This is the open beta for my ToEE conversion for NWN2.
It�s impossible to imagine the mod being produced without Troika�s The Temple of Elemental Evil. There aren�t many games were I was so bitterly divided between the things I liked about the game and the things I disliked. As much as I enjoyed the combat system, I found the actual encounters simplistic and repetitive and as much as I liked the idea of a huge, balkanized pentagon-sized fortress filled with bugbears, the lack of storytelling left me cold. The Temple of Elemental Evil Revisited is my own little attempt to create a game with the basic ToEE set-up that a) gives the player choices about how he/she wants to deal with the temple, b) has an enjoyable story without railroading the player into it and c) has gameplay that people enjoy.
c) has gameplay that people enjoy.
unless you already love nwn2's shoddy real time combat engine thats going to be very difficult to pull off, its nice to see you're at least attempting to add in some decent story elements, ToEE was a great engine on paper, but turned out really buggy, but it honestly never helped that they chose such a dull module, thats really something thats only fun as a one shot in some con or gathering, Like ToH with less fatalities.
I've downloaded this and am experiencing a problem -- no party shows up. I talk to everyone in Hommlet, but no party, even when I leave town to travel to an area. Has anyone reported this issue before, and if so, how do I fix it? Thank you. Looking forward to playing this!
Are you sure that you are a) patched? and b) that you put the ToEE campaign in your "~/My Documents / NeverWinter Nights 2 / Campaigns/" folder? The Journal entry thing in particular makes me think that you don't have all the files in the Campaign folder.
Hello, I recently picked up NWN2 and I'm trying this module, and seem to have some bugs.
I've created my party, leveled them up, made gear for everyone, and spoke to several people for quests. However, when I open my journal there is no text visible, just the blocks where the text should be. Also when I try to leave town by clicking the world map, nothing happens, the group runs up to it but I never get the screen to travel.
The cursor says World Map Transition and changes when over the blue glyph, but clicking it doesn't do anything in either character mode or strategy mode.
You should have gotten a journal entry mentioning speaking to Rufus again. When you speak to him again, you'll get your reward, some info, and be able to travel to Nulb.
I've just finished having a conversation wihtt he lass in the moathouse and it said she'd shown me the way to Nulb - but nulb isn't appearing on my worldmap. Is there something I'm missing?
You're quite correct, none of the testing was done with any mods installed, including Tony K's AI.
I've seen bandits bashing down doors even with the normal AI, but only the bandits nearby would generally do this. I'll look at increasing the doors' HP and DR to add a little more time.
OK, so I've been playing this mod for maybe 6 hours now so I thought I'd post a few comments on the techincal (read non-story related) issues.
I used a part of evil wood elves with Reerons,Kaedrins and TonyKs - Barb/Warrior of darkness 5/3, barb 8, ranger 8, cleric 8, sorc 8, rogue 8.
1) I love the no XP bit. I think it brings a really different dynamic to the game. I think in the long run, and certainly if this was to be used for a larger story, there should be XP for completing quests - but not for kills.
2) I loved the low-magic, not many good items, setting. I think that really added to the realistic feel. It also made your feats and skills really valuable - being able to add elemental damage to my weapon with 'darkling weapon' was much cooler since 1d6 elem dmg weapons are not 10-a-penny in the mod. I also liked the 'everyone drops all their stuff' loot attitude.
3) I think that, in general, the mod is a bit tough. Unless you have invisibility/mass invisibility, or unless everyone has high sneak skills, you prettymuch have to fight your way through things and those things, I thought, were too tough. The lizard men were OK, but the bandits in the moathouse are really hard. I think you need to have some other ways to complete the quests that use other skills - perhaps a secret passage to bypass the bandits that people with high spot could find? Or a hidden track through the swamp that people with high survival could find and use to bypass the lizardmen.
4) I think modules need to specify wether they have been designed with tonyKs in mind. I specifically found the bandit bit hard with TonyKs, for example, because you didn't get any break, once one room knew you were there all the other rooms started hacking at the doors to come get you. So there was no time inbetween fights to regroup. Designers need to be aware of this kind of thing while designing and tell us wether they had it in mind or not.
All round though, I liked it. Good fresh idea. Nice work.
