First impressions and questions

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Well, I have to say....It's nice being back in Greyhawk again. It's like an old friend stopping by to visit. The graphics are pretty awesome, and so far the story is good...So of the fedex quests are a tangled mess! I mean, who I am to go around doing St. Cuthbert's conversion work?!?!

Anyway, here are my first impressions so far:

I like all the different coinage! Nice to see pp, cp, sp & gp!

Although I've gotten used to the RT combat in the BG/IWD games, the round by round system isn't terrible.

I like the radial buttons for each character.

The RP is rich so far...Elmo cracks me up...The drunk!

I've journeyed throughout Hommlet, and Just began the moathouse, but so far...Things are very similar, at least in appearance, to the original module...Very nice!

Now for the complaints:

The scrolling speed is ridiculously SLOW!!!!

The portraits are terrible and not diverse enough. Can custom portraits be imported like in BG/IWD/NWN?

The voice sets for NPCs sound a bit clunky...A lot of crackling and such...Never had any problems with my other games...So I'm assuming it's TOEE specific.

It's hard to manuever pcs on the map...The AI is not very good - and sometimes I hit the radial button and attack party members by mistake. I almost killed my rogue this way.

Now for the questions:

Is quicksave the only option? I looked for "save game" for about an hour - all I could find was "quicksave" (f12) and "quickload" (f9)

Because of the question above, does this mean if pcs die...Unless I can rez them...they are dead? It seems like that is the case. I would like to know for sure.

How many people can you have in your party at once? Did I make a mistake by creating a party of 5? Should I drop a few pcs in favor of the NPCs roaming around Hommlet?

Man! I wish you could have stayed in Nyr Dyv for a bit to buy equipment!!! Hommlet is a little thin on adventuring gear!!! Well, if anyone knows the answer to the questions above, let me know. Thanks!

Overall...I am happy with the game so far!

 

Did you try the "Escape" key? It should take you to a menu that lets you load, save or quit. Now that I think about it the manual didn't seem to cover that; I figured it out by doing what worked in Arcanum.

You can have up to eight party members. But it is a real pain in the bum to manoeuvre that number of people around narrow dungeons. As for PC vs. NPC, there are some really great NPCs in the game, but you don't get to pick their level-up skill options and they hog the loot, so it's a matter of personal preference. Incidentally, if you start with just one character and then decide you don't like the NPCs, you can always add new characters to your party by going to the Wayward Wench and clicking on the innkeeper's guestbook, which takes you back to character creation to add troops.

Glad you're enjoying the game so far!

 

I though Greyhawk was the most mercantile town of the Flaness?, or maybe Rel Astra they have great port...

http://www.cglenn.com/

he tell how to add custom portraits

 

Well, I've played for two hours now. Half of that time was moving the mouse around in the creation screen. My opinion so far?
It sucks!
Sorry, but I am being honest.
The mouse speed is annoying. The fact that I can't adjust the games brightness is annoying. Those stupid round things that pop up for each character is annoying. The lack of decent portraits are annoying, to me they remind me of Japanese animation, which I don't care for. The voice sets suck.
I hate turn based combat!
Why can't I have different alignments in my party? Prop a 3.5 ed rule thing.
I'm going to try it some more and see if things change. I mean there have been other games that have gotten off to a slow start for me and picked up. If not, I'll just go back to Baldur's Gate and wait for the next game from Black Isle.

 

About the mouse scrool speed, hit ESC and change it. Works wonders. Play around with the options.

 

Because I love D&D. I've played other games that have turn based combat and because other aspects of the game were so good, I was able to over look it. But so far, it hasn't happened here.

 

well, the best thing about this game is the cool turn based combat, so I think you are bound for disappointment.

But the scroll speed is set to "1" in the preferences by default, when 3 or 4 is a normal speed. That can be changed easily enough.

I've never cared about portraits, so I don't care that these are even lamer than the usual run of lame portraits.

Bel,

it is almost identical to the old module. The static quests in Hommlet and Nulb are the only significant deviations. A few of the options to be incredibly stupid (like messing with the Antipathy'd doors) aren't in the game and those things (like the intrigues) that would be RPed in p&p are now static quests.

But Otis and Elmo and Oolghrist and whatnot are all in there and doing their thing. If you are really lost and confused, you can break out the module's maps and use them.

