Game News HELL FREEZES OVER! ToEE patch #2 released!

[fnordcircle]

Thanks Steve. But I have just one complaint-

There is no 'e' in opportunity. You're driving me crazy with that!

 

[Bobbin]

Does this patch also work with the german version? I hope so because until now international versions are still retail without anything fixed!

 

[taks]

uh, actually i think the european versions retail with patch 1 already part of the product. that's why there's no patch 1 for any of them.

taks

 

[Elwro]

Great work, Steve :!:

Ausir, will there be a Co8 patch for my uber-cool Polish ToEE Collector's Edition? :D
(I don't believe CD Projekt will do it themselves).

 

[Rosh]

Very good, Steve. Many thanks for the hard work.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The random number generator IS changed

Marry me?

Yay!

Now if you'd add in a just a wee bit of story...

 

[Petey_the_Skid]

Pardon me if this is an ignorant question, but will saved games work with patch 2?

 

[smoret]

Pardon me if this is an ignorant question, but will saved games work with patch 2?

Your old savegames should load just fine in the newly patched system.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Yup, old save games work fine. I've carried the same crew through 2 patches now. ONWARDS TO PATCH 3!!

I even seem to hit just a wee bit more too.

By the way, there still seems to be a bug with frogs still grappling after their death. I reloaded a game outside the Moathouse with the new patch to see if it was still there and it is. What happens is a frog will grapple one of my men. My other men successfully kill the frog, the frog dies, but the grappled man is still stuck doing the "I've been grappled by a Frog" boogie dance. When it comes to that mans' turn, he can't do anything. If I save it mid-combat and reload, he stops doing it though (potentially a serious problem for Ironman?).

... and seriously Steve, any plans on fixing up the story just a bit or is that something the Circle of 8 mod crew get to work on?

 

[Spazmo]

Patch 3 is supposed to have some extra content but details on that are probably still in Steve's head.

As for grappling, it kinda makes sense. Just because the frog dies doesn't mean the tongue lets go. But yeah, probably a bug. My party tended to avoid the grapple attacks so I never encountered that.

 

[Avin]

finally the second patch! smoret, i wouldn't be pissed neither gossip to troika if you spare a few more moments to clean up the lag in the nodes... maybe adding some new stuff (new vendor, a small enemy random party) for the game... yes? what about now? and now?

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

Thanks steve, and people wonder why we love you guys at troika.

 

[Bobbin]

Well, the patch doesn't work for the german version. Tried to install, one file doesn't get updated and after patching the game is english.

 

[Ausir]

Great work, Steve :!:

Ausir, will there be a Co8 patch for my uber-cool Polish ToEE Collector's Edition? :D
(I don't believe CD Projekt will do it themselves).

The Polish version of the Co8 patch is already on the Polish edition bonus CD.

 

[Elwro]

Ehh, sorry. I got confused and asked a wrong question on a wrong forum.

Forget I asked.

 

[Anonymous]

Add more Hommlet quests and spice up the exsiting ones for teh win.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I hope that patch 3 isn't being made too hastily Steve... So far I've found these while playing and wrote them down as I spotted them (and threw in a few insults for good measure).

• A bunch of bugs found in ToEE after Patch v2
• Traders repeat lines (also pre-patch) when you trade with them.
  EG: Talk to a trader and they'll run a voice over Eg. "Yes.. Special items I have for you". When you click the trade dialogue option Eg. "Let's trade", they repeat their last line again Eg. "Yess.. Special items I have for you."
  
• "Item Transfer Error"
  I'm selling everything I get to the old hag in Nulb. As soon as I passed a certain point, I could no longer drag items into her trade inventory to sell them. If I did, I got an item transfer error "not enough room for that item". Instead, I had to scroll down to find the bottom of the list and then drag items I wanted to sell into empty slots (By the way, the trading system itself is a bit sucky, but beyond your ability to repair in another patch I'd think).
  
• Keyboard Controls!
  It'd be real nice if when a box popped up saying "Item transfer error" or "Item split" or just boxes popping up in general, if I could hit the <ENTER> key for OK / YES and <ESC> for Cancel / No. There's a real lack of keyboad controls in some of the menu's / interface screens and it's a little annoying.
  
• Sluggish mouse movement.
  There's no option to change mouse sensitivity and I've found the mouse sluggish all throughout the game. Only just tolerable but it's bordering on annoyingly sluggish. Coupled with the lack of keyboard controls = a bad thing.
  
