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Sharky Extreme: The story can be played with a lot of different character types. How different of a game will the player experience with a different character. Obviously the half-orge can fight better but no one wants to talk to him. Is there a perfectly balanced character?
Leonard Boyarsky: There is a chance that the fans will eventually hit upon a character that they feel is the optimum to play the game with, but we're hoping it will never be that clear cut. What is much more likely is that there will emerge an “optimum” character type for a mage, a thief, a technologist, a warrior, a diplomat, etc. But even then there might be argument….
Sharky Extreme: One thing that we were able to see in the previewable beta is that this game doesn't close players into a single path but instead the world is open and players can go just about anywhere. How populated with "stuff" will the final game be and how hard was it to create such an expansive world?
Leonard Boyarsky: Actually, we're surprised ourselves at just how many locations and how much “stuff” we've managed to cram into our world. There are still a lot of open areas, though, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a hidden surprise or two in the wilderness somewhere.
It has been quite a challenge to not only create a huge world, but a huge open-ended world. The fact that there are so many ways to play through so many quests becomes overwhelming to us designers, at times.
Sharky Extreme: Where did the notion of using waypoints come from to make travel easier? It sort of allows players to make their own way without the game feeling so scripted?
Leonard Boyarsky: I don't actually remember where the idea came from; it is something we just always assumed we'd have.
Sharky Extreme: How many side-adventures, red herrings, and other sub-plots can the player expect to encounter?
Leonard Boyarsky: Egads….I think at last count we had over one hundred fifty full quests (including the main story arc) and that doesn't count things like rumors and other things you might find in the game that aren't “quests”. With the way our main story arc weaves its way through the world, it is hard to fully separate out the main story arc from the “side quests”. If memory serves correctly, I think there is something like seventy quests involved in the main story.
Sharky Extreme: Can you give any hints on what is behind the bigger story? Virgil, a rather strange man, meets the player's character just after the crash. What do we learn about Virgil and what else can you tell?
Leonard Boyarsky: All I can say is that the main story involves the history of Arcanum, and how the world went from a fantasy world to an industrial one is a backdrop to the main story. Players will find a lot of things in Arcanum that aren't what they seem at first glance, and Virgil is one of those things. His story is separate from the main story, but has its own twists and turns. Before the game is over you will learn a lot about Virgil, and how he came to be where and what he is. Virgil's personality also changes during the game as he goes through a lot of character building, some of which depens on the choices the PC makes.
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