This is long, just because I have much to say. Get the popcorn. This is personal, so I could stop being angry in all other topics. :D

Now, I'm done fed up with this game. But I still feel inclined to make a very thorough description of everything that's wrong with it, and maybe it will prevent a few people from making a purchase they will later regret, because this game is in no way a sequel to Neverwinter Nights.

A. Nights of the Old Neverwinter 2

NWN2 seems to be based on the KotOR engine, and that would explain an awful lot about this game. If that is wrong, then I shudder to think how (and most importantly why) they managed to make the beautiful Aurora look so much like KotOR's core, but I think Aurora, the core of NWN, didn't even **** in these woods. The rest of this assumes that my guess on the origin of the Electron engine is correct. Why one would use a locked resource exclusively singleplayer engine for a sequel to one of the most moddable and multiplayable games ever is a puzzle. My guess is because Obsidian simply didn't know how to work the NWN engine, so they took to something they managed to butcher before (KotOR2 and all of its woes come to mind). The modification of the core was apparently minimal. Let's address certain RPG must-haves that NWN2 conspicuosly lacks and how they relate to the game core.

- You are unable to multiple-select your characters in a party under your control. Why could you do that in every single Infinity engine game and most every other RPG with a party system, but not in NWN2? Because that's the way it was in KotOR.

- You cannot select the character under your control by clicking on them. Why? Because that's how it was in KotOR, and it stayed that way.

- Your character creation screen came straight out of the game I won't name. But it's about jedi knights, so you can guess.

- Item creation? Workbench? Components? Oh, right KotOR.

- Animations came straight out of the same game. They're just as basic, alas much more noticeable given the change of perspective.

- Your companions cannot die because they're essential plot NPCs. They will simply get up like it's nobody's business after being butchered in battle, just like KotOR. Plus, they're forced on you, and you have no choice but to take them until you can get to Ebon Haw... er, Neverwinter, and leave them there.

- Cutscenes? Check. World map? Check. NPCs with no freedom of selection of class? Check. Auto-level button? Not here! Okay, so it's a regressed KotOR engine.

B. D- for effort.

Let's look at this seriously. For Neverwinter Nights 2 Obsidian:

- licensed a (perfectly unsuitable) engine that they did not develop
- refrained from modifying that engine to suit the needs of the game
- used a pre-made animation model, developed once again not by them
- re-used most of the sound effects, voices, and music from a game they did not make

What have they been doing during the development of the game? This feels like that high school project for which you are given a month, but you start three days before the due date. This is not rushed. I have seen ingenious, innovative rushed games that were, despite their raw state, incredibly fun to play. There's nothing new in NWN2, it doesn't even qualify for the title of an old-style RPG. It's simply a poorly modified Knights of the Old Empire brought into Forgotten Realms setting with very little functionality.


C. Notneverwinter Nights 2

Obsidian not only forgot the saying that if it's not broken, one shouldn't fix it. They willfully decided to go against it and stripped Neverwinter Nights of just about everything that made it a good game to make the so-called sequel. A dedicated NWN player like me can't help but express dumb misunderstanding about the amount of genuinely great things that did not make it in this game's release. In the order of noticing...

- You cannot dual-wield from the quickslot. You cannot use a sword and shield from the quickslot. Every time you change to a ranged weapon, you need to re-equip your melee weapon by going to the inventory and doing it by hand. NWN weapon system was perfect

- Inventory. Who stole a paycheck for designing this travesty? The icons are about as informative as C3PO's beeps. It has 128 one-cell slots each of which can fit any item, potentially enabling you to carry one hundred and twenty eight scythes on your person. If the elementary "realism" and "roleplay" connotations of this do not worry you like they do me, then I hope you will at least agree with me that the inventory is nigh impossible to manage visually. Inventory tetris was a part of my pack-rat roleplaying experience. I liked the fact that even if I was inhumanly strong, I could carry at most 30 greatswords.

- When you dropped a sword on the floor in NWN, it was a sword laying on the floor. In NWN2 it's a loot bag. Geez.

- You have more quickslots than in NWN, but they are inaccessible by hotkeys. In a way, you have less quickslots, but more useless slowslots. Why in the hells can't I drag a spell from the quickcast into one of those?

- Character animations - staggered, unrealistic, ten frame walk/run cycle. Let me walk. Let me jog. Let me sprint. Let me step carefully. Let me feel alive on screen! NWN had that, why doesn't this game? It's a big part of roleplaying. I don't know about you, but my roleplay experience involves walking in towns, running away from the enemy, and being alive while standing. Looking around curiously, crossing my arms, shrugging, putting that heavy sword on my shoulder, playing with my bow. More roleplaying this game is missing.

- What happened to the camera? Why is there simply no angle from which I can see everything? Every camera mode has an issue with it. Free camera in this game? What's the point, you cannot even make a selection of more than one character at once to take advantage of its "strategy" factor. Chase camera turning lags unintuitively so you have to move where you want to look. The topdown camera insists to zoom on my avatar whenever I come close to a wall, treating me to a perfectly useless view of my character instead of the somewhat useful view of her surroundings. Walk through a door the wrong way? Be treated to an awkward zoom-in. Things like that. I don't want to get stuck looking...

- ...at the character models in this game. NWN was four years ago, it was reasonably schematic, but you could create a semblance of the character you imagine in NWN, and just roleplay the rest. NWN2, with its realistic character models leaves very little to imagination and constrains you to a choice of a few hideous faces, no selection of facial hair (Dwarves? Beards? Give me a choice, if you insist on realism!), and females looking perfectly like transvestites in a wig. What happened to shapely curvaceous female models, stocky and muscular male models, fat and skinny varieties of both, height scaling? We were promised those things but not delivered.

- The weapons are about as basic and schematic as NWN. Some seem to have been imported directly, and they're not open to modification as they were in NWN. Armours seem to be different textures placed on the same mesh. Chain shirt, leather armour, chain mail all look like a football uniform with shoulder pads. In NWN we had a choice of making our armour slick and streamlined, or covering it with heavy panzer spikes and plates. Here we do not.

Now, I know that in relation to the aforementioned points many would say "But NWN didn't have all that at its release!". A thoroughly ridiculous argument. The job of a sequel is to improve the final state of its predecessor, not find solace in the fact that it's just as bad as a game from four years back.

- Most of the emotes are gone. I realize that KotOR didn't have emotes, and Obsidian just doesn't have anyone in their art department worth their paycheck to add those things in, but sitting on the ground, waving, feighing death, praying, and meditating have become essential parts of my NWN roleplay experience. I'm glad to know that in this game I can stand motionlessly like the Tin Man or kneel as if I am about to get knighted by an imaginary entity.

- WASD controls have been made useless. One can no longer make precise maneuvering with them. They were simply awkwardly adapted from KotOR without the option to change their sensitivity.

- Spells look flashy. For many, flashy equates to good. Unfortunately the spell effects all look like coloured spraypaint being sprayed over the area of effect. Lighting effects resemble perfectly two-dimensional effects from 1996 made in a higher resolution, and spells fail to evoke any semblance of belief. That's not what I imagine casting magic spells looks like. This is not a release of arcane energy, this is effects for the sake of effects. Not to mention they are repetitive and lend no hand in visual recognition of the spells being cast. Fading buffs? Oh, look, an icon appeared over my head signifying the fade of the buff. Where is the NWN system with perfectly recognizeable spell effects on the top of the screen that inform unambiguously of their expiration? Instead we've inherited the uninformative + and - icon system, slightly modified from KotOR.

- The interiours are infuriating. For every pointless placeable that takes up sixteen hundred polygons, you lose framerate. For every placeable, that stacks, and accounts for abysmal performance of the game. At the same time, despite all the detail, the placeable is perfectly unnoticeable until your character gets stuck in it due to faulty pathfinding, and gets killed. Surprising how dead environments, locked doors, trees you wish weren't there as they obstruct your view, simple piles of garbage, and unlootable crates are given so much detail while your character remains a semblance of a wax model with no life in it.

- In 2006, this game has no vertex weighting. Hair doesn't ruffle in the wind, neither do clothes and cloaks. They did in NWN four years ago, but not here. Because, yet again, KotOR had no such feature. Cloaks don't even hold a candle to NWN's. This graphics engine is not new and improved, it's simply obsolete and inefficient. Stillborn.

- Combining the actions and context sensitive menu in the right click is one of those decisions for which designers should have never passed their usability class. Both get in the way of the other, accounting for much frustration. Imagine "shoot" and "use" bound to the same key in Half-life. That's the way I feel about it.

- Minimap is not only confusing, it's useless. Outdoor areas are not shrouded, so you can never tell where you have been and where you haven't. Round view window is painfully inconvenient. Yet again, outdoor map is textured, rendering it impaired as a navigation tool. There is no fog of war to speak of. I enter the dungeon, and I magically know its layout right away. Give me a break.

- Stores. Oh boy. I have seventy items to sell that have the same icon, I have to click one hundred fourty times to choose item and confirm sale. Why does the enter button not work for Yes in the message box? Even a cretin knows that Enter equals Ok on whatever tool menu is on the screen right now. Merchants run out of gold but have no gold counter on them.

- Non-contact schematic battles. There are next no battle animations, cleaves, flurries are missing. Hits are accompanied by the blade clipping through the enemy, with a ridiculous splash of blood accompanying the hit. The battles are less exciting than PnP as they lack any flourish yet leave nothing to the imagination. Bows have no arrows in them. Oh please, I know KotOR had no complex projective weapons, but would you at least try?

- Animations don't fire properly. You stop pretending to interact with a locked box long before the lock comes off. You step away from the trap before it is disarmed.

- Pathfinding in this game is a joke, to the point where characters simply warp to the locations as if they lag, skipping the pathfinding stage. And that's me, playing on stable thirty frames per second, leaving absolutely no room for frame lag.

- The world transition trigger is huge, ineffable, resembles the UN logo, and destroys immersion.

- There are no mounts or mounted combat, but I must be crazy to ask the developers to implement that when they forgot to even change the basic functionality of an action/adventure game to adapt it for RPG use.

- There is no feeling of travel or exploration in this game. You hop in the Ebon Haw.. oh wait, there are no starships here, but you still just do hyper-space jumps from one key plot location to another. Random encounter, a key part of any serious D&D game, did not make it in here.


D. But it has a great OC!

Considering that OC is just another module for the game core and the OC wasn't even originally supposed to be a part of the NWN1 package, that very OC seems to be the only redeeming point of NWN2. Take it away, and NWN remains a great multiplayer and infinitely moddable game, and NWN2 remains a broken semifunctional KotOR engine.

- Why do people in my village speak with a texan accent? Why do the accents hop all over the world as I go from area to area? It was ridiculously funny when the squirrels in Open Season spoke with a scottish accent, I suppose Obsidian wanted to bring in some ridiculous comedy in the campaign by having wood elves that seemed to have just hopped off the train from Dublin.

- The dialog options never present any illusion of choice. Like someone said, most "character development" dialog options in this game can be replaced with three emoticons: :) :skeptic: :mad: . There's no interest in clicking on cookie-cutter dialog options which will inevitably lead to the same outcome.

- Dialog pause in OC. None of your party can act, but guess what, they still can take damage and die as the enemies do not get frozen by the dialog. Holy bad design, Batman!

- There is no freedom of choice in this game, and the difference between good and evil is that evil simply kills everyone, while good talks to them a bit and then kills everyone. Lovely roleplay.

- Where are romances? One universally mismatched option per gender? How engaging is that? You are a leader of your party, you will inevitably evoke personal feelings in your companions. Imagine Lord of the Rings without the Aragorn - Arwen romance. What good adventure story doesn't have a love story in it? Apparently, NWN2. Oh, wait, I asked about a good one.

- Archetype NPCs. Tank, thief, healer. If I wanted archetype NPCs, I'd have read Order of the Stick, to much more of my enjoyment. Neeshka claims people pick on her for her horns and tail, but she has no ****ing tail.

- The NPCs are forced onto you. Lone ranger? Not here. Skulking assassin? Not here. Antisocial mage? Not here. They stick with you faithfully on no premise even if you are a murderous psychopath, complete with their overused hooks and excuses for staying with you.

- Being evil. The campaign is simply not made for it. Nothing should stop me from murdering peasants for a few gold coins if that is what I want, but this game stops me. It's nearly impossible to maintain an evil alignment in this game to keep, say, assassin or blackguard class features within the frames of roleplay. The "evil" dialog options are mostly just obnoxious or rude. Rude does not equal evil. I'm rude. And obnoxious. But I'll give you a hand if you're drowning, and I will not ask for any compensation. In this game you end up inadvertently doing good deeds to just advance the plot.

- The OC has no exploration. You walk on a predetermined path without any opportunity (or point) to step off it. In the teeming city, you are met with sealed doors, dead randomly scattered houses and decorations, and NPCs with conveyor replies that have nothing to talk about. "Times are tough" indeed.

- The loot is boring. It was in NWN too, but I hoped this new improved campaign would address it. It didn't. The loot is still boring, there is just much less of it.

- The quests are all regurgitated nonsense that we saw in NWN. Go to area A, kill baddie B, and bring quest token Q to move on. Only this time you have the NPCs tag along with their...

- ...unbelievably moronic AI. Wait, the AI is simply absent, just like it was in KotOR series. Fortunately for KotOR, there was never a game situation in which your party wasn't five levels above the challenge rating of any mob, so you could lay back, draw the lightsaber, and enjoy the show. Just as fortunately for KotOR, there was hardly ever a situation in which your party member didn't shoot at the enemy, or didn't have a straight line to charge in melee, leaving no need for any pathfinding. In NWN2, the story is different. Enemies are on par with the party, and pathfinding is ridiculous, and the only intelligence these brainless automatons possess is the one you impart on them by micromanaging the battle in pause mode and wishing that the AI was simply not there.

- Side quests, where are they? Remember how you could play Baldur's Gate 2? You could complete it in a couple weeks of game time, or you could do side quests for months if that was what you wanted. NWN2 seems to be lacking just about any dialogs or NPCs that are not related to the main plot.

E. Sequel to E3's Best Online Multiplayer recepient

NWN was a great multiplayer game. The multiplayer was so great that I spent countless hours playing it, and I never played any other multiplayer game before. NWN was conceived on the premise of multiplayer and modability, with the engine build from the ground up to accomodate those two purposes. NWN2 was made upon a locked resource engine from a game that is exclusively singleplayer. That very design decision leaves so little in the area of multiplayer expectations, and the game delivers to most of my fears.

- The OC is non-multiplayable. It has dialog pauses, forced party transitions, a plot thoroughly incompatible with multiplayer (so which of the four of us is the main character?). Makes you remember how the NWN OC started perfectly compatible with multiplayer - a few friends in a city's military academy called to serve their homeland. Great hook! Everyone is equal, everyone can complete the tasks, and the plot is not character related. In NWN2, most dialogs make no sense whatsoever unless initiated by the main character. Seeing how the developers specifically designed the OC to not be played in multiplayer, it is not surprising.

