NeverWinter Nights 2 letdowns... What would you change?

[Korivan]

A while ago I picked up a copy of NWN 2 SOZ, and while I liked it, I felt overall the whole NWN2 series was a big letdown. Lets see, they capped the level at 30 instead of 40 like in the first one. They capped your attribute points to 50 (not too important if you dont cheat or max out your barbarions strength.), got rid of Time Stop, butchered Issacs Many Missile Storm. Can't import your characters from later games to earlier games. Just overall I think they could have taken alittle more time and put together truly a classic game.

Also, in the spirit of the rant, what would any of you change about NWN2. For me, I miss some of the stuff from the older games like Baldurs Gate. Where's the Wish spell?

[Athaniar]

I've never played any of the expansions, but I wasn't too satisfied with the base game (after having played and liked the original NWN). First, the story. It feels too thrusted on you, if that expression makes any sense. In the original, you were basically just a recruit at the academy. Second, the inventory. I liked the original's different sized items approach. Third, the toolset. It just feels so much more complicated and harder to use than the original's. Fourth, a rather minor point: people in underwear is apparently too sensitive for modern audiences. If any of this has been changed in the sequels, please tell me.

[Avilan the Grey]

None of the issues the OP posts bother me.

I have only played the base game plus SOB (well that is not entirely true). I got halfway through the stronghold quests, and I realized I was bored out of my mind. I can sit and create new characters for hours, but the story just does not grip me, at all.
I wish they could get someone that actually knew how to write a plot.

[Optimystik]

Psionics.


And now that 3.5 is over, it doesn't look like we'll ever get an official crack at digitizing the system (I'm aware there are mods out there, but they're... clunky, especially where augmenting and metapsionics are considered. Well, I'll see if the 4e CRPG is any better... wherever it is.

[Tam_OConnor]

I disliked the fact that the Infinity Engine games had better party management. (Elanee and her constant badgering [literally] comes to mind as the most egregious example).

I disliked most of the NPCs, more so because they were forced upon you.
Why is Qara tagging along when I told her to wait tables back at the Flagon? Get out of my bloody keep!
Bishop, I'm a ranger. I don't need another tracker, especially one with a bad attitude. Go back to drinking.
Now, most of them did make logical sense (especially Khelgar/Neeshka, Shandra and the last two). However, it doesn't mean I have to like them (especially the last two: "Know that your fate is inevitable. Know that you cannot escape it. Know, know, know!").

An extension of the first one: The certain NPC that they killed off: You were required to have a cleric in your party at that point. A cleric who was, in all probability, above 13th level. Which meant she could have a raise dead prepared, if not a resurrection. And what do we get? Not even a handwave about how 'her soul is gone,' or anything like that. Just completely ignored.

Oh, and the much vaunted Mask of the Betrayer expansion? A certain problem: one of their central characters is already accounted for in Realmslore, and he's nowhere near Rasheman.
Myrkul is bound in the Crown of Horns, which, last I heard, was bumming around the North or the Heartlands. They even have a prestige class in Faiths and Pantheons (Horned Harbinger)!
Beyond that, I don't buy the hate against the Wall. It's, for lack of a better word, anachronistic. It's derived from our reaction to Wall, not an in-universe reaction.

So basically, because it wasn't Baldur's Gate.

[Korivan]

Thank god I'm not the only one. As for the toolset, I cant even get it to work on the NWN2. For Psionics, wouldn't be hard at all to include them if they even tried. Just make the class with a bunch of computer friendly powers and use a mana point system like [B]A THOUSAND OTHER GAMES DO[B]. Story-wise, thats another thing I miss about older style D&D games...

[Optimystik]

Thank god I'm not the only one. As for the toolset, I cant even get it to work on the NWN2. For Psionics, wouldn't be hard at all to include them if they even tried. Just make the class with a bunch of computer friendly powers and use a mana point system like [B]A THOUSAND OTHER GAMES DO[B]. Story-wise, thats another thing I miss about older style D&D games...

A mana-point system isn't hard - the problem is that both NWN1 and NWN2 were built with Vancian casting in mind.

NWN1 got around this with an extremely clunky menu-based, SLA-type system for Psionics. There were different icons to drag to your quickbar for firing a base power, augmenting with one point, augmenting with two points, augmenting with one point and Empower Power, augmenting with... you get the idea. Haven't tried the NWN2 version yet.

[potatocubed]

The plot. The ending of the OC, in particular, had me howling with rage. I mean, literally.

Rocks fall, everybody dies? That's it? That's ALL they could think of? :smallfurious:

The construction set is diabolical. To make a module for NWN2 requires a whole team of builders, where for NWN you could plausibly do it solo.

The NPCs were, by and large, boring or irritating. Then to add insult to injury the romance options were the two most boring characters. In fact, I have a spoileriffic (and ranty, and sweary) summary of the NPCs here on my Livejournal. (http://potatocubed.livejournal.com/99262.html)

Mask of the Betrayer had some good moments, but once again the ending was a steaming turd. None of the options made sense, several perfectly plausible options weren't available, and the option I did select had a completely different outcome to what was intimated by the text. In a lot of ways, the plot presupposed that you thought in a certain way - about the wall, about the role of gods in Faerun, about the souleater curse, etc.

Plus, I didn't even realise I was in a romance subplot until the very end when whatsherface told me she loved me and I became invulnerable to magic as a consequence.

Storm of Zehir was just pants. They seemed to get around the 'lame plot' problems of earlier games by providing no plot at all.

Mysteries of Westgate is actually pretty good! I don't know to what extent it's an 'official' module, but I liked it way more than MoB or SoZ.

EDIT: In response to the original question, what I would change is 'pretty much everything'. I'm okay with the basic game system - level caps, attribute caps, etc. - but the plot and characters need such an overhaul that it would be easiest to start from the ground up.

[Inhuman Bot]

Having recently bought all 3 of the games, I've decided that I prefer the original, but don't agree with all the hate it gets.

The biggest letdowns for me were:

I really liked how NWN1's inventory worked. Since I tended to grab and hang onto everything that wasn't armour, I liked organizing my inventory so I could squeeze as many items as possible into it.

The fact that NWN 2, despite my computer surpassing it's reccomending system requirements, lagging massively.

I enjoyed the plot of HoU all the way through, and I actually liked the OC (SoU sucked, though, IMHO), but I didn't really like the plot as much in 2.

Lastly, because it's not NWN 1. My brother got NWN 1 when it first came out, and it was one of the first RPGs I've ever played, so it was pretty much impossible for NWN2 to surpass it. :smalltongue:

[Tam_OConnor]

Oh, I'd forgotten the abysmal load times. I'd bring a book to the computer with me. Never a good sign. It didn't look much better than KotOR 2, but somehow managed to take up so much more processing power. At least I could alt-tab out of KotOR 2 without facing a complete system meltdown.

But once you got it running (oh, you touched the graphical options? You're going to have to go through the ten minutes of exiting and restarting the game before they take effect), the system proper was pretty darn good.

Sure, the crafting system in the base game was terrible. But they fixed that in the first expansion.

