NWN2 Expansion: Mask of the Betrayer

[tape_measure]

So the guild (see advertisement in sig) I belong to is talking up a storm about the new expansion pack for the not-so-famous-to-some sequal to NWN, and I was curious to get some other feedback from anyone who may have purchased it before I head out and run my credit bill up more.

From the tales, I've heard:
- New monsters (not a whole hell of a lot, but a few)
- Easier to use (general)
- Better Runability (yeah...i wrote it...)
- Multiplayer easier
- building easier/less time consuming

The only real gripe that I've found is that the update for the expansion still has a bug or two in it, which should get fixed soon (god willing).

Thoughts, feelings, complaints?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Haven't played through the expansion itself (I want to do the OC first!:smalltongue: ), but from what I've seen, it looks fantastic!

The complaints about the camera from the original game carry over to the expansion, and that's pretty much been the only black mark I've seen in professional reviews. However, there have been complaints from some of the fans on the official NWN2 Forums about various aspects of the game, such as the fact that there are no epic prestige class progression (the classes that seem to be hurt most by this are the Assassin and the Arcane Archer, but I haven't played either of those classes so it's not an issue for me).

Another bone of contention that has been irking people is the Spirit Meter that you obtain at the end of Act I of the expansion. The reason for this is that if you decide to be a heinous soul-sucking bastard you'll drop dead faster than a crack wh*re without a fix, while supressing and sating your hunger invariably swings your alignment towards Lawful Good. As ironic as it seems, it's actually easier to play a paladin with the Spirit Eater curse than it is with a blackguard or something, because in order to really survive you have to keep your craving low so the meter doesn't drain as fast, which means you'll take Lawful and Good points for keeping your hunger under control. Plus there are some bugs that empty out the meter when travelling so you die upon arrival, but that will be addressed in a patch soon, I believe.

Other than that, the expansion looks like it has a deep, immersive story and well-designed companions (personality-wise, anyways), and it takes you to epic level. It's definately worth overlooking a few camera issues. I don't even see why some people complain about the camera. It works like it should to me!

[Freelance Henchman]

BTW, there already was a thread for MOTB (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58219).

[DeathQuaker]

Eh, since this is someone asking whether or not to buy it, and the old thread was more, "Is it out yet? Is it? Huh? Huh?" this is prolly all right.

Mask of the Betrayer is a very, very good game. I am in the middle of playing it right now.

General notes:

- Yes, overall game performance is dramatically improved. I have still a few issues on my less-than-optimized computer but overall it works well.

- Yes, it still has some bugs that need to be patched, and at this point, you might be wise if you waited until said patch came out.

- Gorgeous, gorgeous new tilesets, music, char and monster designs, etc.

- Very well written and captivating companions, and the Influence system is dramatically improved from the OC

- The only downside to the companions is you have an overabundance of pure casters. You'll eventually get a companion who can "tank," but if you're used to using companions as a meat shield, it takes some readjustment to work with what they give you.

- The game is "Epic Level" and they have taken that seriously. The game is quite challenging in terms of fights, puzzles, quests. etc.

- Part of the challenge is the "Spirit Meter" referred to above. Some have had difficulty with it, but I find that as long as you read what the game's manual has to say about it, and read the game's onscreen tips about how to handle it and follow that advice, you will have absolutely no problems dealing with it--regardless of your alignment (and most of the alignment shifts related to a few of the abilities are relatively small, and shouldn't affect your overall alignment unless you are being careless about using your abilities).

- Overall very, very good storyline. A lot of people are comparing it to Torment--while not as broad or deep as Torment (MotB is a shorter game, anyway), it has similar elements of mixing humor and darkness and breaking the mold of a typical RPG adventure. Once again, there is no evil darkness to dispel...YOU are the curse upon the world.....

- I haven't played in the toolset since MotB came out... my understanding is they incorporated some new things in it that make it nice, though there is some bugginess that need to be addressed

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Judging by what's been said I'll have no problem with the Spirit Meter at all. I normally play Lawful Good characters anyway, so the alignment shift will actually be a good thing for me. As a rule, I never play evil characters. Paladins are just too cool!:smallbiggrin:

[Dihan]

You can always disable it with a sneaky cheat code in the Debug menu if you ever get fed up of it. :smalltongue:

[Errata]

It's definately worth overlooking a few camera issues. I don't even see why some people complain about the camera. It works like it should to me!

The camera makes it unplayable for me right now. I've tried all the permutations of settings, but they all have some fatal flaw or other. Many of the configuration options give the illusion of choice but don't work properly at all, so you're stuck with only a few real choices, all of them poor.

I'm sure they'll fix it in a patch and get it back to something reasonable. If all the configuration choices actually worked as advertised, that would probably be good enough (though they might want to think about changing some of the defaults so that a new player doesn't have to struggle so much).

It seems like they just made a huge overhaul to that whole camera system right before release and then did zero testing on it.

[Dihan]

The camera works perfectly fine for me. What is the problem exactly?

[tape_measure]

For what its worth, I'm having problems with my camera in the OC...

Of course, I made the bad choice of updating w/o the expansion installed. I guess I'll just have to go buy the game sooner, huh? :smallbiggrin:


Oh...sorry about the extra thread bit. I thought I looked a round for a page or so before posting...

[Hawriel]

well I dont like cheating in games but the cammara issues I looked this up for NWN.


http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/code/922154.html


One of the cheat codes unclocks the cammara so you can move it any ware on the map. Its great when you need to move from one end to another and not have to hold the characters hand the whole way.

[bruzer79]

Im beginning to play this and I always find it more enjoyable to play with another human, rather than relying soley on the NPC's, altho Safiya and Kaelyn the Dove can party with me anytime. Especially the cleric...rawr...err .. sorry.

Anyway, I digress. Is anyone interested in playing thru the OC:MoTB in Multiplayer? I can host a server on another PC. Drop me a note.

Bruzer