Tim Cain talks about the problems of The Temple of Elemental Evil during development:

The Trials of The Temple of Elemental Evil

Matt looks back at Temple of Elemental Evil:

Matt Chat 478: Temple of Elemental Evil

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Temple of Elemental Evil is being used to recreate Icewind Dale turn-based style. A demo for Chapter One was released back in January which can be downloaded at Moddb.

Icewind Dale is receiving a Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition ruleset makeover, and ported over to the Temple of Elemental Evil game engine. Thus combining an epic dungeon crawl adventure and the best turn-based D&D combat engine of any PC game available to make this both visually attractive, and tactically challenging to play. This demo version presents the Prologue chapter of Icewind Dale in it's entirety, and requires both ToEE and Icewind Dale to be installed prior to installing this mod. It is compatibible with Temple+ (recommended) but Temple+ is not required to play this mod.

Thanks rjshae!

Indigo Gaming looks back at The Temple of Elemental Evil. This is part 2 of a 3 part segment on Troika Games.

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In the second of a 3-part Troika Games retrospective, I will take a look at Leonard Boyarsky, Jason Anderson and Tim Cain's RPG classic, The Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure. This series will cover all three games they developed, how they innovated, what didn't succeed and and attempt at the age-old question: "What happened to Troika Games?" Episode two is a Temple of Elemental Evil review, where I cover the historical importance of the game, the origins of its mechanics and rules systems. What it does better than Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate, and where it fails in glitches, mechanics and its convoluted interface and commands.

PC Gamer thinks The Temple of Elemental Evil is a true D&D game:

Why The Temple of Elemental Evil is the most D&D game ever made

It may not be the *best* D&D game, but The Temple of Elemental Evil is the truest representation of the tabletop experience.

There's a drinking competition at the village inn, and I do like to get drunk in video games. My half-orc barbarian has the most hit points and the least intelligence, which probably makes him qualified for entry. Half a dozen locals and guests join in, and every time the innkeeper shouts “Drink!” they knock back an ale and drop a bunch of HP (non-fatally, of course). In the end it comes down to the barbarian and a traveler named Kobort, who eventually topples to join the rest of the competitors sleeping on the floor. 

Then I have my rogue go round and loot all their stuff. Even clothes. Nobody seems to mind. It's a fair punishment for getting fall-down drunk. They're lucky I'm not drawing schlongs on their foreheads. For the entire rest of the game I recognize NPCs I beat in this competition because they stand around town in their medieval underpants. That's just how it goes in The Temple of Elemental Evil.

[...]

Thanks henriquejr!

Master Crafter Allyx announced that a demo version of his Icewind Dale mod is now available for ToEE:

Icewind Dale: ToEE - Total Conversion Open Beta

Ok, so the Demo version is all but complete, the entire module is uploaded into this modpack. It will require installations of both ToEE AND Icewind Dale and of course the Co8 modpack (mostly for the Temple Frontend) to activate, and includes everything in the 8 patches preceding this modpack.

I'd like to open this up as an open Beta test version, will start a new thread for feedback and bug reports etc...

Thanks to everyone who has helped thus far.

Installation Instructions:

1. Install The Temple of Elemental Evil (not in a "program files" folder).
2. Install ToEE official patches 1 & 2 (not patch 3. GoG versions need not apply any official patches as they come preinstalled).
3. Install Co8 8.1.0 modpack (NC or Standard - doesn't matter which)
4. Install Icewind Dale.
5. Extract the Icewind Dale modpack zipped file to your ToEE installation folder.
6. Run TFE-X.exe, select Icewind Dale from the modules list and click activate. (a current error means you may need to force close and repeat the activation process - it should work second time around), locate your IWD installation folder.
7. (Optional) activate the Icewind dale portrait pack in TFE-X.
8. Download the IWD Demo Patch from the post below this and extract it to your ToEE root folder.
9. Activate the IWD Demo Patch Add-On in TFE-X.
10.  Launch the game.

This total conversion mod presents the entirety of Icewind Dale's Prologue chapter, all quests, NPC's dialogues and loot (some of which has been exchanged for alternative items), are present.

Included with this mod is a custom Icewind Dale portrait pack which may be activated in TFE-X once the module is activated, which also includes the IWD default adventuring party. Note that to use all 6 default players, you must play a Neutral Good party due to ToEE's party alignment restrictions.

Icewind Dale is being converted into the Temple of Elemental Evil engine and now the first chapter is available for open beta testing. You will need a copy of both to try the beta.