Potatocubed, I agree with you so very much with regard to the NPCs.

Another thing that annoyed me: the party limit. Sure, Baldur's Gate had a six person limit. But I can forgive that, because six was a large party, more so in the later stages of AD&D. That, and until the endgame (and even then), it wasn't a world-ending scenario. It was just a lot of Bhaalspawn faffing about with inter-familiar squabbles.
NWN 2 had a party limit of four (five with Shandra). You're trying to save the North, with wider planar concerns as well. Why am I not allowed to commit maximal force again? It was as bad as both KotORs in that respect, but they didn't have the excuse of a new engine (especially since they're using the same one as KotOR with a bunch of stuff tacked on).
It's even worse in MotB, where companion number four just sits around while the rest of you go try to mess up the divine cosmology.

But yeah, make the system more efficient, write a plot with actual quality *cough* remake Baldur's Gate *endcough*, and it would be shiny. Except the toolset isn't as approachable as NWN 1's, so you still have people making content for that, and not NWN 2...but I digress.

Edit: Oooh, Slaanesh, NWN was your first RPG? Come to the dark side: try Badur's Gate today! Downgrade your shiny graphics for painted backgrounds!

[Mando Knight]

Fourth, a rather minor point: people in underwear is apparently too sensitive for modern audiences. If any of this has been changed in the sequels, please tell me.

Nope... at least not in Mask of the Betrayer. Apparently, adventurers in the Sword Coast North like to show less skin than an Inuit during a blizzard. You'd have to put a hakpak/mod in in order to get the standard fantasy armor.

You also need tools in order to grant your PC Tiefling a tail. What.

[SurlySeraph]

The ending of the original campaign.
The awful, awful camera controls. The patches improved them, but they're still worth mentioning.
The terrible AI, by which I mean "Qara you illiterate pyromaniac, stop casting Meteor Swarm on the lone orc that the entire party, including yourself, is engaged in melee with."
The romances.
So I can date Stalker McDruidface, but not Neeshka the Incredibly Cute Tiefling? What?

[Korivan]

Not to get too far off topic, but is there even a way to downlaod MOW and put it on a computer without the internet without the whole confermation keythingy. I cant use it on the computer that has the internet, not a fan that I cant get the new one on hard copy.

[Optimystik]

I forgot my biggest complaint: The MULTIPLAYER.

To get into any PW in NWN2 is a nightmare. You have to download basically their entire setting, every hakpak and mod they decided to use, and hope and pray that none of the jangling mess conflicts with any of the crap you downloaded from some other PW. And all my favorite ones from NWN1 (City of Arabel, Escape from the Underdark, etc.) haven't upgraded yet and I don't know nearly enough about the NWN2 ones to care about them. Do not want.

[Avilan the Grey]

Nope... at least not in Mask of the Betrayer. Apparently, adventurers in the Sword Coast North like to show less skin than an Inuit during a blizzard. You'd have to put a hakpak/mod in in order to get the standard fantasy armor.

You also need tools in order to grant your PC Tiefling a tail. What.

The first thing released by mods after MotB was a compatible replacement texture pack that put back the original Warlock textures in game.

[Drammel]

Y'know it's kinda funny reading this thread since I've been working on a conversion of the Tome of Battle into NWN2 since January. Diabolic is a very accurate description of the toolset. In order to make an accurate translation and not "some pile of goo that vaguely resembles the Tome of Battle" I do believe I've had to walk knee deep in Minauros to make some of this stuff work (implementing true swift actions for example). I really do agree with most of the points brought up in this thread, hell I even liked NWN1 way better than NWN2.

I find I'm asking why I've bothered to dedicate so much time to a mod for a game I don't particularly love (neither do I hate). I can point to community made mods x, y, and z to address some of the issues brought up here, but that doesn't change the fact that Obsidian really should have taken care of these issues before the game was released (especially the writing). I feel as though I'm on some sort of Edmund Hillary climbing Mt.Everest ride: the toolset is there, therefore I use it, and damned if it kills me. Hey, that's just me and my egomania though, its a steep learning curve that I've climbed and I'm somewhat proud. The toolset is more versatile than NWN1's, but it's only just ever so much more useful so as to allow the illusion that implementing a mod will be easy when in fact it more closely resembles being whipped by a cat-o-nine tails dipped in napalm for hours on end.

Diabolical really is a perfect description.

So what would I change? Well I did some forum digging a while back and as it turns out WotC puts a couple of restrictions on what can and cannot be done in a work related to the Forgotten Realms, cannon or no.

One is no killing off big names. Ie: no killing Drizzit, or Elminster. Any of the gods are right out. No. Apparently the gods there are so powerful that a writer in our world has a hard time killing one of them off without WotC's consent.

Two, no destroying of important places. Can't nuke Waterdeep off the map, no sinking of continents in an Atlantis style manner (not unless WotC gives the go). This rule also applies to certain planar structures, such as y'know walls.

So for anyone who was wondering about why they chose to make the ending of Mask of the Betrayer as they did, see the rules, which apparently Obsidian was told about late in the development of Mask of the Betrayer. Getting rid of that obnoxious rule would be what I would change as it seriously hampered an already ailing plot.

[Mando Knight]

This rule also applies to certain planar structures, such as y'know walls.

Ah, yes. The only completely indestructible substance known to game-developer kind: drywall.

[Dihan]

To me the whole game just feels wrong. I can't put my finger on what's wrong. I just don't like it as a whole. Maybe it's the style and the general presentation.

[Arutema]

Also, in the spirit of the rant, what would any of you change about NWN2.

Companion AI, Dammit Qara!

Pacing problems, Chapter 1 was a mess that gets derailed into orc-slaying for far too long.

Limited romance options. I know Bishop's got commitment issues, but why can't I get anywhere with Neeshka?

An especially arbitrary limit on party members. Why must I always leave one person behind in MotB?

Excess of undead in the endgame. Sure, it fits the story, but it massively screws over Sneak Attack and Critical-focused builds.

The ending of MotB

You abandon the crusade Because Kelemvor Says So. An alternate ending with a Hopeless Boss Fight against Kelemvor would have been more natural without FR lore problems.

[Rustic Dude]

Well...I must say it's one of my favorite games.

Playing multiplayer in a roleplaying PW is simply amazing. NWN1 and NWN2 are the only games optimized for this.

¿The Letdowns? Perhaps the laaaame ending in MoTB,

I want to destroy the Wall, but there's nothing I can do. And it was one of the main objectives :smallfurious:

Also, the OC was a bit like Durkon: filling, but bland.

Oh, and the fact that the wizards, sorcerers, and almost all spellcasters grow so powerful, that playing a fighter or a ranger is a kick on the nuts. Buuut....thats a 3..5 issue, so I've said nothing.

