Temple of Elemental Evil

Wow, that’s a bummer John. I still enjoy the painted backgrounds and art design and the pop-up background heads when talking to people.

Since I am running around posting let me say one thing about this game: Ultimately (aside from the dumb town quests) this is the best DD cpu roleplaying game. Bar none. Grab the mods and whatever. This game always had it right.

Noted. Booked.

Nav it surely is. Hard to say why ultimately that game had a great beat to it. Real time till turn based. Plenty of options.

Had a great UI. Loved the combat back in 2003-2005, really held me over until NWN2 released in late 2006 in terms of party-based RPGing (which held me over until the first Dragon Age). Just wish there had been more of a fleshed out game world and story to go along with it.

Thanks. KG.

PM

Woah. Even better than BG2? Maybe I should push ToEE to the top of my list, already tried getting into multiple times but always bounced off.

And on that note, does anyone have a list of good builds to start with? I vaguely recall asking in some places a while ago because I wanted to play a specific class (paladin maybe?) but got pretty disheartening info on it.

If you like big, involved story, no.

If you like mechanics and combat, yes.

I’m a sucker for good combat mechanics. Top of the list it is.

As someone who, like yourself, just loves the shit out of Jagged Alliance 2 I believe you will appreciate the fact that ToEE is a turn-based combat simulation masterpiece and 90% of the game is just combat. The early bits are a lot of talking, fixed with optional combat quests using the Circle of 8 pack, and most of the game is literally a massive, sprawling dungeon with cool stuff inside of it.

That sounds great. Regarding mod installation, do I need both Co8 and Temple+? If so, in what order do I have to install them? And can I create a full party right away or do I have to recruit npcs first? I feel like I’ve asked these questions before elsewhere but unfortunately I don’t remember what advice I got.

No worries, let me drop the deets on your lap. Well, as far as I’m aware of them.

Install ToEE first, patch 1 and 2 (if you have the GOG version you can just install with the version they provide).

Next, download and install the stand alone .exe Co8 (with extras) file. Now, you will going forward launch the game from the front end menu, not the normal .exe file that comes with it. The front end will let you adjust some settings (including expanding the size of your hand-made party members if you want, I always bump this up one so I can have … I think six characters?).

Finally, and here is where I’m not 100% sure I’ve never used this, I believe you install Temple+ on top of a Circle of 8 modded ToEE installation. I don’t know if you still use the Co8 front end menu to get into the game, or if Temple+ has its own front end, though.

When you do finally get this installed and you launch it, the first thing you do is pick your party alignment, and then use pre-set or hand-craft your party members to fill in the party slots, sort of like an old-school RPG (Final Fantasy I, or Bard’s Tale). You have to stick within alignments adjacent to your choosen alignment, but when you start the game (after you find yourself in a Co8 provided room where you can buy starting equipment and prepare starting spells), you have a unique start based on your choosen alignment. Then you find yourself in the town, and the game proper can begin.

Thanks!

No problem. I will answer questions about Temple of Elemental Evil all day, any day, and in any thread or sub-forum.

I can’t stress enough. Use the Co8 mod with the additional content. Then when your in the first town, don’t do all the fetch quests because they are annoying and dull. The Co8 mod adds a good combat oriented quest to get some experience points instead.

I quit playing because of those initial quests in town. When someone (probably Scott) mentioned the added combat quest I was all over that and the beginning of the game was so much better.

I forget how to trigger that quest. I think talking to the blacksmith?

Or be ocd like me and do both sets of quests. I should have said “in my opinion” but combat and mechanics are certainly better than BG2. There are some wonderful set pieces. And those additional mods ad back in cut content (some) so they are almost essential.

Couldn’t get ToEE to start on my Mac…

I’m nearing the end of a co-op playthrough of Divinity Original Sin and it has been one of the best gaming experiences of my life because of the fantastic combat. Hoping ToEE can capture some of that magic.

The important thing to do with Temple+ is to run the Co8 mod frontend first to activate the new content. It runs a big process creating and copying files. After that you are safe to run the Temple+ configuration tool, and change any desired options there (like turning off the fog in towns, new race/class options). After that you will run the game by launching Temple+. It’s a new executable that takes you straight into the game.

Random aside: Sometime in the early 80’s, I played the actual ToEE module and lost my excellent 12th level thief. I was the last party member alive due to a sweet magic cloak, but finally rolled poorly on one of those save or die attacks in the pnp module.

I mean, we knew it had the rep of a tough adventure but… it was over the top.

Smash cut to Gen Con in the early Indy years, and I noticed Gary Gygax sitting alone in a large room. He had been chatting up something called Lejendary Adventures with anyone who walked up, but no one was engaging him in a room with 300 or so gamers. I wondered how many of them recognized Gary or even knew the con started in his living room.

I walked up to Gary and told him about my deceased thief of my teenage years and what I thought of his hardcore insane module. Gary loved it. He had a big grin and said “Ohhh sorry about that!”

That’s an awesome story! Gygax is someone I always wanted to get to know.