No loops in dialogues. Even an 8 INT idiot would realise he's talking loop. Conversation skills that actually matter. Conversation skills should matter in conversation no less than combat skills matter in combat. And I don't just mean better rewards or avoiding fight. I wish for something meaningful. No skills that don't exist in PNP Forgotten Realms setting. Skills, feats and the like should not be changed unless the original effect can't be rendered by the game engine. No politically correct crap, pretty please. If you want to make a homosexual half-orc paladin and make it hit on the PC, pray do. Just don't put a gay romance NPC on your to-do list as a mandatory point, together with a feminist warrior, a vegetarian ranger, a great non-Caucasian leader of a mostly Caucasian community, an egalitarian aristocrat renouncing his status (BG2 is full of them) etc. Please, please, no heart-warming stuff about overcoming, divisionsand differences, promoting tolerance and individual's rights. Err... unless the character would really say that. I don't appreciate it when characters in games speak things that aren't natural and sound more like current social politics than fantasy dialogue. I don't launch a game to hear what's good and what's bad, thank you very much. Make the character's personality first and his political & social agenda later. If it fits the character, I'm fine with it. Really. But if the character is an excuse to make a political or social point, I'm against it. Realism all the way. The same applies to heart-warming pro-family stuff - I don't want that either. Perhaps make trade make sense? Different prices in different shops, discounts for large purchases or smuggled stuff... waiting for the merchant to get the stuff you want from a caravan or some such. Ability to act as a merchant in your own right (you typically end up having a bigger supply of mighty items than any merchant in the game and boatloads of gold). Ability to argue prices. Merchants asking you to get items they want and paying you well. Well, one could surely come up with many ideas here. Saving at any moment in the game, no matter what. No non-sense no rest locations. If it's possible to go back five levels of a dungeon and half the nearby forest to rest in a tavern, the player will do that instead of adapting his strategy and he will blame the game maker for that. Sufficient supply of masterwork or already enchanted weapons of all common types and a reasonably comfortable way of obtaining masterwork or enchanted weapons of less common or exotic type. Being able to ask a blacksmith to make a masterwork weapon of your desired type (unless he can't make it because it's too exotic in his location, or some such) would solve the problem. A good think would be to avoid a common situation when in the beginning of the game you find lots of unidentified stuff and can't identify it on your own. Easier checks or items that don't require identification, or plain cash would do better. It's raining magic items... I would really appreciate complete absence of one-way immunity-driven fights. The same goes for script-driven attacks and damage. It's rarely needed and nearly always annoying. Things shouldn't be too-damn-hard on normal difficulty. Puzzles should be weighed carefully and rely on the player's abilities and not simple luck or repeating attempts ad nauseam. Wiping the screen with mouse pointer to highlight a hidden switch is not my idea of fun. A little more diversity in romance options than the current trend dictates, please. One girl or one guy isn't quite enough, especially if there's only one right dialogue sequence. Err... Could some of female romantic NPCs NOT be elven priestesses?
That would be it, for now ;)

[ August 09, 2004, 22:22: Message edited by: chevalier ]

An easier to manage inventory screen. I hate having to flick between different tabs because I can't re-arrange the big sized items on one tab. While, we're at it, can we have all inventory items represented by small icons so they all fit on one screen?

Completely new engine.

Good plot.

Mounts damnit! I want friking mounts! I'm wearing full-plate for Torm's sake! I'm in the middle of NEVERWINTER - a HUGE damn city - they MUST have horses of some type here.

No level caps. Set enemy levels like Baldur's Gate, not the evolving enemies like KotOR, I should be rewarded for my side-questing.

Bigger parties with better AI for party members and battle characteristics. I want to see my chaotic-neutral halfling rogue run like a pansy away from an unwinnable situation, not fight to the death.

An easier to manage inventory screen. I hate having to flick between different tabs because I can't re-arrange the big sized items on one tab. While, we're at it, can we have all inventory items represented by small icons so they all fit on one screen?How about an inventory auto arrange that seperates items by type; armor here, slashing weapons there, rings in this pocket, etc. Not restricted, just arranged. Let me mix it up if I prefer. Plus, a keyboard shortcut to switch between the types/tabs if they don't all show up at once.

Also, I'd like to see a better representaion of varying sizes and enable varying sized PCs. I want my enlarged halfling! (In PnP, my halfling always ended up getting picked up and tossed around. Eventually, he got a potion of Growth and drank some while being held overhead. Ha!)

P.S. - Just had a thought as I posted this. Is there any intention of accumulating these ideas and submitting them to Obsidian, or are we just dreaming out loud?

If we are at it, what about size of items being calculated basing on their real dimensions instead of whether you have some free slots in the inventory or not? Rings don't take the same amount of space as halberds like in BG saga and IWD saga, or 1/6, 1/9 etc of plate mail's place like in games where inventory items occupy a certain number of squares in which the inventory screen is divided. Containers are a nice idea, however, I really think they shouldn't be extradimentional and should still use the normal total weight, only reducing the space needed. Doesn't mean you shouldn't have extradimentional Bags of Holding, no. It's just that some cheap potion or scroll case, or gem sack, isn't really supposed to be so powerfully enchanted.

3.5 rules.

How about the ability to switch between active panes in the toolset. I hate having to save and close the script editor just because I can't remember what the blueprint of an item was or the tag of creature. That would save a lot of frustration.

@Ancalìmon: Feargus says it will be 3.5.

Realistic AI for ALL charaters, realistic inventory calculations; weight, size and magic bags of holding...I prefer the ones from BG2 not NWN1, they were pointless. Z-axis...say no more on that one :bang: . Horses? It would be nice, maybe dragon riders aswel (ohh that would be fun), but does this mean everything that comes with owning a horse? Will it level up? Will I need to have a skill/trait in riding for different levels of horses? Will I have to buy gear for it down the stables? Will I have to take it for walks and feed the bugger when it gets tired of riding down monsters etc? If somone has some decent and realistic ideas for the "horse" theory I'd like to hear them.

Oh yeah and most importantly, a decent story with half decent personalities :D

[ August 12, 2004, 10:53: Message edited by: Slayer of the Coast ]

A morale system would be nice. An individual goblin isn't going to try and take down a party of adventurers.

Multiple endings .
Plus, an alignment system like in Planescape Torment would be cool.

Though I normally play Chaotic Good chars I'd really preffer at least BEING GIVEN the chance of playing an evil char an evil way, in NWN1 you just HAD to be a goody-two-shoes. That SUCKED!

- Quasi-realtime/turnbased (realtime with pause), like in Bg2.
- Ability to disable party AI and command them yourself. Party AI never works, ever. They always screw everything up, making the player pay the price.
- New graphics engine, as already mentioned by Sarevok.
- As chev said about skills and effects etc not being changed when not needed, I'd like to extend that to spells. I do not want to see the heavens rain down in the disco of the millennia when the spell is supposed to appear all but that. Finger of death does not need a blob to fly on to the opponent, it's supposed to kill the instant the caster points with his finger and pronounces "Die". The stupid super-effects take out immersion, mystique, and power of authority from the spells.
- Increase the amount of summoned spells active at the same time by one character. I love a summoner sorcerer, but it's useless with the limitation of being able to summon only one at a time, especially when the power of these monsters hasn't been upgraded to compensate for the lack of quantity.
- Include spells and abilities that are not just combative. NWN certainly has potential to be a lot more than a simple dungeon-crawl.
- Include enemy mages in the single-player campaign that are as powerful as mages should be (take BG2 for example). Friendly mages for the sake of counterspells or breaking down spell barriers were useless in NWN as no enemy mage could even hope to beat a single fighter
- Get rid of the stupid autoscaling enemy level thing. It's ok if it just adds a few enemies to an encounter etc. It's not good when it makes every lousy barbarian take 5 hits from a fireball just so the sorcerer would be hard-pressed for "challenge".
- Less potions, clerics should mean something.
- Include truly deadly / troublesome traps to make sure the stupid barbarians learned the hard way to wait for the thief to check that trap out.
- Rest should be possible virtually anywhere, but proper precautions should be done to ensure a *safe* rest. No more "let me blast a thousand fireballs to that room there and then we can rest again before a minute has passed from the last time".
- Otherwise I agree with about everything that has been said by others thus far.


And now for the grand thing, the big huge step of advancement to multiplaying genre as a whole:

Ignore combat-balance. That's right, ignore it. If it's forgotten realms, then sorcerers and mages are supreme. No use making them equal just because of PvP. Destroying the realism, the immersion, and the rules of base D&D for the sake of a 'balanced' computerized PvP for people who don't care to understand the realities of the world, is a hefty price to pay for such an insignificant thing. If you want sheer personal power for PvP, then a magic-user is the most powerful. Balance should exist in other forms though. Classes not suited for direct 'one-on-one' combat, such as thieves, druids and bards, have their own respective strengths. Druids shouldn't be egoistic power-boasters, but nobody would press them into combat in their own forests, even few mages should dare. Also, I'd like some class-based quests. Bringing out the difference of the academic nature of mages vs. the natural way of the druids vs. the rather hectic and 'scoundrel-ish' way of the bards vs. the hard training and actual warring of the fighters vs. the religious education of the clerics and paladins... etc.

In summary: Make classes the way they're supposed to be. Don't put balance where it isn't needed. Don't make this another copy of the many single-players and MMORPGs out there where everything is a copy of each other with a different graphic and a different name.

[ August 17, 2004, 12:22: Message edited by: Foradasthar ]

- control of the whole party, preferably 4-6 characters

- no idiotic guess-miss-guess again-miss-reload riddles like for example IWD2 chamber 1 in the Black Raven monastery

- "Everlast" arrow, bolt and bullet

- and again... control of the whole party

I would like wider terrains and more individual NPC's in them so I could have the idea a little town is a little town and a big Druid grove is a BIG Druid grove...

i'd like to see custom made weapons that you actually have to work for. ie you complete a class specific task, and get to choose a weapon type from a few appropriate options. the smith won't accept a commission until said task is completed, then gives you a choice of prices and various components to collect. depending on what you bring them as base materials and how much you fork out, your chosen weapon will vary in quality and features.

That'd be nice, but is something that can be relatively easily scripted into NWN. I don't see that as an actual improvement to the game.

