Ryan muller
Educated
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2021
- Messages
- 437
People usually praise this setting a lot, but its way too fucked up to be even remotely believable, obviously the most direct way in which you can question the setting is the gameplay balance compared to the lore writing, as Guns are sold as the new technological progression and what actually murdered Cumbria in the war. They couldnt keep up with technology and were oblitared, which makes not a lot of sense when you compare Guns with magic and see that guns are very resource costly to make, difficult to maintain and very lackluster in damage and flexibility compared to even the most simple tier spells such as Harm (which obliterates half of the game)
But this is a very basic analysis of a much larger problem, because if you actually think about what spells can do you have an even bigger problem. When cumbria war started, technology was starting to ressurface, kickstarted specially by Bates's inventions, which means they were using less developed equipment against years of magical research, this includes scrolls of summoning to increase the armies to ridiculous degrees with Golems, familiars, animals and the ability to summon spirits and demons, on top of that, Cumbria had the ability to ressurect the dead with cheap ressurect spells and scrolls that are well developed and researched between students, they could also charm their enemies, dominate their minds, shape the battleground with poison, manipulate the wind, turn people into stone, heal allies way easier than the technologists, cure people from all sources of poison, double their speed, paralyze people, kill their enemies and then make them return as undead warriors and somehow, those invincible killing machines with powers provided by the gods that only had to deal with the cost of being a bit tired after casting their spells (which could be countered by potion comsuption), managed to LOSE????
The setting also doesnt make a lot of sense in terms of how it developed. Theres no reason technology was such a sucess in the comercial districs and large metropolian regions, Magic gave people much larger productive value and flexibility to work. Are a detective? change people's minds and investigate, maybe ressurect the dead and ask them who were they killer. Need to work at a mine and would rather avoid spending too much time at it? cast haste and go at a ridiculously fast pace. Marketing? either charm your clients or use your own spells to make your appearence and persuasive abilities higher, thieves? a thief with the ability to be invisible is much better than a regular thief. need to move heavy objects on your shop? bitch i can send my Guardian ogres to do that. Medical assistence? i laugh.
The only possible way the setting could get even remotely close of justifying technological jobs being more frequent than magical ones, is the fact that you need to have magickal aptitude in order to become a mage, where as technology could be used by virtually anybody. However, this doesnt even work well since you can find mages everywhere in the game and instead of having international laws limiting the existence of technology and magick in the same region (or atleast regulation for how they can be in the same town), people can just freely exist and have shoppings and devices of technological or magickal nature everywhere in every town aside from Derholm and in-game we can se A LOT of them. which really makes you wonder how the fuck this even works.
But better than all of this is that not even the thing which ties the entire universe together and supposedly makes everything logical is consistent. The law of technology is natural, while Magickal is supernatural, Magick cannot subvert something so strongly based upon the laws of nature and as such, it cant work within its limits. However, the entire thing is incredibly arbitrary. At first, without reading the manual you can be lead to believe that technology overwhelms magick and as such it cant be cast within the presence of machines or people with more natural aptitude, this is due to the fact that even at shrouded hills, Jongle dunne will point out that he cant work because of the steam machinery at the town, which was interrupting his casting. However, when you pick a train ticket, the train conductor will point out to the fact that if you are a mage, you cant board the train or else it wont work which means that this probably points out to the game using a system in which for some reason not only living beings have an aptitude level, but the tech equipment and magickal equipment also have an aptitude level, this can be checked by buying armlets or Armor that are tech or magickal based (as the game directly points out an "Aptitude" level). This is nothing but arbitrary power creep in disguise, however, the funniest thing is that it doesnt even work correctly since:
1: At times, characters wont complain about tech and magick affecting each other even if they are extremely close and the equipments at show are of very high aptitude. Yes, Dunne Complained about the steam engine influencing his work at Shrouded hills despite being quite far of the equipment, however at places like tarant, you can buy your super powerful Charged rifle from a tech shop just to cross the avenue and find a mighty arcane elven armor and nobody complains!! (until your character steps at the shop of course. ohh nightmares!).
2: Some magick work at high aptitude people regardless of their nature. my 100% tech aptitude character can still stock up on teleport scrolls or exit scrolls and consistently cast them to get out of dungeons no problem, while my mage can go at tarant's most Technological location and cast desintegrate at everything and everyone that moves.
And i know that every game will have some nonsensical stuff and at times, devs do care more about in-game functions than logical cohesion and if it works at the game's world, then yes, i know that i shouldnt question that hard the simulational aspects of the game if my knife can kill an automatron or why my extremely low caliber pistol can murder an iron golem, nor why the hell my dog's teeth are stronger than a Shotgun on close range
However, theres basic elements which are things that are the basis for the setting and that are extremely important to understand and be logical in how they work in-setting in order to suspend your desbelief and immerse yourself within a world and more often than not, Arcanum tear throught those elements for nothing but the sheer desire to include new gameplay elements and quantity to the game, a good example being the Reanimator.
The spell users can mess with Ressurection, which as previously pointed out, resulted in a lot of problems with the believability of Cumbria's war. Worse than that, is that because the Game had the option of making a character return from the dead if they were spell users, obviously they needed to balance this out by giving you a tech option, right?
Here it is, a small vial that can make even the Bulkiest character be fresh again, no repercussions or cons. and its extremely cheap for what it does either, making it quite acessible even if its pretty much the elixir from the gods. The first time i found this i was VERY confused. How does this work? how could they engineer technology that could ressurect the dead, making it acessible even to the lowliest of the human lifes, people who have no way of casting spells, the common folk!!! which implications such a big thing have on the setting? why nobody in-game talks about it??? I knew the game didnt have in-game descriptions for equipment but i also knew that Schematics actually had a little description presenting how a particular tech works and well.... After 2 hours i spent trying to find that schematic, i finally put my eyes at its description, which reads as follows:
REANIMATOR:
"[This schematic is printed on a strange sort of paper, and looks to be very old. The writing is faded almost beyond recognition.] Experiments upon the life force..... regenerative chemical compounds...... unbelievable results...... completely revived and functioning normally..... advances.... Vendigrothian science......"
But this is a very basic analysis of a much larger problem, because if you actually think about what spells can do you have an even bigger problem. When cumbria war started, technology was starting to ressurface, kickstarted specially by Bates's inventions, which means they were using less developed equipment against years of magical research, this includes scrolls of summoning to increase the armies to ridiculous degrees with Golems, familiars, animals and the ability to summon spirits and demons, on top of that, Cumbria had the ability to ressurect the dead with cheap ressurect spells and scrolls that are well developed and researched between students, they could also charm their enemies, dominate their minds, shape the battleground with poison, manipulate the wind, turn people into stone, heal allies way easier than the technologists, cure people from all sources of poison, double their speed, paralyze people, kill their enemies and then make them return as undead warriors and somehow, those invincible killing machines with powers provided by the gods that only had to deal with the cost of being a bit tired after casting their spells (which could be countered by potion comsuption), managed to LOSE????
The setting also doesnt make a lot of sense in terms of how it developed. Theres no reason technology was such a sucess in the comercial districs and large metropolian regions, Magic gave people much larger productive value and flexibility to work. Are a detective? change people's minds and investigate, maybe ressurect the dead and ask them who were they killer. Need to work at a mine and would rather avoid spending too much time at it? cast haste and go at a ridiculously fast pace. Marketing? either charm your clients or use your own spells to make your appearence and persuasive abilities higher, thieves? a thief with the ability to be invisible is much better than a regular thief. need to move heavy objects on your shop? bitch i can send my Guardian ogres to do that. Medical assistence? i laugh.
