Arcanum Text Review Work

(Status as of 2020-07-01 21:02:44-0400)

The plan is ultimately for this work to appear in Drog Black Tooth's Unofficial Arcanum Patch; watch there for a formal release.

Grammatical, punctuation, and formatting consistency changes I've made:

• There's always been grammar issues and spelling issues scattered all throughout text visible to the player. (Things like "Its"/"It's" and "Your"/"You're" confusion, missing punctuation, missing words, uncapitalized names, use of commas where semicolons would be more appropriate, and the like.) I've been going through all the "generic" text (books, log entries, rumors, item descriptions, et cetera) and fixed such issues when and where I could find them and when it seemed appropriate ("dumb" lines were an exception, for example). Where stylistically appropriate, I have also done this for NPC conversations and player responses.
• In keeping with the standard used by the RPG Codex Forums grammar correction project, I have favored American English forms of words ("color" vs "colour", "paralyzed" vs "paralysed", "armor" vs "armour", etc.), except in place names. (This is partly because the game was done by Americans and so they were more commonly used, and partly because I'm American myself and so am more familiar with those forms.)
• I am a devout and dedicated believer in the supremacy of the Oxford Comma and insisted on its inclusion where possible and/or helpful (and where I happened to notice it missing).
• Text visible to the player goes back and forth between two spaces after sentence end and one space after sentence end. I've normalized it to one space.
• Paragraphs in books and newspaper stories and the like have a number of inconsistencies as to whether or not paragraphs are line-separated or indented, and sometimes some lines are double-indented or indented when they shouldn't be or not indented when they should be and/or any number of similar errors. I've made an effort to make books internally consistent in paragraph division, and changed all newspapers to indented paragraphs.
• Books which have their title as the description are inconsistent as to whether or not the title is quoted or not; the majority lack quotes. I have therefore removed the quotes from them all.
• Ellipses are done a tad inconsistently - sometimes spaces between every dot, sometimes no spaces whatsoever, sometimes spaces before or after where they might not be appropriate, and even in some very rare occasions using the actual Windows CP1252 ellipsis character. I've standardized on that last.
• Em dashes - long dashes used for abrupt interruptions and/or parenthetical asides like this one here - are done rather inconsistently in the text. Most of the time they're done with double-dashes, and sometimes with a single dash surrounded by spaces. I've standardized on the actual typographical character, as there's support for it in Arcanum fonts (albeit using Windows CP1252 character encoding...).
• Speaking of use of special typographical characters in Windows CP1252 - all player-facing text uses curly quotes and apostrophes now.
• Repeated exclamation points have been trimmed down in number. Likewise for repeated question marks.

Content consistency and correction changes I've made:

• As a general rule in conversations, if discrepancies are found between male and female lines that DON'T correspond to honorifics or other gendered terms ("sir" versus "madam", "you are a man" versus "you are a woman", et cetera) or obvious story/character differences (Raven's early flirting with a male PC, some of the comments by Madam Lil's girls, et cetera), I have revised these to be consistent. In general, I have favored the male line, as edits seem to have gone to it first and the female lines were a bit of an afterthought. (That theory is backed up by some cases in which generated greeting text redirects would show proper redirects in the male line, but broken ones in the female line from when response options were added and lines renumbered accordingly.)
• I've made some token effort to standardize bracketed emote/action lines ("[Laughing]", "[She does so-and-so.]", et cetera). The rule of thumb I've been using is that if it's a sentence fragment or mid-sentence, it's left alone, and if it's able to stand on its own, I capitalize the sentence start and make sure it's properly punctuated and grammatical. In some rare cases this has involved turning an all-but-complete sentence that's bracketed ("[looks at you, seething]") into a complete one ("[She looks at you, seething.]").
• Log entries usually use first-person perspective ("I should do"). Quest entries usually use second-person perspective ("You should do"). Exceptions exist for both (examples: variants on the Caladon assassination quest entry in the logbook, and the Bregho/Arbalah/Farkhus quest entries). I've opted to standardize on first-person perspective for all the log and quest entries.
• The Crash Site altar had text that was significantly different from what Virgil says; the same was also true of the log entry that's added upon viewing the altar. I've changed it to Virgil's reading (or, in the case of "dumb" log entries, a (ahem) variant on Virgil's reading). (See below under "things left unchanged" for more difficulties with this quote.)
• For consistency's sake, all references to the skill of pickpocketing have been changed to use the more accurate single-word sense ("pickpocket" instead of "pick pocket"), with the exception of "dumb" dialog lines which can do whatever the heck they like.
• For consistency's sake, the terms for three races now always use hyphens - "half-orc", "half-ogre", and "half-elf" instead of "half orc", "half ogre", and "half elf". Also, as we're favoring American English, the "an" in "an half-[anything]" has been changed to "a" (with the exception of one particular voiced character, due to that voiced accent).
• While the overwhelming majority of log entries for rumors have some way of indicating the city in which those rumors were heard, some lack this (the Thieves Underground ones are particularly egregious in this matter). I've changed this so that all rumors (except the "dumb" ones) have at least some indicator of their origin.
• In a few obscure corners, Necromantic Black and Necromantic White colleges are referred to as Evil and Good Necromancy. I've changed those to Black and White to be consistent with the rest of the game.
• A few locations in Tarant used to have addresses on their signs that were removed for some reason (examples include Madam Lil's and the Bates Estate); I've restored them.
• The payment note from the Tarantian to Regina Halster is authorized by one "A.S. Wright, Senior Editor", but the senior editor's name is Victor. I've changed it to "V.S." instead.
• The note the Willenbecker Gang sends to William Thorndop is signed "Jessep Willenbecker", but there's nobody by that name I can find. The gang is led by one Edward Willenbecker, so I've changed the note's signature to that name.
• Two of the NPC "retreat from combatant" lines make reference to being injured: "Please, the pain! Show mercy!" and "Please don't hurt me anymore!" Unfortunately, "retreat from combatant" lines occur any time an NPC desires to run away, whether they have been injured or not. I have therefore edited these lines accordingly.
• Humans and dwarves asked about Thanatos describe it as being "to the east". I've changed it to the correct direction.
• "Examine" dialogues that pop up when hovering over something, when they're showing text written on that object, are inconsistent as to whether or not they state that the object has that text, or just show that text. I've changed all such examples I could find to the former, with the exception of most gravestones (as I didn't want to interfere with the fan graveyard).
• Under some circumstances (it appears to be if Virgil isn't in your party and you say you were on the blimp) the stranger at the crash site may ask you if you'd talked to Preston Radcliffe before he died... immediately after you tell him you spoke to Radcliffe before he died. I've edited the PC response so it matches the dialog better.
• Constable Owens had some responses that didn't follow from prompts; edits have been made to address this.
• The city between Tarant and Dernholm is most commonly referred to as "Black Root", but occasionally also gets named as "Backroot". As the former is more common, I've changed all the latter references to the former for consistency.
• If prices are explicitly quoted, they are quoted in "gold pieces" or "coins". In some cases, folks would use "coin" as a plural: "500 coin" or similar. I have changed these to use the actual plural of "coins".
• The logbook entry for who to contact for Spot Trap master training puts Frederick T. Fitzgerald in "a room in the Bridesdale Inn in Tarant". He's never actually there, and nobody referring to him ever states he's there, so I've modified this to merely noting that he's in Tarant (which is what Expert trainers will tell you).
