I recently snagged a jewel case version of the game for $10 at CompUSA and started playing it this weekend. Good thing I had come across this forum to learn about all the patches and fixes and was still surprised to find people (Livonya) working on fixes! Thought I'd chime in and add in my notes. First, installation went off without a hitch. My first worry was that I had to install DirectX 9. I only had ver.8 and I'm always weary installing a new version of DiectX cuz from what I understand there's no way of uninstalling it. But it turned out OK. Next worry: I wait to buy the re-releases since they are cheaper and include all the official patches and fixes for you. But after reading through threads here, I find that the official Patch 3 was NOT recommended. I look through the Install Disk files and find the latest README file was dated 1-25-2005, after the Patch 3 release. Sure enough the README file included notes on Patch 3, so it was indeed incorporated into the game already. But I went ahead and installed all the other critical fixes in the order recommended on this forum (Great forum BTW, hope it never dies). First the offical Patch 2, but I get a message from the installation that Patch 2 files already existed. (I guess that would be true). Then, the co8 pack, Moebius's fix, and finally Livonya's 1.5.1 fix. All installed without incident. I then fired up ToEE, keeping my fingers crossed. It seemed to take the longest time loading, but it ran without errors (knock on wood). I don't know if the Patch 2 installation re-applied Patch 2 stuff overriding Patch 3 fixes, or if the Patch 3 fix which is suppose to be for DirectX 9.0c and the version installed turned out to be 9.0b so it doesn't apply, but apparently everything is working fine. I'm only still roaming around Hommlet, so I don't know if I'll run into problems later. I first met and talked with the village boy when I got to Hommlet, so I guess all the fixes are working.
Further Questions: 1. I see Livonya's beta 2.0 will be coming out soon. Can I just install this on top of v.1.5 and it'll continue to run fine, or do I have have to start a new game for it to work? That is, will old saved games work? 2. I have a very buggy CD drive and it fails to recognize a disc inside half of the time. Are there any problems with installing a no-cd fix? That is, it won't overwrite any of the patches/fixes, will it? 3. I have an older system: 1GHz, 512 MB memory, GeForce 2. Maybe it's because I'm in Hommlet and it's a huge map, but it sometimes responds very slowly. This is especially noticable when I hit the ESC key and about 2 seconds passes before the game menu comes up. Is this normal, or it is just my system? Non-tech gameplay questions: 4. It doesn't look like you can rotate the game screen (please tell me if I'm wrong). And the walls are solid so you can't see what's behind it. Is there a way to make the walls translucent so you can see behind it? 5. Hommlett is a gorgeous huge map. But only about half of the buildings are accessable. Are they just not yet available until you trigger an event later in the game, or is it all just filler? 6. Same thing goes for indoor maps. There is almost nothing that is accessable. Is there a way to "look" at the items or bring up descriptions? I'm not talking about the items you can put in your inventory; I'm talking about the props used to decorate the map. And I did look at the manual, but either I couldn't find the answer, or it's not in there. Thanks for helping out a newbie.
1. You could probably continue playing, but you might not get to see all the nifty new things Liv will add to the game. 2. The no-CD-crack merely replaces ToEE.exe, which is only used to start up the game. With patch2, the whole game engine has been transferred to temple.dll. So it shouldn't interfere with the mods. 3. Slowdowns on big maps are common, even with high spec systems. 4. Unfortunately, no, and no. 5. When a building has no door, it's just there for decoration purposes. Nothing to see here, please move on. 6. Try using the tab key. It should highlight any "containers", i.e. chests, drawers and so on, in a room. But you're right, most of the environment is static.
