Interview Tim tits for tat with Game Chronicles Monthly

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil; Tim Cain; Troika Games

There's <A href="http://www.gamechronicles.com/qa/temple/evil.htm">an interview</a> with <A href="Http://www.troikagames.com">Troika</a>'s poster bag head boy, <b>Tim Cain</b>, about how much fun the post release of <A href="http://www.greyhawkgame.com">Temple of Elemental Evil</a> has been for everyone. Here's a bit about reviewers:
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<blockquote><b>GCM:</b> In reading over the reviews for The Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure, are there any important features or gameplay elements that you feel have gone unmentioned / under explored? If so, please tell us a bit about what they are and what they add to the game.
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<b>Tim Cain:</b> Overall, the reviews seem very fair. But several reviews have surprised me, in that it appears the reviewer did not spend much time with the game. For example, one review lamented the lack of user-definable hot keys, which the game has! And this fact is not buried in the manual - it's listed on page 1. Another reviewer said there were only a dozen NPC followers in the game, when in fact there are 35. And another reviewer complained that the dialogs had fewer options that he wanted, but he wasn't using characters that possessed dialog skills (like Diplomacy or Bluff). There are over a hundred dialog trees in the game, and more than 70 make use of at least one dialog skill, and some use three or four. If you talk to NPCs in the game using a character with no points in any dialog skill, yes, you will receive far fewer options than with a character that has these skills. ToEE is a complex game, and part of its richness is that it rewards those people who seek rewards. For anyone else, the game is a rich, tactical combat simulation.</blockquote>
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The first level of the Temple needs more dialogue trees, <b>Timmy</b>!
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Thanks, <b>Briosafreak</b>, of <A href="http://www.nma-fallout.com">NMA</a> for the good word.. And link!

 

[Chadeo]

We are working on a patch now, which Atari will have to QA and copy protect.

Copy protect? A patch? WTF!

Publishers are such morons.

 

[Whipporowill]

Copy protected? Uh, sell it for a dime in stores... uh yeah.

 

[Volourn]

I agree with him on lots of what he said - except one thing - the dialogue skills aren't used a lot from my expereince. Not counting the themple 9since most things just deserve to die there0; I have used dialogue skills maybe 10-15 times max and that is using variant characters for variant situations os nless they are well hidden or you need maxed out skills to use properly; that seems mythical.

Otherwise, I agree with his assertion that it is the best tatical combatgame overall for the D&D genre.

I also, like Mr. Cain, wish they had sqaushed a lot more bugs pre release.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

We are working on a patch now, which Atari will have to QA and copy protect.

Copy protect? A patch? WTF!

Publishers are such morons.

They're definitely morons because consider this.. What about the people who bought the KaZaa version - they don't have a CD.

 

[Shevek]

Well, I agree with everything Tim said INCLUDING the dialog comment. My DiploRogue has used all his dialog skills alot more than i expected. I've just checked: my diplo skills are at 25 uses in my current play thru (thats loads more than I remember using in the NWN OC, the only other 3E game Ive played, but I didnt play NWN very long) and 1) Im not yet done with the game (I ALWAYS restart rpgs I like at least 5 times until I get a party going Im happy with), 2) I only did quests for the Air Temple and 3) I still havent done alot of the quests in Nulb or Hommlet. Im sure if I would have joined all the Elemental Temples, done Quests for the Greater Temple instead of butchering everyone there and gone back to Nulb and Hommlett to finish up stuff there my number would be much much higher. I didnt kill everything on sight in the Temple and nodes though, so maybe thats why but I think your number is still way way too low, Volourn.