Arcanum - Unofficial Fan Patch 1.5.1

Arcanum definitely contains more than just dialogue options for different solutions to obstacles. There are many ways in the physical environment to solve different Quests an different ways to access areas using skills.

As for combat very similar to Fallout 1 and 2 and since it's turn-based better than the Balder’s Gate games. So if you think Arcanum’s combat is bad, then you also don't think Fallout’s combat is bad and definitely Baldur's Gate’s, and those are considered great RPGs by many people who like RPGs of all types. So even though Arcanum, Fallout, Balder’s Gate’s combat are not Great by any means they're certainly better than almost all the real-time and some solo character turn based RPGs of which there are tons.
That's the thing even people who really like RPGs with great combat like Jagged Alliance many of them will like these games as well.

Also neat points as well summarized:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/arcanum-of-steamworks-and-magick-obscura/
"The old Fallout games were known for their non-linearity – there were almost always multiple ways of solving quests, character building wasn’t restricted by classes and the world reacted to your choices. Arcanum takes this ‘choice and consequence’ aspect even further – players can freely develop both their skills (also affected by apprentice, expert and master training received during the course of the game) and their stats. The choice between magic (or ‘magick’, as the game clearly prefers Aleister Crowley’s spelling of the word) and technology is an important part of the game too, and characters will not only treat you differently based on your morality and reputation but also depending on race – humans, halflings and half-elves don’t face too much discrimination, dwarves and elves dislike each other, gnomes managed to get accepted in society after years of hatred and everyone is prejudiced against half-orcs and half-ogres. Arcanum tries to be a sort of virtual tabletop – a game where different choices result in a different game.
Like in the first Fallout, it’s even possible to either join the enemy or convince him to give up without fighting.
 
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@lackblogger;
A simple question : what games do you like ?

Any game you can come up with can be analyticalally deconstructed (and destroyed) with philosophical arguments.

I played a ton of of RPGs since the 90s, and Arcanum is in my top 10. I played two dozen builds and I finished it several times. Why ? Plenty of reasons, but none that I would use to defend the game. I simply like it very much.

Plenty of games I only played a few hours and deleted because I hated a feature or they simply weren't my cup of tea. And plenty other I simply am not interested in. But meta-critisizing a game you never played, that just weird.
 
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As for combat very similar to Fallout 1 and 2 and since it's turn-based better than the Balder’s Gate games. So if you think Arcanum’s combat is bad, then you also don't think Fallout’s combat is bad and definitely Baldur's Gate’s, and those are considered great RPGs by many people who like RPGs of all types. So even though Arcanum, Fallout, Balder’s Gate’s combat are not Great by any means they're certainly better than almost all the real-time and some solo character turn based RPGs of which there are tons.
That's the thing even people who really like RPGs with great combat like Jagged Alliance many of them will like these games as well.

Arcanum's combat is not even remotely similar to Fallout. Having combat be turn-based has nothing to do with it's quality so I have no idea what the rest of your gibberish is even supposed to mean since the basic premise is absurd. I've never played Jagged Alliance, but I'm sure gun-lovers love it.
 
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@lackblogger;
A simple question : what games do you like ?

Any game you can come up with can be analyticalally deconstructed (and destroyed) with philosophical arguments.

I played a ton of of RPGs since the 90s, and Arcanum is in my top 10. I played two dozen builds and I finished it several times. Why ? Plenty of reasons, but none that I would use to defend the game. I simply like it very much.

Plenty of games I only played a few hours and deleted because I hated a feature or they simply weren't my cup of tea. And plenty other I simply am not interested in. But meta-critisizing a game you never played, that just weird.

I like games that don't have patch threads 20 years after they're made for starters... [that's where I came into the discussion, not sure if you started that far back or just joined the convo from "Last post"]

And that's the basis for the discussion I'm having. There's no meta-deconstruction going on here. There's the simple question:

Do you think the only relevant factor which makes RPGs 'great' in your opinion is the extent of their dialogue options?

And:

Are you aware that dialogue options as a design focus usually lead to poor RPGs in all other regards?
 
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Arcanum's combat is not even remotely similar to Fallout. Having combat be turn-based has nothing to do with it's quality so I have no idea what the rest of your gibberish is even supposed to mean since the basic premise is absurd. I've never played Jagged Alliance, but I'm sure gun-lovers love it.

Speaking of gibberish most of your posts in this thread are gibberish, non-connected, out of context rubbish.
You're going on criticizing game you've never even played based on what you read from magazines and such, haha, wow the epitome of pseudo-intellectual.
Thank you for continuing the most non-coherent rambling text on rpgs.
To save Fallout combat is not like Arcanum is most hilarious. you have not even played Arcanum so your assessment of Arcanum combat is worth literally zero thank you for r your continued imaginary assessments.
Both are single character with NPCs, turn-based combat, isometric, yes there is a difference in Fallout you can choose different hit locations.
Arcanum also has more options in combat it has magical path characters as well as technological.
 
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[I read through from the beginning, yes, that's why i finally jumped in]

About the patches, they are not necessary, only useful, Arcanum was perfectly playable a few month after it came out (the first patches were necessary). The rest is just a labor of love from fans. And it's just an excuse to make people re-install the game, and replay it from the beginning. Fallout (my n°1) and Fallout 2 had a lot of patching and high-def or content mods and so on too.

And no, I'm no dialog options junky. Arcanum has not been made with this sole purpose. It's very rich, well-rounded, with lots of different thing to enjoy, depending on the type of gamer you are, or simply of the type of play-through you are doing. I enjoy it's turn-based combat for instance. I squeezed a lot out of it trying very different builds (you just need to accept that's it's unbalanced, so what ? See it as different difficulty settings).
 
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Both are single character with NPCs, turn-based combat, isometric, yes there is a difference in Fallout you can choose different hit locations.
You can. Head, arms or legs are targetable. But it's not as useful as it is in Fallout.
 
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Hi RPGWatch Arcanum community. I'm trying to install steam version I purchased along with this updated Unofficial patch. After applying the various patches, the game is running fine, but everything is quite small in the higher resolution. Anyone have any luck enlarging the images so it is more playable? Or is that just the price you pay for the higher resolution. Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Only solution is to play at lower res. Try different settings, and see what is a good compromise between the right size for you and a sufficient sharp image. If your screen is sufficiently high res, chances are you won't notice much of a difference.

Best image quality/sharpness can be obtained with an integer ratio (like playing in 1280 on a 2560 screen), but I find it slightly too big. Even better quality is obtained with the "Integer Scaling" option on nVidia cards (in "adjust desktop size and position" in the control panel).
 
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Iirc, I played Arcanum in 1024x768 or something close to that. Anything higher didn't look right.
When I first played it, it was on the monitor with that resolution, but I tried it relatively recently with the hi-res patch in 1080p and I only needed to change the text size for it to be playable. Yes, the sprites a bit small, but I got to see more of the game world and navigation was easier. I know Arcanum has that feature where you can set waypoints on the map, but I always found it too clunky. I guess it's a personal preference.
 
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Put me in with the stable that had to mess with the resolution to get this game to look right, I don't recall it being too difficult to figure out, and I was using the version from great old games. Well worth the trouble to get it right though, this is a game well worth playing or replaying.
 
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Thanks guys. Have it working now with satisfactory display settings. Much appreciated. Looking forward to playing this classic game.
 
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