Arcanum:WIP 3-0 Now Available

Hell yeah, son! Can't wait to take a look at rroyo's work. Thanks for posting it.

 

HELLLLL YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I followed the steps to get 2.2 saves to work on 3.0, but my 2.2 saves are corrupted :-(

 

Sorry Spiffy. I think your situation may be the norm rather than the exception.

I appreciate you getting the thing uploaded D.E.

Since I was at work when this was posted, here's the basics:

Updates include:
All the secondary dialogs for the residents of Brandybuck. (For now)
The hobbit-hole purchase was expanded into the "Where's Frigo?" runaround.
Three new hobbit-holes.
A new side-quest from Brandybuck to Cattan.
Ship passage to and from the island.
The Plainwicke Plantation - the first scripted adventure on Cattan.
Restoration of the lost Machined Plate benefits.
Addition of a merchant in trouble at Black Root.
Two new opening splashes.
Added townmaps (the over-head view) for most of the new areas.
Boosted the Bogarath on Thanatos to level 50.
Prior release "Build Logs" added to the Shrouded Hills Library.
And an assortment of small debugs for errors discovered in the last release.

Known problems:
#1 - I forgot to turn off the map-marking script. If having most, if not all locations marked from the beginning bothers you, delete the Arcanum5.dat, and download this directly into your Sierra/Arcanum folder.
http://rapidshare.com/files/105752907/Arcanum5.dat (15.57KB)
You will need to start a new game if you do this.

This mod is not compatible with most other hacks including the Dark Magic and the Level 127.
I recommend not adding any as I kept everything I could that wouldn't cause a conflict.

This mod has proven to be incompatible with warzed versions of the game.

Brandybuck - If you visit Frigo's farm (with the tobacco) before attempting to buy the hobbit-hole, there is a 1 in 10 chance that Frigo will not appear when he's supposed to. Cause unknown.
Solution: Either replay from an earlier save or exit the town at the For Sale place, advance time one day, re-enter the town, read the sign, and talk to the man in blue. This has routinely worked for me.

Plainwicke - Rough, choppy dialog. This is a condensed version of what's to come. Some dialog links will need to be followed twice to learn everything.
Contrary to an earlier report, the new follower will not be joining you on this adventure. His dialog explains why.

If this is of interest to you, then you will need:
1) A fresh, clean copy of Arcanum
2) The Arcanum_EN_1.0.7.4 patch
3) The AWIP3-0.exe
Available here:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/rroyo/AWIP3-0.exe

Directions:
Install Arcanum and patch.
Create a temporary file inside the game. "New Folder" works.
Download the AWIP3-0.exe directly into your Sierra/Arcanum/New Folder.
Double-click on the AWIP3-0.exe to extract the files within.
Follow the directions in the !!ReadMe!!.txt

A:WIP 2.2 players: Included in the !!!ReadMe!!! is instructions to give you your best chance to use an old save.

The first clue for a successful install would be behind your PC at the crash site.
There will be a small wood chest with a book inside just behind and to the right.

Special thanks to the Administrators of The House of Lords for graciously hosting this unfinished expansion pack; and to everyone willing to voice an opinion about my efforts.

For any comments, questions, criticisms, or praise, I can be reached here at Terra-Arcanum.

Enjoy the adventures!

 

Did you do anything with that abandoned house near The Boil?

 

The empty one where the guy was killed? Yep. Turned everything off.

It's empty again.

 

:-( I was hoping you would do something with it

 

are all stock Arcanum map locations supposed to be already explored when a new game is started?

 

team a: No. It should start fresh. Is everything being marked?
Or did you get an old save to work?

Spiffy: I did. Turned everything off.

 

I have always installed A:WIP to a new directory (I copied the pertinent files from my original Arcanum install). For A:WIP 3, I overwrote Arcanum.patch1 and Arcanum5.dat. I did forget to erase the old modules/arcanum/maps directory the first time I played, but then I remembered and the new game I just made was corrupted, so I started another. However, I hardly made it through A:WIP 2.2, and I definitely didn't discover about 50 map locations. Is anyone having this problem besides me?

