The Best D&D 3e CRPG

[Hand of Evil]

I voted for Pool of Radiance, just to be a jackalack and throw off the results of the poll. Muwahahahah!

And just when NWN updated the Kobolds!

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NWN is a strong game, capturing the flavor of 3E. The biggest plus is DMing, creating a module and running it. Sure, is is not perfect but with time it is going to be fantastic, already we are seeing interesting scripts, tiles, and modules being created.

 

[Steven McRownt]

Ok, if you highlights that Eye of the Beholder is for 2nd ed, and it will not be taken in consideration, i will make a serious comment on the choices we have if we want to play a Crpg with 3rd ed rules.

1. IceWindDale 2. I do not own it, nor i haven't see anything about it. I don't know how they could implement rules like attacks of opportunity in a game that use 2D, but probably it should be a la PoR II...

2. PoR II ...should i consider it a game? should i consider it a role playing game? what i've played was a slow slow slow hack'n'slash... no way, it was simply horrible, starting from the story... why a first level characters group wanted to enter in a gate where undead were coming from? Hey be serius men... and then, why a dracolich should confront my group in a combat being crouched in a cavern instead of flying over my head and reanimate all the dead i made durin my journey in his cave?

3.NWN. First it is bad developed. When you play with it on line, your system will be used at 100% (to compare with 25% of Ultima Online; the majority of online games will not be over 1/3 of the system's power), it suffers with an enormous amount of bugs, the tools they gave us are just inacceptable if you want to build something serious, something more than a simple module. With some friends we're trying to make with NWN a permanent world in Forgotten Realms, all in italian (sorry guys, but you're invited to come anyway!). The efforts are so huge, for a results that only with high-speed connection to the web can be seen as "average". And apart form me the other members of the stuff are people that work as programmers. It is just bad done, no more, no less. And from a role-playing point of view the solo story sucks (i hope to be a good DM on our future shards, but i fear that the the tools we have are very limited to make an adventure worth of the name), and the game doesn't follow the 3rd ed rules (or at least it follows them only barely).

Sorry for the rant, but it is truly frustrating toying with NWN... I'd preferred to know that something like aurora tools were made for IWD II, because everybody can access easier at the game, it is not so "heavy" in pre-req, and it can assure a good graphic...

Steven McRownt

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

And just when NWN updated the Kobolds!

They did what to the what now? I don't even remember seeing any Kobolds in the game. Tell me more!

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Ok, if you highlights that Eye of the Beholder is for 2nd ed, and it will not be taken in consideration, i will make a serious comment on the choices we have if we want to play a Crpg with 3rd ed rules.

Eye of the Beholder for Gameboy Advance will use 3rd edition rules.

1. IceWindDale 2. I do not own it, nor i haven't see anything about it. I don't know how they could implement rules like attacks of opportunity in a game that use 2D, but probably it should be a la PoR II...

Why would attacks of opportunity be any harder in a 2D game than a 3D game? Isn't the default D&D game (minis on a battlemat) pretty 2D?

2. PoR II ...should i consider it a game? should i consider it a role playing game? what i've played was a slow slow slow hack'n'slash... no way, it was simply horrible, starting from the story... why a first level characters group wanted to enter in a gate where undead were coming from? Hey be serius men... and then, why a dracolich should confront my group in a combat being crouched in a cavern instead of flying over my head and reanimate all the dead i made durin my journey in his cave?

I haven't played it, but from everything I've heard about the game, I'll agree with you on that one.

3.NWN. First it is bad developed. When you play with it on line, your system will be used at 100% (to compare with 25% of Ultima Online; the majority of online games will not be over 1/3 of the system's power),

Ultima Online is what, seven years old or so? And NWN doesn't eat up as many system resources as, say Morrowind, which is damn near unplayable on anything but the best of the best computers.

it suffers with an enormous amount of bugs,

Like what? It runs perfectly fine for me, and that's even before applying the patches.

the tools they gave us are just inacceptable if you want to build something serious, something more than a simple module. With some friends we're trying to make with NWN a permanent world in Forgotten Realms, all in italian (sorry guys, but you're invited to come anyway!).

