Arcanum: Work in Progress now available

i haven't tryed it yet, and won't be able to for another few days, but could i take a single map (example: Tarant, Wheel Clan, etc.) an do a short module, only within that map, an not make it part of the original Arcanum game?

an can ya tell me which download in the download section is the undatting tool?

 

Yeah, you could copy a map into a new module and say, make an adventure completely within a building or a cave. Or....
Many of Troika's maps have large unused areas in them. You could use that to make an outdoor start location, then go into the castle or cave.

BTW: All the towns such as Tarant, Shrouded Hills, Stillwater, etc. are on the main Arcanum map. So those are out of the question. It's only when you do a teleport into a castle, Dwarf Clan, Elf town, or underground location that you get into the separate, smaller maps.

For the undat tools: Take your pick -

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/tools/DATBuilder.zip

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/tools/dbmaker.zip

I've tried both and they seem to work equally well.

 

rroyo, could you make town maps for the towns missing them ?

 

For my hack?
Yes and no.
I could make town maps very easily. However...

Troika somehow encoded a limit of 161 town maps for the entire game and used 144 of those. Then I made four maps and the cargo hold hack used one more.
That means I have to be very selective as to where I use the remaining twelve. Only the largest areas or important towns shall get a map.

Sorry.

 

I never truly understood why hard-coded limits are good.

I mean, they're making an entire fucking game, is it really that much of an overhead to put some dynamic arrays in the code ?

 

So, is that only pertaining to the total amount of permanent world map way-points?
If that's the case, then there's technically no limit to the amount of towns you can put into the game;
You'd just have to know the exact coordinates of a town if its way point never showed up.

 

No, no, no - The town maps (the overhead view of the towns and such) and the game area listings (main map) are handled by two separate mes files.

So far I have found the limit for how many town maps that can be added to the game (161), but since I only have 150 locations listed in gamearea.mes, I haven't reached a limit yet.
Troika used 81, ChrisBeddoes added 21 more, and I took it to an even 150 without problems - other than getting Virgil's script to mark that many places..... :/

After I use all the remaining slots in the gamearea.mes, I'm going to add another fifty spaces and see if they'll get marked.

 

Aha!

By the way, did you change the Orc Bandit hack?
I actually ran into a battalion of them (not exactly) on my way to Ashbury, and there were so many on screen (about 30) that they never started to attack me. I managed to run from it, but my game's got a permanent slowdown now.

 

Try to remove some. For example, Vooriden uses one, if I remember correctly.

 

Gross: Did you download the altered script for the Orcs? See page 2 if you haven't.

Frigo: But the only way to know for sure how places can be marked will be to actually try to mark more and more. I may move from Virgil's script to an external mark-map script but the end result will still be the same.

Or are you thinking about town maps?
I have considered merging several town maps for places that are actually built on one map. The Wheel Clan, for example, uses 6 separate town maps even though it's actually built on one map. (For the different levels.)

What I don't know, at this time, is if this will cause a conflict. The Arcanum.dat will be saying here's the data for level 5, but my Arcanum.patch1 would be insisting that it's still level 1.

When the time comes, I'll get brave enough to try this, but I'm still a ways away.

BTW: Do you really need a town map for someplace like Vaselan?

 

It might be useful in order to know you have visited everything, when i got there i first thought "hmm, i probably missed some parts of the town". However from your last post it seems i didn't. Is this place really only populated by a few rats and orcs?

Oh, i found what is probably one of your cheat-test chest in the wolf's cave. A big chest full of scrolls.

I have two questions now.
First, as i removed the hacked virgil dialogue (i didn't felt right having everything marked from the start), are there people who can tell me where the new locations are, or do i have to find them by pure chance (like Vaselan when coming back from Ashburry to Tarrant)
Second : about the teleport stone to "haven" in the Shrouded Hills temple. I tried to click the stone near the corpse but nothing happened. Is it something you still have to finish, or will i find some clues on how to use it somewhere?

 

Vaselan: It's just a small abandoned logging camp. And yep! Orcs and rats. Hack & Slash. And unlike ChrisBeddoes, I do add trails or roads to lead you to all the various places. The Twin Cities is an excelent example of that.

You'll find the new locations mostly by chance but I have started adding notes at a few places that say something like, "Hey John, I heard about this old tomb at 1234 X 4321. When you finish what you're doing, come join me! Mikey"
I've placed two of these so far to direct the player to areas that would normally be bypassed.

To double-check if you've visited everything, there is a book called "The Atlas of Arcanum" in the chest at Kendrick Wales' place in Ashbury. It lists every location in the game, including what I've added.

I'm giving out the location now because I've decided to make it a permanent part of the Tarant library.
From here on out, you'll need a note-pad for the coordinates.

The chest of scrolls is not a cheat. It's part of the set-up for turning an "easter egg" location into a side-quest. I might change the contents though.

The teleport stone and Haven: Poor Haven.... My first attempt to create a large area turned out to be clunky and unworkable, so I've killed all the links to it until I get considerably better at conditional scripting.
Originally, it was going to be your way to the new Vendigroth ruins but when complete it will figure into the Mad Scientist quest. (Still to be done)

BTW: Here is Faithe's debugged script.

http://rapidshare.com/files/50754297/30355Faithe.dlg

Download the script, move to the Sierra/Arcanum/Arcanum5.dat/dlg file and allow to overwrite.

 

Beta testers needed!

I think I may have disabled Raven and Zan's level 5 elementals.
What I need is two people who routinely get one or the other to add this modification to their game and take the NPC all the way to level 50 for testing purposes.

If you have not yet crossed Hardins Pass and would be willing to aid me in this, please post a reply here and let me know which character you'll be testing.

Everyone else, please hold off until we find out if this works.
Edit: 4:37 pm - Someone didn't want to wait.... There's one download already.

Download: http://rapidshare.com/files/50995543/gamelevel.mes

This goes into the Sierra/Arcanum/modules/Arcanum.patch1/rules folder.

Thanks in advance!

 

I've talked with Bates, he told me to visit Edward Teach, but then Teach tells me to talk with Bates, and refuses to bring me to the Isle of Despair.

Edit: Nevermind, I solved it. I've travelled to Ashbury and talked to Teach before going to Bates with the news about the dwarf clan.

 

Frigo, you should not have have that problem.
Other than adding bug and dialog fixes, I have not messed with the main game. The entire BMC quest is still 99% original. (1 new schematic and a bit more treasure.)

 

OK, i'll test BOTH Raven and Zan with my current smooth-talker techno thief (wanted to have them both anyway so i'll pay a visit to Mr Willowgbhy)
However, are you talking about their level 5 SUMMON elemental spell, or their level 4 buggy (turn to man) Elemental form??

 

It was the level 5 summon I disabled. (I hope...)

 

Okay, I'm level 28 and have both Raven and Zan in my party. I'll begin the real powerlevelling and we shall se about that level 4 and 5 spells.

By the way, at the moment Zan has:
4 levels of Earth
4 levels of Force
4 levels of Temporal

And Raven has:
4 levels of Water
4 levels of Necro white

 

rroyo, I found something you might be interested in: http://reinerstileset.4players.de/englisch.htm

 

Nice find!

Regrettably, most of the artwork is incompatable with Arcanum (too small, or wrong angle) but I did find a couple of things I can use and downloaded some of the animals in case someone comes up with a version of BMP2ART that will make multi-image files.

We just might get horses yet! And deer. And dinos. And worms....