NWN2: Thoughts?

[Riggswolfe]

[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).

Alignment had little to do with anything in NWN1 other than some class options (like Paladin, duh).

Since Obsidian did KOTOR2 they decided to copy that "influence the NPCs" type of gameplay. I hope they did a good job. And that this game has a better ending. I'm going to try to pick it up today on my lunch hour and play co-op with my girlfriend.

[Furiously]

Can you be a monk?

Yes.

[MrHat]

Can you be a monk?

Yes.

I love me some monk.

[Bandit]

Downloaded NWN2 from Direct2Drive lastnight.  4.3 gig download, then a 100 meg update patch right away.  Apparently, the updater or first patch is faulty, and I had no luck even getting into the game.  Atari has issued a statement that they will have this problem solved by days end today.

Hello everyone,

We have a breif update fropm Atari and Obsidian for you concerning issues you may be seeing regarding Patch 1.

Box Retail: The English v1.01 patch is now available via the in-game autoupdate utility.

Direct2Drive Customers: For those of you who purchased the game via Direct2Drive, we have identified the issue with the autopatcher failing to complete the install for the patch, and are working diligently to resolve the problem. We do not anticipate this taking any longer than end of the day Wednesday, November 1st, Pacific Standard Time and apologize for any inconvenience.

In the interim, we invite you to fire up the single player game and start playing!

I have learned my lesson buying games at launch, both Dark Messiah and NWN2 had serious issues at release.   

[Furiously]

Can you be a monk?

Yes.

I love me some monk.

here!

[geldonyetich]

I so almost did that.

But yes, I love me some monk too.  Nothing like having a happy Zen practioner walk up to a group of ravenous kobolds, bow, and proceed to tear them to pieces with bare hands.

[Strazos]

Heh, I like the ETA Atari gave on that fix quoted above.

[Nija]

The game is pretty cool. It runs way better than I expected. For some reason the game has no less than 5 areas to change shadow detail. If you set them all to low, when they all default to high (these guys love them some shadows!) you can get a free performance boost.

I mean shadows. Who really cares? I D2D'd it and if they don't have the patch worked out in, oh, 2 and a half more hours I'm gonna try for a refund and I'll just pick up a dvd version somewhere.

The reason the D2D version fails is that the nwn2main.exe file is different - my guess is that it's got the cd/dvd check removed where the retail version doesn't. CRC check fails, applying the patch fails.

[HaemishM]

Yes, it's the same gameplay as NWN

That killed it for me.

[Furiously]

It has cutsceens...

[stray]

Not cutscenes in the FF sense though. More like KoToR (i.e. with multiple dialogue responses, etc..).

[dusematic]

I thought we all agreed a long time ago NWN was pure shit?  That being said NWN2 had me at hello.

[Nija]

The default NWN campaign was shitty. It's too bad that drove a ton of people away from the game, because player worlds were/still are pretty awesome.

Yeah major characters have voices in this and you'll have letterbox style in-game cutscenes, so to speak. There are a bunch at the fair and at the beginning of the game, but they're showing up a bit less often now that I'm about 90 minutes into the game.

[dusematic]

That's because they know most reviewers only play the first hour and a half of a game.  It's all part of a master plan to subjugate the human race.

[geldonyetich]

Hold up, there's supposed to be full party member control.  Is it possible that will save NWN 2 from falling absolutely and utterly in NWN's D20 destined corpse hole?

To elaborate on my angst, it's not that I can't see some value in the original NWN in that it granted players powers to make their own modules with fairly elaborate features (such as spawn tables and traps) and then play it out with up to 64 players, serverside stored characters, and player DM intervention.  My issue was rather that Dungeons and Dragons computer games that are overfaithful to the rule books play something like this:

1. Exploration/Story progression
2. Encounter!
3. Fail saving throw! Half the party dies to a fireball!
4. Reload saved game.
5. Foe succeeds in saving throw and now you're out of spells!
6. Reload saved game.
7. The battle was going swimmingly until that critical hit left your fighter mortally wounded.
8. Reload saved game.
9. Looks like you won this time.
10. Save game.
11. Loop to step #1.

Some RPGs are balanced in such a way that the player's interaction doesn't matter so much as the die rolls.  That was my main beef with NWN, not enough influential player moves to really earn success or failure over a given encounter.

[schild]

Derail: Nah, on average given the content of reviews, many play 4-5 hours. Sometimes I'll beat a game before reviewing it, but generally (GENERALLY) I'll get at least halfway through and then quit even if I loved it because a week has gone by. Bad games get 3-4 hours out of me and then I don't review it. The number of games I play and don't discuss is staggering. Take that PS2 list in that other thread and multiply by 3.

/derail

[Riggswolfe]

Some RPGs are balanced in such a way that the player's interaction doesn't matter so much as the die rolls.  That was my main beef with NWN, not enough influential player moves to really earn success or failure over a given encounter.

