NWN2: Thoughts?

[Xilren's Twin]

Minor necro but having finished the included SP campaign i got fine sense of nostaliga....for the crappy end of Kotor2!

The last area and final boss battle design were crap, the resolution of the story was left open, followed by a "we threw this together at the last minute" slide show instead of a custscene or movie, with a voice over from Timmy the package relocation specalists, and ending with a lame "cliffhanger".

Obsidian does it again and rushes a game without freaking finishing the main story.
And true to form, I'm hearing you can find dialogue in the NPC's conversation file indicating they actually had done work towards a different ending.  What sense does that possibily make. NWN2 came out in Oct; delaying it 2 weeks to finish the main plot correctly couldn't possibly have take THAT long and would have zero impact on x-mas sales.  Maybe it's Atari forcing their hand but since that's two games in a row...

It's a shame too, the rest of the main plot was well done.  Escpecially liked the repell the seige towers part.  Not sure how they got the towers to actually come out of the night to the wall top but it was cool.

Ah well, wish i could say i was surprised.

[Ironwood]

I've only just got my Stronghold, but I had already heard rumours that the ending was 'The Storyboard of the Ending' rather than the actual cutscene.

My eyes, they went 

[El Gallo]

I just finished it yesterday and had the same reaction.  The first act and the ending aren't very good.  The stuff in between is pretty entertaining.  

[palmer_eldritch]

I think the ending is meant to be the big epic fight at the end and the interaction with the NPCs immediately before that (without giving spoilers I hope, I think those conversations are meant to be the culmination of all the interaction you have had with your henchpeople in the entire game beforehand).

It sounds like it should work but somehow it doesn't, because the storyboard seems like the ending and it is dissapointing. I think that storyboard is meant to come across as just an epilogue, but it doesn't.

Overall however I really enjoyed NWN2, more than anything else since BG2.

[Sky]

Obsidian does it again and rushes a game without freaking finishing the main story.

At least Team Gizka should have a solid editor to finish the game this time.

[Phred]

I tried the game and can't see how you guys got past the shitty ass control system? Misclicks would send my characters running half way across the screen and having to fight the camera constantly to keep it in some semblance of a sensible direction just pissed me off to the point I'd quit in frustration. Haven't these guys heard of mouse look? They must have, it was in KoToR 2 wasn't it? Thanks to the braindead camera programming I never got to buggy quests or scripts or missing npc's though so I guess I came out ahead on that.

[Xilren's Twin]

I tried the game and can't see how you guys got past the shitty ass control system? ... Thanks to the braindead camera programming I never got to buggy quests or scripts or missing npc's though so I guess I came out ahead on that.

A fix for that was found on page 4 of this thread.  To wit...

In your My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\ folder, open up nwnplayer.ini, and find the line "CameraFollowAlways=0". Change this to "CameraFollowAlways=1". This will cause the Camera to always follow you - even when standing still.

That's my biggest bitch with the camera. I want it to work more mmoish, so if I rotate my character the camera rotates with him.

That camera adjustment is absolutely neccessary to spend more than 5 minutes in game.  Thankfully, it does work fine.

[Calantus]

All this talk of NWN2 got me hankering for some NWN1. As far as NWN2 is concerned, this whole fiasco with bugs and compatability issues is why I'm this close to saying "fuck it" and becoming a console gamer. I'll wait a few months for fixes and content to come out before I take the plunge I think.

[sinij]

The last area and final boss battle design were crap, the resolution of the story was left open, followed by a "we threw this together at the last minute" slide show instead of a custscene or movie, with a voice over from Timmy the package relocation specalists, and ending with a lame "cliffhanger".

Can't agree more. While some keep fights were very enjoyable end battle was horrible, with party AI removing any traces of fun. Sideshow and cliffhanger was simply not excusable.

Are there any good download or persistent modules out yet?

[stray]

Patch came out by the way.

Release Notes (too long to copy and paste here).


Haven't played it myself, as I've pretty much given up on this game.

Maybe I'll keep it around for a rainy day...

[Ironwood]

Hmm, I thought we were already at 1.03.

How strange.


Man, the FIRST fix on that lists bugs me.  Putting duel-weapons in a quick slot was available in nwn1 from the get go and it takes 3 patches to put it in the sequel ?

Sigh.

Lots of feedback that the patch vastly improves performance.  I think I'll give it a go tonight.

[Xilren's Twin]

The last area and final boss battle design were crap, the resolution of the story was left open, followed by a "we threw this together at the last minute" slide show instead of a custscene or movie, with a voice over from Timmy the package relocation specalists, and ending with a lame "cliffhanger".

Can't agree more. While some keep fights were very enjoyable end battle was horrible, with party AI removing any traces of fun. Sideshow and cliffhanger was simply not excusable.

Are there any good download or persistent modules out yet?

Most are in "beta".

BTW, i loaded my save right before the last battle and used the console to change my cleric's alignment to evil, then signed up with the KoS to see the evil ending.  Despite it being more slide shows and poor voice over, I liked it much better . Especially killing, resurrecting and killing over and over that bastard of a "father" i had...   
 
Xilren

[Xilren's Twin]

Can't agree more. While some keep fights were very enjoyable end battle was horrible, with party AI removing any traces of fun. Sideshow and cliffhanger was simply not excusable.

Are there any good download or persistent modules out yet?

Minor necro.  Just saw this today and of course my first reaction was "holy shit, someone made a MtG game inside of NWN2?"  Apparently, they also had done this in NWN1...

Click here for the quick summary and screen shots

Xilren

[Fabricated]

I finally got to sit down with this game again...and it stinks. Am I missing something here? I'm at the bandit camp, I aggro one bandit, and then I get slaughtered because there's a hofuckingjillion bandits firing arrows into you. I potioned my way through that, talked to the survivors, then a another large group of archers appeared and cut my party + the survivors down.

I redid it, then entered the house to see if I had to kill the bandits in there off, and then proceeded to have a battalion of thieves and a wizard or two run over my party.

[stray]

I slaughtered those dudes with ease with a Cleric -- Once with the first bandit mob, and then the other big group after rescuring those survivors. Even after my party wiped, I managed to solo them.

Might want to play a Cleric ;)


My copy of NWN is screwed though. I did a reinstall of my system last week, and had to reinstall my games again....The D2D copy of NWN2 doesn't want to update. No word from support in a week, and the technical support forum is of no help either -- Other people are having the same problems, but no one has an answer. The mods are assholes too (they threaten you if you bump a thread, even for technical support).

Oh well...The game is shit anyways.

[geldonyetich]

It's just as well this thread's been bumped, as I've had a wicked jones to whine about how NWN2 is screwed in two minor but vitally important ways:

1) When another group member is conversing with an NPC, the other members in the group are absolutely paralyzed.  Can't manage my inventory, can't view my character sheet, can't even freaking chat.  I'm basically forced to sit down and shut up, with my one and only allowed action being to hammer the pause function, which incidentally jams the conversation.  Thus, Teamspeak is required if one wants to give any guidance to conversations going on.

2) Players can no longer be in different zones.  Whenever any group members zones, everybody else goes with them.  This wasn't always the case in NWN1, and absolutely dooms several custom scenario possibilities.

I admit, I haven't hit the official NWN2 forums on this, so feel free to hit me with a RTFF if I'm wrong about the two points above.  I have noticed, for example, that a rare few NPCs in the official campaign don't lock up the other players' interface.  In that case, perhaps point #1 above is a non-issue. 

Regardless, from my experiences of going through the coop included campaign, it looks like the flexibility of the original NWN has encountered near-fatal head trauma at the hands of Obsidian.  Yet, even as the mentally handicapped invalid it has become, NWN2 does work as an engine for single-player or a multiplayer cooperative campaigns.  Basically, situations where all the party members have to stay in the same place.  Of course, faux-MMORPGs like in the original NWN are now impossible, unless you manage to confine all the activity to a single map.

[Ironwood]

Oh well...The game is shit anyways.

YES.

[rk47]

It was a decent fix to single player RPG craving I was missing, for a while I messed around and got entertained with some NPC interaction in the Official campaign. Some are really good, a few are totally weak. But yes, I can't believe Obsidian did it again. It'll stick to their names now, king of unfinished ending. And amazingly it's another sequel they fucked with. Really hope a great mod team can put a decent ending for the finale. And I'll avoid Obsidian from now on.

Too early to get quality mods, so I can't comment on that.

[Reg]

It's a shame but they just don't seem to have the pull that Bioware did so the publisher is able to force them to release games unfinished. As it is, I'll be avoiding them too in the future. Another few months of development and Kotor2 and NWN2 could both have been top ranked games.

[Sky]

I love this forum sometimes.

[Ironwood]

Clarification please ?

[Sky]

It saves me money.

[Bunk]

While I agree with the posters above on the ending, and have my own personal gripes about some of the other content that was cust from the OC, it is still a game worth keeping an eye one. Give it six months or so for the mod community to get moving and then pick it up.

[Sky]

That was my mistake with NWN1: buying it new. I played it for maybe two nights and then tried the worldbuilder (own the guide) for a week or so before I found I needed Maya to make a decent module.

Maybe I'll grab the bargain bin version with a crapton of bundled content in about two years.

[TardKommando]

[Possible Spoilers]
This is a Long shot but would any kind soul have a save just before the 'trial' for murdering the village of Ember? I had just gathered all of the evidence for the quest and now the game will not load the Blacklake district off my last bunch of saves. Can go to any other district fine but the games hangs whenever I tried and load Blacklake. Not really fussed what type of char. PM me if you are a saviour.

[Reg]

Do you have an old save with the Blacklake district files in it? I had Khelgar disappear on me at one point and I managed to restore him by copying the Khelgar files from a very old save. I had to use the debugger to boost his experience back up to be the same as the rest of the party but once I did that everything was fine.

I'm guessing that restoring the old Blacklake files might work for you the same way.

[TardKommando]

Thanks for the reply. I see you what you mean about the save structure on disk - in the end I catassed the missing 4 hours on easy mode.

3 save game corruptions so far - all on the auto or quick saves. Apart from that and the loading times, it is better than what elements of this thread indicate. Already looking forward to restarting as CE to get the slit throat options. There are some tempting 'evil' dialogue options which my goody good character has reluctantly ignored so far..

[Rasix]

Got this for Christmas and just started playing it the last couple of days. 

Umm.. I like it.  Sure, it looks terrible, doesn't run particularly well on my system, party is AI is decent to terrible, but I'm having fun.  I have a feeling the game would be somewhat harder if I didn't roll a cleric (fun to buff stack), but I rarely even have to battle heal at all.  Is there a cleric you can pick up pre-bandit camp? (It's not like you don't have enough potions to get through that part)Playing a sorc or some type of rogue/bard might be fun.

The included campaign is loads better than the orginal NWN campaign.  So far I'd put it on par with SoU but the voice acting is a lot better.  Most battles I've fought have been pretty well balanced, but nothing impossible that I've had to reload a lot or anything.  Dungeons have had decent layouts.

Yah, I'm mentally preparing myself for the inevitable let down in the plot department, but I figure I'll enjoy myself until then.