Thanks. I had thought I had managed to complete most of the important sidequests but I must have missed more than I thought.

I hate how certain items have almost zero coverage in online guides, like the Vendigrothian Elixer. What does it do? Is it part of a schematic? It's certainly a unique (aka: "If I use it now, I'll probably screw up the opportunity to do something awesome later") item. But it's lack of coverage in game guides leads me to believe it's a red herring, but wouldn't the guides say so?

what's currently irking me is that i have gotten as far as i can get (i need to find out what's going on in the black mountain mines) but i have hit the wall in that my characters aren't strong enough yet. my options are pretty much just wander around, taking random encounters until i level up a bit more. this would have to be the WORST element of this game. i've taken on all the side quests i can, too. the ONLY things left to do involve monsters (an ore golem, the babarians in kree, or ashbury castle) that can kill me fairly easily.

always hated that RPGs involve a lot of aimlessly fighting on the worldmap

Interesting. I don't remember if I've had that happen before - maybe I have (since I know I've brought Loghaire with me multiple times). I'm thinking the bug is your first guess though, that there is just a flag messed up about him not being in the Wheel Clan, so it assuming he died somehow.

"Hey Vollinger, I need you to weld this chassis to this hunting rifle...hey, watchadoing? Nononono, please don't equip it, you won't be able to upgrade it....damn you, Vollinger!"

1. Not being able to rest in dungeons. Ugh. I blew through my entire (huge) supply of fatigue restorers in the black mountain mines and still barely made it out alive.

2. NPCs auto-equipping everything, including cursed items. I just want you to carry it, fool, not put it on when you've already got a perfectly serviceable pair of gauntlets! Gar did this with a pair of "unidentified" gauntlets and I couldn't figure out why he kept losing health as if he were being poisoned, until I took everything off him and tried each item out.

3. Inventory management in general. Not quite as bad as Fallout, and on par with Fallout 2, but compared to the system I cut my teeth on (Baldur's Gate series/IceWind Dale) it's crazy annoying.

Holy crap but this thread is making me not want to play this game anymore. I keep re-starting this game for various reasons but on my latest play through attempt I have been un-enthused because of the horrible interface alone(I have to say that I have played almost every crpg ever made for the PC and dealt with many allegedly difficult interfaces without much difficulty(games like Nahlakh/Helherron/Natuk for example, as well as various 'roguelike' games) as well as notoriously bad interfaces(such as Fallout's handling of RPC inventory).

But I am starting to think that Arcanum's interface is one of the two or three worst I have ever played with. It is that bad! And reading here all of these other annoyances(just on the first page alone!) makes me think I do not want to keep investing the time and effort. A big time shame, not only because I paid for the game(which is not much anyway for GOG games) but I REALLY love this genre and there are so many genuinely great things in the game itself as well as the manual(Flavor text and such leaps to mind) that it is shameful to have the counter-balance of some poor game design and buggy programming.

The game does have a lot of issues, the interface being a primary example. It is quite flawed in some respects. But nonetheless I strongly encourage you to play the game through to completion, for all its flaws it really is a very good game

I am trying. There is so much I am hating right now though. I just defeated those bridge bandits in that first town(Shrouded Hills I think it is called?) and was unable to open the locked barrel at their camp site(I am an 'Apprentice' at picking locks and I think I had '3' skill when I tried and 'Jammed' the barrel so I cannot open it at all now!?), which sucks. And despite being told that the town of....er, something like "Dernham" or "Dersham" or wherever was marked ion my map for the haunted mine quest(by the son of the ghost), I am unable to go anywhere but "Tarnam" or whatever this town is called (with 'The Bile'(?) area?) so that is where I am now.

Honestly I am finding far more frustration than I am finding enjoyment so far and I am not sure I will be able to force myself to play much more. And I was able to push past the flaws in games like Nahlakh and Helherron! But Arcanum is starting to eclipse those games in terms of frustration.

Edit again:

The interface is not just "Quite flawed". It is downright God-awful! It is far worse than Fallout in the 'inventory/ aspects and far worse than any other game I have played in terms of general 'clunkiness' and ease of use.

Honestly I think the interface is better than the Fallout games, inventory management was royal pain with that. A couple of pointers for you;
Firstly, you can open that locked barrel by smashing it. Enter combat mode and force attack and you'll eventually break it open. It damages your weapon though, or hurts you if you use your bare fists, so you might want to use a cheap weapon for it. (I believe magic weapons suffer no durability loss).

As for quests, it is not uncommon for the solution to a quest to be found later in the game or on the other side of the game world. Tarant, where I think you are now, is one of the main places for quests so you'll find plenty to do there. If it comes to it and you just want to go somewhere new, you can always use a completed map for reference and force move to locations that you don't have marked.

I've heard that smashing open barrels and chests will reduce the quality of the items inside; i.e. you can break the stuff inside so you end up getting less loot than you would if you had picked the lock or opened it with magick. Anyone know if that's true?

Didn't stop me from bashing everything open with my fighter, regardless.

False, as far as I can tell. Maybe this was patched up to fix it but you are no longer able it seems, to enter combat mode and attack barrels. Every time I try it just drains a single action point and cycles through rounds without doing anything. neither Virgil nor Sog will attack the barrels and such either. I figured out some of this by consulting a guide. So I have to go back to Shrouded Hills to do some incredibly NOT-obvious things which if I had NOT done them I would end up stuck in the game apparently.

Are you guys playing with the fan-made patch by Drog Black Tooth? I am not sure why else my version of Arcanum might be different but I cannot smash barrels and such(doors, windows etc.) by entering combat mode. Game will not let me.

I was using it but I am fairly certain it is possible in the vanilla version. Are you attacking it normally or specifically force attacking? Make sure to hold Alt when you click it.