[Lord of the Helms]

Oh, and the fact that the wizards, sorcerers, and almost all spellcasters grow so powerful, that playing a fighter or a ranger is a kick on the nuts. Buuut....thats a 3..5 issue, so I've said nothing.
Funny, I mostly though the opposite - spellcasters took a lot of time to micromanage, ran out pretty quickly (even when in puppet mode), and the most important magic was "buff my fighters", while their offensive spells not only weren't that strong but also limited in their use. Meanwhile, my humble pure-classed monk was a nigh invulnerable lightning bolt of death who, by the time a spellcaster got his first offensive spell off, had already run up to the enemy, knocked him down and placed five blows straight into his face. Physically tough opponents at least took a while to beat down while they were only ever hitting me on a natural 20; meanwhile, those poor, pathetic spellcasting enemies, between awesome saving throws, spell resistance, obscene touch AC and improved evasion could do nothing at all about me running up to them, knocking them down and pummeling them to death with my adamantine fists in a matter of two rounds. I eventually reworked him as a Sacred Fist for Mask of the Betrayer just to change the flavor a bit.

By and large, I loved the game. It was a bit too linear for my taste, really lacking lots of sidequests, but the companions were by and large fun, entertaining and involving (a few dull exceptions like Casavir notwithstanding), the main storyline was consistently fun to play through and suitably epic in terms of taking me lots of places, the castle minigame was a fun distraction, and combat was decently tactical at least in the sense that I needed to prepare for my encounter and choose well what enemies to take down first.

AI was awful, but I deactivated all but the "follow me" scripts right off the bat anyway. And besides, even standard Baldur's Gate II had mostly terrible AI. No way in hell I would leave it to the AI to cast ANY spells in a Vancian spellcasting system anyway.

[Morty]

I'd add a few feats myself, such as Oversized Two Weapon Fighting - how am I supposed to play a dual-wielding Ranger that can hit the broad side of the barn otherwise? The rest of the issues I've got have been adressed already... like AI, the tollset and romances. I had so much fun with the toolbox in NWN1, but the one in NWN2 is really too clunky. I mean, more advanced graphics make a game harder to modify, but really, sometimes it looks as if the designers were just trying to make it harder for us, like with armor for example - is it supposed to be edited as an item, or as a part of the NPC's appearance? Of course, it makes it even hader for me when the toolset crashes when I try to run the appearance wizard and the toolbar for modifying terrain is unreadable. As for romances...
If I hadn't read about it before, I'd have no idea that Elanee is a romance option. Maybe it's because due to how stupid she is, my influence with her is somewhere down in the Lower Planes, even with my efforts to raise it.
Now that I think of it, I'd do something about NPCs in general. It's too hard to gain influence with them, especially with the limited party size - I simply don't have time to get to know all of them without changing my party for every single subquest. I'd also fix crafting, so that it's a bit easier to get all the ingredients. And being able to access the NPCs' inventory while they're not in the party would be nice.

[warty goblin]

Ahhh, Neverwinter Nights 2, how I wanted to love thee.

First there's the entire engine, which sucks. It's the 21st century and I'm tired of having to sit through a loading screen every time I walk into a building, particularly a small one. A castle? Fine. A peasant's hut or small bar? No thank you. FPS games figured this out years and years ago- that large, continuous levels immerse the player to a much greater degree than small, choppy ones. I realize suggesting that an RPG learn something from an FPS is likely to get one burned at the stake, but being able to play the damn game for more than ten minute stretches without a loading screen is definitely a major advantage of the FPS in my book. The camera is honestly dreadful, which baffles me, since isometric top-down cameras where one of those things I thought the cavemen figured out, probably while trying to drop rocks on brontosauros.

Then there's the plot (base game only). Let's run down the checklist of fantasy cliches to see how many NWN scores.
Game opens with idylic country scene. Check
You are a mysterious orphan. Check.
Your peaceful country villiage is mysteriously attacked. Check.
You go do something in a swamp involving lizardmen and a mysterious item: Check
Said mysterious item is possibly from your mysterious past. Check.
There's a dwarf. Check.
The dwarf is like, totally different than all other dwarves because he's got a Problem With Authority, even though he's so LG he's probably a recuring character on Law and Order: Special Splatbook Race Unit*. Check.
There's another character who doesn't get along with the dwarf. Check.
The other character is totally annoying. Half-Check, I honestly didn't mind Neeshka, but I understand a lot of people do.
There's a hippy chick who's all into nature. Check.
People actually refer to you as an 'adventurer.' Check.
They do so with a straight face. Check.
You are put on trial for a crime you didn't commit. Check. (although to be honest the trial was fairly cool).
You aren't put on trial for all the crimes you did commit. Check.
Somehow, nobody notices this. Check.
Authority figures give you important assignments for no apparent reason. Check.
This is true even if you are playing a half-orc named Thrarg, Eater of Eyeballs, have a Charisma of 5, and routinely use little old ladies as soccer balls. Check.
You can use your influence to guide your hapless companions towards achieving their crazy-ass life ambitions in spite of their crippling neurosis. Check.





*Each episode starts with the following speech.
In any cliched game of D&D, there are two parties responsible. The DMs, who create adventures that hinge around saving the world by using ancient elven artifacts scattered around elementally themed dungeons, and the players who utter lines like "Nooo! The foul beast hath smited Esmerelda, my one true love!" These are their stories, and you can guess how each one ends after only five minutes.

[Timberwolf]

I would put back in the camera control from NWN 1. I may have got it wrong, but I found it hard to control precisely and it spoiled the game for me

[Avilan the Grey]

...Yeah I think that's another problem. The Engine.
Not only extreme loading times but very unoptimized. You need a much faster computer than you should for that level of detail and area sizes. But this was an issue with NWN too...

I remember a lot of arguments on the official forum because people was comparing it to Oblivion (graphic and loading-time wise) and said basically that Oblivion looked better (it did) and loaded quicker (it did). The response from moderators and officials was "but our graphic engine is so much more advanced" (I think it was something with lightsources in real-time or somesuch), to which we all responded "Yeah but it doesn't help if it still LOOKS like crap).

[Lord of the Helms]

While the constant loading was somewhat annoying, I'm willing to cut them some slack on it because first, it's based on an engine developed around 2000 or so that they never made themselbes, second, it loaded reasonably quickly on my relatively oldish laptop, and third, I had just before played The Witcher on said old-ish laptop, meaning I no longer fear hell :smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

Biggest letdown: I've played Baldur's Gate.

But seriously, neither NWN had nothing resembling the choices, options or hell, character customization available in Baldur's Gate. Oh, and the story ****ing sucks by comparison.


Having played BG, I did finish NWN2 and I did like it as its own game, but at the same time I was left in dust by just how much worse it did everything. First thing I did was of course turn off AI for my entire party 'cause I couldn't stand the characters' idiocy (Hay, let's run after that one opponent who's running away so everyone else can take AoOs on me, then turn back! Or "What Sneak Attacks?! I'm a Rogue, I beat people in the face!").

Second, given that I was playing a Druid, I shamelessly abused the "free resting"-**** because every ****ing movie sequence forced me out of Wildshape meaning I ran out of uses about half-way through a ridge 'cause a bloody dwarf wanted to swear or something.


