Arcanum Would you be interested in a remastered version of the Unofficial Arcanum Patch?

[Drog Black Tooth]

I'm considering remaking it with more modern technology. You'd have a launcher/settings app where you can turn things on/off, like high resolution, windowed mode, software rendering, level cap, sprite mirroring, combat music, intro movies etc. Or turn additional mods on/off, like Virgil's Debug Menu, extra effects for the Pyro bow, annoying spell effects remover, extra riddles for the ancient game quest and many other loose mods I still have on my HDD.

Everything would be patched on fly, so there would be no need in running installers and/or moving files back and forth.

But I'd need an additional coder to help lay down the framework. Apply here!

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

That would be perfect!

 

[Master]

I think is speak for everyone here when i say Arcanum is the best damn roleplaying game ever made so you can bet your ass we'd be interested! One request though: can you make the UI scale? Its too damn tiny on higher resolutions.

 

[Severian Silk]

I played Arcanum once. Never again.

 

[SCO]

I speak only for myself when i say nope. On the fly patching has a history of bad interactions with wine due to dissimilar dll soup or 'not actually working' hooks. It usually has workarounds by fiddling with manual dll substitution (had to do this for the latest versions of the bloodlines patch), but you do whatever you want for your windows only audience i guess.

 

[Zed]

The only thing I would care about is an enemy stat overhaul mod, adjusting AP of enemies to fit turn-based mode so you can enjoy the game playing TB only. Essentially a mod that reduces AP of golems.
This would actually make me play the game.

 

[mixer]

Don't think there is anything that will bring me to play Arcanum again. For better or worse.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

One request though: can you make the UI scale? Its too damn tiny on higher resolutions.

Arcanum doesn't support any kind of nicer graphics scaling, only nearest neighbor, so if you blew up the UI to fullscreen it would look horribly pixelated. IIRC, in Fallout's sfall engine mod they fixed this by adding some scaling shaders to the game, but then again they have an experienced graphics coder on board. By any means, I'm open to the idea if you can get me code that does any good looking scaling. We could even set separate resolutions for UI/HUD and in-game stuff. E.g. you could play the game with the in-game area zoomed in but small HUD, or vice versa. That'd be pretty spiffy.

 

[Brancaleone]

One request though: can you make the UI scale? Its too damn tiny on higher resolutions.

Arcanum doesn't support any kind of nicer graphics scaling, only nearest neighbor, so if you blew up the UI to fullscreen it would look horribly pixelated. IIRC, in Fallout's sfall engine mod they fixed this by adding some scaling shaders to the game, but then again they have an experienced graphics coder on board. By any means, I'm open to the idea if you can get me code that does any good looking scaling. We could even set separate resolutions for UI/HUD and in-game stuff. E.g. you could play the game with the in-game area zoomed in but small HUD, or vice versa. That'd be pretty spiffy.

I assume Arcanum does not allow any implementation of even rudimentary enemy AI, am I wrong?
I remember trying to fiddle with the percentages that 'govern' (for lack of a better word) the enemies' actions, but it did not improve matters much.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I assume Arcanum does not allow any implementation of even rudimentary enemy AI, am I wrong?
I remember trying to fiddle with the percentages that 'govern' (for lack of a better word) the enemies' actions, but it did not improve matters much.

There's support for AI packages, but it's pretty limited. You can set an AI character to close or ranged combat, set how likely are they to cast different types of spells, how likely are they to flee etc.

But IIRC the spell casting AI only really worked for healing spells and summons. AI seems to mostly ignore the other spell types, especially the projectile types.

I've actually thought about this the other day. Arcanum's supposed to have plenty of spell casting enemies (many monsters have spells) yet they rarely cast them. We could add heartbeat scripts (basically scripts that are attached to non playable characters and run constantly) and make them cast stuff depending on the situation. Like, see an enemy roughly 5 tiles away from you, cast Fireball. This could make the combat more interesting. We could just write several script based "AI packages" and distribute them to various enemies and followers.

 

[Master]

One cool mechanic Arcanum had was that guards didnt automatically turn hostile on a criminal action like banging on a door or a window. Instead they issue a warning and lose 10 reaction points, turning hostile only when they hit zero reaction(in theory). What a cool idea - a nonscripted, nondialogue use of charisma which i havent seen done in any other game.

But of course Troika has to fuck it all up with guards attacking as soon as the action is actually carried out like the door being broken down thus making the whole mechanic pointless... Drog is there any way to "fix" this, by making the AI act only on 0 reaction?

 

[Drowed]

Anything new in Arcanum:

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

One cool mechanic Arcanum had was that guards didnt automatically turn hostile on a criminal action like banging on a door or a window. Instead they issue a warning and lose 10 reaction points, turning hostile only when they hit zero reaction(in theory). What a cool idea - a nonscripted, nondialogue use of charisma which i havent seen done in any other game.

But of course Troika has to fuck it all up with guards attacking as soon as the action is actually carried out like the door being broken down thus making the whole mechanic pointless... Drog is there any way to "fix" this, by making the AI act only on 0 reaction?

Funny you mention this, there are actually remnants of this old system still in the game. Like the thief reputations for all the cities and towns. Originally being caught pick pocketing wasn't a death sentence so you'd get a notorious reputation instead (with reaction penalties across the specific town). And probably an additional reaction penalty to whoever you tried to pick pocket.

It should be pretty easy to make enemies not attack unless reaction 0 and make a crime give you -10 reaction from all the onlookers. Is this what you're suggesting?

