First time through ToEE, put on the Co8 mod or play straight?

Hi folks,

I just picked up ToEE and was wondering whether I should just install and play through it straight (with Atari patches through 3) or put on the Co8 mods (with Atari patch 2) first? Going in without knowing the difference, I'm not sure I would really appreciate the Co8 fixes - however I just want to maximize enjoyment.

 

If nothing else, run the patches. I was having trouble with just the game. Still get a bit of lag in fights here and there but nothing is locking up anymore. I installed Co8. I don't want to mess with the general play of the game but was having major lock up issues.

HarperRanger

 

Good point on the replay value. So I tried to install it, put on patch3, and it won't start. The securRom spinning disc happens, the resolution changes, and then it drops back to the desktop.. feh.

For the record I'm using the bargain bin version of this. I went through the Atari support yes/no wizard regarding what I have on here. I have nothing unusual, and Warcraft3 also does a CD check with the same spinning disc, and it takes it just fine, so the drive is alright.

I reinstalled on another drive and put on a no-cd crack. I get the same result, and even with the regular .exe file I can tell it gets past the CD check. So, now the problem remains, why the heck won't it start?

I'm running a dual monitor system with my primary on the right, a widescreen LCD that only runs at 60hz. I've read some posts elsewhere that indicate this game requires 75hz ?! (Where did they get their DirectX programmers?!)

I wonder if I can go convince Fry's to take this back although I'm sure they have a policy against it. $10 is a small lesson to learn I guess... but this is exceedingly lame.

 

I disabled my LCD and set everything to my left 21" CRT, set it to 800x600 @ 75hz, won't even play the opening video, as a matter of fact now the only difference is it did not try to switch resolutions then crash - it just simply died.

I'm not getting a good feeling about this.

 

Continued messing with it, and now I find that it will startup with patch 2, but patch3 causes it to crash out. However, anytime I exit the game in patch2, the exe errors out. No clean exits. Will continue to mess with it.

 

Re: Well, I guess circumstances answered my question for me.

The final result is, for whatever reason, after beating it for an hour I now have it working on my CRT with patch2, copied in the Co8 4.0.1 data, fixed the crash with moebius' temple.dll ... So, at least I think I can try to play through it provided it doesn't give any new crashes once I start a real (ie: non-tutorial) game!

Haven't put on the front-end, and not sure it is necessary really for me... SOrry for the multiple posts above, but maybe it will help somebody else picking up the game several years after the other bug forum threads have ended.

 

Just so you know, patch 4.0.1 is intended to be installed on top of Co8 4.0.0. I have no idea how the game will fare with it installed without Co8 4.0.0. It could introduce some additional bugs.

 

Ah, thanks for that as I certainly did not have it installed correctly. Nevertheless, with as far as I got tonight (which is to say, not far at all) nothing broke, and the drop in of moebius' temple.dll fixed the quit crash. Now all has been redone and I'll try it out tomorrow.

As for tonight, I luckily made a quicksave before my party finished exploring the town and then got involved in a quest from the Canon of the temple... which quickly ended up in the entire party getting killed by a hill giant except for the thief who eventually was able to run away because the giant got into some scuffles with the undead creatures that were also chasing her. GOOD GRIEF... So, it put me back an hour or so but that saved an hour more of creating new chars...

Initial impressions, yes the interface is a little quirky but at this point I'm just glad it is running. Turn-based is appropriate for true DnD feel. Not sure why the party all started with several PLATINUM, but oh well. And, I truly see the DnD coming through in the utter wussiness of level 1 characters. My mage was unconscious in the first round of the prologue combat.

Will certainly need to find some things around town to get them up to level 3 or so before again traipsing wildly into the meadow...!

 

I'd advise against using quick-saves. They have the potential to corrupt the game. (The most common corruption being that secret doors stop appearing.) Use a full save when you save. Also, if you haven't already, disable "Auto-save on map change" from the options menu. It has the same problem as quick saves, with the added bonus of preventing certain game scripts from running.

 

I was beating my head against a wall with it too. But with 4.0.0 and a no cd crack, it runs like a champ. Feels just like the old D&D I used to play.