I still play NWN1--specifically the "Hordes of the Underdark" expansion, and once in a while "Shadows of Undrentide." (Not the original campaign though.) Never touch NWN2 any more. I played through the original NWN2 campaign exactly once; I tried "Mask of the Betrayer" a couple times but could never muster enough interest in the storyline to see it through, and found the spirit-eater business to be confusing and frustrating.
"Hordes of the Underdark" is nice because it throws you right into the action, and also starts you out at a good high level with lots of options--you don't have to slog through level after boring level as a lowbie. That's a major issue I have with the replayability of many CRPGs, by the way. The low levels are usually a kind of extended tutorial, and maybe players need that tutorial the first time through, but when I've already played it a couple of times... please, for the love of God, give me an option to fast-forward to the good stuff! I really
want to play your game through a few times, try out different character concepts, but not if I have to jump through all the low-level hoops again while the computer holds my hand.
I think any CRPG which follows the "level-up" approach should unlock one of the following the first time you complete the first chapter:
- An option to start new characters off at the beginning of the second chapter. Any time you play though the first chapter, each monster you kill and each chest you loot gets "unlocked" if it wasn't already. When you pick the "skip first chapter" option, you automatically start with all the XP and loot from unlocked monsters/chests. You also get a menu to make any important first-chapter RP decisions (did you save the villager or get the magic sword?).
- An option to "fast-forward" already-completed sections of the first chapter, cutting out the busywork; it would give you the XP and loot from minor encounters and dungeons without making you play through them, and just give you the RP scenes and the big battles.
- A whole alternative first chapter which levels you up fast and pulls no punches, delivering you to the same point at the start of chapter 2. This would be ideal, but it might be hard to justify the additional development time.
Also, don't force NPCs on me. When the spoony gnome bard shows up and starts yabbering at me, I want the option to tell him to get lost. (In fact I want the option to pull out my sword and whack his head off, but I accept that this may not be available.) Don't make me accept him into the party and
really don't make me drag him along on adventures; the fact that NWN2 made me take the whole damn party on the final adventure annoyed the hell out of me. I'm sure you folks love all your NPC henchmen/women and think each of them is a perfect precious snowflake, but you can be pretty sure that when you have 8 or 10 of them, any given player will utterly detest at least one.
Bonus points for shaking up stereotypes. Not every bard has to be a blithering idiot. Not every dwarf has to be an axe-wielding, ale-swilling Scotsman. Not every druid has to be a New Agey tree-hugging hippie. Just once I would like to see a cynical, world-weary druid whose attitude is, "Look, fellows, you've got medieval technology and you live in a world where nature produces things like dragons and gorgons and landsharks. I say again:
Land. Sharks. So when I tell you to respect the trees, you better listen, because them trees will eat your face."
And finally, before you start working on romantic subplots, go get a focus group or something and find out which of your NPCs the player is most likely to
want a romantic subplot with. Ursula Vernon had a
nice post on this. If you only have time to develop one romantic subplot for each gender option, make the right choices:
Humorless, earnest elf druid lady OR fun-loving bad-girl tiefling rogue?
Humorless, earnest paladin guy OR witty, snarky elf wizard dude?
Really, guys, it's not hard. There's a reason "sense of humor" ranks high on pretty much everybody's dating wants. (Hordes of the Underdark isn't great in this department, but you do get one appealing option--if you're a male character and go the evil route, you can turn Aribeth's ghost into a psychotic anti-paladin and have what is implied to be a seriously twisted villain romance, with a lot of sharp-edged banter.)
Boy, do I wish game companies would stop making those inventories such a pain!!! ... "Quickly, the dwarf is dying! Use the potion! Oh no, wait! That's an acid flask!!!"
Hilarious but oh so true. The Diablo-style inventory system has pretty much taken over the CRPG/MMO market, and I wish it would go away. There has got to be a simpler, less clunky way to keep track of your stuff.