NWN2: Thoughts?

[Morfiend]

Im actually starting to really look forward to this. Just as long as I can play through the singleplayer campaign with a friend, it will be worth the price of admission. I just hope they dont go overboard with all the wierd prestige classes and stuff. I have never been a fan of those, just give interesting base classes and that is enough for me.

[Nija]

I hate being all fanboy and replying a ton to a single thread, but yeah you can do co-op main campaign. At least 2 players - I'm not sure what the max is.

I'm gonna try it with 3 or 4 total, we're not sure yet if all of our schedules match up. Either one game with 4 people or two different games with two players.

[sinij]

Really, it's been downhill since Planescape.

Aint' that the truth.

[Ironwood]

OK, I installed the toolset and had a wee play around.

It's even more fucking annoying and vague than the previous one.  I could barely figure out how to do anything in the Exterior tileset and unless it's removed for legal reasons, I couldn't do ANYTHING with the interior area.

WTF ?

[Riggswolfe]

With the first NWN I bought the "World Builder Guide" with the game and I'll probably do the same with this one. I usually avoid the shiny game guides and just go to gamefaqs if I get stuck, but that guide was basically a toolset tutorial and it helped me alot.

[Sky]

Hey, do you still need Maya to make a good custom game? I friggin' hated NWN, both the gameplay and the editor (and I had the WBG). It's like wanting to build a pirate ship with legos but all you have are the spaceship legos. Stuck with what you got. Maybe it got better years later with fans making models, but by then I was quite moved on.

Maybe I'll check out NWN2 in 2009.

[Furiously]

I'm still bitter over the first one. They will have to earn my money this time.

[Nija]

Well, I've never really dove into trying to create anything exciting, but keep in mind you can use the textures that were made for NWN1 if you want.

Hell, you can probably use textures from quake3 if you tried.

You've got 4 years worth of nwnvault textures and crap to use plus everything in the default nwn2 campaign.

and Ironwood if we weren't time-zone-challenged I could step you through getting started with the editor over teamspeak, but as I type this it's 9:11 am and I'm stuck at work until 5pm. 

just some basic starting tips from what I remember, you want to right click off to the side/edge of the editor and check the 'terrain' checkbox if it's not checked by default, at least for outdoors areas. that'll give you the option to mess with land height and you can go all Populus. There's a texturing button too, as well as water and setting stuff "walk" or "no walk" and some other crap that I've not really figured out 100%.

As far as interior areas go, I know you have to put down uhhh I forget what they're called. but the interior areas have little "zones" and they have some pre-built ones that are like, Exit N and E, solid walls W and S. That kind of thing. I've not messed with it too much yet because I think I need the game to test. I don't want to start tossing objects around to later realize that I have too many light sources or too many types of trees or something and it runs at 2fps.

[Morfiend]

My friend has a copy of the editor. He said it is magnitudes harder that the original one. Before you could make some thing you could run around in, in about an hour. He said with the new one, it will take several days to get to that point. He also said the tilesets are MUCH more customizable, and you can stretch and morph the tiles.

[Riggswolfe]

My friend has a copy of the editor. He said it is magnitudes harder that the original one. Before you could make some thing you could run around in, in about an hour. He said with the new one, it will take several days to get to that point. He also said the tilesets are MUCH more customizable, and you can stretch and morph the tiles.

You can have simple or you can have customizable. The first editor was simple. A retarded chimpanzee could make a simple dungeon with it. However, everything looked the same. This one seems to be harder but maybe you won't take one look and go "they used furniture set #2 and placed it in interior set #4 right here."

[Nija]

This guy rocks -

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Movies.Detail&id=64 <- video download link, shows the guy making an area

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/843/hauntedhouseonthehill01qb8.jpg <-- area that he's working on

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/7517/hauntedhouseonthehill02ot6.jpg <-- ss2 at night

[Xilren's Twin]

I realize that I had not been paying as much attention to the game itself as I should.  Found this infobit just browinsing about.
Prestige Races....

In Neverwinter Nights 2, not everyone is created equal. Each race has its own flavor as well as a unique set of abilities and penalties. The most powerful races actually advance in level more slowly to compensate for their incredible ability score bonuses and powers. Four of the most powerful races you can play in Neverwinter Nights 2 are the Drow, the Aasimar, the Tiefling, and the unassuming Svirfneblin.

Drow (Dark Elf)
Driven underground ages ago by their kin, the drow, also referred to as the Illythiiri or just “dark elves,” comprise some of the most powerful spellcasters throughout Faerun. Though typically quite evil, the drow possess a complex and rich culture. Drow are swift, cunning, and innately resistant to magic.

Stats: +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution

Spells: Darkness, Light, See Invisible.
Special abilities: Darkvision, Spell Resistance, all elven abilities.
Level adjustment: +2.