- Custom modules need to be downloaded, as the tilesets which allowed for seamless client-server relationship in NWN are no longer used. To play in a custom server you need to get its files outside of the game and put them in some directory of the game before you can connect to that server. That might sound easy to me, as a professional software designer, or to you, as an experienced gamer, but maybe you are one of the many people I know for whom the suggestion would sound similar to "Oh, just take the valve covers off the motor, bore the engine block, and put in new pistons. It's easy". Not a good move to add this step in a multiplayer game without even an option to download custom content within the game. Unreal Tournament did that since long ago (1999), why can't NWN2 do it in 2006?

- Modules. Notice how the game starts to "unpack module" every time you enter an area. That's right, that is how big the new modules are. The whole NWN campaign was comprised of four modules - one for a chapter. NWN2 has one for a miniscule area. That is pretty much the limit of what one NWN server can host - larger areas simply exceed the memory addressing capacity of modern computers. Say bye-bye to any notion of persistent worlds unless you have a cluster of servers to host your small village comprised of four areas. Say bye-bye to what made NWN so popular with the online community, and what to this day keeps up the interest of the game not just from the players but also from BioWare.

F. But they will fix it all with patches!

Because BioWare still supports Neverwinter Nights? Remember, the sequel wasn't developed by BioWare, it was a completely different entity, and you probably remember its sole endeavor in the gaming industry until now - the sequel to one more game BioWare made that assembled more Game Of The Year awards than George Lucas has chins in 2003.

Remember how KotOR2 was released in the abhorrent unfinished state that it was? Remember how it was never brought to a perfectly playable and bug-free state by the developers? Was it because LucasArts was on the verge of bankrupcy and rushed the game to be released early, or was it just Obsidian's incompetence in developing sequels to BioWare masterpieces? The choice is pretty obvious, considering the fat bags of money of which the LucasArts headquarters is comprised.

If Obsidian's support of KotOR2 is of any indication, as it should be, then the future of Neverwinter Nights is not something that makes me smile, and the hope that everything will be patched and fixed is wishful thinking at its finest.

I uninstalled it. And I don't want my money back, I don't want to go play Oblivion, I don't want to use the toolset and make this game what I want it to be, because it's impossible. I just want Neverwinter Nights 2, which as of now is sure to never be made.

I just finished the game and I thought it was fun. Could be about 100x better if Bioware developed it. But still fun.

Unfortunately continually pointing out the same flaws over 10 forums threads and then combining them to 1 doesn't help anything - at all. Well... actually, maybe it'll help people decide not to buy it, which in turn will destroy sales, and thusly causing Obsidian to no longer exist.... but so would bombing their dev. center. I would prefer the latter.

The one thing I did like about NWN2 over NWN1 is how much closer they stuck to the rules of D&D. Made it much more fun... unfortunately, due to the lack of worthwhile feats, taking a fighter isn't as good as it should be. No heavy armor optimization, shield expert (dual weild sword and shield while keeping shield bonus to AC - lots of fun there). Feats and Spells make the game, that's where the biggest detraction from the game came from.

It would have been 100x better if anyone developed it. The result indicates that Obsidian didn't quite grasp the concept of development.

To be honest, if it comes to the point that Obsidian no longer exists because of this, I'll say they had it coming. I sure as hell am not buying any more games from them, and I don't see NWN2 sell in five years like NWN1 still does.

You forgot to mention the fantastically original beginning of the game...

*spoiler*
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Yes, people, that's right, you have a foster father again. :rolleyes: And an unfriendly and ugly one at that.

So, I with my 63 year old halfling ranger am stuck being addressed as if I were a teen doing harvest festival challenges with my teeny friends. At least in BG you couldn't choose your character's age, so it stayed logical.

*shudder*

It's a bad game in my opinion.

Keep in mind, certain races age differently, an elf is a teen at about 114, a dwarf at 84, etc. etc. - long childhoods :) .


Oh as it turns out, double weapons don't exist in NWN2. LAME!

[ November 11, 2006, 18:14: Message edited by: omnigodly ]

I know ("A halfling reaches adulthood at the age of twenty." according to the Player's Handbook), but that doesn't change the situation. ;)

I wonder if comparisons to KotOR will have the negative effect you give to it since it was game of the year and lots of people liked it.

Quick slots and two weapon or weapon/shield. They've said that is going to be added, and indicated it just didn't get in in time and it wasn't seen as critical since it's just convenience. Lame; but still NWN was far from the perfection you seem to think it on release.

Cloaks. NWN didn't even show equipped cloaks until recently. NWN2's cloaks are there and they sway with body movement.

Side quests. I've had several in every main area so far and I'm only in Neverwinter.

And the game is bad because the tutorial wasn't tailor made for an old level 1 Ranger?

*shrug* I am really amazed at how focused people are here about not enjoying this game. I played when I got home from work last night, and the next thing I knew it was midnight.

The battles are a lot harder than the KotORs were that's for sure. I think there was maybe one or two fights in either of the KotORs that were challenging in the least. In this game, if I just rush into every fight like I could in the KotORs, I usually end up dead.

Could the game be improved? Sure, in many ways. Is it lots of fun as it is? You bet.

^ It sure as hell should draw negative connotations. KotOR was an exciting game, but it was at most an action/adventure to me. Not to mention exclusively single-player. Unreal Tournament was a GOTY too, but that doesn't lend it credibility to be the core for NWN2.

I tried to like it, but I struggle to find any point in its defense. The missing AI killed its battles for me, thus making it a chore getting from one plot point to another. If I have to force myself to go on playing, then the game just isn't worth it. I realize that it's a "Your experience may vary" case, but if anything is true, it would be the fact that this game took a dump on all things that made NWN great.

@BTA: Allowing age selection and addressing the character as if it were a teenager is not great design. It's a feature intented for persistent worlds, I guess, but in the single campaign it may indeed create a bad feeling. How hard would it be to implement some form of age check and change a sentence or two here and there? Annoying things like that surely have existed before, though. Think being addressed as a peasant by some people and as a lord by some others in the previous games. It's annoying.

As for the KotOR comparison, I wouldn't really mind a good adaption of the KotOR engine, actually. I have said things such as that I would love to play a quasi-mediaeval game made with that engine. But still... all I hear about, engine-wise, is problems.

As for battles, I think the nature of force powers as opposed to the effects of the FR magic, made Jedi characters more suited for jumping into battle right away. Think HP/FP regeneration and group heal from up to three characters at the same time. Resting was just not a part of KotOR 1 or 2. Same with spell preparation and the like. ;)

The campaign is not age related at all. The only part that makes you feel young is the tutorial where you are participating in the harvest fair competitions with some friends of yours from the village.

After that, you could be any age with an elf for a foster father.

@catbert - I understand KotOR-like is a big negative for you; what I was trying to say is that's probably not a big negative for the majority of people given how popular it was.

Replying as someone who has yet to play the game (though I was thinking about it), I officially have no desire to even attempt it now. While the litany of problems that catbert points out would be more than enough to turn me off, all I needed to hear was: "Obsidian" and "KotOR 2". I distinctly recall cursing god while I trudged through that hellish game, and I will never play another RP-esque game made by Obsidian, whether it be heavy on action or not. Especially a sequel when the original was developed by Bio-ware--I have no real desire to see a good IP pooed upon. I know it sounds a bit as if I'm changing the subject, but I was actually really looking forward to trying this game out, not realizing who the developer was...bah. The only way my day could be ruined even more is by hearing that Obsidian will be taking over Jade Empire 2.
:grumbles:

Thanks catbert for saving my money. I was about to buy NWN2, but after reading all the bad stuff about NWN2 and your 'short' post I'm leaving it for a moment.

