Thoughts On A Temple Remake

Fix the Bugs

The first and most obvious step: fix all the bugs. Tim notes there were a lot of them. The team got a big chunk fixed in the first couple of patches, but they had a third patch ready to go that they were told they weren't allowed to release. Some of those fixes may have made it into community mods, but Tim isn't sure.

Higher Resolution and UI Improvements

Tim calls Temple of Elemental Evil a beautiful game — the characters are 3D and the maps are gorgeous. He'd want it running at a higher resolution to show them off. The UI was built in modular pieces, so it would be straightforward to push it to the screen edges at higher resolutions.

The Radial Menu Problem

Not many players were fans of the radial menu, and Tim identifies the core issue: you couldn't hotkey things. Playing a wizard at level seven or eight means casting Magic Missile constantly, and having to navigate through the radial menu every time was painful. He'd add hotkeys so you could just hit a button and cast your most-used spells instantly — "boink, Magic Missile."

Expanded Vignettes

The alignment-based starting vignettes are one of Temple's most distinctive features, but they came late in development. The party alignment system itself was designed so players could declare their group's general alignment (which is why you can't have an assassin and a paladin in the same party). The vignettes grew out of that — nine alignments, nine different starting scenarios.

Tim loves the concepts: the lawful vignette has you being ordered to go; the chaotic neutral one has you stumbling across a map in a dungeon. But they were all extremely short — some just a few minutes, the longest maybe 15 minutes — because the team was massively pressed for time.

In a remake, he'd make each vignette a full adventure that deeply reflects its alignment. The chaotic neutral one, for example, would become an entire multi-level dungeon crawl where you learn about the dungeon, prepare, fight your way to the bottom, defeat a boss, and then discover the map to Hommlet. Each vignette would also have multiple solutions rather than being purely dialogue or purely combat.

Deeper Storyline and Better Dialogue

Tim would revisit the entire storyline with much more foreshadowing, more quest options, and especially more depth around the four elemental temples (Earth, Air, Water, Fire). In the original tabletop module, these factions were very political with lots of implied interaction — he'd want that political intrigue fully realized in the game.

He's candid that this would require better writing than he could do himself. He'd bring in skilled narrative designers to read the original module, discuss his intent in translating it to a game, and then write dialogue "worthy of the game."

More from Hommlet's NPCs

Specific characters he wanted more from: Burne (the magic user) and the fighter who had the tower outside Hommlet. Tim wanted way more interaction with them — they're high-level characters with their own agendas who could send the party on quests. The Druid, the Temple of St. Cuthbert — everyone in Hommlet should have significantly more quests to give.

Restored and New Content

Tim would restore all cut content, including an entire brothel with associated quests that was removed before shipping. Beyond restoration, he'd add substantial new content:

• New dungeon maps with quests leading to them
• Side dungeons smaller than the temple itself
• Quests to find magic items that help in the temple
• Treasure maps and quest hooks from Hommlet's prominent NPCs
• A much more populated world map with more locations to visit
• More random encounters that make better use of existing creature models (giant crayfish, behir, various elementals) that were only used once or twice in the original

Raised Level Cap and D&D 3.5 Completeness

The original module only took characters to about level 10. Tim would raise the cap to level 20, which opens up a huge amount of higher-level spells and abilities — especially for wizards, clerics, and druids. The engine is easily extendable, though many spells would need specific code and art support, so it's not trivial work.

He'd also love to add prestige classes and full multiclassing support, acknowledging this might be "too much for a remake" but wanting to explore how much work it would actually take. The goal: make it a true, complete D&D 3.5 game.

Bigger Elemental Planes and Endgame

With all the additional content supporting the main quest, Tim would ensure the four elemental planes are much larger with richer content and their own questlines. The bottom of the temple where Zuggtmoy resides would be significantly fleshed out, along with the divine encounters (Iuz and St. Cuthbert's involvement) presented in a much more complete way.

The Bottom Line

Tim's full remake wishlist: fix bugs, higher resolution, better UI with hotkeys, longer and deeper vignettes, improved storyline and dialogue, restored cut content, lots of new content, and a raised level cap. He estimates this could push the game to 40-60 hours.

He doesn't think any of this changes the fundamental nature of Temple of Elemental Evil — it just makes it deeper, richer, and more complete. "This is what I would have loved to have shipped the first time, but that was not going to happen on that budget and that schedule."

Note: Tim explicitly chose not to do a Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines remake video, saying that game isn't really his to reimagine — those thoughts should come from Leonard Boyarsky or Jason Anderson.