Brainstorm!

Ok, I was thinking about ToEE and Nwn2 today, and it hit me, why not do what nwn2 did with a ToEE sequel.

They could keep the combat engine exactly the same, just make some cosmetic changes that up the requirements to some insane level's, I mean, since it needs a super video card, it *must* be good, right?

Then all that's needed is to focus on the storyline, add some feats, couple classes, hey, we got a sequel.

The game should start at sub-parness too, that way they can patch it, and everyone can think they did a fantastic job at supporting it.

Don't forget to make a class or two pretty worthless.

P.S. this is half sarcasm, half actual ideas, thus why it's in OT

Unfortunately, the dev's of ToEE, Troika, are no longer in existence!!

Corwin said:

Unfortunately, the dev's of ToEE, Troika, are no longer in existence!!

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Ya, could Atari still hire another publisher though? ToEE wouldn't need a whole lotta work to make the stories better, and the combat's already there.

There have been some mods produced for it. Check out Co8 as they are THE ToEE fan/mod site!!

I liked how ToEE presented the story, the last thing I'd want is for it to become biowarized. I like ambiguity and no big yellow arrows pointing for you to go this way. A story that isn't forced on you or dropped in your lap is much more satisfying.

I don't think Atari could find anyone to do the concept justice. The legal aspects of who has the rights to the code and engine and so forth are beyond me, but I know they certainly haven't been implemented by Atari anywhere else so hopefully still belong to Tim Cain/Troika.

I'm sure another developer could take a shot at it, but with the turn-based combat, alignment, 3.5 rule implementation and all the qualities that made it unique, I don't know who it would be--maybe a european dev? Nobody really makes games like this anymore.

Quite sad, really.

Doh, meant *developer* not publisher.

@ Corwin: I've downloaded the Co8 mods, they really did a good job on em, everythings a bit tougher, which is good for a second time through

@ Roqua: Ya, that was a great part of it, though they really just need to put more time into the quests and get some better writers, and maybe add some alignment consequences. I like freedom, the quests were just too rushed-feeling IMO.

@Magerette: Your probably right :/ Still, I'd pay out the ass for an upgraded ToEE.
Hopefully Troika does get back together, or the rights holder does a sequel.

Bleh, I'm probably just dreaming, people don't like games that require too much input anymore.

Honetsly guys, I don't get what you like so much about these D&D rpgs... ToEE is one big nightmare for me. The story is bad, I mean really bad - what there is of a "story"... and there isn't really much. I mean, I know the PnP module from the old days, and I always thought it was rubbish since it was basically just hack and slash. ToEE was pretty much the same... the fact that it was turn-based doesn't make it a better game in my opinion. Don't you think it's time to come up with some more inspired stuff then the 100th D&D crpg which features the same content than the previous 99? Always the same worlds, always the same monsters, traps, etc.? Aren't you getting tired of this?

In a word, NO!!

I'm with Ionstormsucks on this one, but that's general knowledge, of course ...

I side with Corwin - No, I don't get tired. Besides, ToEE offered something completely different than the previous 99 Dnd RPGs.

OK, that was a little bit of exaggeration, but the truth is that ToEE, despide the numerous bugs and so on, reinvented the party based DnD RPG. It was much better than its predecessors, had numerous gameplay enhancements (like spells actually having a marker for their area effect), revisited another world - Greyhawk may not be the best of universes, but at least its not the same old Faerun, and so on. It lacked a bit in the story and characters departments, but it made up for that with the combat.

For comparison, right now I'm replaying Planescape Torment, and I wish it had 1/10 of ToEE's combat mechanics.

Arma said:

For comparison, right now I'm replaying Planescape Torment, and I wish it had 1/10 of ToEE's combat mechanics.

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You want me to give you what Vault Dweller called THE Speech, eh? But seriously... I don't know if we should keep on praising games for what they reinvented. I've heard this a few times too often lately. Especially in terms of D&D I have the feeling that this is some kind of an alibi. You can very well reinvent things without making use of D&D. But it is the expectation of consonance why people love these games so much. You know what you'll get - you know the spells, the races, the game mechanics... and yup, to a certain extent you even know the story. It is the attractiveness of the known...