I haven't tried to make any modules, so I don't know about that. Judging from the number of things out there, though, it looks like people aren't having all that much trouble.

The efforts are so huge, for a results that only with high-speed connection to the web can be seen as "average".

About a year ago, Valve (makers of Half-Life) did a pretty comprehensive survey. Of well over a million gamers, only 20% had connection speeds of 56k or below. I'd like to see more games take advantage of high-speed connections, personally.

And from a role-playing point of view the solo story sucks (i hope to be a good DM on our future shards, but i fear that the the tools we have are very limited to make an adventure worth of the name), and the game doesn't follow the 3rd ed rules (or at least it follows them only barely).

Eh...the story is about as good as any other video game story. I've never really played any game and been that impressed by its story.

And NWN follows the 3E rules about as well as possible. Certainly a lot more than POR II.

[/B][/QUOTE]

 

[Nish]

Eh...the story is about as good as any other video game story. I've never really played any game and been that impressed by its story.[/B]

That's because you never played Planescape: Torment.

[incoherent rant]
I mostly agree about the story in NWN. The plot wasn't too bad for a video game over all, at least when you weren't off on a gratuitous dungeon crawl (which was most of the time), but it was not exactly what I would call inspired. I did like the fact that the major themes in the game were madness, disease, and death. However, the characters annoyed the hell out of me. They were flat, depthless, cliche, dense, totally predictable, whiny, obnoxious, and just flat out annoying. I am not really a fan of Bioware's voice acting either.
[/incoherent rant]

 

[Ravellion]

You know, I could load up new and fresh modules for NWN, or I could play BG + TOB again... I find the latter more appealing now the novelty of NWN has worn off...

RPG = All about the story and chracters. BG2 characters were perhaps cliched in some cases (Minsc) but they were very entertaining and sometimes very surprising, and surprisingly deep as well.

Rav

 

[jmettraux]

Tough not 3e, nethack is great !

 

[WizarDru]

You know, I could load up new and fresh modules for NWN, or I could play BG + TOB again... I find the latter more appealing now the novelty of NWN has worn off...

You really need to play NWN with people and a DM, or on a persistent world, then. IMHO, far more interesting than an RPG 'on the rails' as it were. I particularly like the Lord of the Rings world, where having a subrace gives you different abilities.

I'm not really sure what Steven McRownt's issue with the Aurora toolset is, though. I think it's one of the most powerful such kits ever released...but it requires time put into the effort to make it work. I'm curious why he feels that they're inadequate.

And Meepo, the lastest patch added several new features, including hidden doors, a few new feline models....and KOBOLDS! Glorious, wonderful Kobolds! Huzzah!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

They did what to the what now? I don't even remember seeing any Kobolds in the game. Tell me more!

They implemented kobold models in the latest patch.

 

[Lazybones]

First off, I agree with those who say that the NWN SP campaign is... well, fairly poor. I never got beyond chapter 2. In addition, playing multiplayer on GameSpy with a bunch of random yuks is usually unsatisfying also.

That said, I've had a ton of fun running NWN campaigns on Neverwinterconnections.com. I've had two campaigns that have been going on more or less since the game came out. I build custom modules, and yes, the toolset's tilesets get a bit repetitive after a while. But I have been able to create 6 modules with over 100 total areas so far that are more than just cookie-cutter copies of each other. With lighting, sound, and creative use of the placeables, you can do an awful lot with what Bioware gave us. And other apparently agree; there are over 1,000 modules available for download at NW Vault, including conversions of a lot of the "classic" PnP modules from 1st-3rd editions.

People need to keep in mind that a modular tileset is going to be limiting in comparison, say, to a 2D SP-only game that has custom art for each and every area (like the Infinity engine games). Also, NWN is essentially the first of its kind, much like the original Baldur's Gate. I'm really looking forward to add-ons and new enhancements in the engine that will hopefully keep me playing this game for some time.