Doesn't seem to be much PC game interest here, but I'll throw this out there anyway

Just finished NWN2 (at least the official campaign). RPGs are my favorite game genre ... the PC kind, not console. With games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Fallout and KOTOR being some of my all-time favorites. NWN was OK. The henchmen system was ill-conceived and poorly executed. The toolset made the game seem a little too "prefab" (especially with the tiled maps) and sterile for my taste. The add-ons improved things to some degree. But there was tremendous value with all the free modules you could download, some of them being exceptionally good.

So how can I resist the follow-up to NWN? Well, I resisted for months having heard how horribly buggy and poor-performing NWN2 was. But I recently got a new computer which should have more than enough power, and the price dropped into the $20 range. I was hoping many of the bugs were addressed (the NWN games do have a very nice auto-patch update system).

Performance: For the most part, I think the game was pretty good. It generally ran well, except for some horrible slow-down in a couple of areas (for some reason, a couple of the forest areas gave me trouble). A handful of CTDs. No obvious bugs that I could notice. Save and Load times can be very slow ... turning off any auto-virus scan protection you have going is a must.

Graphics and Sound: An overall upgrade in every area over NWN1, but not comparably impressive to the monstrous system requirements. The "tiled" look is gone, which is very nice. The Bioware games always seem to have great music, and this is no exception.

Gameplay/General: If you've played KOTOR, this will feel familiar. NWN2 takes some of the best parts of KOTOR, and mixes it with the older NWN2 engine. Thank god that stupid henchman system is gone ... you have a fully controllable, recruitable party. Like KOTOR, you have a central "base" where all your recruits hang out, and you can pick and choose who goes with you on each mission. AI can be manually adjusted from "puppet" (you do everything) to letting the characters completely function on their own (though you're probably not going to want to do that, since they'll do stupid stuff like blow all their spells and potions needlessly - fortunately, you can specify when they should use items/spells). The influence/alignment system is interesting, though maybe not implemented perfectly in the OC (official campaign). Creature AI is inconsistent (doesn't it always seems to be). Item creation is an interesting new wrinkle - I didn't mess with it much myself, since the stuff I could buy/find always seemed good enough for me. Lots of hotbars - easy to hotkey all your abilities, though with all the powers, spells, scrolls, items, potions, it was easy to lose track of what everyone could do. The camera control is an issue that annoys people - it really does take getting used to. As it stands, it's far too easy to have the camera go out of whack when you're just trying to move the mouse around.

Gameplay/OC: The OC is HUGE. It takes you from 1st to 20th level. For the most part, it was pretty satisfying. Ultimately, it comes down to the familiar "Find the magic foozle to kill the big bad evil guy threatening the world". But there were some interesting diversions along the way: some mysteries, a trial, alliances, multiple evil groups with different agendas, your own keep, betrayals of allies, and alliances with enemies. The NPCs were well-done, with memorable personalities. Some of them have their own side-quests (though it would've been nice to see all of them have something). There's a railroaded romance ... only 1 choice for male or female players, and pretty hard not to make happen. Influence/alignment has interesting role-playing aspects, though not always making sense. For example (mild spoilers follow), Dungeon crawls got a little boring after a while, though there was other stuff too. The game was fairly linear, though there were branch points where you could go in different directions (like evil vs good). Resting was a little silly, since you seemingly could rest anywhere and completely heal and recharge spells in just a couple of seconds (though that's likely a programming thing that could be tweaked in modules). With the exception of a couple of battles, it's not very difficult under default settings. Playing under "Core DnD rules" might be a better idea - it makes reasonable adjustments like letting monsters have the same opportunity of attacks you get on them, and the ability to cause friedly-fire damage (like if you shot a fireball into a group of allies fighting monsters).

