Neverwinter Nights 2!!!
- Thread starter tylermalan
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trancejeremy
Adventurer
LrdApoc said:
Isn't that a 3e artwork style thing, though? Elves are ugly, giant eared monstrosities in 3e...
Taelorn76 said:
Well I had to drop the glitz and graphics down quite a bit on my PC and laptop - which are not bleeding edge.
PC - P4HT 3.2Ghz, 1GB ram, X600 (256mb)
Laptop: Duo Core 2 T5600, 1 GB ram, X1400 Hypermemory (128real/128 shared).
I still have lag int he cut scenes but it is playable and not completely unattractive. I think there is still a good deal of optimization in the games future to make it instantly playable on most mid-range systems... which is really an obstacle for a niche game like this.
Oblivion runs on the same systems well with med-high settings. Though honestly that required tweaking as well.
trancejeremy said:
Yeah. I guess so, but even the original NWN only had a hint of this in the character art - the eliptical eyes, strong cheekbones. It REALLY bugs me - because it fails to explain why a human would ever sleep with one willingly to create half-elves and we all know there are billions of half-elves in FR.
I wonder how long before someone uses the tools to make a "hot elf babe" texture hack pack. Maybe I should look into it myself since it bugs me so much.
dpdx
Explorer
Preliminary Review
I am in the middle of the game with my first character since I got it two days ago, so I thought I'd post preliminary impressions:
The GREAT:
- The character building/leveling up interface. I truly, truly adore the way they've done this. I'd only change one thing: Weapon-specific feats, like the reviewer before me said, need a sub-menu.
- The story/plot on the single-player game. It's smooth, it incorporates the facts on the ground in original NWN as history, they incorporate it nicely with character building, and it's not too sappy OR too bleak.
The GOOD:
- NPCs in general. You've got a good mix, it's not Minsc and Boo, but they work.
- The game interface. I liked the radial menu, but this is fine, too. I'll eventually remember most of the keyboard shortcuts.
- Performance. My rig was fresh two years ago. It runs this OK, even though sometimes there's lag like I've seen in maxed-out multiplayer setups. I'll probably dial down some stuff so it runs more smoothly.
- Cut scenes also run fine on this setup.
Needs some work:
- It seems to me that you should be able to tell in this game whether villains were almost gone, or not even touched. They don't seem to have that any more in NWN2, and it makes it really tough to fightplan. Maybe I could turn that back on in options or something.
- Audio. some of the dialog gets drowned out by the music at default settings.
- The terrains in the single player. Maybe its because I haven't dropped $500 on the newest nVidia, but it doesn't look that much better than NWN, and in terms of contrasts (like water versus land), it doesn't deliver like the other one did.
- Sure are a lot more cutscenes.
All in all, a good game.
I am in the middle of the game with my first character since I got it two days ago, so I thought I'd post preliminary impressions:
The GREAT:
- The character building/leveling up interface. I truly, truly adore the way they've done this. I'd only change one thing: Weapon-specific feats, like the reviewer before me said, need a sub-menu.
- The story/plot on the single-player game. It's smooth, it incorporates the facts on the ground in original NWN as history, they incorporate it nicely with character building, and it's not too sappy OR too bleak.
The GOOD:
- NPCs in general. You've got a good mix, it's not Minsc and Boo, but they work.
- The game interface. I liked the radial menu, but this is fine, too. I'll eventually remember most of the keyboard shortcuts.
- Performance. My rig was fresh two years ago. It runs this OK, even though sometimes there's lag like I've seen in maxed-out multiplayer setups. I'll probably dial down some stuff so it runs more smoothly.
- Cut scenes also run fine on this setup.
Needs some work:
- It seems to me that you should be able to tell in this game whether villains were almost gone, or not even touched. They don't seem to have that any more in NWN2, and it makes it really tough to fightplan. Maybe I could turn that back on in options or something.
- Audio. some of the dialog gets drowned out by the music at default settings.
- The terrains in the single player. Maybe its because I haven't dropped $500 on the newest nVidia, but it doesn't look that much better than NWN, and in terms of contrasts (like water versus land), it doesn't deliver like the other one did.
- Sure are a lot more cutscenes.
All in all, a good game.
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Supposedly the latest (like of Nov 2nd) Nvidia drivers are optimized for NWN2, and really really really help the framerate...
The Truth
First Post
I got the game a few days ago and have been playing it a bit. The game's a lot of fun; here are my thoughts.
+ I'm not very far in the game (4 hours?) but I've been enjoying the story so far. The NPCs are interesting and I love watching turmoil build in my slowly-growing party. A lot of plot threads are being laid out, and I'm curious to see where they go. The way the dailog and conversation camera is handled makes the game feel a lot like Knights of the Old Republic (this is good). Plus there's good lip synching. I could never get into the original NWN because the story didn't work for me; I'm happy the opposite is true for the sequal.
+ Lots of game-mechanics-related character customization. Lots of prestige classes (and the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster, yay!), one new core class (the warlock), and lots of feats (practiced spellcaster is an important addition, since it makes multiclassed spellcasters much more viable). You can also choose your deity and character background . . . wondering how these will be referenced in game.
+ Solid gameplay. Combat is fun, and you get a fair amount of choices in how to handle some encounters. There seem to be a lot of side quests too.