Ok, so the Demo version is all but complete, the entire module is uploaded into this modpack. It will require installations of both ToEE AND Icewind Dale and of course the Co8 modpack (mostly for the Temple Frontend) to activate, and includes everything in the 8 patches preceding this modpack.

I'd like to open this up as an open Beta test version, will start a new thread for feedback and bug reports etc...

Thanks to everyone who has helped thus far.

Installation Instructions:
1. Install The Temple of Elemental Evil (not in a "program files" folder).

2. Install ToEE official patches 1 & 2 (not patch 3. GoG versions need not apply any official patches as they come preinstalled).

3. Install Co8 8.1.0 modpack (NC or Standard - doesn't matter which)

4. Install Icewind Dale.

5. Extract the Icewind Dale modpack zipped file to your ToEE installation folder.

6. Run TFE-X.exe, select Icewind Dale from the modules list and click activate. (a current error means you may need to force close and repeat the activation process - it should work second time around), locate your IWD installation folder.

7. (Optional) activate the Icewind dale portrait pack in TFE-X.

8. Download the IWD Demo Patch from the post below this and extract it to your ToEE root folder.

9. Activate the IWD Demo Patch Add-On in TFE-X.

10. Launch the game.

This total conversion mod presents the entirety of Icewind Dale's Prologue chapter, all quests, NPC's dialogues and loot (some of which has been exchanged for alternative items), are present.

Included with this mod is a custom Icewind Dale portrait pack which may be activated in TFE-X once the module is activated, which also includes the IWD default adventuring party. Note that to use all 6 default players, you must play a Neutral Good party due to ToEE's party alignment restrictions.

Couch spotted the mod Temple+ for The Temple of Elemental Evil RPG:

Temple+ v1.0 Released

We are pleased to announce the first release of project Temple+, an Engine Enhancement and Bugfixes mod for ToEE.

Temple+ enables replacing original ToEE C code with our own brand new 1's and 0's. This has allowed us to do things that have never before been possible with ToEE modding, such as fixing many old and stubborn hardcoded bugs, improving UI behavior, enhancing the core pathfinding algorithm, and much much more. In particular, the entire rendering system has been overhauled for compatibility with modern systems, which also fixes the graphical issues encountered by Win10 users.

We are very excited by the opportunities this opens up for gameplay and modding, and look forward to working with the community to shape the future of ToEE. For us, it is a chance to realize the GotY Edition ToEE never had It is furthermore an open-source project, hosted on GitHub - everyone can contribute, whether it be code or documentation on the on-site Wiki.

This first release of Temple+ (v1.0) is focused on laying the foundations for future expansion, replacing many of the original systems with our own. Building on this base, we have many plans for the future, including a thorough UI overhaul, new Classes, Feats and Spell Effects, smarter AI, and so on. You'll already find a glimpse of that in 1.0, and it's only going to get better! In between major releases, you'll also be able to enjoy automated updates to keep current with minor enhancements and fixes.

Hey everybody!

In this exciting new video, I start my first ever Fluent Let's Play of the classic Dungeons & Dragons RPG, The Temple of Elemental Evil!

Check it out and follow along with the fun! I will update it regularly, so feel free to take your time and enjoy.

Hello everybody!

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, children of all ages - gather 'round as Uncle Fluent takes you on a wild adventure in the Dungeons & Dragons classic RPG, The Temple of Elemental Evil!

I have never played this game so it's going to be an exciting and new experience for all of us! Yes! Let's do this!! =)

Thanks and enjoy!

At RPGCodex, Roguey saw his article on the Temple of Elemental Evil promoted to the front page, focussing on what he thinks is wrong with the game (although there are one or two comments on what was good as well).

Part of ToEE's claim to fame is its faithful adaptation of 3.5 edition D&D rules. It makes a few concessions for the sake of gameplay, but not enough. An example of a problem they created for themselves: all potions you find start out as unidentified. There is no knowledge skill that lets you identify them, and you can't taste a drop and recognize a familiar potion like you can in P&P. The only way you can find out what they are is to cast an identify spell or go to a shop keeper to identify them one by one, and both options cost 100 gp each time (individual potions cost significantly less of course). The Circle of Eight mod alleviates the cost by allowing characters to use the read magic spell instead, but it doesn't remove the sheer tedium of having to cast it so many times. This pointlessly routine nonsense doesn't exist in any other D&D game of which I'm aware.

