[IMPORTANT] A campaign to get the official tools released

here is the link to the court fight between the modder and the racing sim maker


http://www.bhmotorsports.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=28518

 

Count me in Agetian!

 

Hi everyone, This is my first post and I've just finished playing 5.0.2 and will like to thank the Circle of Eight for the wonderful mod and hard work which made this game so playable and superb This is by far the best D&D experience on a computer. ( I always thought Baldur's Gate 2 was the best. But you guys just made ToEE 5.0.2 so amazing. :clap ) and yeah, count me in for the petition. Happy New Year!

 

If it help in creating Real DnD play style then you can county on me in petition

 

youve got my vote i love what you guys do for even the most needy of us whom are real fans of a wonderful games and the mods and support arent bad either.

 

You got my vote.

But you all already know it will not help, or change anything. And while I admire the aim and dedication of the Co8 members (and their collective and individual efforts), to be blunt - Atari will not be earning anything from releasing the Official Tools for ToEE.

And Atari is not known for it's charity.

Of course, there is another way - purchase the rights to the Tools and Engine. Of course, that would require going from a hobby situation to a business one, but that is probably the only way to get access to the tools.

I mean, just look at the Petiton to scrap SecuRom on the Atari boards http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=542650

30 pages and still going.

Do you really think Atari is going to abandon SecuRom because thousands of their customers are screaming for it?

No.

And the real reason is that those very same customers are still buying Atari produced games!

If such cannot gain Atari's attention, what do you think a petition to get the Official Tools for ToEE will accomplish?

Well, there is always hope. That is why I will sign such a petition with yes.

On to NWN.

I would be a liar if I said that I was not a bit biased towards NWN. I have played it for the last 4 years straight. I have created Mods, worked on PWs (Persistant Worlds), ran one of my own for a year on my own server, ran the server for another, and I have been on a number of Mod teams for NWN MP play.

I am not going to suggest that the combat engine of NWN is better or worse than ToEE. I think that is a rather subjective opinion and belief, irregardless of how one looks at it.

I will say this, though - PnP style NWN campaign play beats anything short of PnP D&D. A DM, a select group of players with their characters, and the entire D&D spectrum at their fingertips. There is NOTHING that cannot be done with a Dice Bag (In NWN, there is a hak that adds a Dice Bag) and anything can be rolled and simulated. The many campaigns that I have had the incredible honor to have played in have been the pinnacle of Role Playing experiences for me.

That said, I really like and enjoy ToEE. As a SP game, it comes closer than any other game that I am aware of (including NWN) to replicating the game rules and to providing that D&D PnP experience in SP play.

It is really too bad that ToEE was not made MP playable, with a DM client and a toolset. Because that would be THE game, IMHO.

So, to recap : SP play -> ToEE
MP play -> NWN

BTW - one can play NWN in SP with more than just 3 party members, due to a hak by Old Man's Beard called the OHS. In fact, one can make one's own party, and the system works in just about every mod every made for NWN (including the Premium Mods).

Don't get me started on NWN2. Perhaps with time, it will get somewhere. Perhaps.

That remains to be seen.

In closing, keep up the good work, Co8. I am looking forwards to the next release of content.

 

It's unfortunate that companies don't listen to their customers sometimes.

As for NWN, I tried the first one and while it seems very cool, I find I like the turn based combat of ToEE better. I wish there was a way to play NWN that way as I would enjoy it much more.

I have not followed the NWN2 stuff, I wonder if they now allow turn based combat.

~telengard

 

As a certified lurker (visiting this site for 3 years now), I vote yes. ToEE is the last true CRPG at least in my opinion. I learned to despise almost any newer RPG. Either braindead action or atmosphere lacking like NWN.

I think Designers go a wrong way with the art of the games todays. For me, a good game is more like a work of art, like a picture. Which immerses but also transcends.
Games these days look like taken from a real world.

