I apologize if someone's thought of this before me... but here's what I was thinking: I was thinking the other night, and I noticed some parallels that can be drawn between Arcanum and our own world. These're just my views, so feel free to argue against them if you don't agree with them. I noticed that the disagreement between magic and technology s rather similar to the battle that constantly goes on between religion and science. I noticed also that Tarant and Caladon were (note: I'm still arguing with myself over this one) similar to Europe (Tarant) and China (Caladon). To me, Dernholm and Blackroot seem similar to USA and the Middle East. Because we're a failing empire, and we're working hard to control the Middle East, and they're contesting our rule. These're just my views, lemme know what you think.
Interesting, I've never heard about drawing parallels between the Middle-east nad Blackroot and such before. Though the game bears much more striking resemblance to those countries circa 1860-ish, rather than modern-day.
Hey, I know, maybe the developers, Troika, live in the real world and got some inspiration from it, and you're reading into it too much...
Actually that's not really reading into it at all, it's kind of set during the industrial revolution of the 1800s... saying it takes from the 1800s is kind of... the truth and all that. But at the same time I almost see what you're saying, except that we're not a failing empire atm. We're a decadent empire, arguably on the road to failing, but if anyone is going to be designated as failing like Dernholm it's Europe, not America. Not sure if I would buy Europe as a backwards failing realm, but more that then America.
Yes it is reading in to it, I have made more posts than all three of you and am a newsposter here so I decide!!!
When I chose America with Dernholm I did it because I found the correlation between Dernholm's refusing to accept technology and our resistance to allows gay rights, and modernizing our country with laws and other things such as Europe has (ie: multiple European companies've put alternate fuel cars into mainstream production). When you look at this, remember that my basis for my selections was Religion vs. Science (aka Magic vs. Technology). This isn't based upon an overview of the country as a whole, but as the battle waged within each one of religion vs. Science.
There are manny connections to the world at that time. For e.g the gnomes are the jews, the half-orc labourers are the irish, the man who invented the planes that take down the zepplin and the repeater rifle was an actual man who invented the repeater rifle. Hiram Maxim or something. Sir Hiram Maxim The French builder, Clement Ader, built two wild bat-winged machines powered by steam engines. In 1890, the first one got a few inches into the air and skimmed the ground for 50 yards. The plane had a design flaw that didn't show up in that minimal flight -- Ader hadn't provided adequate control. But he thought he'd succeeded. He immediately began a larger version. When he flew it in 1897, it barely got off the ground and then crashed. Hiram Maxim made a fortune from his invention of the Maxim machine gun and he used a good bit of that fortune to explore heavier-than-air flight. Maxim began his aerial experiments at Baldwyns Park, England, in the Mid 1880's which lead to the construction of his enormous biplane. It weighed about 7,000 pounds and had a wingspan of 105 ft. Awww hell just go here. http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/maxim.html
Yea, I think everybody caught that one, I also think that his "Stealing technology from the dwarves" was a reference to his taking of DOS from Paul Allen. And his opponent who wants you to kill Gilbert Bates? Cedric Applesby? There's neat one.
Of course, we could just admit that the late Troika was composed or smarty-pants geeks who threw all kinds of subtle references into all of their games, because they're cool like that...
They are cool like that. Did anyone check the link in my last post, and if so, did anyone find that sight funny?
And yeah, DarkFool, your link was really cool, reminded me of that movie that mocks the old Kung Fu movies... Thumbs up for it!
