arcanum.)

 

Yes and No, how I plan to develop this really mostly depends upon how much help we can get from people. Like I said I can't model, so we'll need at least one person to do that, I suppose we could look into using an open source engine like this one but we'd need to find some tutorials, plus thats just a graphics engine and I'm not sure if we'd need other engine parts to run with it (what would be really cool is if we could get some linux and unix people to help us develop versions for that so that we could let almost literally anyone play it).

Like I said name some engines and I'll put them in the poll.

 

Ok so we'll need people for concept art, at very least one person to do modeling, a scripter etc... Do you know of any sites that offer support to modding, such as moddb for recruiting?

Edit:We'll definitely need to figure out how we want to put together the storyline too.

 

Okay well then that said, lets start looking for places to recruit people who can help.

 

I'm willing to pitch in for concept art, but that's unfortunately my limit. I don't have the education required to model or code anything, and story lines aren't exactly my strong point.

 

Thats fine if you like you can send us some concept art on basic stuff until we get the storyline worked out. If you'd still like to help with the storyline you can think up some side quests for us.

I've posted our mod idea on moddb to help us recruit people to help, if you guys have some concept art, logo ideas, anything I can post up there to help make people want to sign up please send it to me. If you'd like to see the page click here.

 

(double post sorry)
Moddb will only allow me to put one help wanted request out per day so I'll start looking for coders tomorrow.

What I really think we should concentrate on here in particular would be 1. developing the storyline 2. the engine we are going to use and 3. getting general PR out there so that people will know we exist.

 

What mods have you worked on previously?

 

Nothing specific just personal stuff for oblivion, I know how to use that editor. But I'm willing to learn how to mod for any engine available to me. Like you guys I really don't want to see Arcanum die. Its getting more and more necessary to move the game to a higher level and I think that a new storyline and a new engine would keep the stuff alive and show people that it is a good game and that we need to keep the franchise going.

 

(Once again double post sorry)

It appears that moddb requires a website dedicated to the mod to recruit people. That said I have converted my website for this purpose.

If we want to recruit at moddb as well we need a team list. If you'd like to be in the team please post yourself on my forum and I will post your name in the blog listing the teams attributes.

The website as well as forums and blog can be found at thegforcian.com

Also if anyone has any knowledge of CSS and would like to make a community server skin that better befits the Arcanum/steampunk there go ahead.

 

Greetings!

I think the most realistic choice is to make this project as an Oblivion mod, which would indeed put some limitations on how well the world can be recreated, but the amount of work and the skill required would not be that ominous, and the chances of the project being brought to fruition would increase considerably. Besides, you would find quite a few people on the Elder Scrolls forums who enjoy the classic RPGs very much, Arcanum included.

It's been a while since I've last played Oblivion, and I am almost unfamiliar with its editor. How much modding capability does it offer exactly ? To what extent would it be possible to recreate the character attribute and skill system of Arcanum ? There are two character attributes in Arcanum and Oblivion that do not match, namely, Speed and Luck; the rest roughly match: strength, perception, intelligence, willpower, endurance-constitution and agility-dexterity. Three races (humans, elves, orcs) are already there. The skills would pose more of a problem. But again, someone more knowledgable should clear this up.

If an it's made as an Oblivion mod, then the wisest path, storyline wise, would be, in my opinion, to set it in a time before the original Arcanum, since it would be impossible to cope with all the different endings (and the farther you go into the future, the more work has to be put into models and scripts, in order to construct an advancing technological world). The Age of Legends seems like an ideal setting - the Elven Cuncil, Dragons, the Molochean hand, Kree etc. There'd still be technology (that of Vendigroth and the dwarves), just not on the level of trains and planes. Such a setting would also be less demanding in scale (not so many towns and cities), besides, we already have most of the locations in Arcanum, only they're in ruins.

 

Welcome to the forum, bearslayer.

 

Yes thats what I think too and since no one has said anything lately I'll put this into the site.

I'm not an expert with oblivion but I know enough to network for the game.

If you'd like please post yourself onto my site and I can put you into the official team list.

 

I hope the dialogue options are as well-written as in vanilla Oblivion.

 

Thank you for the welcome.

I don't think I can help overly much, besides ideas for the storyline and sidequests and bringing the storyline together with the bits of official Arcanum lore that we have. I suppose I could also improve my proficiency with the TES Construction Set and help in the actual world/character/quest creation, though not on a large scale (due to the general sluggishness of my PC).
Either way, I think you should add a section devoted specifically to the project on your site forums. Other than that, I've registered there.