Arcanum vs Baldur's Gate 2 (including ToB)?

Who's in favour of what and why?

 

I dont have BG2 but acording to what ive seen and read i have to go Arcanum.

 

I didn't like BG or IWD, so I didn't bother with BG2. I really can't stand the linear plot of those games, and the combat is pitiful. Also, I'm rather burned out on the AD&D limits, though PoR2 does look interesting.

 

Are the BG games even an RPGs? :wink:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Vikjunk on 2001-08-26 12:56 ]</font>

 

I guess they are. Not good ones but still.

 

This is a completely objective opinion. Really. It is.

As I've stated previously, I found BG1 a mostly enjoyable and unintentionally humorous monster-bashing romp and BG2 a less enjoyable and more frustrating monster-bashing romp that forewent unintentional humour for a horribly failed attempt at a serious plotline. Never bothered with Throne of Bhaal.

I've not yet gotten a copy of the full version of Arcanum, but I had more fun in the beta than I did in either of those two - though I daresay that the beta Arcanum was left in the dirt by Torment when it comes to plot and characterisation, even though the unparalleled open-endedness did its best to make up for those flaws. Withholding final judgement until final version, though it should be safe to say that no RPG to date has a hoot on Arcanum when it comes to world reactivity.

And of course I'm not biased just because I work for the largest (Oh, fine, so DoA gets as many hits, if not more) Arcanum fansite around and have followed the game's development closely for nearly two years. Nu-uh, no bias in pure ol' me. :razz:

 

Hi. I appreciate this is an Arcanum board and so the chances of anyone agreeing with me a slight at best.

My vote goes with BG:II. In my opinion it's a superior game. That isn't to say Arcanum is bad, I really like it, but it's just not a BG:II beater. Sorry.

Andy

 

This is kindof a no brainer(or maybe evidence that i have a brain?).

Arcanum is a hell of a lot better than BG2, end of story.

 

hmmm, i think the interface with BG2 was better... u can control all your party members, choose what weapons they had, used their skills directly etc. (up to six, not dependent on charisma). Gameplay was great and the monsters challenging (memories of triple barrages of 10 magic missiles spring to mind). the storyline was ok and the gameplay wasnt so complicated... i couldnt complete some of the quests in Arcanum without a walkthrough...
The reason i got Arcanum was because i thought the tech would be cool. It is.

 

Your opinion is wrong. :smile:

Not really. Most of your characters run on scripts, so the computer is controlling them, not you.

Also, you can right click on on an NPC in Arcanum and tell them who to attack, where to walk, how close they should be to you, and to "Back Off" of attacking something.

Arcanum offers FAR more control over the NPCs than Baldur's Gate, yet still retains the fact they they are non-player characters.

You can do this in Arcanum. You just give them the weapon you want them to use.

Which is dumb.

Also dumb, and goes against AD&D rules.

Okay, first you say you want a challenge, then you say that Arcanum is complicated and you want a walk through? Ummm.. Okay.

Agreed.

 

Quote:
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Gameplay was great and the monsters challenging (memories of triple barrages of 10 magic missiles spring to mind). the storyline was ok and the gameplay wasnt so complicated... i couldnt complete some of the quests in Arcanum without a walkthrough...


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Okay, first you say you want a challenge, then you say that Arcanum is complicated and you want a walk through? Ummm.. Okay.
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[Okay, so i never figured out how to properly quote on these boards...shoot me :wink:]

I think I would like to clarify his statement. He says the monsters are challenging and that Arcanum a more complex game. I can fully understand the need for a walkthrough to complete some of the quests. Baldur's Gate is much more helpful when it comes to FedEx quests, which are common as muck in Arcanum, you get much nicer and clearer maps which allow you to find people with minimum fuss. At the moment I'm in the process of attempting to give some skulls to a person who has left blackroot for god-knows-where (and it took me long enough to find his house in the first place, since it's actually right on the edge of blackroot anyway -- and unlabelled as usual). Until I happen to bump into this person by chance I'm stuck lugging these skulls around and it's "a matter of the utmost urgency!" Fair enough reason to use a walkthrough to find this mysterious person location? Probably. There's challenging, and there's downright frustrating.

Now of course I could be wrong, he might be using a walkthrough for the simple reason that he can't work out which end of the sword you point at people. But I could use a walkthrough to find out how he was firing 10 magic missiles in one go...seeing as how you get a maximum of five. :smile:


Anyway, enough of this silly banter. Let's all get drunk and play ping-pong.