- Not so much aestetic character customization. You get a few different heads and hair styles, can can change eye color / hair color / skin tone. I found the choice of colors limiting . . . I wanted my character to have bright-red hair, but could only get a rusty brown. Plus the characters just don't look as cool as they ought to.
- Performance. This is a big one, and I think gamespot knocking the game's graphics is perfectly justifiable. I've had to make some major concessions in the lighting / shadows deparment to get this to run at a fair frame rate (like around 15 fps, according to the ingame display). Even then it fluctuates a lot, especially when there are several NPCs on the screen. My PC ran Oblivion pretty well, and Guild Wars perfectly . . . it's not that NWN 2 isn't in the same ballpark as these games, it feels like its not even playing the same sport. This also means my friends with average PCs won't be able to join in multiplayer. I really hope Obsidian fixes this in later patches.
(My specs: 4 ghz Intell 4 processor, GeForce 6800, 1 gig RAM)
In the end, NWN2 is a lot of fun and its shaping up to be an excellent RPG, but you need a serious gaming computer to run it. If you're on the fence about getting it, you should probably wait until its properly patched or you can upgrade.
Edit: Wow, turning off shadows entirely makes a huge improvement!
+ I'm not very far in the game (4 hours?) but I've been enjoying the story so far. The NPCs are interesting and I love watching turmoil build in my slowly-growing party. A lot of plot threads are being laid out, and I'm curious to see where they go. The way the dailog and conversation camera is handled makes the game feel a lot like Knights of the Old Republic (this is good). Plus there's good lip synching. I could never get into the original NWN because the story didn't work for me; I'm happy the opposite is true for the sequal.
+ Lots of game-mechanics-related character customization. Lots of prestige classes (and the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster, yay!), one new core class (the warlock), and lots of feats (practiced spellcaster is an important addition, since it makes multiclassed spellcasters much more viable). You can also choose your deity and character background . . . wondering how these will be referenced in game.
+ Solid gameplay. Combat is fun, and you get a fair amount of choices in how to handle some encounters. There seem to be a lot of side quests too.
- Not so much aestetic character customization. You get a few different heads and hair styles, can can change eye color / hair color / skin tone. I found the choice of colors limiting . . . I wanted my character to have bright-red hair, but could only get a rusty brown. Plus the characters just don't look as cool as they ought to.
- Performance. This is a big one, and I think gamespot knocking the game's graphics is perfectly justifiable. I've had to make some major concessions in the lighting / shadows deparment to get this to run at a fair frame rate (like around 15 fps, according to the ingame display). Even then it fluctuates a lot, especially when there are several NPCs on the screen. My PC ran Oblivion pretty well, and Guild Wars perfectly . . . it's not that NWN 2 isn't in the same ballpark as these games, it feels like its not even playing the same sport. This also means my friends with average PCs won't be able to join in multiplayer. I really hope Obsidian fixes this in later patches.
(My specs: 4 ghz Intell 4 processor, GeForce 6800, 1 gig RAM)
In the end, NWN2 is a lot of fun and its shaping up to be an excellent RPG, but you need a serious gaming computer to run it. If you're on the fence about getting it, you should probably wait until its properly patched or you can upgrade.
Edit: Wow, turning off shadows entirely makes a huge improvement!
Last edited:
Steel_Wind
Legend
It's a per pixel lit game. It isn't ever going to be patched to suddenly make old machines run a per pixel lit game well. People really don't like this technicial reality though and they are bithcing bitching bitching about it.
We warned them. We warned people loudly. But people only believe what they want to believe.
You might see a little more optomization improvements - but not much. The huge improvement in frame rate from the beta (about which - more I will not say) has already been realized.
I'm getting acceptable frame rates on a XP 2700, 1gig with a X1600 Pro (256) AGP card - albeit, I do have to tone down the resolution and eye candy a tad. But it's in the 30-40 frames per second out doors and very playable. For an AGP card you can pick up for $100 or so - that is the upgrade ticket for those wanting to play this game on older machines (The 512 version is about $125 at Newegg).
On a SLI rig (tomorrow!) I hope to dial it up and get what I want at high res and all options on.
Oblivion is not really a fair comparison though. The underlying RPG engine is vastly simpler and the number of possible foes on screen at once is also vastly fewer. There is simply a lot less going on under the engine in Oblivion. It's a jumped up FPS. It does have HDR though and combined with better art direction in the textures - that makes it look better.
Guild Wars is not a per pixel lit game. That is why they are not comparable technologies.
We warned them. We warned people loudly. But people only believe what they want to believe.
You might see a little more optomization improvements - but not much. The huge improvement in frame rate from the beta (about which - more I will not say) has already been realized.
I'm getting acceptable frame rates on a XP 2700, 1gig with a X1600 Pro (256) AGP card - albeit, I do have to tone down the resolution and eye candy a tad. But it's in the 30-40 frames per second out doors and very playable. For an AGP card you can pick up for $100 or so - that is the upgrade ticket for those wanting to play this game on older machines (The 512 version is about $125 at Newegg).
On a SLI rig (tomorrow!) I hope to dial it up and get what I want at high res and all options on.
Oblivion is not really a fair comparison though. The underlying RPG engine is vastly simpler and the number of possible foes on screen at once is also vastly fewer. There is simply a lot less going on under the engine in Oblivion. It's a jumped up FPS. It does have HDR though and combined with better art direction in the textures - that makes it look better.
Guild Wars is not a per pixel lit game. That is why they are not comparable technologies.
Last edited:
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