Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat Bought Temple of Elemental Evil

Just bought TOEE a few days ago, my thoughts:

Character creation was good, you get to choose race, class, gender, height, alignment, Deity, features, feats, skills, spells, portrait, and voice. there is two ways to get your hitpoints: 1- rolling (can re-roll), 2- start with 8 points in each and the assign a pool of 25. I believe that you only get to advance to level 10.

game play is done with the radial dial style and has a large amount of options to it. movement is done with scrolling or arrow keys and mouse click. graphics are very good, a lot of details. combat is turn based and slow. the whole game seems to be slow except when loading and saving. when you enter combat you do enter combat automatically, i find myself liking it so far. music is good, a catchy tone. many npc's do talk.

This is my first game review of this kind so I am sorry if not to indepth. If you ask specific questions about TOEE I will do my best to answer them.
Check these 5 screen shots out, they are on one page and are 800x600 each.

TOEE screen shots

damn, those pics look nice, I might find myself getting that too. looks great!


nice, thanks for the update. glad you got it? how's it measure up to <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />?

let us know more of the game when u're deeper in it, goldy. i await your in depth review.

yeah, especially since getting the demo takes FOREVER!! I'll just go buy the game and save me the time. it's like 800 something MB thats alot of space! And as with any good game...i've heard rumors good and bad....the bad is what worries me ...of coarse...i heard the game has some bugs in it...i'm just wondering if they are any worse than they were in Divine Divinity...i mean.. DD in itself gave me and run for my money..because before i played it i didn't really know much about computers..but i still mangaged to beat the game...weird ending but other than that..not TOO many bugs that i couldn't fix.

--Danielle (yes keep us informed...i WANT this game) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cry.gif" alt="" />

The game is for Hardcore dnd players only.This game is more of a dungeon crawl then anything with an emphasis on charecter building.Also i do not reccomend buying this game till a patch is released as it has massive bug problems.Atari rushed the manufactuer of the game and told them if it wasnt out by such an such a date that it would cancel publishing.So the game got put on store shelves with it being undertested and knowing to have bugs and i mean alot of them.I bought it before i found out and liked the game very much until the bugs started showing themselves.Plus another thing i do not like is unless you run the game at 800/600 res the charecters are very very small to look at.If they get a decent patch for it i will say without a doubt that as far as charecter developing goes this game may be the best ever.

thanks, Bane - I ordered it already ... I'm used to restart a game <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/puppyeyes.gif" alt="" />
Kiya

Is there any official info page about the game ?

Some links:

Atari.com

TOEE page

Atari Forums been here just to check out the forum and it is NOT as nice a place as we have here.

There are no udates/ patches at this time for TOEE.




So far I would have to say that it ranks right up there for graphics, I only have four quest right now but I hope there will be tons more, character creation I am sorry to say out matches Divinity because of all the choices you have. The general game interface is easy to figure out and get used to, so is the combat system. More thoughts will follow.

As for it being full of bugs, I have not had any problems yet (knock on wood), but even if I do I will over come them and there will be a patch out as with all games, no matter how much testing is done before a game is released there are always bugs.

I payed $50.00US and will get my monies worth out of the game, unless <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> is released very soon.

Go out and get the game if you played pen&paper D&D and enjoy. I am.

Theres a big difference between a game having bugs and a game having massive bugs where it makes it nearly impossible to even finish the game.You have only done 4 quests so why your reccomending it playing it such a short time is beyond me.By the time they comeout with a patch the game will probably sell for 15-20 bucks cheaper and your better off waiting to buy till the patch comes out.it is not a finished game till the patch is released.
NOBODY buy this game without the patch being released!! The monsters appearing "out-of-bounds" after resting, certainly was a surprise encounter indeed. The overall game is good, and performs better as an AD&D combat simulator than IWD or BG, but in its' present state, it's anything but a satisfactory gaming experience. Early buyers beware... again wait for the official patch before getting this game.

thanks for the comments

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forum...6cbddb96446ca042&threadid=321648 doesn't look to nice.


hmm, well, I might get it after RRR, but RRR will have a better starting choice for character's too <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

And, our Larians ar picking their own publishers! Control = perfection! Nobody is gonna push Larian to release <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> befor it's ready! Wouldn't it just be wonderfull to have a game that doesn't need a patch? I was looking at TOEE, but I think I will wait for more of Goldies reveiw!

miracles do happen!!