TOEE has huge potential for rolepaly, magic, level gain, story, plots etc. Based on playing this mod a couple of times, I really did try, "Try everything 3 times" No go. I must have played through the levelling up part about 5 times. Tried halflings, all halflings I am afraid, Drow only LVl6, Dwarves, interesting, humans, Half Orc only you and brother are half orcs and Wood Elf. Even different good alignmnets. The beginning would have got at least an 8.5 but thereafter nope.
It is in beta so possibly changes may occur in the future but it is worrying to see 165 downloads and 1 vote of 6 from a player who prob played less than 2 hours
Thanks Vidal and inv sphere, yep good option. But I have tried something like that in some other mods and for some reason however hard I try, one of my companions goes rushing off to attack.
I must say I am a bit of an "anorak" when it comes to playing (only) NWN1 and 2.
I played all of the HOF mods in NWN1 and found a number of others which had been "overlooked" or underplayed. I am afraid that games of 2-3 hours or less are not my cup of tea, I just can not get my teeth into them (unless they were part of a decent sized adventure) and so have not played all of NWN2 HOF (Bishop's Romance for example).
As you have guessed I have played quite a lot of games, some with ridiculous amounts of xp to give away and hoards of magic. These mods are not my cup of tea. There is one mod in particular in NWN2 for low levels ie
I totally agree with ericdoman that it is a tough game to like� and I definitely wouldn�t want the no XP concept to be frequently used. But I believe it is a matter of actually changing our usual ways to play� for instance, we would only need that many bandages if we fight everyone� but since there are no expensive items to be bought� why bother?
The only reason to fight would be to sell all the looted equipment in order to be able to buy better weaponry (nonexistent) or to buy bandages (that wouldn�t be necessary if we didn�t go for the *fight them all* approach).
And the point is: it is not needed to finish the quest� the objective of the author was, if I understood him properly, to deny the traditional *scourge of the dale lands* style, where the player just kill every enemy in sight, loot them all and them go back to town to sell their things.
By having all enemies leave something to loot the whole thing becomes pointless � getting hundreds of low price items that would drag your party down would be just boring and not very useful.
To finish the whole moathouse quest I just tried to think what would I do if someone sent me to discover what was going on there� I took a look around, detected too big an opposition and decided a scout mission would be better than a frontal assault� so I used a mass invisibility spell on my party and went in� many bandits and traps inside, my thief took care of the traps and opened the doors� I saw the leader, but there was no reason to fight him and the lot of them, so I climbed down the stairs into the tunnels � I didn�t know the spiders where there, but I thought there should be something so I continued invisible (didn�t even bother to use the camp fire). I found Lareth and accepted her quest� and she immediately sent me back to Hommlet� a pretty straightforward quest with no grief or invincible fights � not because they were all easy, but because they weren�t necessary.
It reminded me of the dreaded �Message to the Underking quest� in Daggerfall� I used exactly the same strategy and it was one the easiest quests of the entire game.
And what about the meadows two-sided quest? Well, that one I just didn�t finish� it was obviously too difficult and not essential to the whole plot.
Now, the point of course is: why bother to play at all? What was the fun of going in and then remaining invisible all the way? Or to leave quests unfinished? Shouldn�t a game be about doing something?
That is my main critic to this mod� by sticking to his concept the author created something different, and I believe his idea was that the story would be the reward � that the player would, or should, be satisfied in uncovering the mystery and playing a part in it� much like it is in an adventure game.
But the mystery is well known since it is TOEE� and this should be an RPG, not an adventure. Yes, it is rather free and we don�t have to follow a specific path, but the only development we are going to see is in the story, not the characters.
I definitely wouldn�t recommend it to anyone� and I will only vote when I finish it, but I believe some would find it an interesting kind of experience� a bit odd at times, but interesting nevertheless.
Good to see somebody enjoying it but there is a slight catch here.
1 Casting invisibility on all party members, just to reach the leader and to kill him. That is a lot of invisibility spells and then you have to control the players, maybe follow me, guard me OR go it alone and tell players to hold, save when you reach leader and reload saved game (a bit of gamesmanship here).
