Arcanum: Am I the only one...?

[Maxman3002]

Ok in a previous thread I mentioned a game called 'Arcanum' which was by the makers of Vampyre: the masqurade but a totally different style of game. Both games were brilliantly made and a wonder to play. They were both also extremly bugged

I feel this should be a testimate to how good each of these games are that a company can release 2 extremely bugged games but both are still amazingly fun to play and extremely open

Those of you who have come to this thread wondering what arcanum is: It is a top down RPG (Diablo style) in a steampunk era. You play as a self designed character exploring the open world of arcanum. You can use magic, technology and skills to and any quest can be done however you choose. This openess is taken so far that any quest you encounter can be done however you feel. You can even kill the person giving you the quest and just take the rewards. You can kill every person in the game, and the shear number of quests is staggering. You have to play it multiple times just to see most of them. I would advise it to any fan of an open RPG

My real question though is: Has anyone else actually played this game??

 

[Blindrooster]

No. But I hate the elder scrolls. (which this sounds like)

 

[D_987]

No, you are no doubt the only person in the whole world to have played this game...

Moving on, that game sounds pretty good, although you can see why it would have been buggy, with the sheer amount of open-endedness. [small]Is that even a word?[/small]

 

[Gxas]

snip

So wait... its an open-world, steampunk, diablo?

I'm sold. Where do I find this game?

 

[Cherry Cola]

Maybe it was just an hallucination from combining to much Mountain Dew with a 3 days marathon of elder scrolls? I did that once with Devil May Cry and had a dream in where there would be a shameless DMC-clone with a woman wielding pistols on her feet and her hair was her clothes... wait a minute...

 

[bcponpcp27]

I haven't, BUT NOW I MUST! Sounds awesome.

 

[Maxman3002]

snip

So wait... its an open-world, steampunk, diablo?

I'm sold. Where do I find this game?

I think ebay is your best option by this point. It never got re releaced and the company that made it (Trokia Games) dissapeared after Vampyre the Masqurade

No. But I hate the elder scrolls. (which this sounds like)

Its nothing like elder scrolls. I cant stress that enough. The character creation is easy but detailed (unlike elder scrolls) and the game is fun with interesting dialog and quests. I got extremely bored of elder scrolls but arcanum I still pick up and play through every year when I run out of other games. I cannot suggest it enough

P.S I dont condone Piracy but if the company is bust and the only way of getting the game is through ebay then downloading a torrent of it isnt actually hurting anyone is it? If not then I suggest doing that

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

You lost me at "top down RPG"

 

[Maxman3002]

You lost me at "top down RPG"

I dont know if 'top down rpg' is the technical term. Its what it looked like to me. Games like Diablo 1 and 2 ect..

Search for a web image

 

[Nmil-ek]

Ok in a previous thread I mentioned a game called 'Arcanum' which was by the makers of Vampyre: the masqurade but a totally different style of game. Both games were brilliantly made and a wonder to play. They were both also extremly bugged

I feel this should be a testimate to how good each of these games are that a company can release 2 extremely bugged games but both are still amazingly fun to play and extremely open

Those of you who have come to this thread wondering what arcanum is: It is a top down RPG (Diablo style) in a steampunk era. You play as a self designed character exploring the open world of arcanum. You can use magic, technology and skills to and any quest can be done however you choose. This openess is taken so far that any quest you encounter can be done however you feel. You can even kill the person giving you the quest and just take the rewards. You can kill every person in the game, and the shear number of quests is staggering. You have to play it multiple times just to see most of them. I would advise it to any fan of an open RPG

My real question though is: Has anyone else actually played this game??

I have played it and although at points it really drew me in the engine was fairly weak and frankly it was impossible to give a toss about any of the characters. Your NPC partners (all woefully AI controlled) have no personality whatsoever, the one or two have actually have spoken dialogue pretty much repeat the same two or three lines over and over in combat then clam up for the rest of the game. Nice premise and it had potential but no characterisation really killed it for me.

 

[jimtheviking]

I love this game. Very much like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Ah, the good old days of CRPGs. *grumbles about the damn kids on his damn lawn*

 

[Maxman3002]

I have played it and although at points it really drew me in the engine was fairly weak and frankly it was impossible to give a toss about any of the characters. Your NPC partners (all woefully AI controlled) have no personality whatsoever, the one or two have actually have spoken dialogue pretty much repeat the same two or three lines over and over in combat then clam up for the rest of the game. Nice premise and it had potential but no characterisation really killed it for me.

Unfortunatly that is a few true points. But what kept me playing the game was
1) the level system for your character (I could play the game to level 5 and then happily start again because I decided there was other skills I wanted instead, you can easily play the game focusing souley on Magic or technology or theving or strength or charisma and complete it but you always miss quests or certain ways of doing quests)
and 2) The ending. Whenever you completed the game it would show you what effect youd had on all the towns you'd encountered (there was a lot) and it was possible to save or distroy all of these in multiple ways. I loved trying to find all the different endings for every place. Its impossible, still not done it today

 

[Snowalker]

Sounds decent enough, but that neeling little doubt tells me your just a fan, and fans can sell any game, sorry.

 

[salamarian]

I grew up with Arcanum. My brother always played it when I was little and my only problem with it is how much better tech is than magic. Everything magic can do tech can do better.

 

[Maxman3002]

Sounds decent enough, but that neeling little doubt tells me your just a fan, and fans can sell any game, sorry.

Yes, I am a fan. But everyones got to be a fan of something right? Also its hard to be a fan of something truly awful so there must be some good in this game. Keep an open mind and take the advice of a fan. Try the game

I grew up with Arcanum. My brother always played it when I was little and my only problem with it is how much better tech is than magic. Everything magic can do tech can do better.

I found my friends split on that. Magic has some majorly powerfull abilitys that can put it above tech. Its also easier to use in theory because you dont need to scavenge the basic items (Did I mention tech required you to make the items from things found around the world and you could find other tech schematics around to get more items) Personally I prefered the skills over all of them. Pickpocketing, gambling, charisma were the best to work on

 

[Strategia]

I used to play the demo all the time. I tried torrenting it once (yeah, shame on me), but it didn't work. I might try again someday. It certainly had the makings of an awesome game.

 

[Maxman3002]

Fortunately I've just researched this and there seems to be a new resolution Patch (from Mid 2009), which lets you run the game at whatever Res you want to... I might check this out

That is a good point. Anyone that played the game and was put off by bugs in it like the resolution or the level cap or other problems in the game, the modding community when to town and has releaced and amazing amount of patches for it

It also had the ability to create your own world and storys for it with the editing system which has led to some very good extra storyline games