What new races do you think should be added?

What about giants? In the game they are the ancestors of the ogres who were smarter than their decendants. That takes care of the intelligence problem but you can still have other advantages and disadvantages to the race. They also fit the possible parameter of lost race on the verge of extinction.
I also think you should be able to play as a female in any race.

 

On of the main things that I see in Arcanum is that with careful choices of backgrounds and skill point distribution, you can pretty much play any sort of character out of any of the existing races.

Females for some of the existing races would be a DEFINATE first step.

Any new characters should "add something" but not go overboard as such. Any new races that are phisically different would require new sets of sprites and more importantly, inventory items like Armor that will show on them.

I agree that by allowing you to customize the backgrounds, you can pretty much come up with just about anything.

Also one thing to keep in mind is that if you're gonna add a new race, there would have to be a "point" to adding them , that is treated in the game.

For Example:

- Merfolk: there would have to be a fair amount underwater activity in the game.

- Werewolf: if at some point in the game, the "wolf-like" abilities would be required. Or Wolf-form needed to get by a certain area.

- Vampire: First of all, they'd have to have a storyline presence of some kind. Second, the need to live off blood would be a compulsory aspect, which might require a race specific attack or ability. Third, I'd pretty much go for restricting the vampire character to night/time or indoor activity only. Fourth, sunlight would have to added into the game, say like pouring in from a window or cieling so as to create a "danger zone" where a vampire character will be damaged if he steps on the tile.

- Vampire's and werewolve's would also require their weaknesses to be incoroporated into the game..thus, one would have to accomodate for things like "Silver Bullets or Arrows" (kinda cool)...A new category of waepon/damage: Holy (against undead and evil creatures), wearable crucifixes or garlic necklaces (-10 to reaction on account of smell)..

- You would probably be better off coming up with an expansion pack or standalone derivative or even a mod wher you play a Vampire or Werewolf character, that way you can alter/remove certain things without compromising the rest of what's there.

Those are my two cents

 

Forswayth me if I'm wrong, but, assuming everyone ((SPOILARZZZZ)) Released Arronax, then Vendigroth was rebuilt, right? ((END SPOILARZZZZ)) and sorry for the bad spelling, makes a bad first impression

anyways, what i'm thinking is that Vendigroth was it's own race, so you could be that race, too, is what i'm thinking

Imagine, like an even more enhanced version of the dwarf, with increased intelligence, and maybe a specific type of technology that only they can learn.

Also, female dwarves, I say nada, because there are several hints in game that they don't exist.

That's all I have to say for the topic, nice meeting you all, and good day

Edit: Holy crap, I just noticed I did some serious gravedigging, sorry about that, i'll try to do less amounts of it in the future...

Argh, i'm used to more active forums, sorry

 

I don't recall Vendigrothians being an unknown, or even different race. Weren't they humans?

 

Damn… It’s been too long since I’ve been back here.

I think they where humans.

Vendigroth would a cool thing to put into a new Arcanum game, maybe it becomes secluded (But Big) city like Tula that you get to enter once you get to a certain area of the game.

 

I don't think it'll pass into the game, but you could make demons playable. Start as a tiny imp to get the form of a demon prince near the game's end. This'd give a race, that while cool and powerful in late game would also be wimpy at the beginning. It'd be not unbalanced as game gets easier as you progress. Played a 20 charisma, sniper-techie-dwarf in unpatched game anyone? Also additional setbacks would be: inability to use tech items and weakness to magic (as demons are magical creatures), dislike among people, inability to enter holy places (churches and so on), fixed very negative alignment and need to find a host, whose body a demon would occupy during day and when among humans (remember those murders in Caladon?).

 

A demonic parasite would make a cool buddy for an evil character. You find it towards the beginning of the game and you can either save it (evil), kill it (good), or just leave it alone. If you save it, it becomes your friend but you haft to find it a host to live in before it can help you fight. As its strength grows it steadily increases the attributes of its host (amount dependent on its level), and once it gets to higher levels it can take a stronger host (host doesn’t level up, host would haft to be unconscious before possession).

 

I thought of something more like Whytechurch Murderer - you'd have in fact 2 persons in one switching from time to time - the (human?) host and the evil inside, the idea with more powerful hosts is cool though. The problem with it might be, that you'd have to seek out low WP hosts, that could be entirely dominated (and don't cause problems in game by trying to get free of posession). Also it might be fun to get posessed yourself.

 

What I meant was something like the “enemy” (don’t have a clue of how to spell it) from Stargate SG-1.

 

A cool idea. This way you could have in fact ANYONE as your follower. Sadly Whytechurch gives us a description of Arcanum's posession mechanics. Perhaps if it was an another, specialized kind of demon though...

 

That`s cool but i think they should put as a backround Ranger u know .... he can grow faster skills like melee dodge bow throwing heal but the rest should be a dificult things for him like gambling lockpicks and the rest and he should be a little bit stupid when it comes to technologic stuff and magik... he should be able from the start to make healing herbs and fatigue restorers and something like that....he should repair thing a lot easier then the ... being alone in the forests he should allow a lot of his time on this matters because he can`t count on the helps of the others being a lonelyman and all that....u should think of this and corect if you must some mistakes i may have done in this post..

 

Why not do something really crazy (which Marvel would sue for)

Have some sort of variable attribute called Temperament (which is affected by damage, the way people treat you, combat strikes and misses etc..)

Then have a race whereby once your temperament reaches a certain point (or some other condition of choice) you morph into a large creature like say.....an Ogre or a Half-Ogre. The sudden burst in size givesbonuses like:

- increased STR, CON, HP, Fatigue and resistances

but penalties like:

- reduced WP, INT
- mechanical skill penalties (lockpicking, disarm traps becomes nigh impossible)
- Worn items like armor boots and glove sustain damage (and can be destoryed) from sudeen growth.

Imagine.......The Incredible Half-Ogre

 

they should add some dark race like Seth or Shade..i don`t

 

If you had ful blooded ogres and orcs, you would need to make half orcs and half ogres milder - like it says that half orcs look identical to normal humans but there are usually some orc still some orc traits visible to the observant - however if you play as a half orc, everyone hates you and won't talk to you.

I think that arcanum just needs to expand - there weren't a lot of races in arcanum 1 and to have more, you would NEED to just invent them. If arcanum 2's setting would be in 'the east' (the desert) perhaps you could make some new creatures there? (has anyone read the wheel of time? perhaps they could include something along the lines of aiel.)

 

The full blooded Orcs I talked to in the game didn't seem that bad. If anything they kind of sounded like the spoken language in the cities wasn't their first language, also it's possible that Arcanum society just portrays them as being stupid out of their own bias. Either way, they seem smart enough to be playable.

As for full blooded Ogres though... they are supposed to be rare and on the verge of extinction.

Dwarf women are supposed to be hidden and never seen, so they shouldn't be playabe.

Halfling and Gnome women should be available though.

Vendigrothian humans and dark elves shouldn't be a separate race, but if selected as a background the game should change a bit...

 

I can see the possibility for a mechanoid/robot race.
JUst one thing to make it possible...
Magic
think if some group of mages built some tech automaton then turned a whole towns {like that friggen dernholm} intelligence essence w/e into the circuits of a machine.

It could be wrokable but it might take a while to grasp the idea

heres my little gift on how much robots are COOL

 

Trolls and goblins would be cool, but it might not be practical to make them playable because they would be so ugly. Maybe as NPCs.

Fairies would also be nice, but once again, they would be better as NPCs because of the huge size differential.

Who cares now though since Troika's folded.