~JK~

 

Saint_P

I'm new to Arcanum, and it looks OK, but I have to take you up on a couple of points on BG2 - which I think you said earlier you haven't played (?)

1) Scripts - wrong, scripts are optional, you can control all NPC's yourself, to a greater degree than you can in Arcanum.

2) Recruitment - I'm no expert on AD&D rules (but I know a guy who is) but I wasn't aware that here was a correlation between Charisma and recruitment of NPC's?

3) Interface - no, your opinion is wrong, the BG2 interface is much more user-friendly than Arcanum's. And I have no intention of producing any more logical argument to support that statement than you did to refute it! :smile:

4) Linearity - pretty much equal in both games, a main quest interlaced with lots of buffing via sub-quests.

5) Ability to use NPC's skills - how can that be dumb? surely it's better than Virgil breaking his fists on a jammed chest until I tell him not to?

OK, enough already, as I said I haven't played Arcanum enough to really judge it, but so far BG2 gets my vote. And,dare I say, at least I played some of 'your' game before judging it.

 

I've played BG, IWD, and PS:T. They all have the same combat system as BG2.

Even if you don't use scripts, all you do is drag a box around your guys, and individually click on the little monsters one by one until they're dead.

Regardless, the only true interaction the player has with his characters in BG is when something goes wrong, and he has to thwack that space bar in order to heal people.

Wow.. What fun it is.

You can only have a certain number of henchmen based on Charisma in AD&D.

It's much more friendly, because there's no where near as much to do in any of the Infinity Engine games. When was the last time you had to stop and assemble a piece of armor in BG?

A more complex game requires a more complex means of control.

There are actually several detailed plots going on in Arcanum. Some of those miniquests are extremely elaborate, like the one dealing with Caesare and the skulls.

Simple, because they are NPCs. It'd be dumb if you controlled them. They're non-player characters, meaning they aren't the player.

In BG, there are people who join you along the way, how come you directly control these people? Short of mind control, it's idiotic.

Like I said, I've played BG, IWD, and PS:T. Not a whole lot has changed since those three. The engine is the game, the combat's the same, the developers are the same. They may have added a few more sidequests in BG2, but it's still the same dumbed down system used for all the previous games.

 

OK, you say tomayto, I say tomahto, opinions will always differ, but....

Facts is facts and some of your 'facts are wrong! Unfortunately I've only got time o answer one of them.

You don't go into combat by 'dragging a box around your guys', you, for instance, push your two fighter tanks to the front to take out the heavies, pull your mage back to fire any one of dozens of spells, hold your cleric to one side to heal the tanks, tell your bard to sing to raise morale.

You have full, total, complete, unabridged, unmitigated CONTROL of up to six characters each of whom is capable of a number of different tactics.
How's that 'dumbed down'?
If you really have played IWD you must know this.

 

BG2 has the edge

I've beat BG2 and not too far into Arcanum and so far have to say I liked BG2 more. Arcanum is better in some areas but Overall is not quite as good. Here's my list of how I compare the 2 games.

1)Story - I havent gotten into the story of Arcanum enough yet so cant make a fair comparison. I played both BG1 and 2 and have to say it presented one of the best stories I have see in a game.

2)Character Creation - BG2 was very good a presenting many different character options from the AD&D world but Arcanum gives much more customization without the sometimes frustrating class restrictions of AD&D.

3)Leveling Up - this on is a tie. While you level more often in Arcanum and can upgrade whatever you want, BG2 gives you much more power in your class per level as well as being able to choose upgrades for your party members.

4)Combat Control - Combat is much better in BG2. You can contral exactly what you want your party members to do or can give them predefined scripts to follow. One of the frustrating things I've had to deal with in Arcanum is that my healer seems to like to leave my other party member low on hit points and I cant do anything about it but hope he will eventually get around to it. Also, you can pause combat in BG2 to give commands making real time combat much easier to deal with

5)Game info and Manual - BG2 wins this one big time. the BG2 manual was well organized, indexed , gave plenty of information on exactly what info on the game screen meant, and exactly how all skill and stat improvements effected the character. Arcanums manual is ok but completely lacks an index of any kind. It gets really frustrating to try to find information when you have to flip through each page hoping to see what your looking for. There is detailed info on how training effects skills but no explination on what the difference between having 5 points of a certain skill than 1 other than 5 is 4 better. Buying items can be frustrating in that you wont know if you meet the minimum strength for a sword you want till you have already bought it.

