The random RPG thread

[TinCow]

EasyTuTu is just what the name says... easy. IIRC, you install BG, install BG2, download EasyTuTu, and run EasyTuTu. The program does all the rest of the work for you.

The GOG announcement thread has made me think about Temple of Elemental Evil again. That game was certainly very buggy, like all Troika releases, but I personally consider the game engine in ToEE to be possibly the finest RPG engine I've ever seen. It's essentially Infinity Engine 2.0, and the design and interface are very clean and intuitive. ToEE managed to incorporate the FULL 3.5 edition D&D rule system, complete with 5 foot steps, etc. I consider it one of the great tragedies of gaming that the ToEE engine was never used to make other RPGs.

[frogbeastegg]

EasyTuTu is reasonably easy to use provided you are aware of a fact that I was not, and subsequentally had to hunt down: the full installation option of BG does not provide a full install. At all. So the EasyTuTu installer will quit with error messages.

What you need to do is install BG with the full install option, then locate and copy over every single file the installer tells you your install is missing. In my case I had to manually transfer ~150-200 files from CD to hard drive, sourced from 5 different CDs.

Then you install Easy TuTu.

Then you download and run the EasyTuTu degreenifer unless you want graphical glitches which turn all water bright green.

Then, if you have a Nvidia video card that's an 8800 or newer, you install the nvidia graphics fix unless you want problems with sprite overlays.

To do all of this you will need lots of hard drive space, around 15GB worth. You can tidy up a bit afterwards to get space back.

There are optional mods you might like to apply to take fuller advantage of the BGII engine's features, such as giving NPCs kits.

Took me around 2 1/2 hours to do it all, with no extra mods.

It is worth it. Baldur's Gate has aged fantastically well, and is proving to be immensely playable. Exploring the wilderness, dying in two hits, struggling to work my way up from the bottom of the food chain - it's a real change of pace from modern RPGs, like drinking tea when all you've had for the last year is coffee. The dialogue and story telling are quite wonky and brief, the party members are shallow cut-outs compared to Dragon Age's, the inventory system is annoying, and I still don't like AD&D. Other than that, it's all good.

Just remember the quick save key, and use it regularly. Like after every fight. And before resting. And travelling. Or arriving at certain locations. Or walking too close to bears. Or when poking around in an area where there might be traps. Or when entering buildings. Baldur's Gate likes to kill you.

The GOG announcement thread has made me think about Temple of Elemental Evil again.

Never played that one; the reports of bugs put me off at the time and I couldn't find a copy later on. Same with Arcanum, except I found a brand new, factory sealed copy of that in a random shop last year. Still not played it yet.

[TinCow]

Never played that one; the reports of bugs put me off at the time and I couldn't find a copy later on. Same with Arcanum, except I found a brand new, factory sealed copy of that in a random shop last year. Still not played it yet.

ToEE itself is nothing special. It's essentially a near-perfect translation of a PnP module into a cRPG. The entire party is character created and the story is a one-off bit that is relatively short, with a level cap somewhere around 10. It's not epic in any way, it's just a DnD module. For me, it's really the engine that makes the game interesting. IMHO, it's the best isometric engine ever made. It's visually gorgeous, it uses an intuitive radial command system that is light-years ahead of the poor PS:T version, and the UI has so many bells and whistles that is makes tactical combat amazingly good.

Take this screenshot for example. What you see there in the main window is someone targeting an area of effect spell, likely fireball. The UI shows you the exact radius of the spell for precision placement (like in the later Aurora engine games), but also numbers every single enemy within the impact radius, so that you can easily see how many of them you are going to hit. If an ally was within the radius, their number would be a different color for easy spotting. The series of portrait icons along the top is the combat sequence. All the turn-based isometric games use initiative and combat sequence to determine who moves when, in accordance with DnD rules. However, only ToEE actually shows you what the exact line-up is at any particular moment. The portraits shown are the PCs and NPCs in the combat (compare to the info portraits of the PCs in the bottom left). The action moves from left to right, and as a character completes a turn, their icon is removed and shuffled to the end of the line. In these screenshots, the yellowed area around the monsters are their range. Anything within that circle can be hit by the monster, and any character moving through it will incur an attack of opportunity. A very simple and easy to understand representation of a somewhat complex rule.

Seriously, just drink in the UI in those screenshots. That game implements nearly ALL of the 3.5e rule set, but has almost no screen clutter with icons and menus. It's just a superbly designed engine. I will always be sad that I'll never get to play the BG epic with that kind of engine.