You should be able to have 3 followers, minimum. A group of 4 characters is considered an actual "party", so I want a party dammit!

Complete control of your followers' actions. Allow them to make their own descisions about leveling up and stuff but give control over to a human mind which is infinitely more adaptable than AI. Obsidian can then in turn make a more challenging game which will equal more fun.

Full support for item creation. Mages should be never have to switch to weapons if they run out of spells, Bards should be equipped with the latest, most fashionable, magical armor.

Rednik made the suggestion of controlling alignment like they did in PST. Guess what? Aurora can already do that. Use the features you already have Obsidian.

Locks and traps that are appropriate for what they are guarding. This annoyed me to no end in the OC. I'd run into a chest, door, etc. with an impossibly high Lock Pick DC, Disable Device DC, and/or damage resistance. Naturally, I thought I'd be getting at something important by cracking it open and so I'd proceed to waste some charged item on it. Turns out there's 2gp and a rusty dagger. I really hope people realize locks and traps can cost a lot of money, and so it doesn't make sense for them to be guarding something worth less than they are.

Armor according to DnD rules. First time I played a Ranger I outfitted him with a Chain Shirt, since it's the best light armor you can get. Well, in PnP it is. In NWN its been combined with Scale Male, so its medium. Some items are just better than others, get over it.

More prestige classes. I'll always be amused by the line in the HotU manual where it says Dwarven Barbarians make good Dwarven Defenders (which is not possible because of alignment restrictions). This to me shows what a lack of prc's there where in NWN. To me, the whole point of prc's is there are tons of them, allowing more choice and customization. Ideally, I'd like to see each class being able to have 4-5 prc options, though I know it wont be anywhere close to that.

Support for true turn based combat. I doubt the engine is capable of doing both real time and turn based, but I can dream can't I? My belief is that DnD was made under turn based rules and plays much better under those rules.

A party system like in the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale series, with a minimum of 4 characters. No more of this henchman nonsense. I want decent NPCs I can recruit to be my party members.

Arcane spell-casters who can smash melee characters into oblivion...in other words, decent power levels to appropriate classes. All the spells and summons and buffs for the Wizard/Sorcerer were nerfed. :flaming: That is NOT acceptable. :flaming:

An OC which is not something you would laugh at. Seriously, you should not feel that the entire point of the quest is pointless.

Better graphics...please.

I agree with all that has been said adove.

I'd love horses, but do it right like Slayer of the Coast said. Other farm animals might be nice too. Sheperds need sheep.

Make the creatures look like they're supposed to!! :mad: It really takes you out of the game when the monsters aren't DnD, but somebody stupid idea of it (ie ghouls, orcs, goblin, giants, bugbears, etc..) You made them right in the BG series (for the most part), now make them 3D. And dragons, your PC shouldn't be able to single handedly kill one, that's just stupid. Dragons are supposed to be big, very big, NWN dragons looked alright, but they were way too small, and way to weak. Please, make the monsters look like they're supposed to.

And seeing a big half-orc barbarian pounching someone then suddenly doing a jump kick, looks stpuid too. Fighting styles might be nice, like dwarves using their heads, halfings pounching a big guy between then legs, or other things like that.

Z-axis, might be nice expecially for levitation spells and such.

Better terrain, like Morrowind, there aren't any hills in NWN!!! Travelling on flat grass lands isn't realistic or fun, Faerun isn't Saskatchewan! :mad:


Make the currency proper, carrying 2000000000000 gold ain't realistic. Neither is paying 100000 for a sword, or a shop buying one. Like in the real Forgotten Realms one gold peice can get you quite a bit at an inn. What ever happened to copper and silver coins? It there is to be good money system, then there needs to be silvers and coppers.

And yes mages are supposed to be powerful. Bringing back some old spells might be nice too. And re-using the same few spell effects with different colours is quite noticable.

In dialogues, dwarves aren't usually all polite and courteous to elves. Dialouges should change according to race and class, please.

I'd also like to see more interesting class quests. Like for thieves, simple unlocking a chest grapign whats in it and leaving sucks for thieves. So is turning on hide and walking right in front of all the guards without them noticing. I liked the hide in Morrowind, something like that would be nice. The quests should be more complex, like the thieves having to observe the guards patterns and sneaking between them or whatever. Oh yeah, and running on roofs would be fun.

Cloaks would also be nice

And a good story, with interesting NPCs.

Ditto what Faraaz said. The only reason I didn't buy the first one was because single-player games just don't do it for me. I'd love to try my hand at custom building an RPG or two myself, and test my dad and brother, or others, with them.

All of the prestige classes from the DMG 3.5e, not just the ones they happen to feel like doing.

A single player campaign that's actually worth my time. I have a group of very capable and entertaining individuals that I play pencil and paper D&D with, in real life. I am not looking to re-create that experience on the computer. At all. When I plunk down $40-50 for a game, I want a frelling GAME, not an "engine".

Give me an engaging story where I can't see the "twists" from 50 miles away on a dark and foggy night. Give me NPCs with actual personalities that I can care about with AI that isn't monumentally retarded. I want the gameplay system to enhance the roleplaying, not act as a substitute for one. I want true implementation of subraces, with real consequences for playing "offbeat" ones. Give me more prestige classes--both race-neutral and race-specific--and implementation of deities ala IWD2 (but give me a wide variety, human and demihuman, to choose from). Also? Let's see a little more variety in the level design and item placement--I don't want to spend 5 minutes picking a lock only to discover yet another box filled with 5 GP and a dagger.

Is that so much to ask? ;)

PS.: Fetch quests were old in 1987. 1987, TPTB. It's 2004. Use your frelling imagination.

*A better story for one.
*More powerfull mages , and the specialized ones should really spezialize. How can you create a conjurer and never memorize a conjuration spell? It should be possible to become powerfull in its own domain!
*Better graphics , especially for the weapons and equipment , -> just like in BG2.
*More races and subraces , or templates to make combinations yourself (half-illithids , half-trolls, half-fey , ...). So it could be possible to finally play a freacking demon!!

Some examples : abrian , haraknin , shadurakul , vultivor , dark creeper , dark stalker , ethergaunt , fensir , rakka , feytouched , giants , huecuva , jackal lord , jackalwere , kaorti , keeper, khaasta , maug , mongrelfolk , kalareem , sillit , varoot , planetouched , quth-maren , rilmani , sarkrith , selkie , shadar-kai , skulk , spriggan , swordwraith , wendigo , yuan-ti anathema , yurian , ...

*Another idea would be to introduce 'grafts'.
*More clerics and deities.

The ability to easilly convert custom things (from a simple weapon blueprint to a whole PW) from NWN1 into NWN2. There's sooooo much custom stuff out there (on the Vault and elsewhere) that would be a great shame to "lose" when people start playing NWN2.

I would like to see more individual clothing customisation, if i want to wear a chainmail shirt with iron greaves let me do it (like in Mwind). More individual items, plants (for alchemy), more on the crafting side of things (more items for it).

Owning a keep/stronghold would be cool and generating real followers (ones actually worth having around) would be better (AD&D stylee)... Oooh full scale battles over whole provinces...

How about not thinking on one plane (physically speaking), if my thief wants to enter a castle through an open upstairs window, let him use cats claws or rope to *climb* up there... But if he falls of into a moat at least let him be able to swim...

Just a few thoughts, all the rest seems to be spot on guys, damnit why don't they actually ask the gaming population what they actually want in games instead of making half-arsed systems that constantly need patching and updating cos they "missed" bits out in the previous versions...

*He sits down and takes a long swig of ale, "I think i'm done."*

@Slayer of the Coast
Horses? It would be nice, maybe dragon riders aswel (ohh that would be fun), but does this mean everything that comes with owning a horse? Will it level up? Will I need to have a skill/trait in riding for different levels of horses? Will I have to buy gear for it down the stables? Will I have to take it for walks and feed the bugger when it gets tired of riding down monsters etc? If somone has some decent and realistic ideas for the "horse" theory I'd like to hear them. Yes, it could get stronger to carry more weight or get better senses as it levels up, like seeing further and hearing better to warn the rider of enemies, ambushes and such by getting nervous and neighing or something like that. I think that would be fair. Better horse, higher skill needed to ride it. Druids, Clerics{unsure} and Rangers could talk to it with the animal empathy skill (Mages, Sorcerers{unsure} and Bards{unsure, I forget :( } maybe could communicate with it on the familiar level) the rest of us will just have to tell it what to do. Maybe dwarves and short folk could have ponies for relevance to their size? Ogres(Orcs?) would need Clydesdales or a draught horse, Elves would probably prefer thoroughbreds, maybe Humans prefer stockhorses or mixed breed? And when I say prefer I mean have a racial bonus in dealing with them or 'breaking' them in. When I say need I mean a dwarf would have problems even getting up on a thoroughbred because of the height differences. Also, they are far too high-strung to have a cursing dwarf riding on their backs :p . Saddles are useful but think of the mediaeval possibilities: armour, standards over the armour for that personal touch, magical armour with resistances against whatever comes up, Magical standards for cloaking, etc. (all for a price of course) special shoes for speeding the horse up even more so or for damage/fatigue resistance Maybe you could have a new weapon for the rider- Lances! Maybe you could even have jousting tourneys in multiplayer... need I say more? No that shouldn't be necessary, there are too many problems to consider, besides you don't have to eat why should it. And when I say 'it' thats exactly what I mean - no going anywhere near gender or breeding them yourself, FAR FAR too many complications - leave it to the professionals. As for endurance it should last as long as you do, if not longer, think BGI/II fatigue style. On that note- Inns should automatically have stables attached so your trusty steed can rest. Otherwise just pull up some turf if you are out and about. On an obvious practicality note: You should definitely have a mount/dismount button and maybe have the horse go on aggressive mode if you go into a tavern so that back outside no thieves can steal your horse/s. Or if the horse has to come with you into the new area (building) there could be a little room to leave the horses before the main area -where you are going- then put it on aggressive mode to guard your stuff :) . Dragons have egos and personalities, maybe you could do a *mightily hard* fetch quest to gain the privilege of riding said dragon occasionally? (if you were in a six member party he/she would pick them up as well; one in each claw and one with the tail, you on the back of course) Or have he/she as a permanent ally to teleport to you if you are in mortal peril? This is of course only if he/she agrees. Maybe there could be several of these around, one for each class, but you should only have one *multiclassing shouldn't count* so if you multi you can only pick one dragon not two or three, it's only fair. Also, Red Dragon Disciples should have some kind of extra bonus in dealing with dragons -total immunity to the fear aura, maybe the dragons liking them more or something- they are part dragon after all.