Anyway, I've been playing for awhile now, and I really like the new additions, especially to Brandybuck. I also really liked the new footwear - it really goes along with the Arcanum art, and especially those posters in The Full Mug. Putting more detail into the dialogs really made it seem more like a real place. And, the loot in general is balanced a lot more to my liking - it looks like you went back and reviewed some of your initial work.

I have some debug suggestions, but it's sort of a long list (I made a note of just about everything, but it's almost entirely really minor stuff.) rroyo - do you want me to send it to you in a private message?

 

1) I'll repeat team a's request - Is anyone else having various places marked at the beginning of their game? Never mind!

2) Nice to hear I'm getting back on track. The original guideline for my build was to make everything look as if it had always been there, but Troika forgot to make that scene active. Little by little, I'm getting closer.

3) If you're willing to type the list up, go ahead and PM it to me. I'll see how many I can fix.
Once I'm done adding Vormantown, the remainder of this session will be little things like inventory rework and dialog fixes, so I should be able to put a fair dent in the list.

 

Vormantown is going into A:WIP? Seriously? And, where is it going - the descriptions in Vormantown made it sound very far away from Arcanum, but I suppose not necessarily so.

 

First off - I found the problem with the map-marking. I forgot to turn off Virgil's modified dialog. The fix is listed in the problems list above.

Secondly - I put Ivory Lake - with Vormantown - at the northwest end of the river that flows past Shrouded Hills. The world map shows a slightly bulbous end to it, and it was close enough to the beginning of the game, so....

Here's the announcment thread about it:

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=14563

I set it up to where you go to Ivory Lake, then you talk to a man who'll let you use his rowboat to get to Vormantown - because teleport don't work out at the islands.

When you get to the lake, tell John I said hi.

 

well, I suppose not putting Vormantown at the beginning of the game would mean replacing almost all the NPCs in its dungeons, since if it was north of the Gray Mountains or something, the PC would start at more like level 25 or 30.

 

Exactly. The module was built for players starting at level 1.

The downside is, at Elf Island, I went from level six to level twelve - and I haven't even gotten to the Dwarf Island yet.

So much for not messing with the leveling scheme!

 

OMG! I just realized something! You got the name Brandybuck from The Lord Of The Rings! Merry's full name is Meriadoc Brandybuck. Rroyo, you unoriginal bastard

 

I downloaded the Dat file from the link to fix the world map and nothing changed. All locations are marked when leaving the crash site.

Edit: I did start a new game, plus cleared all the map files.

Edit 2: I guess it's not that big a deal to have them all listed.

However, will it ruin the experience of the added content of Brandybuck to be able to find the extra quest places so easily?

Edit 3: Concerning the leveling scheme: how much of a job would it be to change the required XP for each level past level 10? With more quests and available XP it might be best to up XP requirements for leveling instead of adding extra levels to accommodate all that added XP. I suggest 10 because Shrouded Hills remains pretty much unchanged as far as quests go and I seem to hit level 7 when all is said and done, and being a lower level than 7 may be difficult when leaving Shrouded Hills.

Although it does eliminate the need to mindlessly level-up at the portal by Liam's workshop.

 

Hey I thought that homage was obvious, genius. How long have you been playing variants of A:WIP? haha

 

Well I didn't know :-(

 

And it only took him six months to figure it out!

That's alright, Spiffy. The old adage about the best place to hide something is in plain sight works with names too.
I didn't go shouting this from the rooftops.

BTW: Did you pick up on the name Peri Took?......

Wasteland:

Edit 2: Although I currently have no idea why you're still getting your map marked, if you follow the links in the dialogs and play accordingly, it shouldn't make too much difference. I guess it would all depend upon your willpower to resist the temptation to jump to the new stuff without talking to so-and-so to learn where it is. And - You would still find Lynchbany or Brandybuck by simply passing by.


Edit 3: In the Arcanum5.dat\Rules folder is the xp_level.mes, which determines the amount of experience points needed for each level. In theory, I (or you) could reset those numbers to higher values and thus slow the level-ups to accomodate the new adventures.
What I don't know is what effect this would have on this hack. Trying to add the Level 127 to my hack caused all sorts of interesting problems up to and including game black-out on level-up.
One of these days I'll try it and find out. (Makes note)