Tag: Arcanum

I’m getting fairly tired of defending Arcanum on various *cough, console lovers* message boards and against friends. Everybody seems to prefer Oblivion-style Roleplaying gameplay mechanics. Fine by me, but don’t try to piss RPG Codex members and me off by complaining about the bug fest in Troika’s games. During my more than 5 playthroughs (admittedly never got to the finish, fooling around with different characters is even funnier), I never encountered a single “bug“. Except the obvious not-so-finished questlines in later stages of the game. Point the finger to the publishers, not to Troika.

Because, in Arcanum, everybody reacts on everything in a unique way. No NPC interactions are scripted (as seen in the NPC Interaction tests)! This makes debugging a more than difficult task of course. Read the interview for details. Here’s the most important part, carefully preserved for future quotage:

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• Party Number ONE - November 2004
  Download SaveGame one
• Party Number TWO - 01 February 2005
  Download SaveGame two

You will need something like WinRAR to extract the file…

Party Numer ONE - November 2004

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Level - 25.
Laprovski - Male Dwarf - Raised by Monks
Skills - Technologist: firearms, gunsmithy, electricity & explosives
Stats - First PER Second INT Third DEX

After a few tries, this dwarf managed to get himself to Tarant. There, the beautiful game acutally started with so many options - especially for technology! The dozens of shops give you plenty of possibilities and you’ll never run out of your own gadgets. This was the *decent* first-try char, but actually I would like to have a few things changed - that’ll be for the next few plays. He has 2 degrees in electricity for the “charged rings” which raise your DEX by 2 each and since I didn’t have enough that’s good. The backup plan is throwing but I didn’t get enough points and a decent non-bullet-consuming weapon… Explosives for the damage & pushing monsters backwards, works really nice. Prowling is good too but your followers tend to disagree, heh.

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Hooray hooray for classic urgh-so-bad-graphics-but-so-good-gameplay RPG-games like this! Arcanum is without a doubt the best game Troika ever made, and that deserves something extra. Like a review and a nice collection of screenshots, or something similar. Enough introduction, grab a gun and shoot! Or pick a spell and cast, if you will.

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First things first: you are not reading this wrong, it’s magick and not magic. In the world of Arcanum, that is. There’s also no such thing as mana or spellbooks. Every single spell you learn comes trough SPs (Skill Points) which you’ll have to invest into several magickal realms. A little bit like Diablo 2, except the fact that once you’ve put 1 point into it, you can’t raise it furter ot increase the power. If you know Spell #1 in the Meta realm, you’ll be able to “purchase” spell #2 from the same realm, if 1) you have a CP 2) your INT is at a minimum level to cast and 3) your WP is sufficient (each level differs).

Magick: advantages & realms

A complete spell list/guide can be found on Terra Arcanum. There are 16 spell realms in total: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Force, Mental, Black & White necromancy; Divination, Meta, Morphing, Nature, Phantasm, Summoning and Temporal. Each realm has its advantages and disadvantages: some realms focus on damage dealing spells, others to influence humanoids, or to summon undead. White necromancy is for example used mainly for healing purposes (by the NPCs Virgil and Dante).

Of course you won’t be able to select more than 4 realms, simply because you won’t have enough CPs. Every level you’ll earn 1 and every 5 levels 1 extra. That’s 65 at the maximum level of 50… If you want all level #5 spells - the most powerful ones - you also need a very high WP, 18 or so. It’s best to concentrate on two realms and use scrolls / item activations for other things. Yes indeed, some weapons/armor will unleash a certain spell.

Magick Usage in Arcanum

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Overview

All right, you want yourself a cool character with even cooler guns. The problem is: technology is not that easy in Arcanum. Especially all the different schemes, guns, carrying the bullets, and so on. Would you like to make a backup plan, like throwing or a bow? Or would you just like to grab yourself an axe and whack the enemy when you run out of bullets? Or would you go running and rely on your followers? And are you going to raise INT to 18 to get the “doctorate” schools? Will you get DEX high enough to dodge most blows from enemies who come too close? Too many questions and too less answers… Well, one thing is for sure: you’ve come to the right place!

× The statistics of a good gunslinger
× The Best Races
× What background to choose?
× which schematics should I learn, and which not?
× Various battle strategies
× Your followers

A fine Revolver Schematic

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