Hi @Allyx; , welcome aboard the RPGWatch board. Thanks for the excellent and well written reply to part 4 of my detailed look into ToEE. I'll try and respond to as many points you make as I can, though please be aware that my work schedule has doubled as a result of Coronavirus and I'm writing this while somewhat fatigued and probably should have replied more fully tomorrow.
Firstly, I can assure you that it's well known around here that I don't tend to play games that I am not enjoying and I'm the first person to be uninstalling should any game not meet with my tastes. So I'm hoping you have actually read my pieces here as I have said that I'm still enjoying the ride, even though it's against all forms of logic and common-sense.
As per usual with any topic on a game like ToEE, the thread is awash with people just posting what they always post in ToEE threads, either their 'summary' of what they thought about it when they played it 17 years ago or, usually more prominently, avid fans who don't really read what's been written but just get one whiff of negativity and start aggressively promoting the various game modifications that are available.
While your post reads very much like the latter, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for the moment as you are a new member and you haven't just machinegunned out personal insults about my family, pets, teddy bears and taste in clothing.
I can assure you I will be playing a 'properly modded' version of the game 'next', which you would know I you had read my journey, so I'm glad you're here actually as you'll be a great person to direct me to exactly the right specific mods when the time arises. I don't know when that time will be as I still have this version to finish off and then it will be whenever. But it will happen in the relatively near future. So I hope you can stick around for a few months or so.
The GoG version, from what you say, sounds like it's already in a better shape than the version I played back in 2011, which was a disc of the original release I bought off ebay. It must drive you nuts that there must be tens of thousands of people who have bought this game off of GoG and only ever played the GoG version. It must drive you mad every time you come across some poor innocent person slagging the game off because they had the audacity to play the version of the game which was commercially available to them
To which I've no doubt the phrase "all of your complaints are addressed by…" is something you type at every single person regardless of their actual complaints, because, well, that's already happened twice in this thread and on neither occasion has either poster actually followed up this claim when challenged, with specific examples rather than generalisations, so you being the third to simply repeat the exact same line suggests political/religious/marketing dogma rather than conversational understanding.
However, I don't deny that you likely have an extreme love for this game. My personal confusion comes from the mindset of "how or why did anyone fall in love with this game in the first place?". As you say, all of my 'complaints' are things that people were saying about the game 17 years ago. This suggests that these aren't really 'personal taste' issues, that these issues are pretty universally relatable and recognised issues.
But for you and you're posse of modding experts you somehow managed to fall in love with this game. Now THAT's something that is unusual and not very relatable. I mean, it's fantastic that a bunch of people have decided to dedicate so much energy to this game over so many years, but for the life of me I cannot understand why. You refer to it as a diamond in the rough when it's nothing of the kind, it's just another badly produced computer game in a sea of other badly produced computer games.
The developers made a whole raft of bad decisions when they were making the game, it didn't work out, a 'mess' was released. Happens all the time. I don't, for example, see a raft of people dedicating their lives to making Lionheart good, even though it is likely just as deserving. It's not a total disaster, it still provides enough D&D combat to make it enjoyably playable, but there's not really anything to 'love' here. That some people found that love is beyond my comprehension, but you are undeniable evidence that it happened, so here we are.
And where are we? I'm not even sure any more. If your mods fix sooooo much, and even add lots of content while removing lots of content and generally alter the released version of the game to such a total and complete degree, then aren't you, effectively, promoting a completely different game. A game by the same name, just with completely different content. Like the old joke goes, if you've replaced both the axe head and the axe handle is it even the same axe any more?
It's a bit like the Enhanced Edition of the Icewind Dale game. The IWD game I liked was the Vanilla game without even it's first expansion, but after it's first release patch. So the version before Heart of Winter changed the game completely and before the Enhanced Editions then changed the game completely a second time. I have no interest in playing the EE version of IWD because, to me, it's essentially a Different Game.
So how come you lot haven't released your mods as a commercial EE version of the game? Rights issues are a bitch I know, but I'm sure something could be figured out. Where there's a will there's a way and all that. Because, to me, it doesn't sound like you're 'fixing' the game, it sounds to me like you're using the released vanilla game as a template to make your own game. And if that's an over exaggeration of the reality then it's certainly not an over exaggeration of the desire. Sort of like how NWN is just a template for modding, only people never bothered trying to make the NWN OC 'better' because they could just make their own game in the first place.
I mean, is it a 'bug' that the itemisation for Slings and Bullets is shit? Or was that just a natural oversight of unfocused developers? By adding better itemisation are you not then fucking with whatever balance was created to account for the unfocused development? If you then alter the balance and AI script to better account for your new itemisation aren't you then fundamentally altering pretty much the entire game, because the entire game is, effectively, nothing more than what you fight.
I do want to play the 'freshly fresh new' ToEE game that you guys have been working on for 17 years and I will be doing that at some point, but what does that have to do with ToEE as a game and its individual legacy and the story of its legacy? Particularly as the 'commercially available' game is still the 'crap' version. You think store review pages should only include people who are familiar with 'how to mod the crap out of games'?
When I do finally play the Newer Than New ToEE, which still isn't complete yet according to yourself, I'm sure I'll like it. And although, to you, it probably sounds like I'm digging at you, I'm really not. I have nothing but admiration for your dedicated efforts to 'save' a game from itself. I just have no idea why you can't understand why ToEE was never the game to warrant this attention, as it's flaws aren't really the bugs, the flaws are inherent from every unfocused design decision. AKA: you 'improve' the game by 'turning it into a completely different game' type of situation.
But, yeah, thanks for the kinda-free new game, I'll look forward to giving it a shot in the relatively near future.
But in terms of this thread at this moment in time, I'd prefer a discussion about these inherent flaws and why you never saw them as flaws so gaping that you could so easily ignore them and even fall so much in love.