I downloaded Car Arcanum to see what changes it made. It's a lot harder, (or perhaps I don't know good combat & money tricks). Some of the cheats are too heavy for me. I wished I picked a character who could have more followers. My last regular Arcanum game I had 9, so wanted less this time. The first thing I saw is that you land in hell and die immediately. I went back and chose a character with poison resistance who could spot traps and that helped. I can agree with the idea that traps should be more threatening so it would be worth having spot & disarm traps skill. I made the mistake of putting points in electrical to get charged rings: they no longer have a dx bonus. Now poison really isn't that bad if you have Virgil and aren't too tech. At the clan dungeons it quickly became a farce: 200 poison and I was still on my feet. I had quite a shock with the change in speed potion: it took me a while to figure out that was what reduced my hit points 40%, like the spell. I don't really understand the idea behind killing monsters and a tougher death lantern or skeleton shows up in their place. Very frustrating. It does make more sense for you being attacked by greater numbers of enemies while walking through the wild. Like if there's just two or three of you, then 2 or 3 guys might take you on, but if you've got a full crew of five or six, then 1 or 2 enemies are a joke. I had to laugh when I saw the guy's idea of a shortcut in the BMC: he cut through the wall, and not nearby where the indistructible junk pile blocks your path! I forget if it was that hard for a gunfighter to destroy the ore golems before, but I couldn't do it without the flamethrower. I didn't like the story of Ristezze being really foul, but turning out to be Doc's brother who defends him. I mean it was bad enough in the normal game that when you buy Gar, H.T. Parnell suggests you want him for a houseboy, wink. I don't want to know what he was thinking with regard to Ristezze. I did like it that Virgil wouldn't handle unidentified items because they might be cursed, until he wouldn't carry my mithril. I had to pay 100 to identify that first. I did like the gems that allowed you to change the levelling scheme of followers. I didn't realize Virgil was on pure melee-dodge for a long time, but changed it in time for him to become a powerful mage too. I still haven't learned how to create levelling schemes, but still want to. I read people say they wished they had a follower who could repair, since they don't want to put points into it themselves! If there were more monsters that damaged armor and weapons then it could be worth it. I like the idea that encumbrance reduces your magical aptitude to the tech side. I'd wondered why in Arcanum people wore robes and used staffs, but couldn't see a downside to magic armor and swords. People have complained in the regular game that followers don't cast enough spells in combat. I saw Virgil cast some spells here but one time it was hilarious. He thought some animal (rock rat?) needed disarming! So far in Arcanum no enemy has ever disarmed me or cast weaken. I've been stunned and hit with that magic leg-lock trap spell which is bad. I used undat on Cararcanum, and it seems they didn't change but a few original dialogs and scripts. I still have to check out what the new areas are like. I think the machined plate fix is not compatible because of the .mes file it uses, but perhaps Maxim and Nasrudin ("late game dialog") fixes might be OK. According to the instructions you pretty much need to add two files (arcanum5.dat & patch1) in appropriate directories and run installation program. I can't play the original Arcanum until I pull these two files but some things are still wacked so I feel like I'm playing a hybrid. What else needs to go? [PS: Sorry, I just found Module discussion, which is where I guess this should have gone.]
Ask and ye shall recieve. http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/hacks/polished_CARCANUM.zip Make sure you're patched first!
I finally had to uninstall and reinstall like the CarArcanum instructions told me. What a pain. At first I didn't like it that he'd changed "harm" spell to only work on some animals. If I was to change it, though I'd make it "harm flesh" so it wouldn't work on undead, elementals and rock/ore beasties.
A couple things that do need changing is Helena Sent and the two new Shrouded Hills merchants. Helena - so she'll quit going off on you whenever you pick a lock. The new merchants - so they'll buy things. The Wandering Merchants need someone with a good knowledge of hex-editing to fix those. I had to replace Helena and the two merchants to get them to work properly. Hope you have better luck.
I personally hated the goddamned vampire Arbalath. "I'm not human anymore" "You were never Human, you're a fucking Half-Elf" "Oh."
