I give up.

After trying to play Arcanum for over a month I finally gave up. I just can't take the tedious nature of the game. The primary thing a game must be is fun. This game has too many things that are anything but fun. Some examples are needing to repair your equipment. This adds nothing to the game except time wastage. It's annoying having to work your way out of a dungeon because your gear is about to break and you have to go to the nearest town to repair it. Yes, i could repair it myself but that lowers its durability and eventually I end up with broken gear. Some might say this is realistic but this type of realism is boring.

Not being able to rest in dungeons. This has got to be the dumbest thing ever. Wow, it's so much fun staring at my screen waiting for my character's mana to build up because I can't rest. Or, maybe I could travel out of the dungeon I'm in, go outside, rest, then work my way all the way back inside. So much fun. In other games there might be restrictions on resting in dungeons but usually there were very few areas where you were not allowed to rest at all.

The combat isn't very inspired. It's just that it's too fast. What makes it annoying is that you don't have any way to control your party members. They just run off and attack enemies as soon as they see them. This has resulted in having to reload several times when Virgil winds up dying. There should be a way to set a default behavior for party members like defensive, aggressive or passive. That would improve things greatly.

Moving around the map is just tedious. When you're in a city you can't see the whole city at once which means you have to scroll the map to see other areas then use the primitive waypoint tool to move from one area to another. When you're in the wilderness you get the pleasure of wasting time staring at little red crosses moving across the map. What's the point of having a giant map if only 5%, maybe less, of it has anything interesting in it?

The quest log is barely useful. The worse thing about it is that it records minimal information about the quests. When someone sends you on a quest it should at least tell you where that person lives so you can return to them without trying to remember what city they lived in. The days of having to right things down on paper ended in the mid 90's.

My main complaint is that the game feels unfinished; like it was barely playtested. I can't believe that the playtesters didn't say anything about the tedious aspects of the game. They should have looked at Baldur's Gate II, which came out a year before Arcanum did, and tried to make a game at least as entertaining as that. Instead it just looks like they tried to make a more complex game. The problem is that a lot of that complexity adds nothing to the game and just makes it tedious.

 

1) It takes a lot of balls to come into a forum that is generally populated solely by the fans of a particular game/game developer and tell them all that you think their game sucks. Though, you did make your post intelligent, which is more than can be said of other people who have come here and done this.

2) I hope to God you realize that you can turn combat to a turn-based system, this eliminating 70% of your problems.

3) There is no number three.

4) Little things like repair damage seemed to me a little way to equalize this game, because it is somewhat easy otherwise. Besides, the only place it is ever really a huge issue is during the Black Mountain Mines where you attack those golems. How about you DAMAGE THEM SOME OTHER WAY THAT DOESN'T DAMAGE YOUR OWN EQUIPMENT? Or bring spares. That's the breaks kid, think of it as another puzzle to solve, not a "broken gameplay mechanic."

5) Certain personality types are attracted to complicated games. You seem to enjoy the type of game that would produce a Jack if you turned a crank on a box long enough. Chase that feeling.

6) I hope you were playing with the patch to Arcanum, as that fixes a lot of problems you might have encountered that makes the game seem "unfinished," though I tend to agree with you slightly on this point.

7) Lists are fun.

8) The large map (similar to the soundtrack, visuals, and general steampunk feeling of the game) is there to create that RPGish atmosphere/flavor to it. Having a larger map creates a real sense of distance, whereas instantly getting from once place to another (let's ignore teleport here) does not.

 

Love the pic, Dark Elf.

Kick him! Kick him!

Like, in the head.

--Piper

 

Isn't it possible to pass time in dungeons? And doesn't that replenish mana? I haven't played the game in a couple of years, so I don't remember.

Anyway, don't read what he writes, you might become infected by his stupidity.

He's the reason RPGs today mostly suck. He wants you to be the one who decides what consequences your actions bring, and there to be no way at all to fail.

 

Not if a town map was created for it. Otherwise, yes, you could and yes it will replenish the mana.

 

Scout the manual looking for the functions of the F1, F2, F3, F4 and F5 buttons.

But don't forget that they'll obey your commmand until it is overridden, so don't tell them to back off if you might need their help.

