Hi,

I installed the game along the latest/last unofficial patch, high-res town maps and the widescreen fix.

The most problematic glitch I encountered so far, is when I talk to certain characters (sadly sometimes they are even quest-givers), they turn hostile before I can do/say anything and only fighting them is possible. My character is half-elven, as first reaction they make some insult against half-elves and then I'm fighting them, although I only tried to talk to them. Since I don't want to kill people that might be important, I load the last savegame, but that's not a fix because it happens anytime.
For example following the main quest, I went to Tarant. There's a brothel there and I tried to talk to the Madame. Always starts a fight.
Before I click on them their attitude towards me is neutral/not hostile, but as soon as I click on them to talk, the attitude switches to hate, without further action on my part.
Is this normal? I can't imagine it is... Anyone else experienced this?

Also in Tarant, there are some warehouses with rats in them, there's a quest to kill them for the owner. Sometimes when I try to do this, the combat just stops and it doesn't resume (I'm playing turn-based). At first I thought I only had to wait long enough, but that's not it, it really doesn't progress anymore. I managed to circumvent this, by reloading. It progressed the third time I tried to finish this.
The same thing occurred in Ashbury, on the cemetery there's a larger group of zombies, this fight stopped as well.

Is something wrong on my end/does this only happen to me?

I'd really like to know if there's something that can be done against this. Even some clarification would help me. The way it is right now, it's quite frustrating. I do try to save as often as possible, but since I usually don't know when the next fight might start, it's really hard to have a savegame close to it, in case I have to repeat it again.

Thanks for reading this!

It's been awhile but don't remember first issues despite playing game thru couple times.

The combat issue is know (combat getting stuck in AI turn while combat is turn based). It can be sircunvented swhiching to real-time and back to turn based when ever it happens.

My last play thru was over year ago so I'll let someone with more fresh experience clarify the first issue.

What's your OS btw? If it's Vista/Win7, you should always install games outside Program Files folder (the default on all installations) to avoid issues with UAC (User Account Controll). If you install in Program Files, you always need to always install things as Admininstrator but even then UAC can still mess things up

This could possibly be, in particularly wild or interesting cases, the result of character design.
Did you take a character background which would cause a low beauty, or which would cause people in general to have a poor opinion of your character?
Are you wielding any equipment which modifies reactions?

If not, perhaps you should find a Smoking Jacket or similar reaction-modifying garment and see if their moods improve.

What dude up there said - might be a build problem. If your beauty is low enough and you took "Hit with the ugly stick" or "Sold your soul" backgrounds that should be enough for people to go hostile on sight of you. You could also have done something to lower your general reputation in Tarant, like siding with Willoughby against Bates.

I'm using Windows 7, the game is not installed in \program files (x86) or \program files. I have a separate games folder on another hard drive.

My character background is "child of a hero", as far as I know this has nothing to do with beauty, it just gives the character a better sword right from the beginning.
My character's beauty is 9, which is average, I think - I don't know if this is really low enough to make people attack me... Hope not, that would suck. Also it's stupid that people would try to kill you just because you're ugly. ;)

I haven't visited that much locations yet, but so far I'd say the problem is somehow tied to Tarant. Because people always attack me in Tarant, when I try to talk to them, I took the train to Ashbury and this didn't happen to me once. I even had this huge debate for the mayor without the slightest issue.
But since Tarant is important for the quest I'm trying to pursue, I returned and my first interaction was another attack. I entered the inn a bit east from the huge bridge and one of the guests was a dwarf with ogre guards and they all went hostile, I simply tried to talk to people to find out if they had any quests...

I find the game itself quite interesting so far and I'm still gonna try a few things, but honestly, if this proves to be unsolvable, I don't think I will continue to play this. Exploring a game world and talking to everyone is one of the most important parts to me, in such games.

PS: I'm going to try to wear different clothes next. Right now I have an armor equipped.

Your build sounds generally workable, even just fine for purposes of reaction, so I'm not disinclined to think it's possibly a glitch. Even so, you wouldn't happen to have gone through a quest series which culminates in you running naked through the streets in order to master pickpocketing, did you?

At that, you wouldn't happen to be nude, would you?

@MackieStingray

No, I'm wearing some elven armor I bought from a merchant.

I really finished only 3 quests in Tarant so far - I killed all the rats in the warehouses, I returned a ring to some dude standing in front of sewer entrance and I returned a crate of whiskey to one of the innkeepers, Caleb, I think.

