Tim Cain interview at The Greyhawk Chronicles

[Markman]

Another TOEE interview at Homelan http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=11357

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Hmm, why? I bought the Arcanum rerelease a few months ago, it came with a useless piece of shit 10 page manual-wannabe, it wasn't of any use, but you didn't need really the manual to play the game anyway.

pity then as the manual in the release I got (when the game came out) was huge and well done. Full of all the stuff that makes a manual fun to read (info on the world, the races, as well as how-to info) and presented in the style of the game. Personally I really enjoy a good in depth manual and Arcanum's was great.

isn't there a pdf on your disc with the manual? that would probalby be the full manual.

one *almost* never needs the manual but I enjoy reading a good manual nonetheless.

 

[Akilae]

I love pretty manuals too, actually, I even wonder why they gave up stuffing game boxes with all the freebies, like Infocom used to. Remember that Border Zone came with a train Schedule, a map, a touristic guide, an english-frobnian phrase book and some ads for local touristic shops. The games that relie on ambiance to catch the player should use tricks like that to get the player in their world even before he actually started to play. Imagine if fallout had been packaged with two Iode pills and a fancy card that changes color when it has taken to much rads. Or just a few bottle caps and vault tek ad...

Arcanum manual was great but some jerk forgot to put a table of content in it, I must say I ended up pretty pissed off when i had to look for stuff like the bonus for having 20 in charisma.

By the way has anyone tried one of the recipies from the fallout manuals ?

 

[Spazmo]

I once tried the "Big One Pancake" from the Fallout 2 manual.

It tasted awful.

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Spazmo]

I would say that PDF = better than nothing.

 

[Akilae]

I love cool manuals too, I was just saying that the lack of manual certainly didn't make Arcanum suck

That's true, what I meant was that people who didn't knew about aimed shots because they didn't read tha manual.

PDF = teh suk

That's true too. Actually Adobe Acrobat is a piece of software designed for page-setting and such. I still dont get why why they stick to that crap anyway. Oh yeah, I know it's scanner-friendly, they can just scan the manuals and they're done, lazy bastards.

I once tried the "Big One Pancake" from the Fallout 2 manual.

Yeah, I bet Fallout 1 stuff tastes much better . Wanna taste iguana bites, Bob style ?

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Akilae]

Heh... didn't know about aimed shots

See ? Told ya...

Now, when Arcanum came out, the word about the combat being simple was out, and didn't represent a great advertisement for the game. As a matter of fact, while reading the manual you'll see how the Arcanum rule set was far more subtle than it seemed at the first sight.

Concerning PDF format; since most of the games use PDF manuals only when they reach the 15-bucks-poor-man's-collection, it means that the manual was written and printed for long enought to let the publisher hire some student for almost nothing to put it in HTML for instance.

It couldn't be worst than PDF anyway

 

[Elwro]

Person A
Hey we just sent out the press copies. Lets release the game.
Person B No no localization . We need 3 months then we will release it.
Person A But its gonna be copied like hell.
Person B No no don't worry . Person B to Person A

Look i know that you are new here but here we do as the boss says .
They said localisation first no matter . You want to have problems with the boss ?

Person A Ehh of course not . Localisation as the boss says

Yeah, something similar happened to Morrowind in Poland.. I have to say that Arcanum was released in a wonderful way - there's a bonus CD with the localisation; no one is forced to use it and it didn't cause a big delay.. But could you believe it that Morrowind was released (translated) on the 4th of December? No wonder no one seems to be buying it

 

[Dan]

I really liked the Arcanum manual.
I actually used the notes section.
I wanted to try the recipe, but I didn't find any Cumbrian cinnamon.

As for called shots, I knew about them but didn't really use them as I didn't see much difference.

 

[Jed]

My tech/gunsmith was all about targeted shots.

J

 

[TimCain]

For Cumbrian cinnamon, you can substitute regular cinnamon. No one but halflings can tell the difference anyway.

 

[Azael]

Those mushrooms from the Fallout manuals are tasty, and the image next to the recipe is the most wicked in the entire manual.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That recipe is actually a recipe Tim Cain put in there, because he likes making mushroom snack thingies or something along those lines. Of course, that's probably why the Vault Boy in that picture looks like Tim Cain.

 

[Azael]

That recipe is actually a recipe Tim Cain put in there, because he likes making mushroom snack thingies or something along those lines. Of course, that's probably why the Vault Boy in that picture looks like Tim Cain.

Yep, isn't the recipe even called something like Tim Cain's favorite mushrooms?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I don't remember. I try not to think to much when it comes to eating fungus. It's been a long time since Chris Taylor told me the story of that recipe, too.

 

[Spazmo]

They're called mushroom clouds or something to that effect.

 

[Dan]

For Cumbrian cinnamon, you can substitute regular cinnamon. No one but halflings can tell the difference anyway.

But it just won't have that halfing feel to it anymore...