• Pelonious Schuyler was not the founder of P. Schuyler and Sons, according to Winston Schuyler. The founder was Pelonious' father (Winston's grandfather); Pelonious was one of the "and Sons" along with his brother. One would therefore presume that the founder's first name also started with a P, but Winston gives it as "Basil". Since said founder is only ever explicitly named the one time (by Winston), I've renamed him for consistency's sake (I went with "Phineas"), and transferred the name of "Basil" to the aforementioned previously unnamed brother of Pelonious/uncle of Winston.
• Alexander the Acolyte, when asked about Saint Mannox (by a normal-intelligence PC), will give a short description of the man, and then the PC will have the option to ask "What do you mean, his 'ascension'?" Unfortunately, Alexander never mentioned ascension, or anything like it - and doesn't do so until AFTER he's asked by the PC. I edited his short description to fix this, borrowing from his lines on Mannox to a dumb PC (in which he does mention ascension).
• okay so when you get rite in lawg book thing aftur storys bout how Kergun guy an Gorgofotrogof get bandished and stuff there wuz RILLY SMRT stuff in dumb book and that silly but it wrong. I rote new unz!
• The Tarant Librarian, when dealing with a dumb character, will (with considerable agitation on her part) say she's handing over a copy of Horror Among The Dark Elves. But she isn't; she's handing over a copy of The Curse Of T'sen-Ang, like she does with a normal-intelligence character. I've edited the line accordingly.
• Gunther Willhelm, when he introduces himself to the PC, starts his response with "You might", as if he was asked "Might I ask your name?". The PC question, however, is "And who are you, sir?". I've taken the liberty of editing the PC question to match Gunther's response.
• If you ask some citizens in Tarant about Bates, they can go on to tell you about Appleby, but they give his address as "1 Low Dervish Way". I've put in the actual address of "29 Low Dervish Row".
• Typically, when one has a multiline passage (such as from a poem or song) but one is condensing it to a single line, one inserts forward slashes (/) between each line. The generic headstones instead used a mishmash of asterisks and commas and/or didn't bother, so I've made them consistent in this regard.
• The various magickal college masters, with one exception, all hand you a medallion from around their neck when you opt to pursue mastery in their college. And yet in later conversation, they refer to "the medallion I created for you." The Master of Water does have a medallion "suddenly appear" in their hand, so maybe that was the original intention, but all of the masters clearly have the medallions equipped beforehand, so I've standardized to having all of them take that medallion off their neck, and refer to "the medallion I gave you".
• Said masters also, if you delay in pursuing mastery after they hand you the medallion, direct you to "arches located at the heart of Tulla" rather than the hall portal that you're supposed to go to. This has been corrected.
• Oh, and the magick masters also have subtly different ways of asking whether or not you wish to pursue mastery and how they ask the "are you sure" followup, and frequently PC affirmative responses were inappropriate (e.g. "Yes, I do" in response to "Does this interest you?" and the like). I've corrected the responses accordingly.
• From all appearances, if you asked Sebastian about the Isle of Thanatos while on there, he'd give the same reply as Franklin Payne. He has a proper response on questions about the island, so I swapped that in for all situations.
• Professor Eakins will respond a little awkwardly to the player if the player tries to get him back on-topic earlier in a particular thread. I've modified the player's comment so that it fits the response better.
• If you've robbed the Shrouded Hills bank before talking to Jacob Bens, when he shows you the combination and asks "Do I make myself clear?", the player response presented is "I've already done so". I've edited that response to make it better fit what it's in response to.
• Sarah Toone likes to echo the player's assessment of her attitude towards her brother when she explains why she can't stand him. In one case, she echos it incorrectly ("He told me you didn't like him" -> "'Not like him'?"). I've corrected this.
• Some dummy lines for Mr. Razzia (the Caladon fence) had your player character referring to him as Mr. Black (his counterpart in Tarant). I've corrected these.
• If Edwin Wallows (the priest of Halcyon in Vooriden) accepts his chastisement from the player for having an initial negative reaction, the player subsequently erroneously refers to him as "Molly" or "madam". I've corrected this.
• Most dwarven exclamations are along the lines of "By Alberich!" Thrayne Iron Heart is occasionally an inexplicable exception, referring instead to a god by the name of "Volgard". As this name occurs literally nowhere else in the game, I've taken the liberty of changing it to Alberich.
• Jason C. Guy, when asked about his technological studies, makes reference to studying in two technological "colleges". As they are more properly called "disciplines", I have revised his response accordingly.
• The "dummy" quest log entry for telling Lianna Pel Dar about Maximillian on the Isle of Despair was missing. I've written one.
• A few "reputation greetings" had entries missing for some situations (female NPC to male Repair Master PC, for example). I've filled in the missing greeting lines.