The concept of reaching the leader and killing him and then his forces break up is historically correct, eg Alexander the Great and Attilla the Hun on their deaths through illness their forces broke up but then became seperate entities, commanded by their own generals or kings. So sometimes it does not work. On other historical ocassions the assassination of a leader, has made his forces become more fanatical.
I digress though, gold to purchase eqpt, bandages, essences etc to upgrade equipment is very limited if non-existent. The only way you can buy stuff, is to kill all of the NME and take what they have. The great club wielded by Lizard Berserkers I managed to sell to jeweller for 500gp but he runs out of gold very quickly.
The meadows is the most lucrative place for finding equipment to sell, however to do so you have to kill everything and then lug it back to Hommlett. Again a bit of gamesmanship, spread eqpt amongst everybody so that they are all heavily or worse encumbered and you run off, they will follow.
You do not receive anything for completing quests and as most clerical spells are needed to buff up party or maybe summon a creature, you need the spoils of war to purchase.
I agree though the beginning is very good. No eqpt for party and you can choose to some extent what classes they are to be, you level up and so you can choose feats and spells. When I played it for the first time 1000gp for 6 players, prob studded leather and small shield all round. So the crafting bit was a pleasant and much needed surprise.
But to reiterate you will have to kill everybody to grab their equipment, some will have bandages, to enable you to buy more bandages. Even then you will struggle. Although for healing purposes a bard with inspire regeneration will be helpful but it takes a very long time to be fully healed.
I've been playing it for a few hours and I must say I am not disappointed at all. Up to now I managed to finish the druid's cove quest and the moat-house, talked to Lareth and travelled to Nulb... I stopped short of deciding what to do about the lizardmen village.
Now, I won't vote yet, since I am far from the end... but I wanted to say something, because the mod runs the risk of being ignored due to the lack of XP issue.
Well I didn't mind it all that much... it is a curious decision by the author, but it actually changes the perspective just as he intended... instead of running around killing everything, you can actually finish quests by moving stealthy or under invisibility... and since I always liked to play as a spellcaster, I found it to be an interesting approach.
From the start this mod sets itself apart... the way the party is created is interesting and they are not mindless clones but actual henchmen, adding pieces of dialogue from time to time, and even suggestions... a neat idea.
The liberties taken with the TOEE theme are not a big problem for me. Though I am a big fan of both the Temple and Greyhawk I think one must take such changes as part of the process of creating something in a different medium. Each game engine has its own characteristics and when combined with personal creativity this sort of thing generates pretty different results... to compare this mod with Troika�s effort wouldn�t be fair in my opinion, and that one was a rather recent game� by the time it was released (2003) TOEE was already part of the collective memory of a whole generation of AD&D players.
I intend to continue and to vote after I finish it� unless I find some game-stopping bug or something like that.
And I would recommend the mod to anyone wanting to visit Hommlet with an open mind� and willing to accept the unusual no XP concept� it is not that bad once you get used to it� just go along with the game and try to see as an old friend with some new clothes. Bring a lot of bandages, a nice mage with a good selection of spells (and use them carefully)� and don�t be eager to go in for the kill� try other possibilities and this mod may become quite interesting.
Brought back artifacts they were in my inventory, nothing, sorry not interested.
The grove OK did that, did we receive anything, OK no xp, some gold, maybe a magical item, NADA.
MOathouse based on St Cuthbert's convo decided to do the legwork for Lareth.
Black Jay, been through swamps 3 times, so the bodies are builing up. Anyway off to slay lizard leader, can not use transition map as I can not find my way through swamp. Went back to Black Jay hope he'd help but nothing or did I miss something from convo.
Have to buy bandages and so sell off found eqpt on average for 100gp, I know jewellers is better but have nobody in party who has crafte wpn, armour feat.
Anyway I gave it another go and that is it. My min vote for any mod is a 7. I am not going to vote.
Again it would be really good if xp was allowed, possibly some magic items thrown in, find a gold piece, yes find 1 gold piece.
I did not want to visit Nulb as I had had enough, hopefully when you do remake it as a normal mod, then I'd give it a go.
I can see your point but again it is a little bit flawed.
In some mods (night howls is one example), there are certain quests where you are informed not to kill the guards but maybe the boss or retrieve an item.
On completion without any kills you will gain xp. I have tried these options both ways and most xp is given for no kills.
