Neverwinter Nights 2!!!

[Banshee16]

I feel obligated to retort.

Packaging is merely the first in a series of things that were not updated in the new NWN. They had a good idea, and now they are milking it...consider AoE3. AoE1, great, AoE2, awesome, AoE3, sadly disappointing. In an effort to improve they lost direction.

They didn't make a new game, they just rehashed the original, in the process, losing a lot of the appeal that the first game had.

That said, packaging is very important, for many reasons. Don't judge a book by it's cover, but a lot of work goes into book covers...

I guess everyone looks at it differently. Glass half full vs. half empty. I see a *tonne* of things that were updated. And I don't see voices (and music) getting reused as a negative. It's like Star Wars....they didn't completely change the themes from one movie to another. The music built on itself, and some of the same songs, or rhythms were used from one to another. Same with BG 1 and 2, same with NWN 1 and 2.

They changed the interfaces, the graphics engine, the implementation of the D&D rules, made it work better in single-player mode, changed the GUI's. I mean, really, it's a very different game. Is it perfect? No. But I haven't seen a perfect game. I think my favourite has been BGII....and I never finished that one. I think I ended up in Chapter 6. Storywise, PS:T all the way.

It's never had anything to do with the art on the box. I simply feel that NWN2 is getting a disproportionate amount of flak compared against the quality of the game. I think that a lot of people set their expectations so high that there was no way they could ever have satisfied everyone.

Banshee

 

[trancejeremy]

The Gold Box games were nice at the time, but infinitely simpler than today's. I'm not sure they can be compared. NWN2 actually has a much more faithful implementation of the D&D ruleset than NWN 1 did. At the simplest level, no more super-familiars. Magic item creation is much more like the core rules than it was in NWN 1, etc.

Well, I dunno about that - 1e was a lot simpler to implement than 3e, period, but I dunno if it was infinitely simpler. It was weird multclassing/dual classing rules. But anyway my point was, I was perfectly happy buying those games, despite them largely being the same exact engine, with the same exact boxes (other than the centerpiece art shot). So I think complaints about NWN2 being too close to NWN1 (in packaging and the program itself) is a bit silly.

 

[Banshee16]

Well, I dunno about that - 1e was a lot simpler to implement than 3e, period, but I dunno if it was infinitely simpler. It was weird multclassing/dual classing rules. But anyway my point was, I was perfectly happy buying those games, despite them largely being the same exact engine, with the same exact boxes (other than the centerpiece art shot). So I think complaints about NWN2 being too close to NWN1 (in packaging and the program itself) is a bit silly.

It's a good point. They looked *exactly* the same, except each was a new question.

However, were they really simpler to implement? I thought one of the big points WotC made about the changes in 3E, things like having high rolls for everything, instead of Thac0, which went down with level, was to make it easier for computers to calculate..

Banshee

 

[Agamon]

I haven't looked at the toolset at all yet. How useful would it be for setting up scenes from tabletop games? For example, in my AoW game, the party recently fought Shukak the lizard king from EaBK. Would it be easy to set up the battle and take screenshots of the ensuing fight? That would be totally cool.

 

[Blastin]

Has anyone looked into aany persistant worlds yet? Would be cool to get on a PW with some fellow ENworld'ers for some NWN2 fun

 

[Banshee16]

Has anyone looked into aany persistant worlds yet? Would be cool to get on a PW with some fellow ENworld'ers for some NWN2 fun

Agreed. If anyone finds one, post it here. I suspect that it will be a few weeks still. I've seen postings in various places about several in the process of being created, but nothing's done yet. I haven't even tried multiplayer yet.

The game's going to start playing better soon. Apparently the 1.03 patch is almost ready. They've got a beta version that is available for download, but the "legit" patch isn't out quite yet. In any case, a coworker of mine installed the beta patch, and he said that he's jumped from around 14 FPS to over 30, and that it now plays like a totally different game.

I'm curious about whether any of these patches will eventually unlock feats and such that had been removed from the game....ie. Practiced Spellcaster et al. Apparently there are several prestige classes, plus the Ghostwise Halfling race, which are already in the code, but had been turned off. On NWN Vault there's a crack that unlocks several of those. But I'd really like to see an official Obsidian patch to fix that stuff, so that I don't get banned from multiplayer games for using a "hack" to restore something that's already in the game.

Banshee

 

[LightPhoenix]

It's my understanding that those prestige classes might not be working correctly, and that's why they were disabled.

I haven't played the game since I've last posted. I keep meaning to, but something always seems to come up to distract me. Guess my desire to play just isn't there any more.

 

[Banshee16]

I noticed something funky last night. My F1/W5/EK4 just made it to EK5, and I noticed that the default "naked" paperdoll for my character (ie. default lvl 1 appearance) seems to have changed.

It was as lvl 1 until now, but I noticed that no matter whether I'm wearing gear or not, my character appears to be wearing the Mage Battle Robes that she's been wearing pretty exclusively the last few levels. Even if I pull them off, all that happens is that the same model for robes is used, but they switch colours to the white and cream colour scheme that my lvl 1 outfit used to be.

Is this a bug? Or does your "default" look change if you wear certain gear for a long time, or maybe change at a certain level?

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Another thing....just used that girl sorcerer in my party for the first time and noticed:

1-Sorcerers rock. Even with the delay in casting time when using Metamagic feats, Empowered Fireballs are fun Especially when you toss out a web or Evard's Tentacles first, then drop a fireball on them.

2-The computer AI is moronic. Even on the reserved spellcasting mode, that sorcerer consistently wipes out the party if I'm not the one controlling her. She drops those Empowered Fireballs on the other party members if they're meleeing with enemies....and if somebody melees her, she'll drop the Empowered Fireball on it, and kill herself and her enemy at the same time.

Not very good programming of AI.

Incidentally, I've noticed that the Githyanki mages will lightning bolt my party, even when their buddies are in the way....but the lightning bolts don't hit their buddies. If I shot a lightning bolt through my friends to hit a monster however, it would damage my party members. Not quite fair.

Banshee

 

[trancejeremy]

You pretty much have to turn the friendly fire causes damage setting off, otherwise it's just a pain.