Neverwinter Nights 2 rocks!

LobsterMobster wrote:
vbl wrote:

I didn't like NWN2 at all, this coming from someone who loved NWN1 and BG2.

The graphics felt like a downgrade, the camera was maddening, and it ran like poopoo. To name the biggest annoyances.

I was in that boat but for different reasons. The beginning was slow and I was trying to play a warlock since I liked that concept. I could not survive. Kept getting killed till I played a big smashy stupid warrior. Maybe it's just me. I only made it as far as the tiefling before I gave up because of the slow pace and the graphical problems. Might reinstall and try again now that it's been patched and I've upgraded my computer.

I don't mind the sedate pacing in the early bits of chapter 1, what kills me is running errands for the watch/thieves in Neverwinter. It feels like things should open up significantly once you get to the city, and instead you're railroaded down a very narrow path. And Moire should be a natural breakpoint in that line, but instead they *keep* bossing you around for no good reason.

Luckily it picks up again in Chapter 2, but that part is like pulling teeth. The OC in general has too much plot for its own good, although there's some nifty setpieces in there.

Mask of the Betrayer is fantastic though.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
vbl wrote:

I didn't like NWN2 at all, this coming from someone who loved NWN1 and BG2.

The graphics felt like a downgrade, the camera was maddening, and it ran like poopoo. To name the biggest annoyances.

I was in that boat but for different reasons. The beginning was slow and I was trying to play a warlock since I liked that concept. I could not survive. Kept getting killed till I played a big smashy stupid warrior. Maybe it's just me. I only made it as far as the tiefling before I gave up because of the slow pace and the graphical problems. Might reinstall and try again now that it's been patched and I've upgraded my computer.

I don't mind the sedate pacing in the early bits of chapter 1, what kills me is running errands for the watch/thieves in Neverwinter. It feels like things should open up significantly once you get to the city, and instead you're railroaded down a very narrow path. And Moire should be a natural breakpoint in that line, but instead they *keep* bossing you around for no good reason.

Luckily it picks up again in Chapter 2, but that part is like pulling teeth. The OC in general has too much plot for its own good, although there's some nifty setpieces in there.

Agreed 100%. The part in Neverwinter is way too long and too heavy on the Fed-Ex. But after that it really picked up. All in all I found NWN2 to be good but not exceptional. Certainly no Planescape: Torment or The Witcher. Never played the expansions though, maybe one day I'll pick up Mask of the Betrayer.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
BlackSheep wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
polypusher wrote:

I died a lot too as my sorceror in the beginning. The first few levels are rough going for any spell caster. Especially when you've gotten used to MMO mechanics like 'the fighter can always taunt the badguy off me so Ill just stand here and keep throwing magic missiles'

Yeah, then you get off one magic missile before a goblin clubs you into the ground and steals your 4 hp, which is just as well because you were only able to cast one magic missile anyway.

Sleep, web and a bow. Let the others do the heavy lifting. I hid behind the dumb NPC fighter a lot early on and the moved right over to the dwarf after that.

I've always found games of this type to be brutal on spell casters early on. You need to be super tactical and not scared of running away.

Haven't played this yet, looking for it in a local store, but I can only find Storm of Zehir.

NWN2 is actually relatively easy on arcane spellcasters early on if you know the right spells to go for. Sleep is your best friend, you can basically sleep and then Coup de grâce (one hit kill) everything (if you want to be lazy about spell placement cast Protection from *your alignment* on your self and your buddies), when you get to level two spells grab ghostly visage and your basically invincible until the mobs start hitting harder (sleep will still work for while longer too), that will last until about the time that fire ball becomes available and the rest is pure spell flinging goodness.

How does spellcasting work out later on? I've liked being a cleric in other WOTC games, but mages and sorcs were an absolute hoot in BG2 (time stop + multiple fireballs/horrid wilting, anyone?).

I initially tried a mage in NWN1, but the squishiness got to me. When I beat Shadows of Udrentide and Hordes of the Underdark it was with a vanilla fighter...

