Temple of Elemental Evil

[Gaear]

Wasn't the FF sword actually part of the original game that was cut before release? Thought I heard something in that direction.

Yeah, I do believe it was an original Troika item that never saw the light of day in vanilla ToEE.

lacks BIO/Obsidian-style item/spell descriptions etc., for instance a typical spell description is like : You gain combat bonuses. See? Very informative.

I agree with the stylistic part. ToEE is pretty blah in a lot of ways when it comes to the user interface.

 

[Azrael the cat]

ToEE

- very enjoyable TB combat
- some nice graphics, spell effects
- slow, sluggish engine
- bugs
- lacks BIO/Obsidian-style item/spell descriptions etc., for instance a typical spell description is like : You gain combat bonuses. See? Very informative.

So insignificant details like the cloud sword kills the game for you? Solution: Ignore it.

I can see the point with the CoEE hate, but it depends on your perspective. If you are after an rpg with C+C, interesting characters and NPCs, and good story/writing then ToEE will be horribly disappointing - yes worse than BG. People who like ToEE usually do so because it is the best implementation of DnD combat to date. But combat has a massively varying importance to different people when playing RPGs - for some, like Jaesede, combat is everything, whereas for VD its the C+C and for others its the writing and dialogue. ToEE came out at a time when there'd been a run on expansive, dialgoue-heavy, story-focused rpgs, including Arcanum by the same developers. People bought ToEE looking for a new rpg to go on with after playing a run of games along the lines of Fallout, then BG, then FO2, then PS:T, then BG2 and then Arcanum (seriously, that might not be the correct release order, but their timing was such that many people - myself included - got used to their being an rpg of that style constantly available around the time that they got bored of the previous one, with perhaps a few gaps that were filled by System Shock 2, Deus Ex and Starcraft). Not that I'm saying BG was the equal of FO - I'm just talking about the style of the genre at that time. Naturally they looked at the genre and the developer and expected more of the same - and consequently ToEE's pure dungeon-crawl dissapointed them greatly. Even dungeon crawlers at that time had far more story (IWD series comes to mind), and whether it was Troika's fault, or just the gaming media assuming that it would be like Arcanum, ToEE was NOT presented as a pure dungeon-crawler prior to release. Sure, you could say people should have known from the DnD module, but few gamers had actually played that, and press could be forgiven for assuming (post-Arcanum) that the module was going to be used as a base for a far more expansive game.

And for those that lke dungeon crawlers, there's a hefty proportion for whom the idea of 'best implementation of DnD combat' isn't particularly appealing, because they hate DnD combat.

Personally, I almost threw the game out in disgust when I bought it soon after release - I started to appreciate it when many years later I gave it another go to kill an afternoon, expecting very little, and found the combat enjoyable now that I was prepared for the lack of anything decent other than the combat. And I bet that many of the people now praising it had the exact same reaction as I did when the game first came out.

So you really aren't 'missing anything' if you don't like the game. Its the best ever implementation of DnD combat. And nothing more than that. If you're after DnD combat done well, then hey it's the logical choice - but if you're not then it has little else to offer.

 

[Shannow]

It actually has quite a lot of C&C in a C&C-to-gamelength-ratio. But I'm more with Jasede than with VD so...

 

[Eldritch]

I think there's a difference between the "combat system" being done well and the "combat" being done well. Call it encounter design or whatevah but you need that shit to be in perfect agreement with its combat system to state that the combat(period) was done really well. Even an awesome DnD rendition of TB combat can work badly if it isn't challenging enough it's like in ToEE, the game should have been balanced in a different way to make it a more thoughtful game with better handcrafted encounter design or stick with a more simplistic combat system like in the IE games if I have to shovel through shitloads of tedious, effortless crap to get to the few good encounters that would stimulate at least some neurological activity other than boredom. A lot of the encounters in ToEE are such banal-shit-boring easy ones like those boring buggybear hordes etc., it makes you wish for a retarded but faster paced RTwP system to just breeze through them at some points.

The combat system itself was just awesome and had an insane tactical potential in it that could have been tapped with a more intelligent encounter design saturated with more interesting enemies sporting a lot more varying abilities, intelligently challenging situations and just badass unforgiving areas where you would tremble at the thought of venturing forth. I can't say ToEE had more quality over quantity when it came to combat encounters.

If a game doesn't need thought to win then a TB system is a waste no matter how awesome it is.

Those incredibly boring towns with their static tediousness that gives you a brain embolism could have been better off as a quest/shopping/resting interface with a pretty picture/animation like in Betrayal at Krondor or made to include a lot better quests in accordance with the story. The "story" being that the Temple of Elemental Evil is rising and its influence is affecting the various towns under its shadow by sabotaging them, sprouting strange cults to sway the weak willed to their evil cause and even nightly raids on Hommlett itself. The quests could have something to do with the establishment of the Temple itself with its objectives taking place in the Moathouse or the Temple. The whole evil intrigue affecting Hommlett was pretty much cut short with a lame quest with the Kingcomrade merchant and his friend and that was it. The disjointed, fetch quests involving stupid peasants and their petty lives was a terrible way for filling the "town content", barely justifying their existence to be there as large areas with a lot of NPCs. I simply have my party jump to 2nd lvl with the console command and head straight to the Moathouse because Hommlett is just too lame for my mortal mind as it is.

 

[Severian Silk]

It actually has quite a lot of C&C in a C&C-to-gamelength-ratio. But I'm more with Jasede than with VD so...

There just wasn't a lot of dialogue/narrative aspects to go along with the C&C. I mean, if you have at most 2 lines of dialogue with a particular NPC, and both of those lines feature C&C, then yes the C&C ratio is high, but there are still only 2 lines of dialogue.

