Unofficial Arcanum Patch (Original Thread)

[Grump]

I dunno if this has been fixed yet but I just started my first game and have run into these problems...with the newest official patch and 080412

The game kicks you back to the desktop if you die and see the tombstone screen.

You seem to have only one chance to get past the bandits guarding the Shrouded Hills bridge by any way other than killing them or paying them. After the first time they don't offer the other options anymore. I don't know if you can go ahead and do it anyway.

In my first two games my Beauty mysteriously dropped from 8 to 7 somewhere in the middle of wandering around the crashed zeppelin. Didn't happen the third time though...All games were as a human male.

There is a typo in the Miracle Cure background...

Question: I assume the patch will work if you drop the file in the patch's module folder into the game install's module folder and simply drag and drop the rest of the files into the Arcanum folder?

Do you need to start a new game with the latest version if you already have 080412?

 

[HanoverF]

Awesome work, will try the patch once I finish my current playthrough.

 

[afewhours]

In my first two games my Beauty mysteriously dropped from 8 to 7 somewhere in the middle of wandering around the crashed zeppelin.

Sounds like you got scarred to me. The first time I got scarred, I spent ages scratching my head trying to figure out what had happened. Eventually, I went through my journal and found the appropriate flag. You have to go to a quack/witch in the game to get that fixed.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Drog Black Tooth, I love you.

Would it be OK with you if we hosted this at Terra-Arcanum?

I'll be thankful for it.

I dunno if this has been fixed yet but I just started my first game and have run into these problems...with the newest official patch and 080412

The game kicks you back to the desktop if you die and see the tombstone screen.

You seem to have only one chance to get past the bandits guarding the Shrouded Hills bridge by any way other than killing them or paying them. After the first time they don't offer the other options anymore. I don't know if you can go ahead and do it anyway.

I didn't change anything of this.

In my first two games my Beauty mysteriously dropped from 8 to 7 somewhere in the middle of wandering around the crashed zeppelin. Didn't happen the third time though...All games were as a human male.

You got scarred. Healers fix scars in the game.

Question: I assume the patch will work if you drop the file in the patch's module folder into the game install's module folder and simply drag and drop the rest of the files into the Arcanum folder?

Do you need to start a new game with the latest version if you already have 080412?

Unpack the files to Arcanum folder (i.e. C:\Sierra\Arcanum), overwriting Arcanum.exe as well (make a back up of your old one if you wish), run CleanCache.bat and play the game. You don't really need to start a new game.

 

[RK47]

the sheriff or most doctors can heal you. Try visiting apothecaries etc.

B is not that important stat anyway. Reactions can be low as long it doesn't border on negative. It only affect trade prices

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I'll make the next version with an installer if unpacking a .zip to game folder and running a .bat file afterwards seems confusing. Anyone else have problems/questions considering the installation?

 

[Ander Vinz]

Anyone else have problems/questions considering the installation?

ha-ha

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

On the matter of "controversial" fixes. What about the lost music track for Vendigroth? Do you want it back? You may find it in [your arcanum folder]\modules\Arcanum\sound\music\Vendegoth.mp3. Personally, I think that the eerie ambient music suits the Vendigroth dungeon better than a dramatic violin. Tarant_Sewers.mp3 is also unused. Listen to both and tell me what do you think.

 

[Claw]

I didn't change anything of this.

Maybe he's suggesting you should? Making a fan-patch and all. :wink:

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I didn't change anything of this.

Maybe he's suggesting you should? Making a fan-patch and all. :wink:

Yes, I should. I just said that I didn't touch it in case people may think that my patch brings new bugs. I wasn't clear enough, I guess.

 

[Ander Vinz]

Listen to both and tell me what do you think.

Personally, I'd like them both restored. It doesn't look like they were "cut out because they sucked". Trarant_Sewers is very splendid, really. I didn't think it was unused.
Moar hidden stuff, plz.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Thats awesome man, outtstanding work. I'm just wondering if the fix will work with localised versions of the game, for example the german version?

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I'm just wondering if the fix will work with localised versions of the game, for example the german version?

No, it's impossible.

 

[Shockedder]

First of all , I want to thank you Drog for all the work in restoring much of the hidden beauty of Arcanum.

Regarding your latest questions , I think the Tarant_Sewers.mp3 is a beautiful piece but it should work in small doses. Maybe you can set it only for the small accesible part of the Tarantian Sewers ? (not for the large section "sealed" by mr Dunston) ?

Can't recall the music from Vendigroth right now , so I do not know what to say on this one.

There were a couple of requests on showing the hidden/unused art for various items in the game. I was thinking perhaps a picture on what has not made it in the final verion would be helpful , ( I've seen a couple of them in this thread , but maybe an all encompassing one would do the trick) .
I think it would be great to have a little variety for the staff graphics ( getting quite sick of the same wooden appearence for different type of staves ).

Once again thanks for your interest and hard work.

 

[Ander Vinz]

New bugs found:
magic beans aren't useable after identification
kite sword has technological aptitude

 

[Kavax]

Drog, you are awesome. Arcanum is one of my favourite videogames and I have been expecting a patch like this for many years.