More prestige classes, feats and skills. I wish the drow (half drow) race in the game, and Aasimar, Thiefling, Genasi etc.

:)

3.0 - 3.5 sucks, (haste doesn't give partial action :-\).

Include all the Faerun Feats, don't include stuff that isn't already there, (ie: no parry...).

Henchman are retarded.... no more henchman, dnd is a party experience... not a solo run :-\.

Funny easter eggs from BG or IWD series, Maybe PST to.
Easier scripting
Not only fights
Better storys
NO HERO ACADEMY!

What really annoyed me, and what I hope changes in the next installment or game would be that, if the equipment you busted tail for throughout the original campaign and the first expansion is magically spirited away in the second expansion pack by an evil drow, and you have the chance to get it back later in the game, make sure it is ALL the equipment you had begged for, borrowed and stole, not just the crap you had equipped when you loaded. That really ticked me off.

Also, mooooooore romance. oo-laa-laa valen with his horny horns and his uh, tail.

well heres a suggestion that would work if you ARE gonna make it more alignment based...EQUAL REWARDS FOR PLAYING IN CHARACTER!!! Ive played BG2 so many times than not for an evil party the reward doesnt even come close to the good reward. Give those playing evil a reward for stay within themselves; There is nothing more pathetic than have a CE thief having to resort to helping out of the 'kindness' of his heart to get a good reward. GRRRR

Druids should loose their druidic abilities if they use weapons other than the druid kind.

2nd edition rules , that won`t happen I know :)

Paladin`s shouldn`t die from the phantasmal killer spell. Since they are imune to fear and can`t be frightened to death.

Skins , lots of them. Looks bad if your mage with 8 Strength looks like Arnold.

No elves with moustaches and beards. I encountered alot of Drow elves with beards.

Normal XP rewards. Killing a dragon all by yourself should give more than 260Xp. That was laughable in number 1. Especially since Rats gave you 60XP.

Using Bows in close combat should give you attacks of opertunity.

Leave the Monks OUT of the game. The are insanely overpowered. Fists are the weapons that to the most damage , yeah that makes sense.
No armor at all is the best protection , that makes sense too. I hate them.

No point buy char generation crap. Roll instead.

No giving orc`s fire resistance etc just because your char has learned to cast a fireball. Thats just mongoloid.

Brand new look. More like the BG games or Temple of elemental evil.

No goblins carrying +7 ecuipment. Not even the FR gods have that kind of stuff , its moronic even to have it in the game.
+5 is maximum , and extremely rare.

Prestige classes that makes sense.
If your not invited to join the harpers you arn`t a harper scout. Find harpers maybe , get on their good side and then get the prestige class as an option.

Weapons made for halflings and gnomes. That way you can play a halfling fighter without sacrificing your shield to use anything other than a dagger.

Better helmets , the once in the first game wern`t good at all. Heavy helmets , needs heavy armor proficiency etc.

A paladin mount would be cool , conmsidering Rangers gets companion etc.

Companion must be resurected if it croaks. Its just an animal , not a familiar. You don`t sumon it either.

Barbarians entering rage should not look like they are casting a spell when they enter it. Looks ridicilous.

Different types of Clerics .

Studded leather +3 armour and max 5 dex , not 4
(that allways bothered me hehe)

Craft weapons and armours only in smithy`s. Not in the woods with no equipment at all to make it.

thicker arms for female skins. The previous ones looked like stick men`s arms. Not likely if the lady has 25 strenght.

More Tatoo`s in the face area.

If you have 20 dex and wear a full plate , your ref save shoudl suffer.

Better quickbar , the one in number 1 sucked.

NO HENCHMEN.

No idiotic feats.

thats all I can think of at the moment.

And yes I do have something against the first game hehe

2nd edition rules , that won`t happen I know
Using Bows in close combat should give you attacks of opertunity.
Leave the Monks OUT of the game. The are insanely overpowered. Fists are the weapons that to the most damage , yeah that makes sense.
No armor at all is the best protection , that makes sense too. I hate them.
No point buy char generation crap. Roll instead.
No goblins carrying +7 ecuipment. Not even the FR gods have that kind of stuff , its moronic even to have it in the game.
+5 is maximum , and extremely rare.
If you have 20 dex and wear a full plate , your ref save shoudl suffer.
Better quickbar , the one in number 1 sucked.
No idiotic feats.Removed the ones I agreed with.

Yup, but I would rather like 3.0 than 3.5, but as you said, it is set in stone that it will be 3.5.

Doesn't using bows in NWN already give AoO? If it does, please explain.

As I want the game to stay true to the D&D rules, monks should be in the game. Remember, they are not natural. At level 20, they are considered outsiders, not humanoids anymore.

Point buy is needed to prevent people to roll for 4+ hours and then have an über character online while others who just rolled for five minutes are gimped forever.

As the game was epic, +10 items were allowed. I know, it is stupid, but that's directly taken from the Epic Level Handbook.

Yes, it doesn't make sence that you still keep your +5 bonus to your reflex saves when wearing a full plate, but to be true to the D&D rules, one should still keep it. And as I said before, I want the game to stay true to the rules.

And I agree, no idiotic feats, as long as they do not belong to the D&D rules.

I love D&D gaming. I don't know much about what's going on in the background (you know all the dice rolling and stuff) but I still consider myself a part of the D&D community.

Personally I would love to see extreme character customisation in the next NWN. And not just typical races and classes and the such.
My NeverWinter Nights character is a half-elf fighter/rouge drow who has broken off from her Underdark siblings to explore the world above. (no she is not a female Drizzt) And in some respects playing as an outsider to the typical races of roleplaying has given me some ideas too.

-A more in depth racial aspect. If your character is drow like mine, people are going to be wary of them, some good characters, (a bull headed paladin for example) may even outright attack me on sight. (Viconia from BG2 anyone?)
If you are a Blackguard, noble paladins are obviously going to not like you. So something like a class/race personality system would be cool.

-The possibility of selecting a hometown from a list. Even have the hometown's description there.

-As many have mentioned before about riding animals. It would be cool, and there would be advantages to this. You could have classes dedicated to riders. eg. "Horserider" or "Dragon Rider". I could just picture my character atop a giant spider.

-great item customization. The toolset provided me with a way to improve my weapons and items, but it was still limited. I will STRESS THIS FACT, I think roleplaying games need equipment that make your character really stand out. A Blackguard with a massive black fullplate with spikes twisting out of the back and coming up and over his shoulders pointing foward would be more than enough to intimidate even the bravest kobold.

-The ability to choose animation sets for your character. If you are a ninja-style character you wont be fighting like a barbarian. You would be ducking and weaving about.

-Lots of soundsets, lots of portraits and lots and lots of character models. Make it almost impossible to make any two characters be alike.

-BG2 almost captured this next element, but not quite enough. GUILDS! I want GUILDS! Have it so you can join a guild and do endless amounts of quests for them. And not just a theives guild or a druid's grove. Have it so you can join up with a paladin temple and train your way up to graduation. But dont stop it there. After you graduate, you can embark on quests for the temple. Have circus clans or something for bards, barracks for fighters, mage towers for mages! It would be so COOL!

Last of all, make your characters growth very realistic. Say if you were a mage and you had alot of money, you could buy a tower and hire staff or constuct guardian golems. You could then spend hours mixing potions and things trying to learn new spells and such. Dont just do this for wizards, make the option open to every class. Like a fighting school for fighters and a guild for thieves.

There are probably a thousand more things I could think of but I agree with alot of the things people have said too. Anyway, I reckon the makers of the sequel should be made to look at this. Send it to them!

I just want one thing...i really hope that the NWN2 developers read and listen to the fans opinions, and please learn from the past mistakes (the whole NWN for instance :D ).

I agree. If developers spent more time listening to what gamers actually want than spending time making things they think we want, the world would be a better place.

Have you seen the graphics for Witcher, that uses the same graphics as NWN 2? The candy is there, all we need now is the story and character creation. Could be great.

Things I'd like to see in NWN 2 are:

1. TURN BASED COMBAT. The reason why most of the D&D skills/feats etc are useless is mostly because players don't have time to micromanage their characters, thay just use the "Hit em hard" or "Fire and forget" tactics. And the turn limit of spell duration would make sense too.

2. Party (come on there was no party in NWN or HotU/SoU, ther was only Superman and two retard weaklings) I mean why can't we make a party of at least two PCs and adding two NPCs (fully under control) would make the party a classic balance fighter-rogue-mage-cleric type.

3. Less battles more quests/puzzles/dialogues with different results. I mean, battling monsters is fun, but it gets kind of annoying if it is all the game has to offer.

4. Less powerful magic items (the idea of having a character with 40 in every stat at the end of HotU really freaked me out). Of course there can be SOME powerful magic items, but getting a Nymph Cloak +XX off of a goblin is plain dumb. That's why powerful items are so desirable in PnP D&D - you don't get them very often and there can possibly be no "Leave that vorpal +5 longsword, we have already a dozen of those" dialogue. In my opinion adding less +X items and more "Whatever of Speed/Fire/Wounding etc. would balance tha game a little if there is no way to lover the ammount of magic items.

5. Alignment based quests and actually the ability to play any other alignment than Lawful/Neutral Good. I mean, why would an Evil person be a wellcome visitor in a Temple of a Lawful Good good, it just doesn't make sense.

6. No more 20+ lvl characters, the most fun D&D has to offer lies between the 5th and 15th lvl, lover is hard, higher is easy (if you don't like fighting dragon armies or clearing out whole levels of Abyss). The levels in NWN came far too easy so the player couldn't even enjoy the benefits each new level offered to them.

7. More romancing and perhaps party banter (BG was a good example how it could be done).

8. Items that really ARE class specific.

9. More main character class dependant tasks. Who on Earth would give a task to find a sacred chalice for a temple to a thief. Or on the other hand a pirate captain would never trust a paldin.

10. And at last - can we please take another region of the Forgotten Reams, for god's sake I am so annoyed with the frozen wastelands, why can't we make a desert or a jungle adventure?