But yeah, short list of things I disliked about the game:
-No options as to what NPCs you pick up (this is, of course, better in MoTB but not by much and MoTB has its own share of issues)
-No options as to what quests you pick up (other than the single alignment decision)
-Buggy as all hell: seriously, all shape altering effects were buggy as hell (if you had an armor on before shifting, your Flurry of Blows is removed when you control another character, for example), all companions (familiars & ACs) were bugged to all hell, areas occasionally get corrupted as you move between places forcing you to load an earlier save or do some haxxing by replacing the corrupt module with one from earlier saves, and this is before even getting into the mechanical problems like "Creature Weapon" being treated as a manufactured weapon for purposes of e.g. Sacred Fist, Warlock's CL vs. SR being treated as CR/2, etc. (this is just a tip of the iceberg, and this is as of 1.22 -.-). God, I can't believe I actually managed to finish the game; I hammered my head to a wall for so long.
-Some spells work weird; in some patches you could Greater Magic Fang yourself when wildshaped, now you can only do it in Animal Forms. At some point, you were a legal target for Nature's Avatar when in an animal form, but that's apparently a "bug". Oh, and Harm deals 75 damage on a failed save like in 3.0 (in fact, it uses a ton from 3.0 and mixes it with crap from 3.5) making it utterly broken vs. any higher level opponents. Spell durations are also wonky (for example, Greater Magic Fang is only 10 min/level, while Greater Magic Weapon is 1 hour/level).
-Some spells have been removed for no reason whatsoever (and I'm not just referring to teleport & flight here, although with monsters and NPCs using Dimension Door/Teleport at will and PC WIZARDS being somehow unable...wtf, couldn't they just design a game that isn't broken by teleportation? That's what all DMs do daily...), such as Time Stop and Wish.
-Yeah, some spells are totally busted like the aforementioned Harm & Owl's Insight. Also Isaac's Greater Missile Storm (only worthwhile high-level Wizard spell because everything saves against everything & is immune to everything...except this; admittedly more of an issue in MoTB).
-Worst. Ending. Ever. Apparently being able to kill a creature with deity-like powers doesn't allow you to survive falling rocks...even if you have so high DR that the rocks wouldn't damage you at all, and so high Str that you'd effortlessly walk through them.

[Lord of the Helms]

Biggest letdown: I've played Baldur's Gate.

But seriously, neither NWN had nothing resembling the choices, options or hell, character customization available in Baldur's Gate. Oh, and the story ****ing sucks by comparison.

Fair point :smallsmile:

Though I have to disagree somewhat on character customization - I think 3.5, with feats and skills, offers considerably more options to develop your chars on level up than Baldur's Gate's AD&D 2 did, where you just leveled to gain better HP, saves and THAC0, more spell slots and occasional weapon mastery points.



Having played BG, I did finish NWN2 and I did like it as its own game, but at the same time I was left in dust by just how much worse it did everything. First thing I did was of course turn off AI for my entire party 'cause I couldn't stand the characters' idiocy (Hay, let's run after that one opponent who's running away so everyone else can take AoOs on me, then turn back! Or "What Sneak Attacks?! I'm a Rogue, I beat people in the face!").

AI is bad, and puppet mode best; however, that's mostly identical to BG2.


Second, given that I was playing a Druid, I shamelessly abused the "free resting"-**** because every ****ing movie sequence forced me out of Wildshape meaning I ran out of uses about half-way through a ridge 'cause a bloody dwarf wanted to swear or something.

Annoying, but at least logical (you can't very well talk as a Treant). Also, I had a weird bug that made using Elephant Hide replenish my wildshape uses rather than deplete, which came in handy.


But yeah, short list of things I disliked about the game:
-No options as to what NPCs you pick up (this is, of course, better in MoTB but not by much and MoTB has its own share of issues)
-No options as to what quests you pick up (other than the single alignment decision)
-Buggy as all hell: seriously, all shape altering effects were buggy as hell (if you had an armor on before shifting, your Flurry of Blows is removed when you control another character, for example), all companions (familiars & ACs) were bugged to all hell, areas occasionally get corrupted as you move between places forcing you to load an earlier save or do some haxxing by replacing the corrupt module with one from earlier saves, and this is before even getting into the mechanical problems like "Creature Weapon" being treated as a manufactured weapon for purposes of e.g. Sacred Fist, Warlock's CL vs. SR being treated as CR/2, etc. (this is just a tip of the iceberg, and this is as of 1.22 -.-). God, I can't believe I actually managed to finish the game; I hammered my head to a wall for so long.
-Some spells work weird; in some patches you could Greater Magic Fang yourself when wildshaped, now you can only do it in Animal Forms. At some point, you were a legal target for Nature's Avatar when in an animal form, but that's apparently a "bug". Oh, and Harm deals 75 damage on a failed save like in 3.0 (in fact, it uses a ton from 3.0 and mixes it with crap from 3.5) making it utterly broken vs. any higher level opponents. Spell durations are also wonky (for example, Greater Magic Fang is only 10 min/level, while Greater Magic Weapon is 1 hour/level).
-Some spells have been removed for no reason whatsoever (and I'm not just referring to teleport & flight here, although with monsters and NPCs using Dimension Door/Teleport at will and PC WIZARDS being somehow unable...wtf, couldn't they just design a game that isn't broken by teleportation? That's what all DMs do daily...), such as Time Stop and Wish.
-Yeah, some spells are totally busted like the aforementioned Harm & Owl's Insight. Also Isaac's Greater Missile Storm (only worthwhile high-level Wizard spell because everything saves against everything & is immune to everything...except this; admittedly more of an issue in MoTB).
-Worst. Ending. Ever. Apparently being able to kill a creature with deity-like powers doesn't allow you to survive falling rocks...even if you have so high DR that the rocks wouldn't damage you at all, and so high Str that you'd effortlessly walk through them.

Harm's 150 damage limit and the save for 1/2 comes from 3.5 and was a much-needed change since the 3.0 harm in NWN1 was seen as way overpowered, one of the mightiest spells even in epic campaigns. Enemies teleporting are scripted events; doing it yourself is a no-go engine-wise, as I understand. Time Stop was both broken (it allowed you to attack enemies when time was stopped, which is strongly agaisnt the normal rules and they could not fix) and one of the most hated spells in multiplayer for interrupting the gameflow (NWN1 persistent worlds always banned it right from the start).

[Eldariel]

Annoying, but at least logical (you can't very well talk as a Treant). Also, I had a weird bug that made using Elephant Hide replenish my wildshape uses rather than deplete, which came in handy.

I have no trouble shifting back when I need to talk, but when I get a cutscene where Khelgar swears at some Bugbears without me even involved but I still have to change back and I have to change back AGAIN after the fight when he says "good riddance", it gets a bit ridiculous.

This happens constantly. Also, all the other ****ers are perfectly capable of talking; I'd very well allow them to handle discussions which don't friggin' require any relevant decisions and only shift back if needed. Best of all? Some random townsfolk have no trouble talking to you WHEN YOU ARE A FRIGGIN' ANIMAL...


Harm's 150 damage limit and the save for 1/2 comes from 3.5 and was a much-needed change since the 3.0 harm in NWN1 was seen as way overpowered, one of the mightiest spells even in epic campaigns.