I admit it, I'm going through a rpg crisis at the moment - probably the worst thing that can happen to someone who loves rpgs. I installed several old and new rpgs recently and I was bored beyond belief while playing them. The old ones had their time and while there were a few nostalgic moments, I think that this time is over. The new ones... oh, let's not talk about it.
People are always saying that rpgs were soooo much better in the 90's. Could be, but I think that expectations were also lower. I am more and more realizing that the gameplay of yesterday cannot be the gameplay of tommorow, therefore reinvention doesn't mean much to me - it just means bringing back old stuff. I don't want anyone to dig out Ultima, Baldur's Gate, or Might & Magic. I want new worlds, new gameplay, and especially new stories. I want worlds that you can distinguish from each other and not the typical orc/elf/dwarf high fantasy setting. Why does it have to be fantasy at all? And if it has to be something from WOTC why not Dark Matter?

The same goes for gameplay really. We're always talking about real time versus turn-based, but I'm not sure if this is still a question that really matters nowadays. In the early 90s I bought a game because I was interested in the game, and not in the combat system. I did not waste a thought about what combat system a rpg might use. Today this has become one of the central questions when a new game is released (have a look at the recent Two Worlds threads). And why is that so? Because RPGs consist of at least 90% combat... At first I wanted to add "nowadays," but that's simply not true. RPGs always featured a lot of combat - just think about M&M or Wizardry. In the 90s I didn't care... I eagerly consumed everything that was remotely connected to RPGs.
But in the last few years I became more critical towards this old crpg concept. The RPG genre was for a long time a very incestuous family (with a few exceptions, like Planescape, Arcanum, etc.) and now we're seeing its deformed and deranged children.

Part of the problem is that once a gametype has been declared a genre, it cannot be changed anymore. That almost wiped out the adventure genre. Point and click adventures had become too linear, too predictable and were not making use of the new possibilities that technology was offering. They were solely focussing on the adventure aspect, neglecting everything else.
The same is happening to the CRPG genre, combat, character building and collecting items have become the defining features of a CRPG. Everything else is neglected. The aspect of exploration for example... You know what you're in for if you enter a graveyard in a CRPG nowadays - undead. No surprises. Since the 80's the undead are roaming the various graveyards od countless CRPGs. Where the hell is the aspect of exploration.
Or the aspect of adventure. I cannot remember when I last had to think in a CRPG. No puzzles, no riddles, not even the ability to create causal relationships is needed. Because no quest without the quest giver telling me exactely where to go to solve it... (I have to admit this is a more recent development - guess either developers became more stupid themselves or they believe that players became more stupid over the years).
I already talked about the story aspect - most stories today are bullshit. "Here take this mighty magic artefact, you are the chosen one (and my foster child), the dark god has awoken from his slumber and is about to destroy the world, go and destroy the artefact, destroy the dark god, protect the artefact from the dark god, or use the magic artefact to destroy the dark god," pretty much sums it up. Booooo... boring.
And the gameplay aspect. It's fun that in times of physics engines most games (not only RPGs) completely neglect what you can do with them. Look at Penumbra, a recent cheap ass adventure - it makes use of a physics and it is good. You can construct a lot puzzles and riddles with such an engine. But not even games like Oblivion (that actually has a physics engine if I remember right) make use of it. If I look at games like NWN2 it gets even worse. Here I cannot even manipulate simple placeables. This function is simply not hardcoded. If I want a character to be able to pick up a placeable (e.g., a barrel, a chair, etc.) and place it somewhere else, I have to script it... hello? This is 2007, not 1989. I don't even want to talk about things like jumping, swimming, or climbing...

I think I could go on forever... there are so many more examples.

I know that a lot of people will take this as a big rant that went off topic a long time ago... and maybe you're right. But it's my explanation why I don't want to see any more remakes of old RPGs. If you have no ideas then you'll do a remake - just look at the cinema. But basically it's just old ideas in a new look.

Personally, I've never cared about story too much, I enjoy tactical combat that D&D gives, the rpg elements are just a +.

The reason I liked this one was it was actually a good translation of the rules that make D&D, well, D&D. I'm tired of all the games out there that say forgotten realms, or whatever setting it's based in, but then it turns out they decided to throw out the turn based, and just keep what they like, I don't *want* "D&D Lite".

Seems like the choices are either: freedom to create the character you always dreamed of (Morrowind/Oblivion), interesting combat that keeps you thinking(ToEE), or a great story ( people seem to think nwn2 and gothic3 fall in this category, it's all objective if you ask me.), I don't think I've seen a game that gives all 3 yet.

I played ToEE 2 or 3 years ago and I quit after having to start over two or three times because of a bugged quest. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember its Diablo-like graphics and the standard quests. Actually, my memories of this game are pretty mixed up with those of Heretic Kingdom and I can't tell the first from the second, both have been faceless to me.
What is so special and unique in ToEE to place it alongside with a game like NWN? And which aspect of the combat is unique and makes you think?