Naturally, it does retain many of the problems featured in other D&D-based crpgs. The pseudo-simulationist ability scores result in outright-dump, less-important, and must-have stats for certain classes, making the process of assigning those scores a rigid, uninteresting routine. There are outright statistically-inferior weapon and armor choices (and exclusive to ToEE are wearable items that don't actually do anything but still add weight). Ultra-specialized feats like weapon focus and favored enemy are a blind guess without metaknowledge. Since this is 3.5, clerics can become better fighters than fighters through the use of self-buffs. Hard counter spells that make certain status effects completely negligible are present, though the times when they're useful to have are few and far between. The array of degenerate, go-to tactics are also here: HP mechanics can be bypassed entirely through coups de grace and the slay living spell, you can summon up to five summons at a time to soak and deal damage, and there are plenty of buffs you can cast before combat, such as the ever-overpowered haste, a spell that gives you an extra attack with the full base attack bonus and +1 to your attack and armor class scores. Par for the course, nothing stops you from resting after every fight by either demolishing any random encounters that interrupt you or backtracking to a safer place.

As far as class balance goes, I believe pretty much any balanced party can complete all challenges, and no one class is necessarily essential. Of course, since this is D&D, caster-heavy parties will have a much easier time, though the level cap of 10 keeps them from becoming absurdly more powerful than the mundanes. Skills exist; considering this is primarily a dungeon crawl, the ones that provide a systematic benefit are generally preferable to those that require scripted support. There are a few trap feats, including toughness, the Monte Cook classic that gives you a paltry extra three hit points. Loot is a sparse gamble, and the store selection is terrible, so I recommend getting the magic arms and armor and wondrous item crafting feats. The prerequisite spells for those items aren't documented until you've actually bought the feats, so you should look those up too.

The Circle of Eight team has released their mod for Temple of Elemental Evil; Keep on the Borderlands.

What is Keep on the Borderlands?

KotB is a new module - or total conversion, if you prefer - for the Atari game Temple of Elemental Evil. It was created by modders at the Circle of Eight fansite and freely distributed. It requires the original Temple of Elemental Evil game, patched to patch 2. It does not require any other mods from Co8, such as Co8 8.0: it is a separate module to ToEE and not a mod of it.

KotB is for starting level players. It attempts to push many elements of the ToEE engine to their limits, using the engine's capacity for animations, quests, skills, feats and dialogue, as well as combat, to produce an adventure game in the classic puzzle-solving mode. There is considerably more thought required to finish KotB than ToEE: though all the information is still given in the game, and it is not excessively difficult, just more thoughtful than the original game.

The aim of the game is simple. The player controls one or more characters who have arrived at the Keep on the Borderlands seeking fame, fortune and adventure. The player needs only talk to the NPCs of the Keep and surrounding locales, and role-play their character, to find a variety of adventures, culminating in a journey to the infamous Caves of Chaos, where the party can fight, work for, manipulate or despoil the various tribes of monsters.

Features of Keep on the Borderlands

Keep on the Borderlands expands on ToEE's excellent simulation of the D&D3.5 engine with the following additional features:

New skills - Alchemy, Handle Animal, Climb, Use Rope, Knowledge (Nature), Speak Language, Disguise and Forgery (NPC only) - and additional uses for skills such as Appraise, Perform, Spellcraft and Sleight-of-Hand
New class abilities such as Wild Empathy, Slow Fall, Illiteracy, new familiars, better control over animal companions, new spells, Domain skills, class-specific quests
New racial abilities such as Stonecunning and racial languages
Over 60 new maps to explore, with more interactive environments (such as desks, shelves and cupboards commonplace) and over 40 quests
Heaps of new and classic equipment from the PHB such as Disguise and Climbing kits, new magic items, and many alchemical items.
Deeper, more thoughtful quest progressions, usually with multiple ways of completing quests.
Day / night routines for most NPCs.
'Black Market economy' with stolen items and fences.
And of course the new spells, new equipment and bugfixes that Co8 brought to ToEE, including more than 60 new feats.

You can download the mod at the ModDB site.

Version 7.3 of Circle of Eight's modpack fort his game has been released. Link to the download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/circle-of-eight-modpack 

A quote about the general bufixes, for the other bugfixes please follow the above link.