Oh, and, do check out this rant about the door into the Blacklake district. (Spoilers abound)

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysid...

Sonicator wrote:

How does spellcasting work out later on? I've liked being a cleric in other WOTC games, but mages and sorcs were an absolute hoot in BG2 (time stop + multiple fireballs/horrid wilting, anyone?).

I initially tried a mage in NWN1, but the squishiness got to me. When I beat Shadows of Udrentide and Hordes of the Underdark it was with a vanilla fighter...

My character in Mask of the Betrayer is now about level 24 with 10 levels of Eldritch Knight (sorcerer with better attack rating and hitpoints) 4 in Red Dragon Disciple (sorceror with armor bonuses and stat bonuses) and 10 in Sorcerer. So he is primarilly a spell flinger, but I have a high armor class with decent hitpoints (and good defensive spells), so I can do the up-close magic without worrying too much about getting pasted.

The rest of my party is a spirit shaman, a cleric, and a wizard. So lots of magic gets flung around. Visually, its -amazing- Its hard to tell whats going on sometimes but there's explosions and meteors and summoned Balors, life draining novas that create greater shadows... much better than just hacking and slashing, says I

Mage duels can be fun too. You're both putting up your defenses while trying to strip down theirs and pelting each other with as many spells that still do damage when a saving roll is made as possible... Sometimes I just run up and hack them with my greatsword though.

By the time you hit the level 30 range as you discussed, do spell casters become so powerful that they are akin to minor deities as they have in previous D&D based games?

Royce wrote:

By the time you hit the level 30 range as you discussed, do spell casters become so powerful that they are akin to minor deities as they have in previous D&D based games?

Yes. I started turning peoplei into chickens and summoning demons. MoTB wasn't at all difficult for a pure spellcaster.

I enjoyed NWN2 well enough when it was released, but I can sympathise with those that hate it for its bugs, plot or gameplay. It's certainly better than NWN1, but I felt the engine really got in the way of a good RPG. Luckily Obsidian got around that, which brings me to...

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Mask of the Betrayer is fantastic though.

Can't agree more! There are some wonderful parts in this; parts that easily rival the quality of Planescape: Torment. I particularly enjoyed the more personal focus of the plot. This is probably where NWN2 should have started in terms of quality.

And now I'm busy with Storm of Zehir, which I'm enjoying slightly more than I expected! I initially looked forward to playing with a party that was completely player-generated, but the depth of the trading aspect (for an RPG) ended up surprising me. I do feel that the game starts off too slow - it only really opens up when you get to the second overland map. The quests also aren't as deep as those in the previous instalments, but Obsidian compensates by at least having a lot of them.

I want to play this, I really do. I think i'm just going to wait until Dragon Age to come out though. I have a feeling it will fill my Baldur's Gate itch that needs to be scratched.

I mentioned this in the dragon age thread but just in case ill mention it here as well...

Apparently Atari have suggested that a third expansion is planned, though no details on it yet.

There's also a "premier" module to keep an eye on that's almost ready for release:
Mysteries of Westgate (more of an open-world city adventure if memory serves).

I'm getting close to the end of Mask of the Betrayer and it actually is getting more challenging for my caster. In between nuclear blasts some of the spells or attacks are getting through my barriers. My party even wiped out shortly after the beginning of Act III. The story is pretty incredible though. The difference between Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir is really impressive. Both are very fun but both for very different reasons.

Im about to start Storm of Zehir online with my brother as a coop experience. That should be a ton of fun.

Has anyone tried any community made modules? Those will probably be where I look next.

I had a blast with OC and MotB, but Storm of Zehir is driving me insane. I seem to have hit a strange bug whereupon all PC movement animations cause the screen to hitch. It renders the game virtually unplayable. All the google-fu I have used has only given me the possibility that it could have to do with outdated NVIDIA drivers... Which is frankly impossible as I am running a fresh build (from October), that has never had an NVIDIA card in it. Anyone else experienced this? I thought it might be my old PhysX card (yes, I bought one. It seemed like a good idea at the time), but even with it turned off and the drivers removed the issue continues...