If you're playing a d&d game learn to min/max. My party in BG1&2 could tear almost anything apart within seconds. Same for Planescape. Not so much in NWN1 but then you didn't have a party in that game.

[geldonyetich]

Min/Maxing improves the odds in a D20 game, but a well-balanced scenario never lets it reach the point where I can guarantee freedom from the loading screen.  Even with the best gear, you've stilll a 5% chance of taking a critical hit every time the enemy hits you and ideally spell resistance doesn't exceed 19 either.  All I ask is that I never see that screen unless I made a mistake - is that so wrong?

[Rasix]

Min/Maxing improves the odds in a D20 game, but a well-balanced scenario never lets it reach the point where I can guarantee freedom from the loading screen.

Player skill enters in there at some point.  Maybe you just suck at these games. I'm not very good at football games; some people can own Madden at max difficulty, but anything past Rookie used to give me fits.

Past a certain level and party size, you're not going to get into too many unrecoverable/unbeatable situations.  I don't know how long NWN2 keeps you as a noob but a 4 player party is sufficient to have a lot of counters for any enemy presented.  Plus, these games have never been stingy with potions and scrolls. 

After the first third of HOU, I barely even bothered to pause.

[Furiously]

Instead of you and a sidekick, you and 3 friends will make modules a lot more doable.

[stray]

Hold up, there's supposed to be full party member control.  Is it possible that will save NWN 2 from falling absolutely and utterly in NWN's D20 destined corpse hole?

To elaborate on my angst, it's not that I can't see some value in the original NWN in that it granted players powers to make their own modules with fairly elaborate features (such as spawn tables and traps) and then play it out with up to 64 players, serverside stored characters, and player DM intervention.  My issue was rather that Dungeons and Dragons computer games that are overfaithful to the rule books play something like this:

1. Exploration/Story progression
2. Encounter!
3. Fail saving throw! Half the party dies to a fireball!
4. Reload saved game.
5. Foe succeeds in saving throw and now you're out of spells!
6. Reload saved game.
7. The battle was going swimmingly until that critical hit left your fighter mortally wounded.
8. Reload saved game.
9. Looks like you won this time.
10. Save game.
11. Loop to step #1.

Some RPGs are balanced in such a way that the player's interaction doesn't matter so much as the die rolls.  That was my main beef with NWN, not enough influential player moves to really earn success or failure over a given encounter.

Party control. Hmm....

I don't control my party members much except for utility purposes. Things move so fast. The combat system doesn't leave me much time to make a lot of deep tactical moves really. Even when pausing.

Maybe that improves later. Haha.

It's NWN. Like I said already, the combat sucks. Parties' are cool, but it doesn't change the feel of things really.

NWN fans will love it though. Non-NWN fans and/or non Bioware/Obsidian combat fans (like myself) are going to have to appreciate it for other things (just like KoToR) -- and it really hasn't done a bad job at that.....So far.

But again, the combat sucks. I'm not going to tell you anything you want to hear.

The only thing I will say is that I probably hated NWN more than anyone here....And yet, I haven't quite given up on NWN2 so far. If you want to use that to justify your own purchase, then be my guest. Just remember that I warned you.

[geldonyetich]

The hype told me that I should consider NWN2 to be a significant improvement over NWN.  From what you're telling me, it lied to me!  My surprise is both palpable and mostly directed at myself for finding I still had a little hope the hype wasn't entirely empty.

Now the question remains: can I like NWN2 for being NWN+?  I was under the impression that NWN did indeed have its moments, as did KOTOR.  As a story delivery mechanism, NWN and KOTOR did rather well.  Even though the original NWN's campaign sucked, Shadows of Undrentide was good enough that I completed it multiple times.  Player capacity to provide fabulous content was used, and there's quite a few diamonds in the rough out there if one looks hard enough.  There's even some aspiring MMORPG wannabes amongst the unfortunately player-capped ranks of player run NWN servers out there.  Will NWN2 bring this three years further than NWN did, or will it fizzle out when players encounter the tougher-to-use campaign editor?

The funny thing is, despite having some definite similarities, there was a world of difference between NWN and KOTOR's combat.  It mostly had to do with the balance, but the introduction of the force powers might have had something to do with it as well.  It wasn't that it being The Force had pushed it further in my mind than it deserved, it was rather that the Force powers added a lot more to combat than the AD&D 3rd edition skills/spells did for everything that wasn't a Wizard, Sorceror, or (to be generous) Monk.  I wonder how NWN2 delivers here.

If nothing else, perhaps I can at least trust NWN2 to not have enigmatic compatibility issues but rather crash equally on everybody's computers even five years from now.  I had to roll back my ATI drivers to make KOTOR play without massive unplayable slowdown in places, and at least once I found NWN refused to launch after I put it down for a few months due to hardware changes.  If NWN2 can avoid those pitfalls it might yet prove a worthy purchase.