GENERAL

• Comprehensive lag fix implemented: significantly reduces or eliminates lag in the Air, Earth, and Fire Nodes and in Temple levels two and four.
• Disabled descriptive "empty/not empty" hover-text for containers.
• Adjusted jump points in Moathouse Dungeon (near Lubash) and in Broken Tower (from Escape Tunnel below) to avoid parties being separated in different rooms upon arrival.
• Changed Lantern Archon attacks from melee to ranged touch (per RAW) casting Searing Light.
• Reduced value of summoned shillelagh to 5 CP (same as quarterstaff) so as to avoid selling exploit.
• Bulletproofed drinking contest routine so that Paladins don't fall.
• Corrected some exotic armor prices and stats.
• Updated Moon-Ivy armor as follows: removed spell casting ability and charisma bonus from regular variety; added Poison-Ivy, Explosive Spores, and Pheromones varieties per the Arms and Equipment Guide. Reduced availability of all varieties so that they are rare.
• Reduced CR for Drow, WotGS dwarves, and both Hextor factions to slow leveling (NC only).

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:

Dateline December 20, 2011, USA

The Circle of Eight is pleased to present the latest versions of the modpack for Troika Games' Temple of Elemental Evil - Circle of Eight Modpacks 7.0.0 and 7.0.0 NC. 

Both modpacks are identical, save for the major new content expansions included in the NC version. These now include:

War of the Golden Skull - a high level expansion where the village of Hommlet comes under seige from the powerful Hextorite army, intent on locating and taking possession of the nebulous Golden Skull.

Other updates in Circle of Eight Modpack 7.0.0 include:

GENERAL

- Overhauled pregenerated characters so their hairstyles and colors match their portraits, so that strongmen are strong enough to wear heavy armor, and so that facemen are competent in social skills.
- Fixed pregenerated iconic characters Mialee and Tordek's incorrect portraits.
- Removed giant PC pregenerated character because it mysteriously stopped working.
- Fixed halberd and masterwork halberd long descriptions so they're not listed as reach weapons.
- Reassigned many script IDs to promote organization.
- Added ability to locate extraplanar chest if you leave it on a map and don't take it with you.
- Fixed exploit where you could rest indefinitely on second floor of inns when you only paid for 24 hours.
- Fixed targeting problem with spell Good Hope.
- Reduced volume of spell sound effects for multi-target spells by limiting playback to single instance rather than once for each target: Cone of Cold, Confusion, Consecrate, Deep Slumber, Desecrate, Flame Strike, Holy Smite, Ice Storm, Mind Fog, Prismatic Spray, Scare, Sleep, Sleet Storm, Spike Growth, Spike Stones.
- Removed Acid Fog spell, as it is apparently an irrevocably illegal spell due to being spell number 000.
- Fixed bug where Wonnilon, Jaer, and Wicked would cause problems with NPC interventions upon entering combat.
- Lowered CR on greater temple bugbear (proto 14174) and greater temple bugbear leader (proto 14346) by 2.
- Fixed rare bug in Hommlet joinable NPCs' dying scripts that could cause Butcher of Hommlet rep.
- Changed dragon meshes and added custom sound effects.
- Improved firepit on random encounter scrub road.
- Added unique critter sounds for bearded devils.
- Fixed duration of Giant Vermin spell.
- Fixed AI exploit where Spiritual Weapon could be abused by making enemies not target them.
- Fixed bug with Summon Monster spells initiative.
- Bulletproofed reward encounter scheduling.
- Updated Co8 section of in-game Help.
- Added five missing iconic pregenerated characters: Aramil, Eberk, Gimble, Kerwyn, and Naull.
- Added stone giants.

There's a new beta version of the Co8 pack for The Temple of Elemental Evil:

The latest modpack from the Circle of Eight comes in two editions - standard and 'new content' (NC).

Dateline April 25, 2010, USA

The Circle of Eight is pleased to present the latest versions of our modpack for The Temple of Elemental Evil - Circle of Eight Modpacks 5.8.0 BETA and 5.8.0 NC BETA.

Circle of Eight Modpack 5.8.0 BETA fixes some additional bugs since 5.7.2, such as the 'blue circle of death' bug where NPCs would run off when ordered to leave the party but would not disband, resulting in their empty blue character circles remaining in the party.

Circle of Eight Modpack 5.8.0 NC BETA re-introduces custom Co8 content of the major expansion variety. Both Hickory Branch and the Moathouse Respawn have been re-mastered for the current modpack, and the as-yet unseen Welkwood Bog has been added to the mix. In order to access the expansions, simply speak to Brother Smyth in Hommlet and ask him for "something different."

Both modpacks are identical, save for the major new content expansions included in the NC version. Fans of custom content will likely want to choose the new content (5.8.0 NC BETA) release, while purists might prefer the standard (5.8.0 BETA) release.

