How did you mess up your game the first time?

I remember it very vividly. I got the ruby quest from Gildor Nightwalk in Stillwater and was incredibly fascinated by his story. I had a Scroll of Teleportation and went directly to the alter. Without thinking about it, I saved so I could experience death by demon a few times.

Unfortunately, I did not have another scroll and hadn't discovered the mountain pass so it was back to torturing Bregho's spirit for me.

 

Not really something that made it impossible to continue with the game, but it was reason enough for me to leave Arcanum where it was.

While on the Isle of Despair, I noticed that the reaction of my two followers, Virgil and Magnus, was about 20 points lower compared to the time I last checked it. This was a big issue for me at the time, being the perfectionist that I was (am?) - it meant that I screwed up somewhere and I didn't even know where and how. "Perhaps I committed an evil act without even noticing it and now my followers dislike me and/or the best endings are blocked off", I feared.

I was baffled and - without any earlier saves - discouraged and lacking the will to continue. Arcanum was uninstalled and it took me more than a year to bury the grudge and start a new game with the very same character.

Much later I learned that there was a bug in the unpatched version, causing the reaction of followers to drop in some cases during combat with enemy archers such as Kite Bowmen or Tattered Bowmen. I know where that bug's children go to school, in case you're interested.

 

I got insane reaction drops from fighting a fire elemental. From Magnus only though, oddly.

The first time I properly screwed up would be when I made an incredibly strong, quite fast Dwarf fighter...
and completely neglected to give him points in melee. Yeah, I screwed up before I even started the game, as I was to find out the hard way.

 

Haha, you are pretty tough on yourself. I remember the first time I made it through the game, Magnus was at like 35 reaction to me by the end.

I remember another time I almost quit was the first time Virgil ran away after T'sen-Ang. Not only was I devastated that my best friend in the game ditched me, he took all of the loot and weapons I had recently thrown into his inventory.

 

Perfection through suffering. :whips his back:

 

Critical Fail... Quite literally!

 

I got the game when it first came out, and being the young inexperienced fool I was I thought that everything would be possible using a character editor. I maxed everything out and assigned myself master into everything, and still felt dissapointed that I found it difficult to defeat all enemies with a dagger in an elegant dress. *sigh* Thankfully my priorities with gaming have changed significantly since I was 11.

 

The first time I screwed up, I did almost all the quests in Tarant, and without saving walked right into the factory with three Mechanized Arachnids.

 

This combined with your profile location paints a very disturbing image of you.

 

Who doesn't enjoy playing an elegant yet manly transvestite zoophiliac?

 

*raises hand* *reconsiders* *lowers hand*

My first was a nasty bug in the unpatched release version that turned the only save of a bright, brutal pugilist named Sam Vimes who had just left Caladon into a naked man in a field standing next to a chest. Thank Drog that one's gone for good.

 

I still recall my first character, the source of my display name here infact. I had pretty much slaughtered everyone in shrouded hills and stillwater and this was well before the go to stillwater part. Needless to say around the time it came to find my way to quintarra this became a very big problem. I had the quest from gildor, teleported across to the north, spent a long time searching to find the elven city, never did though I did discover everything else more or less all the way to caladon.

This was back in 2002 or so.

 

I had two of them;

One is when I was playing for a looooong time (40 hours anyone? yes I lacked a life then I guess, *shrugs thinking the days before marriage*) and when I came Tarrant back for warehouse by train, that little idiotess in Vermillion Station decided that I must be put into sleep, and my loyal followers chopped her to bits before I could pause, and all other NPCs around the station engaged into hostility. Well I could not back off my followers(5+dog+familiar) in time (was in real time mode), and I had quarter of Tarrant hostile to me, 1/8 already dead... uninstalled.. (reinstalled back in a few hours though)

Second was my first game; I was keeping all quest related items in Virgils inventory as he was my most trusted follower (well better than Vollinger obviously) then he decided to take off and finish all those quests alone... who can blame him, he had everything he needed, why share the spoils? I was obsesses with handling the problem alone (without community help) and never found out the hideout in Caladon... well I uninstalled for a few months that time as I remember.

OH OH WAIT!! have a last one; my last game I had a perfect team : Vollinger/Franklin/Sebatian with tranquilizer guns, magnus as meat, jayna with tons of bandages, virgil and dog. I am a technologist persuasion master, not much health, or armor (fine suit & top hat) well I was convinced I am invincible. I was going through mountains for an altar. Encountered a mountain bear, ordered back off for fun, then my PC slipped on ice and got knocked off, then the bear slowly killed me and my followers enjoyed the show with popcorns. (when knocked off you cant order followers..)

thats it, cheers

 

Leaving the Island of Despair without glasses or dwarf. :cry:

 

You know someone in Ashbury can construct those glasses for you, right?

 

Should've told me that 8 years ago.

 

I really messed up the quests on the Isle of Despair, didn't finish them properly, etc.

Lost Virgil, never got him back. And then I installed to many hacks and stuff so the game totally messed up. Had to delete everything and reinstall it. After that I did all of the quests I could, properly and nice haha...

 

I didn't mess it up for me, but I did for my brother.

I used to play Arcanum on his computer before I got my own, I always tried to be reaaally careful about not saving over his games but I instinctively go for F5 (or is it F6?) before entering combat so these things happened. Unfortunately they happened all too often and before he was half way through I'd accidentally save over his games and soon he lost the will to play the game, having played the first half through a thousand times before.

This was many years go now, I think he only loaded it back up and played it through last year. I still feel terrible about it though.

 

I pretty much blew my character points on Beauty and Persuasion on my first run. Good looks don't really protect you from mechanic arachnids, though. And having Extreme Personality to boot makes it pretty hard to speak aggressively to people without being bludgeoned to death.

 

Made a melee character with the "Born Under a Sign" background. Didn't bother to add points to melee, simply put everything into strength. Second wolf that attacked me ended up watching my head fall off from a critical failure.