3 Possible Ways...

To continue the Arcanum (2) storyline from the first game.

1. Time Travel:

I think time travel is one of the least utilized elements in ANY RPG.
As far as I know there are/is only ONE time-travel RPG in existance. (well one good one at any rate; 'ChronoTrigger').
This would conviniently take care of whatever happened to the Demi-God PC from the last game. The Time Machine lands on top of him/her or something. Also it really opens up the game world, you can go years ahead into the future and see what happens because of your choices.

Or get trapped in the past (Age of Legends?)...or Future?

Perhaps different meathods for Time travel... A Magic Portal/H.G. Wells Model Time Machine. With different capabilities and results when using them... Mage + Time Machine =

Also What if... The Void is not really an alternate dimension...
What if its really the future? When some calamity in the past has shattered the world, perhaps there would be some way to stop it...?
I'd like to see more of the Voids history (assuming it has any)


2. The Great Magi War:
A 3 way fight between; Caladon Vs. Tarant Vs. Tulla.
With hidden allies, Like Dark Elves for Tulla. Derholm for Caladon possibly.
Tarant since they are real bastards have Half-Ogre/Orc Stormtroopers and 'borrowed' Dwarven weaponry...(Tanks? Mining machines? perhaps a hybrid?)
Shifitng Alliances, Hidden Allies, and the Progress of the War will affect daily life in each Empire(?). If Tarant is losing they have 'shortages'
of Tech items...if Tarant is Winning the have 'rationing' of certain items...
(like shortages but the Black Market has more of these items for a greater cost). Similar for Caladon and Tulla as well.

Spys, Mercinaries, Diplomats, Warriors would have lots of things to do...Thieves and Profiteers always have a 'good' time in wars too!
You could also have a Political balance that reflects how other characters will react to certain things you do/have done. Help one side and offend annother...and of course Technologists and Mages would be in great demand.

I would assume that the Demi-God PC would reach equlibrium with the other gods and not 'push his/her weight around'... but you never know.

3. Kill the bugger (Demi-God PC),

The Elves / Panarii realise that who ever coming thru no matter how good/evil is really going to mess up the balance of power. So they decide to deal with 'em... probably with disasterous results... (not a bad idea since most of the 'people' in the void are really dangerous)

You could always have the Demi-God PC 'dissapear' like in FO2.
no matter what he/she did. (but that would be a lame way out indeed)

Discuss.

 

Well..............that's not entirely true.....

Soleil (Crusader of Centy) (Genesis) has a lil bit o Time Travel in it.

BTW...I like the ideas

 

Crusader of Centy? A Genesis RPG. Time Travel RPG.

2 rare things all rolled up into one... I'll have to look into that

Time Travel would keep those people who like the Age of Legends real happy too, heck Time Travel is virually a liscence to do anything you want in a RPG.

Long as you don't kill your grandfather... :-o Hmm it would be a good test of temporal mechanics...just not a wise one :roll:

He who controls the past controls the present. He who masters the present owns the future.

I can just imagine the Industrial Council of Tarant getting a Time Machine and planning to do some pre-emptive world domination. Or those shifty Tullan Mages cooking up a time portal to wipe out Technology once and for all...

Perhaps... Perhaps the War would be about who Controls the Time Machine...hmmmm... This is starting to sound like a good story...

Opening the door to Time gives Infinite options.

 

Well let me be clear and state that the "Time Travel" in Crusader of Centy isn't that big a factor but it does add to the storyline a bit.

 

That and soleil wasn't much of an RPG but it was strangly addictive. Anyway you've got point time travel is a good idea but it really evades the whole plot of arcanum doesn' it?

 

Not unless you throw in a "generational theme" like in Phantasy Star III.

Something like maybe while you're back in time, you lil "fling" with a local "lady of night" might result in a strangely familiar follower who's father went missing long ago...

 

Ok Phantasy star III is crap, I know I can safely say that! I really think that Arcanum should avoid the whole time trave idea. They really should just play out back in Arcanum but y'know another generation or something like that. With new city and towns being built and the old ones new and improved.

 

What's crap about it? I enjoyed the heck out if it...I mean four possible endings and all that. THe generations thing waS VERY CLEAVER INDEED!

 

Yeah, that idea was and indeed still is unique. Or at least I have never heard of annother RPG using such an interesting game mechanic. You can't Breed Pokemon can you? (right?!?).

At least you can't breed main Player characters... FF9 or something has some mini-game like that but I don't think that counts.

As I said before, Doing things in the past would have a VERY definite effect on the future.

Say for instance Robbing some Guy in the past blind, and then traveling into the Future and seeing him dead/pauper might be funny. Or better yet Robbing him In the future and THEN again in the past... Or setting up a savings account at a bank and collecting bigtime later on...

Not only can you do Moral dilemmas but TEMPORAL ones too!

Yes Timetravel can really mess up history, but since Arcanum's history already looks like it went thru a blender or two...Hmmm...
Supernatural Selection anyone? Who knows what caused that event... could even be some hapless mage timetraveller.

and its not like the past has no technology; Vendigroth and the Iron Clan sem to be even MORE advanced than their modern peers.

 

Compared to Phantasy star IV and Phantasy star II, III is rubbish and I still think that time travel is a bad idea. Its just not what Arcanum is about.

 

So in a world that mixes Technology and Magic in an ad-hoc manner...

Where some pimple-faced Elven-mage with an attitude problem lays waste to an entire civilization only to be banished to a different dimension......

Where you can ressurect someone through spells or through a Hookah-like contraption....

Where you can raise corpses turning them into zombies using either magic or a contraption that is the equivalent of a battery powered supository....