The only possible way the setting could get even remotely close of justifying technological jobs being more frequent than magical ones, is the fact that you need to have magickal aptitude in order to become a mage, where as technology could be used by virtually anybody. However, this doesnt even work well since you can find mages everywhere in the game and instead of having international laws limiting the existence of technology and magick in the same region (or atleast regulation for how they can be in the same town), people can just freely exist and have shoppings and devices of technological or magickal nature everywhere in every town aside from Derholm and in-game we can se A LOT of them. which really makes you wonder how the fuck this even works.
But better than all of this is that not even the thing which ties the entire universe together and supposedly makes everything logical is consistent. The law of technology is natural, while Magickal is supernatural, Magick cannot subvert something so strongly based upon the laws of nature and as such, it cant work within its limits. However, the entire thing is incredibly arbitrary. At first, without reading the manual you can be lead to believe that technology overwhelms magick and as such it cant be cast within the presence of machines or people with more natural aptitude, this is due to the fact that even at shrouded hills, Jongle dunne will point out that he cant work because of the steam machinery at the town, which was interrupting his casting. However, when you pick a train ticket, the train conductor will point out to the fact that if you are a mage, you cant board the train or else it wont work which means that this probably points out to the game using a system in which for some reason not only living beings have an aptitude level, but the tech equipment and magickal equipment also have an aptitude level, this can be checked by buying armlets or Armor that are tech or magickal based (as the game directly points out an "Aptitude" level). This is nothing but arbitrary power creep in disguise, however, the funniest thing is that it doesnt even work correctly since:
1: At times, characters wont complain about tech and magick affecting each other even if they are extremely close and the equipments at show are of very high aptitude. Yes, Dunne Complained about the steam engine influencing his work at Shrouded hills despite being quite far of the equipment, however at places like tarant, you can buy your super powerful Charged rifle from a tech shop just to cross the avenue and find a mighty arcane elven armor and nobody complains!! (until your character steps at the shop of course. ohh nightmares!).
2: Some magick work at high aptitude people regardless of their nature. my 100% tech aptitude character can still stock up on teleport scrolls or exit scrolls and consistently cast them to get out of dungeons no problem, while my mage can go at tarant's most Technological location and cast desintegrate at everything and everyone that moves.
And i know that every game will have some nonsensical stuff and at times, devs do care more about in-game functions than logical cohesion and if it works at the game's world, then yes, i know that i shouldnt question that hard the simulational aspects of the game if my knife can kill an automatron or why my extremely low caliber pistol can murder an iron golem, nor why the hell my dog's teeth are stronger than a Shotgun on close range
However, theres basic elements which are things that are the basis for the setting and that are extremely important to understand and be logical in how they work in-setting in order to suspend your desbelief and immerse yourself within a world and more often than not, Arcanum tear throught those elements for nothing but the sheer desire to include new gameplay elements and quantity to the game, a good example being the Reanimator.
The spell users can mess with Ressurection, which as previously pointed out, resulted in a lot of problems with the believability of Cumbria's war. Worse than that, is that because the Game had the option of making a character return from the dead if they were spell users, obviously they needed to balance this out by giving you a tech option, right?
Here it is, a small vial that can make even the Bulkiest character be fresh again, no repercussions or cons. and its extremely cheap for what it does either, making it quite acessible even if its pretty much the elixir from the gods. The first time i found this i was VERY confused. How does this work? how could they engineer technology that could ressurect the dead, making it acessible even to the lowliest of the human lifes, people who have no way of casting spells, the common folk!!! which implications such a big thing have on the setting? why nobody in-game talks about it??? I knew the game didnt have in-game descriptions for equipment but i also knew that Schematics actually had a little description presenting how a particular tech works and well.... After 2 hours i spent trying to find that schematic, i finally put my eyes at its description, which reads as follows:
REANIMATOR:
"[This schematic is printed on a strange sort of paper, and looks to be very old. The writing is faded almost beyond recognition.] Experiments upon the life force..... regenerative chemical compounds...... unbelievable results...... completely revived and functioning normally..... advances.... Vendigrothian science......"