A note about the ending: while the final battle is satisfying (with some interesting turns of events, and a good "big bad" showdown) the end montage/narration is one of the very worst I've ever seen. The narrator doesn't even sound professional - just some guy who drew short straw in the office. But what he tells you is worse. Can you believe this? (MASSIVE spoilers - look at your own risk)

I'm not much for playing with the Toolset, but if we get the same improvements and modules we got for NWN1 there should be a lot more gameplay. An official expansion pack is planning for this Fall (supposed to continue with same character, though higher than 20th level gets a little unwieldy). Overall, I'd say if you liked KOTOR and/or NWN1, and have a computer with enough power, there can be CRPG fun to found with NWN2. Though with an expansion coming out, there'll be certainly a new bargain packaging of everything down the road if you can wait.

I loved NWN, but never got around to NWN 2. I am sure I will eventually play it somewhere down the line.

NWN2 was made by Obsidian. Bioware no longer owns a D&D license, so they can not make D&D games anymore.

Anyway, I am a sucker for D&D games, so I did enjoy NWN2, even if it did seem to borrow a little too much from KOTOR. KOTOR did borrow quite a few elements from the first NWN too.

I can't wait for the Mask of the Betrayer expansion since it will allow us to reach epic levels.

I really enjoyed NWN2 and look forward to the expansion.

I found playing in puppet mode was a must, as the AI just isn't very good at controlling your characters. I was playing at 1280x1024, everything maxed out with only point light shadows off (I think that's what it was called) and performance was great.

I played with the hard core rules turned on and limited my resting as the auto-resting you get going between zones was usually more than enough...so that provided some challenge. I've read many posts by people that say the game was easy, then you find out they played on default difficulty (area effect spells don't hit party members) and rested after every battle. I enjoyed the OC, but one thing I didn't like was being forced to have certain NPCs in your party at different times because of the story. Crafting was cool, but a little easy to make yourself overpowered if you made a bunch of items.

The ending narration did sound like they grabbed Bob from accounting to do a few minutes of voice work on his coffee break, so that was disappointing. The final battle itself though, I really enjoyed. The expansion is supposed to pick up where the OC ended. Another battle I liked was...

That was a hard one. The toughest fights for me were

Is it possible to import a character from Baldur's Gate 2?

No. Bioware originally planned to allow you to do that in the original NWN, but they took it out. I think the conversion of 2nd edition rules (BG2) to 3rd edition rules (NWN) was too complex or something.

Just finished the expansion "Mask of the Betrayer". I notice this and the original NWN2 being discounted in many stores, so it might be a decent time to give it a try if you were on the fence.

General gameplay and graphics ... I'm told there were general improvements across the board, though I'd be hard-pressed to point out anything I noticed. Aside from the increased module-building tools, coverage of "epic" (20-30) levels, and the "spirit meter".

I've always been iffy on epic levels for D&D, even from my days as a PNP player. For me, the sweet spot of levels with this system has been 6-12. Not so weak you can get obliterated from an ill-placed Fireball, strong enough you start to get some swagger, but not so strong you're gods (and only god-like monsters could oppose you). It's hard enough managing a single epic character, but with a whole party of them I get overwhelmed with keeping track of everyones abilities. Though you do get diminishing returns with higher levels, even with the epic feats. I played a druid, and their epic feats looked good on paper, but sucked in practice (dragon form didn't really seem any better than my normal form, and my animal companions never seemed that much better than a level 9 summon spell).

The spirit meter has been a source of some controversy. It puts a timer on your game play (spirit energy decreasing over time, and as it runs out you get weaker until you die). And really hampers some alignments - chaotic/neutral and/or evil alignments get the short end since the best ways to decrease your spirit "craving" involves lawful and good alignment shifts. My neutral good druid came really close to losing my "druidity" by a shift to lawful good. At least until I found a bug that let me repeatedly lie in a conversation pushing my alignment to the very chaotic end of neutral. All in all, it wasn't that big a deal for me though. Spirits were usually plentiful, and it was easy to keep your spirit energy high as long as you took care to use your spirit attacks for a killing blow.

