Preview ToEE goodies at GameSpy

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil

<A href="http://www.gamespy.com">GameSpy</a> offers up two goodies for people wanting to gorge themselves on <A href="Http://www.greyhawkgame.com">Temple of Elemental Evil</a> stuff. They have <A href="http://www.fileplanet.com/files/120000/129055.shtml">the intro movie</a> on <a href="http://www.fileplanet.com/">FilePlanet</a> and they offer up a hand's on <A href="http://www.gamespy.com/previews/august03/templeofeepc/">preview</a> to boot. Here's a taste of the latter:
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<blockquote>Those who played Baldur's Gate or any other turn-based games that didn't play as turn-based are in for a rude awakening, especially if they are unfamiliar with the rules of combat. Moving past enemies during a movement phase (or moving in close to an enemy with a long weapon or reach) leaves characters open for attacks of opportunity, which can do lots of damage (although a high Tumble skill helps in avoiding those). Characters using a bow can take a five-foot drop backwards to avoid penalties in close range shots without affecting the ability to shoot. Familiarity with the rules is not essential, but certainly helps in appreciating all the nuances of the game's capabilities. </blockquote>
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I like this guy. <i>Turn based that didn't play as turn based</i> is quite an apt statement.
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Spotted this at <A href="http://www.homelanfed.com">HomeLAN Fed</a>

 

[protobob]

I'm really looking forward to this. Looks like a ton of fun. I'm glad they are taking time to finish it, but I also wish I didn' thave to wait two months to play this.

Sure it's fantasy, and D&D, but the fact that it is not forgotten realms, and has a proper turn based combat engine, makes up for those shortcomings in my mind.

Love that straw hat in the screenshots. I wonder if those capes they are wearing with the 'fire-like' designs belong to some faction, or something like that? If so, don't spoil me, thanks.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Those who played Baldur's Gate or any other turn-based games that didn't play as turn-based are in for a rude awakening

lol, I like that too, Saint. It seems to me that Tim's last interview was rather popular after all and trashing BG and NWN is all the rage now

Characters using a bow can take a five-foot drop backwards to avoid penalties in close range shots without affecting the ability to shoot

TB rulez!

We tried five different alignments. A neutral-good party is tasked with taking news of a slain cleric to the Church of St. Cuthbert. A chaotic-good party must find out what happened to some noble elves last seen near Hommlet. A true-neutral party must find out why a druid has not filed his report with the Archdruid Hrudek. A neutral-evil party has fun burning a Church of St. Cuthbert and teaching an acolyte about "theology and death." And a lawful-evil party is tasked by an evil temple to track down a chaotic-good sword and destroy it.

Seems to me it's a waste of time. It's a common knowledge that most people play a game only once
Seriously though, isn't that just fucking amazing, yet so simple. I love the evil quests about burning a church or destroying a good weapon. That's what evil characters should be doing, instead of asking everybody for money and spiting on statues.

 

[Voss]

Nothing like a good church burning.
:twisted:

Hmm.
LE or NE.

The mental image of druids filing reports is a bit off though.

I always love previews for the little errors that crop up:
when did Nulb become a seaside town? For one thing, its a village, and almost completely surrounded by the Gnarely Forest.

 

[Spazmo]

It appears our dear friends at Gamer's Hell are now mirroring the file on their "site". They seem to be quite happy to ignore the supposed GameSpy exclusive. Hell, they still have the GameSpy logo on the damn video and they have the nerve to include a file in the download that asks people who downloaded the file from someplace aside from Gamer's Hell to email them and report it!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

They R t3h pr0f3shunalz, d00d.

 

[Ibbz]

I dont know about you Spazmo, but alternatives to File Planet are always welcome

 

[Spazmo]

I dont know about you Spazmo, but alternatives to File Planet are always welcome

Well sure, and I'm all for sticking it to GameSpy, but it's not the kind of thing I expect from a site that PAYS ITS EMPLOYEES, and don't you forget it.

 

[EEVIAC]

I'm starting to think that choosing ToEE was an ace marketing move. I've spoken to a few people in the past few weeks who have been glowering of the game just because its ToEE. You couldn't dissaude them if you wanted to.

"Its turn-based you know..."

"Don't care - its ToEE, its going to be awesome."

The pre-order boxes with the vaguely-gold-box-remeniscent-art in EB have probably helped.

 

[Ibbz]

Well sure, and I'm all for sticking it to GameSpy, but it's not the kind of thing I expect from a site that PAYS ITS EMPLOYEES, and don't you forget it.

ahh yea. I'm pretty sure alot of the major gaming sites {IGN, Gamespy} pay their employees aswell.

Even Bioware employees are looking forward to ToEE!

That's not exactly fair. Not that those 5 years went very smoothly or would be a model for anyone to follow, but Bioware worked for those 5 years on a combined single-player game, multi-player/DM client and user-friendly toolset... not just a single-player game (most of which was worked on at the end of the project). Your implication is that we took 5 years to produce the NWN official campaign, which is not true.

Granted, if anyone had 5 years to actually work on a single-player campaign only, one has to imagine what could come of such a thing... but my understanding is that ToEE started off with a semi-working engine and thus is in much the same boat as BG2 was in (all your time can be devoted to actually making the story and game), which is a pretty nice boat to be in. Here's to hoping that it all goes well for Troika, as I for one look forward to playing a pretty kick-*** game.

- David Gaider

 

[Sol Invictus]

You can always count on GameSpy writers to be courteous enough to provide us with laughter material every single week, whether it's intentional or not.

 

[Astromarine]

Now THAT is an intriguing .sig

nice nice

 

[Anonymous]

Yes...very interesting there Rex.

 

[Spazmo]

Ho stole it from some guy at DAC. Also, it's a chilling reminder that my computer is broadcasting an IP adress and I should buy something expensive to protect myself from Russian hackers in space.

 

[Psilon]

I'm selling these fine leather jackets...

 

[Ibbz]

It says i'm using IE6, yet i'm actually using Opera 7.11. Odd.

 

[chrisbeddoes]

It does not recognise Opera.

I switch my user agent id to Opera and it does not recognise it at all also.

 

[Sammael]

Do you, by any chance, have the Preferences > Network > Browser Identification option set to "Identify as MSIE 6.0?"

Anyways, the movie is great (Whoa. A cutscene. I was getting really sick of that "flipping pages" crap BIS has been putting in their games ever since they lost half their animators) and I am looking forward to ToEE, despite all of its shortcomings.

 

[Whipporowill]

Gosh... will wonders never cease?! Sammael actually looking forward to ToEE? :shock: