Unofficial Arcanum Patch (Original Thread)

[Dementia Praecox]

Maybe it's connected with crappy optimization of the engine (the game was pretty slow on rigs of its time), but they at least could include the option to switch off sprite mirroring. I wonder, what Leonard Boyarsky has to say about this.

Haha! That's hilarious. You really should contact him and inquire. He has a rarely used forum account here too, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Dementia Praecox]

Edit: I'm an impatient fuck.

 

[TheLostOne]

Click submit ONCE and WAIT you impatient fuck.

 

[nik2008ofs]

Thank you for your efforts Drog, I really admire your patience on undertaking this project.

I don't mean to be a contrary cunt, but Arcanum is both buggy and lacking in gameplay balance, an unofficial fix 7 years after official release will hardly change that fact. Just saying...

i see no reason why a summoned familiar shouldn't be allowed to wait outside in the pit fight. Having to kill it by whatever means is simply not fun, and therefore should be fixed if possible.

 

[Krancor]

Make sure to fix the 'balanced sword'. It's ludicrously fast. It's available int he first towna nd it's the best melee weapon in the game.

The tech gadgets in general are in dire need of straightening out, but that is the worst offender.

I'd argue that is more of a game balance issue than a bug.

It's a bug...in the balance. It obviously needs fixing.

 

[Ander Vinz]

I wonder, what Leonard Boyarsky has to say about this.

Don't be shy and ask him when you have more questions.
http://www.leonardboyarsky.com/
If you get lucky and somehow will be able to arrange interview with him you can greatly improve you reputation by mentioning that you're working for prestigious RPGCodex magazine.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

If you get lucky and somehow will be able to arrange interview with him you can greatly improve you reputation by mentioning that you're working for prestigious RPGCodex magazine.

At least you'll make him laugh harder than he has ever done, which isn't a bad start.

 

[Shota Shernokavich]

Speaking of the cut out content, there was one thing that shocked me the most. I think, most of you noticed, that the game actually mirrors sprites of critters and all objects. For example when a critter is facing right it loads the same frame as when it would look left, but mirrored. When I first got the game, I thought that they were just low on space and didn't render those frames. But they actually did... As I looked through all art files, every critter, every object, even goddamn chair has frames for facing all 8 directions. They're just unused. HALF OF THE FRAMES ARE UNUSED. This is so wrong, I almost cried.

oh my god. have you found a way to implement the frames into worlded?

 

[Kingston]

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Quilty]

@Drog Black Tooth: I salute you for your efforts, since I'm a huge Arcanum fan, and would really like to see the fixes you mention implemented in the game via your patch. And although I can't offer you my help, I sincerely hope you succeed.

 

[Ander Vinz]

Hey you, lazy fucks! You can help him with your bug reports, suggestions and moral support by commenting his progress.

 

[Slylandro]

(1) Yes, it is an instakill spell, but that doesn't preclude it having a reasonable save. You have to wonder, if even on save it does 15,000 damage, does it seem likely that this was the intended behavior? Keep in mind that it's not as if all Arcanum damage spells have saves, harm doesn't for example. If they wanted disintegrate to always kill, why bother having a save at all? Given this lack of logic and the inconsistency with the manual (which says you can survive disintegrate, correct me if I'm wrong), I would say it is very likely that Disintegrate has a bug. To me it seems more of a question what is the correct fix than anything. But if this is not a very convincing argument I won't push any further since I'm not the one who has to hex edit the game.

Yes, I just checked, a critter with 20 of constitution was instantly killed, no difference. But what do you propose? It's actually strange, you see, a critter can save against Dominate Will for example, if it has high willpower (the spell won't work at all), but it doesn't save against Disintergrate with high constitution. The damage is just too high to save, I guess.

(2) My preferred solution to this would be to force the familiar to the top, outside ledge of the pit for the duration of the fight (eg let it be a neutral observer that hangs outside the pit) and then let it rejoin the party automatically when the player is completely done (note btw that the familiar does not count towards the party limit so you shouldn't have much error checking to do). If this is not possible, then don't worry about it. I agree that the familiar counts as a separate entity from the caster and that you should have to enter the pit without it.

The pit is a different map, and when player teleports to different map all his followers do the same. I can add a dialog to familiar, so it can wait outside, but again, does it make sense? I'm not sure, what other people think about this issue?

(1) I think that all the evidence so far points to the save preventing all damage, not halving it. Here's a (shoddy) copy of the manual online (I don't know if you have it still?): http://www.iowadsl.net/leagary/Georgie/ ... manual.pdf . See page 91 and tell me what you think. Either the programmer got it wrong or the game manual writer got it wrong and I'm inclined to think it's more likely the programmer got it wrong given that "halving" to 15,000 damage makes no sense.

(2) No, the familiar can't speak. So a dialog wouldn't really make sense, I think. Is there any way to essentially forcibly dismiss the familiar from the party once the dialog option initiating the pit fight is chosen, so that when the player is teleported to the new map the familiar doesn't follow, and then when the player is done and teleported back out of the pit, the familiar is re-joined automatically? It doesn't sound like something that would be terribly hard to script but I don't know how good the Arcanum scripting facility is.

