ToEE - Circle of Eight 7.00 Mod Release
 

Huh…we haven't tracked a new Circle of Eight release for a while but I noticed on ModDB there's a new major release that includes new content. The files are available at ModDB or the release notes via the Circle of Eight forums. A small snip from the patch notes:
More information.

I really enjoyed my last Co8 playthrough - but that was only about 6 months ago, so too soon to try again! I thought they were working on a new Keep of the Borderlands module based on the engine? Is that still alive? As someon who likes DnD combat mechanics, I love this engine!

I think the "Keep on the Borderlands" module is a separate project and it looks like the person working on it stopped coming to the forum about 9 months ago and so it is currently considered inactive.

Thanks very much for the head's up on this piece of news. The last update I had from my second playthrough was 5.0, so I'll update my files since the new content sounds too tempting to at least check out! Think I might try it with a good party some time in the new year, since I already beat the game with both neutral and evil parties.

Hello, what would you watchers recomend to ToEE virgin? Make first walkthrough in "vanilla" and save Co8 for another run or play with Co8 on the very first run?

do NOT install the C08 mod. it has cloud's sword in it. avoid like the plague.

Well, at least install the vanilla Co8 bug fixes (The none "NC" version) since the vanilla game was nearly broken with bugs.

The New Content patch might be worth for the Welkwood Bog since that allows you to skip the snoozefest that is Hommlet. Unfortunately for purists, it adds a lot of stuff, but I've enjoyed them so far.

I loved the mechanics of this game. Best use of design in laying out the complexities of D&D. The radial wheels are fantastic, helping to remind you which characters have which abilities… I'm always forgetting about special abilities in these games. Easy to read typeface (I'm sick of the Olde English and yellowed parchment crap). Great music too.

But what's the deal with the temple itself? Are you just supposed to go kill everything inside it? I ultimately got bored with trekking back and forth just to rest and avoid random encounters. The back and forth got to be as much work as fighting, exploring, etc.

So what's the deal with this game? Did I just miss the point?

That was my general impression as well. It had some of the best mechanics ever for recreating 3rd edition rules. But the game was released in an extremely unfinished state with a lot of the content missing. So despite the great mechanics it was never actually a great game in it's original form. That's even ignoring the numerous game breaking bugs and the fact that the horrible AI killed any challenge in many of the encounters.

So anyway I never played the Co8 patch, but given how much of a mess the original game was, I'd certainly encourage anyone to use it. It's not like the original had some great artistic vision that the patch will disrupt.

I would tentatively suggest you play through with the NC the first time, though I haven't played v7 yet. The game's about the awesome combat engine, not the story, and the NC adds lots of battles—most of my favourite/most memorable moments from the game are NC battles, to be honest. For that reason, I'd suggest using the NC and getting as much out of the game as you can the first go-round.

Oh, in case you haven't heard, practice rigid save discipline. Don't use quicksave, use full saves. Cycle five or six save slots, at least, extending back a couple of hours. Saves can get get corrupted easily in this game and Co8 has an unfixable bug that will make it almost impossible to move around Hommlet. If you experience save corruption on a file, restart the game and don't try to load the corrupted save file, just the one before. If you try to load the corrupted first, sometimes it will tell you that the others are corrupt, too, which is a lie.

Sorry for the info dump. The game is awesome, though, and I want you to get the most out of it the first time.

I had a pretty funny bug in this game. My cleric was using some unique +2 damage club (this is around level 6) and was consistently hitting everything for over 400 points of damage with it. One-hit everything.

Yeah, clerics are pretty OP.

Sort of, though it probably isn't your fault. You played a good character, right? As an evil character, you won't automatically aggro everyone and there are some decent factional and quest chains within the temple. As a good character (in my experience), you mow your way to the bottom.

I have always thought ToEE was a poor choice of module / material, despite the concept sounding great on paper.

Re: corrupted saves, I never had problems with save files.

Re: the point of the game, did you find the High Priest of the Temple, the Elemental Nodes and Zuggtmoy? Defeating the Demoness of Fungi is the endgame.

Thanks for replays, although it doesn't help much :D
I think I will make my first with Co8 bug-fix only as sugested by Thoth. I am not that big fan of battles and as Skittles stated Co8 NC add a lots of battles.
We will se how it will work in a distant future.
Once again thanks.

Fair 'nuff, but be warned that the combat is really TOEE's best component. The dungeons aren't particularly inspired nor are the characters and story (if you couldn't tell from Ovenall's post).

Well, I sought out the Temple, but seriously only because the game is named Temple of Elemental Evil. There's really no reason given in the game to go there, or what to do there.

Yes, I played good. So I guess you're supposed to go through and clear the place out. Again, this means lots and lots of backtracking through different maps just to be able to rest safely and regain spells. Really the weakest point of the game for me. I know it's a tabletop simulator, but a human DM could hear "we head back to town" and roll the dice a few times for random encounters… but here you have to slog through map after map just to rest. The chances of wandering monsters is waaaay too high, IMO and choked the fun out of the game for me.

Yeah, I got it. I think I will postpone my ToEE run to a really distant future. I got tons of games to play and I prefer story and exploration. But at least GOG got some money from me and it's a good thing too :)

I loaded this up on a fresh install - seems nice and stable compared to my last efforts. Windows 7 seems to like it where Vista was a disaster. Only issue I had was the locked down state of the directory to get widescreen working.

That's why I never install games to Program Files (x86) in Windows 7. The UAC settings are annoying as hell. You're better off just installing directly to C:

Otherwise, Windows 7 is 10x better than Vista imo.