10 Things You Love, 10 Things you Hate

Here's a topic that probably has been done in one way shape or form before but what the hell:

10 Things you LOVED about Arcanum the first time you played it
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1 - Magic and Technlogy in the same game....WOW!
2 - Talking Followers...how cool is that!
3 - Wait wait watit...you mean I can actually use guns in this game?
4 - Geez there's a lot weapons available
5 - All the basic AD&D races...YES!
6 - THese towns are so big..and look at all the shops!!!
7 - So many magic schools to choose from
8 - So many quests...such replay value
9 - You can actually play an evil character
10 - Pick and Mix followers...how cool!


10 Things you HATE about Arcanum now that you've played for so long
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1 - Its too damm easy to earn money and get good items.

2 - You can only palette swap characters and monsters so many times before its gets annoying.

3 - The absoslute uslessness of several spells in terms of the game (Sense Alignment, Poisonous Vapors, Nightmare, etc.)

4 - If a Half-ogre backpack is larger than a human one....surely I should have a larger area as well a higher weight tolerance base on strength right? Espcailly seeing as the items are still the same bloody size.

5 - After a certain point, and unlessyou install Car Arcanum, VERY FEW fights actually pose any sort of real threat tto you..taking away the thrill of battle.

6 - Okay so you accidentaly kill a shopkeepr, two days of storeless mourning is one thing, but surely at some point someone would take over things right?

7 - Enemies have ZERO tactical sense whatsoever...they cast the wrong spells at eth wrong time and their their abilities seem to play little or no effect in the game.

8 - Without any oficial expansions, replay value has its limits

9 - Folowers can de dumber than enemies at times....why the hell does Virgil keep trying to cast Heal spells on a character who is ultimately Tech oriented....AI NEEDED!

10 - Some quests could have used some better endings...like the Half-Ogre Mystery..and the Werewolf cure (the chick should have put out some after getting cured)

 

About hate number 10... I totally agree that the half-ogre "mystery" could've enden better; with you getting to kill the filthy little gnome responsible, who's name just happens to be Edward (bloody) Willoughsby.

 

10 Things I Love about Arcanum:

1. Technology! I get to use technology to fight the bad guys and it isn't all just guns and bombs like your typical first-person shooter. Pyrotechnic axe, the charged sword, and the charged rings and I'm good to go.
2. So much variation in the story. You can really do just about anything you wish with your character.
3. Interesting main plotline.
4. Vendigroth. Man, the ruins are my favorite part of the game to go through.
5. Qintarra. The only city that's largely magickal and full of elves that treat my character halfway decently. Most of the other elves in the game are a buncha pricks.
6. Heironymous Maxim (sp?). Inventor and he gives me the medical arachnid. Sweet!
7. Stringy Pete. As soon as I get done those quests, I can get from city-to-city (for the most part) in seconds instead of sitting on my butt waiting for my characters to travel there.
8. The Wheel Clan mines. For some reason, I've always been partial to dwarves. That and Loghaire has my favorite voice acting.
9. Lots of little places to go look for treasah![/voice of Phillip from Terrence and Phillip]
10. Pickpocketing!

10 Things I Hate about Arcanum.

1. The NPCs' AI. Hey guys and gals! I have a gun here so stop jumping into the line of fire! Raven! Virgil! Jormund! You people have magic don't you? USE IT ALREADY! No Virgil, I didn't mean try and heal me until you passout...Aw, crap.
2. Raven can accidentally hit NPCs with a ranged weapon and they won't say a word. I do it by accident once with a chakram and Magnus starts bitching.
3. Real time battle is a total bitch since it's so easy to piss off your PCs by accidentally hitting them.
4. Not enough interaction with the NPCs like between Virgil and Magnus where Virgil's early outburst led to no repercussions.
5. The scaling up of the enemies. Wow, I'm fighting a level 1 ailing wolf and I'm level 44. Sounds like seconds of fun!
6. I can't teach the NPCs to become apprentices, experts, or masters unless I'm a teacher. Why can't I just pay their way through?
7. The Half-Ogre Island story that doesn't have a good ending, which pisses me off.
8. The Therapeutics branch.
9. Tulla. Buncha stuffy mages. Here's a pyrotechnic axe in your arse!
10. Tarant's overall treatment of Caladon. I know it's part of the story, but I wish there was some really good way of screwing Tarant aside from the Master of Persuasion quest. You know, so Caladon can become the most powerful kingdom.

 

About YOUR number 10. You can actually give Caladon a fair advantage against Tarant if you listen to the people outside the Council chambers. If you do as they say, you'll see that Caladon will have the upper hand when the day's over ^^

 

One other thing that I find annoying is that while I can accept that once your chracter is past a certain tech level, magical poitions will no longer work on him/her.....the tech equivalent potions will still work if your character is 100% magical, evn if the effect is reduced somewhat.

That has always bugged me immensely.

 

Best things about Arcanum:

Steampunk setting
Victorian tone of the dialogue and personalities
Amazing character creation / advancement system which allows you to be anything you want
Using schematics to create items

Worst:
Terrible AI
Poor control of your followers in combat
Not enough high tech enemies (Where are the grenade tossing, poison using, tesla staff wielding tech baddies?)
Enemy wizards are complete morons and cast random spells with no thought for tactics
Many unfinished items and spells which wouldn't have been that difficult for them to implement

I liked the half-ogre ending because it isn't perfect. It's always annoyed me that in RPGs the hero tends to be all-powerful. There is nothing in the game that the hero can't solve. I think the half-ogre quest is good because it says "ok, so you are level 50 with uber weapons and 17 followers, but you know what? You still can't do jack about this".

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