The only problem with friendly A.I. is that mages with healing spells tend to keep trying technologically inclined characters ntil they nearly pass out. And that they frequently get in the way if they're attacking.

 

As soon as you click on the black button when in a dungeoun it just says "You cannot rest/wait here" or something to that extent.

To OP: RPGs just aren't your bag. Go play Pac-Man.

 

WARNING SPOILERS!


























Looks like a little more than 5% if you actually take the time to play the game...

 

I remember it took a while for me to find out how to go all the way through a dungeon without coming back out but once or twice (The dwarf ones were the worst). I also discovered that Axes don't get damaged attacking rock creatures. Arcane Leather Armor is pretty tough, but doesn't have many hit points for fire damage. The weak point in the game is that you usually face beasties one by one, so you CAN retreat. Also, if you're on real-time combat, you may be able to just run past them to a safe spot.

Imagine the alternative: suddenly a half dozen monsters jump out at you, worse than the finale of the crystal spiders!

 

In NWN you couldn't rest near enemies you had to backtrack a bit and rest. I don't like potion guzzling games. Dungeon Siege was fun but kinda monotonous. I forgot to mention that the equipment stats were overly complicated and made no sense. I read the manual to see if it explained it but no luck. I couldn't figure out how to use magical items. Items with higher AC and DR actually had lower defense. I had higher attack unarmed than with a magical axe and I was a warrior. Go figure.

Just because something is complicated doesn't make it good. Deus Ex and System Shock 2 were complex RPG games that were great because they didn't add any tedious complexity. Imagine playing a game like Deus Ex and having to stop what your doing to repair your weapon. Wow that's so much fun. Things like weapon repair belong in subscription MMORPGs were the game is designed to make you waste time so you spend more time online.

 

If we had had to repair our weapons in Deus Ex, the repeated melee weapons everywhere would make so much more sense.

"Oh snap, another baton that was obviously placed here for me to pick up and beat someone with. Too bad I already have one."

 

Hey, that's fine, Dr. Morbius. Don't play the game.

However, I think Deus Ex would've been more interesting if you had that whole, "Ah, damn...I need to be careful of what I hit or my weapon could break," possibility in the back of your mind.
I also have to say that, while you're right about the whole dungeon resting scenario, it;s also more realistic than just falling asleep or waiting anywhere. There are monsters in this cave/dungeon who want to kill you. Resting is not a good idea. Though, I guess they could've taken the approach of BG2 and let you rest until you were eventually attacked. But, then it wouldn't really be Arcanum. Another way to prevent that from happening is to have more fatigue at your disposal, and maybe keep a few fatigue restorers handy. The herbal discipline takes care of that in a beautiful way.

This all boils down to a matter of opinion. You don't like the complexity (or micro-management) of Arcanum, I do. That just means this game's not for you, and you can easily find a game that caters to your whims. Seriously, how much stuff is on the market these days?
I'll just sit back and remain engrossed with the rustic wholesomeness of steam-powered automatons; just as nature intended.

 

(1) Some people forget that games with realistic content don't necessarily have realistic intent. It's like a double-edged sword: You throw a bunch of strong melee weapons (or just plain melee weapons in general) into a game and realize they're a bit too powerful. To make up for that, you make them breakable/repairable. There, you've just balanced your game and added an element of realism to it. I tend to appriciate the authenticity of the realistic results, but after modding a few games myself over the years, I've come to recognize and appriciate the relationship between the two inentions.

(2) I thought that's how it worked in Arcanum as well. I constantly "Rest till Healed" in the wilderness and am interupted by random enemies. I don't know if this applies to dungeons. I don't think there is a dungeon in the game that lets you rest.

 

To the OP:

Replay the game. Seriously, if you don't like real-time combat, turn it off in the option menu. (Seems like this day people don't like to check out the option menu in game...weird).

For now it's my 62 times replay the game (no shit. Really. 12 times with Carcanum mod). Arcanum is one of those rare CRPG which offers tons of re playability with different character setup. (Ironically, it is the level limit that actually gives this game more freedom that other sandbox-type game such as borevillion)

 

Notice how he hasn't said anything in a while?

And to Dark Elf - my boyfriend gonna kicka yo' ass first.

--Piper

 

lmfao