Questions on three RPG games

fantasta

Watcher
Joined
December 10, 2007
Messages
22
Location
Poland
I have a few questions on three games that are sitting on my shelf. They have been waiting quite long to be played.
Actually, my post is a bit similar to the one written by akarthis (it must have been some kind of telepathy). So, my questions are about:
1. Divine Divinity - is it an action-oriented RPG?
2. Temple of Elemental Evil - is it as difficult as I heard?
3. Arcanum - I heard graphics is dated but its story is very good?
Which of the three games would you recommend?
I prefer good story-telling to action. Any answers,suggestions are welcome. Meanwhile I'm finishing The Witcher for the second time.
 
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
22
Location
Poland
The game there with the strongest story is Arcanum. It has clunky combat for some, but a lot of character customization and very nice intricate quests with a deep and traditional rpg storyline. Closer to Fallout mode than Baldur's Gate.

Temple of Elemental Evil is a combat heavy dungeon crawl with excellent implementation of the d & d ruleset, and is party based--it's based on a relatively short d & d module of the same name and so is linear, but it does have strong traditional stroy elements and good character customization. It's not a click-fest type combat, but tactical deep and turn based.

Divine Divinity is closest to being an action rpg, but it's also got an extremely long, complex plot, untold numbers of sidequests and hours and hours of gameplay.

My personal recommendation for you would be to start with Arcanum. Both of the other games are well worth playing, though. :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
7,834
Thanx for the answers. :) I like Fallout a lot so I think I will start with Arcanum. I can't install all of the games now because I've got little space on my hard drive so I have to choose one.
 
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
22
Location
Poland
This is a good site for information on both Arcanum and ToEE:
Terra Arcanum

and here's an easy place to get the official patch in English, French and German.

Hope you enjoy it--one of my personal favorites. :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
7,834
Magerette's comments largely echo my own. Arcanum contains the greatest amount of role-playing, story telling and world exploration. The graphics are dated but the setting is wonderful, the world well developed, the music beautiful and the level of detail impressive. The character options are huge and, largely, limitless. You can make whatever you want really, so it can be a bit crippling (I'm a chronic Arcanum re-starter).

ToEE is an amazing D&D combat simulator with very nice graphics. Character animations and models are wonderful to look at. There really is very little story to the game, and if you want any semblance of roleplaying you pretty much have to play with an evil or at least unscrupulous party.

Divine Divinity I've never finished nor really got terribly far in. What actually prevented me from coming back to it was the horrible fog of war that the game uses. Your character literally can't see 20' away on a sunny day. There are skill that will expand that but it's still absurd, I felt like my character was near-sighted with blinders on.
There's a fair bit of humour in the game, and it seemed like a decent gameworld with lots going on.
 
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
658
And I almost forgot: are the games playable under Vista 64? Anyway, I will try Arcanum first.
 
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
22
Location
Poland
I would highly recommend some user mods for Arcanum. Get rid of the level cap--I hit it roughly 1/2 way thru the game. Much of the charm of the game pales if your character stops growing. Some of the spell audio is just plain annoying--there are mods to turn the continuously thumping heart sound of the haste spell (IIRC) off, for example. Finally, know that the game suffers from major balance problems. Tech characters are badly gimped and melee characters collect XP too fast.

In spite of all that, Arcanum was an extremely fun game to play. I've not gotten past my "restart phase" in either ToEE or DivDiv yet, so I can't really comment on them yet.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
13,536
Location
Illinois, USA
I don't share at all those unanime advices about those three games. For me Divine Divinity is the best of the three from far. It's not at all an action game, after an introduction in a small village surrounded by orc armies and with some underground to explore, then you'll venture to outer world and dam this is well done full of RPG and many cool puzzling.

Another good thing is object interactions it makes some interesting puzzles. The weak point are the dungeons as in most modern CRPG.

ToEE is just good for doing fights with D&D 3.5 rules and for that it shines. But the RPG aspect is a bit poor.

Avernum, well the beginning is horrible, empty area, awfull flat non inventive map design, stupid fights, not a single interesting puzzling... Fallout fights shine in comparison. I'm not speaking about grahics. Fallout? In no way the beginning of this game reach a tenth of the quality of Fallout beginning. Well perhaps the game is better after but I loved Fallout and found Arcanum beginning awful.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Messages
3,258
The combat in Arcanum is terrible. Turn based mode is bearable but extremely un-interesting and real time mode is just plain bad. As I recall, gun-users fair better in real time mode but you will go through bullets like crazy so you need to have the schematic to make them.

To compare Arcanum and Fallout, Fallout is far superior in terms of game engine, rules and mechanics, but Arcanum has, for me, a much more interesting world, plot and adventure. Arcanum on the Fallout engine with the SPECIAL rules would be fantastic.
 
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
658
Well, everyone has different tastes, as we know. The poster asked which had more story--and said he preferred good story telling to action. I just can't see how DivDiv would have more story and less action than Arcanum, but that's a personal perception.