Nice writeup Ionstormsucks. I agree with much of what you wrote and with your conclusion that it would be nice to see RPGs take a step forward rather than simply try to reinvent the old stuff (though a reinvention of Ultima VII with updated graphics would still be vastly superior to most of the titles we've seen recently).

There are two areas in which I would like to see RPGs take it to the next level.
The first is writing and storytelling. As has been discussed at length, the quality of the writing in RPGs is mostly rather trite and puerile. Enough with the cliches and the ego stroking; give the characters at least some of the nuance and subtlety that would be expected in a good novel. Give them plausible motivations for their actions and depth in their relationships, not just with the player, but with each other. I remember reading a quote once from one of the Bethesda devs in which he was asked about relationships in Oblivion and he replied that they "try to focus on the heroic rather than the domestic".
Heroic is boring when it is repeated ad nauseum for little reason other than some loot and experience. If saving the world is to have any meaning, you first have to care about the world and its people.

The second area which is in dire need of improvement is combat. This should offer much more tactical opportunities than the mindless click fests that have infested the genre recently. Let the player make strategic use of obstacles, traps, fortifications, terrain etc. Give the player more chances to plan ahead for a battle and to devise strategies for defeating different types of opponents. In short, give me fewer fights, but make them more interesting and challenging. Ideally, I would like to see more large scale strategic battles. In most RPGs there is always some sort of war going on, or about to break out, but the big battle never comes. Instead the conflict is usually resolved by the player finding some artifacts and defeating the end boss. The implementation of some truly large scale battles in which the user has some tactical control over the proceedings (such as the ability to command various units or prepare fortifications) could add a lot more drama to the narrative than simply collecting some trinkets.

Geist said:

Nice writeup Ionstormsucks. I agree with much of what you wrote and with your conclusion that it would be nice to see RPGs take a step forward rather than simply try to reinvent the old stuff...

...Heroic is boring when it is repeated ad nauseum for little reason other than some loot and experience.

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Couldn't agree with you and ISS more--the plot lines that once were excusable rehashes of Tolkeinian fantasy have been stretched far beyond their capacity to compel any involvement any more.

And the loot and experience mill has been farmed past the sustainable level in most games I think simply because it is the "old reliable" mechanic of the genre, sure to hook some players in.

The second area which is in dire need of improvement is combat. This should offer much more tactical opportunities than the mindless click fests that have infested the genre recently. Let the player make strategic use of obstacles, traps, fortifications, terrain etc. Give the player more chances to plan ahead for a battle and to devise strategies for defeating different types of opponents. In short, give me fewer fights, but make them more interesting and challenging.

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I think this is one of the qualities TOEE had. The combat mechanics fostered the need for involvement, planning and strategy, while giving you the tools to approach each battle as a specific entity--well, other than the excessive bugbear encounters, that is.
This is also partly the answer to Morticia's question--what did ToEE have that puts its name up there with the big ones.

Ideally, I would like to see more large scale strategic battles. In most RPGs there is always some sort of war going on, or about to break out, but the big battle never comes. Instead the conflict is usually resolved by the player finding some artifacts and defeating the end boss. The implementation of some truly large scale battles in which the user has some tactical control over the proceedings (such as the ability to command various units or prepare fortifications) could add a lot more drama to the narrative than simply collecting some trinkets.

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NWN2 made an attempt at this, Geist, and while it wasn't completely successful, I think it was a good effort in the right direction. You won a fortress and fortified it, along with choosing various methods of pacifying the countryside, patrolling areas and controlling a few soldier units in addition to your party. This was less effective than it could have been, mainly because it was all dialogue driven rather than actual gameplay.
The end of NWN2 was full of dramatic tension, heavily underscored with cutscenes, but at least they were functional, story-driven cutscenes that drew you further into the plot, the battles, and the climax of the game. Which, of course, was a series of boss-fights, but with a party-focused game it would have been hard to do otherwise.

I think the genre has a lot to gain from an infusion of strategy, fiction and adventure elements, and that they might be a much-needed revitalization to what has become an increasingly formulaic approach.

magerette said:

I think the genre has a lot to gain from an infusion of strategy, fiction and adventure elements, and that they might be a much-needed revitalization to what has become an increasingly formulaic approach.

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My thoughts exactly. Actually, for me the ideal game would probably involve a blend of the best elements of Strategy, Adventure, and RPG. I could care less what they call it. The concept of genre doesn't interest me very much - that's more of a concern for publishers and marketers who like to have a point of reference when imitating a model that has previously proven itself to be financially successful.