Arcanum:WIP 6.0 now available

eeh... I feel stupid for not noticing K'na Tha entrance, but thank you. Also, there's a minor graphical "glitch" in Vorman's mansion, probably from stock game, I might post a screenshot of it later. It has been reported a few times, but, you still can't tell Lasou mother you found him. In Plainwicke Plantation, you can just keep telling everyone you killed the Merow Vortham and getting +reaction, and that 37 coins from Mr. Yoki and that ramdom guy bottle of wine. Wouldn't it be easier to get a reputation like, Slayer of Merow Vortham which grants you +20 reaction in Plainwicke Plantation or so? Also, not a glitch but I find it very weird Norleigh Seahold is just a boat with some wood supposed to be the port. Couldn't you make a few port-like houses a pub and an inn? Leahbo is kinda odd too, lots of houses, and just a couple of villagers and a constable. And Hamfist. I'm sure there was another fate point bug, but can't remember it at the moment. Anyway, I just got to Caladon and I haven't visited a lot of dungeons like the Spider Cave and the Uncharted Cave, so I'm going to play like, now. Gonna report any other bugs I find.

 

I meant to ask a while ago rroyo, and maybe I or someone else already did, but are you going to better balance the magick and tech?

I always thought magick was way too powerful.

 

I don't understand why everybody has to complain about this. The balance is not broken. Magic has some serious advantages (like disintegrate, tempus fugit etc), but so does technology. Grenades, herbology, automatons, awesome guns etc etc. There's much to gain from both sides, if one looks closely.

 

But can you honestly say it's not easier playing through with a mage than it is with a teckie?

 

It sure is easier to play through with a mage than it is with a techie, BUT techies have all the tech disciplines at their disposal plus any spells that don't require magickal aptitude. Techies pwn if you "do it right".

Gawd my english sucks.
Edit: Glitch. In my first visit to Dernholm I tried to Charm Praetor before talking to him, getting the opposite effect, meaning he went from courteous to dislike. I talked to him and he called me a harlot (playing through with a female character) and guess what? I could tell him I paid his brother a visit, which triggers he saying my destiny is sealed and attacking, which is pretty much true when you are level 10. You should take a look at his dialog

 

The Charm having the opposite effect was in the stock game, I don't even think it's a bug. The spell makes the sound that shows it hasn't worked and you can see it too if you look closely.

 

The glitch is being able to tell Praetor you have spoken to his brother when you don't even know Maximiliam is alive, not the Charm backfiring.

 

Grand, I was just being sure

 

Dagger of Speed isn't giving the Speed +4 bonus.
Also, is there any way to buy Davalo Importers at the moment?
What about that house in Shrouded Hills you were talking about in the thread, I can't recall if you decided to put it in or not.

 

Let's see how many of these I can answer.

Yes, please. Or even a spot to start looking. Interior or exterior?

Damn, everytime I think I have it fixed. Thanks. Since I've got to go back that way anyhow, I'll check it out again.

Oh yeah, I missed a few things.... The reputation will be added later - after the final battle with the Vortahm. I'm still hoping to make this the first new campaign.

I hadn't gotten around to even deciding the final design for Norleigh until about Christmas. I've since got the place about 1/2 roughed-in but got side-tracked with trying to script Papa_Dog and adding the Lost Dungeon of Souls mod *. At the very least, Norleigh will have usable merchants for the next release.

* I know what I said last year, but I can change my mind can't I?

Leahbo was a mistake I need to correct. And soon.....

Kinda - I've already adjusted a few spells and I'm watching what the Russians are doing for the tech side. They've got some realistic damage values going.
Also - I'm half-helping a guy (who wants to remain anonymous for now) test a proto editor for items. As soon as the damage values have been field-tested, I'll probably be reseting a few values of my own....

I'll check it out.

Something else to check.

Not yet.

That one's on the back burner for now. I still might add it though.

 

Just one more thing. Did you implement the play after raping Kerghan and getting out of the Void feature yet? If you did, a sugestion for a quest would be to rescue the few survivors of the BMC, and if you accept it and kill Kerghan, after you come back they could be trying to settle in the BMM again or hanging out in the Wheel Clan... It always bugged me how we find them and don't rescue them.
Edit: Why do Harry Baules sell the glass with wine from Wrath/Jormund's quest?

 

1) Not yet. I'm still not skilled enough to do what I want to set up for that.
What you suggested is pretty much what I have in mind, except, it needs to be optional. A good guy would rescue the dwarves, where as the bad guy just says, "I'm outta here! Good luck, fellas!"

2) It's encoded in the protos. The wineglasses seemed like a good idea when I thought of them....

 

You want to encorporate the changes of the endings we get in the game after we get back from the Void? If that's so, awesome. If not, just make Maximiliam get rescued and take his rightful place as Cumbria's king (if we report back to Lianna of course), 'cause Praetor just plain suck.

