Greetings. As a gamemaster for D&D and many other games for eighteen years, I was pleased and amused a couple of months ago when my wife brought home "Temple of Elemental Evil", the video game. I just moved to a new town and got a job which is taking up all my time, and I had promised to teach our 10-year-old daughter the basics of roleplaying rules. This game sounded like a great way for her to pick up interaction and combat thinking... Then, after hearing several weeks of complaints from the ladies, I tried playing it myself, thinking perhaps there was a problem with the way my wife had installed the game or configured it... (hysterical laughter):twitch: Sorry, I couldn't help myself. When the game crashed after about three hours of play (a bard song error, for me), I went to the Atari website to see if there was some sort of issue listed--and found, as you already know, several patches that sounded as if there were more "features" to be fixed than actual functionality to the game. Disgusted, I DL'ed the patches, applied them, and played the game for several more hours, all the while finding more and more inconsistencies. Then I saw a mention of Co8 on GameFAQs while looking for something else. I dropped by, immediately saw that many of the things that I was concerned with had been repaired, reinstalled my game and added the "basic patches" instructions from the frontpage, circa a month ago. This made me happy... for about fifteen minutes. Starting new characters and experimenting, I immediately found a number of problems, before ever getting to the Temple itself. I list these in no particular order: 1. My characters now seem unable to find secret doors, no matter how smart they are, how many ranks they have in Search, or their possession of elven blood. I know where all the secret doors in the Moathouse are already from my first game, but it doesn't matter--whether looking actively or not, if my PARTY doesn't see them I can't use them. 2. My monk uses a masterwork spiked chain. Problem is, his exotic weapon proficiency feat says "spike chain"... this unfortunate spelling discrepancy penalizes him -4 to hit. "Spiked" is correct according to the standard 3.5 tabletop rules, BTW. I saw someone post that this had been fixed, but, well, it hasn't. Not as far as the files in the basic pack are concerned, anyway. 3. I'm sure many people have pointed out problems with item crafting. I can speak from personal experience about several issues. The "holy" weapon enchantment does not appear to actually do anything (in fact, doesn't even appear on the weapon description if you try to increase the weapon's abilities later!). "Icy burst" actually inflicts negative energy damage, which would heal undead foes. "Shocking burst" actually inflicts cold damage. All of the "burst" enchantments do incorrect damage; the actual formula is +1d6 energy damage, and an ADDITIONAL +1d10 (or +2d10, etc.) on a critical hit--this is probably the result of confusing wording held over in item descriptions from the 3.0 ruleset, but which has been repeatedly clarified in subsequent printings of official D&D material. "Boots of elvenkind" exist in the game, since I got a pair from a lonely herder before even hitting third level, but apparently can't be crafted. The Craft Staff and Forge Ring feats simply don't work. 4. The readme file for one of the mods included in that basic package states that triggering traps and suffering damage no longer grants experience equivalent to disarming the trap or avoiding it. I'd like to point out that the Dungeon Master's Guide has long stated that the whole point of traps is to inconvenience players, and that a hurt party has had a "painful lesson"--thus deserves the XP award of encountering the trap. Much as certain NPC encounters can end in combat, or not, different methods of dealing with the same situation are SUPPOSED to be worth the same amount of experience (as long as they succeed, naturally). I've GMed several groups who lacked characters capable of disarming traps, and sometimes lacking characters capable of _finding_ them. One was a party of four clerics and a druid. Their chronic use of healing spells was certainly amusing, but totally appropriate, given that they often fell victim to simple traps. They had to use resources to recover; they got the XP. 5. The system the game uses to "give change" for purchases usually works fine. In certain quests, however, it seems that this system is not checked. My characters have plenty of platinum, yet when I try to use 0.5% of it to pay Riana's debt to her employer, the scripting apparently notes that I have only 15 gold, and won't let me spend 50 platinum instead. Ummmmm... 6. Two-handed melee weapons (or one-handed weapons being used in two hands, e.g. a longsword) should suffer -1 to hit but still receive 1.5x Str bonus to damage if a buckler is equipped. The penalty to hit is being applied but the damage bonus is calculated as if the weapon were wielded one-handed. I wish I had time tonight, or anytime soon, to delve through the many threads posted since I first checked out this excellent site and see if any of these issues are shared by others (or have already been fixed in patches I haven't yet applied). Sadly, I don't. Please feel free to enlighten me if your wisdom exceeds mine. However, I would like to make one formal suggestion: It appears that lots of people have put lots of effort into creating interesting new content for the game. But could somebody simply post a mod pack that _only_ fixes the problems with the existing one? It seems to me that many users, especially ones like my family, would simply enjoy finishing the original plotline without problems and rules flaws, before going on to bigger and better things. Also, as a former coder myself, it seems to me a more elegant solution to make "modules" much like the D&D firmware of the same name to add on to an already complete and functional core engine. That is the entire basis of the new WOTC game philosophy, after all. I'd volunteer to do it myself, but unless someone wants to pay me, I'm afraid it would take months--my free time is pretty limited. Thanks to all of you, though. The plain fact of the matter is that I am very favorably impressed that so many bright and dedicated people put so much of their own time into someone else's flawed product just for the principle of the thing. Too bad people like Co8 don't run the world, eh? :goatee: --Blair blair@afaproject.org "Magical superiority through faster firepower!"
After installing ToEE, did you install the official Atari Patch 1 & 2, the Co8 Fan Fixes 3.0.4 MOD, and the Livonya's Beta 1.5.1 MOD ? Just curious, but what did you install?