Storyline was the most impressive thing. Planescape is still the standard, but this has an imaginative multi-layered story and interesting characters. Like Planescape, it's less of a generic "get the magic foozle and kill the big bad" story, and more of a life-threatening investigation which confronts your character with some difficult moral choices. There aren't many new joinable NPCs (5 by my count), but all have their own stories that advance as you take them through the game. A bit of an oversight is not having a single rogue NPC. Yeah, there's a mage with a familiar that can do basic rogue stuff, but he really sucks at it and I had lots of traps blow up in my face. Plot-wise, it picks up from the horrible NWN2 OC ending, redeeming it somewhat. Still There's another set of romances, but aren't particularly appealing or have much depth to them (well, at least romancing the female, which is the only option I got for my male character ).

Difficulty level is kind of the same - on the easy side under default settings. Most battles I could just charge into and win with minimal damage. There were a couple that seemed insanely difficult at first, but could be made easy once you figured out the proper tactics. For example Enchanting may be a bit overpowered here - I was easily able to outfit everyone with armor and weapons +7 to +10 with regeneration and up to 50 points of element damage per hit.

Looks like the mod community is still wrapping their heads around NWN2, but the ability to control a full-party is a huge advantage over NWN1.

Okay... going into D&D nerd mode:



[/end nerd mode]



Yeah I am the same way. That is the one thing I didn't like about the expansion to the otherwise excellent Baldur's Gate 2. Dragons actually became a common enemy in the expansion because dragons and high-level demons are basically the only thing that could pose a threat to you. Even then, they have to "cheat" to be a serious threat, like that one dragon who can turn invisible and fully heal himself at will. When a dragon has to cheat to beat you, you know you are too powerful...

Equally nerdy response spoilerized:




BG2 ... great game, but those were some sick battles. I like how you're investigating the Drow city and you'd run into an empty house except for a couple of servants. They'd give you some lip and you figure what harm can a couple of servants cause. *Time Stop*, *Imprisonment*, *Gate*, *Horrid Wilting*, *Super-Duper Protection Against Everything* Holy Crap! Everyone in that city is a 20th level magic-user MINIMUM! With that kind of firepower, it's a wonder the Drow hadn't conquered all of Amn. Maybe its just because they don't like the sunlight.

Yeah it always cracks me up how in Throne of Bhaal basically everyone you meet is epic level. Even shopkeepers are selling +3 or better weapons like candy. In real D&D, +3 or better equipment is very very rare, and you definitely won't find them being sold in some random shop. Towards the end of the game, Elminster even makes a comment about how he would not want to take you on in a one-on-one battle, and Elminster is one of the most powerful people in the entire Forgotten Realms universe.

So Taffer, have you played MotB yet?

I have not played MotB yet. I am going to upgrade my PC first, or at least get some more RAM. The original NWN2 campaign had hellishly long load times on my PC, and by the end of the game, it was seriously testing my patience to the limits. Everytime the game had to load, it felt like I was re-installing Windows. No way could I suffer through that again.

Agreed that a better option would've been to reject NPCs. Even though my playing style is to accept everyone I meet anyway, and just have them on ice in case I need them later. NWN2 (like KOTOR) has some quests that seem to require the presence of a particular NPC - and planned end-game cinematics and events that count on certain NPCs still being around. Sure it would've been better for the designers to make the game flexible enough to handle any roster ... but I guess they just didn't bother.



Supposedly one of the "under the cover" improvements of the expansion is that game performance is streamlined and enhanced. I didn't notice it myself since I had a new machine and NWN2 ran fine for me anyway. But some people who had borderline performance report big improvements.

I hope you did carefully check to make sure there were no active file scanning protocols (like most Virus protection programs). Like I said in the 1st post ... that was essential for me. But even with that, some Loads and Saves can still be a little slow.

It looks like the modding community is starting to pick up for NWN2. I think many waited until the expansion before working in earnest. Way too much work for me to do my own, but I appreciate the community efforts.

