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i've thought of buying this game ever sense i heard of it, but i'm not sure if it was worth it... so i have som questions that will help me deside:

1)how is the storyline (i'm not looking for symple answers like good or bad) i mean, is it well thought out or just slaped together?

2)how is the gameplay? (again, i'm not looking for symple answers like good or bad)
and
3)is the game easy to learn? (once again, i'm not looking for symple answers like yes or no

thanx in advance for your replies
-ÐR

[QUOTE=dark_raven]i've thought of buying this game ever sense i heard of it, but i'm not sure if it was worth it... so i have som questions that will help me deside:

1)how is the storyline (i'm not looking for symple answers like good or bad) i mean, is it well thought out or just slaped together?

2)how is the gameplay? (again, i'm not looking for symple answers like good or bad)
and
3)is the game easy to learn? (once again, i'm not looking for symple answers like yes or no

thanx in advance for your replies
-ÐR[/QUOTE]

I've played Arcanum for several years and keep going back to it. It has been working since Windows 95. Since the programmers did a great job to be windows compatible I've never needed to download an update. Its very much fun because you have so much to do you can play for years with a difference each time you play. You can be a mage, a mage/thief, a mage/mellee fighter, a technoligist/healer, a gun fighter, a teacher; and many types of characters from human to elf to halfling. I can't go into all but its the most cost reasonable game anywhere. The only down is the online version is only PVP so I haven't every played there. I hate pvp.

The storyline is complex. You start knowing a dwarf gave you a ring and your task is to find a "boy". You get help by a NPC named Virgil get him he's great aid and a fair fighter. In every reagon there are places to check out and other side quest that can be done, in some cases the quest upon complete yeilds a benifit more than just points or money. You find your character going from town to town progressively learning about Arcanum and its people. If you pick up a newpaper and read the article you're given the task to solve the quest. So only pick up a newpaper if your interested. Some side quests depend on your abilities. So if a person doesn't give a quest to you it because you lack the ablility to use it. You can do just the main storyline but the side quests increase your abilities and you learn more and get more items and gold. If you select evil you can complete the game but somethings are different thou the main storyline is there.

Gameplay: You start with a little gold and 5 unassigned points. You select the weapon and armor depending on your needs. Continue and assign points where you want. Consider very carefully before assigning points because you can't back out without starting a new game. The actual movement is the screen is independent of the characters. So either use the mouse (I use a trackball) to move the screen or the arrow keys. The screen is a fixed orientation. You can not move in or out nor can you rotate. The screen moves left/right or up/down. Spell cast is the "A" active key. So you need to ckick on the spell or tech tool to put into the active key. If you reload the spells swap between "A" and "B" so your active spell is now healing or repair... You have 64 total points provided in 50 levelings. You get 5 points initially and 1 point for a level except when you reach a number divisable by 5. At each 5 you get 2 points for a total of 64.

Learning depends on the player. Talk to people especially in Tarant. The Tarant University contains information for many side quests or personnal benifits in Arcanum. Learn the Ultimante Blessing that gives you 100 extra health and fatigue (mana in other games). The UB also adds many points to some skills like 3 to melee. Some quest involve getting info in a different town which means traveling great distances. Arcanum however provides rail travel between Tarant, Ashbury and Black Root. And sailing ships are available for traveling to port cities. But if your a mage teleportation makes for instant travel to known places. Explore everywhere. I just found a new place yesterday that I had never seen, so I don't think you'll be disappointed. The magic and technological feature of the game are discribed in the selection panel. Just look and them at anytime and add points to what you want. The magic/tech meter is useful to decide when to add to a skill. The more magical on the meter the more effective the spell will be. The more tech on the meter the better odds to fabricate some mechanical item. However the ability to repair is indepandent of the meter. A full mage can recover destroyed armor but may have trouble picking a lock. (Mage can select a magic lockpick that is useful "cantrip".) So learning is a matter of look arouind and talk to people and read books and newpapers. Sounds like real life? I this is not enough info feel free to ask more I'll be around here.

well, that was actually more info then then i was expecting... thanx... i'll have to buy it now!


<know where i can buy it at?>

Jesus, what a question I bought this game 3 weeks ago at a sale and I haven't been out of my house since. The storyline is so indepth and expansive that the continuity of this game is what I personally think makes it the Half-Life of non-D&D RPG's.

On the advice of others I started onto the game as a half-Elf Melee/Mage as this is somewhat easier than your fullout cantankerous Dwarf with all Tech skills. At a crucial part of the game I accidentally killed the NPC I had spent the entire first 20 levels of my game trying to find (Bates) and saved before I'd realised, so without any lock-picking skills I just smashed open every locked item in his house and found a Diary with the next step of the game (Hurrah!). However I was now hated by Bates fanatics, hated in his major city and stalked by bounty hunters at every juncture, but I still had an amazing game as a Good character who just happened to execute the most loved man in Arcanum

This time round I'm doing the tech thang and managed to not kill important characters and not only am I now checking back on that NPC with news now and again but I've completed about 75% of the quests with a different approach. The possibilities in this game are endless.

16 Spell Colleges (Air, Fire, Water, Conveyance, Illuminate, etc), each with 5 corresponding spells, if you learn all 5 then you're a master in that college. 80 spells in total though.

8 Different tech disciplines such as Electricity, Explosives, Blacksmith, Gunsmith, etc and each of those has 6 items to learn, learn all 6 in one discipline and you have a degree. that's 48 unique items in total that you mostly can't buy ingame (good incentive for tech chars to make them, however all are useless to a magic user, so it's not like by ignoring tech you are cutting off an arm)

Add to this the countless 3rd party schematics you can loot, buy, get awarded throughout the game and you have probably 100+ unique items from mechanised arachnid companions to +2 perception eye goggles.


Character generation is also massive, depending on...

your race ingame (Elves and Dwarves hate eachother for example)

your beauty (people react better when you don't like like an Albanian Grandmother)

your charisma (are you suave or ignorant)

your persuasiveness (can you talk the pants of a supermodel?)

your intelligence (go to low and your dialogue options ingame ammount to "Ugh!" and "Me hungry now, hur hur!")

your alignment (good NPC no talk to evil PC)

your influences (magick and tech upset eachothers effectiveness so walk into any mage shop with 2 degrees in science and you'll be turned into sushi - well if you don't cap them first )

your sex (oooooh mama)

etc


I've gotten upto level 47 of magery before the anticipation of going tech made me start again but i'm already having ambitions of chreating a truly passive char with no melee and trying to talk my way through the game


Sorry for the rant.. good game to you