Hey Blair. Thanks for dropping by and giving us your input. Not enough people do. Since you were so kind, I thought I would return the favor. This is a known issue, one which we haven't been able to resolve. It seems to be linked to DirectX 9c or SP2, or at least it showed up shortly after their release. The solution is to delete all saved games and start over. It's a PITA, but it only shows up occasionally, like once every 6 games or so for me. The first fix was broken. It has been fixed, though off hand I can't remember where. Probably in Livonya's Mod. It will be in the next official Co8 patch. The Holy Weapon enchantment works. It does add holy damage when striking evil creatures. It does show up in the crafting screen as added when trying to add additional enchantments too, but only if the character adding the enchantments can craft holy weapons. The problems with the "burst" enchantments are known issues that are hard coded (in temple.dll). We have been unable to fix them. Craft Staff and Forge Ring were fixed in Livonya's Mod, and I believe Boots and Cloaks of Elvenkind were added in either her mod or ShingingTed's Mod. This was a change made by Livonya, one of the few she made of which there hasn't been much debate about. It seems most of us here don't dispute it. Your arguments are cogent, but I would ask if a DM would allow a party to continue to gain experience from setting off the same trap over and over again. ToEE does just that, as traps do not disarm when set off, only when disabled through use of Disable Device. Our current crop of modders are reluctant to change Livonya's work (other than to work out bugs) out of respect for the huge contribution she has made to the community. This will more than likely not change, though we will give the tools and knowledge to any up-and-coming modder who wishes to do so. This is the first instance of this I have heard. It doesn't make sense, either. The game keeps track of currency internally in Copper Pieces. The conversion to Platinum, Gold and Silver is done for the user interface. The game should see your 50 Platinum as 50,000 Copper and the dialog actually subtracts 50,000 Copper, not 500 Gold. This may be a new bug, but I think it may be unique to your install. This is another issue I have never heard of before. This will require further testing. If this is the case, it is most likely hardcoded and thus beyond our abilities to fix atm. This has been called for many times before. But keep in mind, none of us here get paid to do this. This is a hobby for us, one that we spend our limited free time on. None of us are professional programmers either. Imagine what we could accomplish if we had one in the community. We will share our tools and knowledge freely with anyone who cares to take on such a project, but frankly, the allure of spending our limited time resources sifting through all the current and past mods to seperate fixes from new content is almost nonexistent. There is also the question of where to draw the line between "fix" and "new content". There is a grey area. Most of the new content is seamlessly integrated, and can be avoided or ignored by someone who doesn't want it anyway.
An off-topic note here of course, but are you *sure* in the above statement, Cerulean? Both Dulcaoin and I are professional programmers. Dulcaoin used to work for Borland, and now he works for another company that does programming. My current occupation is a teacher of English, but nevertheless programming is my second profession and from time to time I get job offers related to programming. Don't be so critical next time you state thngs It's OK of course, but still.
I installed just the "newbie instructions". Official patches 1 and 2, in that order, followed by the Co8 patch 3.0.4, then the Moebius .dll fix, then the Livonya setup executable. As far as I can tell, there _should_ be no hardware issues, since my system is drastically overpowered for such a basic game engine. As for the rest of the issues: 1. Finding secret doors Dammit! So I get to start _all over again_, as do the ladies of the house. They'll be REAL happy to hear that. 2. Spike(d) chains Livonya's mod was installed, as noted above, so the fix which was implemented wasn't in any of the "standard" files. 3. Item crafting Holy: D'oh! I gave the holy spiked chain to my wizard to enchant further. Obviously, she was incapable of imbuing the property in the first place, which must be why it "disappeared". Argh. Craft Staff and Forge Ring did not work with the patch configuration noted above. Is there a conflict between generations of patches? Liv's was the last one I extracted and placed. And the boots must have come later as well, since none show up in the crafting menu. 4. Trap XP Holy buckets, _every trap_ in ToEE has the "automatic reset" feature?! OMG. Can we say, "sadistic designers"? Obviously, enabling infinite XP from one encounter is inappropriate. I no longer disagree with the fix. 5. Giving change As far as this one is concerned, I'm clueless. I went back and talked to Riana and discovered that *even though the madam's dialogue options refused to acknowledge my money* that suddenly she was free to go. Boggle! 6. 2-handed strength damage bonus This is a patch error. The original, unpatched game calculates the situation correctly. I know this because my party's basic muscle type is a two-handed spiked chain wielding monk/fighter who wears armor and uses a buckler. (18 Str, 16 Dex, Combat Reflexes and Great Cleave. Bwa ha ha ha.) As a former math teacher, you _know_ I calculate combat statistics by reflex, and when I see my attack and damage numbers dropping so much I know something is very wrong. --Blair blair@afaproject.org "Men may sleep and ships may lie at anchor, but big guns never tire."
Be forewarned, chances are you're going to run into slowdowns later in the game, regardless of your system specs. 99% of people do. Gaear
There are two basic motherboard chipsets, VIA and nVidia. There can be varying results from both, depending on the motherboard manufacturer vendor [Intel, Asus, Abit, Biostar, etc.] and what chipset they used for your particular version of motherboard. You may have updated your device drivers from windowsupdate.microsoft.com and from playing ToEE find you further need to update your Windows device drivers for the motherboard and your addon sound and video cards from the manufacturer websites. Also, you might find you, additionally, need to tweak your motherboard BIOS settings. Or, you might find as a last result that you need to flash the motherboard BIOS with the latest ROM update.