Things I am in the process of doing:

(Nothing at the moment.)

Not Text-Only Changes:

• It's possible to tell Ristezze that you're the only survivor of the blimp crash without triggering the "player is known in Shrouded Hills as the only survivor" global flag. I took the liberty of correcting this.
• I've restored a few previously unused "color" and/or progress-tracking logbook lines, including ones associated with Preston Radcliffe's passport, an enlightening slip of the tongue by K'an Hua, meeting Gudmund Ore Bender and Jormund and Edward Willoughsby, several steps in and around looking for Renford Terwilliger and his book, and tracking down Wendell Wellington.
• Winston Schuyler appeared to have some broken conversation lines that were going to the wrong destinations, based on another variant on that set of responses that appeared later in the file - and, also based on that, there appeared to be a missing response. I've taken the liberty of fixing these.
• Randver Thunder Stone appeared to have a pair of response tests concerning the return of Thorvald Two Stones, based on what the responses actually were and what the tested global flags are documented as doing, so I swapped them. (Basically, he'd say "thanks for returning him to us" OR "he returned to us and told us the story" based on whether or not you'd taken him straight back to the Wheel Clan, or he'd gotten annoyed with you and left on his own - and Randver was using the former for the latter situation and vice versa.)
• I've changed one response in Raven's dialog to be a male-only line - in that response, the PC asks her to let go of their hand, but Raven only takes the hand of a male PC.
• One of the fields in a line for Liam Cameron's mother had a test where there should be no test. I removed it.
• When talking with ship captains while in Tarant, it's possible for the PC to claim that they "spent all [their] time at The Wellington". Based on the captain's response (and the fact that it's a gentlemen's club), I suspect that this was intended to be a male-only line, and have changed it accordingly.
• For some bizarre reason, if the Whytechurch Murderer's latest victim (in the Mushroom Inn) shows up, you lose the ability to ask Vollinger about any place you're in (all those questions test against the "newest murder victim" global flag; presumably it was going to be used for some other reason at one point). I've removed these tests so that this restriction goes away.
• Garrick Stout, when contemplating how to get Druella to return, can under some circumstances attribute to the player a plan that he himself just came up with. As the responses that lead to that issue are identical to responses in a related branch that avoid such a situation, I've modified some conversation destinations so as to fix that scenario.
• When Cassandra Pettibone proposes acquisition of an elven funerary stone, normally an elven or half-elven player can voice particular objections, but this was omitted in some branches. I've made sure elves can be indignant towards her in all cases.
• Due to some missing response lines (and having a few too many possible responses on first contact), Gaylin cannot be asked about her wares when you meet her unless you happen to be of (at that point in the game) unusually high magickal or technological aptitude. I've stuffed those lines in at a higher priority such that they show up as an early option (they go away after you've asked her the one time).
• The test for a player response to Evelyn Garringsburg (indicating how the player responds after correcting her negative greetig based on whether or not you've met her before) was put in the wrong field, so it'd show up all the time. I've corrected this.
• One possible branch of the conversation with the Qintarra Guards Captain watching over the imprisoned Jormund has two responses intended to be made available based on whether or not the player is an elf or not, but both were being made available to non-elves. I've corrected this.
• While exchanging insults with Sammie White, if you get to the point where "I implore you to desist from insulting me." is an available response, choosing it will lead to an error in which he says nothing and the only thing you can do is end the conversation. I've corrected this.
• In discussing the Wrath murder case with Ivory, it was possible to get XP twice for deducing Wrath's actual murderer if you picked the right response at the right time (both the response AND the destination rewarded XP). This has been corrected.
• Also in that same discussion with Ivory, there existed a few mixups with race-specific responses concerning elven communal living; the most obvious symptom involved receiving an elves-only line that did not follow from a particular player response, and being able to ask a followup question that led to the all-races-except-elves version of that same line. I've rearranged this as best I can so that the discussion flows more rationally.
• Heinrich Jenks has some... interesting comments he sometimes makes when he's driven to engage you in combat, due to some erroneous dialog lines being called. I've corrected these.
• As part of typography enhancements, three fonts were discovered to have misaligned characters (you'd get, say, a double quote instead of an apostrophe, or a period instead of an ellipsis, et cetera). These fonts have been fixed.

