june gloom on 27/4/2011 at 05:56

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So yeah. I got a couple games I want to get into before DNF drops, and one of them is Arcanum, straight outta gog.com. The primary question is: what does TTLG recommend I throw on top of that in terms of fanpatches/balancing mods/whathaveyou? Nothing too zany, just general fixes/balancing/etc.- I'm given to understand tech skill is useless in vanilla...

Any suggestions?

Thirith on 27/4/2011 at 07:03

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Heh... Unless I'm seeing something wrong here, you basically just told the man that the best way to make Arcanum look and play better is to play the patched Planescape instead. :cheeky:

Oceanstorm on 27/4/2011 at 07:16

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Hey don't knock it, Planescape's an awesome game.:p

Ahem............link modified in first post. :cheeky:

Thirith on 27/4/2011 at 07:54

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< McNulty >What the fuck did I do?< /McNulty >

Yakoob on 27/4/2011 at 10:01

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If you can look past shitty graphics, klunky controls and tons of bugs and glitches (and I figure you can), you'll really enjoy the game. It was not until, few hours into the game, I was running around the main city at 3am in the morning, looking through all the trashcans, trying to find old rags and bottles so that I can make molotov coctails, that I realized this game is fucking awesome :D

Also, keep in mind there are two battle modes: real-time and turn based. I just wanted to point out they are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BEASTS. It's totally not a 1:1 mapping. Movement speeds dont translate to turn based, as well as attack speeds. In real time, I can get like 5 attacks inbetween one enemy swing, whereas in turn base we both get like 2 attacks per turn (wtf?) Also, in real time, a great low-level fast character strat is run away and just spam the enemy with guns or magic while he slowly stumbls towards you (GREAT against the rock golems who are slow, but a bitch to kill AND damage your weapons to boot). In turn base, however, the same enemy will not only catch up with you in a single turn, he'll also rape you with two additional swings.

Overall, I found turn base to be much much harder (and, as such, didn't use it much), but keep in mind some battles may be *significantly* easier or harder by switching between them.

Also, play as a techie first. Every other RPG has magic. Not many have as awesome schematic and building options as Arcanum. Tech skills are far from useless, and rather fun and, later on, really powerful (initial guns are shit). They will give you options for ranged character (tons of good guns), melee (PyroAxe and electro-sword literally rapes everything), throwables (like aforementioned molotovs or grenades), healing and stat-boosting potions, mechanical gizmos (mechanical arachnids!), various armors and other "special" tools. There's like 10 different categories, each with 5 different things you can learn to make, not to mention the special or exotic items you can find schematics for scattered through the game. And make use of your companions abilities (one of my dwarf buddies could make some mechanical parts I couldn't, which then I would use to make electro-swords for my the whole part). Also remember tech and magic are at odds with each other, so if you specialize in one the other side's actually gets negative bonuses decreasing its effectiveness.

EDIT: also, if you play as a thief (which I did on my last playthrough), keep in mind you can break into houses via windows. Also, prawl is useless. Traps are crap too unless you enjoy spending 10 minutes before each fight setting like 50 of them up. But pickpocket / pick lock will soon get you into life of lavishness and riches.