Where you can teleport to a location on your map without actually having been there....

Where the laws of science and magic are caught in chaotic embrace...

Time travel has no place???

 

So what IS Arcanum about then if not how powerful forces interact in unpredictable ways, in a world where anything could happen?

Timetravel sounds like a natural thing to put in!
Its Chaotic and powerfull, not really understood even by the experts.
It can have very far reaching effects and is certanly not an exact science.

Go watch Terminator 1 & 2, then Back to the future and "The City on the edge of Forever" Classic Star Trek episode for starters, and Play thru Chrono Trigger at least once (multiple times are better tho). THEN tell me its worthless and does not belong in a world where fantasy meets technology head-on.

How Timetravel IS handled could be a good arguing point but say that it DOES NOT BELONG really does not help. Besides there was a TIME-TRAVEL module made by Troika themselves!

 

I'll tell what Arcanum is(or at least was about) Arcanum was about an industrial revolution in a tolkienesh style world. It was about the changes and consequences of those changes because of the clash between magic and technology. You are the puppet of fate plunged into that world to change it for better or for worse. If there was ever going to be a sequel it would have to follow the bare skeleton of this idea.

You could still however make time travel a part of the game but if it was just travelling back through time, then it destroyes the idea of the game. You could probably make time travel a spell.

I reckon that an unknown element should be added to allow the main story line to unfold. I suggest that we make it like Fallout 2 and make you the descendant of the last hero/villan continue fates progress. But you've lost your memory and Arcanums is once again going through turmoil. Except rather than a magical enemy being at the source of the worlds problems, a technological problem like a nuclear bomb or some kind of
genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.

 

Well other than the fact that those story elements have been used to the point of BOREDOM:thumbdown: in MANY, MANY other games.
(hey wait you just cribbed 'em from FO and PS:T, I wonder where THEY stole these from...)

Ok lets just spin an example... say your last hero had DESTROYED the world and was a BADASS Necomancer that made Kerghan look friendly....

Ok lets assume that then SHE must have been knocked up at some prior point (because the worlds is destroyed who could be the father???).

This New PlayerCharacter, (assuming evil She-Witch did not kill you immediately after birth) has to have SOMETHING to do she err sends 'em back in Time...yeah. to Uhh undo her past mistakes :roll: ... getting far fetched yet...no ok I'll keep going. So now that you are back in the past you can really do anything you want so long as it does not stop you evil Necomancer Mother from Annhilating the world, ect... but if you did you would cease to be. Paradox.

A #1 Standard Temporal Paradox infact.

Time Travel Allows for an Arcanum 2 Blank Slate. Tabula Rasa.
Attempting to continue the storyline is impossible, due to unknown circumstances at the end of the last game.

 

I really like the idea of time travel if only for the feeling of H.G. Well's "The Time Machine" ...not that I ever read it, mind you, but just from what I know it has victorian theme of the industrial revolution and ever dominating science. Perhaps stopping someone from going back in time could be the point behind the game? Perhaps you don't yet know if they already have or not... or something... so you don't know if the history that you know is what has truly always been... or rather.. if something else was also/is.

 

Aside from messing up history, time travels are also good for messing up storylines. No thanks.

If anything, the possibilities I see for Arcanum 2 storylines would be:

1)Invasion from the Void.
2)Exploration of the Void/The Void as the new Wild West
3)Discovery and exploration of a new continent (a local Columbus and his crew shipwrecks on the shore of the new- and aparently inhabited- continent and needs to find a way back home.
4)Magick-Technology role reversal. Technology is in decline, magick on the rise, spells are being invented while steam engines, guns and mechanized arachnids found in the aged graves, but an accidentally activated technological device threatens to destroy the world if not shut down in time.

 

Void ideas

I like the Void idea's, a ruined wasteland with an Unknown history and probably lots of areas to explore that nobody has ever seen before.

and the Wild West was Almost right after the Victorian/ early Industrial age.

Of course you would want a few years for Technology to advance (and have new goodies to use/build/play with).
Say 1900?
It would take SEVERAL years no doubt for the Technologists to figure out HOW to open the gate. Even the dwarfs stuggled with that technology.


Yeah Time Travel is SUPER DESTRUCTIVE and most likely be limited to a small section of the game. OR limited trime travel to only one location say the Far future and the "Present". Can't affect very much important that way, so its 'safe'.


Or how about THIS twist. What if the Void IS the future, what if those Elves mis-judged what their spell was doing and sent Exiles into the Far-Distant future? What if the Void Really IS Arcanum but in the year 2885. After everything was destroyed in some great cataclysim, which YOU of course find out about and must prevent. Somehow. Or if you play a evil-dooer HOW to use the future info to conquer the past?

and I'm shure Elves, Wizards, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Ect... would be VERY interested in such a place as well, see as its everybodys future and they all want a piece.

*ALSO*

What If since coming back from the void; the Player has change the past, if the VOID is the future would it not change as well?

Discuss!

 

Oh yeah

If you have NOT read the H.G. Wells Classic: 'The Time Machine'

you can get a copy FREE online; thanks the the gutenburg project:

Link:
http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/35
Read it NOW. This means YOU!







:cyclops: Morlochs Rule!

 

UH Mangler NEWS FLASH the people that made FO and PS:T were also the people that helped make Arcanum so they really haven't stolen anything. The whole puppet of fate idea is there thing. You also only mentioned 2 games so it really isn't an overused idea now is it. Plus the games you did mention having used are some of THE best and most memorable RPG's to date. So what really is the problem with using them? Its far from boring.

Plus I think the void thing is a bad idea as it would remove the linearity from the game, as the place is crumbled to shit.