Things I want to change, but haven't because I don't have a good objective solution or am not sure how to fix:

• The Appleby rumor in Tarant is recorded (both in regular and dumb mode) in the logbook as Appleby being desperate to destroy Bates, but the actual rumor the player is told is about Appleby being a "laughingstock" who "couldn't make a steam engine to save his life". The former does not follow from the latter, so one or the other should be changed.
• In Shrouded Hills, when the Hand operative posing as "William Radcliffe" reaches out to you, it's possible (by refusing to talk about the blimp crash) to never find out the name he's going by. Yet when he meets you on the bridge as you leave, the only response is "Ah, Mr. Radcliffe", as though you have been introduced to him.
• Only a small handful of newspapers include their leading headline in the item description. I'd love for this to be extended to all newspapers. I don't know how to do this, though.
• There's a couple unused log entries that would seem to be worth restoring, but those undoubtedly involve changing scripts and I'm not familiar enough with/lack sufficient tolerance for Arcanum's scripting system.
• The "Arsonist" background ends with the assertion "You probably would have torched the zeppelin if it hadn't been shot down." Given that the Zephyr being shot down kind of hasn't happened yet (all other backgrounds treat it as a future event), this clashes a bit, but I have hesitated to remove it.

Things I've deliberately left unchanged:

• The field of Technology has a certain love for grandiose neologisms ("scientician", "paralyzations", et cetera) to go with its purple prose. I have mostly left these alone, as they seem to represent a stylistic choice that adds to the flavor.
• Aside from the occasional bit of missing punctuation (read: sentences that lack a period at the end), I didn't do any grammar fixes for "dumb" lines, as that's kind of part of the appeal.
• The "reborn on wings of fire" passage in the Archaeon shows up in several places - it's written on the altar at the crash site, spoken by Virgil when he reads from that same altar, recorded in the logbook after you observe said altar, quoted by Alexander at the Panarii Temple in Caladon, and found in the text of the Archaeon at that same temple. They're all subtly different in different ways. As noted above, the altar text has been made consistent with Virgil's reading (both in observing the altar and in the logbook; Virgil's line is voiced so editing it wouldn't help), but I've left the others alone, on the theory that maybe folks quoting it and/or inscribing the altar would have misremembered what's actually written in the text.
• Greeting message #11390 is fairly unique in that it manages to be a generic greeting that is different for all four categories (female to female, female to male, male to female, male to male). I went ahead and left this as is as an interesting curiosity rather than try to sync them up.
• Similarly, far more greeting messages for female PCs have honorifics than greeting messages for male PCs. I've kept this as is because I'm a sexist bitch who believes this is as it should be. ;)
• Ladies - particular noble and priestly ladies - also have a great deal more to say about PCs that show up in barbarian clothes, or without clothes at all. I have not attempted to add more messages for male NPCs to compensate.
• I have not attempted to do anything about the egregious overuse of ellipses and not-actually-ellipses in Vendigrothian schematic text, as this seems to be a stylistic choice and so I hesitate to alter it. Likewise with the gaps in the "words from the Iron Clan".
• Quoting prices is rather inconsistently done. Some refer to a number of "coins", some use "coin" as though it's plural, and some use "gold pieces". Aside from replacing "coin" with "coins" any time explicit values are named ("coin" also gets used as a generic term for some vague amount of money), I've left this alone on the theory that it's a stylistic choice for each NPC (and because there's voiced lines using each term, so it'd be impractical to standardize in any case).
• The skill used for lock manipulation is referred to in the UI as "Pick Locks". The term everybody in the game uses to refer to it is "Locksmith". After some discussion on the Discord, I've opted to just leave this alone, since "Locksmith" is appropriate conversationally but also implies abilities that the skill does not convey.
• All the various Magickal College Masters follow a very similar script with regard to discussing their college and the player's possible mastery candidacy with same, but with subtle differences here and there above and beyond swapping out names and "sir/madam" as appropriate. I have resisted the temptation to standardize these and/or make them fully consistent with eachother, on the theory that the large amount of close-but-not-exact commonality could hypothetically represent a spiel they're supposed to give to prospective students but that each remembers subtly differently. (That, and doing so would have been much more of a PITA than I had initially presumed. ;) )
• While we're on the subject of the magickal college masters, there's a ton of confusion between "master" versus "Master", owing to rampant overuse of the title, the adjective, and the verb all in the same dialogues. I've corrected this for nearly all cases, except when "master" (the title and/or the adjective) is put in quotes by the player after being insulted, because not capitalizing it is a way of indicating disrespect (it's a very subtle "f - - you").
• Also, some of the female Masters go by the title "Mistress" and some don't, but enough about the damn magick masters already I am so fscking done with them oh my G-D
• The Panarii Temple Priest in Tarant appears to have once had the ability to mark your map with the location of Caladon, but it's been dummied out - the responses that lead to that have been deleted. This could be readded, but I'm uncertain as to whether or not it would be a good idea to do so. (For the record, I've been advised against.)
• Some other fonts share the "misaligned characters" issue described above, but they exist primarily as icon libraries rather than for text, so they were left alone.