My next step is to buy different clothes. I'm pretty sure there's a store for that in Tarant.

I encountered the same problem at the brothel! I figured out what it was: I had cast Purity of Water on myself, to increase my beauty and therefore reaction scores. Turns out, some characters see right through this and don't like being lied to, so they will attack you.

Interesting, but I haven't used magic either.

I managed to find more people who are always attacked e.g. by Madam Lil, for example:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/914155-arcanum-of-steamworks-and-magick-obscura/49122189

At least I know now it happens to several people and this is very likely "just" a bug. :(

Edit:

Another topic about my exact problem:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=30348

Gotta read this...

Edit 2:

Found another example for this "right here":

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura/please_help_to_clarify_the_games_difficulty_for_me/post6

Obviously it's "normal", that some characters like Madam Lil will attack you, no matter what the player does, in several (and some unknown) situations. :( Too bad.

Don't know if I should put in more hours now, it's just gonna be even more frustrating, when this happens much later in the game and it might be impossible to complete...

Edit 3:

This one lists even more characters who suffer from this bug and suggests it only happens for characters with custom backgrounds:

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=17538&sid=0d20f76dacfc8fa4d8bc2cbccff97919

Edit 4:

Okay, not that it helps me really, but I think I know now, what happens. Every time a character's reaction modifier is "too high", the value of several characters throughout the game, like Madam Lil, has basically an overflow error. Instead of setting and keeping a max value, it jumps off the rail and this results in an extreme negative "hate" value and thus the instant attack.
One possible fix could be, to edit such a character, to ensure that the reaction value stays in a "friendly" range. But I don't know where to do that, so... Dead end, it seems. I found many pages with players suffering from this, but no one seemed to have solved it.

Let's drown our sorrows in alcohol and hard drugs. Likewise, I experienced a glitch where, after accepting a quest from a friendly character, that character promptly attacked me.

For what its worth, I believe I achieved this glitch through a different mechanism. I had actually completed this character's quest, but then I accidentally clicked on him in combat mode. When I re-loaded my save game from before completing the quest, any effort to do the quest made the character attack me. IE, when I accidentally attacked the character and turned him hostile, this information went back in time and stuck itself in an earlier saved game. Then when I reloaded the old saved game, he was already hostile.

It doesn't sound like this is what happened in your case. Just wanted to complain and stuff.

@fjdgshdkeavd

I encountered something similar, just in my case, I didn't perceive it as a bug and thought it was intentional. I met some guy, who asked me a question and promised to pay me gold, if I answered right. I failed and just re-loaded, but this time he asked another question, I failed again to answer correctly. I re-loaded once more, but now he wouldn't play this game anymore, the dialog option would just miss. So it seems, for good or bad, it's normal in Arcanum, that you can't just reset anything by re-loading!

---

For my problem, I now managed to find a minor workaround (I almost stopped believing :P). One shop had an armor called "dread armor" it lowers the reaction of NPCs to the PC. Most people now call me "barbarian" when I talk to them. With that thing I could now talk to Madam Lil without fighting and thus wrecking everything. Her first stance was now "disliked". Sadly after I did the first quest for her, it was already saying "neutral", so it seems doing quests for characters raises the reaction value. I'm a little worried now, that it's only a matter of time until she attacks again. I'll do my best to stay in the allowed range...

Yeah, the chance for a bar NPC to want to play "Wits" with you is random and changes upon loading and so doesn't get saved. Other things though should be reset - like reactions shouldn't be totally random. But I don't know what is causing the original bug.

So just to be clear, that Dread Armour "lowered" your reaction by NPCs to a higher value than it had been without it?
Awesome.

Yes, exactly!
Finally I can play and properly interact with people, without having the sole option of killing them! The only nuisance right now is, that I have to switch clothes every time, depending on whom I have to talk to... Of course I'm using the dread armor only, if I talk to one of the bugged NPCs. Oh and of course the additional weight and space for the extra armor in the inventory is blocked for other stuff that I'd like to carry around with me.

I'm super-relieved nonetheless, having that put behind me, I can finally enjoy the story, which is really picking up right now, after I continued the main quest. :)

Doesn't help with the weight, but I'm pretty sure there's no limit to the size of object which can be put in your quick item slots. Just click and drag.