Oh yeah, this was the 3.5 version; I always forget it's that good 'cause in PnP 3.5, 75 damage with a standard action really isn't that impressive. All I can say is, I killed the Dragon in few turns thanks to Harm; the spell just feels unfair for NWN's power level (way lower than PnP D&D...although Clericzillas still roam the game).


Enemies teleporting are scripted events; doing it yourself is a no-go engine-wise, as I understand.

I know, but this is just a problem with the engine. BG allows Dimension Door without breaking anything.


Time Stop was both broken (it allowed you to attack enemies when time was stopped, which is strongly agaisnt the normal rules and they could not fix) and one of the most hated spells in multiplayer for interrupting the gameflow (NWN1 persistent worlds always banned it right from the start).

Yeah, I understand it's a problem game engine wise, but if game engine can't properly handle D&D spells, maybe it's not cut out to be the basis for D&D games? 'cause honestly, I think it's the worst engine ever used for anything - such a ridiculous amount of limitations and straight-out bugs.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, it's ridiculous how there's like 1 good PrC for each class; every Wizard worth anything goes Scholar of Candlekeep and every Cleric with any skills is a Stormlord.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Lets see, they capped the level at 30 instead of 40 like in the first one. They capped your attribute points to 50 (not too important if you dont cheat or max out your barbarions strength.), got rid of Time Stop, butchered Issacs Many Missile Storm.

Isaac's Greater Missile Storm was broken and most Persistant Worlds banned it anyway. The rest of your complaints are valid but for me the game was still unplayable before I reached a level to notice those things. Your complaints are kind of petty and not really related to the serious problems NWN 2 had.


Also, in the spirit of the rant, what would any of you change about NWN2. For me, I miss some of the stuff from the older games like Baldurs Gate. Where's the Wish spell?

Wish wasn't in Baldur's Gate until Throne of Bhaal.


So basically, because it wasn't Baldur's Gate.

But it tried so hard to be (okay, maybe Planescape: Torment, whatever).


I enjoyed the plot of HoU all the way through, and I actually liked the OC (SoU sucked, though, IMHO), but I didn't really like the plot as much in 2.

I prefered SoU to the OC, but that may be because it's suck was shorter and therefore easier to bear.


I forgot my biggest complaint: The MULTIPLAYER.

To get into any PW in NWN2 is a nightmare. You have to download basically their entire setting, every hakpak and mod they decided to use, and hope and pray that none of the jangling mess conflicts with any of the crap you downloaded from some other PW.

That's differant from NWN 1 how?


I would put back in the camera control from NWN 1. I may have got it wrong, but I found it hard to control precisely and it spoiled the game for me

The thing is that NWN 1's camera control only works for a single player game with purely AI henchmen (except it doesn't, see KotOR) so to create a more tactical party based game, Obsidian couldn't use NWN 1's system. For everyone complaining about parties being too small, not using NWN 1's camera is a plus, for people who prefer NWN 1, it isn't.


I know, but this is just a problem with the engine. BG allows Dimension Door without breaking anything.

Dimension Door was useless in BG and removed in BG 2. BG 1 style DD wouldn't work in NWN due to the camera but I've seen persistant worlds that have okay teleportation systems.

[warty goblin]

While the constant loading was somewhat annoying, I'm willing to cut them some slack on it because first, it's based on an engine developed around 2000 or so that they never made themselbes, second, it loaded reasonably quickly on my relatively oldish laptop, and third, I had just before played The Witcher on said old-ish laptop, meaning I no longer fear hell :smalltongue:

This is an indication it is time to get a new engine.

Seriously, liscence it, or write it from scratch. Being based on outmoded technology is no excuse for being based on outmoded technology. I'm not fussed about the graphical fidelity so much, but the constant loading is simply disgraceful. I find it annoying in The Witcher as well, but at least that game has slightly fewer multi-part dialog heavy fetch quests, which force you to enter and leave three or four different buildings to get some old dude his walking stick or something like that.

[Lord of the Helms]

This is an indication it is time to get a new engine.

Seriously, liscence it, or write it from scratch. Being based on outmoded technology is no excuse for being based on outmoded technology. I'm not fussed about the graphical fidelity so much, but the constant loading is simply disgraceful. I find it annoying in The Witcher as well, but at least that game has slightly fewer multi-part dialog heavy fetch quests, which force you to enter and leave three or four different buildings to get some old dude his walking stick or something like that.


Remeber, the old game, with engine, was given to them by Atari to build a sequal out of. If your issue is with the fact that they did not develop a brand new engine from scratch (which I'm not sure Obsidian is currently staffed for) or buy a different one (which I'm not sure if it could be used for DnD effectively), you probably have to complain to the publisher for not financing it.

[Dark Faun]

I'd make the companions leave you if they're unhappy with you, or even better, attack you if you go too far, so that you can finally kill those guys who annoy you.

Having two Neutral Good characters help you blackmailing an innocent merchant and murdering guards does not make sense, even for Khelgar "I murder drunken people for fun" Ironfist. Neither does having a Paladin help you rob the Collector's house and slaughter the guards inside. Funnily enough, the Evil characters's reasons for joining you make sense even if you're Lawful Good; Bishop is as bored as Xykon and you're the best source of fun he can find, and Ammon Jerro has his own reasons to stick with you.
I also would have liked this dialogue option to appear if you're a paladin after you met Casavir: "Khelgar, reassure me, tell me I'm not as boring as this guy." and Neeshka would clear her throat as Khelgar struggles to answer truthfully. :smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

Having two Neutral Good characters help you blackmailing an innocent merchant and murdering guards does not make sense, even for Khelgar "I murder drunken people for fun" Ironfist. Neither does having a Paladin help you rob the Collector's house and slaughter the guards inside. Funnily enough, the Evil characters's reasons for joining you make sense even if you're Lawful Good; Bishop is as bored as Xykon and you're the best source of fun he can find, and Ammon Jerro has his own reasons to stick with you.

Also, the evil types aren't necessarily all that evil in the traditional sense. Take Ammon Jerro, for example - he wants to save the world! Only, he will stop at nothing while at it, not minding spilling the blood of the innocents or any such. But he seeks to stop the entity seeking to destroy the area, and yeah...

As for Bishop, yeah, he's very much a "Survival of the Fittest and me!"-kinda guy, due to his past. But he doesn't go around indiscriminately killing people. Also, there's the romance stub in the game for him that could've lead to a reformation or whatever; too bad that was never finished, as he'd make for a much more interesting romance option than Casavir any day of the week - much like Viconia in BGs.

[Dark Faun]

Speaking of romances, I wish there was more choice in the game. I remember BGII being very fun when you had Viconia, Jaheira and Aerie in your party... And if you're a female dwarf who loves to fight, really, Khelgar should be falling for you (or feel threatened). Neeshka should be available too, for those who like her personality. The possibility to romance your own gender would be nice too, but that's probably asking too much.

I'd have made some of the characters a little more original too. Neutral Good female elf orphan druid who's also a romance option? Add half in front of elf and you've got a less interesting Jaheira. Female tiefling rogue? Add a romance and you've got Annah from Planescape Torment. Male human paladin? There's one in each game.