And, yes, I *did* eat popcorn while reading it.

Now considering to waste my money on Dark Messiah of Might & Magic.

I've bought it a couple of days ago. I'm really enjoying the game.

It took me a little while to get used to the camera controls, but now it is not an issue anymore. I'm still having problems with the AI, so I have to micromanage a lot, but it turns out that I'm enjoying micromanaging. The graphics were not a problem for me as it seems to have been to others. I have a middle range machine and I just used the graphics's configurations the game set up for me, and it is going smooth.

I like the story a lot, it has its cliches, but it does not ruin it. There is a huge amount of voice acting, some of it are badly done, but mostly it is well enough, and make you feel more immerse in the game. I like the companions interaction, I don't really care if it came from KotOR, I just enjoy it. I really enjoy to see how your decisions in the game has influence with yours companions.

I was missing a lot the fact that I could not know how was the condition of my enemies, but then I found out that if I right click on a enemy you will see his health bar.

So now, besides the AI, the only thing that still annoys me is the fact of been unable to die. That really sucks.

My main issue with the KotOR engine deal is not that this game is based on KotOR, but because NWN2's Electron engine was supposed to be improved and modified version of NWN's core. It just doesn't resemble that in any way.

There are two ways to interpret the results:

a) Obsidian spent three years ruthlessly removing features from Aurora, without adding anything new aside from a puzzling decision to introduce the game mechanics of KotOR into the system.

b) Obsidian took the KotOR engine, didn't touch the game mechanics, didn't bother to introduce any optimisation to accomodate the gameplay of NWN, and just made a half-arsed game.

I'm going with b. Just because the game is kind of okay, and because the multitude of its flaws doesn't really bother you doesn't make this game any less bad than it is. It just means that your standards are so low that you're enjoying a sequel which is worse than its originator in nearly every conceivable way.

Imagine that A New Hope would have been released with the visuals of 2005, and Revenge of The Sith had the effects straight out of 1977. Would you have liked Episode III? Unlikely. The climatic Mustafar battle just woulnd't have been the same with the ridiculously simple fight effects of the Ben Kenobi - Vader showdown from the original edition of Episode IV. That's the kind of game NWN2 is - a technologically degraded sequel.

To OP

Great post detailing the things you didn't like about the game. Instead of just saying it sucks.

I don't have the game, but, unless you are lying. I have the same feelings as you about the features.

This game is really more a jewel in the rough than anything else--now, as to whether that jewel is a diamond as NWN came to be; or an amethyst as KOTOR II was is dependent on how much support it gets from Obsidian. After having played for a while and getting over the 'new game smell', I can say that there is some very good points with the game, some very bad, and a lot in between.

Multiplayer is no issue for me as I don't play it anyway, so I won't comment on that one way or the other. As regards the KOTOR game engine: In and of itself, it's not a bad engine and it could work with the D and D universe, but right now I will agree that there are a lot of bugs that need to be squashed. My big bugboos are camera angles and the fact that the game puts the PC front in center in all dialogues. Now, putting the PC front and center's no big deal if you're a tank, but if you're a scrawny wizard or thin skinned rogue, it can get quite ugly should the conversation turn sour; and sometimes it does feel like I have to fight the camera as well as the bad guys in combat.

As regards companion AI: That's not such a big deal for me as I keep them on puppet mode for the most part anyway--just as I always turned off the AI for BG and BG2.

The OC storyline so far has been entertaining for me. Yes, there are flaws: There really is no real way to play an evil character. However, the failure to truly develop evil options for roleplaying is a long time weakness of Bioware/Obsidian's going all the way back to BG1. It's hard in a CRPG to go that much beyond the standard find/kill/fetch/report back model for quests, unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast.

More opportunities for exploration and interaction would have been welcome and is a weak point for the game.

As regards the age issue: All you have to do to resolve that satisfactorily is to enter in the age you want at character creation. Don't like the idea of playing a 120 year old elf while Bevil and Aimee are 18, then erase the 120 and plug in 19--no biggie here. Now, the hideous options for heads at character creation--that's another matter entirely. Aesthetically, Obsidian dropped the ball here--no doubt about it. No option for beards for human males? In a medieval era fantasy? I genned up a human male rogue that looked more like he belonged in a 70s era porno flick than he did in a medieval fantasy. Half elvish and elvish females that look uglier than the males...I could go on, but I'm sure you've read it all before.

The game itself is not a bad game, and I most definitely am getting a lot of play from it--too much actually. But it is an incomplete game--as was KOTOR II. I would have rather Obsidian held off release for a few weeks--or even months--for additional fine tuning and bug killing--I would have understood completely. The big question here is: Will Obsidian devote the support time to turn this game into the diamond that NWN is now; or will NWN2 go the same way as KOTOR II did--a good game, yet deeply flawed game that could have been a great game? I guess we'll see in the coming weeks and months.

You do realize that KotOR was made with an improved NwN 1 engine, right? :p

^ Yeah. It's not so much improved as "adapted". From that point of view, Obsidian may have used an improved version of an adapted version of the Aurora engine. Or they could have just said that they'll use Odyssey right away.

Despite the negative reviews here, I'd love
to give this game a try anyway if it weren't for
the horrendous hardware requirements.
I won't update my system for just a mediocre game.
I know games that were made 2-4 years ago und just looked as good as nwn2 while having way lower system requirements *shudder* !

Hey catbert......I just tried the game. And I agree with every single one of your complaints. Man this game sucked. Its not even a roleplaying game. It has some d&d elements in it, but thats it.
Whoever was in charge of the production of this game should get on a bike, and ride it sideways into hell.
I have probably played around 100 computer rpg`s. from the late 80s til now. And I can honestly say this one was the worst one. Even pool of radiance was better than this. Makes me glad I downloaded this illegally, and didn`t pay cash for it.
Selling this game is theft of the buyer`s money.

I just realized that I haven't listed a single bug of this game - things that are broken, not just bad. Listing those would probably take the space of three chapters from Anna Karenina, but we are to expect that, right?

My favourite one is the load bug - when you load game, everyone appears at the location of your main character as opposed to where they were when you saved. Makes for great fun when trying to stage an ambush and save, then load on failure, I'm sure you understand why. Come to think of it, it just might be a game feature...

the comparisons to KotOR (which I loved) make me want to play the game (as I wasn't a fan of the first NWN anyway).. but my computer is too crappy and slow :bang: guess I'll stick to the BG series-KotOR series-PS:T Triumvirate :/

oki - i'll check back on this game in a couple of years see it has grown enough . Till then there are other games to play. Given the list of flaws i fear i will never enjoy it. Maybe go for a quick test run to see the good points, if any, as reference for future games.

I officially have no desire to even attempt it now Same here. I will also be putting all my plans to buy / build a new PC on to the shelf seeing as there is no point, now that I don't need to meet NWN2's superhuman hardware requirements. Thanks for saving me $2,000, catbert. Your cheque is, er, in the mail.

I don't deny any of the problems catbert mentioned. I am, however, still playing the game. I complain about it constantly, but still find myself in front of the computer playing it. I think the problem is that I have been so starved for a new D&D based CRPG that I am willing to put up with crap -- just not quietly. The story starts off poorly, but I think it improves a bit by chapter 2.

Personally, my *biggest* issue is load times. I have timed out several load times, and come up with approximate averages. Keep in mind I'm running the minimum specs.

To start first intro movie after clicking "play" -- 2:45 minutes to 3:05 minutes.