You can grab it from ModDB.

The Circle of Eight mod community has released a beta of v5.7.0 of their mod pack for The Temple of Elemental Evil:

Circle of Eight Modpack 5.7.0 BETA Released!

The latest modpack from the Circle of Eight fixes bugs and addresses important gameplay issues.

Dateline December 27, 2009, USA

The Circle of Eight is pleased to present the latest version of our modpack for The Temple of Elemental Evil - Circle of Eight Modpack 5.7.0 BETA.

Circle of Eight Modpack 5.7.0 BETA fixes a variety of bugs reported in 5.6.0, such as the masterwork inventory respawn bugs, the shopmap crash bug, and the charging crossbowmen bug. 5.7.0 also adds some new wizard robe and mystic garb designs and colors, as well as a variety of new colors of wizard hats.

Perhaps more importantly, Co8 5.7.0 BETA addresses the gameplay issues of balance and NPC interaction. The experience point percentage modifier has been reduced so as to slow level progression, as progression had been proceeding at a more rapid rate due to Co8's earlier NPC/monster stats overhaul that brought everything closer to the D&D ruleset. And many NPCs will now behave more intelligently when it comes to managing their gear. In very simple terms, they will refuse to turn over starting equipment that has some gameplay significance, such as magical arms and armor, but they will not trifle over meaningless items and they will not horde loot and overburden themselves. Note that because of this, the Humble NPCs setting (which allows player control of NPC inventories) is now automatically activated, and this setting cannot be altered.

For a full list of changes, please see the included release notes.

Thanks Dark Savant, on our forums.

Just a couple of days after the anticipated release, the Circle of Eight forums has news of the Keep on the Borderlands conversion for ToEE demo release.

There are some important installation instructions, you'll need Microsoft's .Net 2.0 installed and a patch has already been released, so head over for the full details and download links (~300Mb).

If you want to jump straight in, the mod is being hosted at ModDB and Filefront.

It didn't take long for the Co8 team to announce the promised date for the release of the Keep on the Borderlands demo:

Dear members of the Circle of Eight community,

We are happy to announce that, after a long period of development and testing, we're getting close to the day when the demo version of the Keep on the Borderlands mod is to be released. The official release date of the Keep on the Borderlands Demo is set for January 29th, 2008. Stay tuned for extra information and updates about the upcoming release in this thread.

We wish you a happy New Year and we sincerely hope that you'll enjoy playing our mod as we enjoyed making it for you.

-- The Circle of Eight Team

Thanks to Doginarocket and Swapoer on the forums. 

If you haven't been following the comments from the last newsbit, you might want to check out (artist) screeg's personal site, where he has some media from the mod - and if you download the appropriate viewer, you can check out some of the environments in 3D.

I'm jumping the gun here but we haven't had any news on the Keep on the Borderlands conversion for The Temple of Elemental Evil, so you might be interested to know a demo is due soon.  According to this thread at Circle of Eight, they were hoping to get something out before Christmas but presumably it's still close:

There will be an official announcement (and I mean official Co8 announcement, not a 'Ted hopes for the best' moment) in the next couple days.

We'll keep an eye out. 

It's been a long while since we heard anything about Circle of Eight's Keep on the Borderlands mod for ToEE but a bunch of screens have recently been released and according to a quote at Sorcerer's Place, "the beta is charging towards completion".

Everything can be found in this thread at Co8 or head straight for the screens, interface shots, portraits and soundtrack.

Before we get into this it's important to understand this dates back to the release of The Temple of Elemental Evil but was never released in this form. Fallout 3: A Post Nuclear Blog has the full, original text of an interview that PC Gamer's Desslock conducted with Tim Cain back when ToEE was released on material that was removed just prior to going Gold.  As it turned out, Desslock only used snippets in a column and has now released the full text to Briosafreak's blog:

2. Desslock: Troika is obviously a company that likes to make games with adult content, since both Arcanum and the original Fallout were “M” rating games. Would you have preferred to make an M rated D&D game, or did you always realize that a D&D game would have to be Teen rated (because of Hasbro/WotC concerns, in addition to any raised by Atari/Infogrames)?

TC: Yes, Troika would have preferred to make an M rated D&D game. As you pointed out, our previous games were both M rated, and we feel the most comfortable with the creative freedom that we gain with that rating. With that said, however, we understood that a T rating would gain us a wider distribution and also allow for a bigger, younger audience. In the end, that was the trade-off we had to make.