[Kalbron]

It's actually very possible to use Dimension Door in NWN2. You just need the override/hak which adds it.

It's completely and utterly useless outside of a PW, but that's like many utility spells.

Edit:Also, thanks to the fact that an in game hour for much of NWN2's campaigns was less than 10 minutes, if a spell had a 10 minute per level duration rather than hour per level this was a very very good thing for you!

[Mx.Silver]

Speaking of romances, I wish there was more choice in the game. I remember BGII being very fun when you had Viconia, Jaheira and Aerie in your party... And if you're a female dwarf who loves to fight, really, Khelgar should be falling for you (or feel threatened). Neeshka should be available too, for those who like her personality. The possibility to romance your own gender would be nice too, but that's probably asking too much.
Neeshka's lack of a romance path made very little sense given a fair amount of her dialogue seems to hint that she's into you. To be honest though, including romances in RPGs is always going to bring about these complaints unless you make ever character a possibility (and, to be honest, RPGs can do perfectly well without any romances at all).

Actually, this was probably the biggest gripe I had about the OC (controls were bad, but so were Fallout's and no one seems bring that up): the characters. With the notable exception Amon Jerro, most of them got little if anything at all. Casavir was little more than a cardboard cut-out, Grobnar was little better as was Qara (even her assassination 'storyline' got cut-off rather abruptly without any real resolution beyond killing the assassins). The others got some skeletons of development, but not really enough to make them interesting if their personalities weren't so already, which was the case for most of them. Contrast this with Mask of the Betrayer, where I actually found myself liking the companions.

The reason for this though, as far as I can tell, is one of time. The OC simply had too many characters and too little time to spend on each one of them adaquately, hence the resultant oversized and less than steller cast. I know some have said the plot was bad, and it was pretty weak (not NWN1 OC bad obviously, but it wasn't particularly strong) but had the characters been engaging enough then it wouldn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I vastly prefer NWN2 over the first (probably because I came into NWN1 from BG2, and therefore expected things like a party of characters and an actualy story beyond 'ok now go do this') and still enjoy the game. It's just could have been a lot better.

[Suzuro]

Alright, time to get somewhat off topic/somewhat bring up old topics.

I got NWN2 a couple of weeks ago and I've been playing on a couple year old laptop, ran great....until I got to Blakelake...

Now whenever I load the thing up it lags like crazy, as in, I'll click something and it won't take effect for four to six seconds.

...any ideas? Any help would be appreciated.

Oh, and this is in the original NWN2 campaign, I haven't got around to MotB yet.

-Suzuro

[d12]

I haven't played NWN2 in a long time and never even got past the first act due to just losing interest because of the irritating aspects of the game.

The first big disappointment I encountered was basically "it's not Oblivion," which is to say it isn't a wide-open sandbox world where you can go pretty much anywhere you want whenever you want. It just seems way too confining and I get bored with linearity, which makes me wonder if it's a mistake to be trying to become more interested in RPGs in general.

The second big irritant was the voice acting. Holy hell, I've seldom heard such an assortment of absolutely terrible voices outside of some of the dubbed Japanese movies that showed up on MST3K. Like that one druid-guy-stuck-in-polar-bear-form you run into early on. I had to summon every drop of willpower I possess in order to not grab a pen and ram it into my ears. It helped that you could skip lines and it was subtitled, so you can just turn the volume down and read on the off chance anything interesting is said. I remember seeing a kind of preview of NWN2 on X-Play once in which it was clear some of the voicework wasn't done yet. The druid-guy's voice was rendered in a kind of Hawking-speak, which actually would have been preferable.

The companions I had run into and which I cared to keep partied with me didn't have such bad voicework in my opinion, fortunately. But many of the companions were just irritating in their own right. I never really thought too much on the whole 'Elanee = creepy stalker' thing mostly because I found her to be terminally boring, especially compared to the Bickering Duo you pick up early in the game. Casavir is a paladin, and therefore worthy of nothing but my contempt (lol). Didn't help that he was also extremely boring and sounded like he was trying to finish chewing something. Also, did anybody else notice the line he has about "lending his sword" or whatever to helping out with whatever, and yet he comes equipped with a hammer? O_o Grobnar is a crime. I never bothered using him. I was planning to use cheats in order to get around the things that required him (I think I read somewhere that something required his presence in the party) just so I wouldn't have to tow that idiot around. Qara was..I dunno, I didn't have much of an opinion either way on her. She did make me chuckle a couple times though, and that counts for something (wish other NPCs would have stopped pronouncing her name as "Quara" though..also, a pyromaniac sorcerer? That's new). Khelgar is a dwarf who drinks a lot, has a pseudo-Scottish accent, and likes fighting--haven't seen that before. Also, what's up with him saying I 'just don't understand' when I tell him being a monk isn't all fighting when I was playing as a monk? Rolled it up specifically to test that conversation--my main character was a N human cleric. But he's half of the Bickering Duo, so that makes up for some of that. Neeshka was probably the only companion I'd run into who I actively liked, and it certainly didn't hurt that many of her suggestions for dealing with situations happened to overlap with my 'greedy, amoral mercenary bastard' approach in RPGs. ^_^ "If you're wondering if [Elanee] has anything valuable, she doesn't. I checked." Ha ha, you cheeky rapscallion, you did well. Khelgar was never going to become a monk, given the dependence on my influence with him and his unfortunate habit of disagreeing with me. :smalltongue: As for Bishop and Sand (which hadn't become partiable as of when I stopped playing), didn't really care either way about Bishop, Sand was good. No idea on the others (Shandra was overall fairly 'meh'..nothing spectacular, but not actively annoying either..at least with whatever scenes involved her up to the point I stopped).

The thing that eventually made me quit playing is what I refer to as "poor encounter segregation." One way or another, combat encounters tended to bleed into each other far too often, whether from batches of enemies being placed too close to other batches or companions getting a fit of the stupids and running off to fight enemies they shouldn't even be able to see yet, or companions doggedly pursuing enemies as they run through bunches of other enemies, causing an epic chain of AoO's. I specifically remember that one encounter where you could instruct somebody to set a fire to distract some guards so that you could sneak past. About halfway through doing that, Khelgar decided that the guards don't deserve to live, so I had to fight them all anyway..great AI. At least I had access to the human fireball by then. They also tended to use spells at stupid times (I somehow knew better than to permit friendly fire..I'm talking about things like tossing fireballs at single enemies and entangling absolutely everything they encounter). Then there's always Elanee's shift-into-the-most-completely-useless-form-ever gag. Faced with all of that, I decided to just quit rather than micromanage every part of each encounter, especially since they didn't seem to like listening to me at times.

I once heard that the romance subplots feel kind of tacked on and seem to come from completely out of nowhere (comments? was that accurate or was the source I read that from smoking something? :smalltongue:) rather than feeling like a developing relationship. And my little Roguely McHellspawn (as I usually call her) wasn't an option, so boo to that, as potatocubed noted in his link. Really, the kind of character I had would have been a great match with her. :smallbiggrin: And from where I was sitting, it certainly would have made a bit more sense than the boring and plot-focused Elanee.

The most unfortunate part about all of this is that I actually kind of enjoyed NWN2. Up until all the above just made me cash out. It's one of the only games I've ever heard of that does escort missions in a tolerable fashion ("Oh my god, he's dead!" "Just wait until we finish off this last zombie..he should start feeling better shortly thereafter"). And it's nice that only a TPK forces a save reload, unlike say Mass Effect, wherein everybody can die repeatedly except for you for some reason. Every once in a while I'm tempted to fire up NWN2 again and turn on god mode if necessary and slog through it just to get the rest of the story firsthand, but I've never been compelled enough.

Edit: Whoops..seems I completely ripped off potatocubed's description of Elanee as being "terminally boring" without even realizing it until I was skimming over the link again just now. Sorry about that. lol

[potatocubed]

Edit: Whoops..seems I completely ripped off potatocubed's description of Elanee as being "terminally boring" without even realizing it until I was skimming over the link again just now. Sorry about that. lol

That's okay. I mean, if you're going to pick two words to describe Elanee it's going to be two of 'elf', 'boring', 'druid', or 'terminally'. :smalltongue:

[Mando Knight]

Terminally Elf? :smalltongue:

...I guess I'm alone in liking Elanee's voice of moderation over Neeshka's selfishness and whining?

[Waggy]

The AI. The intelligence bit here is misleading in this game. Combat basically boils down to "Qura stop casting Magic Missle for the love of god and HELP ME OUT BECAUSE I'M RUNNING OUT OF SPELLS BECAUSE I HAVE TO COMPENSATE FOR YOUR CASTING MAGIC MISSLE!!!!" and the melee characters that run into the middle of enmies, get surrounded then ask for a healing potion!

Then were the characters. The way people reacted to Amie's death at the beggining of the game was abominable, no one showed emotion, her body isn't even around afterwards, bah. Some of the party members too were utterly reprehensible, like that idiot Gnome Bard. It took me one line of dialogue from him to work out that he was a poor attempt at creating a quirky, loveble character that you ended up hating more than the antagonists.

Other than that, I really like this game and it was a great introduction to D&D (admitedly even though my whole character creatio was geared to towards "I want to be a Sorcerer that casts Meteor Swarm like Xykon!")

[Thane of Fife]

...I guess I'm alone in liking Elanee's voice of moderation over Neeshka's selfishness and whining?

No, I'm definitely with you there - nothing made me happier than being able to dump Neeshka at the tavern.

My biggest frustration was that the combat was too much for me - maybe I just suck, though. But it seemed like every fight would result in my barbarian going down to some wimpy rogue in single combat.

I also didn't particularly like the assortment of faces and hairdos available.

[Mando Knight]

My biggest frustration was that the combat was too much for me - maybe I just suck, though. But it seemed like every fight would result in my barbarian going down to some wimpy rogue in single combat.

I also didn't particularly like the assortment of faces and hairdos available.

I find it helpful to have Elanee pack a huge number of artillery/control spells. Same with Qara (because you get her sooner than Sand). Entangle and Evard's Black Tentacles annoy roguish types quite a bit, especially if you've got the difficulty setting put at "No PvP, ever."

[Eldariel]

Terminally Elf? :smalltongue:

...I guess I'm alone in liking Elanee's voice of moderation over Neeshka's selfishness and whining?

I sorta liked Elanee (and had no trouble with her voice). She's the only character of the opener bunch that doesn't act like a child. I really loved the part where we saved the boys from Wolves and then Elanee compliments my dealing with children and asks about my plans for founding a family; the "Kids? I'm already traveling with 3" option was just perfect.

But yeah, Elanee was kinda...bland given that you spend so much of your time in the city where her only lines seem to remind you how unnatural everything is and how helping out your friend (who admittedly deserves everything coming to her) is a crime.


Also, she's a godsent in the early game with Sleep being an encounter ender. With my own Druid, I just walked through the Bandit Camp throwing Sleep here, Sleep there just nuking the whole bunch of Rogues with each hit (then Coup de Gracing them).

The AI was absolutely horrendous, which is why the FIRST thing I did in the game (after...about first fight) was to turn Puppet Mode on for everyone. Things started to work out MUCH better after that. This also means your idiot companions don't attract multiple batches of opponents at once making fighting much easier (although I'd personally prefer all the enemies in the friggin' dungeon to attack at once, with patrols running back to alert the rest - would make things much faster and easier with AoE spells to clear the house).

But yeah, my only real complaint in this regard was that the game was damn easy. You run into a bunch after a bunch of mundane noobs that can hardly hit you and deal negligible damage even when they do and go down in one-two spells or some hammering. I didn't use Rest more than once per area (other than to sidestep the stupidity regarding Wildshape) and used Hardcore D&D rules (latest patch screwed up friendly fire though so I couldn't even kill my own guys) and reloaded whenever a guy died without resurrection available (seriously, why doesn't higher difficulty prevent the auto-resurrection?), but it was still pretty much a walk through the game save for the Bandit Camp (which I went through with one array of spells, making it pretty challenging as the inside + the camp + leaving contain a ton of encounters) and the Weapons Warehouse (which just had infi opponents with insane damage output due to Hide + SA), but by the Warehouse, I had an almost full-caster team so I could just buff up and go to town.

[ThunderCat]

The loading times. I see I wasn't the only one who brought a book.

The AI. 'nuff said.

Buffs. Every time you go to a new location on the world map, your buffs disappear, because apparently, warlocks can't be bothered to regularly use their 24 hour buffs (usable at will), and druids never travel in animal form :smallannoyed: There's got to be an easier way, such as allowing you to choose which buffs to have active during travelling. How hard can it be? Furthermore, I've always missed the opportunity to place several buffs in the same quickslot, and have them cast at the same time when there aren't any enemies near to disturb the casting. My casters always used several rounds after each rest buffing themselves and others, and it seemed like a waste of time for no reason (and with the absurd loading times, you already felt like you were using as much time waiting as playing).

The inventory. I liked the way the old NWN handled it, with different sized items taking up different space in your inventory, but most of all, the new inventory made it harder to see what's what, and the bags of holding were dreadful.

The companions, while sometimes stereotypical, were generally alright, but the lack of customisation available was annoying. Also, investing in them shouldn't screw you over. Or at least, you should get a clue about it if you're going to lose one of them. I made the mistake of loading a lot of heavy (and expensive) equipment on Shandra, because she was the strongest character in my current party. I also made an effort to gain influence with Khelgar, only to be punished by having him made useless.

The romance was uninteresting. I don't think I had Casavir in my party even once, because I found him so boring (and in the way of my selfish warlock character), and I agree with potatocubed that he looks old. In fact, NWN2 suffers from the same trend as many similar products, with most of the female characters being at least generically attractive, while the male characters are seriously lacking in the looks department. It's no wonder many girls go for Bishop. Of course, Elanee isn't much better than Casavir, and it wouldn't hurt to leave room for homosexuality.

