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

[Spazmo]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil; Troika Games

The second <a href=http://www.greyhawkgame.com>ToEE</a> patch has been <a href=http://www.atarisupport.com/newfaq/dungeonsdragonsthetempleofelementalevil.php?browser=1&dlID=52597&osType=WINXP&pageDisplay=DOWNLOADS>released</a> to the general public at long last. Go and grab it from Atari. Here's the changelog.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote># Bardic music now is a standard action (before it was incorrectly a Free Action)
<br>
# Bardic music now provokes attacks of oppertunity
<br>
# Fixed a crash where fleeing enemeies could lose track of who they were fleeing from
<br>
# Fixed a bug in which completed actions that were pending an animation or event (e.g. using a wand of magic missiles) that would cause a pushed action (e.g. an attack of oppertunity) could create an infinite loop (thus hang the game) when the pushed action completed and the already completed (yet pending) action would advance to an invalid state
<br>
# Fixed hover text missing in character creation for Abilities and Deity
<br>
# Bardic Knowledge Help Page had incorrect title, it is now "Bardic Knowledge"
<br>
# Amulet of Mighty Fists adds to both Attack and Damage now
<br>
# Help entry for Grummsh linked to Strenght Attribute not Strength Domain, fixed.
<br>
# Help entry for Chain Lightning grammar errors fixed.
<br>
# Fix for not being able to remove shields in combat
<br>
# Masterwork Light Crossbow size corrected, now useable by small races
<br>
# Wonnilon's Repeating Crossbow size corrected, useable by small races
<br>
# Masterwork Guisarme type and size corrected, no longer is it a one handed axe
<br>
# Dust of Disappearance worth corrected
<br>
# Jaer's Spheres of Fire can no longer be used as melee weapons
<br>
# Cat's Grace is no longer a Strength Domain lvl2 spell
<br>
# Romag's 3rd quest no longer allows acknowledgement of killing Belsornig even if you had not done so
<br>
# Exposing the spies in the trading post now gives the proper 200gp
<br>
# Courier from lord wizard Sargen will now talk to you
<br>
# More information regarding the woodcutters dialog is revealed
<br>
# Valden now gives masterwork shields as his rewrad for rescuing his wife
<br>
# Syntax errors in Hedrack's dialog fixed
<br>
# Bracers no longer stack in the bracers slot
<br>
# Fixed bug with Criticals not confirming when you roll exactly the opponents AC
<br>
# Enhancement bonuses of projectiles no longer apply when making Melee attacks
<br>
# One handed weapons weilded two handed calculate strength bonuses properly (1.5x unless light)</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
Anyone else expecting just a little bit more stuff? The random number generator is still bugged, for instance. Go <b>Steve</b> anyhow.
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</a>

 

[Voss]

No it isn't. It's a new one.

 

[Sol Invictus]

You're wrong about the last part. The random number generator is fixed... to a degree. I'm not sure how fixed it is, but it's fixed.

The fix list is also a lot longer than that.

 

[Barghest]

Can't we just slag off ToEE for being crap?

 

[Sol Invictus]

If you want. But please, don't slag Steve Moret. He's a great guy, and devoted to a game Atari was so ready to abandon even before it was released. None of these patches would be needed if Atari even bothered to give the game the month of QA it deserved.

 

[Spazmo]

Can't we just slag off ToEE for being crap?

Not if you liked it as much as I did, no.

 

[Barghest]

I hate to be negative, but it was crap. Even without taking the bugs into account. POR2 had a better storyline.

Of course if they had merged the combat model with a decent story....

'...It coulda been a winnah...'

 

[Whipporowill]

Por2 had a storyline? Whooaaa... when was that implemented? A bunch of loose quests don't a story make.

 

[smoret]

The random number generator IS changed (fixed is such a wrong word in this case), that changelog only goes back to patch2-beta5 (as noted by the end of the changelog). There should be a mt19937ar.txt in your ToEE directory that includes the Mersenne Twister copyright notice (since that is one of the the RNGs that temple can use).

Somewhere along the line I lost track of all the things we had changed, so I started a new changelog. So the ChangeLog.txt that accompanies patch2 isn't comprehensive of what was changed but at this point there is no way to know what was.

Edit:
Oh, I forgot, for those who want to go back to the original ToEE Random Number Generator that Tim wrote on Arcanum add the command line flag

-rng arcanum

In the future I will add the ability for people to plug in their own random number generator via a python script (so you can force numbers when you need/want to), and other nifty things.

 

[Jora]

Great. Now I can safely say to everybody that BG2 has at least as many unfixed bugs as D&D:TToEE - ACGA. I want my money back, Bioware!

Edit: You rock, Steve!

 

[Sol Invictus]

Glad to have things cleared up, Steve. I've been trying to inform everyone that the changelog is in fact longer than the one posted, but alas...