 

[Murk]

I'd definitely like to know about the content that wasn't added to the final game. I always find those things interesting because usually they are pretty cool.

I second this.

I also defintiely agree on the disintegrate issue. It's save is pointless, it should be a "save or die" spell basically with at least a decent chance of survival. Given these types of spells are basically supposed to work on a 50/50 or "unlikely" chance scenario it seems silly to essentially give an ultimate attack like that with really no downside to use it (other than fatigue loss).

 

[Gragt]

Very nice project, I give you all my encouragement. If needed I can always reinstall the game and test stuff provided I get a savegame or I can reach a state more or less easily (well if it takes time I can always try it, it isn't like I have a lot to do) though I'm sure others offered for that. I would do more but I'm afraid my skills are limited in that area.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

(1) I think that all the evidence so far points to the save preventing all damage, not halving it. Here's a (shoddy) copy of the manual online (I don't know if you have it still?): http://www.iowadsl.net/leagary/Georgie/ ... manual.pdf . See page 91 and tell me what you think. Either the programmer got it wrong or the game manual writer got it wrong and I'm inclined to think it's more likely the programmer got it wrong given that "halving" to 15,000 damage makes no sense.

(2) No, the familiar can't speak. So a dialog wouldn't really make sense, I think. Is there any way to essentially forcibly dismiss the familiar from the party once the dialog option initiating the pit fight is chosen, so that when the player is teleported to the new map the familiar doesn't follow, and then when the player is done and teleported back out of the pit, the familiar is re-joined automatically? It doesn't sound like something that would be terribly hard to script but I don't know how good the Arcanum scripting facility is.

1) I got it. It seems that constitution resist is poorly programmed in the game. I changed the spell's save to willpower and it works! If a critter has high willpower, it effectively saves against disintegrate, no damage taken at all. It also may be that constitution resist is programmed to reduce the damage instead of canceling the spell altogether, but even after doing the damage, the spell is programmed to destroy the target. For example, I set the damage only to 30, a critter survived, but was destroyed a second later (OF_DONTDRAW flag). So, yeah, the only thing I can do is to change the spell save to a will power based one. Should I?
2) It's not as easy as it sounds. I think, I'll need to put a trigger near the pit to check for it. I'll think about it.

2All
Thank you for your warm comments and support. Also, please report anything that seemed wrong to you in the game.

EDIT: Added new fixes to changelog.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Ander Vinz]

Is there any way to restore this beauty?

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Is there any way to restore this beauty?

It's impossible to restore without heavy reverse-engineering or access to the game's source code, I'm afraid.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Damn, that sucks. Who is in the position to release the source code? Sierra? Former Troika staff (unlikely)? Maybe we should ask them nicely, since Arcanum is long out of print and everything?

 

[Trash]

Great to hear someone is still working on that wonderfull game. It's been ages since I played it so I can't really recall that much about bugs and stuff. I'm wondering if you're going to try to address the balance problems and restore some of the cut content?



PS Have you allready visited the terra-arcanum forums? There are a number of people creating new content for arcanum. They might have some advice.

 

[Ander Vinz]

Who is in the position to release the source code? Sierra? Maybe we should ask them nicely, since Arcanum is long out of print and everything?

Write a letter to Sierra then. But you should be able to convince then that it's their interest to do such thing.

to Drog Black Tooth:
I've uninstalled DrA's fixpack and now playing vanilla Arcanum. Care to release your fixpack as is and let us use it both for pleasure and reporting bugs?

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Who is in the position to release the source code? Sierra? Maybe we should ask them nicely, since Arcanum is long out of print and everything?

Write a letter to Sierra then. But you should be able to convince then that it's their interest to do such thing.

That's a task I would leave to a native speaker, thank you.

There is a bug I want to report, Drog: sometimes Kerghan attacks your party even if you talk him out of his plan.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I've uninstalled DrA's fixpack and now playing vanilla Arcanum. Care to release your fixpack as is and let us use it both for pleasure and reporting bugs?

Yes, since nobody reports bugs, I was thinking about just releasing it as is and seeing what happens.

Oh, well, I still know 2 major bugs, I'll fix them and release the patch later today. Please look forward to it!

 

[Ander Vinz]

Yes, since nobody reports bugs, I was thinking about just releasing it as is and seeing what happens.

What about asking for bugs in more Arcanum-oriented place? Like here?
There are lots of interesting fixes from a person called jfkoski there. [example]
Note: I've found it ater 1-minute search, there must be more and more interesting things.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Yes, since nobody reports bugs, I was thinking about just releasing it as is and seeing what happens.

What about asking for bugs in more Arcanum-oriented place? Like here?

I know about that forum. And I know that RPGCodex is a better place for my project. Of course, they may post a topic about my patch over there at Terra-Arcanum and send bug reports here.

Anyway, I'm releasing the patch now. I'm packing it and writing readme. I'll edit the first post when I'm done.