Again there are situations whee if you use diplomacy etc you will receive mor xp than hacking through NME.
However you mentioned Lareth. When I Dmed TOEE I found, converted and painted a figure for him because I loved the character.
That brings back memories and so I will do it again. This is for the oldies out there. Do you remember before TOEE was released TSR had a village of Hommlet mod. If my memory serves me right Lareth was much tougher in the latter.
Once again I'll give it a go. Are you a politician, PR, spin doctor or something.
The spiders' leader isn't a spider, but Lareth, which you'll meet on the third level of the moathouse. (don't worry, she's friendly so once you get to the 3rd level, you don't have to fight anymore, though you can if you want)
My primary motivation in removing xp is to remove situations where the player is doing something (taking on a quest, fighting monsters), not because it's fun, but because they have to gain xp and if they don't gain XP, the game will become too hard because it assumes the player is going up in levels at a certain rate.
As an example, it's possible to just turn on invisibility and walk right through the swamp (or the spider caves) ignoring the monsters, but everyone's first thought is to try to kill them all because that's the way to gain xp.
Instead of scouting ahead and finding a way to avoid getting attacked by monsters, masochist adventurer parties actively seek it out! So I'm trying something different.
OK possibly my fault there but I was sure I had killed all of the spiders. They were really tough, never knew web could stick.
Anyway back to being sure I had killed all of the spiders on that level. Normally if there were anymore around, you would have the can't rest enemies are near. So does that mean that they are in the next level.
As for conserving spells. The party consists of 2 fighters, 1 clr/ftr/stormlord (me but pt blank shot and rapid shot, just a change), 1 Ranger 2WF, Other cleric and bard. Chose bard instead of wiz or sorceror as I guessed that spells would fade after a while but she has her special feats and songs.
The 2 clerics are the buffers but in a party of 6 you struggle, especially healing and playing hardcore
By the way saw map thing going to lizards camp but can not reach it.
I think where your mod is going to miss out is XP for kills and maybe for completing quests. You prob knew that but took a gamble on doing something completely different a gamble that has not paid off.
Players will play games for
Story, Use of skill options, Quests and plots BUT I think the major reason is that we all can see ourselves as being heroes and watching your player advance in levels becoming more powerful is the buzz.
Thanks for the quick reply though that was unexpected BUT the beginning of the game ie levelling up and equipping VG, however I will not play this game until xp is given and enough to gain 1 or 2 levels
[quote]
Anyway back to Hommlet and then swamp again, the flipping lizards are back. OK fight through rest up at bonfire in we go. I pressed quicksave before entering moathouse if bandits had respawned I quit. Hurrah no bandits. Downstairs and tough spiders, finish them off. Back to room with camp fire rest. My bard is still in another room.
Spiders ALL respawn and kill bard quickly etc. That is it end of game, what a waste of time.[/quote]
ericdoman- The spiders and bandit patrols operate under the same set of rules, that is; if you kill their leader, they disband (or they'll become friendly if you convince their leader that you're not there to kill her)
But if the spiders didn't respawn on rest, people would just rest at the pit after every spider fight, it'd be the NWN2 OC all over again. So can rest at the pit without having to go back to Hommlet, but you have to cut your way through the spiders in "one go", conserving spells and feat uses to get through multiple fights.
Mr Contradiction returns after about 3 or 4 horses have bolted.
Carried on regardless using a wood elf. BUT what made me wish I had spent my time on someting else is the monsters %^&**&^ respawn. AAAAAAAAArgh
So went to moathouse killed off bandits again very tough (playing hardcore). But before I go downstairs, have completely ran out of spells and we are seriously kaput with hit points. Although one way to solve this is have a bard in party who can inspire regen and pop out for a braek or have some food etc.
Anyway back to Hommlet and then swamp again, the flipping lizards are back. OK fight through rest up at bonfire in we go. I pressed quicksave before entering moathouse if bandits had respawned I quit. Hurrah no bandits. Downstairs and tough spiders, finish them off. Back to room with camp fire rest. My bard is still in another room.
Spiders ALL respawn and kill bard quickly etc. That is it end of game, what a waste of time.
First things first, I had not read the read me before entering previous comment as I was busy downloading file.