6)Graphics,sound,music - Graphically I would have to say it's a tie. Arcanum's graphics are probably a bit better but BG2 has more variety in how people look and how certain items look when worn. The sounds are about equal and I cant say either is better than the other. BG2 wins big in the music department. I found meself pausing BG2 several times or leaving the menu screen up just to listen to the soundtrack. If Black Isle ever produces the BG2 soundtrack on CD I would love to buy it. Arcanums music is nice but like most every other game I've played just not as good as BG2.

7)Gameworld - Both are good and I cant really say if one is better or not. BG2 has the advantage of taking place in AD&D's Forgotten Realms which had been in development for over 15 years. It's kind of neat to be able to recognize people and places from playing both the pencil & paper version as well as the many other AD&D computer games. Arcanum gives us the opportunity to play the same races as in AD&D but in a industrialized world. There were many times in BG2 I would have loved for my Dwarf in full palte mail to be able to pull out a rifle he just built and blow away those pesky Orcs.

There is much more I could compare but these are the things I think are most important when rating an RPG. While I do think BG2 is better, Arcanum is a fun game and I am looking forward to gaining more levels and getting deeper into the story. Anyone who played BG2 and is thinking about buying Arcanum I say go for it. If you like Arcanum and are thinking about buying BG2 I say go for it. Both are great.

 

In Arcanum, the story is up to you. It's an open ended RPG. There are several paths you can take to reach the end of the game.

I'd say that's better. :smile:

BG/IWD character generation sucks. There's nothing more tedious than clicking re-roll over and over until it gives you a decent character. While this worked okay for PnP AD&D, it's quite annoying for a CRPG.

The character generation system in Fallout and Arcanum are leaps and bounds above this.

You can control your party members in Arcanum as well. Try right-clicking on their protraits.

As far as scripting goes, please explain to me how that's "more control". The computer is doing things for you. That's less control.

If you're a tech character, Virgil will stop healing you because he'll have a low success rate at healing. Virgil uses magic to heal, not technology. This was explained in the forward of the manual. It's also explained in Shrouded Hills.

Which is pretty dumb when you think about it. "Time out! I have to heal!"

In Arcanum, you actually have to spend time to do such. Try hitting that space bar and switch to turn based if a fight is getting too hectic.

I agree about the lack of an index, however, all that other stuff is in the manual. Most of what you said can be found in the manual's appendix, which is 60 pages long.

 

Saint. I'm really getting irritated by the way you seem to be deliberately misreading what other people are saying and correcting them as if they are children who don't know any better. If you are quoting someone, it helps if you actually make a point based on what they have said, not on what you are interpreting them as having said.

Firstly, you seem to make a gross misunderstanding of the word "story" (or plot as I prefer). This is the fact Arcanum is a more open world than baldur's gate, this has no bearing whatsoever on the plot of the game. The plot of BG (in my opinion) is better. This is a matter of opinion and can neither be proven nor disproven. To claim that Arcanum has a better plot because it is more open is ridiculous. The plot is based upon the whole idea of nasrudin and arranox.

In terms of character generation I have no qualms with the generation in either game. I prefer the generation in Baldur's Gate, because Arcanum has gotten itself stuck by presenting a new user with too much information. To quote PC Gamer it is "too free". If, in the manual it was explained much more clearly and succintly then I wouldn't be bothered too much, but it isn't.. Seeing as how there are some 40 places to put your points it is a tad overwhelming. To an experianced user I would agree that the system has advantages that stretch beyond the limitations of the BG series, but on the flipside it is incredibly un-user friendly.

On the subject of the manual, you agree that the lack of an index is a problem. How about the lack of a contents page? It never really seems designed to help you find ny particular piece of information, requiring a hunt through the 190 pages for things which sometimes aren't even there (how to identify items? It would solve a lot of problems if they'd mentioned that little gem).

On the subject of combat control. Fenderaxe was talking about total control, the choice of whether or not you wish to have scripts at all. Also in BG you can choose which scripts you want a person to follow (or they can follow their own), or you can simply get rid of them altogether. THAT is "more control" than Arcanum. Also in terms of combat, you criticise BG for being "time out I need to heal". I concur, this would be stupid. It is also ONLY present in Planescape: Torment. The BG pause feature only allows you to issue commands, those commands are only carried out when you unpause, and while you perform them the enemy are free to attack you, you get no time advantage. (Except in PT, where you can heal yourself in the inventory while paused).

