NWN opinions?

[fba827]

Okay - NWN has been out for a while and lots of folks have been fiddling with it for a bit.

I am curious as to what impressions are so far?

In terms of functionaility and capabilities of the software, I can get a good idea already from the websites on it.

What I am particularly curious about, though, is stuff like:

* Stability (how buggy has it been? Does it crash often? etc)
* Interface and ease of controls for PC actions
* Interface and ease of controls while creating modules
* Whatever else ...

Hmm.. basically, from the users standpoint, how's it going?

While looking over these other threads, it seems overall impression is positive ... I am pretty sure I will be buying this. I just am trying to guage what to expect in terms of ease of use...

Thanks in advance!

fba827

 

[Eternalknight]

I have only had it since Monday, but here's what I think of it.

I haven't had it crash once. It runs smoothly, although I do have the graphics turned down low. There seems to be a few bugs with henchman, but I can live with that.

A lot of folks have complained that it isn't true 3rd edition, and it isn't. However, it is a good representation and some of the features NWN has would do well in regular D&D. Power Attack, for instance, gives a flat bonus of +5 to damage with a -5 attack penalty. Toughness gives you one extra hit point each level. The list goes on, but overall it is a close representation.

I haven't tried building a module yet, but I have had a look at the toolset and find it a little difficult. That may be just me though

The game overall though is great, the radial menu and the quickbars are easy to use, and I am enjoying it immensly. Hope this helps

 

[MidKnight]

Heh...

I haven't spent all that much time playing yet. But my impressions of the game play pretty much follow EK's summary. I haven't found anything difficult about playing yet. Somethings take a little practice. I found it easier to use the radial menu when I trained myself to think of the radial postions as numbers instead of directions - that way I could easily and quickly navigate through it with the numeric key pad on my keyboard, freeing up my other hand for using the mouse. Between the numeric keypad and the mouse you can cover just about every aspect of player controls.

But I have been concentrating on module creation. After less than one days use, I can write up my own conversations, basic scripts for NPC reactions, layout multiple areas and coordinate transition from one to another. Keep in mind that I have next to no programming experience at all. There are plenty of tutorials out there and the area, creature, conversation, and script wizards are REALLY easy to use.

I know that I have thoroughly enjoyed NWN so far...

 

[Eternalknight]

There are plenty of tutorials out there...

Could you provide a link?

 

[MidKnight]

Sorry! Meant to last night... This tutorial is in pdf format and doesn't get too in depth, but it covers enough to get you started.

Aurora Neverwinter Nights Toolset Module Construction Tutorial

And the IGN's NWN site has tons of great stuff on it - just browse around it for a while, you'll find modules, models, title sets...

nwvault.ign.com

Then there is always Bioware's official site (that's where I got the tutorial from.)

 

[Eternalknight]

Sorry! Meant to last night... This tutorial is in pdf format and doesn't get too in depth, but it covers enough to get you started.

Aurora Neverwinter Nights Toolset Module Construction Tutorial

And the IGN's NWN site has tons of great stuff on it - just browse around it for a while, you'll find modules, models, title sets...

nwvault.ign.com

Then there is always Bioware's official site (that's where I got the tutorial from.)

Thanks

 

[Lazybones]

I will add my recommendation to those above... I've DMed several mods of my own creation now, and if you can get the right players, it's a blast. The conversation and quest building takes some practice but can be as simple or complex as you wish... the tutorial gives several basic walkthroughs that you can easily change to fit your module.

The scripting system offers a million possibilities, but that's for the more "advanced" user--I'm not there yet, but I've learned enough to see that I will be able to use it, eventually.

Great game. IMO, most of the stability issues involve hardware compatability problems that Bioware is trying to address in patches. There are a few real bugs (search for the "DM faction bug" on the official forums) but those too are being fixed in time.

 

[Bagpuss]

Lets see bug wise....

Nearly everytime I quit from on-line multiplayer mode it locks up my system. Thankfully I've not had it crash during.

The Toolkit has crashed once on me lossing about an hours work. I save more often now. The Conversation Editior throws up error messages pretty often when you call it from the creature properties screen.

I'm on a 1 Gib Athalon with 64 Mb Geforce 2, 512 DDR Ram.

But on the whole I'm very impressed.

You can knock up a map in minutes, encounters in tens of minutes... but proper quests, journals, conversations and interactive NPC's will take you hours and days. Most of it learning how to do it and what you want to do however. The more you practice the fast and easier it becomes.

 

[Thanee]

I havn't played too much, still waiting for a friend to aquire his copy, so we can play the campaign together. Meanwhile I completed the Warcraft III singleplayer campaign!

From my few multiplayer ventures, I can say that I really dislike the gamespy chat interface, why can't they just steal all the good ideas from battle.net?

The game itself looks very promising. The D&D representation is true enough and the changes made are almost all quite reasonable.

It does look quite combat heavy and it's hard to find decent roleplaying games, but that's just a matter of time, I suppose. Mainly, you'll need to find a bunch of likeminded people to play with on a regular basis to fully enjoy the game, I think.

A few annoying bugs still exist, but I didn't have any major issues yet. My main complaint is, that when starting out as a Rogue and multiclassing into Wizard, I cannot specialize! Doh!

On my machine (Athlon 1800+, 512 MB 333 MHz DDR RAM, GeForce 3 Ti, broadband internet (DSL)) the game runs extremely smooth with everything turned up full. On the internet, I rarely experienced lag so far (EDIT: This weekend it was a little worse... more lag than usual, but on some servers it was still alright).

So much for my little observations.

Bye
Thanee