People will always try to find fault with whatever effort is made.

 

[taks]

steve moret is the type of employee any company desires to have on staff. above all else, he did most of this work on his own time.

the RNG has been replaced (apparently) by something that works better, but still will have issues from time to time (much less noticeable). i think the above list is only a partial list, btw...

taks

 

[Spazmo]

Well, glad to hear it, Steve. Now get cracking on patch 3!

 

[smoret]

steve moret is the type of employee any company desires to have on staff. above all else, he did most of this work on his own time.

I dunno, don't tell Tim and Andrew but I have sometimes let my Vampire work slip a day or two to work on temple stuff. Shhhh! This isn't necessarily the behavior of an ideal employee!

p.s. Tim, if you're reading this, I swear I'm caught up!

 

[Sol Invictus]

Oh yeah, I should say that it's nice to see Vampire getting the press coverage it deserves. Finally, a Troika game that isn't hidden under an apathetic publisher.

 

[taks]

I dunno, don't tell Tim and Andrew but I have sometimes let my Vampire work slip a day or two to work on temple stuff. Shhhh! This isn't necessarily the behavior of an ideal employee!

yeah it is... and i'm sure they knew

taks

 

[suibhne]

Steve, you did an amazing job. Hat's off to you.

While you're here, though....

Atari's PR dude Grok posted this:

We seriously considered moving on to Against the Giants next, but it ultimately didn't pan out. Troika wasn't interested in developing another D&D title and it would have been difficult without them -- CRPG expertise is pretty thin in the business these days.

You apparently posted a response (now deleted, I think) along the lines of "Who said we weren't interested in developing another D&D title?"

Since you're posting outside of Atari's corporate web demesne, could you tell us if you suppose the deletion of "smoret" at the Atari boards has anything to do with you showing Grok's words to be based on a rather flawed view of reality? Can you comment or clarify further?

No worries if not, and thanks again for all your work on this.

 

[Transcendent One]

Time to reinstall the game I guess.

PS, thanks Steve

 

[DemonKing]

I take it you have to install patch 1 first, followed by patch 2 (I'm assuming patch 2 doesn't have the patch 1 changes due to its smaller size).

Thanks Steve - I just hope one of the changes includes a few extra sling bullets lying around the place!

 

[taks]

doesn't one of the Co8 patches handle the bullets thing? if so, i'd assume the next revision of the Co8 patch will as well.

taks

 

[smoret]

Atari's PR dude Grok posted this:

We seriously considered moving on to Against the Giants next, but it ultimately didn't pan out. Troika wasn't interested in developing another D&D title and it would have been difficult without them -- CRPG expertise is pretty thin in the business these days.

You apparently posted a response (now deleted, I think) along the lines of "Who said we weren't interested in developing another D&D title?"

I think there was a lot of confusion on a lot of peoples parts. As far as I know, Troika and Atari both are still interested in doing D&D games, and there is always the possibility of us working together again.

As for weird account issues; my account was not deleted, there was some kind of technical hiccup that I have been assured will be fixed. It came at an inoppertune time (right as patch 2 is being released), but as soon as it is up and working I'll be on the boards posting and helping people with issues and talking about what we can do to make the next patch.

Personally, I think the rabid fans like to blow things out of proportion and make things seem drastically one sided (I like to call this the fan-boi phenomena). Atari and Troika both are committed to making ToEE better and I personally don't plan on stopping my support of the product anytime soon.

 

[Volourn]

Steve has done a good job. That's for sure. He deserves credit for that. It' too bad that the patch is so late consideirng I haven't played the game since October.

Steve, if there is a 3rd patch (BIG if), think youc an up the difficulty and add in some more spellcasters. Thanks.

 

[smoret]

I take it you have to install patch 1 first, followed by patch 2 (I'm assuming patch 2 doesn't have the patch 1 changes due to its smaller size).

Thanks Steve - I just hope one of the changes includes a few extra sling bullets lying around the place!

Patch 2 should be comprehensive and includes all of the fixes from patch 1, you don't need to install both. If patch 2 is smaller than patch 1 its because I'm uber cool and can bend time and space to get you a better patch in a smaller amount of hard drive space.

 

[taks]

you should market that uber coolness idea as a form of "compression software."

taks

 

[suibhne]

Personally, I think the rabid fans like to blow things out of proportion and make things seem drastically one sided (I like to call this the fan-boi phenomena). Atari and Troika both are committed to making ToEE better and I personally don't plan on stopping my support of the product anytime soon.

That's me.

Seriously, it seemed odd for you and Grok to post apparently contradictory statements and for yours to be deleted. I'm glad to hear there's no bad blood there, and I'd still love to see a sequel to ToEE based on all the lessons learned. I can't define why, but it remains one of my sentimental favorite games from the last few years.

Maybe it's all just to spite Volourn.