Farewell, Arcanum

[rk47]

Hi guys, I'm going to try a deep Role-Playing Radicalthon on one of the oldest and one of my most favorite RPG by Troika.

Arcanum of Steamworks & Magicka came out like every Obsidian products out there, buggy, broken mechanics, yet full of content that actually made it worth playing. Attempts to fix ALL the bugs have failed, until now gamers are still unable to unlock certain endings in the game due to some scripting error. The Video is there, in youtube but impossible to trigger during your normal playing course.

Oh well. Since this is the first post, it be a table of contents, I suppose. I've done a few chapter updates in another forum, might as well just duplicate the whole thing to share the joy. Feel free to comment, oh, about the Character Background I picked, I picked Nietzsche Child - Additional +10% EXP but higher chance of critical failure, you'll see why it doesn't really matter.

So, onward! Oh, excuse the lengthy LARP dialogues text added here and there, I just felt some dialogue choices just don't seem to mesh well with my character personality.  

Chapter 1: Crash Site
Chapter 2: Tarant
Chapter 3: P. Schuyler's Basement
Chapter 4: The Thieves Underground
Chapter 5: Gilbert Bates
Chapter 6: Darkness over Tarant
Chapter 7: Black Ops
Chapter 8: Goodbye, Tarant
Chapter 9: Ashbury
Chapter 10: Despair
Chapter 11: The Derian Ka
Chapter 12: The Broken Wheel
Chapter 13: The Trail to Qintarra
Chapter 14: Bloody Elves
Chapter 15: Renford A. Terwilliger
Chapter 16: Rebellion
Chapter 17: Good Intentions
Chapter 18: The Boil Massacre
Chapter 19: Onward, Caladon!
Chapter 20: The Truth
Chapter 21: Terms of Agreement
Chapter 22: The Whytechurch Murders
Chapter 23: The Demon, L'anamelach
Chapter 24: Full Circle
Chapter 25: Dark Elves
Chapter 26: Away from the Dark
Chapter 27: Reunion
Chapter 28: Faith & Falsehoods
Chapter 29: The Opposite of Truth
Chapter 30: Faithlessness
Chapter 31: First Encounters
Chapter 32: Kingdom of Decline
Chapter 33: Sadly Ever After
Chapter 34: With Great Powers...
Chapter 35: Arronax
Chapter 36: Atonement
Chapter 37: Unlikely Allies
Chapter 38: Kerghan
Farewell, Arcanum

[rk47]

Chapter 1: Crash Site

[rk47]

Chapter 2: Tarant

[rk47]

Chapter 3: P. Schuyler's Basement

[rk47]

Chapter 4 The Thieves Underground

[trias_e]

Wow.  I didn't realize how many nostalgia buttons Arcanum would press.  Now to make the decision whether I want to give this game another play through sometime soon or play vicariously by reading this. 

[ezrast]

I fire up Arcanum every once in a while in an attempt to get over the terrible game-y bits for the sake of the awesome setting/atmosphere/story/character-building. Vicariousness might be just the thing for me.

But more likely I'll try to play it next week and give up 5 hours in again.

[Ingmar]

I fire up Arcanum every once in a while in an attempt to get over the terrible game-y bits for the sake of the awesome setting/atmosphere/story/character-building. Vicariousness might be just the thing for me.

But more likely I'll try to play it next week and give up 5 hours in again.

Same. I usually lose interest about 500 yards into one of the incredibly tedious mine cave places.

[rk47]

Chapter 5: Gilbert Bates

[rk47]

Chapter 6 : Darkness over Tarant

[Goreschach]

Nice thread. I'm in the same camp as above. I've attempted to play Arcanum before, as the idea and art style really appeal to me, but I just can't get past the horrible interface, bugs, and overall awkwardness of the game. This will give me a chance to see more than about two hours of the game.

[Ingmar]

I did finish it once. It has one of the more WTF endings out there really, I'm not sure you missed much. The good stuff in the game is basically all in the cities.

[Paelos]

Never heard of this game. I'm along for the ride knowing nothing. Don't let me down! 