• Save / Load progress indicators.
  Loading a game and having the game "hang" until it loads makes me think it's, well... hung. In future, make sure you pop up a progress indicator so that I at least know something's happening. Admittedly, load times aren't long, but it's noticeable. This goes for saving a game as well.
  
• Highlighting dead monsters to loot.
  Monsters that have died and have loot on them have a hard time highlighting like they're supposed to when you move the mouse over them. I *think* it's because my men are standing on top of the dead carcass. The game can't quite seem to work out what I want. Also, items / monsters underwater may highlight, but you can't see it because of the water colour...
  
• Moving men in combat.
  Close quarters combat gets confusing / annoying when you try to click an enemy, but because your men have it completely surrounded, you end up clicking on the ground instead and your man goes galavanting off around the long way to reach that point. As with the issue above, the game has a real issue working out what you're trying to click on when other PC's are nearby.
  
• Stacks of items on the ground.
  Okay, so you kill a bugbear, run back to town, rest at the inn and return only to find a small pile of tiny little things left on the ground (money / armour etc..). You know, Arcanum had these nice "junk piles" that you could open and click "take all"...
  
• Inventory items don't stack up.
  Nothing stacks and then somethings do stack. Gems and the like stack but boots, chain mail and well, just about everything else doesn't stack. This pissed me off in Arcanum (ever had an inventory full of cocoa leaves?), and it's pissing me off in ToEE. STACK SIMILAR ITEMS NEXT TIME!! Jesus, Fallout could do this and that was what, 7 years ago now? Also, "unknown" magic potions should stack too... I can see a debate against this though. While I'm here, 24 slots in inventory? Whack a scroll bar on that thing and give me a whole bunch more slots. Especially if you're not going to stack things...
  
• Scrolling just seems messed up.
  I like how you "fixed" scroll speed 5 by removing it (though admittedly I guess it was never supposed to be there in the first place considering it goes from 0 - 4 and not 1 - 5). However, there is a marked difference between scrolling with the mouse and scrolling with the keyboard. Keyboard goes a bit faster and that can make it annoying, especially as I use both methods interchangeably. If I boost scroll speed so it scrolls nicely with the mouse, it goes too fast with the keyboard and vice versa. Also, instead of just "scrolling" there seems to be an acceleration time before it hits full scroll speed and a deceleration time before it stops once you let go. Bad idea. Once again, fire up Fallout and check how smooth scrolling is, both with the keyboard and the mouse.
  
• WOrld Map Footstops sounds stops if you "Avoid" an encounter.
  That soft "tap, tap, tap" for walking on the world map as each rd dot appears. If you "encounter" some monsters and have the option to avoid them, afte clicking avoid, you keep walking fine, but lose the "tap, tap" sound completely (not really a "tap" sound, but you get the idea).
  
• You can't shift-click for more info when you're wearing / wielding an item
  (in this case, Fragarach when it was being wielded). You have tomove it into your inventory if you want to read the info on it (a lot of items are also lacking any kind of reasonable description as well, though I think you know this).
  
• "Full Attack" loses turn?
  If you choose "Full Attack" as your attack and then click on a monster only to find out you're not close enough, instead of doing nothing, (well, your man does do nothing) you lose all your action points for that turn. So you can't even run up to them and take a single attack (like I could do on every occasion when I re-loaded testing this). There are some other instances where I seemed to lose my action points but performed no ation a well, but that weren't noticeable enough for me to write down.
  
• Losing highlight during combat round.
  When in combat and it's your turn, whichever man's turn it is has not only his portrait highlighted, but is surrounded by a blue circle a well. If you save the game on his turn, then reload, either the blue portrait highligt is gone or the blue circle is gone, or both. Especially bad when you reload a combat round the next day and don't know who's turn it is, you have to move your man just to find out (then re-load, of course).
  
• Item Descriptions just plain suck.
  "Ettin's Empty Chest A - Contents: Empty - Chest Locked", "Ettin's Empty Chest B - Contents: Empty - Chest Locked". Right. So which school of "game design for retards" did you attend? Not only is the chest CALLED "Empty chest" but it then even SAYS the chest is empty EVEN when the chest is locked! But maybe this is because I picked the "Psychic Locked Chest Content Reader" feat?
  
• Feat "H" for help doesn't display correct feat.
  When levelling up, you get to choose feats (duh). However, pressing "H" and then clicking a feat doesn't always display the right help for the feat you clicked. I scrolled down to the bottom of the feat list (I was level 9 levelling up and had a decently long list) and H-clicked "Weapon FOcus" only to get the help displayed for cleave...
  
