-=DarlSephiroth666=-
Educated
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2010
- Messages
- 250
Arcanum still seems to be brought up a lot on the Codex, so let's discuss this unquestionable masterpiece and a milestone of the early 2000s RPG design once fucking again.
But this time, let's discuss the undoubtedly ingenious quest design specifically. What quests were the best from the design viewpoint? Please don't let your personal feelings cloud your judgment. Even though some quests (like the gnomish conspiracy) were very fun and enjoyable, we all know deep inside us that they were linear pieces of shit that shouldn't really belong in an RPG. With that out of the way, what I'm basically asking of you is tell us what quests offered the best choices in your opinion, and how good the said choices were implemented. Were they always logical? Have you ever felt that the game was limiting your choices? Have you ever thought "Why can't I just do this? This doesn't make sense!"? And of course, were any of those choices relevant in the end?
And another thing that I'd like to discuss here is the character system and the role it played in the quest design. We all know that a true RPG isn't just a CYOA book with filler combat, but a game where your character build affects everything, including the choices available to you. Basically, if the game doesn't check your character stats when offering you choices in a quest, it isn't role-playing, it's LARPing, or acting/pretending/whatever you may call it. Now, what I'm getting at is this: was the character system in Arcanum flexible enough to allow for vastly different builds? Of course, everyone's going to have a different opinion on this, but here's how I see it:
Things that affect dialog options: INT, CHA, Persuasion
Things that affect stealth options: Lockpicking, Prowling (mostly useless at low and mid levels, though), Pickpocket, plus some spells like Invisibility
Things that affect combat options: this doesn't have much to do with the quest design, so we won't discuss it
(There are, of course, other things that add additional options, like the Conjure Spirit spell that lets you speak with dead people, these are just the most important things in my opinion.)
Was this enough to allow for sufficiently complex quest design?
Well, there you go. Finally, I'd like to stress that the point of this thread is not about what Arcanum did wrong (it did wrong an awful lot of things), but what it did right and how the contemporary RPG developers can benefit from Troika's genius. Many people on the Codex are enjoying this magnificent RPG, so I (and many others, I'm sure) would like to know what parts of the game are considered the best by the majority.
But this time, let's discuss the undoubtedly ingenious quest design specifically. What quests were the best from the design viewpoint? Please don't let your personal feelings cloud your judgment. Even though some quests (like the gnomish conspiracy) were very fun and enjoyable, we all know deep inside us that they were linear pieces of shit that shouldn't really belong in an RPG. With that out of the way, what I'm basically asking of you is tell us what quests offered the best choices in your opinion, and how good the said choices were implemented. Were they always logical? Have you ever felt that the game was limiting your choices? Have you ever thought "Why can't I just do this? This doesn't make sense!"? And of course, were any of those choices relevant in the end?
And another thing that I'd like to discuss here is the character system and the role it played in the quest design. We all know that a true RPG isn't just a CYOA book with filler combat, but a game where your character build affects everything, including the choices available to you. Basically, if the game doesn't check your character stats when offering you choices in a quest, it isn't role-playing, it's LARPing, or acting/pretending/whatever you may call it. Now, what I'm getting at is this: was the character system in Arcanum flexible enough to allow for vastly different builds? Of course, everyone's going to have a different opinion on this, but here's how I see it:
Things that affect dialog options: INT, CHA, Persuasion
Things that affect stealth options: Lockpicking, Prowling (mostly useless at low and mid levels, though), Pickpocket, plus some spells like Invisibility
Things that affect combat options: this doesn't have much to do with the quest design, so we won't discuss it
(There are, of course, other things that add additional options, like the Conjure Spirit spell that lets you speak with dead people, these are just the most important things in my opinion.)
Was this enough to allow for sufficiently complex quest design?
Well, there you go. Finally, I'd like to stress that the point of this thread is not about what Arcanum did wrong (it did wrong an awful lot of things), but what it did right and how the contemporary RPG developers can benefit from Troika's genius. Many people on the Codex are enjoying this magnificent RPG, so I (and many others, I'm sure) would like to know what parts of the game are considered the best by the majority.
