WHERE DID RPING GO, AND WHY?

Infinite resources? Or at least negligible limit to them?

I would definitely try to include as much role-play aspect as possible, while still maintaining a reasonable structured game. Give players choices that matter, let them design the characters they use, but at the same time make a cohesive plot that moves forward and continues to move forward throughout. The problem with some games with too much freedom is there is never really any reason to move forward. A game, even a tabletop game, is meant to have a goal or mission. That's my stance at least.

author=cho
arcanum is fucking godawful

i don't give a shit about "RPing"/this topic but i feel the need to point out that it is a piece of shit "game" because yes it is a great medium for you to pretend to be a borderline-retarded orc who rips wolves in half, but not to have fun

examples, sources, citations please
since that is some peoples' definition of "fun"

author=Hoddmimir
You obviously feel very strongly on this matter...

Not strongly enough to explain why, provide examples, cite a bad review, etc

as usual

Yeah, it's fun to have roleplaying in a roleplaying computer game, but I personally don't like too much roleplaying in it. I kind of like the story model where you are roleplaying, but a specific character in a specific story. This is why I lean twords jRPGs. I don't mind little-to-no roleplaying even, but the game still has to be fun overall.

I did like Fall/oblivion/: New Vegas though. Can't wait for Skyrim to disappoint fans and crash five times a minute on my PC and yet somehow still be fun.

author=Jericho
arcanum is a bad game. cool setting (or at least it was until steampunk was taken into nerd culture and made even more stupid) horrible gameplay. Want to use guns? Too bad! They're entirely garbage! Every character should be a mage! Enjoy your steampunk game!

On the other hand that's the "game" talking. The game is entirely (and fairly easily) beatabe with a gunslinger. Just because it's easier as a mage doesn't take away the possibility to roleplay as a gunslinger. Basically the game is badly balanced and if you are a powergamer who wants to have the "best build" then guns are not an option. But if you just want to beat the game and not really worry about best builds and whatnot the game is still pretty easy even without being a mage.

Of course this means the game is pretty bad challenge-wise (except if you count constant crashes to desktops as challenge...).

I also can't actually speak for the magic vs guns. Because in both my playthroughs I went for a bit of a mix. In one I went for a healer that excelled in both magical healing and mechanical healing. And skill healing (if there was such a thing I can't remember). Of course she wasn't as effective as a pure healer of any sort but she was awesome enough to beat the game. In my other playthrough I went as a technological half-orc close combat guy. Which meant I went down the technology scale but never actually did any of the guns. (of course guns are a problem in every game where most enemies basically rush you and are in close combat within one turn. Ranged weapon generally are fairly useless in most infinity engine games too. Except that you can control your party and lock up fighters with enemies and shoot at them from behind... or something... What I'm trying to say is that Arcanum's battle system was shit but at least it didn't take long to kill stuff and get to the next awesome bits.)

author=Versalia

author=cho
arcanum is fucking godawful

i don't give a shit about "RPing"/this topic but i feel the need to point out that it is a piece of shit "game" because yes it is a great medium for you to pretend to be a borderline-retarded orc who rips wolves in half, but not to have fun

examples, sources, citations please
since that is some peoples' definition of "fun"

Why push others to explain their opinion as if they could be swayed upon realizing "Well, I hate the game because... hmm... Because I... err... I don't know. Perhaps I don't, really. I'll give it another shot." If I said that I don't like the taste of chocolate, would anyone who enjoys chocolate really approach me and say, "Geez! Why don't you like chocolate? You know it's actually good for you in some slight way, right?"

bahleted