• Martial Weapon Profeciency when I already have it?
  Being Paladins, my men automatically have "Martial Weapon Proficiency (All)" by default yet there in the list (leveleling up to level 9) was "Martial Weapon Proficiency" and taking it then brought up the sreen that let me select a weapon. Ultimately, the feat should (if I understand this correctly) be greyed out as I already have it.
  
• Potion of Enlarge Person freezes game.
  That potion is just fucked up. AFter killing Iuz and Redhack and grabbing some of the yellow "Enlarge Person" potions (after running to town, identifying them and heading back to combat), I used them and the game just hangs. My man loses all his action points and nothing happens, the game doesn't progress beyond his turn. I had to Alt-TAB and then CTRL-ALT-DEL to stop it.

In all honesty though, I am having fun with ToEE, it's just that there are a lot of god-damned of issues with it. *Please* make sure you fix them all before even attempting to start another D&D project (lest that game also be brought down by a long list of bugs).

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

A bunch of bugs found in ToEE after Patch v2

Many of these aren't actually bugs.

Save / Load progress indicators.
Loading a game and having the game "hang" until it loads makes me think it's, well... hung. In future, make sure you pop up a progress indicator so that I at least know something's happening. Admittedly, load times aren't long, but it's noticeable. This goes for saving a game as well.

Prime example of what's NOT A BUG, but I agree on this. A load/save indicator is always a good thing.

Highlighting dead monsters to loot.
Monsters that have died and have loot on them have a hard time highlighting like they're supposed to when you move the mouse over them. I *think* it's because my men are standing on top of the dead carcass. The game can't quite seem to work out what I want. Also, items / monsters underwater may highlight, but you can't see it because of the water colour..

This isn't a bug either. I also agree that this would be a great thing to have since it's nearly impossible to loot a monster when they die in the water. .

Moving men in combat.
Close quarters combat gets confusing / annoying when you try to click an enemy, but because your men have it completely surrounded, you end up clicking on the ground instead and your man goes galavanting off around the long way to reach that point. As with the issue above, the game has a real issue working out what you're trying to click on when other PC's are nearby.

Which would be why the cursor changes depending on what it's above.

Stacks of items on the ground.
Okay, so you kill a bugbear, run back to town, rest at the inn and return only to find a small pile of tiny little things left on the ground (money / armour etc..). You know, Arcanum had these nice "junk piles" that you could open and click "take all"...

YET ANOTHER THING THAT IS NOT A BUG. Alternatively, this could be implimented by control-clicking on a pile to pick everything in the pile up, which shouldn't be too hard. The only downside to this would be doing this while a player inventory is open.

Inventory items don't stack up.
Nothing stacks and then somethings do stack. Gems and the like stack but boots, chain mail and well, just about everything else doesn't stack. This pissed me off in Arcanum (ever had an inventory full of cocoa leaves?), and it's pissing me off in ToEE. STACK SIMILAR ITEMS NEXT TIME!! Jesus, Fallout could do this and that was what, 7 years ago now? Also, "unknown" magic potions should stack too... I can see a debate against this though. While I'm here, 24 slots in inventory? Whack a scroll bar on that thing and give me a whole bunch more slots. Especially if you're not going to stack things...

Yet another NOT A BUG. Chainmail shouldn't stack. The whole point of an inventory system like this is that items have space as well as weight. There's only so much room in a back pack.

Scrolling just seems messed up.
I like how you "fixed" scroll speed 5 by removing it (though admittedly I guess it was never supposed to be there in the first place considering it goes from 0 - 4 and not 1 - 5). However, there is a marked difference between scrolling with the mouse and scrolling with the keyboard. Keyboard goes a bit faster and that can make it annoying, especially as I use both methods interchangeably. If I boost scroll speed so it scrolls nicely with the mouse, it goes too fast with the keyboard and vice versa. Also, instead of just "scrolling" there seems to be an acceleration time before it hits full scroll speed and a deceleration time before it stops once you let go. Bad idea. Once again, fire up Fallout and check how smooth scrolling is, both with the keyboard and the mouse.

Not a bug either. Keyboard scroll speed and mouse scroll speed should be too different sliders though, so you can adjust them both to the way you want them. Personally, I prefer to use the keyboard for faster scrolling and the mouse for more fine tuned scrolling, which is the way ToEE handles things.

"Full Attack" loses turn?
If you choose "Full Attack" as your attack and then click on a monster only to find out you're not close enough, instead of doing nothing, (well, your man does do nothing) you lose all your action points for that turn. So you can't even run up to them and take a single attack (like I could do on every occasion when I re-loaded testing this). There are some other instances where I seemed to lose my action points but performed no ation a well, but that weren't noticeable enough for me to write down.

