What about a Prequel?

But for a proper pirate Town you'd need scallywaggers, cutthroats, buccaneers....

...and specially whores and Buxom wenches!

Perahps a raunchier version of Madam Lils

 

Definately!

Has anyone here ever played one of the later Ultima games - The False Prophet in particular? That game had a fairly decent Buccaneers Den. There is a model to draw upon, although a little too sanitized for what we're suggesting.

 

I do think however than the NPC of this town should have some sort of thing where they'll try to pick pcket you at certain times of day just for the laugh.

Also...the weapons these pirates wield would have to be very different than what you see overall in arcanum:

Guns
------
Hand Crafted Flintlocks
Long Range Pistols
Fany Pistols
Rifles

Melee
-------
Rapiers
Daggers



On place you could definately get a whole load of good ideas from is none other than the Monkey Island Series (IMHO one of if not the best Adevnture game series ever created)

 

Hey, Fourhorsemen:

As to your idea of a raunchier brothel in this mod, here's a thought: In another thread you came up with the "From Dusk to Dawn" barker idea - wouldn't the pirates' town be the perfect place for such a seedy character?

 

Yes....I think so....

I truly wish there was comprehensive guide to modding avaiable as I would love to start creating stuff for the game...

 

Actually, there is. It's called the World Editor Manual, and the link for it can be found in the Modding support section. Between that and an old post from Sinbad, you should be adding new and exciting places to you game before too long.

On another note, if you don't want to create a new town right away, how about a looking at the Boil. Right beside Caleb's bar is a modest-sized brick building that is currently unoccupied......

Ever wonder how Caleb got the money to remodel the hotel? _

 

I'm guessing that once Poolock and Maug were gone, he started pimping out the bar patrons.

I'll have a look at the manual....you got the link to sinbad's post?

 

Found it! For Sinbad's advice:

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=11572&highlight=

And for the manual:

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/dload.php?action=file&file_id=66

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks dude!

 

Whatta guy - give him ten tons of work, lots of upcoming sleepless nights, and chronic eyestrain -

and he thanks me for it. :lol:

 

Call me a masochist if you will.....

Here is the first thing I wanted to make:

The Fire Clan:
A dwarven clan dedicated to the study and development of explosives that "mysteriously" vanished recently.

Inside: You find a hideously deformed dwarf who tells the sad tale of how the dwarves wanted to forge better weapons and needing hotter fires, they hired a mage who promised to open a portal to the Plane of Fire so they could forge their weapons.

Unfortunately, the mage tricked them for all their money and while the portal was made, it opened the door for hoartds of fire critters to invade the clan, who although well equipped against fire creatures, were unable to prevent them from reaching their store houses of explosives and gun powder...

Sample dialog:

(having heard the above)

You: And King Firegrim?

Trevick: H-h-h-his...HIS ASS WAS BLOWN TA PIECES (cries).

Your objective: To enter the clan ruins and destroy the prtal before the elemntals get out.

Your reward: 5000 experience and the chance to add Trevick to your Party (decent melee/throwing fighter who knows the explosives schematics); access to several fire resistant items and the key to the Fire Clan Stores ( a nearby location where you can find tons and tons of explosives ingrediantes as well as several already made grenades.) Deep within the Fire Clan, in a very secret place, you may find the only item the Fire Clan dwarves managed to create before the destruction came: The Magma Axe (same as Pyro Axe only a littel lighter and doing double the Fire Damage. (uber munchkin)

 

It sounds like your dreams are as ambitious as mine.

I'm looking to add an "African Queen" style riverboat service to the game. One to run from Tarant to a point near Stillwater and another from Black Root to Shrouded Hills. (Service to resume after you've solved the little problem at the bridge.)

 

War of the Gray Legion.
Derian-Ka Vs. The Malocheon Hand

 

If you are going to do that, put in The Clan Wars... Lorek vs Loghaire.

An unnatural philosophical schism in the Iron Clan between the inventors and tinkers not being true to their stone reviles the miners who leave to join Lorek. With no one fit to manually upkeep all the machinery, the inventors leave, unable to provide basic needs for themselves and seek refuge in various towns across Arcanum. Technology is kept among the dwarves as first hand knowledge, but as the Clan Wars rage from city to city, other interested races quickly learn the workings of destroyed combat gear of Lorek's Dwarven Supremist forces with the help of Iron Clan refugees. Amidst this turmoil, the Hand v Derian Ka... Orcish hordes and Human barbarian tribes with minor turf skirmishes, basically just managing to keep each other in check. Gnomes and halflings are starting to leave their traditional villages for the relative communal safety of human fuedal towns which are rapidly growing. Many of the cities are barely able to handle the influx, as a result, crime is on the rise more so in regions where resources are in short supply despite a large workforce surplus.

The sociol genius of the gnomes brings about the idea of business charters which help evolve merchant guilds into better methods of production. Racial stereotypes begin to become ingrained into the populace as contact and tensions increase. Gnomes are thought of as greedy for their contributions, in turn the halfling migrant workers are thought of as lazy and rebellious. Humans at the top of the social chain in most towns and villages simply solve the issue by allowing the native half orc citizenry to break strikes and do scab work, who would otherwise be simply banished for being the children of victims of the recent raids by Orcish hordes. Most halflings, seeing their livelyhoods threatened, retreat to the outskirts of towns to simply farm on a tenant basis owning no land... the rest turn to crime.

National identities and civic pride are directly related to the current status/stature of any given king in any given province. Technology is starting to rise, but is no current threat to magic, which itself barely has a tenous hold at best on the populace which is primarly concerned with surviving. Magic does reign supreme, but the reign is from a distant Tulla with infrequent advisors who come and go, rarely, as they please. Even then Kings want to rule their own kingdom, and are leary of interferance ever since Arronax razed Vendigroth to the ground. As a result these budding kingdoms, under threat from within, and without, are in constant turmoil. The larger battles just serve to unify the populace and help guide the social structures to what they will one day become.

Now, given that context... simply shove a hero and his party in there. A post Vendigrothian Fallout. Water down the learned technological schematics, but power up the found ones. This will help the feel of knowledge was buried, but can still be found.

 

That's not bad. Not bad at all.

After the Age of Legends comes the Dark Age.

 

I am literally tempted to pay someone to mod this. That's how cool it is. In fact, I probably will if someone is up for the job.

 

I've forgotten how to mod basically, lol. I never really got the hang of WorldEd, and have been long distracted by real life. However, I am back in school, and am going for a Game Art Design degree and would be happy to contribute art and literature for a project like this. It would be far from first priority though. As far as payment goes, while the offer is genuinely heartfelt, its probably not the best way to go for a casual project like this. Building a team with the same vision able to contribute asyncronously would be the better plan. Find enough people who like the idea for a mod. Then you need a PR guy whose praise of the progress and dream of the final product is enough to inspire both the fan base and the mod team during the course of production.

Firstly what we'd need is the entire mod dev team to replay the game strictly for gathering historical material and building a cohesive timeline from the Age of Legends on up. There will always be some nit pickers out there with a huge mental database waiting to pick anything made apart... rather they work for us than against. Incorporate all the available history as much as possible. Even encode basic changes in the environment to some degree, one king dies, a prince steps up... that kind of thing. The march of Lorek's army from city to city could be triggered by main plot completions, with Loghaires trapping of Lorek's army at Gorgoth Pass in the end near the completion of the main plot. The idea that Lorek's and Loghaires armies are mostly mobile and alternatingly in pursuit of one another means not having to script / place large army encampments until the final battle. What they leave in their wake are towns and villages which are at one stage functional, then wiped ( to some degree ) out after a battle. Most of the technological stuff is picked clean, however.

To be true to the current state of Arcanum, most of what is left behind by the armies is pure junk. Otherwise the Dark Elves would have REASON to blame Dwarves for the spread of tech 1000 years prior. Therefore, a technologists underground, accessible 100% to dwarven characters, and to other characters only through questing. Betrayal of the Tech Underground = permanent expulsion. Towards the end of main plot, the Tech Underground should simply die, to pave the way for the relaxed attitudes that made for BMC stupidity in the main game later on. The same should apply to Magic, Pelojian founded Tulla 1000 years before the main story line, 1000 years after the death of the Elvin Council, Tulla wouldn't be a force of leadership until it was established, in the early years it would be a beacon for any mage and in later years become an exclusive club filtering out folks more than accepting. Therefore, a Magick Underground as it were ( not so much as tech, but still ) available to non Elven characters only through questing. Full blooded elves could gain mastery early with access to Quintarra or T'Sen Ang.

The whole underground concept is basically to introduce materials per level of tech in a given field. Rather than parts hidden in chests and rubbish piles, they are found after recent battles which are found through rumor. The same for magic, scrolls and potions per level of magic tech. Elves would have full access to an entire magic shop at first, and Dwarves to a complete inventors/junk shop as well. Other characters would not. The shops they would have access to would increment its wares based on the level of tech/magic of the player. This could be done through alot of scripting... or by warfare. One shopkeep is killed, another finds his stockpile of wares and adds to it and opens shop. More classification of vendors, making them/their goods available at different stages of aptitude.

Tech characters would be more involved with the Clan wars, the more magically inclined would be on one side or the other of the Molochean Hand/ Derian Ka rift. Those would be the major players in driving the stories. Alternatively, if nuetral attitude towards tech/magic is kept, the character would find more to do on the orcish horde/human barbarian frontier.

High level spells and schematics. What to do here. Well, lets start with steam engines. Dwarves had the tech back then, but it was rusting in a corner. Ok, so arachnids are possible, but a 0 supply of steam engines, except from decaying and recently abandoned Iron Clan strongholds. The schism has mostly picked it clean. The real treasure would not be the steam engines themselves... but the SCHEMATIC for a steam engine. All of the schematics for the high end tech stuff would need alot more schematics added for the main ingredients in high level stuff to be found or quested.

Well, there's my 2 cents... I'm waiting for my change.

 

I agree this could defenitely be done.