 

[Dark Elf]

The patch is now available at http://www.terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/dload.php!

Again, thank you Drog!

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Thanks for the hosting, Dark Elf!

More lost content found! Nicholas Longfoot, a bartender at Madam Lil's was using a generic bartender dialogue, while he had his own! I attached it back, and damn god, his lines are priceless. Basically, when you pay for a girl, he gives you free drinks. And when you get drunk enough you get an option of sexually harassing him (and he insults you by your race and gender). I guess the dialogue just got censored. Some bits of it:

"You no can, shorty. Tey no call me Nickolas LONGFOOT fer nuthen you noe... [laughs]"
"Me no see kle-avage. No kle-avage, no me want."
"Mebbie me long, but get short stick when see you, tiny..."
"What, you want try use you little... You DO have one?"
"Nickolas t'ink you have way too much drink now. You go way. Be koo koo."
"Huh! Why me want "you"? Me got all dem girls over der."
"You fight me... you never get girls no more. Jus' 'member dat."

This will be included in the next version. Look forward to it!

 

[Ander Vinz]

More lost content found! Nicholas Longfoot, a bartender at Madam Lil's was using a generic bartender dialogue, while he had his own! I attached it back, and damn god, his lines are priceless.

This will be included in the next version. Look forward to it!

You're going to have your own cult of worshippers soon. Jus' 'member dat.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

A hecatomb is clearly in order.

 

[BillyOgawa]

I'm loving this! Keep up the good work, Drog.

 

[Zhirzzh]

I'm really happy about this, but am concerned that you will burnout without someone like Tessera to motivate you by stealing your work and insulting you. By the way, it's not that I wasn't interested in the the Arcanum beta topic, I just didn't know where it could be found, so I didn't post.

 

[Ander Vinz]

Wait wait wait. Zhirzzh, you just reminded me that I heard a lot of talk about beta being quickly pirated in my country. This can be it. All I need is to find those rare cd's.

Drog, how can I recognize beta-version?

I just realized you must have found beta already since you included some portraits from it. Care to upload somewhere?

 

[team a]

Drog-

I just found out about your patch from the terra-arcanum boards. First, I'd like to say that I'm glad there are other people interested in fixing the bugs that have been in Arcanum for so many years, not only yourself but everyone who has posted here. I'd seen a few minor bug fixes, but I continually notice little things here and there when playing and I recently decided to try to compile some of them. In fact, I think I was looking at the unused art in the last couple days at the same time you were...

I really appreciate that you're not trying to do major rebalancing or changing what was intended, but just fixing things in Arcanum that were broken. I like user modding (I've been working on my own module for over a year now) and even expansions of Arcanum like chrisbeddoes' and rroyo's A:WIP, but Arcanum has really needed some additional patching for the stock game for modders to build on.

Terra-arcanum has some great modders, and I think a lot of them have fixed some of the issues in Arcanum years ago, but many of them aren't as active lately. I posted about this recently, but didn't generate much interest:

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=14532

I haven't put as much time and effort into this as you have, but I have found some problems and come up with a few solutions, even though I haven't posted them yet. I'm going to check out what you have and see if my fixes would be productive.

 

[team a]

I've undatted your files and taken a look, and it looks like you're doing what I hoped. I'm going to spend some time doing extensive testing, but I have a few comments:

1. in the future, could you make notes at the beginning of a file to indicate what changes you've made? This could be indicating the line number as well as the old line. Since it seems like the game engine checks for brackets regardless of whether they're after "//" I usually change the brackets to parentheses when posting at the beginning of a file, but I guess it isn't totally necessary to indicate more than line number. This would help in looking at what changes were made, and if there are problems down the road, would help in identifying them. Also, since many mods include their own rebalancing, this would allow those who have already created mods to copy and paste in changes, thus being able to retroactively base their work on the unofficial patch.

2. Have you considered using arcanum.patch1\rules\map.patch? Since most of the edits will probably be to NPC flags and script APs, using this file (which is just a text file) could help avoid the necessity of .mob files, even though it does the same thing. I'm not certain thus far, but it seems like using the .mob file could prevent changes for working with old save files, and since there are a lot of changes that need fixing, it would make sense to have new versions be as compatible as possible. Perhaps someone who was around before the official Arcanum patches could comment on whether you had to start a new game to get them to work? Also, using a text file might mean that it would be much quicker to affect the same type of change on multiple mobs in an area.

3. Do you use any debugging type scripts to check your changes, such as a debug menu NPC? I was about to make one, but if you've already scripted this, it would be much appreciated. On the flip side, I could always make one and upload it to make checking bugs quicker.

4. Have you spent much time looking at schematics for items that didn't make the cut? There are some balancing issues involved - for example, levered machine gun has the same stats as repeater rifle, because it was never quite finished/balanced in the first place - but i think the game would benefit from their inclusion, especially since either the item protos or the schematic art is already done for a few, or would only take small changes for some.

5. What program do you use for .art, art2bmp & bmp2art?