Temple of elemental evil with the circle of eight mod is a totally different game to what people remembered. Absolutely Worth playing. Its in my favs collection with Planescape torment, Nox, Wizardy 8, Dark Sun 2, Fallout 1/2 and Arcanum.
Though I feel people in this forum are FAR from classic RPG fans, youl probably just get negative comments and <its not modern, no QUALITY OF LIFE stuff, no sex/romances, to much READING so MEEEH> so no point really discussing these great type of games here. Basically any game people complain nowadays because of <NO QUALITY OF LIFE> <MICROMANAGING> stuff, is a great cRPG experience in my book.
I mean people here are negative even towards BG1 and BG2! LOL.
Also these RPG classics are still actively supported BY MANY and have of back-ends to modern rigs (more resolution options etc...) like for Fallout 2 (Sfall) and Arcanum (UAP2.0). Everything runs perfect on my Win10 rig on a 32 LG lcd forced at 4:3 aspect ratio; to keep that classic feel
. Im actually really tempted to get a cheap 17 inch SONY crt monitor to hook up via HDMI/Converter to just play these games.
I don't know who you are referring to, but there are plenty of us on this forum who are all about the classic RPGs. But those games are all about deep story, quests, characters, and world, and ToEE is NOT any of those things. It is 90% combat and 10% everything else, which is NOT the recipe for a true classic RPG.
I think this illustrates the subjectivity of this kind of discussion.
I tend to fall on the side of Temple of Elemental Evil being an excellent RPG in the most classic sense and while I don't disagree that there is a lot of combat, I also want to point out there are factors in play that demonstrate that it is also a work of carefully crafted storytelling in the classic sense.
However, we can't really discuss this unless we understand what "a classic sense means" but I think I can provide some insight here.
Classic would be:
1. Show don't tell - modern games insult the intelligence of the player by providing way too much exposition. Instead of allowing the player to figure out the history, motivations and stories of people involved they will have an "exposition" character that just explains it all.
2. Build the story into the Art
3. Create a challenging scenario that players are forced to struggle with, fail, possibly repeatedly, until they figure out how to overcome it/them. I find many modern games do a lot of "path polishing" instead of challenging players. Everybody gets a participation trophy. I have seen players on these boards complain about failing as if they were entitled to be protected from ever experiencing such a thing. Failure and defeat are wonderful teachers.
4. Respect immersive qualities. ToEE uses D&D currencies, insist on hirlings getting a share of the treasure, force you to make realistic weight and carrying decisions, and stick to the ruleset in regards to negative outcomes (if you raise a dead character they lose a level).
5. Allow the player 'moral" flexibility even if the options are grotesque and terrible you are permitted to carve a swath of violence through the realms or prance around righting every wrong and putting band aids on every boo-boo.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on what constitutes a classic experience to you.