Dasale wrote:
Avernum, well the beginning is horrible, empty area, awfull flat non inventive map design, stupid fights, Fallout fights shine in comparison. I'm not speaking about grahics. Fallout? In no way the beginning of this game reach a tenth of the quality of Fallout beginning. Well perhaps the game is better after but I loved Fallout and found Arcanum beginning awful.

To clarify, I didn't say the game was as good as, the same as, or the equivalent of Fallout. I said it was more similar in design to Fallout than to Baldur's Gate as a point of reference. Fallout has a non-fantasy setting unique to itself--so does Arcanum. Fallout is a single player-character rpg. So is Arcanum. Baldur's Gate is fantasy and party based. Arcanum isn't.

Also, If you only played the beginning area of Arcanum you're really not in much of a position to judge what kind of rpg it is, as that's less than one hour of the game. The beginning area, as in many games, is more of a tutorial, and the game opens out into a large world as soon as you leave it. And frankly, if you're not talking about graphics when you use words like flat and empty, what are you talking about?

Non-graphically, the opening area is full of story introduction, combat, encounters etc, so I'm not sure what is empty to you except the visuals, which I agree are not the greatest aspect of the game, nor, as Gallifrey says, is the combat, which I called clunky for want of a better description--Gallifrey has explained it much better.

Divine Divinity is a good game, but it's very combat heavy and the combat is all clicking. You are constantly in dungeons that look exactly like Diablo II. The character and skills system is very strongly similar to Diablo II and other action rpgs. I like the game's personality, the humorous dialogues and the npcs, but as far as it being story driven, I disagree. It does indeed have a complex and convoluted plot, as I said, but it mainly serves as a way to provide combat encounters and opportunities to level up. I couldn't tell you the plot, or describe it two or three years later. As I said, the game is well worth playing and in many ways it's a very innovative game, but to me anyway, it's not about the story, which is what the poster wanted to know.

But as always, everyone's mileage may vary. :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
7,834
And frankly, if you're not talking about graphics when you use words like flat and empty, what are you talking about? Non-graphically, the opening are is full of story introduction, combat, encounters etc, so I'm not sure what is empty to you except the visuals, which I agree are not the greatest aspect of the game...

I think there's more dialogue in the opening segments of Arcanum than in the entirety of many current RPGs ;)
 
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
658
If you're a CRPG fan -- especially with an iso or similar camera -- you owe it to yourself to at least try all three of these.

DivDiv is my favourite and I disagree a little with magerette; I think it's very story-driven offers a large, open world to explore with a fantastic skill system, great interactivity (I love picking muchrooms, making my own poison and applying it to my arrows). While there are some large dungeons, I also disagree you'll spend most of your time in them. That said, the opening dungeon is outrageously long - make sure you push through it because what looks like a plain 'ol Diablo clone really opens up after that.

I must confess a historical bias for DivDiv but that's not the only explanation, because people like Desslock and GameSpot's Greg Kasavin also loved it.

RPGDot had a close association with Larian and this game and characters in the game were named after our staff, such as Moriendor, Rendelius, Bronthion and even our own Myrthos (our sys admin) and Arhu (created all the layouts and forum themes). I still love meeting Arhu the cat when I replay it regularly.

Arcanumis probably the single game that best gives Fallout a run in terms of dialogue quality and complexity - maybe it even surpasses it. The setting never really grabbed me but I give them points for doing something different. The combat is pretty awful and their is some terrible balancing but for fans of Fallout, this is a must play.

ToEE is the weakest all round but the combat is simply the best ever created. As a straight-up D&D dungeon crawler, it's superb.

All flawed classics in my opinion - but classics nonetheless.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
I can't honestly say something new after all that has been said besides to get all available patches for all the games if you intend to play them. While they are indeed wonderful games and must-plays for anyone liking RPGs, all three have their fair share of technical problems that even patches don't resolve. Especially watch out for Div Div's tendency to crash to desktop for no appearent reason. :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
394
The first area of Arcanum is awful and the ton of text you receive in your face at the very beginning isn't a good implementation of story merged to a game, and worse in the first area after this sudden assault of passive texts you'll get only few tiny text stuff. But I can't say more on this game than about its first area. For the two other games, I strongly support Dhruin description with one addition, in Divine Divinity the puzzling is very good and numerous and at different levels.

I can't understand how magerette could have find it a dungeon game with few story and only dungeon crawling and fights. Perhaps there's a confusion with Beyond Divinity that followed and that I don't advise except if you are total fan of puzzling and dungeon crawling doesn't bother. One good point of this game is that the dungeons are better. Another good point, it has the most interesting sneaking system I ever saw from a gameplay point with few nice tricky quests around this skill.

But Divine Divinity is something else, the outside area is amazing, the game doesn't take you by the hand but if you take care to have curiosity, sense of adventuring and attention to any details and information then it reveals something great, very open but with plenty story stuff and a ton of nice puzzling of any kind.