2 Your character will become level 8 on arrival. My suggestion is to create a 1st lvl character
3 I took down a wood elf bard to become a 7/1 bard ranger
4 You will have 5 companions with you. All of mine were elves of one variety or another (no drow) but a nice touch
5 First companion can be either a rgr or ftr. 2nd companion barb or fighter. 3rd cleric, druid or spirit shaman
4th rogue 5th sorceror, wizard, bard or I think favoured soul
You will need somebody who can craft armour or weapons, if you do not I think you will be in for a very tough time. At the beginning you have no money or equipment but will be given 1000gp, 1000gp! to equip 6 people. BUT you can buy crafting equipment from smith and so the 1000gp will supply party with enough armour and weapons.
However noticed below lack of xp, anyway carried on with game. Decided to go to fields first, did not take on gnolls quest but went ahead and attacked his enemy. "0" xp for all kills and by the way that was tough.
Questions
1 If I took on gnoll quest would I have received xp?
2 Would I then receive xp from Calmert
3 Worse scenario you do not receive any xp for all kills as this is a bug?
This was my favourite mod to DM, I have also played the Atari (I think) PC game and all of the NWN mods but I will keep on playing TOEE.
Couple of things
1 Try and give it a more limited level start, with some hints, eg Lvl 6 to 8, 6 = Ftr type, 7 = monk, bard, clr, 8 = wiz sorc. Min level any max level 8 a bit too ambiguous. Does that mean if I took down an 8th lvl ftr would it be to easy or 1st lvl rogue way too hard
2 Companions available. Might be worth statring all companions at 1st lvl and let player advance them,
3 Village of Hommlet and Nulb, potential for use of role playing skills (ie bluff, dip, intim) or is it?
4 Crafting is available, again pretty important a fighter type may then change int to 12 so he could have intim, taunt, CW or CA or Lore
I am giving it a go with a 5th lv bard rgr (wd elf rgr 1 bard 4) and I'll use a character but emove some of his better eqpt, +1 best stuff.
Finally (I am at 54% download), THANK YOU FOR SPENDING YOUR FREE TIME IN MAKING THIS MOD
Cheers
Posted by rawn_phoenix at 2008-03-08 02:21:10 Voted 6.00 on 03/08/08
I am a ToEE player. I want to state that, before I post the rest here.
First of all, you have not remained faithful to the "create your own party" system that was done in ToEE. I have no idea why (it is possible to let the Player make his own party of 4, for example, and then introduce NPCs to fill the 1 or 2 other spots if one wishes to have NPCs that speak, advance plot, etc, just like in ToEE).
That really, really put a damper on my enthusiasm, to be blunt.
The lack of XP earning killed whatever other enthusiasm I might of had.
The Village of Hommlet is too small. ToEE provides a great map of Hommlet, with all the scripted stuff in it. Surely it is possible with the NWN2 toolset to recreate that pretty faithfully.
I really liked how items were done - that was good IMHO. Having to craft my own stuff was something new to me, and I actually found it to be both plausable and enjoyable.
I never got far enough to judge how the combat is, my enthusiasm to play further was killed by the horrible design "features". Some may like it, but I do not.
I would suggest letting the Player make the decision of creating his own Party as he sees fit and then including any NPCs into it, instead of taking away this choice. IMHO, this is one of the most powerful things that NWN2 introduced, and it is being almost totally ignored.
I uploaded the file to the FTP last night and informed the staff about it, so hopefully it'll be posted soon.
In the meantime, there is nothing that I would call "custom" content, no new models, textures or animations.
All of the blueprints in the mod are new and some of them are new creature types, but they're made using Obsidian's models.
Examples:
Undead Spider (uses bone spider model)
Ettercap (uses a scaled down umber hulk)
Hobgoblins (scaled-up, orange, armor-wearing goblins)
Pech (gnome-sized earth genasi)
Sylph (scaled up to medium size)
Azer (black-skinned, red-haired dwarf + flaming creature effect)
Earth, Fire, Water and Air Memphits (Imp + visual effects)
Flinds (short, squat gnolls)
Myrlochar (giant retextured phase spider)
However you should keep in mind when dungeoneering that pretty much all of the encounters have a variety of creature types including arcane casters, ranged, melee, priests and rogues.
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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