Oh, I cannot wait for this to arrive so I can see how bugged out it is. I finished Valkyria Chronicles a couple weeks ago and LOTRO is just not holding my interest at all times as I've spent entirely too much time in Tolkein's world the past few years, so I decided to finally jump on NWN2. Basically it's my holdover until Dragon Age and I really am looking forward to the bugs. They keep me on my toes.

Off-Topic: Is that a Discordian I read above me? Praise Eris!

I managed to get rid of the problem by wiping all of my major components drivers and reinstalling. Seems to have fixed the issue. If anyone else experiences I would suggest trying the same. Although I have a sneaking suspicion it was the Realtek HD Audio driver causing the trouble as it was the only new one available.

Wow it really sounds like there is more to this game than I originally thought. I never played the first NWN but bought NWN2 on the cheap last summer, and although I had great expectations after patching it up to date and seeing that the character creation is aaaaaaawesome, I absolutely could not get past the sh*t-tastic camera at ALL (didn't even finish the first quest), I don't know how you guys dealt with it long enough to get through the game + 2 expansions!

Katy wrote:

Oh, and, do check out this rant about the door into the Blacklake district. (Spoilers abound)

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysid...

Thank you. Does he have a rant against the final battle(s) against the King of Shadows?

I thought the NWN2 camera got fixed. Wasn't that one of the first patches? Do either of the expansions address the camera?

The default game has 1 or 2 camera modes. The fully patched and expanded game (Im not sure whether it's a patch or expansion that does it) you have 3. There's an over the shoulder cam where you really just control 1 guy and have everyone else follow. There's a 'strategic' cam with more of an overview. You can zoom farther out and the ceilings are chopped off rooms so you can get multi-room views of dungeons. You are allowed to select and give orders to multiple characters simultaneously in this mode. It sounds ideal to use Strategic mode but I found it unweildy... and crashy. I crashed 5 or 6 times in strategic mode and maybe once in over the shoulder mode.

First off you don't have keyboard controls for just panning the camera around. You have move forward and move back with it, but not side to side. Idiotic. So I don't really use it. I use the over the shoulder cam. The problem with this one is that you're more dependent on the AI of your characters, which gets funky. Your guys will oddly switch targets for no reason, a lot.

This should detract from the game a lot more than it does. The 3rd camera mode is called exploration but I've never tried to use it. Ideally I think you should be able to control the action from overhead, pan the camera in every direction with the keyboard, have no arbitrary limit on how far from your characters you can pan and give reliable orders to teammates without their AI kicking in and overriding basic movement orders. So basically like Baldur's Gate.

You can do a lot of that with Strategic mode and turning off all AI for your guys, but you're less effective since you'll have guys just standing there when you're distracted.

Its a pain in the ass, but its still a fun game

Rat Boy wrote:

Thank you. Does he have a rant against the final battle(s) against the King of Shadows?

Of course! It's here: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysid...

I knew there was an important mod I was forgetting.

"The Black Hound".

This is the one-man project by Josh (J.E.) Sawyer (of Obsidian) who is hoping to recreate what they were working on at Black Isle before they got shut down. (This was the game that had been at one point designated "Baldurs Gate III", although it apparently had a completely unrelated storyline).

I had thought this project had been abandoned, but thankfully not...

This looks like the place to keep an eye on it. http://the-black-hound.com/blog/
but i also found this http://theblackhound.googlepages.com/

Any interest in an online game for this? I don't have MotB, but I do have vanilla NWN2 and SoZ.

I'm very active in the NWN2 community. Social butterfly, podcaster. forums admin, and avid player of community modules etc.

I loved NWN1 and continued with NWN2.

Were there bugs? absolutely. And this is not isolated to NWN2, many games new have bugs. The difference between some games and the neverwinter community. They fix them. They create patches to add new features, bug fixes etc.

