And except for Charcter creation. The in-game help tell’s absolutely nothing about what anything does when you create a character except in the vaguest possible terms. This is just a minor annoyance, cause it’s all in the manual, but it begs the question why they could not have put it in the bloody game too.
I’ll agree Arcanum was a (very) acquired taste, and slow to get going. ToEE is more accessible IMO simply because D&D is more familiar than the custom steampunk type setting for Arcanum, but I can’t for the life of me (other than slavish adherence to the module) figure out why Troika chose to start off ToEE with an interminable and very very boring stint in Hommlet. ZZZZZZzzzzzz.
I would have loved the graphics of ToEE with Arcanum gameplay, but balanced better too. Like a few others, I’m tired of DnD mechanics.
etc
Bah - there’s a lot of things I loved about TOEE. I love the adaptation of D&D and the classic module, the turn-based combat, the graphics, as well as the typical Troika sense of humour in the dialogues, etc.
If there had been more a little more NPC interaction (somewhat limited by the source material, although they could have included additonal towns), and a cleaner engine with less bugs, I would have really loved this game. If they had done more in terms of making the adventure “dynamic” (having townsfolk respond to developments, or even be attacked by the Temple; having the people in Nulb respond in some of the ways suggested in the module; having the actual temple forces respond more dynamically to incursion as opposed to just waiting until you walked into their respective rooms, etc.) - it would have been all-time great RPG.
I really hope these guys get to do the Against the Giant series, and have the opportunity to address some of these points.
Desslock,
It sounds like you want something more along the lines of Baldur’s Gate. Troika seems not to be able to create a truly vibrant world that acts and interacts with one another. They are all about the mechanics of the game.
It sounds like you want something more along the lines of Baldur’s Gate. Troika seems not to be able to create a truly vibrant world that acts and interacts with one another. They are all about the mechanics of the game.
I don’t know about that. I thought both Fallout and Arcanum had worlds that were very vibrant and interactive. In fact, Fallout might be the benchmark regarding the gameworld reacting to player actions, particularly the ending. TOEE was a big step back in this regard but hopefully it will be back once again in Bloodlines.
Did the Troika group actually write and design the story for Fallout?
The biggest thing I want from a patch is a gamma slide! I have to turn it up to 2.0 on my desktop. Once I do, the game looks A LOT better. I can even see inside the fog of war. Unfortunately, everything on my desktop is washed out in the meantime :).
These guys will have a patch out before Troika, they already have some very nice fixes posted there.
http://ussbrowarek.org/~ausir/toee/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=14
olaf
Was just about to post that, best place to get their patches is here:
http://greyhawk.lexx.eu.org/en/style_dark/index.php?id=mods
They seem to be working on some pretty extensive additional patches, including adding descriptions to the items.
Nice. Thanks for the links, guys.
Ok, but won’t that be incompatible with any patches that Troika does put out (if any)?
The corrected bugged items, spells should be fine. When Troika releases their own patch you can swap the fanfixes out by just deleting them. Shouldn’t cause problems as there isn’t any added content just tweaked values.
The brothel workaround would have to be merged with the patched version of the .dlg file.
So what does this add? The full area, plus NPCs/quests?
So what does this add? The full area, plus NPCs/quests?[/quote]
Troika took out the door reference, the brothel is still there in complete form.
Download the following file and talk with Mona, they use the conversation engine to teleport you inside.
http://members.cox.net/dhoom/00213mona.dlg
it goes in \data\dlg\
you’ll need to create it
EDIT: if you’ve done the orb quest it may not give you the option, an oversight on the authors part.
You can open up the mona.dlg and add this line
{411}{I was wondering about that building behind you. What is it?}{}{1}{}{130}{}
at the appropriate place to enter the building after doing the orb quest.
U6 is the first game that I remember infuriating me for losing hours of gameplay due to bugs that corrupted the game state. The one that sticks out in my memory was the half-a-ship bug, in which one of the tiles that made up your ship vanished, leaving it an an unusable state.
Almost the same thing that was seen later with Fallout 2 and the half-a-car, come to think of it…
The bug I found in Ultima 6’s initial version - if you talk to one of the gargoyles he’ll mention a key-word (the ones that appear in red) that he’s not supposed to mention until much later in the game after you’ve found both pieces of the broken tablet (which involves a LOT of dungeon exploring and so forth). That key-word allows you to ask questions about stuff you should have no idea about, and tells you about all the items you’ll need to solve the final quest and how to get those items. Or at least it went something like that.
I was amazed that the game was so “short” - and later amazed that such a deceptively tiny bug could have such a huge effect on how the game is played.
(edit: I was reiterating a bunch of what I said in my earlier post in this thread)