The second expansion for NWN2 recently came out (Storm of Zehir). And being the hopeless AD&D fanboy I am, I bought and played it.

It's a pretty sizable expansion - more playing time than many stand-alone games. What's new (aside from new components for mod creation)? Supposedly the game is less of a resource hog and runs easier on more systems. A couple of new classes and races - none of which seemed earth-shattering. Item creation and enchantment is simplified. In gameplay, there are a couple of new things that are touted.

1. Wilderness travelling. When moving from place to place on the big map, instead of just clicking and being insta-transported (with game travel-time ticked off) you now have to manually maneuver your party everywhere. While walking around, you can stumble upon secret locations and have random monster encounters. A lot of the "useless" skills get a workout with wilderness travel: survival, spot, listen, track, move silently.

Travelling across the big map doesn't take as long as you might think. This was kind of fun at first (and it's nice to discover secret encounters). And it got old when you're trying to get from point a to point b and keep getting in random fights. Unfortunately, all of your "travel" skills come from whatever character you designate as leader. So unless you have one guy who's strong in everything, you'll suffer in some way (either by missing the hidden locations, moving slow, or not being able to spot and avoid the random monsters). Which means unless you want lots of headaches, you need a ranger in the party (or a druid or rogue with specially pumped up skills).

2. Trading. The story involves your party working for a merchant. While some of your tasks are the familiar "kill that monster" or "find that magic foozle" or "be my errand boy and deliver this to someone", other duties involve setting up trading networks. You visit towns, negotiate with leaders, build trading posts, set up trading caravans, upgrade trade caravans.

This isn't as big a deal as some people have made it out to be. You don't have to put much time into being a trader. And as long as you're exploring, you might as well find all the cities and set up trading routes with them. If anything, I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more depth in this mini-game. There's not really any thinking needed - visit the towns, spend the money, and help out the occasional caravan that gets waylaid. I found it's good strategy to pump money into trading as much as possible, relying on stuff you find to outfit your party. When trading routes are maxed, they never get waylaid and pull in obscene amounts of money. Then you can massively power up your party with purchases in the last third of the game, when you need it the most.

How was the game? Well, if you liked the other NWN2 games you'll certainly get some enjoyment. The developers were going for an "Icewind Dale" feel - where you create your own party, with more hack-and-slash. There are still NPC's you can recruit, but you can only take along 2 at a time (with 4 of your self-created characters). As opposed to the other NWN2 games, the NPC's really don't do much (aside from being robots for you to direct). Which is disappointing - one of the things I like most about CRPG's are the character interactions. The story is pretty decent, with the "big bads" being the Yuan-Ti (snake people). There are some twists and turns, though the big one was painfully obvious (beware massive plot spoiler): Difficulty level is kind of average ... I think it makes a huge difference depending on what order you do things in, and how many side quests you've done before the end. Individual fights (with the exception of one side tower near the end of the game) aren't particularly memorable. There's a massively disappointing dragon fight (they were extrememly wimpy), and even the final boss fight didn't have much to it (beware massive final fight spoilers).

If you liked NWN2, you'll want this eventually. If this really did fix many of the performance issues of NWN2, then this could be the time to jump in and give the game a shot. Or maybe waited for the inevitable "Deluxe" edition that will include the original game plus the expansions. I still don't get a lot of the hate for NWN2. Most of it seems to be because NWN2 isn't what other games are (super-duper 3D graphics, reflex action-dependent combat, open-ended exploration). I think NWN has come a long way since the start - when you had that awful henchman system and the blocky tile-sets. The mod creation is what really sets it apart (and was one of the main goals of the game in the first place). Though the modding community for NWN2 still seems kind of small, especially compared to NWN at about the same timepoint (18 months after release). I don't know if it's because the modding is harder, or the game just isn't as popular. Hopefully some modders were just waiting for the second expansion (I think there was some frustration with NWN when new expansions meant many mods had to be redone).

Gonna be a busy weekend!

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