Not sure what you mean about it being hard to maneuver characters. I've never hit anyone by mistake. The mouse clicking doesn't seem to be as sensitive as it might be, so sometimes clicks don't register. That's annoying, but its not deadly since its turn based.

 

I was finishing a fight against the dreaded deklo spiders, and I accidentally started up the radial keys for my paladin...And hit my rogue. It happened when I first started playing the game.

After starting over and playing again last night...I am enjoying it a lot more. The scroll speed was the worst, but if you change it to 3 or 4, instead of 5 (which is bugged, I guess) it works fine.

As for the brightness thing...I read on the Atari boards that you can change the brightness on the TOEE.config file to brightness=0 and that will clear it up.

 

I love this game, but am about to hang it up until a patch comes out to fix the scroll/movement/interface problem. I adjusted my scroll speed to 4 and is still terrible slow. I have to click repeatedly on an area to get my party to move, then they take half a minute or more to move. Moving from area to area or in/out buildings takes well over a minute. Also, when I came back to town after clearing out the moathouse, I can't place flags to identify the rest of Hommelet. Just for once I wish they would get all of the bugs out of game before they put it on the market. It's very disheartening to spend $50 bucks or more on a game and have it not work properly.

 

Gnome Ranger - The problems you describe sound like your machine does not meet or barely meets the minimum requirements, what is your sys specs? What resolution are you running it at? If everything is moving slow its your system, not the game.

 

The scroll on the map from side to side is fine. What is slow is the movement of the mouse cursor. It took forever in the character creation screen. And setting the scroll speed has nothing to do with it.
I played a little bit longer again today. I'm sorry, but I just can't get into it because everything seems slower than other games. I guess I maybe was a little too hard, the game story seems really great. And the graphics are awesome!
Its just too slow of a game for me right now. I think its so close to the pen and paper and that's what's getting me right now. I like the pen and paper games, played em all the time when I was younger. Its just that you need more time for that and time is something I don't have a lot of. Yeah I could play a little and then save, but it just seems I don't get far. I'm sure I'll come back to this game at some point.

 

I think it's the closest to pnp DnD than any game I've found. I played it for a while last night...I'm in the lowest level of the Moathouse right now...It's awesome! I love the item/scroll creation feats!!! When the patch comes out, I think this game will be great!!!!

 

Jschild, I too feel my PC does not meet the game specs. I am just in denial because I'm not ready to shell out bucks for a new PC(mines 4 years old). So I'm off to play my Black Isle games again until I'm ready to upgrade. Hopefully by the time the patch comes out for TOEE, I will be able to buy a new PC to play it. All that aside my first impression of the game is two thumbs up.

 

I continue to be impressed with the way that they've replicated actual D&D gameplay. The wide variety of skills and feats makes for some very different and versatile characters. The feats are especially great for pure fighters - no more cookie-cutter tanks!

I haven't found the bugs in the game that bad. A little annoying in some cases, and the lack of item descriptions is a pain, but nothing that makes me want to stop playing What I really hope is that Troika et al are allowed to produce other modules with the same engine.

 

Okay, I changed my mind. The coolest thing about this game is that full plate sucks! YAY!


Err, well, it doesn't suck, its still got better AC than anything I've found. But the mobility loss is too painful to bear. My cleric with the Radiant Ranseur wears the +1 Full Plate. Everyone else is in light or medium armor.

Too bad the best shields I've found are the butt ugly ones.

 

That has nothing to do with the game, that has to do with 3E Rules. Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale II Armor behaves the same way.

 

Haven't installed it yet - game was released here today - but I checked the manual and I just love some things:

- Alignment restricts which characters can be together in the party.
Finally! No paladins in evil or chaotic parties. This is the way AD&D is supposed to be played.

- Turn based detailed combat.
Let me count the ways I dislike real time clickfests!

- Very true to the original campaign.
I cherish my 1985 first edition TToEE book and am getting a nostalgic trip of epic proportions.


The huge number of bugs worry me a little bit, but seeing how committed the player community is (for example the Circle of Eight) those worries are small. Besides I still have great confidence in Troika.

 

No, Jschild, it does not. I have played both NWN and IWD2 and plate armor is either no mobility loss or a trivial one. In NWN, everyone with a strength above 10 wears full plate if they have the proficiency because there is no drawbacks.

The same is true for the IE engine.

My point is that this game *does* follow the 3e rules so that choosing the heavy armors is a clear case of mobility vs protection. That is most definitely not true of the other D&D games.