These elite races are just one of the many new character options available in Neverwinter Nights 2. Their unique abilities – and the corresponding handicap – make them ideal for the truly hardcore player looking for a new and exciting challenge

Quick list on the new toolset from the documentation.

If you are experienced with the Aurora engine and NWN1 toolset, then you will find many familiar features in the NWN2 toolset. The toolset you have now has been redesigned, however, to make the most of new features and technology that is available for NWN2. Some of the new features include:

World Creation
Terrain Painting. You can sculpt the terrain and apply textures, water, and animated grass. Various brush sizes are available for initial sculpting/painting and refined work.

Trees. You can quickly generate unique and animated trees.

Weather Control. You can set sky color and cloud density and velocity.

Dynamic Day/Night Cycle. You can set various weather and lighting conditions and the game will dynamically move between them as time progresses. For example, you can have a light fog roll in during the dawn and then burn away as the sun rises.

Special Effects Editor. The toolset comes with the special effects editor that was used for the NWN2 spells.

Armor Customization. With over 100 different greaves, vambraces, and more, you can custom tailor armors to create your own unique-looking magic items or uniforms. All armor pieces can be individually tinted with multiple colors.

Object Scaling. You can scale most placeables and creatures easily, allowing you to make a tougher looking bugbear chieftain or a cat-sized giant spider hatchling.

Enhanced Camera Controls. New camera features allow for more cinematic cut scenes.

Global Scripts. The NWN2 toolset has a much more robust collection of global scripts that are ready for use in your own modules.

Usability
Customizable Workspace. You have much more control over where various tools and windows are located and how much space they take up, allowing you to adjust the toolset’s layout as you wish.

Improved Conversation Editor. You can pass parameters to scripts and assign multiple conditional and action scripts. A “main question node” feature makes it much easier to construct certain types of conversations.

Level Baking. A semi-automated baking process creates the walkmesh for your level, which causes placeables you specify to automatically block movement without dealing directly with the walkmesh.

Multi-tasking. You can have multiple areas, conversations, and scripts open simultaneously, allowing for faster content creation.

Campaign System. Multiple modules can now share resources and journal data.

Flexible Categories. NWN2 has no item palettes, allowing you to organize your blueprints and instances in whatever categories you’d like.

Plugins. You can create plugins for the toolset, much like you can for Photoshop or 3DS Max.

[Ironwood]

Waaaaaaayyyy to hard.

[Xilren's Twin]

Waaaaaaayyyy to hard.

Actually, the general feeling is yes, this toolset IS much harder to use when it comes to creating the areas themselves but that's the tradeoff for greater control/flexibility.  Once again the community will have to add plugins/extentions so you average person can get anything done without a huge time investment.

Course, there seems to be people making plugins to make the toolset easier already.  If you looked at the pictures Nija posted earlier, the guy who made those is already using some toolset plugins for better camera controls and shortcuts to make it much faster to use.  If you watch his video he's obviously be one of the beta testers who has become familar with it as he works pretty quickly.

I've got mixed feelings; while the NWN1 toolset allowed anyone, even me, to quickly throw together areas, making anything that looked GOOD required a hell of a lot of time, basically to hide the limited building block selection.  NWN2 will take longer to make anything with area wise, but the areas themselves should have a lot more flexibility and look a helluva lot better.

Of course this doesn't touch on the scripting.

Xilren

[Ironwood]

The scripting.  Oh Good God, the scripting.  One hopes that hasn't got trickier.  It was enough to drive me to suicide last time.  Every script I used I nicked from someone far, far, cleverer than me.

[Strazos]

I remember getting NWN on release, with the idea of making modules and running my friends through them. I even bought the Module Builder guide.

But then I saw how much C or C++ you needed to know in order to produce decent modules.

[Xilren's Twin]

Waaaaaaayyyy to hard.

Good general into on using the toolet name, appropriately enough Dont' Panic!.

Just reading through, you could easily see people going nuts trying to overdo every color, shade, height and blade of grass density.  Obessive compulsives be warned.

Xilren

[Ironwood]

 

So, to recap;  It's the same game as the first one for single player with a much harder to use toolset that really requires you to be a full time developer to get anything out of ?

Oooo, Sold !

Sigh.

Seriously, that don't panic guide made my balls ache.

[Riggswolfe]

The single player game looks to have a much improved story, and this time you get a stronghold and an actual party. (3 npcs).

As for the toolset, it's harder but it will cutdown on the cookie cutter issue the first one had.

I'm sold already. Heck I preordered last week.

[stray]

It does look better than the first one, I'll give it that -- But I thought the first one was bad enough that I just ended up giving it away. It wouldn't take much to top it.

If Phantasy Star doesn't engage me, this will be my second November rpg choice, I guess.

[Nija]

Nice find on that PDF. It answered a few questions I had that kept me from doing interior areas.

It's not really a super complex editor. You can still make a useable area pretty quickly. It's like Duke3d mapping vs quake mapping. You could whip up quick maps with both of them, but if you put a ton of time into it the quake maps would really shine - where the duke3d maps only got "so good".