[rk47]

Chapter 7: Black Ops

[rk47]

Chapter 8: Goodbye, Tarant

[Paelos]

Nice! I have no idea where this is going.

You're such a dick!

[rk47]

Chapter 9: Ashbury

[Strazos]

Any chance of getting a rundown of your current build?

Also...I remember trying to go through as a hybrid, and suffering hilarious results. Is such a thing even possible? I think what I wanted was to use the mechanical arms + magic armor, but I could never make it work.

[rk47]

Any chance of getting a rundown of your current build?

Also...I remember trying to go through as a hybrid, and suffering hilarious results. Is such a thing even possible? I think what I wanted was to use the mechanical arms + magic armor, but I could never make it work.

Current build is just 4 ranks in summoner - having access to Hellgate, 15 Willpower. 2 ranks in Mental for the ever-critical stun to soften targets and control the battlefield.
The rest are just gravy.

Hybrid will somewhat work, but remain overshadowed by specialists. I can think of so many broken combinations in the game that overshadows hybrid completely:
- Tech Melee - go fast with Balanced Sword or few-hit kills with Pyrotechnic Ax. Crowd control supplemented with molotov cocktail and choice stun grenades.
- Ranged Tech with maxed firearms, pwning early targets with Fine Revolvers and dominating mid to late game with the Looking Glass Rifle.
- Superfast Elven Assassin - Stun to drop enemy evasion to 0, then speed up with Haste to double your action points. Dagger of speed and Backstabbing skills optional. Even a simple Rapier with 17 Atk Spd will rape most targets in two rounds if you are hasted.
- Retarded Juggernaut - Ran away with Circus Ogre 20 STR at starting game means = +20 damage per hit. This is not an exaggeration. This guy will make a mockery of the game writing and beat people to death in no time flat.
-

[stu]

I don't know why this never occurred to me before, but I just realized that the game artwork looks a helluva lot like Glenn Fabry's work. Sure enough, it is. 

[rk47]

Chapter 10: Despair

[Paelos]

So what's the rest? I need to know more! 

[rk47]

Chapter 11: Derian-Ka

[lamaros]

Excellent work with the Radicalthon, I was just wondering: how are you taking screenshots?

[rk47]

F12 key is in game and it stores it in the game folder. I have to mess around with the cropping and stuff with Photoshop.
Fraps don't work with Arcanum for some reason.
There's a widescreen high resolution patch mod somewhere floating in the internet. Pretty good stuff.

[lamaros]

F12 key is in game and it stores it in the game folder. I have to mess around with the cropping and stuff with Photoshop.
Fraps don't work with Arcanum for some reason.
There's a widescreen high resolution patch mod somewhere floating in the internet. Pretty good stuff.

Ah. Blast. Yeah fraps doesn't work for what I need either. Looks like I might be SS lite.

[Paelos]

This story is very intriguing. Dwarves, Necromancers, Undead, and for some reason a dog!

[rk47]

Chapter 12: The Broken Wheel

[Strazos]

So disappointed I could never make this game work for me - seems incredibly interesting.

[rk47]

WHat sort of issue are you facing? I got my copy running on WinXP

[Strazos]

I meant work in the emotional sense - it just never clicked with me for whatever reason. I don't normally gimp myself in games, but I somehow did with this one, I think because I wanted to be able to use both magical and technological arms so I ended up being not great with both.

[lamaros]

How much of what you write is actual dialogue and how much is made up rk? I've been assuming so far that it is a pretty even mix, but maybe you're making up most of it?

I don't think I will ever play the game through to the finish, but it is good to follow along.

[rk47]

Most of the extra dialogs are made up. But most of the major casts deaths are actually in-game like Bates & Dwarf King.
These major deaths do cause significant consequences to the ending. I'll try to make up lines to hint at that.

[Strazos]

NO SPOILERS ! 

If only because I really do like the game, and this is the closest I'm going to get to actually finishing it.

[rk47]

Chapter 13: The Trail to Qintarra