You'll never see turn-based, that's not mainstream enough, but you'll have a sort-of party in NWN2 - last I heard, the party will include up to 4 characters.

I HATE turn-based!!! I like the pause and do real-time, but turn based I just can't stand. So thankfully we'll never see it.
I don't like the desert or jungle. I prefer the north or midclimate areas, I like the medieval feel of things. I just don't like the feel of the desert or jungle, though it would be nice to be able to go to such places in the game.

Now, I'm gonna add a wishlist of everything that I want, it does include ideas of others, but I have so spit it out or I'll explode. So here it is:

- I want to be able to actually travel. BG had it right, you have to explore areas and travel, unlike BG2, IWD, IWD2, and NWN. I hate the way those ones work. I love to explore, areas and to travel; which can sometimes get anoying going back and forth which is why you have a map like in BG to make things easier when you want. Also, lets not be rooted in one main town or city like in IWD, IWD2 and NWN. Give me the choice to go to other towns and cities, not work from one base of opperations. I want to be able to travel from village to village visting the taverns and inns with my party.

- open-ended play. I love having good side-quests which allow simple adventuring, roleplaying fun, especially for a mutli-player campaign. Yes, epic quests and and stories are good, but other quests like for treasure, artifacts and stuff are great. I like to be able to have adventures that don't have the saftey of the world hanging in the balance. I want some good side quests, and sure add some long ones where you have to stop by villages to re-stock and stuff, and you have to plan the way (and not just have that on hte main campaign).

- a good story. Without a good story there aren't good main, side quests or dialogues.

- good, realistic dialogues and NPCs. Lets see characters with personality, NWN had very few half-decent NPCs, change that. Realistic diaologues that change for classes and races. A halfling shouldn't call another one short, and if so; than the other one shouldn't be offened. Elves and dwarves don't like each other, lets see that reflected in the dialogues. Half-orcs aren't very well liked, lets see people turn away from them, towns and inns refuse them entrance for example. As Cunctator just said, lets see classes not trust each other and react realistically to each other. I want the dialogues to reflect realistic reactions to the races and classes.

- lets see more class-specific quests and stuff, and prevent certain classes from being offered quests.

- I heard somewhere to make mages weaker, no. In the Forgotten Realms, mages are meant to be feared as they are powerful once their trained. Don't go making them uber but make them powerful. Also lets see some cool spell effects, not the same effects used over and over again with different colours (*cough* NWN *cough*). Also, allow powerful mages to make their own spells, enchant items permainently, and make powerful potions. And have lots of spells, not just attacking and defensive spells, but practical ones, like teleport, telekenises, light, levitation, flight, and other nice cantrips that mages have.

- I'd like to see you be able to put in orders to smiths and mages for special items. YOu are supposed to be able to do that, for the right price of course.

- do the creatures right. They are D&D Forgotten Realms creatures, not your own stupid pathetic ones, do them right. In NWN the orcs, goblins, ogres, giants, trolls, dragons and lots more were messed up. Do them right, and make sure that the dragons are HUGE and uber powerful, only one or two person in all the realms can take on an adult dragon by themselves, and your character isn't one of them!!! Like that stupid uber ancient red dragon in NWN whose supposed to be dying of age yet you can of course take him on. Again as Cunctator said, no uber powerful charcters and few powerful magic items.

- that brings me to my next point, magic items are rare in the Forgotten Realms, make sure that they are. Most people should have a couple magic items if any.

- magic the random item thing realistic, like goblins not having magic items and locked chests having something worth being behind a lock.

- oh yes, before you go making your fun creatures like the gelatnus cube, lets see the more basic animals. Say like, sheep, cats, mice, and HORSES for example. Lets see some horseback riding for once, and do it like they did in the game Sacred where theres a riding skill; the better you are the more horses you can ride and the more effective you are on a horse.

- curency. Do it right for once in your lives!!! In the Forgotten Realms a night at an inn doesn't cost 5 gold! 1 gold will pay for a couple nights all meals and drinks included. It wouldn't kill ya to have silvers and coppers to add to the whole feel of the Forgotten Realms

- Z axis is a must, no question about it. To have rolling hills and other wonderfull landscapes in the Forgotten Realms you need the Z axis. Not to mention if we want thieves running along rooftops, levitation and flying spells, falcon scouts, flying creatures, climbing walls and cliffs would be nice seeing as it can be quite anoying to have to go around a cliff when you could just climb it. So lets see a climbing skill there aswell

- I'd also like to see swimming, haven't you ever got to a point where you sit there and think to yourself, "Hey, to finish my quest I have to cross this river, but the only way around it is a long journey. Why can't I just swim across it?". Lets see swimming and a swimming skill and restrictions with armour, races and classes

- lets have hiding in shadows not make you invisible, that's just stupid. lets have it something like in the Thief games where you have toi actaully hide in shadows and stuff.

- interactive placables, to help kill powerful creatures we should be able to use features of the terrain to kill creatures, like; stalacites, giant icicles, boulders etc. And maybe even be able to throw rocks, bottles, chairs and tables and stuff would be great. Oh, and when a mage casts a fireball on a small house, it shouldn't remain unscathed, allow us to use our sourraounding in fights or objectives

- something else that would be great would be the ability to make setup a camp. ie collect forest debris, stones to make campfire, hunt for food, flint stone to start fire, tents etc. It would really enhance the realistic feel, and stop abuse of resting.

- fighting styles, so that a huge half-orc barbarian doesn't do a jump-kick like I've seen all too often in NWN. Each class should have a set of fighting styles, and animations (ie a thief slouching instead of walking with perfect posture)

- customize the characters more, in their appearances, animation (as previously stated), hair and skin colour, eye colour, more races (ie drow, duergar etc), more voices for each race and class, more phenotypes like (ie muscular, skinny, very skinng, wiry, fat, very fat etc), adusting heights which vary from race

- more customizable skills, in NWN and such your character needs to be high in level to have customized skills, I think there should be more feats and skills that can define your character. There should be some minor skills and feats meant specifically for customization, little things such as swimming, climbing, camping, riding, and other practical skills and feats that don't make your character that much more powerful, but define his character and trade.

- lets see some more deity specific cleric spells and abilities. Not for a three like in BG2 but for many more deities if not all of them

- as in some NWN mods lets see you be able to sit in chairs and sofas, even lay in beds. I want to be able to sit at a tavern or inn table or bar stool, and drink my ale

- more emotes for characters, that will definately increase player interaction and roleplaying

- as in BG and BG2 lets see less people on the streets at night, and those shady characters come out. Maybe even have the peasants return to their homes or go to the taverns (this was something I was thinking of doing the a NWN mod)

- overall more class specific abilities, and quests. Like have rangers and druids be able to ask animals for directions or for advice is solving quests, heck, have them give them quests. Bears, wolves and such shouldn't attack rangers and druids on sight, they should get more than just temporarily charm the animals, they should be able to negotiate and calm them down; declare themselves as friends. Have the dialogue skills be worth something and bring in bribing for guards and such. Just give the classes more specific, practical abilities and interation with NPCs and their environment

- less hacken slash unless its in a hostile area (ie the Trollmoors). We all want more adventuring puzzles, interesting quests and such.

- allow spells and abilities to affect the area around us more. Like as I said before, have fireballs damage buildings, trees and that ilk. And be able to push boulders (depending on the strength of course) over cliffs so that you can set up those kinds of traps. Speaking of which, lets see some more interesting traps like snares, pig snares, vines that block the road, collapsing roofs and floors things like that

- have spells do more than damage, if fireball explodes right in front of you then you go flying, you don't just stand there and take it, especially if you're a halfling or a gnome! Or if a giant or dragon hits you, its flying lessons again. Have the spells and abilities affect the characters realistically.

- have people be able to hide behind bushes and in tall grass and stuff so that they can track creatures and such, and have creatures leave tracks to follow (ie grass padded down, tracks in the snow, dirt, mud and such)

- realistic trading and prices, weapons and armour don't cost 10,000gp, or even 10,000sp. As I said before, make the prices true to the Forgotten Realms. Have the prices vary from store to store, or if you saved a village you get things free, or discounts for reputation. And maybe have you start your own shop in multi-player?

- bring back the bountry hunters, but make them have to track you and have you be able to hide your trail, persuade or bribe people into not telling them your location.

- and I say again, class-specific quests that untilize their skills more. No BS thief quests like in NWN, but make sure that their skills are utilized

- Don't just make a good path, allow people to follow their alignment, instead of having evil people do good things to follow the main quest and such

- here's another cool idea pockets of holding, like those Jarlaxle has

- in order to increase realise, bring the AI up a notch or two so that NPCs react realistically to your actions. And so enemies aren't stupid. Also bring back morale, goblins aren't brave creatures, if you slaughter their biddies then they will piss themselves and flee.

Over all just make the envrionment realistic, characters and their abilites interact realistically with each other and their environment, stay true to the Forgotten Realms, have good story, quests and dialogues, and keep attention to detail. I second most of the ideas previously stated aswell, its difficult to think of everything all at once. Maybe if previous games *cough* Neverwinter Nights *cough* weren't so crappy then maybe we wouldn't have so much to say....

[ January 18, 2005, 23:39: Message edited by: Rolsuk Fryulee ]

First of all NO MONKS!!
When I was 11 years old and I bought the 1st edition players handbook, I thought it was STUPID to have monks in a European setting. Nothing has changed. If they want to have an Oriental setting for an expansion (a great idea I think), then they should have monks there.

Second, spell durations and ability durations should last as long as stated. If I'm a sixth level cleric, I should be able to get six hand-to-hand attacks off before my spells fades. It seems spells and abilities last 1/2 to 1/3 as long as it should.

Third, subraces. Everyone LOVES drow.

Fourth, NPC banter. It made BG2 kick ***!

Fifth, Making your own stronghold. It's everyone's dream.

Sixth, Flying and levitation. It would make being a dragon disciple NOT a waste of levels.

Seventh, better choice of avatars. The elf females aren't that great. It seems that you HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOUR POINTY EARS STICK OUT.

Nothing wrong with monks in a "European" setting. It's no less historically accurate than say, wizards, pit fiends, or orcs, which are also not often found in the archaelogical evidence of that region.

Plus, there were no monks in the first edition of D&D anyway. There were only Fights, Clerics, Thieves, and Magic users

I'd just like to see a longer (and perhaps slightly better) single player campaign. I thought NWN's OC and HotU were actually very promising storywise, just far too short. I remember really getting into the game with the OC, and then it was all over. BG2 was great because the game seemed to last forever!

You mean there weren't Shaolin priests in the Dark Ages in Europe? :rolleyes:

There weren't any Shaolin priests (that's what a D&D monk is really supposed to be) in any European folklore that I ever heard of. That's what D&D is based on - European Folklore. That's why I don't think monks are appropriate for a European setting. The only monks they had in Europe or European folklore were religious scholars.

Otherwise, why not have machine guns, phasers, and the Borg in the game too?

By first edition I'm referring to the hard-bound edition of Player's Handbook available around 1979-1982. If you're referring to "Chainmail," "Eldritch Wizardry," and some of the soft-bound books under which the very first "Dungeons and Dragons" titles ever published, you may be right. I didn't get a chance to peruse any of them very thoroughly.

[ March 08, 2005, 08:11: Message edited by: noldor372 ]

Does this mean you cant have any type of being that didnt exist in medieval europe? hmm let me think...

D&D is based on it yes, but its F-A-N-T-A-S-Y! NOT R-E-A-L-I-T-Y...

As for having BORG that aint a bad idea noldor, ok Im done ranting now...

Slayer, it looks like you read my post, but didn't understand it. You might want to read it again, but try not to get so upset about it. It's just an opinion (hence neither right or wrong).

I realize that having monks makes the game more appealing to children and the not-quite-so-intellectual, so it's not going anywhere.

By first edition I'm referring to the hard-bound edition of Player's Handbook available around 1979-1982. If you're referring to "Chainmail," "Eldritch Wizardry," and some of the soft-bound books under which the very first "Dungeons and Dragons" titles ever published, you may be right. I didn't get a chance to peruse any of them very thoroughly. I was talking about the red basic players handbook from circa 1984. The one that advised you to always carry a lamp and a ten foot pole.


I realize that having monks makes the game more appealing to children and the not-quite-so-intellectual, so it's not going anywhere. Hmm, monks appeal to me......and I don't think it's too big a deal for a monk to have wandered over from Asia. It's about as far as a Barbarian would have to come, assuming that Barbarians are nomadic tribes out of the steppes of Russia and Mongolia.

I think the idea of a lone monk in Europe isn't that bad. It's going into a storekeeper's inventory and finding more "monk-only" magic items than items for any other class that I find stupid and annoying. If they're only a few, they're interesting, foreign, and exotic. if they're all over the place and there's tons of magic items that only they can use, then they become commonplace, dull, and mundane. I think it comes from too many players screaming for magic items for their monk.

First edition seems to very loosely refer to anything before "second edition," which was released in 1989. Unless they deleted the monk class later on, it should be in there.

Barbarians were originally named for the Barbary coast of Northwest Africa, but the Mongols did make it all the way to Eastern Europe. I think the "berserkers" were based on Norse raiders, so the barbarian character class is another fusion of several ideas. Definitely a great class though.

Maybe I should rephrase myself a little. I don't think asian-style monks should be COMMONPLACE in a more or less "European" setting. That means few or no magic items specifically for them. Monks didn't carry much anyways,as they seem to have something like a vow of poverty.

I think this is starting to drift off topic, but if someone wants to start a thread somewhere else and continue "the great monk debate" there, let me know...

Maybe I should rephrase myself a little. I don't think asian-style monks should be COMMONPLACE in a more or less "European" setting. That means few or no magic items specifically for them. Monks didn't carry much anyways,as they seem to have something like a vow of poverty.Ah, so neither should elves, demons, dwarves, halflings, magic users, hobgoblins, any kind of orc, dragons, katanas, and so on down the line.

What game do you think this is Rastor? :confused:

Actually there's a reason to include monks. I really enjoy killing every stupid monk I see in the game. Killing that idiot Balphazar in the end of BG2:ToB was particularly satisfying.

[ March 11, 2005, 00:52: Message edited by: noldor372 ]

It is not impossible to believe that a couple bands of monks came over from the "Asian" part of Faerun, and then set up their own schools. They would have their own craftsmen, artisans etc., probably a temple for training and worship, and some but not all might sell their weapons, or somebody could take the items off a dead monk and sell them in town. If you don't like monks, don't be a friggin monk. And avoid places where monks hang out, like the above temples. There could even be a special kit "Monk Killers" :p ooh and have realistic weapon and armor sizes. A halfling shouldn't be able to weild the hammer or wear the armor of a frost giant he just mutilated. Have him get it fixed in town, for a price depending on size and item type. And,while this may have been said before, better and more realistic romances with more choices in dialoge outcomes and of course, partners. I should be allowed to have a harem, darnit! :shake: Ooh and a psion class. Further, make it more realistic. An uber-evil bad guy shouldn't tell you his plans for world domination, he would smish thee for yer arrogant and rude interruption, not go on and on, giving you a chance to be devious and think of ways to bring him or her down, unless of course they're really dumb,but most aren't. At most you should find a journal about his plans or be able to torture his evil minions for the answers, if you are so inclined. BTW, you don't always need a reason to take over the world, sometimes you just wake up and think: I'm going to bring about Armageddon. FUN!

[ March 15, 2005, 16:24: Message edited by: Ravynn ]

I'd also like to see the Arcane Trickster prestige class added. The others just aren't all that impressive to me.

I don't love Drow. Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of them. But subraces would be pretty damned good, especially if they're customizable... You can sit there and breed various races together, roll stats around... then perhaps people would at least stop raping the drow so damned hard.

If NWN2 is going to have a toolset like the first, then you're pretty much guaranteed that the visuals are NOT going to be next-gen, and the engine will probably suck as badly as the first one did.

First edition D&D monks were restricted pretty harshly by the vow of poverty idea, and it was a good balance for how ridiculously powerful they could become.

There must be Drows!
Despite being all bad and stuff it is good to be playing an anti- hero!

Don't make it another NWN

Ah but just one thing: If The compagny takes all those great idea, it'll take like 17 years to complete the game, and you'll need a hell of a computer and perhaps even virgin blood to run.

And remember NWN 2 is a sequel to a sucky game, at best it'll be an ok game.

(Rant)

And no, not every person loves drow, personaly I hate 'em and I enjoy killing them with the most cruel ways... I mean most poeple who love drow are men, while in Drow society being male is like a curse, you're WAY inferior. You don't have a future being a male drow. And anyway elves are sassy, and AFAIK drow are elves with dark skin and a ***** goddess.

(/Rant)

@Ofelix: Well, drows are not exactly elves. They've got demon blood in them. They are way cooler. As you could see in the War of the Spider Queen, the Drow male could excel in many things. Wizardry and Melee. Anyway, about the ***** goddess. No one really likes her. But there is always Alternatives like Vheraun or Eilistree.

My question is that, why are party members called Henchmen? It sounds highly likely that they are in the party only to profit and not a common goal. Just like that in NWN. Mercenaries do not command the same amount of respect and bonding to the PC like a normal non-henchmen, party member.

I think the term 'henchman' dates back to the original D&D where you would always go into town and hire a henchman NPC to accompany you into the local dungeon.

The term henchman was actually more appropriate in NWN, considering they were just that... tagging along and doing the fighting. You couldn't even manipulate or see into their inventories, and their interaction with the story was minimal.

And yes, henchman as a word goes way back in pen & paper D&D.

Yeah, in P&P D&D, the henchman NPC was controlled by the Dungeon Master. They had a habit of running away when the going got tough.

I have to say that I really don't think the vast majority of suggestions in this thread would ever be incorporated into NWN2.

Here's why; it seems the vast majority of you guys hated NWN with a PASSION, and continue to wish for a Baldur's Gate 3. That's not what NWN2 is about - it's a game continuing in the vein of NWN, but with tons of improvements.

If you hated NWN, you won't find much in NWN2 appealing.

Also, it seems for many of you, your opinion of NWN is solely based on the original game without the expansion packs OR any of the commmunity-made modules OR any of the multiplayer servers. You're missing out on like 90% of the game!

NWN's scripting language (which is basically "C" - the language used to write Operating Systems like UNIX) lets you do almost anything, and I've seen scripts which can handle at least half of the things people mentioned in this thread. The community is also ridiculously huge, as there is tons of custom content available to satisfy almost any desire. And now it's possible to have parties with unlimited number of characters (henchmen) too, with full inventory control. You can write your own AI scripts so that they behave "intelligently" too.

Being a BG2/ToEE lover myself, I will agree that NWN had 2 major weaknesses:
- no tactical combat (i.e. because it's not turn-based)
- no "full control of 6-person party"

Both those conditions are a direct result of it being adapted for online multiplayer play. A worthy sacrifice, IMO.

Well, Obsidian is apparently well aware that NWN's major weakness was the poor OC, which turned away many of the people who buy a CRPG expecting to get a story and experience on par with previous BIS/BioWare offerings with it out of the box (not having to wait for someone to make one). No romances, no control over henchmen with piss-poor AI, no inventory control, generic surroundings (and quests) were a major turn-off for many people. Some of this was corrected by SoU and HotU, but not that much really. With HotU NWN barely got to the level it should have been upon release. But considering the people at Obsidian know how to make a good story and what makes a good single-player experience, I'm keeping my hopes up for NWN2.

Chances are that NWN2 will have a story/single-player experience on a par with BG1, if not BG2. Taluntain, I don't think they will disappoint you in that respect.

However... chances are that it will accomplish this whilst still maintaining many of NWN's "weaknesses" (in the eyes of the BG2/ToEE community) such as No Turn-Based combat, No Full Party control, etc.

It is not necessary to have "Turn-Based Combat & Full Party Control" to deliver a "good story and ... good single-player experience".

On an unrelated point, one of the priorities for the NWN2 crew seems to be maintaining the powerful NW Toolset for end-users to play with.

On the other hand, "Dragon Age" is supposedly devoid of a toolset, and will not be as easily modifiable by end-users. But on the plus side, it's supposed to have full party control - and I mean FULL PARTY CONTROL - as well as the "wow"ing effect of BG2. I can only assume it will be a more concerted effort by BioWare in making a more classical RPG.