I just can't help myself...i will STILL have to buy the game! Even if i'm still fiddiling around with it...at least i can still OWN the game while i'm waiting for this official patch...and personally i've tried patches before and it didn't do squat for me...if i run into any serious problems though...well hey...this IS a forum, right?

--Danielle (is an impulse buyer)

There's an unofficial patch out, by the way.

Here's what I think of it so far:

- Graphics: Nice. I like the pretty pre-rendered 2D stuff; it has excellent atmosphere that reminds me pleasantly of the IE games. The avatars are a bit blocky and faceless, though. But hey, that's what you get in most 2D isometric games. I'll have this over blocky 3D graphics any time, any given day.

- Sound and music: Nothing spectacular. The music is negligible. Usually I only hear grunts and swords clanging, that kind of thing. Makes me miss IWD's music. Or DD's, for that matter. The kind of soundtrack you would want to listen to outside the game. ToEE just doesn't have that.

- Writing: I'm sorry, here, but frankly the dialogue and writing overall are deserving of scorn. It is bland, hackneyed to gag-worthy in places, and doesn't feel natural in others. Was the budget limited on the writing department? I'm not expecting the quality of literature writing (mind you, for me, the definition of "literature" is debatable, but I digress), but I do expect it to be better than juniour high level. (Or is that an insult to junior high students? Ah, well.)

- Roleplaying: I'm sad to say that there isn't much of this, at least not as much as I expected. I admire the fact that alignment affects the beginning, but investing in skills like diplomacy seems to be a waste of time. Okay, so I was expecting something similar to what is seen in Lionheart's Barcelona area, where my character could bribe, bluff, lie, and cheat her way through. Not to mention talking bosses out of a fight. (And still get the same amount of XP as fighting the critter, if not more.) Maybe this isn't fair, considering the original ToEE is all about dungeon crawl, but didn't Tim Cain tout this game to possess "roleplaying opportunities"?

- Combat: It's turn-based, but quite fast-paced - a pleasant surprise. I actually enjoy the combat, and that's saying a lot for someone who can't tolerate the sluggishness of turn-based combat. It's also complex and sticks faithfully to D&D rules.

- Character creation: This is one of the game's strengths, although some of it feels a little pointless. If you aren't a cleric, the choice of deity doesn't really affect anything.

- Interface: I don't like radial menus. At all. It's bearable, but can be bloody awkward at times. Otherwise, though, it's easy to use.

- Bugs: So far, I haven't been bitten by anything major. The screen went black with white stripes on me twice, but reloading remedied that. At times the game lags and slows down for no good reason, even though my machine more than easily surpasses the minimum -- even the recommended -- requirements. (P4 2.8 GHZ, 800 mHZ bus, Geforce FX 5200 128 MB, 512 RAM. Yeah, it's nothing uber, but it can run most newer games just fine.) That, and the fact that toggling combat off doesn't seem to work nine times out of ten.

- Hardcore D&D: I'm not too sure about that. I know my bits of D&D, but I think that even without the geekdom, you can enjoy the game just fine.

- Overall: This is turning to be an experience very similar to IWD. Nice hack'n'slash, but not quite the text-heavy Planescape:Torment, or even the first part of LH. Okay. I can live with that. I didn't have that high an expectation of this game, after all.

Now, waiting for Riftrunner and KoTOR.

it seems very niiiiiice. Very well.... do someone know the official site of ths game?

Francesco

http://www.greyhawkgame.com/

As to the unofficial patch. As there is an official one in the making also, would that mean the two of them are incompatible?

What's a radial menu?

A Menu looking like a wheel. Presented in some screenshots.


By the way I find this interesing <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> :

Aha. Had something like Tomb Raider in mind... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />



That be about the average of visitors I get a day at my fansite... cough... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />