Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir

[FatuousTwat]

Has anyone played this?

I've only played through the OC, and I loved the castle upgrading/building part of it... The rest was meh.

I've heard the 1st expansion was good, and nothing about this one...

[Sairon]

I'm going to, even if I don't even like NVN2 all that much. This is a genre which is starved to the point where I'll probably play this game no matter how annoying it is.

[Tebonas]

No English version available here yet, I hope for next week.

[Ard]

Has anyone played this?

I got it last night.  I like it a lot, but it's a pretty significant departure from the other NWN2 games.  It's basically plot light, exploration heavy, with a pretty kick ass overworld map system that actually uses your character's skills.  But take what I say with a grain of salt, I'm only like an hour in, I spent most of the night making my characters.

[Ingmar]

Its on the list.

[Stormwaltz]

I'm going to "someday," but I still have to play through the OC and first expansion. Performance issues made them unplayable on my last machine.

[Jain Zar]

I got to play the OC for about an hour one day.  Was busy and all.  Then Boot Camp Beta ended and my Mac no wantie run high end Windows games tlll I buy OSX 10.5.

Good thing I have a ton of other games I can play too.

[Lantyssa]

How does it compare in story quality.  I'm sorry to say, I couldn't make it through the first game because the story was just horrible.  I think I quit at the start of the second chapter.

[FatuousTwat]

I can't even remember the story to tell you the truth.

Someone should make a mod (if it hasn't been made already) of randomly generated castle sieges.

[rk47]

need NWN2 installed?

[FatuousTwat]

Yep.

[Ard]

How does it compare in story quality.  I'm sorry to say, I couldn't make it through the first game because the story was just horrible.  I think I quit at the start of the second chapter.

The story in SoZ is nearly non-existant.  Whether or not this is a good thing is up to you to decide.  It's got a much older rpg feeling for exploration vs story driven content.

[Hindenburg]

Is the story in the other NWN's by Obsidian good?

[rk47]

nwn2 kinda bland
Mask of the betrayer was interesting but ....epic levels does not translate to epic fun. Never got around to finish it.
I am not sure whether I should bother with Zehir. NWN 2 combat engine is never really its strongest point.

[Slyfeind]

I had a hard time getting into NWN2, because the first NWN got everything right imho. I hate the overworld map idea, where you play around in a shoebox until you get to the edge, then you click on the next shoebox and jump to it. The story, which was supposed to be the biggest departure from NWN1, just wasn't interesting to me. I don't even remember what it was; something about a carnival I guess. I stopped playing after I got to the harbor and was supposed to find pieces of a boat so I could sail away to the next shoebox.

To be fair, NWN1 did the zoning thing too, but zones were linked together rather than accessed via a map. I guess that's a big difference to me. And I'm still playing NWN1....

[FatuousTwat]

I think they really screwed themselves when they made the online changes. The great thing about NWN1 was that (for most of the online games) you could just log on, find a cool server and play.

[Zane0]

Mask of the Betrayer is the closest thing to a sequel to Planescape: Torment. It's real good, perhaps the best story-based rpg in years.

Everything else NWN1/2 is on a spectrum of passable to bad -- including this most recent expansion from what I've been hearing sadly.

[MournelitheCalix]

Mask of the Betrayer is the closest thing to a sequel to Planescape: Torment. It's real good, perhaps the best story-based rpg in years.

Everything else NWN1/2 is on a spectrum of passable to bad -- including this most recent expansion from what I've been hearing sadly.

I have been hearing good things about Purgatorio, hopefully it does justice to Planescape Torment.  Its really interesting that no one other than CD Projekt has bothered to even try to put out a game that matched the quality of either a Baldur's Gate or a Planescape Torment.  I find it even more interesting that no one has tried to put out a Ravenloft based game.

If anything begs to be done its a Ravenloft based RPG.

[Velorath]

If anything begs to be done its a Ravenloft based RPG.

There's been two of them.  They're just really old now.

[FatuousTwat]

Seeing The Witcher and how it looks way better than NWN2 makes me lol. It was made using the NWN1 engine wasn't it?

[Rasix]

Seeing The Witcher and how it looks way better than NWN2 makes me lol. It was made using the NWN1 engine wasn't it?

NWN1 looked better than NWN2.  NWN2 ranks up there with Arcanum as far as ugly as sin games go.

[amiable]

I am buying this game solely to create a party of 4 evil bards named justin, JC, Lance and Joey who will rape and pillage their way along the sword coast.  And they say role-playing is dead.

[Sairon]

Got Mark of the Betrayer and just gave it a whirl. So, after 30 minutes of fiddling with character creation I get in only to be greeted with 18 new levels to allocate. I've now given up having not even left the starting room, hopefully it will get some more playtime tomorrow where I allocate the remaining levels and actually get started playing.

[Dtrain]

How does it compare in story quality.  I'm sorry to say, I couldn't make it through the first game because the story was just horrible.  I think I quit at the start of the second chapter.