So, I suspect that the vast majority of you BG2 fans will be more satisfied by Dragon Age. :)
I myself will probably be adequately satisfied by both games. I'll play NWN2 on odd days of the month, and DA on even days...

konny666, no one here is really clamouring for turn-based... that's on obsession I've never understood myself. Most of SP's visitors are used to real-time with pause button, which has been used in all Infinity Engine games.

I don't hate NWN (so far) but there are a few things that could be done to improve things in NWN2, which other people have already mentioned:
- better AI or control of NPCs
- more replayability through different paths through the game
- better inventory control
- more variety between areas
- more humour
- more compelling and dramatic story
- less tedious chests and boxes to open all over the place
- sub-races

Another thing is better combat animations and stuff like that....

I guess better combat animations is a technology driven thing depending on how powerful computers are by then and what graphics capabilities are available. Some of the other things that people are looking for (like replayability) do not require any better technology.

I don't hate NWN (so far) but there are a few things that could be done to improve things in NWN2, which other people have already mentioned:
- better AI or control of NPCs"Better AI" I agree with, and I can see it happening. Control of NPCs I cannot.


- more replayability through different paths through the gamePossible. I think replayability will be better than NWN or BG1... but not as good as BG2 ("realistic goals").


- better inventory controlI think inventory control was fine in Hotu, I'm guessing they'll just maintain this except with appropriate enhancements for 3.5ed.


- more variety between areasagreed, and it looks like they'll be doing this since they're re-designing a new DirectX 9.0 graphics engine anyways, and need to re-make all the graphics (areas).


- more humour
- more compelling and dramatic story
- less tedious chests and boxes to open all over the placeI think they will pay attention to all 3 of these, since they are related to the story/plotline/general design of the game. And they definitely indicated that those are 3 very important areas.
At any rate, they have some of the good Black Isle designers working on it (Chris Avellone??) so let's see what they can do.


- sub-racesIMO a "nice to have" feature but not really necessary.

Another thing is better combat animations and stuff like that....Since they need to re-design all the animations from scratch I'm guessing we'll get something like this. BTW hotu added one really nice animation - whirlwind attack - I still haven't got tired of that one ;)

Lets have a party! And I don't mean just 3 or 4 but 5! And that hot elf girl should be a part of this party after all no one wants a sausage feast

no one wants a sausage feast:eek: err... Could you clarify that, ethis?

"sausage fest" is when you have a group full of just Males/Men.

like the Fellowship of the Ring from LOTR.

Yes very well done konny

Well, if I could "wish" for anything, it would be first edition rules. But of course, that'll never happen.

I'd like NWN2 to put the RP back in CRPG's like only "Planescape: Torment" really did. All CRPG developers should have their team play Planescape and learn. Stop churning out multiplayer crap and focus on a high value single player experience.

I don't care about flying mounts, holy avengers +119, unrealstic hordes of enemies you click to death, multiplayer online stuff where everybody goes "l33t c00l $0rd, j00 $til suxxOrz" and least of all a flashy engine that proves impossible to play.
I want my character to interact with the world and the world to interact with him/her. If that means massive dialogue, so be it. 100's of quests, a bit of combat, and a way to customize my character in game by playing it. That' s not too much to ask I hope.

Making the toolset more friendly would be a great plus. Been able to edit multiple area properties at once. Been able to open more than one window at once, and flick between them at will. Making it more easy to navigate around to look from different angles. It's not too bad currently, but it could be a lot better. A way to 'test run' an area without having to open up any other program. Would be nice if they didn't completely remove the Tiles, but have it so you can use the tiles as a 'base' and then use this 'paint terrain function' to touch it up, and merge the tiles together more nicely. Most importantly, it would be a dream come true if the toolset didn't corrupt mods so often!

There are a lot of great ideas and suggestions here. I agree with most of them. When you drop $50 on a game, you want it to be something that can be played for a LONG time to come. Daggerfall was excellent in its ability to drop you in a very rich world with lots of ways to go about your 'life'. There wasn't a linear quest path that absolutely had to be followed or the game stopped dead in its tracks like most games.

The monsters should be adequate to the level of character you have. If I am not mistaken, shouldn't a giant spider be a LOT easier to kill than a sword spider?

This is something that I have always wondered about. Why is it when you kill a mage you never find a book with all their spells in it? Mages are not sorcerers and therefore have to STUDY their spells before being able to cast them. So, after vanquishing one, why is it that you cannot find a book with the spells that they have in their arsenal? Did it evaporate? Disintegrate?

Along those lines as well.....make spells INT related. I mean, spells cannot be learned/cast if you do not have the mental training/capacity for learning them. Right? Once that person acquires the requisite knowledge, then that person should be able to read, learn, and cast that spell. Daggerfall was also great in the ability to create your own spells and enchantments. That would be awesome in the next game. That ability to adjust the amount of intensity your fireball has, for example, is a great feature and is a reasonable request. Along with the amount of spells someone has the ability to cast based on intelligence, there could be a point system (like daggerfall) that gets used up based on the intensity or depth of the spell casted.

Um...what else? Dragonfear. That should be something that all dragons of opposite alignment to your character should automatically emit at least at initial meeting. Of course, degree of dragonfear emitted would be conditional on if it wanted to talk and not scare you away.

For the toolset, more variety of the same type of placeables would be nice. Especially stuff in the specialty realms like for creating unique (at least in your mod) wizard's towers, temples, etc. That would provide a richer experience instead of thinking you are visiting the same place over and over again.

Notable items from above is the ability to create unique-looking NPC's and characters. Maybe a simple editor that you can mix and match features like eyes, mouth, eyebrows, & skin types (i.e., textures like poc marks, tattoos, smooth skin, & scars).

A DM client and toolset for NWN 2.
There are two main (by donation) online game servers for NWN, maybe those that are working on NWN 2 currently could include them both. Not sure about Avlis.com, but Layonara Online would be a bonus. Both server bases ahve some really good ideas, and have reallt done a lot of work to make online multiplayer rp very fun. I know I am addicted :p

deity interferences, planes other than the material..
no xp cap.

epic, baby ;)

There were other Planes in HotU ;) but visiting others would be nice.

...maybe some short interference in the gray wastes, some xp collecting in the blood war ? ;)

a third party comes in between the baatezu & the tanar'ri, hacking behind their backs, heh ;)

...what to say...i just love the planes... ;)

If NWN was so bad, why did is sell so good, and is stil for sale? It must have a lot of fans, like me, to have a large community and mods. Is it that bad come on, I understand that bg2 was better but that game is followed by bg3(Other topic so post there if you want to speak about bg3) This game is NNW2, so it will look alot like nwn1 period accept it

The wish list is as good as complete. we all agree on some things that are important and true to 3.5(not going to debate those)

most will not reach the game thankfully but if I choose the the top FIVE (NOT MORE BUT FIVE)it will look like this:

1 party based
2 true non extra balanced 3.5.
3 different plot paths/text according to alignment/class/sex/race
4 character customization class/look
5 real money/items balance

is that is possible, and done, let the rest just go to save time and pick some up whit expansions.

If Neverwinter Nights is played how it is meant to be (player-DM, a number of PCs in a custom module) then it's brilliant! It gives people the chance to play D&D (obviously not totally faithful to the tabletop for balance purposes) without having all the books, dice, models and/or whatever.
However, the single player of the game was dissappointing. NPC interaction was extremely limited, right down to the fact that you were only allowed one to follow you. It wasn't what a lot of fans were expecting when compared with other CRPGs.
Having said that, I do like the game - if you forgive the abysmal models on some of the monsters, you can get very immersed indeed, especially if you play the persistent world roleplaying servers, heh.

More diversity would be great (different paths, sub-races) but i think the ppl makin NWN2 are too focus on graphics to really add so many areas to explore and stuff. Anyway i want alot of fighting with human mages, fighters, and stuff. IWD 1/2 was really missin that and there was nothing too special in NWN :( .

Randomness. This sort of game would be more replayable if there was more randomness in the monsters encountered and treasure uncovered. It would be cool if you didn't know exactly what sort of monster was going to be in the next room or exactly what sort of magic weapon you were going to find.

Try World of Warcraft instead then.

I agree to this thing someone said above: one shouldn't be able to single-handedly kill a dragon. They are the mightiest creatures in the Realms, and even high-level groups should have challenge overcoming them. Thus they shouldn't pop up around every corner, either. :)

Money should take space from your inventory, like in good ol' Diablo. Who carries 2,000,000 gold pieces in his backpack alone? Naturally, those gold pieces should also add weight.

Also, trading items with merchants would be a good idea. Sure it can be done so that you, for example, first sell a sword and buy a new one. But in real life, you'd probably offer the sword and gold/other items, depending how much they're worth.

Well the mighiest adventurers can slay dragons by themselves (Elminister). Not Drizzt or Artemis though since they're like lvl 16 by BG2 standards when Elminster is lvl 30.

Also, trading items with merchants would be a good idea. Sure it can be done so that you, for example, first sell a sword and buy a new one. But in real life, you'd probably offer the sword and gold/other items, depending how much they're worth.I love the way this is done in Morrowind. It would be great if they could make a system like that - much more realistic!

well if they would just start with the copper, silver, gold and platina coins to start. then make sure that you always are in need of money. really avoid the 100.000 gold pieces situations.

Morrowind has also many holes in the money system. Like this: get one expensive item. sell it and buy all the merchant stuff. putt in on the ground and come back a day later. the merchant will have new money and your items are still on the floor. Or sell the gems after the soul feeding spell. No not the morrowind way. just temper the prices and make gold weigh.

Well as one who has played BG2 many years and who really enjoyed ToEE (even though it's not FR :( ) I have a couple of opinions, I will also put what game they stem from in brackets.