Oh, and the graphical issue in Vorman's manor is exterior, in one of those tower-like things. Gawd I'm lazy, it would be so much easier if I posted a screenshot.

 

The Maximillian quest - a long-time fantasy of mine. I really can't say if I'll ever build it but I do want to. It would make for a good post-Void adventure.

I found the glitch. Thanks for pointing it out. Fixing it promises to be fun.

Edit: Not quite as difficult as I thought. I got the spire reattached but the tower facades came with notches in the back. They'll have to remain that way until I get ambious enough to tackle a 1,000 piece facade repair.

 

HI again!

Rroyo I just sent you image files for the the Pyrotechnic Sword...version 1.0. I'm curious to see how its gonna look in the game. I resaved them all as 256 color bitmaps.

And Hello to SoulKina...its good to see that I'm not the only Brazilian who's still an Arcanum fan .

As for the game balance...IMHO...there's no point in trying to find 100% equivalencies between tech and magic.

What can make playing a magic character easier, IMHO again, is the Conveyance School, because of two spells:

Disarm: which renders most weapon wielding enemies useless as they don’t have the AI to pick up their weapon again. Early in the game this usually saves your but and late in the game, quite honestly it can take the fun out of some of the fights, especially against the likes of Stringy Pete and his Skeleton Crew.

Teleport: Which means instant travel, less encounters with wild animal, molochean hand assassins and orc bandits. This means you can stock pile healing items and gear all over the map and have quick and easy access to almost anything you need.

On the flip side…what can make playing a tech character easier…in an HONEST GAME is that it is MUCH easier to earn money, and thus buy equipment:

- you can make a lot of items from junk you find in trash cans and old crates and then sell them for a pretty penny,

- If you take a background that offers you a bonus in dexterity and either Lockpicking or Pick pockets, you can reach a DEX of 11 and probably get three points into either of the two skills and get expert training within minutes of playing the game. This will give you the choice of either pick-pocketing certain shop keys like Ristezze or Lloyds and ransack their wares. Or you can do the “follow them to bed” stunt and pick their item chests when they are either asleep or in the morning when they are in the store. Everyone knows that a thief like character can get rich within 1 hour playing.

There is no tech equivalent to teleport and no magic equivalent that lets you make items. Things like the spell permanency trick to shift the balance a little bit towards magic, but realistically, not a lot of people will invest in META in an HONEST GAME, at the expense of more interesting colleges.

Plus let’s not forget that the best tech items can be made, but the ingredients aren’t often that easy to find (something Rroyo apparently took into consideration for his mod), while at the same time the best magic items have to be found, but they come with a ridiculous amount of bonuses.

 

Well, I don't know what facade means, but good luck with that.
About Maximilliam - Man, if you can do it, do it. And it seems I'll be playing your mod for a while, it'll take a while to make enough characters to experience everything you added in the mod. It's just too good to be true, but it is
Btw, I just find it weird Harry Baules sells the wineglasses. Also, it seems the upsy-daisyum gems only appear the first time you take a look at Harry Baules goods. They just never appeared again in two characters of mine. I just reloaded an older save of my second character and used the duplicate glitch to buy all the six available gems.

 

A facade is a large piece of artwork used to cover an area and create the illusion of an 3-D object for scenery. These you cannot enter or use (up to a point). The train, the castles, the mountains, and so on are all facades. On the other hand, the buildings you can run into and the roof disappears, furniture, lightpole and such are not.

The wineglasses were just a filler for a pawnshop inventory - and another one of my mistakes.
Also - Because items added to renewing inventories get destroyed with each renewal, I'm going to be giving Harry and similar pawnshop clerks a static inventory and most of the new stuff. The downside is that they will quickly run out of money. Can't have everything.

FourHorsemen: Just spotted your post and I'll get the e-mail as soon as I get home. Thanks!

 

You could always make 6 quests through Arcanum with the anti-gravity gems as rewards. Or a REALLY HARD quest that reward you with the the one and only anti-gravity gem in the game.
About the facades, does that mean you can't make new maps with facades?(I've a problem with does. I just can't tell wen to use do or does anymore.)

 

The anti-gravity gems - I keep kicking around the idea of scattering them across the continent. Maybe let the player buy one from Harry but find the others as loot. Just a thought.

Sure you can. They are just complicated pieces of scenery that can be pasted into an area.
A good example is the Void islands. All the edges, teleport pods, and bridge, as well as Arronax's and Kergan's castles are facades.

If you want to learn how to use facades, go to the downloads section and get the AMTUT tutorials and the facades.zip (for visual reference).

 

Nah, I just plain suck at modding. The best I could ever do was remapping half way through a POKEMON game. It's so friggin' easy with Advance Map, and I still failed at it.
I'll probably have some ideas for quests refering to the gems. I just got home form a party and I'm pretty waisted so I'm going to get some rest.