This is a bug, and it would be nice to have it fixed.

Item Descriptions just plain suck.
"Ettin's Empty Chest A - Contents: Empty - Chest Locked", "Ettin's Empty Chest B - Contents: Empty - Chest Locked". Right. So which school of "game design for retards" did you attend? Not only is the chest CALLED "Empty chest" but it then even SAYS the chest is empty EVEN when the chest is locked! But maybe this is because I picked the "Psychic Locked Chest Content Reader" feat?

This is a design choice. Would you rather spend all that time trying to pick the empty chest? The chest is just there to add something to the room, it just so happens that it's empty. Who cares?

]Martial Weapon Profeciency when I already have it?
Being Paladins, my men automatically have "Martial Weapon Proficiency (All)" by default yet there in the list (leveleling up to level 9) was "Martial Weapon Proficiency" and taking it then brought up the sreen that let me select a weapon. Ultimately, the feat should (if I understand this correctly) be greyed out as I already have it.

I think this has to do with how later weapon feats are handled. You have to have a Martial Weapon Prof. for a specific weapon to get the later feats specifically for that weapon.

In all honesty though, I am having fun with ToEE, it's just that there are a lot of god-damned of issues with it. *Please* make sure you fix them all before even attempting to start another D&D project (lest that game also be brought down by a long list of bugs).

So, in your list of 18 "bugs", only 7 of them were actually bugs - most of them minor like losing the footstep sound when walking and shop keepers repeating audio clips. In fact, you only mention two serious bugs, one involving Full Attack losing a turn and the other involving the game hanging on Enlarge Person.

Perhaps you should post this on the Atari forum. The people there don't know the difference between what a bug is versus a feature request either.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think this has to do with how later weapon feats are handled. You have to have a Martial Weapon Prof. for a specific weapon to get the later feats specifically for that weapon.

Hmm, nope. Not at all. Most of the more powerful weapon feats (e.g. "greater weapon...") only require Weapon Specialization, which you can get immediately at level 1 if your class has Martial Weapon Proficiency (All)

 

[Dark Elf]

... only require Weapon Specialization, which you can get immediately at level 1 if your class has Martial Weapon Proficiency (All)

No, that's wrong. Or, at least, that's not how it should be. You would need to have at least four levels of fighter (or taken the Templar PrC, but that's not available in ToEE) to get weapon specialization. I think you're confusing specialization with Weapon FOCUS, which doesn't have Martial Weapon Profiency (All) as a prerequisite at all, it only requires you to have profiency in the particular weapon and a BAB of at least 1 - unless, of course, you're a cleric and pick the War domain, which overrides this (then again, you're a bit right anyway, since the classes that get BAB 1 at CLV1 all come with the general Martial Weapon Profiency)

Sorry... couldn't resist some nitpicking. :wink:

 

[Avin]

Dark is right. Weapon Specialization requirement in 3.5 is F I G H T E R lv4.

F I G H T E R rocks.

 

[Shevek]

Perhaps you should post this on the Atari forum. The people there don't know the difference between what a bug is versus a feature request either.

This is so very true.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Which would be why the cursor changes depending on what it's above.

Except there were times when the cursor itself became bugged and wouldn't show the correct function! :D (Hell, for one combat round I had it turn into the talk speech bubble icon - which was kind of funny. "Hey! I'm trying to communicate with you here!" *SLASH*) - Not sure if this still happens post patch 2.

So, in your list of 18 "bugs", only 7 of them were actually bugs - most of them minor like losing the footstep sound when walking and shop keepers repeating audio clips. In fact, you only mention two serious bugs, one involving Full Attack losing a turn and the other involving the game hanging on Enlarge Person.

Actually, every bug I encountered in ToEE I'd classify as "minor". Even the enlarge person potion is something I normally wouldn't use, except it sounded neat, so I just had to try it. The problem I found in ToEE though, is just the sheer number of "little things" that all added up. In every encounter there was always "something else" to add to the list of frustrations (Grr.. why's that not working? Dammit, [reload]. What the!? AARGH! [reload]). In the end, ToEE "works" as a game but needs a damn good polish and a big extra helping of story.

Perhaps you should post this on the Atari forum. The people there don't know the difference between what a bug is versus a feature request either.

Okay, so I threw in a few more things that just plain pissed me off. So sue me.

 

[Anonymous]

An editor would always been sexy too, just imagine all you could do with an editor and ToEE's solid ruleset implementation, yess,yess.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Damn ruleslawyers. You get my point though - there's no requirement for the specific weapon proficiency - if you have 'all'.