1) I would prefer an initiative and turn based combat system. That works much better in my opinion rather than pause-play-pause-play [ToEE]

2) More side quests, I didn't really like the way Chapters in NWN removed you from previous areas. I really liked the way you could go back and forth in BG2. If there is a huge city in the game, there should be alot to do and I should be able to return several times throughout the game [BG2]

3) Party based, party based, and party based. That is D&D at its core. No one character of any class is going to be very useful without tons of equipment and magical items which is very unlikely for any starting character. [BG2,ToEE]

4) I really liked the idea of a much more advanced combat/interaction system such as in ToEE. Being able to decide to make a 5-foot step and also being able to charge/coup de grace/disarm was excellent. Why does everyone forget Bull Rush and Sunder though? [ToEE]

5) Wizards. Ok, some applies to sorcerers but specifically wizards. As NPCs they should either be studying/looking for/trying to buy/trying to sell spells/items/potions. Also, I actually miss the feeling of being terrified of finding a mage like in BG2. If they are travelling around they should have many protective spells memorized as well as a few scrolls and potions to help them out, usually with some melee guards/hirelings. USUALLY you would meet them in their stronghold where highpowered wizards can both be very useful and very deadly, as they will have access to all their various items and defenses. I also agree about the spellbooks, they should both be an item you have as well as an item that wizards have. Most wizards would probably not be carrying their main spellbook around with them, that would be in their stronghold (see above). Lastly, item creation for me was crucial in my enjoyment of ToEE. Even though I hated the level 10 cap (more on this later) I really enjoyed the ability that wizards/clerics/etc SHOULD HAVE to make magic items. How do you think that magic items show up in the game? They weren't scattered about by the gods to play with the mortals, people make and sell them. Studying/Scribing scrolls and item creation is wizards' and their apprentices' vocation [ToEE, BG2]

6) I would LOVE to see some Faerun PrC, especially archmage, but if that is not possible, it would at least be very awesome to have the means without alot of 2da editing to add new classes so that the community (which the developers obviously know is going to happen anyway) will have a modular way to add classes. [NEW!]

7) More involved NPC communication. Romances/banter/arguments are very nice ways for players to get interested in the story. Heck, I could easily have made a killer party out of my own rolled up characters in BG2 which would have been much more effective, but having the ones designed were so much more rewarding to the overall experience. [BG2]

8) More character variance. Please for the love of god give us more variety in appearance than NWN did. I have to say looking at my ToEE and BG2 characters are much less painful than seeing the same random 12 guys in EVERY AREA of NWN. If NWN had a major weakness, poor character variance was it. I would rather have a more advanced character design engine from which NPCs could be made to be unique rather than have unique NPC meshes that the community will just have to hack later on in order to get more variety to the heads/hairs/bodies etc. Morrowind did a fairly good job of this. However, that doesn't mean whe don't like cool baddie meshes either (ala the Darth's in Kot0R 1 and 2) :cool: [ALL]

9) Templates. Templates. Please god give us templates, it is one of the things that made 3.5 cool. I would love to be able to play a character who is a lich/werewolf/vampire/celestial etc. Not only that, but it makes race creation so much easier for the community, so that out of the gobs of templates out there of which there is no way to add all of them can be added by people who want them. I daresay that all the base Faerunian classes should be there, such as Drow/Moon/Sun/Wild/Wood elves, Grey/Gold/Shield Dwarves, Ghostwise/Strongheart Halflings etc etc. There are 2 options to this, the morrowind method which was have several different races that come with their own style of faces/hairstyles or the Bg2/NWN method which is take a body mesh, head mesh and then just make them the right colors yourself. Either way would be great. [Bg2, Morrowind]

10) Since I have already seen from preview articles, "Neverwinter Nights includes ten support characters, of which you can take three into battle." Now what I'm afraid/sure this means is that ala Knights of the Old Republic, there are static slots which speicfic NPCs fill, meaning a) there is no way to create our own NPCs without overwriting other slots just like I had to for my Mod to Kot0R; and b) The character selection menu sucks. I'm pretty sure from this description this is exactly the case and my only wish is that it wasn't so, even though I'm sure that won't be fufilled :(

{I tried to keep this 10, oh well} :D

11) More NPC classes for module creators. I NEVER want to have to see a town comprised of level 10 fighters. That is so retarded, not even in the overpowered (according to some) world of Faerun does any town teem with level 10 fighters. Levels 1-5 Commoners, Adepts and Warriors and Aristocrats make up the base populus, as well as a few character class 1-5 Fighters and Priests for the More important/famous/powerful characters in the town, as well as your occasional Wizard who is either visiting on business ala Red Wizards or in his/her tower. Maybe one or 2 characters in a town break the 10 level mark. In cities like Waterdeep of course you have many more of the latter, but you have many,many,many,many MANY more of the former as well. Base populations should never be character classes. NWN did a decent job with the commoner class, but I'd like to see more for us "purist" module designers :)

12) Cap out levels so that people can at least get to a few epic levels (25-30 at least). NWN was ok with a level 20 cap but why stop there? Also item level restrictions? That is a stupid idea. How about high level items are hard to get. Of course cheaters will get them but cheaters will also bypass stupid level restrictions. Just stick to the D&D rules. If a level 1 rogue wants to run around with tons of rings/amulets etc let them die to goblins and let the next party meet up with some very powerful goblins haha.

13) Encounters and XP system in 3.5 works great, so why mess with it? If the party is 20th level but fighting goblins, ok sure there are alot, but that's no reason that if some idiot 1st level character comes across a dragon that he should be easier to kill. Big monsters should be treated like important NPCs and if the party is too weak well...try again. If you managed to sneak your way past all the early encounters only to come across the boss/leader whatever and not be able to beat them well...obviously your strategy did not work. However, since usually for SP games there will be no DM making sure the party is headed for adventures of the right difficulty, having NPCs either hint or downright refuse help from characters who wouldn't make it would be a big bonus. I wouldn't want to have the first quest be to save a keep from 30 trolls (*ahem* *cough* de Arnisse Hold in Bg2 *cough* :mad: ). Also having NPCS run up and accost the players are ok but make sure that the urgency of the issue is realistic. It is no fun for the game to shove every quest in your face immediately as direly urgent, since there is no way for the players to instantly solve them all. Any truly time-dependent quests should be stated as such and those who can be slipped back should ideally be also expressed as such.

14) The Church! Yes, I think that Helm should NOT be the only temple in every city, nor any other god for that matter. How about like BG2 where there are several temples? Sure Helm, Torm, Tyr, Tempus etc are great, but how about some evil ones as well (not in towns obviously). I'd like to see some less-oft used ones appear such as Kelemvor who is actually pretty important although totally neglected in NWN and only mentioned once in BG2 as a shrine to my knowledge. The people in Faerun are closely tied to the gods they worship, so they should be more than an afterthought in any game set in them. I would almost see them more akin to Jedi/Sith in Kot0R than as they appear in NWN. Also, they serve as great quest-givers to NPCs of the correct alignment, as long as those donations keep coming! [BG2, ToEE]

15) Speaking of evil, how about a campaign that evil characters can sucessfully complete with deciding to be good for awhile? After Kot0R 1 and 2 we KNOW that they are capable of doing this...

16) Finally, how about a good game? That's simple enough right ;)

Excellent post there. Some great points :)

One thing though, NWN is designed to be very multiplayer friendly. I can't imagin a turn-based game been multiplayer friendly. Prehaps if there is an option to activiate turn based play?

Good points there. If I could only have three improvements from NWN, they would be:

1) Better and more interesting NPCs
2) Less boring and repetitive (see the OC)
3) More races and deities (like in IWD2)

Rotku I do agree with that, and although ToEE had MP support at one point that wasn't added at production time I can see that being a problem. I also realize that there is about a 0% chance this game will be turn based, but I just think that it greatly enhanced my D&D-in-a-game experience. However, that is a much more narrow audience than Obsidian is trying to reach :(

How about some reasonable implementation of rest periods? It is kind of unrealistic that you are able to instantly rest and recover all your spells.

In the premium mod shadow gaurd you needed rations, so that base is partly covered. it is meager, but still a start.

I have to say that I actually enjoy not having direct control over my henchmen/party members. It feels more like playing a leader of a party who issues commands that may or may not be obeyed rather than an omnipotent overseer who controls everything. Of course, this needs to be implemented well, but I hope it is retained in NWN2.

I also like to feel that I have earned what I recieve. I would like magic items to be rare, forged items to be expensive and multiclassing to be regulated. The latter could be hard to implement well, though, so I would think that free base class multiclassing and quest earned prestige classes would be more realistic to ask for.

I agree with Will re henchmen. BGII-style NPC are not really NPCs at all because you control everything they do. NWN henchmen are better because they do their own thing and you have to live with it.

But makes the hencman useless. most part you just solo in NWN. And that is not how the game is meant! And never must it be done like that. It was the biggest flaw in NWN. BG2 is BG2 because you could steer the hencman. Why not let the Hencman level fixed on preset paths?

Many people forget that BG2 was 2 ed rules. The leveling with 3.5 makes it a whole other game.

Has anyone tried icewind gate? It is a mod to play bg2 with the icewind dale 2 engine and 3.5 ruleset. It looks like bg2, it smells like bg2 but it is Icewind dale2. It has no bg2 feeling.(On the pocketplane site)

So we can all sob and say we want it like bg2 but we cannot. All we can is learn from it.

The henchman thing is only faulty in the original campaign where the henchmen were all stupid. It works fine in Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark because the AI is smarter there. Clearly, to have a non-controllable NPC only works if the technology is advanced enough. Which it is now.

So we no longer need to have NPCs which the player controls and should now have real NPCs that do their own thing. In other words, we need more Deekins.

We firstly need a more complete command set. You are the leader of the party, but can't give decent commands in combat. I say direct control over henchmen is not necessary, they should act on their own, but I want a ligther version of the command options given to squad-based games. It already exists in tons of other games, but hasn't been implemented in rpgs yet. This is odd, because there are alot of similarities between a squad of law enforcers and an adventuring party.

Once they get that interface right, it would be a nice step to also include levels of obedience, based on the characters personality.

that is the point for a large part. I want to do things with a hencman that comes close to pen and paper. after all it is 3.5 rules.

for instance simple flanking. If a hencman does not flank by itself, give me the control. Or timing a fireball to hit in the center of a moving group.

Better in SoU? Like dorna? better but not good enough by far. Better in Hotu? The Kotors did it an other step better and, I will say it out loud, good enough. But still so now and then you had to take control to steer the hencman to the right target. Even Kreia.

Dice roll for stats PLEASE! I'm sick and tired of only being able to have average stats for my characters (which was what made BG2 so great) without cheating.