Why do most love the game? It has nothing to do with the official campaign, or the expansions. Unless you count fixes and new shiny content. It is all about the community. The various talents this game draws in. Custom Content artist, area designers, texture artist, scripters, writers, and module builders! And last but certainly not least. Persistent Worlds. Those who devote their time, work, and talents for players to have free multi-player experiences. That is the prize we all get from it. This is a very strong and devoted community. All these talented people help each other out. Offer their talents to other people or teams when they need help. The support for each other is fantastic! In one word. Amazing!

Anyway, that is my thoughts on NWN2.

Happy Gaming
Liso

Liso wrote:

I'm very active in the NWN2 community. Social butterfly, podcaster. forums admin, and avid player of community modules etc.

I loved NWN1 and continued with NWN2.

Were there bugs? absolutely. And this is not isolated to NWN2, many games new have bugs. The difference between some games and the neverwinter community. They fix them. They create patches to add new features, bug fixes etc.

Why do most love the game? It has nothing to do with the official campaign, or the expansions. Unless you count fixes and new shiny content. It is all about the community. The various talents this game draws in. Custom Content artist, area designers, texture artist, scripters, writers, and module builders! And last but certainly not least. Persistent Worlds. Those who devote their time, work, and talents for players to have free multi-player experiences. That is the prize we all get from it. This is a very strong and devoted community. All these talented people help each other out. Offer their talents to other people or teams when they need help. The support for each other is fantastic! In one word. Amazing!

Anyway, that is my thoughts on NWN2.

Happy Gaming
Liso

Much of that, I think, stems from the franchise tag coupled with the 'bones' of the system being quite good, even if the bugs are troublesome. Very similar to Mount&Blade and their hyperactive modding community.

I picked up the gold edition today for $10 from bestbuy (found a left over $20 giftcard!) I'm quarantined for a few days as I am still infectious from a fun bout of the stomach flu.....

After sitting through the 20 minutes of patching I got started and immediately hated the camera... Did some searching and changing the ini cameraalwaysfollow to "1" made a massive difference. Now I can actually see what's going on and the camera doesn't have epileptic seizures.

Restarted twice already 1st time with a ranger, now I'm a fighter. Not sure if I'll restart again or not as there are some things I would do differently.

Running at 1920x1080 with everything maxed out (minus Vsynch) and I'm pretty impressed. It's nothing ground breaking by any means but it's scratching my D&D itch.

For anyone that really wanted to play this as a turn based game check out this mod

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2HakpaksOriginal.Detail&id=141

FANTASTIC!

Characters will do what you tell them, cast, attack, etc. until they need to choose something else (spell cast, opponent dead) and the game autopauses for you.

Liso wrote:

Why do most love the game? It has nothing to do with the official campaign, or the expansions. Unless you count fixes and new shiny content. It is all about the community. The various talents this game draws in. Custom Content artist, area designers, texture artist, scripters, writers, and module builders! And last but certainly not least. Persistent Worlds. Those who devote their time, work, and talents for players to have free multi-player experiences. That is the prize we all get from it. This is a very strong and devoted community. All these talented people help each other out. Offer their talents to other people or teams when they need help. The support for each other is fantastic! In one word. Amazing!

Any PW in particular that you would recommend? I remember playing on PW server in NWN1, it was called Ajojahti, and to this day it remains the best multiplayer experience I ever had. Period.

Got back into the NWN2 campaign this weekend. There's something about these party-based DnD-style games (I say DnD-style for all the Witchers, etc. out there)... they just feel like coming home after a long trip.

It took like a bazillion years, but Mysteries of Westgate is finally being released. For those who don't know, it's a premium module made by a bunch of modders and a former BioWare employee who was the producer on BGII: ToB. They also made a free module a couple years back for the original Neverwinter Nights called "Darkness over Daggerford" which basically converted the game into a BGII-style RPG with tons of multiple paths, so this one is highly anticipated.

It's only $10, too. The downside is it'll probably be only available using Atari's awful download service, which is run by the same company that runs the EA store.

kuddles wrote:

It's only $10, too. The downside is it'll probably be only available using Atari's awful download service, which is run by the same company that runs the EA store.

Oh hell no! That just killed any interest I had in this. I had the single worst consumer experience ever with the EA store. Too bad.