Exactly the same exact spot where I lost it.

"Oh - a city to explore. Well, I guess I better get started because... well, there's something evil in the forest, and I have some kind of rock that everyone tells me is magical "somehow" but they don't really know why, and... *snore*"

[MournelitheCalix]

How does it compare in story quality.  I'm sorry to say, I couldn't make it through the first game because the story was just horrible.  I think I quit at the start of the second chapter.

Storm of Zehir is a really different.  The game's story is very flimsy, in fact I think it could be best described as nonexistant.  So far it totally lacks any depth whatsoever.  If your wanting a great an epic story, this isn't the game for you.  If instead your looking for adventure with paper thing plots, dangerous and random encounters and hours of exploration this game is definitely for you.

It starts with the mode of travel.  Traditionally the "map" has been a static creation that has essentially a collection of unlockable clickable links.  In this game the map is the main encounter.  Your character moves/hides/talkes their way out/flees on the map based upon various skills.  So far this is what I have gleaned:

Spot:  Alerts you to random or predetermined encounters.
Encounters: 
1.  Band of random monsters
2.  Treasure gaining encounter (Like a buried pirates chest essentially)
3.  You discover new locations or events like caves or a group of drow fighting wood elves.

Listen:  Same as Spot

Hide:  Allows you to avoid hostile and passive encounters.

Survival:  Determines how fast you go upon the map, higher survival leads to faster travel speeds.

Move SIlently:  Same as Hide


You can travel the map from city to city and you have a few options available in each.  The options are:
1.  Enter the Inn
2.  Rest without loading at the end
3.  Purchase healing at the temple.
4.  Trade with the town
5.  Open trade posts (Option available later in the game)
6.  Build Caravans (Option available later in the game)
7.  Enter a Bazaar area (This is where you advance the main story/gather quests)


Locations on the map are scattered.  However there are some themes to almost all of them.  First and foremost, they are short.  Gone are the days of three endless levels of hacking and slashing through hordes of orcs/kobolds/etc.  Second alot of the environments are reused from previous games (example West Harbor from the OC).

NPC's:  Most are new but from time to time you encounter people from the past campaigns and this advances the story a bit.  Kelgar Ironfist from the OC makes an appearance as well as Neeshka.  One of Many from Mask of the Betrayer also makes an appearance.  Minor characters give you updates as well.

Danger:  This game is full of hidden dangers and you can be dominating for a few levels and then out of the blue get WTF pwn'd as you face something you can't possibly kill.  For instance I remember getting an encounter with three wyverns with a party of four level 3 characters.  Some of the random encounters are rediculous in their difficulty as well.  Skullcrusher beats some serious ass as can One of Many if you don't have the ability to take him down QUICK.

Anyway this plays like a really old style RPG with a flimsy patronizing story. 

[Cylus]

The overland map is a neat addition to the engine/package.  Unfortunately, I find myself frustrated after 30-60 minutes due to incompetent AI and horrible camera/controls so I always end up putting it down thereafter.  For whatever reason, I don't remember it being this bad in either vanilla NWN2 or MotB.  Started digging in their scripts but decided I'd rather play something that isn't frustrating than working on something that is.  It's a shame because I'd really like the overland map and the universe in general :(

[MournelitheCalix]

The overland map is a neat addition to the engine/package.  Unfortunately, I find myself frustrated after 30-60 minutes due to incompetent AI and horrible camera/controls so I always end up putting it down thereafter.  For whatever reason, I don't remember it being this bad in either vanilla NWN2 or MotB.  Started digging in their scripts but decided I'd rather play something that isn't frustrating than working on something that is.  It's a shame because I'd really like the overland map and the universe in general :(

Yeah I agree totally concerning the AI,  I lost hours of gameplay to it because of characters attacking other targets after I told them to focus on the mage/cleric.  The camera bug, was something I struggled against as well.  Its funny that Obsidian can't get something seemingly as simple as the camera correct.  Another "bug" I have encountered is rubber banding.  This is especially annoying because normally I associate rubber banding with lag.  I had this problem with both MoTB and the OC.  For some reason its much worse in SoZ, but still its rare enough that its only a mild annoyance compared to the two issues you mentioned.

[Threash]

I always buy every nwn game/expansion that comes out no matter what, its the only game that lets me satisfy my character creation/building needs.  I spend more time in trainer modules coming up with new characters that i do playing them, i don't think ive beat a single one.  I need help :(

[Broughden]

Is NWN2 officially playable with Vista?

[Tebonas]

I've forgotten how crappy the camera is in this game. I don't think I can overcome that flaw once again for the mediocre story presenting myself here.

[Threash]

Is NWN2 officially playable with Vista?

Sure, ive had no problems.

[Broughden]

Is NWN2 officially playable with Vista?

Sure, ive had no problems.

Well the box only mentions XP, and I couldnt find anything official on the sebsite about Vista support.

I know a lot of games had problems switching over from XP to Vista, so I wanted to check and see if anyone else had done it and if they had any problems.