Awhile ago, I ran a Fallout fan website which featured a new storyline, new direction, and new characters designed by myself and whoever wanted to contribute. At one point, several people gathered together to possibly bring that project to an actual unofficial sequel to the game. This was in the time before Fallout 3 was announced (I'm not even sure what came of that...), but also around the time just before the release of the very dissapointing strategy game spinoff, Brotherhood of Steel.
The fallout project was reassembled into a new, all original project, featuring some of the better elements returning from the Fallout one. I headed up this developement, created the new title and the new plot. Many dropped out due to personal quibbles, and eventually the project came to a stop, but not before I engineered a detailed layout of the land, mapping out many of the towns. The project is still very ambitious, and one day, when I have more resources at my disposel, I will ressurect it. It was a mixture of various game types, featuring at its core a mysterious quality leading the player on an epic adventure.
Anyway, after the fact, I'd played, enjoyed, and beat Arcanum. And decided to recreate one of the maps in the Arcanum World Editor. I completed the map, per say, with all the characters in their place, everything labelled, every location done, though some things didn't quite gel like the underground tunnels. Unfortunately, the latest version of the map I believe was in a zip file on a dvd that turns out to be corrupt. The good news, I think, is the parts of the map that would have been harder to redo were designed first, so recreating the rest of the map shouldn't be too hard if I ever want to try it.
What I have here are 5 screenshots from a 'somewhere in the middle' version of the map. (click on them for larger shots)
(http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/8403/badlands51gs.th.jpg) (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=badlands51gs.jpg)
This first image shows the private back area for special guests and the main space in one of the many bars that dominate this western themed town.
(http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/5628/badlands40yv.th.jpg) (http://img111.imageshack.us/my.php?image=badlands40yv.jpg)
You can see the herbal medicines place, which sort of has a greenhouse effect, plus a small minigarden out back. Next to it is an antique/book dealer.
(http://img328.imageshack.us/img328/5120/badlands36ya.th.jpg) (http://img328.imageshack.us/my.php?image=badlands36ya.jpg)
The robot outpost of Badlands
(http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/6281/badlands22da.th.jpg) (http://img110.imageshack.us/my.php?image=badlands22da.jpg)
Here we have the House of Self Defense, a combination weapon/armour shop with a training area (which is just off screen down). It has a very dungeonesque feel to the shop parts.
(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/5467/badlands14ej.th.jpg) (http://img59.imageshack.us/my.php?image=badlands14ej.jpg)
Finally, a miner's guild. Everything has specific names, but I don't have the files with all that on hand right now. The map is huge, in any case, and these are just samplings, not even including the best parts.
And, as you see, they aren't ingame, but from within the map editor. Long story short, but I only have 2 gigs accessable on my 80 gig harddrive, so I had to install Arcanum (over a gig) on another system to get these screenshots. That system being kind of slow. (And what I meant by, I only have 2 gigs accessable, I mean, since reinstalling, I literally only can access 2 gigs worth on that harddrive).
The map was never intended to be a complete game, just a way of filling out the town with a graphical representation to show off and act as a walkthrough for the town to get a better sense of it. It was made based on the map I drew, which, had to be changed in some portions due to the quarks of the World Editor. Still, it is a pretty faithful rendition. It was also meant to help place all the characters of the town down to a specific location, as many were listed in the town but weren't specifically locked down to anywhere yet. This isn't really evident now since they would have been in the later versions of the map.
I was wondering if anyone else tried their hand in designing maps for Arcanum? I just started work on my own AGS game, starting on the first room soon. I have the interface completed, along with a crappy animated lead character. The one thing I noticed comparing the two is, Arcanum is a great way of designing if you don't have very much graphical capability, but AGS is better in terms of ease with dialogue and original design. Still, I'd like to have an actual RPG system for AGS to use, as I'd like to design a real RPG for it.
Thoughts?
Well, I don't know how massive you can make anything in AGS considering, say, the size of each single room in Fallout, but as regards an actual RPG system for AGS, it's there. Or at least it will be, if you make it, because you certainly can make it.
I've got an original RPG system on paper, but I imagine it would require extensive programming to get it right. Not only that, but integrating the values into a workable gameworld. Too much of a longterm project for myself...
Still, the only thing I've seen resembling an RPG for AGS is this one game that, frankly, I can't comment on for lack of anything nice to say about it. Needless to say, it wasn't good. But it is obvious AGS can extend beyond the Adventure genre, as evidence by the person who made the fighting game, side scroller, and the shooting engines.