 

just voted yes - for me toee and all the mods to it were the only time i felt like playing "pure" d&d on the pc i loved the fact your tactics in the battle really counted in if you would win or get destroyed. also as someone mentioned the 2d of the system just allowed the art to have that feel to it that 3d cant have yet, although company of hero's with all setings ramped up looks amazing and you could swear its a 2d game till u start rotating the camera.

in a perfect world you guys and the guys from troikia would all get together and be given this engine to remake the temple with top to bottom deformable terrain. i can just imagine walls collapsing and carfull plans to set traps ,taking out pillars and destroying a band of gnolls in a rock slide- which then blocked the parties way :cool2: its a wonderfull thought no? :hug: and of course all the rest of the stuff you could make as well - all the new modules and stuff.

i really hope atari will release these tools to the community as they in no way impact nwn2 sales as i see it, for 1 the toee was single player with no online componant nwn2 has that in it. atari should be more worried about the engine they have created bringing most normal pc's to there knees! i have dual core 6700 2 gig ram and gtx8800 video card about the best pc u can get at this time and i get 28-40fps with all options maxed out - if thye wish to limit there user base and hamstring there game they have done it! unch:

 

Just registered solely to vote 'yes'. I only just discovered ToEE and the Co8 mods. I'm absolutely astounded at what the modders have done with this game and can only imagine the great things that would be possible were Atari to release the tools to you guys. Here's hoping something good will come of this.

 

Hello all I have just slogged through this hole post and registered to say my peace.
I think that a lot of people have had a lot of good ideas hear I think after looking at the situation there are two good options.

1. We get together as a grope and pool a portion of money say 5-10 dollars a person
And invest in Atari the stock is currently going for (3.48-0.83/ -19.33% Mar 16
Atari Inc (NASDAQ GM:ATAR)) and then as a stock holder of the company petition for a releace of a ToEE Gold edition that would contain the editor, all the up dated and perhaps the Co8 Mods if you can come to an agreement with Atari. It could be re leased for say 20 bucks ether as a download or a new box.

2. we could agene pool money this time its much more expensive of a proposition but we could do what WEB SHAMAN suggested and form a company se if you can get the guys for torkia on bord buy the right to the source code and then go to town making mods expansions and games based on content not on big graphics. It would be possible if we go this route to have Atari pe be publisher of any content we produce. So we are under their license, with WoTC.

a. if we go this rute we may even what to talk to WoTC directly and see if they are interested in a open source stile CRPG like what they did with their open D20 licence.

This is just my thoughts, but you can count me in as a yes for helping out with any plans that go forward.

 

Not sure if anything has come from this thread, but you got my vote of "yes". I bought this game a while ago, because of the love of playing the Pencil and Paper AD&D. This was the closest to that, Baldur's Gate battle system was horrendous (wizard melee attacking??). I'm glad I found Co8 because I had thrown the game aside due to the huge amount of bugs, couldn't even start the game without the patch. I hope they do release it, the engine is the closest so far to the PnP AD&D that I still play.

 

I bought ToEE when ATARI first put it on market. It was so buggy to install and play that it only stayed on my machine two weeks. The ATARI people didn't seem to care
about any questions I had trying to play the game. Some time later I was browsing game sites and saw a reference to Co8 that said they had fixed several problems in the game.
I got the fixes and put the game back on. It was a very pleasant surprise to finally have a playable game.

Agetian, if you think the official tools will help Co8 developers I say yes.

Don't count on their being able to though. Does ATARI even have them. Wasn't it written by TROIKA.

Thanks to everyone here at Co8 for the hours and hours of fun I've had with ToEE,

 

I fully support the efforts of Co8 to get these tools released. However, I can understand Atari's position--or at least what I think their position is.

I don't want to sound too harsh towards Atari but I think they have certainly earned the widespread emnity and criticism they receive, and remaining silent in the face of it isn't doing them any good. I loathe the way their games seem to get released too early; ToEE is one example. I also think they're hypocritical in a way: ToEE gets children and prostitutes yanked but NWN2 has teens selling their souls to demons (even if they were tricked.) And NWN1 (did Atari publish it?) had the ghosts of murdered children in the lost village in Charwood--one of the most poignant parts of the game.

But I'm off topic here. Basically what I'm getting at is that I think Atari is holding back due to the advice of their lawyers. They don't want some idiot like Jack Thompson getting involved or any other negative press. What I think they really don't understand is the buildup of negativity towards them by their paying customers, and that's too bad. I loathe some of their practices but they've also published some great games in the past.

And if they look at other community developed games they should see that most tend to remain innocuous. For an 'old' game like ToEE, releasing a toolkit would keep a great game flourishing (thank you so much, Co8 modders) and earn a lot of goodwill from the community. Well, maybe the last part it optimistic. In my opinion they'd have to do a lot more than that to earn back the goodwill of their customers.

Anyways, good luck. I rarely visit here but check in from time to time. I'll be ecstatic if you succeed in your endeavours. ToEE is still a really fun game to play, warts and all.