To load a saved game -- 1:30 minutes to 2:00 minutes.

To save a game (named, or with "quicksave," or with "autosave) -- about 1:30 minutes.

To load a new area -- about 2:00 minutes, on average.

So, when I want to start the game, it takes about 5 minutes just to load the first game, assuming I click through all the movies. And it takes almost that long to transition from one major area of the map to another if an autosave is required.

Bombur, that would frustrate the heck out of me.

the comparisons to KotOR (which I loved) make me want to play the gameWhile I'm not the one to say KotOR sucks, as I made a few runs through the first one, and had a good bit of fun with it. I ever ran through the second one, carefully stepping over the programming holes, fresh paint spots, and rough splintery edges - the story was okay, and all in all, the game mechanics weren't spoiled from the first KotOR.

However!

I find the way they managed to merge this engine into the NWN system absolutely appalling. The game mechanics of a top-down deep roleplaying game are radically different from a third-person adventure game, and Obsidian just forgot that, along with the word "ergonomics". It's a struggle to play, because NWN is a much more complicated system than the straightforward KotOR, which could be easily played on four keys and a mouse without sacrificing the fun factor. There's so much more to NWN than going forward, opening door, attacking/using force power, repeating again. The programming doesn't account for the usability of all the features that you often need.

@Harbourboy: Got that right! I can't just sit here, so I read, or I clean the house, or I take a shower, or whatever. This is going to be one of those games I play once and then put away for good.

@Bombur

Or shelf it for a couple of years, wait for a few more patches to improve it, and by that time the requirements will be easily met by a fairly average PC. Hell, I'm sure there will be some great player made modules by then too!

Bombur ,

I found those load times a shock as I have yet to experience a load that takes more than 10 seconds. Most are done in 5.

Mine are a lot quicker than bombur's as well. I have 2GB of RAM on machine machine. I'm not sure what Bombur has, but I'm guessing it's less than that.

What a pity it turned out like this, I really waited this one. Well I've bought enough games that haven't been worth the money spent so I'll leave NWN2 for now.

Thank you for the info catbert.

Catbert, you absolutely just saved me $50. I'll bake you a cake and mail it to you immediately.

Catbert saved me $2,000. He rules. I'll bake him another cake and email it to him immediately.

I think that most of you are missing the point. Neverwinter Nights 2 is not a bad game. It's really not. NWN2 is an AVERAGE game, doomed to fail after years of hope, anxiety, and omg-im-gonna-crap-my-pants-if-this-doesn't-come-out-soon anticipation. I mean really, Neverwinter Nights has never existed, and this were merely the beginning, and you had heard none of the hype, read no reviews, and just plain bought the game on a whim and started playing it, would you be so disappointed? I mean, it's not like you'd think it was brilliant, but at least your expectations wouldn'tve been crushed like CB's obviously have been. The fact of the matter is, big-name companies all-too-often get caught up in the past, and rather than striving to improve their old game with the passion and originality that they showed in the beginning, they get caught up in the hype and make an attempt to cash in for easy bucks. Remember a little company called BioWare? Now THERE was a company famous for creating a brilliant game, then following straight up with a knock-out sequel. I think that is Obsidian had just taken a leaf out of BioWare's book, that is, a PASSION FOR EXCELLENCE, none of this would've happened. But because Obsidian lost sight of what was really important, which was to deliver a brilliant game to satisfy the expectations of thousands of gamers whose lives had influenced by the game they had PROMISED to succeed; we are left with merely a shadow of what we should have been given. THAT is why Neverwinter Nights 2 was such a disappointment, as well as a mediocre game. It wasn't just the bugs, and it wasn't just the hype. It wasn't even the gameplay. What ruined this game was a lack of passion.

^ In a nutshell, I agree.

"Frail mediocrity" comes to mind when I think of what NWN2 turned out to be, and as that, it's not a bad game - just average. But then, factor in poor programming and absolutely stellar system requirements, and in my mind that crosses over into the bad territory.

Obsidian gets the benefit of the doubt, though, and just about everyone (at first, me included) goes and says "Oh well, that happens to any game today, they'll go and patch it and everything will be all right". Other companies don't get the same treatment, because they aren't so lucky as to have their paws on games for which Bioware made the name associated with innovative gameplay, quality, and support. Just because BioWare really knows how to make games doesn't mean that Obsidian knows how to make sequels to those games. KotOR2 being a strong case. Yet, Obsidian, so far, has the BioWare shield that other good companies didn't.

One of those companies that comes to mind is Troika Games, yet another bunch of people from the original Fallout team (just like the core of Obsidian). If VTM: Bloodlines was a sequel to a Bioware masterpiece, would Troika have gone under? I don't know, but in my book NWN2 is no better than Bloodlines as far as release quality goes, but it lags far behind aesthetically. Maybe a poor comparison...

Catbert saved me $2,000. He rules. I'll bake him another cake and email it to him immediately.
For $2,000 You could build a Core 2 Duo Extreme Desktop PC, with 4GB ram, 512-1024MB Video and still have enough left over for a monitor, surround sound speakers, G15 keyboard and a wireless/wired combo router...

FYI, that PC would run any game that comes out for the next 5 years (before 32+ core chips come out that replace the need for Grahpics Cards), the Core 2 Extreme is an amazing chip.

Um, $2,000 New Zealand Dollars, that is. That will only buy you a slightly above average PC.

For $2,000 You could build a Core 2 Duo Extreme Desktop PC, with 4GB ram, 512-1024MB Video and still have enough left over for a monitor, surround sound speakers, G15 keyboard and a wireless/wired combo router...Your specs just set me back CAD3500 :p
I mean, CD2E at twelve hundred apiece, SLI motherboard for those two chips to account for 1024 video memory, four gig-sized ram chips, and all... But that's beside the point.

Actually, a friend of mine went and built a top-of-the-line system just about two years ago, having spent somewhat around that sum. Got himself a 3.2gHz P4, a 6800U, some of that spanky DDR400. Now he's struggling in NWN2 with 12fps average (1280) and no shadows. Yeap. That game's hungry. They said they developed it to run optimally on a middle-of-the-road system from three years ago, but it barely goes at below average options on a top-of-the-line rig from two years ago. Sheesh.

Saved me a boatload of cash as well. considering I was also contemplating building a new gaming rig just for NWN2. Guess I can just buy a laptop and a PS2 then.

Now that I've played it a bit more... and quite frankly have enjoyed myself immensely :)
- You are unable to multiple-select your characters in a party under your control. Why could you do that in every single Infinity engine game and most every other RPG with a party system, but not in NWN2? Because that's the way it was in KotOR.You couldn't in NWN; you couldn't even control your party. You could barely call what you had a party.

- You cannot select the character under your control by clicking on them. Why? Because that's how it was in KotOR, and it stayed that way.So, you click on their portrait on-screen. How difficult.

- Your character creation screen came straight out of the game I won't name. But it's about jedi knights, so you can guess.Not sure if this is really something you consider bad, or it's just that it's like KotOR, but I have no problem with the character creation.

- Item creation? Workbench? Components? Oh, right KotOR. Nice. I just made myself a Sherridan wood longbow... Happens to be Mighty +5, and I haven't found any decent longbows yet, so that was sweet.

- Animations came straight out of the same game. They're just as basic, alas much more noticeable given the change of perspective.Not sure about that, I guess I never paid that close attention, but I was just noticing the cool spinning attacks Neeshka was making when I gave her two weapons. Sweet.