About bugs, as usual I got luck and got few in all those games but played only a little Arcanum as I already wrote. It's in ToEE I got the worse bug, related to secrets definitely closed for you except by resart the game from a save a long time before. I quoted the problem only at my second play but enough to stop me replay it.
 
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Messages
3,258
Well, Dasale, I freely admit it's been a long time since I played Divinity.( I never played but a few minutes of Beyond Divinity :) ) It may be that I've forgotten all the story stuff. All I remember is fighting and leveling, both of which I enjoy, btw. :) Also perhaps quite a bit of traveling and exploring and talking to NPCs, because I remember enjoying the characters and dialogue. But I most clearly remember having to clear maps, fight mobs with bosses, etc, for a good percentage of the time. Oh, and I hate and I mean *HATE*puzzles, so take that into consideration. :)

AFA Arcanum, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that English may not be your first language--did you have to read through a lot of non-translated English text? That could be quite dry and uninteresting. I felt the text really was the key to the story, and that it was involving and well written, but not everybody likes that much dialogue.

Really though, there's no losers in this line up of games. Every one of them has a lot to offer.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
7,834
Actually, I find Arcanum's opening to be one of the best in a game so far. While the starting area is all that exciting, the dialogue with Virgil is actually both interesting and really funny with the upgrade to hilarious dependant on choise of race. And the whole game is hilarious if you pick up a low Intelligence character.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
394
I liked Arcanum a lot, but as pointed out the combat system is awful. There are also annoying level requirements for NPCs to join you and serious balance and interface issues (tech quys needing to carry around a lot of crap and a lack of long-distance path finding for map traversal being just two). Still it's well worth it if you are a patient gamer.
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2006
Messages
2,013
I liked Arcanum a lot, but as pointed out the combat system is awful. There are also annoying level requirements for NPCs to join you and serious balance and interface issues (tech quys needing to carry around a lot of crap and a lack of long-distance path finding for map traversal being just two). Still it's well worth it if you are a patient gamer.

The RPG part of Arcanum is fantastic, but the combat and character development mechanics are not at all good. Combat has been covered here, but character development has not. The fact that you can only increase one element of your character every level (or two every 5 levels) is extremely frustrating. You have to pick one area to advance with zero development in the others, and what can happen is that your character become extremely unbalanced. The way Fallout handled advancement in a class-less system was immeasurably better.
The advancement system of Arcanum always leads me to second-guessing myself and rather than looking forward to using my improved ability to wondering if I made the right choice.

Interface-wise it's fine. A bit simplistic but not too bad once you get used to it. By modern inferface standards it is extremely lacking, but that is to be expected. Of course, once again, had Troika borrowed a bit more from Fallout it could have been better.
 
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
658
My interface issue is the horrible map movement. One thing I posted in the "most retarded things in games" thread was how much I hate spending ten minutes walking out of a cleared dungeon. In the infinity engine games it was enough to click on your destination and (five out of six;)) characters would find their way there. Not so in Arcanum. Interface issue number 2 is that you cant rest inside dungeons, and that technological healing requires gadgets that take up inventory space. A certain unavoidable dungeon with tonnes of traps (the disarming and detect trap skills are too useless to invest in for the game as a whole) makes these problems shine...

I'm not to keen on the character building system either, but having played through the game many times I had forgotten the struggle I had with it in the beginning, before getting into the game. It would have been bearable with better handling of NPCs though
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2006
Messages
2,013
....Oh, and I hate and I mean *HATE*puzzles, so take that into consideration. :)
Ok you aren't a CRPG player, fine for me, it's weird come post in a CRPG forum. :p

More seriously, I don't understand that at all, but in this case, it's obvious Divine Divinity and even its weaker followup has more puzzles than many.

AFA Arcanum, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that English may not be your first language--did you have to read through a lot of non-translated English text? That could be quite dry and uninteresting. I felt the text really was the key to the story, and that it was involving and well written, but not everybody likes that much dialogue.
No idea, I don't remember at all and too lazy to check, I bought it in a standard shop and the box doesn't mention anything so if the game has been translated in my language, I played a translated version.

Well, text reading value in CRPG... I doubt it can suffer any comparison with a really good novel. I was a hardcore reader when I was younger, up to the age of 30, so if I'm not a specialist I know a bit of what I'm talking about. There's a few text very well written in few of some morrowind books, that's all. I have also to admit some dialogs well written in some CRPG, but nothing to get any strong pleasure, just pleasant reading.

I'm not saying that text stuff in CRPG is useless. But a CRPG cannot throw in your face a ton of text reading with an average writing quality and almost no merge to gaming. That makes no sense there are many smarter and more fun way to do it but the beginning of Avernum almost fully fail in this design terrible error.

Anyway, about Avernum, I'm only talking about the first area of the game, you are perhaps talking about the whole game.
 
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Messages
3,258
Back
Top Bottom