Thoughts about Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura? (Never played it)

I can make this happen... when my giveaways are received

Got nothing else to spend these 6 euros on anyway :p

Make some

Right now, when I am writing this, there were 9 copies of this given away, including one fully public.

Nice shadow begging.

I played a lot of it (retail copy), but never managed to beat it

Classic. One of the best RPG ever (role play, man! not just kill those goblins to get xp). Made by people who created Fallout. Very cool technomagic setting.
Damn, I love this game

I had a retail copy. It had a very cool setting and lots of original ideas and was certainly memorable and influential, but as a game I personally don't think it overall rated that well against other well known RPGs of the time. I felt the battle system was a little broken and exploitable - and although that and appalling enemy AI made it easy to progress the games bugs made it difficult to actually achieve things. Graphics were already a little dated on release and the sound and music were poor. It's something I'd love to see a 'remastered' version of but I'm less enthusiastic looking at this Steam release.

I just hope it won't be a public lvl 0+ GA xD

And a week or two long. :D

One of my favourite happenings from Arcanum:
Start Half-ogre battlemage who fights with bare fists for fun. Take max str, some dexterity, melee, and dex + str boosting spells. Buffed up myself, went after a small, young wolf. In Arcanum, skill level is different from expertise - you need to find teachers who are willing to give you the required knowledge, giving a (usual) non-number boost. Like in this case, apprentice melee = no critical fails. Well, I didn't have it. Critically failing at kicking the wolf (animation against small creatures) I critically hit and killed myself - and as gore was on, that meant that my head just rolled off from my shoulders. So, in a nutshell: I wanted to kick a wolf, and missed so hard, I decapitated and killed myself.
I'm curious how many other stuff did I miss in the game, as I barely knew english when I started playing it, I was so young :D

The soundtrack is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3JtaNaaG_w&ab_channel=CaseofGlass

I loved this game back in the day. I'm trying to decide if I want the Sierra bundle to get this game or if I'm just going to get it off Steam. I did several different character types, and some things are broken (as in you can make your character super powerful).

Speaking of stories, one of my favorite characters that I played was a high elf swordsman/time magician. Basically, I took a high elf and maxed his strength and dex. Then I learned time magic that allowed me to cast haste and a spell (if I remember correct) called Tempus Fugit which further increased the character's speed and decreased everyone elses. Basically, with all this going on, if a fight started with a group of enemies, the character's speed was fast enough that he'd be able to run up and kill everyone before they had a chance to move.

Wonderful world, great soundtrack, very atmospheric, lots of freedom makes it a wonderful game...
... but the bugs, terrible balance and the end part of the game does leave a bitter taste.

I've owned this on GOG for a long time. I love it, it has one of the most unique character systems I've seen in an RPG, but be careful, it is possible to create a bad character that makes it impossible or very hard to finish the game with . You can pick it up over on GOG for a buck and change when it goes on sale,. I didn't know it was on Steam.

I have it on GoG, played it some, but found that the promise (and developer pedigree) was higher than the actual game. It has everything you'd expect from a huge CRPG, lots of choices, tonnes of dialogue, exploration etc, but to me the whole package seemed too mechanical, it didn't really click for me to start caring for what was happening.

Still, it entertained me for a long time, which is more than most games can boast :)

1. I have this game on gog, love it, but it's definitely for fans of traditional isometric rpgs (especially Fallout) and steampunk. It's a wonderfully deep, rich, atmospheric game.

2. Your poll is too exclusive since I think 90% of the people who would recommend this game own it elsewhere. I had no idea it was even on Steam but it was one of the first games I bought on gog in like 2009.

I have it on GOG and I also played it. To enjoy it to its fullest I recommend installing the various unofficial bugfixes and restored content patches you can find googling around (or just look in the GOG forums, or wait for this topic to pop up in the Steam forums). You can also find user-made story modules and other things like a mod to add a car and additional content.

I say, it was quite amusing playing a gunslinger dwarf with various degrees in technical sciences.

Can't vote coz it's not in my library - But I still own the original Disks (Too scratched to play) but game was so good I refuse to get rid of them. It has to be one of the best early 'Steampunk' games ever made, and it's a MUST play for anyone who enjoys rpgs/steampunk.

It is one of the best games ever. I have more hours on this game than almost any other. I played it over 5 years. For an RPG it has the best character creation system ever. I would play through the first town over and over with other character to see the differences. Plus, best episode in a follower's tale ever. hands down.

Love it.

The game is hard af, I've played it for a few hours, and it's steep. You'll need alot of patience (and luck, since you can kill someone who is needed to progress and the game won't tell you that if he's dead, for example).

for me it was a bit overwhelming at first but will try it again some time.

If you have played Fallout 1 and 2 you can get the idea. It's basically Fallout in steampunk-y world(not pure steampunk, because it has magic). So you get lots of freedom, many ways to develop your character(no class system), freedom of tackling any quest(multiple ways of solving pretty much any quest). That's it.

In short - badass RPG. My physical copy shares the shelf with Fallout games.

It's like the other two Troika games - would be among the best RPGs ever created if not for the huge amount of game breaking bugs.

Definitely worth it. Especially for the laughs at times and the atmosphere.

Just be VERY careful on your choice at the brothel.

Don't play as a gun user. They're woefully underpowered.

Very Nice game. I finished it

I have the retail version and it's fun. :3

You can do a lot of stuff like crafting powerful items from blueprints you find/buy, steal elven tombstones from burial sites. It has a combat system similar to Fallout Tactics (you can switch between real time and turn based although it is kind of buggy and combat tends to hang and it forces you to cycle through the available combat modes to get it moving again).

There are also some interesting tid bits like the orcish thugs in ghettos leaving you alone when you play a muscular ogre or elves outright hating you when you play as an orc. The journal is also nice that it reflects your characters intelligence, there are loads of spelling errors when playing a character with low intelligence for example.

Character customization has a lot of ways to grow your character: You want to be a diplomat who can talk his way out of almost any situation? Yep, you can do that. You can also be a warrior who relies on cold steel to do the talking or a spell slinging mage? Got ya covered. Did i also mention that the game has guns? Although i don't recommend them when also using magic because that can cause critical failures when using those items/spells and you don't want that. :3

Be warned though, the game is fairly buggy and i recommend installing the fan patch asap.

My first playthrough as a warrior took me about 20-25 hours to finish.

Oh, and the game has an awesome soundtrack, it really underlines the atmosphere of the game.