- Your companions cannot die because they're essential plot NPCs. They will simply get up like it's nobody's business after being butchered in battle, just like KotOR.Eh. so what really? What do you do if a companion dies? Reload or Resurrect.
Plus, they're forced on you, and you have no choice but to take them until you can get to Ebon Haw... er, Neverwinter, and leave them there.May be true, but it didn't seem so. I wanted all the companions so far (which is three prior to reaching Neverwinter), so I never chose the dialogs to say get lost, but they seemed to be there.

- Cutscenes? Check. World map? Check. NPCs with no freedom of selection of class? Check.Again, is this bad or just a comparison to KotOR? Auto-level button? Not here! Okay, so it's a regressed KotOR engine.Maybe no auto-level, but a recommended button for every choice, so leveling is quick and painless if you don't want to make choices.

- Inventory. Who stole a paycheck for designing this travesty? The icons are about as informative as C3PO's beeps. It has 128 one-cell slots each of which can fit any item, potentially enabling you to carry one hundred and twenty eight scythes on your person. If the elementary "realism" and "roleplay" connotations of this do not worry you like they do me, then I hope you will at least agree with me that the inventory is nigh impossible to manage visually. Inventory tetris was a part of my pack-rat roleplaying experience. I liked the fact that even if I was inhumanly strong, I could carry at most 30 greatswords.I agree with this one. I think the NWN inventory system was one thing complained about though, so I'm not surprised. Another thing I don't like is that items are automatically identified when you pick them up if you have a high enough Lore. Sometimes it's difficult to find the thing you just picked up. In NWN I used to look for the unidentified items to find what I just picked up and identify them. Now I have to examine them before I pick them up or search through that crazy inventory and try to remember what I had before and what's new.

- When you dropped a sword on the floor in NWN, it was a sword laying on the floor. In NWN2 it's a loot bag. Geez.Meh. I'll take your word for it, but I haven't dropped anything yet :lol:

- You have more quickslots than in NWN, but they are inaccessible by hotkeys. In a way, you have less quickslots, but more useless slowslots. Why in the hells can't I drag a spell from the quickcast into one of those?What's wrong with the quick-cast menu? It's quick and easy! *shrug*

- Character animations - staggered, unrealistic, ten frame walk/run cycle. Let me walk. Let me jog. Let me sprint. Let me step carefully. Let me feel alive on screen! NWN had that, why doesn't this game? It's a big part of roleplaying. I don't know about you, but my roleplay experience involves walking in towns, running away from the enemy, and being alive while standing. Looking around curiously, crossing my arms, shrugging, putting that heavy sword on my shoulder, playing with my bow. More roleplaying this game is missing.
I stood around at one point to check this, and they do fidget and look around when just standing there.
- What happened to the camera? Why is there simply no angle from which I can see everything? Every camera mode has an issue with it. Free camera in this game? What's the point, you cannot even make a selection of more than one character at once to take advantage of its "strategy" factor. Chase camera turning lags unintuitively so you have to move where you want to look. The topdown camera insists to zoom on my avatar whenever I come close to a wall, treating me to a perfectly useless view of my character instead of the somewhat useful view of her surroundings. Walk through a door the wrong way? Be treated to an awkward zoom-in. Things like that. I don't want to get stuck looking...I don't have any problem with the default top-down camera. It's easy to change angle, rotate and zoom in and out quickly. The only problem with it that I have is that it centers on the selected character which is sometimes not convenient. I'll have to try the free camera and see how that works... I haven't yet.

- The weapons are about as basic and schematic as NWN. Some seem to have been imported directly, and they're not open to modification as they were in NWN. Armours seem to be different textures placed on the same mesh. Chain shirt, leather armour, chain mail all look like a football uniform with shoulder pads. In NWN we had a choice of making our armour slick and streamlined, or covering it with heavy panzer spikes and plates. Here we do not.I don't know about this, but do you really? It didn't seem like you played very far, so I'm guessing you didn't see too much.

- WASD controls have been made useless. One can no longer make precise maneuvering with them. They were simply awkwardly adapted from KotOR without the option to change their sensitivity.Yeah, I had just finished KotOR 2 before playing this and I haven't even attempted to use it after the beginning when it didn't work too well.

- Spells look flashy. For many, flashy equates to good. Unfortunately the spell effects all look like coloured spraypaint being sprayed over the area of effect. Lighting effects resemble perfectly two-dimensional effects from 1996 made in a higher resolution, and spells fail to evoke any semblance of belief. That's not what I imagine casting magic spells looks like. This is not a release of arcane energy, this is effects for the sake of effects. Not to mention they are repetitive and lend no hand in visual recognition of the spells being cast.I have to disagree here. The spell effects are great, and I especially like the targeting circle that shows the area of effect before you cast. When Elanee casts Flame Strike she gets engulfed in flames just prior to the strike like she's gathering the fire energy. Sweet.
Fading buffs? Oh, look, an icon appeared over my head signifying the fade of the buff. Where is the NWN system with perfectly recognizeable spell effects on the top of the screen that inform unambiguously of their expiration? Instead we've inherited the uninformative + and - icon system, slightly modified from KotOR.True, but meh. The + and - indicate what's been changed when you hover over it with the cursor and a lot of other effects are depicted like stunned, prone, diseased etc.

- The interiours are infuriating. For every pointless placeable that takes up sixteen hundred polygons, you lose framerate. For every placeable, that stacks, and accounts for abysmal performance of the game. At the same time, despite all the detail, the placeable is perfectly unnoticeable until your character gets stuck in it due to faulty pathfinding, and gets killed. Surprising how dead environments, locked doors, trees you wish weren't there as they obstruct your view, simple piles of garbage, and unlootable crates are given so much detail while your character remains a semblance of a wax model with no life in it.The environments are so much better than NWN, I don't recall any companions getting stuck behind placeables. In fact, the pathfinding was so good that when Kelghar couldn't reach an enemy because I was blocking the doorway, he ran around to the other side through another open door.

- Combining the actions and context sensitive menu in the right click is one of those decisions for which designers should have never passed their usability class. Both get in the way of the other, accounting for much frustration. Imagine "shoot" and "use" bound to the same key in Half-life. That's the way I feel about it.Not sure what your talking about here, I haven't had any problems with the interface, but again, I'm not sure what you're referring to.

- Minimap is not only confusing, it's useless. Outdoor areas are not shrouded, so you can never tell where you have been and where you haven't. Round view window is painfully inconvenient. Yet again, outdoor map is textured, rendering it impaired as a navigation tool. There is no fog of war to speak of. I enter the dungeon, and I magically know its layout right away. Give me a break.Mini-map is great. I especially like the "light cone" that shows in which direction your looking. And now that my Ranger has the Swift Tracker feat, the mini-map is fantastic since it shows the location of enemies at all times. True, both the mini-map and the regular map don't show where you haven't been yet, but how hard is it to remember where you've been?

- Stores. Oh boy. I have seventy items to sell that have the same icon, I have to click one hundred fourty times to choose item and confirm sale. Why does the enter button not work for Yes in the message box? Even a cretin knows that Enter equals Ok on whatever tool menu is on the screen right now. Merchants run out of gold but have no gold counter on them.Merchants run out of gold? Wow, I didn't realize that and I've sold all kinds of stuff; I'll have to look out for that.

- Non-contact schematic battles. There are next no battle animations, cleaves, flurries are missing. Hits are accompanied by the blade clipping through the enemy, with a ridiculous splash of blood accompanying the hit. The battles are less exciting than PnP as they lack any flourish yet leave nothing to the imagination. Bows have no arrows in them. Oh please, I know KotOR had no complex projective weapons, but would you at least try?Disagree. There are all kinds of battle animations. The cleave and flurry animations (color streaks) are actually better than NWN because in NWN you can lose attacks due to running out of animation time if there are too many attacks happening. This implementation is better IMO because you can see what happened even though your character isn't swinging the weapon, and you get all the attacks you're supposed to.

