Co8 Mod - I'm a noob, I need help staying alive in this game

Ok, by chance I ran across this game on the co8 forums while searching for details on a completely unrelated game. So, a day later and I now have Temple of Elemental Evil installed, patched (patch 1 and 2) and Co8 Mod installed and everything works great.

I'm a big fan of challenging games and I'm familiar with games like NWN, etc, but for some reason I'm having a heck of a time killing anything in the first area of the Co8 mod. I can kill the elemental, but how the heck do I kill the zombies?

My party consists of 1 Warrior, 1 Rogue, 1 Cleric, 1 Sorcerer, and 1 Bard.

By the time I reach the zombies my Sorc is out of spells and no one else can hit the zombies. My cleric has turned them, so they are feared, but still, round after round, no one can hit the zombies.

What am I missing? Also, should my characters have weapons to start off with? Currently none of them have anything other than a garb (farmer armor).

I assume I'm just not approaching this game correctly and I'd appreciate any help to set me on the right track.

Thanks!

 

The big thing is definitely getting some gear at the start of the game. You should have started in a shop map with a number of chest/shop things selling all sorts of stuff, and you're given some money to start with, so buy some basic equipment for everyone. Non-monks are going to have an incredibly hard time hitting anything bare-handed at the beginning of the game (heck, it's hard to hit anything at the beginning, period). One other suggestion is doing at least a few of the quests in Hommlet before heading to the Moathouse (is that the area you are talking about?) to get a level or two. The fedexing is slow and annoying, but the alternative hasn't been finished, yet, and the Moathouse is pretty rough for a lv1 party. Hope this helps.

 

Are the areas your are talking about suppose to be in the Co8 Mod?

The first place I start out in is a dungeon room with 2 doors (and I think a stairway). One of the doors is locked, the other is not. The non-locked door leads to a room with an elemental thing (wisp or something) and also a treasure chest that has a key in it. After I get the key I can then go back and open the locked door which has 2 zombies in it. Beyond that are double-doors that open to a smaller room with a locked chest which my rogue never could get open.

I wonder if I'm starting in the wrong area somehow? I've never seen any shops or anything. I may try and head to the stairs (I think there were stairs) when I first play instead.

 

That doesn't sound right. Maybe someone else can confirm or deny this, but I thought all parties, regardless of alignment, started on the shop map... Just to be clear, you did install ToEE Front-End X and use it to activate the Circle of Eight Modpack 5.5.0 BETA, then selected "Play" from the Front-End, correct?

 

Reinstall! Reinstall!! Reinstall!!!

Your install sounds mucked up. You started in the alignment vignette (CN party from the sounds of it) and you should be starting in a room with chests you can buy starting equipment from. When you installed the Co8 mod, did you select and activate the Co8 mod from the front-end list? If so, did you wait (it really does take a loooong time,) until the front end gave you a pop-up box that it was done activating the mod? I recommend you uninstall the game, delete any leftover files (deleting the entire Atari folder should do it) and reinstall from scratch.

This game and mod can be a bit of a pain to get going, but it's worth it once you get things running smoothly.

 

I'll reply back in a few minutes with more details and a screenshot. I'll double check my install too.

 

Ok, to make things clear, this is what I originally did.

1: I installed from scratch
2: patched using atari patch 1
3: patched using atari patch 2
4: then installed the Co8 mod
5: Ran the game using TFE-X.exe
6: Chose 'activate' on the Co8 mod
7: Waited a while and clicked through a few 'OK' windows
Eventually it told me it was all done.
8: I started the game from the TFE-X.exe front-end menu by hitting the 'play' button.

9: This is where it put me after choosing my characters:




I also tried clicking on 'File' -> 'Convert to ToEEFE'. It took a few minutes then told me all upgrades complete, but again after starting a new game it put me in the same map as the screenshot above.


Next up, I'm going to re-install from scratch.

EDIT: Not sure if this matters, but I'm running Windows Vista x64. I have had no problems with crashing or anything in this game so far.

 

You should be starting in a place that looks like this:
Make sure you delete the entire TOEE folder after uninstalling. Other than that, I'm not really sure what to tell you. I always copy over the Co8 mod after copying and running the front end once (it's install and conversion process), making sure not to overwrite anything, but I can't imagine that making a difference. :scratchhe

EDIT
Ech, Vista. :shrugno: I know there have been issues with it in the past, but I'll have to let those who actually use the accursed thing help you on that front.

 

Argh, no luck.

I uninstalled and deleted everything, then re-installed again. This time anytime I touched the tfe-x.exe file I ran it as administrator hoping this might solve any issues.

But nope, after getting everything going again it puts me back in the same map.

I have a theory that something with the co8 mod isn't copying or updating the module correctly.

 

When I copy the co8 mod into the game folder, I noticed it doesn't copy over anything. Is it suppose to?

What I mean is, it doesn't copy and replace anything, it just puts new files only into the game folder.

 

I believe you are copying the info to the wrong folder. Did you copy the Front End to the original ToEE folder? Are you launching the game from the ToEE Front End system (You should be). From that pic, you are definitely not using 5.5.0 but are using vanilla/original ToEE.

Once you load Front End for the first time, you will want to activate the 5.5.0 mod and make sure you look at all of the options along the top before you start your first game. Do not use your current saves, start over, they will not work.

 

I think Ranth's on to something - what exactly is your install directory? If you changed it from the default suggested by ToEE (C:\Program Files\Atari\Temple of Elemental Evil) I would suggest re-installing (yes, again - argh) to the default directory.

 

I think Ranth is correct and I'm going to re-install to the default directory this time (previously I chose a non-default directory to install to).

The weird thing is,when I first ran TFE-X.exe and it came to the part saying something along the lines of "Now converting module to Co8" or whatever, it took less than a second to get to the next stage. This leads me to believe it's not actually converting the module and why I also believe the map I'm starting off in is part of the original module.

Anyway, I'm still messing around with it. I'll re-install again in default directory.

 

The Co8 mod and the TFE pack have a couple of files in common, the latter having the latest versions. Whichever you copy into the TOEE folder second should be prompting you about overwriting those files. Keep in mind that both of them go in the top-level TOEE directory. While you're at it, make sure you've got the newest versions of both (5.5.0 BETA for the Co8 mod and v2.2 for the front-end). It kinda sounds like you're using the older version (v2.1) of the TFE-X that comes with the mod. You can find the newer one here. I don't believe there's anything overly important in that change besides a warning, but keeping up to date is generally a good philosophy.

EDIT
On time, the first run of TFE-X.exe that you mention should take a while. From my homemade instructions:

 

Currently installing again, but in your atari\temple of elemental evil\module\ folder does it show only 1 file "TOEE.dat" and 1 folder "TOEE"?