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

However, the whole reaction system is pretty spotty in Arcanum. I know of the following bug. IIRC, if you're just naturally very ugly (and/or are of a despised race, like half-orc) then many NPCs would have negative reactions to you but would not actually attack you. Yet, if you suffer any non-natural reaction penalties (e.g. putting on barbarian clothes) then NPCs would go hostile if their reaction is below zero. I don't really understand the logic of it, but here you go. The coding for all this shit must be pretty messy.

 

[Master]

Yes thats what i was thinking, making AI attack ONLY on reaction. So for example, if you want to enter Bates mausoleum but cant steal the key, a pretty elf could charm the guard and order Sog to smash the door down in 4-5 hits and the guard wont mind. A lesser game would do it through a dialogue skillcheck but Arcanum does it purely mechanically... Except that it fucks it up. The reaction system really is a mess, not too severe if ugly and not enough benefits if pretty... But with a few tweaks it could be salvaged.

 

[puppyonastik]

Good to see you back at it, Drog! If you're going to pick up to patching bugs, I'd be more than happy to help again.

 

[agris]

I'm considering remaking it with more modern technology. You'd have a launcher/settings app where you can turn things on/off, like high resolution, windowed mode, software rendering, level cap, sprite mirroring, combat music, intro movies etc. Or turn additional mods on/off, like Virgil's Debug Menu, extra effects for the Pyro bow, annoying spell effects remover, extra riddles for the ancient game quest and many other loose mods I still have on my HDD.

Everything would be patched on fly, so there would be no need in running installers and/or moving files back and forth.

But I'd need an additional coder to help lay down the framework. Apply here!

Hey barker_s, if you want to repay me, help this man!

 

[Brancaleone]

I assume Arcanum does not allow any implementation of even rudimentary enemy AI, am I wrong?
I remember trying to fiddle with the percentages that 'govern' (for lack of a better word) the enemies' actions, but it did not improve matters much.

There's support for AI packages, but it's pretty limited. You can set an AI character to close or ranged combat, set how likely are they to cast different types of spells, how likely are they to flee etc.

But IIRC the spell casting AI only really worked for healing spells and summons. AI seems to mostly ignore the other spell types, especially the projectile types.

I've actually thought about this the other day. Arcanum's supposed to have plenty of spell casting enemies (many monsters have spells) yet they rarely cast them. We could add heartbeat scripts (basically scripts that are attached to non playable characters and run constantly) and make them cast stuff depending on the situation. Like, see an enemy roughly 5 tiles away from you, cast Fireball. This could make the combat more interesting. We could just write several script based "AI packages" and distribute them to various enemies and followers.

This would be absolutely fantastic, and I bet it would spice up combat (at least in turn-mode) more than anything else. There is a huge wasted potential in enemy variety from uncasted spells alone (in spite of how unbalanced they might be).

 

[Goral]

To be honest this deserves a news page, otherwise many users might miss it and there's lesser chance of finding a programmer willing to help Drog.
Elwro VentilatorOfDoom

 

[Neanderthal]

 

[Aenra]

It's been way too long, don't even remember what your patch did frankly.. not anymore. But thank you either way, as i --do-- remember you were the only reason i played Arcanum a second time. And enjoyed it
edit: forgot some obligatory brofisting, remedying.
That out the way, assuming you didn't just mix other people's work, are actually a competent modder and have time on your hands?
(motivational mode off)

Getting us an installer won't change anything, we aren't millennials. And while more 'realistic' NPC reactions are a plus.. are they really incentive enough? For the love of God, waste your talents elsewhere. Good modders are getting rarer and rarer. We've got RPGs needing patches and never having got any. Here, let's start with a couple of challenges:

Lionheart - Legacy of the Crusader (too many issues to bother making a list)
Gorasul: Legacy of the Dragon (even more issues. Only for Cyberp's progeny)

And assuming i get my head out of my ass i'll come back to name more. Am trying to think of RPGs that i) nailed feeling and thematic, ii) sucked or caused major butthurt despite all that/for some other reason, iii) never got any modder love.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I suppose once we have a proper on fly engine patching framework we could include any and all engine tweaks, like unlocking the official debug cheats and the ability to distribute your party members CPs when they level up among other things.

I also have some experimental engine tweaks, such as the ability to completely disable real time combat in the game. We could also alter many of the game's rules, like what actions cost what amount of action points, what's the back stab multiplier, what's the bonus to melee damage in the body of earth form etc. This would help a lot with rebalancing the game if somebody's gonna do it. I already have all of this shit researched, I have tons of TXTs and commented debugger dumps for arcanum.exe on my HDD, but without the framework you'd need to fire up your hex editor every time you want to tweak something and it's just not feasible for an average user, hence me wanting to remake the patch as a DLL hook.

Let's fuckin' do it bros, Make Arcanum Great Again.

 

[agris]

Lionheart - Legacy of the Crusader

What on earth did you find enjoyable about Lionheart? The map art is pretty, I guess.

 

[FeelTheRads]

There's nothing that can be done for Lionheart. It's dead, Jim.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Lionheart - Legacy of the Crusader

What on earth did you find enjoyable about Lionheart? The map art is pretty, I guess.

Barcelona was kinda okay. Yeah, I played it back then. Once you leave the city tho it's just an endless dungeon romp. And unless you have a very specific character build (IIRC some kind of an archer) the game gets bullshit hard. Never finished it because of this.

Supposedly there's a p cool encounter with Nostradamus somewhere in the wild among all the trash mobs.