Things I'm tempted to try doing but haven't attempted:

• Add more filler snippets to each particular newspaper edition rather than having the same default ones over and over.
• Modify voiced dialog lines so that they always exactly correspond to what the voice actor/actress is actually saying.
• Do something about the massive overuse of ellipses in this game, by substituting more em dashes and semicolons.
• Add more creative insults that target city-dwellers, if only so there's more variety when you go up against Sammie White.
• Double-check the flow of conversations so as to make sure things aren't missed. There's some "catch as catch can" as I go through, and I'm glancing at discrepancies between male and female lines, but I'm mostly focusing on minor errors.
• https://twitter.com/canyoupetthedog eligibility. (Someone even started a petition for this...)
• Add logbook lines (and in some cases, dialog) for where to find Expert training in the skills that lack such (Persuasion, Pickpocket, Prowling, Bow, Backstab, Gambling, Haggle, Heal, and Repair).
• Do a little creative sound editing to fix a handful of broken female lines that are voiced.
• Figure out the fix to an annoying bug I get with Dernholm citizens in which you can give them a 'thank you' before ever they've done something for you.
• Remove male or female lines for lines of dialog that only go to female or male PCs respectively, for clarity on behalf of any future editors. (See Madam Lil's dialog for the most notable example of this already in action; other dialogues for characters involving her establishment and quests also follow this pattern.)
• Significantly clean up and overhaul the various "citizen" and "pickpocket citizen" dialogues so that they match up; right now they're different copies of different versions of the same base dialog and nothing lines up so finding and fixing errors that recur across them all is an exercise in exasperation.
• That last, except for the various innkeepers, for which something similar occurs.
• Add the ability to sell out Pettibone to the elves at the archaeological dig if you're an elf who goes with the "I'm here to stop the rape of these grounds" option when confronted. (Because, seriously, to hell with that bitch.)
• Put a painting on the wall of the Garringsburg's home that shows up to represent the stolen painting after you've returned it. (Discussed with Drog; we could do it, but that'd be a scenery change, and those nuke saves, so maybe some other time.)
• Restore some rumors in Tarant intended for later in the game.
• Modify telegrams so that they actually read like telegrams, rather than notes with fancy headings and " STOP " interspersed at seemingly random intervals.
• Have a reader of the Tarantian pen a Letter To The Editor response to Mrs. Celeste Knight-Phillips.

I may consider doing some of the above listed items (the ones that would not be construed strictly as "fixes") in a standalone mod.

Other Stuff

• As part of this work, I've created a Vim filetype and syntax highlighting plugin for Arcanum .dlg and .mes files. Said plugin also includes a function one can manually call in .dlg files - ArcanumMaleFemaleLineCheck() - which will pop up two scratch buffers with the male and female lines shown and diffed against eachother. It's available on Github.

Hope this helps!
-viqsi