 

[Mefi]

There just wasn't a lot of dialogue/narrative aspects to go along with the C&C. I mean, if you have at most 2 lines of dialogue with a particular NPC, and both of those lines feature C&C, then yes the C&C ratio is high, but there are still only 2 lines of dialogue.

A lot of that comes from how it was thrown out of the door. After many hours of pouring through the dialogue files, there is a lot of stuff which is hinted at and which never got implemented. The dialogue system itself is most wonderful - really is excellent and easy to mod. But of course anything done now will trigger obvious reactions of digust/dislike.

Lot of good stuff under the surface in ToEE. A lot of the flak it got really does seem to come from not enough time to do what needed to be done. But it is what it is now.

Agree with those who say that the game balance just doesn't 'feel right'. Most of that I think seems to come from the 'open-ended' nature of the game. There are very few railroaded 'decision' points in the game which obviously means that if you step away from the 'logical' order to do things then certain areas will be far more tedious and simpler than they would otherwise be. And of course, some of this is down to plain old DnD being cookie cutter at times - web, fireball ftw...

 

[Black]

It's not only about the dialogue, it's how you approach different things, like the tower near the temple. ToEE is painfully short and small and yet it does C&C much better than many today rpgs with hyped "C&C"

 

[Waterd103]

I think there's a difference between the "combat system" being done well and the "combat" being done well. Call it encounter design or whatevah but you need that shit to be in perfect agreement with its combat system to state that the combat(period) was done really well. Even an awesome DnD rendition of TB combat can work badly if it isn't challenging enough it's like in ToEE, the game should have been balanced in a different way to make it a more thoughtful game with better handcrafted encounter design or stick with a more simplistic combat system like in the IE games if I have to shovel through shitloads of tedious, effortless crap to get to the few good encounters that would stimulate at least some neurological activity other than boredom. A lot of the encounters in ToEE are such banal-shit-boring easy ones like those boring buggybear hordes etc., it makes you wish for a retarded but faster paced RTwP system to just breeze through them at some points.

The combat system itself was just awesome and had an insane tactical potential in it that could have been tapped with a more intelligent encounter design saturated with more interesting enemies sporting a lot more varying abilities, intelligently challenging situations and just badass unforgiving areas where you would tremble at the thought of venturing forth. I can't say ToEE had more quality over quantity when it came to combat encounters.

If a game doesn't need thought to win then a TB system is a waste no matter how awesome it is.

Those incredibly boring towns with their static tediousness that gives you a brain embolism could have been better off as a quest/shopping/resting interface with a pretty picture/animation like in Betrayal at Krondor or made to include a lot better quests in accordance with the story. The "story" being that the Temple of Elemental Evil is rising and its influence is affecting the various towns under its shadow by sabotaging them, sprouting strange cults to sway the weak willed to their evil cause and even nightly raids on Hommlett itself. The quests could have something to do with the establishment of the Temple itself with its objectives taking place in the Moathouse or the Temple. The whole evil intrigue affecting Hommlett was pretty much cut short with a lame quest with the Kingcomrade merchant and his friend and that was it. The disjointed, fetch quests involving stupid peasants and their petty lives was a terrible way for filling the "town content", barely justifying their existence to be there as large areas with a lot of NPCs. I simply have my party jump to 2nd lvl with the console command and head straight to the Moathouse because Hommlett is just too lame for my mortal mind as it is.

QFT +10

My views on the design of several battles.

¨We have interesting fights like the 4 deamons! But we need more fights to make hte game longer, plz oh game designer, give us more battles to make the game longer?¨
¨Sure, did you see the entrance where you fight the earth deamon?¨
¨yeah¨
¨ok make that plz bigger and add some earth elementals, the do something similar to each other elemental deamon.¨
¨Oh you are a genius¨
¨I know¨

A lot of battles are meaningless and put down there without much thought.

Toee feels like almost a BETA. I think the game had a lot of potential and it was a shame that more tolls for custom made content wasn´t realeased. A real shame.

Despite all this, I consider TOEE one of the better RPGs out there, especially from the last 5 years. But i´m not sure if that´s TOEE Achievement or the show of a genere generally badly implemented.

 

[Serus]

Toee feels like almost a BETA.

Like all three games made by Troika then... Only Arcanum is a late beta and ToEE an early one.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Toee feels like almost a BETA.

Like all three games made by Troika then... Only Arcanum is a late beta and ToEE an early one.

I would rather eat an underdone steak than a perfectly cooked turd. I think I understand your meaning though; Why couldn't the steak have been cooked right? It would have been heavan!

 

[JarlFrank]

Toee feels like almost a BETA.

Like all three games made by Troika then... Only Arcanum is a late beta and ToEE an early one.

I would rather eat an underdone steak than a perfectly cooked turd. I think I understand your meaning though; Why couldn't the steak have been cooked right? It would have been heavan!

Actually, I love eating raw steaks.
Oh wait it was a metaphor.
I still love eating raw steaks.

 

[Double Ogre]

Toee feels like almost a BETA.

Like all three games made by Troika then... Only Arcanum is a late beta and ToEE an early one.

Well, not really. Arcanum is just unpolished, while ToEE is clearly unfinished. Moreover, ToEE got heavily censored when Atari decided to go for the Teen rating at the last moment, and the developers had to cut many things. E.g. you enter a house at the beginning of the game, talk to a female NPC, and the first dialog option you have is a comment on the "many children that are running around". Except the woman's alone in her house, with about a dozen of empty kid's beds. They removed the children. Feels really awkward.

 

[Severian Silk]

One really nice thing about the game engine is that it plays nice with other apps. You can ALT+TAB or go to the desktop and it doesn't continue to use 100% of the CPU resources. This is important in a game where you have to refer to the documentation a lot.