- Animations don't fire properly. You stop pretending to interact with a locked box long before the lock comes off. You step away from the trap before it is disarmed.True. But it's not like there isn't an indication when it's done. You do stand back up from the squat before the job is done though.

- Pathfinding in this game is a joke, to the point where characters simply warp to the locations as if they lag, skipping the pathfinding stage. And that's me, playing on stable thirty frames per second, leaving absolutely no room for frame lag.Haven't noticed this at all.

- The world transition trigger is huge, ineffable, resembles the UN logo, and destroys immersion.Much better than the plain blue rectangle trigger points in NWN, and I don't see how a cool looking trigger point destroys immersion more than a giant blue rectangle.

- There is no feeling of travel or exploration in this game. You hop in the Ebon Haw.. oh wait, there are no starships here, but you still just do hyper-space jumps from one key plot location to another. Random encounter, a key part of any serious D&D game, did not make it in here.Basically the same as BG2. I have had what seemed to be random encounters when I was travelling between map points.


- The dialog options never present any illusion of choice. Like someone said, most "character development" dialog options in this game can be replaced with three emoticons: . There's no interest in clicking on cookie-cutter dialog options which will inevitably lead to the same outcome.They don't lead to the same outcome. At a minimum they can affect your alignment, and I was able to fight or persuade in several occasions so far.

- Dialog pause in OC. None of your party can act, but guess what, they still can take damage and die as the enemies do not get frozen by the dialog. Holy bad design, Batman!Hm. Haven't noticed this one either.

- There is no freedom of choice in this game, and the difference between good and evil is that evil simply kills everyone, while good talks to them a bit and then kills everyone. Lovely roleplay.Incorrect. As I mentioned I have had several instances so far where I could have chosen to fight or negotiate and was able to successfully negotiate. Also in Neverwinter there seems to be a choice of evil (join the thieves) or good (join the Watch) path to get into Blacklake, but I can't be completely sure since I chose the good path.

- Where are romances? One universally mismatched option per gender? How engaging is that? You are a leader of your party, you will inevitably evoke personal feelings in your companions. Imagine Lord of the Rings without the Aragorn - Arwen romance. What good adventure story doesn't have a love story in it? Apparently, NWN2. Oh, wait, I asked about a good one.Apparently there is only one choice for love interest per gender, but I haven't had any romantic dialog so far with Elanee which is supposed to be one of them, so I can't comment on how good or bad it is.

- Archetype NPCs. Tank, thief, healer. If I wanted archetype NPCs, I'd have read Order of the Stick, to much more of my enjoyment. Neeshka claims people pick on her for her horns and tail, but she has no ****ing tail.Are you talking about the first three companions you come across? One is a Druid. You get a Sorcerer fairly soon in Neverwinter, and I have heard about many more.

- The NPCs are forced onto you. Lone ranger? Not here. Skulking assassin? Not here. Antisocial mage? Not here. They stick with you faithfully on no premise even if you are a murderous psychopath, complete with their overused hooks and excuses for staying with you.Probably true, but I wanted the companions so I didn't mind. It did seem like there were dialog choices to say "get lost I don't need you" though when you first meet them, but not having tried the options I can't say what would have happened if I did.

- Being evil. The campaign is simply not made for it. Nothing should stop me from murdering peasants for a few gold coins if that is what I want, but this game stops me. It's nearly impossible to maintain an evil alignment in this game to keep, say, assassin or blackguard class features within the frames of roleplay. The "evil" dialog options are mostly just obnoxious or rude. Rude does not equal evil. I'm rude. And obnoxious. But I'll give you a hand if you're drowning, and I will not ask for any compensation. In this game you end up inadvertently doing good deeds to just advance the plot.Like I mentioned, I believe there is an evil path to get into Blacklake whcih is supposed to be quicker than joining the Watch, but you are warned that you will likely have to harm people.

- The OC has no exploration. You walk on a predetermined path without any opportunity (or point) to step off it. In the teeming city, you are met with sealed doors, dead randomly scattered houses and decorations, and NPCs with conveyor replies that have nothing to talk about. "Times are tough" indeed.There is exploration. There are quests off the main path. Many doors are sealed until you get the quest to go there.

- The loot is boring. It was in NWN too, but I hoped this new improved campaign would address it. It didn't. The loot is still boring, there is just much less of it.What would be exciting loot?

- The quests are all regurgitated nonsense that we saw in NWN. Go to area A, kill baddie B, and bring quest token Q to move on. Only this time you have the NPCs tag along with their...Disagree. I was able to open the way to take the ship to Neverwinter by negotiating with the lizarmen and the Highcliff elder. I could have just killed the lizardmen too it seemed, but I didn't have to. I was also able to save a priest of Tyr that got trapped in the Tomb of the Betrayers (and put the beat down on a ghostly Fenthic :) ) What kind of quest should they have implemented?

- ...unbelievably moronic AI. Wait, the AI is simply absent, just like it was in KotOR series. Fortunately for KotOR, there was never a game situation in which your party wasn't five levels above the challenge rating of any mob, so you could lay back, draw the lightsaber, and enjoy the show. Just as fortunately for KotOR, there was hardly ever a situation in which your party member didn't shoot at the enemy, or didn't have a straight line to charge in melee, leaving no need for any pathfinding. In NWN2, the story is different. Enemies are on par with the party, and pathfinding is ridiculous, and the only intelligence these brainless automatons possess is the one you impart on them by micromanaging the battle in pause mode and wishing that the AI was simply not there.The AI is not bad; I use it most of the time. Elanee does have the habit of Flame-Striking the melee-ers at teh same time as the enemies though... BUt regardless, you have the option to control any of your companions if they aren't doing what you want.

- Side quests, where are they? Remember how you could play Baldur's Gate 2? You could complete it in a couple weeks of game time, or you could do side quests for months if that was what you wanted. NWN2 seems to be lacking just about any dialogs or NPCs that are not related to the main plot.Have had many side quests and I'm only in Neverwinter so far.

Can't comment on the multiplayer part since I haven't tried it yet.

I am also enjoying the game, but why the hell can't I change spells for Elanee? I try to drag a spell to a free spellslot and nothing happens, the blank spot is still a blank spot. grrrrrrrrr

Don't mention Elanee, bloody hell. She'll wait till a fight is over then cast barkskin and change into a bear... shocking AI really.

While I am enjoying NWN2 I do feel ripped off (especially as I got the LG edition) and feel that I should have got Medieval Total War 2 or Dark Messiah of Might and Magic instead :confused: I hope this doesn't turn into another Temple of Elemental Evil.

I just got the game I'm going to side with BTA here. I was affraid about the system specs by the way people were complaining but I have to say that I am very happy with the result. Loading times aren't that long for me (average 10 - 15 seconds), no lag, or whatever. I play 1024x and only shadows at minimum, the rest is everything on the maximum, didn't try shadows full even when after checked with the test button put them full.
So far I have just one complain: the camera. none of them seems to fit the way I want to play and I can't remember which one resembles the way I played NWN.