[Rasix]

That PDF is gold.  I made a few areas with the toolset and it wasn't that difficult.  Of course, this isn't touching on the conversations or scripting at all. 

There's just a staggering amount of options though.  You can edit so many different aspects of everything, you'll probably get lost for days perfecting an area.  If anything though, the toolset can be a little bit buggy and apparently some things aren't complete/implemented yet.  You can lose some of the more important windows by accident and the only way I've seen to get them back is to clear out your interface settings (it's in the pdf).

I'll definately be picking this up.  I have no idea where I'll get the time to make my "homage to Yojimbo" module with the gaming glut that is the holiday season.

[Furiously]

Anyone buy it yet? I see it's available digitally already.

[Signe]

I pre-ordered it in August.  It ships today so I guess I'll have it tomorrow or something.  I can't remember what sort of shipping I chose and I'm much too lazy to look it up.

[Furiously]

I suppose I could go to some sort of NWN2 board and see what they say on their forums, but I dislike strangers.

[geldonyetich]

Most of us aren't going to have our mitts on it until Wednesday.  (I probably won't get a good look at it until Thursday since Wednesday has me occupied for most the day, but that's my problem.)

If I'm blown away I'll be surprised.  From what I've heard so far, it may turn out to be pretty mediocre.  Yes, I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but don't shoot the messenger.

[Riggswolfe]

Where did you hear it was mediocre?

[Signe]

Where did you hear it was mediocre?

You just want a fight, don't you?  hehe.  Go on, then!   

[Xilren's Twin]

Where did you hear it was mediocre?

My impression of that is b/c it's not really a huge departure from NWN1.  People, including me, wanted something that was a) not so tied to D&D core rules, b) easier to create true custom contant for, c) better persistant world support, d)paced differently, or e) some or all of the above.

NWN2 is generally perceived to be "just" a graphical update to NWN1, thus the expectation that it will be mediocre.

We shall see, starting tomorrow.
Xilren

[Riggswolfe]

Where did you hear it was mediocre?

My impression of that is b/c it's not really a huge departure from NWN1.  People, including me, wanted something that was a) not so tied to D&D core rules, b) easier to create true custom contant for, c) better persistant world support, d)paced differently, or e) some or all of the above.

NWN2 is generally perceived to be "just" a graphical update to NWN1, thus the expectation that it will be mediocre.

We shall see, starting tomorrow.
Xilren

You're speaking of expectations and perceptions. He said "from  what I've heard so far" which I took to mean "I know people who've played it or read reviews and it is mediocre".

As for your expectations:

a) It's based off a D&D game world, it's going to be tied to the D&D rules to attract the crowd it is advertised for.
b) You can have easy or you can have true custom content. The first one was very, very easy (even scripting was relatively easy). This one seems harder but you can make much more "true custom content".
c) I can't comment much on this one though I hear it has built in database support and other nods to persistent worlds. I honestly never looked into the persistent worlds in the first one since they all seemed to revolve around pvp and not the truly entertaining things I thought was possible with this toolset/game
d) I assume the pacing will be generally the same. I never much had trouble with the pacing but I can understand people who disliked it.
e) Err..see the others.

[schild]

I will not open NWN 2 until FF12 is done. So, like, Saturday night or something.

[stray]

I decided to just download it. Hope it wasn't a mistake....

I might have a first impression in a little awhile (it's 4 Gigs).

[edit]

I don't know how to judge this game yet.

It's a spiffier version of NWN1, but yet, I'm actually sticking with it so far. NWN1 would have been in the trash by now. The story is engrossing at least. Gameplay wise, it's still NWN.

This isn't exactly Oblivion, but it could be pretty taxing on older systems. I haven't been in any huge fights yet, so it might be even worse than I think.

[schild]

If it's actually a spiffier version of NWN, count me out. That game was a goddamn wreck and just made me miss Black Isle Studios even more. Obsidian is no BIS and without BIS, Bioware seems completely without aim. To be perfectly honest, I'm not that stoked about Mass Effect.

[stray]

Well....

I probably should be playing FFXII or Ultimate Alliance as far as new rpg's go, but I'm not as disappointed as I thought I'd be.

Yes, it's the same gameplay as NWN (Perhaps a little deeper though? We'll see. I heard there's a castle sim thing within this game...Maybe there's other new ideas like that as well).

KoToR pretty much had the same combat system (but with better camera controls), and I ended up liking it anyways. The story was good. Sometimes gameplay isn't king to me. Ymmv.

Not to say that the NWN2 story is like KoToR, but it has me interested for now. Who knows how it'll end up.

[EDIT] Also, how did alignment play out in NWN exactly? I don't recall. In NWN2, it's kind of KoToR-esque. All kinds of NPC dialogue will alter it. You can also influence party members too (depending on their alignment).

[MrHat]

Can you be a monk?