Also seemed as if Weapons where unnecessarily borken down in NWN, use to throwing hammers and throwing axes being part of their respective weapon group. Also there is little style difference between a hand axe and a battle axe or a light hammer and a war hammer, it isn't longsword vs. shortsword here.

I'm also partial to rare player races, doubt they would happen, but would be fun to have some of the races with level adjusts (though no half-dragons please), ones that can pass as human like Aasimar, Nephilim (perferably sets of Aasimar/Nephilim that don't have big white wings broadcasting not human), Tieflings, Cambion (maybe... you might end up under no circumstances being able to pass as human), Yuan-Ti Pureblood, changelings, doppelangers. Some of these creatures may not work for balancing reasons (they are quite powerful after all, however a Yuan-Ti Pure requires as much xp to reach level 6 as a human does to reach level 11)

The Avariel, Aquatic, Wood, Sun and Wild Elves would be nice, Gold and Wild Dwarves, a little more learly of more "odd" races in regards to the surface like Duergar, Drow (unless they have severe problems with town guards and such) or svirfneblin. Things like a Yuan-Ti Pureblood, a doppelanger or a cambion have far more reason to be interacting with human society then something from the underdark.


Oh and I suppose I'd like it if a character of high high charisma, they aren't constantly having their looks complemented, while physical beauty is an aspect of charisma, it isn't one of the same with beauty, if I have character with average beauty, but high leadership skills, powerful personalities and natural magnetism and I'd perfer that they where not called beauty. Same goes with characters with average to low charisma being always ugly, I have attractive characters that shy away from leadership roles and personality's no more forceful then the meek, they won't ever have high charisma because they couldn't inspire a group of pirates to attack an unguarded treasure ship, but just because they're terrible with all non-physical beauty aspects of charisma doesn't mean they're ugly.


I suppose another thing I'd like added to the wish list would be NPCs getting their race's full abilities. Specifically the Yuan-Ti in NWN were really watered down, they didn't have the ability to poison their target among other innate abilities, a lvl 1 Yuan-Ti Pureblood should feel as difficult as a lvl 6 core race character. Rakshasas seemed really whimpy too and they're race with a +7 level adjust. I also would like to see beholders be more like beholders in NWN2, not creatures that in all seriousness don't even deal a single point of damage to me in a fight, seriously, beholders are among the most powerful creatures in the Underdark, a beholder hive still shouldn't be a cake walk for for a low epic level character.

Psionic powers really need a boost as well, as well as magical powers, I don't like it when beholders and Ilithids are less difficult then drow and duergar warriors, nore do I like it when the level 20 wizard falls faster then the lvl 12 fighter, please, please make high level wizards powerful in NWN2.

I think someone said this before, but no non AD+D skills, I hate having to waste skill points on things like Discipline. Also change lore back to it's actuall AD+D counter part.

[ February 02, 2006, 17:56: Message edited by: Ilmater's Suffering ]

I still prefer complete party control, ala BG series. No computer AI is even going to come close to being able to handle the strategies and tactics most of us would like to use. Most of the AIs out there have enough trouble just trying to get around corners.
Rolling stats is much better than point buy, but do it like the rules say (or as most DMs do it). Roll 4d6 twice for each stat (dropping 1d6 for each), pick the best of the two, then assign the set of 6 numbers to the six stats. No infinite re-rolls, no point reassignment, and no point buy.
If worst comes to worst, let us choose which one to use.

The points to buy system is not that bad. I mean how high can the stats of a level 1 character be. In BG2 some classes ofton gat higher stats. As a paladin your CHA always was high, no matter what the roll was.

I would just like a way to reflect that certain characters may be more genetically blessed then others, or that having high stats in one area doesn't prohibit you from having exceptable stats else.

Also really happers trying to create a multi class character that needs casting stats and melee stats since they have much more need for good stats then a pureclass.

I actually prefer the point buy system. It balances the game quite nicely, in my opinion. I know noone's forcing you to roll forever for supreme stats, but it always felt like I was selling myself short if I had non-maxed primary stats in the Baldur's Gate games and the first Icewind Dale. The point buy system nicely represents the sacrifices a character would most likely have to make for high stats (ie the negligence of other attributes).

If it must be dice rolls, then I would prefer it to be in the mould of pen and paper and Temple Of Elemental Evil, ie 6 lots of best 3 out of 4, each assigned to a stat with racial bonuses/penalties applied afterwards. It was the ability to add and take points freely between stats that made it too tempting to min/max in the 2nd Edition games.

Still, I prefer the balancing that point buying offers. It is also worth noting that in a game such as Neverwinter Nights where online play is a large part of the appeal, such as system levels the playing field a bit more. While I rarely play NWN1 online, the horror stories of entire servers populated solely by Fighter 29/Bard 1/Dragon Disciple 10 and Paladin 1/Sorcerer 39 characters are bad enough. At least the point buy system encourages some variation, limiting heavy focus on more than one or two stats while offering rewards in the form of epic feats for high stats. So, for example, unless you're going all the way to level 40 as a barbarian its hard to all the best rages as well as additional damage reduction. Of course munchkinism is still very much a possibility, but it should at least be something that requires a little thought, planning and/or effort to achieve.

[ February 01, 2006, 16:16: Message edited by: Will ]

With limited rerolls, there is much less temptation to roll infinitely, as the only way to do this would be to re-make the character. It also allows a more realistic depiction of a character. I have great dexterity, inteligence, wisdom, and constitution, with moderate strength and not-bad charisma, but that would be impossible to represent in a point-buy system. I like how ToEE had both systems. That one really worked for me.

if they don't put in a dice roll system I'll just stick with SetSTAT to make my characters the way they should be, don't play online so it doesn't matter in the least how badly I abuse the limits of the NWN stat system.

As I said before, the by point system doesn't really allow for genetic diversity, hell I know people in real life who you couldn't statistically create in NWN and they're no adventurer.

I'm 99.9% behind the points buy system. Rolling for stats is just pointless since people will just re-roll till they get 17-18 in everything so they might as well not bother rolling in the first place, open Gate/Dale-keeper and set the damn stats to 17-18 each - save yourselves some damn time.

The 0.1% I don't agree with the points buy system is how the more you invest into a particular stat you have diminishing returns, such as going from 16 to 17 costs 3 points yet going from 10 to 11 only costs 1. The benefit/cost ratios seems a bit out of whack so I very rarely put any stat higher than 14 unless my character is a casting class.

Rolling for stats is just pointless since people will just re-roll till they get 17-18 in everything so they might as well not bother rolling in the first place Eaxctly. Which is why it's so funny when people show off about the high stats they have managed to roll.

It's like showing off how much money you made on a one armed bandit computer game where you don't use any real money in the machiene. "Look how lucky I got at no risk!"

ummm.... I don't know if I'm necessarily giving you the right info on the Pureblood level adjust, the 3.5 Monster manual lists it as a +5 level adjust, however WotWC's website's special little edition on the Pureblood is giving it a +2 level adjust...

Why can't WotWC just keep things simple?

In the points to buy system we must cap the lowestr value of a score and put repurcussions on it.

Int: With a value of 8, a character cannot speak properly(according to the helptext in games) and gets lame dialogue options , or less text. Persons mock him/her, severe appraise penalty's etc etc. This is teh one that games do not seem to use. You know what I mean. The text you get is ofton the same with any character. It is also wise to limit weapons and feats to INT. A warrior must be able to learn weapon focus, or exotic prof. so low Int, no exotic weapons, of powerful fighter feats.
Dex: No one will limit DEX to much. I will name one reason and that is attack of opportunity.
STR: no need to talk about that one. but you need some of it when you travel trough caves, wild terrain, mountains etc etc
CHA: Also one that we plunder for wizards and fightertypes. Again how can anyone with a score lower than 8 be part of a group, or find someone to talk to. Or invite good hechman
WIS: How glad are we not when our character makes a will save?
CON: The one most will not plunder. the hitpoints, the concentration, the save against poison/dissease, we all get it.

So why not set them at 9 or 10, fixed, and then put the rest of the points in the prime stats. and then comes the second hurdle. A level one character cannot have stats up to 18. It is a rookie, arrow/wall fodder. It cannot have the muscle of a seasond fighter, or the smart of an strong wizard.

Points to buy, roll dice it does not matter. What matters is the limits on the use of points to make balanced characters. so set a level 1 min and max for a stat and problem is solved. (Up to a certain point that is)

And to answer Ilmater's question. Because when it is made simple we would not play this type of game.

ELEMENTAL ARCHONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

It looks like druids are going to get jack, once again. They're adding something like 5 more druid spells on top of the ones in NWN. Mages get something like 30 new spells. Man I loved my druid in Temple of Elemental Evil. They were done so well in that game and it really showed the true power of this very fun class. Ah well...

I just hope they choose to add IWD2 spells to the game........BG2 made druids a little different, they didn't get any damaging spells til' like level 14!!!

I hope they for sure make the druids similar to IWD2, they were like a cross between cleric and wizard :)

And...I think its kind of dumb that they will have the possibility to be a cleric of the elemental god but not let you be an archon :(

Well, I hope for a romance with a dwarven female barbarian/cleric of Haela Brightaxe (companion).
We would do everything together: Frolicking in the grassy hills, decapitating evil creatures, exploring the world, cut our way out of a Purple Worm and other romantic ideas for dates.

I also hope for a civilised, witty, sarcastic mage to join my party. An elf preferably that doesn't like the dwarven barbarian/cleric. Also a too curious Rogue/Bard who gets us in trouble every now and than.

I just hope they choose to add IWD2 spells to the game........BG2 made druids a little different, they didn't get any damaging spells til' like level 14!!! I think this is doubtful, but being that the game is based on 3.5 rules, we should see a good number of the druid spells from the 3.5 PHB, and there are plenty druid spells that are offensive in nature, at least compared to a cleric.

Personally, I hope for good party interactions. The possibility of having a nice, well-balanced party with the 4 max total party slots available.

Oh, and a story line that doesn't feel particularly linear--this feature is one of the reasons baldur's gate II is so darn replayable. Gimme a good epic storyline!

The story has got to be better than it was in NWN1.....maybe i'm the only one but i thought the stroy was terrible :mad:

I mean come on! You could meet like 5000 dragons in NWN, sure I like the idea of dragons but they are supposed to be rare meeting one every 40 seconds is a poor story if you ask me.