[Flickerdart]

Actually, once you lose Shandra, all her stuff lands on Ammon Jerro, so you don't really lose any of the junk.

[potatocubed]

:smallconfused: Are you sure? Because I never found any of it.

On the other hand, it could have just been eaten by one of the many bugs that the release version of the game was littered with. It's not like I played the OC a second time to check.

[Shikton]

I would probably rewrite everything (including plot and NPCs) and use the Infinity Engine.

Yes, that's unrealistic, but it's what I would want. Grant me my wish, Genie! Grant it!

[Truwar]

I have to agree on the outrage that is the “toolset” for NWN2. The toolset for NWN was clunky to use and not terribly intuitive but a friend and I were able to actually build a PW (persistent world) with them and neither of us had an ounce of programming experience. Everything we learned was through painful trial and error. Once we did learn how to use the toolset things got a lot easier. A lot of the custom content created by players helped us connect the dots and figure things out. (Lilac Soul’s script generator very helpful)

So, when NWN2 was confirmed I thought, “Great! Now they can simplify the toolset and add some simple features (i.e. a script generator) that will allow people that are not programmers to make more custom content, thus vastly broadening the pool that can lend their creative talents to improving the NWN2 experience!” (Actually I very rarely think the word “thus” in my internal dialogues :smalltongue:)

Alas, we got the NWN2 toolset. Apparently you can do a lot more with it, if you are a skilled computer programmer. Awesome! Instead of harnessing the creative potential of even more players they narrowed the group of people that could use it even further. I don’t know if this was just computer-programmer-contempt-for-those-that-are-not-programmers, a lack of understanding (What do you mean not everyone knows what C++ is?), or just bad marketing but it certainly disappointed me.

[Mx.Silver]

:smallconfused: Are you sure? Because I never found any of it.

Yeah, it does end up with him. Certain has done everytime I've got up to it.

[Teutonic Knight]

Anyone have problems with that battle of the bards thing in Blacklake? For me, I couldn't remember a complicated tune and replay it perfectly. Grobnar wasn't much help, and if anyone did finish it, could you tell me what you get from it?

Edit: Apart from burning his lute, did anyone actually finish the challenge?

[Fayd]

You get his lute, but you can get it any number of ways (Such as the tantalizing option "Set Kain on fire and steal his lute." Guess how I know that works!)

[Douglas]

Anyone have problems with that battle of the bards thing in Blacklake? For me, I couldn't remember a complicated tune and replay it perfectly. Grobnar wasn't much help, and if anyone did finish it, could you tell me what you get from it?

Edit: Apart from burning his lute, did anyone actually finish the challenge?
If you have enough influence with Grobnar or enough Perform skill, you can play back and practice each tune as many times as you want before trying it. I don't know how much is "enough". Or you could look it up in a walkthrough, all of them are always the same.

[Flickerdart]

You get his lute, but you can get it any number of ways (Such as the tantalizing option "Set Kain on fire and steal his lute." Guess how I know that works!)
I do not recall that option. How do you do it?

[Mando Knight]

I do not recall that option. How do you do it?
I dunno. Let's ask Nintendo:


http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/usefire.png

[warty goblin]

Remeber, the old game, with engine, was given to them by Atari to build a sequal out of. If your issue is with the fact that they did not develop a brand new engine from scratch (which I'm not sure Obsidian is currently staffed for) or buy a different one (which I'm not sure if it could be used for DnD effectively), you probably have to complain to the publisher for not financing it.

Really, I care not in the slightest whose fault it is, but that iteration of the engine sucks more than an octopus making out with a toilet plunger. I'd also note that the Witcher uses fundamentally the same technology, and actually seems to work.

@ d12 and your comments on linearity, I really here you on that front. It was sort of rude when I realized 'hey, wait, I can't go there!' Mostly this is because I think that trying to replicate D&D on a computer is simply not going to work, since so much of what makes that game interesting to me is personal interaction, with the actual gameplay as a sort of social lubricant. Take that out however and you're left with something between a disappointingly smallscale RTS, a sim that does nothing to take advantage of the processing power available on a computer, and story mechanics that haven't changed since the nineties and can accurately be compared to a choose your own adventure book. Something like Oblivion, for all its faults, is far closer to what I think an RPG should be on a PC for the simple reason that it is aware of what medium it is in.

[Eldariel]

Anyone have problems with that battle of the bards thing in Blacklake? For me, I couldn't remember a complicated tune and replay it perfectly. Grobnar wasn't much help, and if anyone did finish it, could you tell me what you get from it?

Edit: Apart from burning his lute, did anyone actually finish the challenge?

I finished the challenge, although I must admit, I had to resort to the internet for the 4th one. It was devilish. I didn't have Perform and it's almost impossible to get the influence for Grobnar by then (you need 5 IIRC and there're only opportunities to get 4 even if you keep him around at all times before MUCH later in the act), so I had to...meh, save-load a bunch and finally burned my nerves in the fourth one.

I don't recall the Perform DC, but I've got the inkling feeling, having Inspire Competence, Cha-boosting item and Greater Heroism on you should be enough (that's how I made just about every skill check in the game when it was based off skill I had 0 ranks in). The problem is, of course, that the Lute is totally worthless for anything but ~10k off selling it. Definitely not worth the effort you have to put into acquiring it. And seriously, setting Kain on fire is much more satisfying.

[Fayd]

To set him on fire, you have to play a certain amount of songs correctly (Might just be the last one)...I think. I'm not sure exactly what I did, but I made sure to have Qara along. That might have been the deciding factor. And I was a Wizard.

[Amiel]

:smallconfused: Are you sure? Because I never found any of it.

Alternatively, before that fateful confrontation, remove all items from Shandra's inventory and tag it to someone else. That way you don't lose any of the stuff.


On the other hand, it could have just been eaten by one of the many bugs that the release version of the game was littered with. It's not like I played the OC a second time to check.

Ye gods the Ahja-Luskan pirates bit was annoying.

[JediSoth]

I enjoyed the OC of NWN2, but I'm pretty forgiving about things like plot and such. I didn't really mind most of the NPCs I chose to travel with, though Qara annoyed me and that evil ranger guy (whose name I've already forgotten) I just plain didn't like.

My biggest problem with the game was the load times. It wasn't so bad when I could go to an area and stay there for a while, but once I got the keep, there was a lot of time I spent looking at that darn loading screen going back and forth between two locations. I eventually got tired of waiting on the game (which is one reason I stopped playing EverQuest; I don't like to pay to sit there and just wait on the game to "GET ON WITH IT!!!").

I was very disappointed in the romance options. Neeshka, for certain, would have been my choice had it been an option, but it wasn't. Every RPG designer should look at Jade Empire for how to do a romance right: the romances build slowly over the course of the game and there is actually CLOSURE if you follow them to the logical conclusion. If you're male, you can romance Dawn Star, Silk Fox, or Sky (a guy!). If you're female, you can romance Sky or Silk Fox (a woman!). If you're an ambitious male, you can romance Dawn Star AND Silk Fox at the same time and get them to agree to it (BOO YAH!!!). On top of that, I don't think the romance options took away from the main plot of the game.