Temple of Elemental Evil discussion thread (merged)

[LightPhoenix]

I haven't seen the problem, but I have a simple test for you.

I already had said I didn't believe the mouse was the problem. I would have noticed something like that in everyday use.

However, drivers were the problem, which is odd, because I've played plenty of games without it ever being a problem. Ah well, first time for everything, I guess.

A tip for those whose game is scrolling at a crawl on even the highest scroll setting (5). Knock it down to 4. I did on a fluke and now the screens scroll quite quickly. Might just be a bug with setting 5.

It is indeed a bug with the highest scroll setting. Leave it at 4, you'll be fine. I noticed quite a few bugs when I searched for an answer to my own problem, that was one of them.

Alright, that aside, my very first impressions. Note I have not even run through ToEE, though I have read and heard many stories about it. Yes, I'm ashamed.

First, it runs surprisingly well on my system - 400 MHz Pentium II, admittedly with a GeForce 4 card (128MB) and 416MB RAM. I was a bit worried it wasn't, and I wouldn't be able to play the game until Christmas, when I get to spoil myself with a new processor. Like I said, a pleasant surprise.

I love creating characters. That is by far and away the draw of any D&D game I play. ToEE handled this very smoothly, and again I was impressed. I would have liked a few more portraits, though that's a very minor thing. A bit more major was the rolls - for each of my five characters I took the first reroll I got, and I got really good rolls. Right now I have a Ranger, Rogue, Bard, Cleric, and Wizard. None of them are lacking for stats, and the lowest I got was a 6, which was on my Wizard character. One more minor thing I was impressed with was the scaling models - BioWare needs to pay attention to ToEE for the inevitable NWN2. Overall I'd definitely give ToEE an A in this department, held back only by the lack of portraits.

The intro was a rather bland intro to the module, if effective. Hommlet is quite big, but getting around wasn't too difficult, and I'm sure with time I'll be able to reference everything without a map. Character control is pretty easy, and teh game definitely screams tactical to me. We'll see how it goes though.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Heya:

Re: Potions. I haven't checked yet, but are you actually allowed to quaff unidentified potions? I actually haven't used any yet since in combat I'd rather damage the enemies (and they'll likely do more than 1d8+x points of damage to me anyway) and outside combat I'll just cast CLW and/or rest in the tower at the entrance to the Moathouse.

Yep, you can drink un-ID'd potions. Warning -- all of the healing potions look the same (it hurts when you drink a cure serious and only needed a cure light).There is a limit on the numebr of flags that can be placed on one map, too.

This game rocks! Sure, there are some bugs (the darkness of the game obscures a lot of detial for me). I haven't had most of the problems people are talking about on the official Atari ToEE Boards -- scroll 5 works fine for me, for example.

The few rules implementation errors bug me more, but the developers are aware of them and working to fix. For example -- rangers not getting animal companions until level 5, bastard swords & dwarven waraxes not working quite right, drinking a potion not provoking an AoO. Don't know if they're fix the reach donut -- my fighter is rocking with a glaive right now and I'm regretting the feat I spent on Weapon Focus: Greatsword.

For a true D&D fan, this game is absolutely great. Most of the clueless masses are complaining about difficulty and errors that don't really exist because they don't know the rules -- I'm loving it because it's so true to form. (Nothing like CDG'ing your sleeping enemies -- or playing evil and joining the bad guys!).

Even with the errors, right now I think this is a must-buy for a 3.0/3.5 fan who plays the occasaionaly computer game. Having D&D experience helps -- I started my first party in Ironman mode. They're all still alive, at level 4, and headed to Nulb.

Buy it; you'll like it!

 

[CrusaderX]

I'd guess that the 3.5 rules for the Paladin's mount aren't in this game, so are they replaced with anything else?

If they do indeed lose this feature, are Paladins still in balance with the other classes?

 

[Dark Jezter]

Paladins are exactly the same as they are in 3.5e, except without mounts. Most of the game takes place in dungeons anyway, so a mount wouldn't be very useful.

 

[Bob the Reaver]

Well i was going to ask about the potions being IDed. If i cant ID them for cheap then how about more backpacks. Can you buy more backpacks anywhere?

Also i love how some creatures will attack you even after you fall. Its a real good game. my favorite DND title yet. A few annoying bugs but real cool.

 

[Drengy]

played for about an hour so far…

and I'm LOVING it. It feels so much like real D&D it's scary.

But to those who prefer to role-play over combat - this game is NOT for you. This is a dungeon crawl through and through. I'm not complaining - I love dungeon crawls - but I wanted to warn those expecting more.

I really want this game to do well so that more modules are coverted and released. Against the Giants would be a dream come true. And fairly appropriate as a follow-up to this one.

I can't wait for the demo to come out so that more people can try it.

 

[gfunk]

This game kicks ass!!

I've already made multiple parties of different alignments and classes just to try them out. The character creation alone is a lot of fun. Hey Atari, thanks for bringing back the infinite rolls! Point buy blows! There's nothing more satisfying then rolling for minutes untiil you finally get the "perfect" set of ability scores.

As to the gameplay,

I was kind of annoyed at the town of Hommlet. I couldn't find my way around, the buildings aren't labeled and they all basically look the same. I have a hell of a time trying to find the inn. They should have flagged them automatically for you!

Combat, as described previously, is very true to 3.5. Right now I have a fighter with a spiked chain using Cleave, Combat Reflex, 10' reach, Trip attack goodness . . . very, very cool.

Also mechanics such as grapple, swallow whole, entanglement, poison are straight out of the book. They even have 5 ft steps! This is really the perfect engine for 3.5

 

[mmu1]

Also mechanics such as grapple, swallow whole, entanglement, poison are straight out of the book. They even have 5 ft steps! This is really the perfect engine for 3.5

I'd agree about the mechanics, now that I've had the chance to get used the the interface and can actually use it quickly,,, But for the same reason, the game might end up not doing very well - you really have to know the rules to understand that certain things aren't "bugs", as you'll notice if you take a look at the official boards - and the incomplete documentation provided with the game certainly doesn't help matters.

Still, I just got into the temple through the back way, and I have to get going...

 

[uv23]

Well I've been playing it more and there are a whole lot of issues and bugs that have bothered me. But I'm a bit tipsy right now so they're hard to recall. But the one thing that I do remember, painfully clearly, is something akin to POR. How the hell do you leave a combat??? The enemies are far far away, you've long since withdrawn and they're not following yet you can't leave combat or use door icons. *(&(*&$#@)( frustrating and annoying and lame.

 

[KenM]

My only real complant so far is combat can get very tight. I wish some of the walls/ scenery, ect. "dissolves" so you could see better. And since combat gets tight, sometimes hard to pick out the right person to target.
It says in the manual to toggle combat mode, press C. This should go out of combat when enemies are far away, but I have not had that problem yet.