Then you say that Virgil isn't healing the characters because they are "tech based". Where did he say he was a tech character? Oh but it is explained in our non-indexed/non-contents-page manual and again in shrouded hills. Very useful, if irrelevant to the actual point. Virgil seems to take a drastic preference to healing me over the third party member, this occurs in my game aswell. I've played with Sogg and Magnus (okay magnus is a techie) but even when he was a much lower level techie Virgil never healed him except on rare occasions. In fact virgil has happily ignored magnus's pleas for help, instead spending his time making sure my toenails are healthy. In BG if I want my healer to heal someone, they do it.

Once again after this rant I feel I have to say that I like Arcanum, i do, my opinion is that BG is better. I have no qualms about properly made views that state the contrary. The world would be boring if there were never any conflicts of interest. I just think it's a shame that saint doesn'tseem to be reading the posts of the people he is disaggreeing with.

And if I'm wrong tell me, and I'll listen and learn.

~JK~

 

JK - You are so right.

As I said in my last post I appreciate that we all have different opinions, hell, by the time I get to the end of Arcanum I might have different opinions.
What I don't appreciate is the deliberate distortion or suppression of facts in order to support those opinions.

Whether BG's NPC scripts are better or worse than Arcanum's is a matter of OPINION, the point that you can happily ignore the scripts in BG and direct each NPC's action on an individual basis is a FACT.
OK Saint, I know you can right click on an NPC portrait, and tell them to back off, attack or wait, but that's about it.
Can I tell Virgil to go and heal Sogg? I rest my case.

Disagree with my opinions by all means, but don't try and and alter the facts to support your arguments.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Strider23 on 2001-08-29 23:43 ]</font>

 

Nope, I didn't.

That's about as general as you can put it. It's like saying Star Trek is based upon the idea of humans and klingons. It's an oversimplification.

There are multiple paths to arrive at this, and it's not the only story in the game. There are several more, long plots in the game. You're free to move around and discover them at your liesure.

That's why it's better.

I prefer "free" to heavy restrictions, such as the class restrictions in AD&D games. Why can't a wizard learn to pick pockets? Why can't a fighter learn a spell or two?

These restrictions are due to simpilifying the rules so that they work well with PnP, but they don't translate well to CRPGs which can handle significantly more rules governing the player at any given time.

The manual does clearly explain what everything in the game does. It explains all the attributes, all the skills, what training provides, what the schematics are, what the spells do, and so on.

In some cases, it explains what things do more than once. A lot of the information in the appendix is also contained in the main body of the manual.

I never thought so. Even in the demo, before the manual was given out, I never had a problem figuring out the character system.

When you place the cursor over the item you wish to add a point to, it states what that thing is and what it does.

If you want to make a wizard, you put points in to spells. If you lack a requirement for that spell, the information box will clearly tell you what you need.

The fact everything isn't done for you is a good thing. It allows you to tailor your character how you want.

Actually, it does list the description of the spell which will identify items. That's one way.

It's not that hard to find the gypsies in Arcanum either. If a town has them, they're always on the outskirts.

I gathered that, which is why I pointed out that you can right click on their portraits to issue them orders. You can control them via the orders menu. In fact, I've said this twice now in this thread before mentioning it here.

Who's the one who's not reading now?

Again, explain how the ability to give up control of your characters provides more control? If they're running on a script, you're not controlling them. They're automated. That's less control.

Even when you're not running on a script, there's still fairly limited control. Click on character A then click on monster B. Watch them fight.

You're not controlling those characters, the AI of the game is. You can pause to tell them what to fight, but after that, it's nothing more than just watching what happens - unless something goes wrong.

Arcanum's Real Time Combat suffers from this problem also.

Funny, I could swear IWD did that as well.

Simple deduction. The only time Virgil won't attempt to heal is if you have a decent tech aptitude. Virgil will continue to heal people with a low tech aptitude all the way to 100% magick aptitude.

I've got two characters. One is a 36th level, high tech gunslinger, the other is a 43rd level melee/magick char. Virgil still heals the magic person, but won't bother with the high tech char.

How is that irrelevant? It's on the first 10 pages of the manual and in the first town you encounter in the game.

Dwarves start with a bonus tech aptitude, thought about that?

Again, dwarves are tech characters. Would you prefer virgil to spend all his fatigue up casting Minor Heal on a character where it does no good? Not to mention the time it takes to cast that when he could be fighting or healing someone his spells actually work on. You'd be bitching about that if it were like that.

In fact, this is an example of a SMART AI. The AI choses not to attempt to heal Magnus because it won't do anything, opting for doing something useful instead!

I think the shoe's on the other foot in this case.

Done.

 

You do know that NPC means non-player character, right? It's a character that does not belong to the player.

The fact you have total control over a non-player character is a bit stupid, don't you think?