Then, of course, there's the possibility of my deciding to write up some uber modules myself.  I bet my armchair game developer itch could do some very interesting things, but there's always been a certain matter of generating motivation coupled inevitably with facing the limitations of the engine that drove me from the first game.

[Nija]

Well, I know that you're a wordy motherfucker so you've got that in spades. But if you do decide to make a module, try not to ask so many rhetorical questions will ya?

[geldonyetich]

wordy motherfucker

"Dialogue Content Producer."

if you do decide to make a module, try not to ask so many rhetorical questions will ya?

I shall make an NPC whose every line is a rhetorical question.

...

Most players won't notice the difference.

[Lum]

Well, with a decent DM, you don't get the "half the party dies to a fireball, game over" because he manipulates events in such a manner that the entire party doesn't die to one spell.

I am reminded of one pen and paper game where my mage looked for a spare room in a deep dungeon to rest and relearn spells. Unfortunately at the wrong moment there was always some noisy orc or kobold or something. "What, you think this is some goddamned Gold Box computer game? NO SLEEPING IN THE DUNGEON!"

[Trippy]

Well, with a decent DM, you don't get the "half the party dies to a fireball, game over" because he manipulates events in such a manner that the entire party doesn't die to one spell.

I am reminded of one pen and paper game where my mage looked for a spare room in a deep dungeon to rest and relearn spells. Unfortunately at the wrong moment there was always some noisy orc or kobold or something. "What, you think this is some goddamned Gold Box computer game? NO SLEEPING IN THE DUNGEON!"

That reminds me of one of the Baldur's Gate dungeons -- the one with the kobolds that drop fire arrows. I was trying to camp in there but I was always getting interrupted and for a long time I was just "breaking even", getting back just enough healing spells to heal up the damage I would take from the interrupting monsters. Eventually I was able to get ahead of the curve and heal up enough to make it through the rest of the dungeon.

[stray]

Memorizing spells is bullshit. I'd never play a mage in a DnD computer game. I'm surprised that anyone ever does.
------

I don't think I've stressed enough how BAD the camera and movement controls are here. It's a lot of work just to move around and see where I'm going. It's really insulting that so called game designers could be so careless about such things.

Like NWN, this game doesn't give a flying fuck about being a good video game. It doesn't care about the actual physical/interactive experience that video games demand. It doesn't care about interface, controls, etc.. The surface level things. It does a fine job at meticulously emulating "saving throws", class options, feats, and other staples that underlie DnD --- The number crunching shit --- But it does fuckall as far as letting a computer player comfortably and intuitively interact with those things.

[Strazos]

Yeah Trippy, the mine you are speaking of can be pretty rough at that point in the game. I had a hell of a time going through it the first time.

[Trippy]

Wow, this game is broken in oh so many ways.

I thought it would've been impossible to make faces uglier than those in EQ2 but Obsidian somehow managed to do it, and they put in the Play-Doh toupee hairstyles to boot. And who was the genius who thought putting in Resident Evil-style movement controls was a good idea? At least click to move still sort of works. As for the camera controls reading some of the BioWare forum posts made it sound like you could configure things to be a bit more workable and that the patch would fix some of the issues but those were wrong as well.

[schild]

Oblivion's faces were worse than EQ2. I saw a screenshot of NWN today on a press site and that was it for me. I canceled my preorder. Too ugly. Somehow - SOMEHOW - worse than oblivion.

[Fabricated]

Oblivion's faces were worse than EQ2. I saw a screenshot of NWN today on a press site and that was it for me. I canceled my preorder. Too ugly. Somehow - SOMEHOW - worse than oblivion.

I still don't get where this "EQ2's graphics are good" thing comes from.

[schild]

Never said they were good. Well, a lot of the new stuff is better enough to be considered "good" but until Oblivion, they set the bar for the worst faces (and bodies for that matter) in new gaming (for me).

Thus,

NWN2 < Oblivion < EQ2 < x is a goddamn slap in the face. X representing "Every Other AAA Game."

[stray]

The Halfling models are actually pretty cool. Some of the female models aren't so bad.

I'm not sure which the worst though. Human male or Elves (nothing against Elves or anything...they just look remarkably stupid in this game. Especially half-elves).

I did manage to get a Human to look "OK", I guess. Still has the play-doh hair though:



Note: The game doesn't look that smooth. That's just because the pic is scaled down.

[Trippy]

I still don't get where this "EQ2's graphics are good" thing comes from.

Cause higher poly counts means better graphics. Duh!

[stray]

Umm, just for the sake of it, here's a Halfling Rogue. They're too small to get a decent screenshot of though.