For people like Harbourboy who might think that need a super expensive computer to play the game, I want to say that I bought mine about 4 months ago and it cost me about €900 (I bought a nVidia GeForce 7600GS that cost me about €90) and I can play the latest 'system-eaters' games very well.
Oh, is a Pentium D820, 1Gb ram, the said GeForce and 160Gb hard disk (more specs: http://support.packardbell.com/es/item/index.php?pn=PB34305204&g=1400)

<SPOILER>


Anyone discover more than two romances? I know i didn't. Anyone think it's strange that although Neeshka verbally attacks every other woman who joins your party she isn't a romance option herself?
If it's the horns, hey i don't care.... Aerie's horibble mutilalted spine was fine, so why not this ? I'm really staring to favour the good old Use em and lose em system that baldurs gate used, if characters were boring or had no depth, you dropped them for ones that did, but none of the characters in this really have much to say, to you that is. They have lot's to say with regard to one liners and the likes. I think it was more fun when all characters were amazingly instantly attracted to the main character, no boring innfluence build up neccesary, you just had to say the right thing, until you finally were forced to decide who you liked best. Unrealistic? Definitley! Far more fun? No question.

As BTA has mentioned, there are only 2 available romances: one male, and one female. All the others were dropped.

I am also enjoying the game, but why the hell can't I change spells for Elanee? I try to drag a spell to a free spellslot and nothing happens, the blank spot is still a blank spot. grrrrrrrrr Just left-click on the spell in the spell book and it will go on your memorized list. Left click on a spell on your memorized list and it will be taken off.

I just got the game I'm going to side with BTA here.Heh. Well, I'm not trying to be a side or anything, I just want to give a different perspective on the game since I'm enjoying it :)

Don't mention Elanee, bloody hell. She'll wait till a fight is over then cast barkskin and change into a bear... shocking AI really.Elanee casts all kinds of stuff during the battles, but she does buff up first most of the time. You can also prevent her from changing into animal form by herself by deselecting the use of special abilities from the AI. The main problem I have with Elanee's AI is that she sometimes casts Flame Strike into the middle of melee and damages me and Kelghar. She doesn't do it all the time, so I'm not sure what triggers it. Also when she's under the Body of Sun (or whatever the name of that spell is) and the battle ends, she walks up to the party and starts burning us! :lol: Oh, and another thing: The spell description says only the flame part of the Flame Strike will damage friends and the divine part won't, but I was taking damage from both!

[ November 13, 2006, 17:10: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

Akin to a card-carrying member of Westboro Batsh*t Church, I'm completely and utterly convinced that one is bound to go to hell for liking this game, but I'm not going to leave my cause unattended anyways and I'll address some of these. ;)

- You are unable to multiple-select your characters in a party under your control. Why could you do that in every single Infinity engine game and most every other RPG with a party system, but not in NWN2? Because that's the way it was in KotOR.

You couldn't in NWN; you couldn't even control your party. You could barely call what you had a party.You couldn't in NWN? I wouldn't know! I never had any useless NPCs forced onto me in NWN. The only icons I would click are those of my friends, to barter with them, or kick their bottoms for the fun of it.


- You cannot select the character under your control by clicking on them. Why? Because that's how it was in KotOR, and it stayed that way.
So, you click on their portrait on-screen. How difficult.Very! Retarded, unintuitive, ergonomic mishap. D- for effort and friendliness of use.



- Your character creation screen came straight out of the game I won't name. But it's about jedi knights, so you can guess.

Not sure if this is really something you consider bad, or it's just that it's like KotOR, but I have no problem with the character creation.

- Item creation? Workbench? Components? Oh, right KotOR.

Nice. I just made myself a Sherridan wood longbow... Happens to be Mighty +5, and I haven't found any decent longbows yet, so that was sweet.
Actually, my point was not to blame. My point was to say that OE pulled a Rumsfeld on the whole We'll improve NWN's system deal. They didn't improve it. They took a different system which lacked NWNs features from the very start, and they never bothered to add them.


- Your companions cannot die because they're essential plot NPCs. They will simply get up like it's nobody's business after being butchered in battle, just like KotOR.

Eh. so what really? What do you do if a companion dies? Reload or Resurrect.With these companions? Raise a round of cheers. I was honestly hoping that if I'm forced to take the suckers, I'd at least be able to kill them off. No luck.

Plus, they're forced on you, and you have no choice but to take them until you can get to Ebon Haw... er, Neverwinter, and leave them there.

May be true, but it didn't seem so. I wanted all the companions so far (which is three prior to reaching Neverwinter), so I never chose the dialogs to say get lost, but they seemed to be there.I chose the dialogs to get lost. Altough their final word is "Oh, I'll go with you anyways", and you get four options: Yes, Okay, Sure, I guess. Bad storytelling. From my perspective, bad plot. Bad OC.


Auto-level button? Not here! Okay, so it's a regressed KotOR engine.

Maybe no auto-level, but a recommended button for every choice, so leveling is quick and painless if you don't want to make choices.Neither quick nor painless from my perspective. Why do I have to click through all of their stages if I didn't want to deal with them in the first place? No reason, just backwards game engineering. Oh, by the way, what's the point of even upgrading them if the changes which you put on them personally simply reset once you kick them out of your party and then take them back? Something you haven't noticed either?



- You have more quickslots than in NWN, but they are inaccessible by hotkeys. In a way, you have less quickslots, but more useless slowslots. Why in the hells can't I drag a spell from the quickcast into one of those?

What's wrong with the quick-cast menu? It's quick and easy! *shrug*Actually, the quick cast bar in my opinion is the only improvement that game introduced. It was sorely missing from NWN, and having played a lot of wizards in the original, I'd have enjoyed the quick cast immensely. The quickslots is a different matter. In NWN you had 36 of them, but in NWN2 you only have 12. The 132 slots to which you have to sequentially switch with a mouseclick are simply pointless in that role.



- Character animations - staggered, unrealistic, ten frame walk/run cycle. Let me walk. Let me jog. Let me sprint. Let me step carefully. Let me feel alive on screen! NWN had that, why doesn't this game? It's a big part of roleplaying. I don't know about you, but my roleplay experience involves walking in towns, running away from the enemy, and being alive while standing. Looking around curiously, crossing my arms, shrugging, putting that heavy sword on my shoulder, playing with my bow. More roleplaying this game is missing.

I stood around at one point to check this, and they do fidget and look around when just standing there.They sway from side to side as if they're bored, that's about it. I'd be bored if I were them. They don't even look in the direction of a highlighted object. In NWN your characters could make an impression of a conversation because if you put a mouse over your companion, your character would look straight at them. It's not here. Little thing, but to me it was a nice touch which for some reason didn't survive the engine improvement. And then, this game has no style. The designers went for the biggest, most amateurish mistake in the book - realism, and failed miserably, because realistic characters take a lot of effort on a case-to-case basis. Alyx in Half-Life 2 is an example of a reasonably realistic character, with great lip-sync, humanlike fluid motions. But that particular doll was a staple of the HL2 campaign, it's one of the few on-screen characters that draw attention, and it seems to have as much effort invested in it as NWN2 boasts (if you can say so) in whole. You can't just take poser dolls, barely animate them, and hope for realism, and that's just what Obsidian did.


- Spells look flashy. For many, flashy equates to good. Unfortunately the spell effects all look like coloured spraypaint being sprayed over the area of effect. Lighting effects resemble perfectly two-dimensional effects from 1996 made in a higher resolution, and spells fail to evoke any semblance of belief. That's not what I imagine casting magic spells looks like. This is not a release of arcane energy, this is effects for the sake of effects. Not to mention they are repetitive and lend no hand in visual recognition of the spells being cast.

I have to disagree here. The spell effects are great, and I especially like the targeting circle that shows the area of effect before you cast. When Elanee casts Flame Strike she gets engulfed in flames just prior to the strike like she's gathering the fire energy. Sweet.Square patterns in a circle appearing over your head? Honeycomb patterns on the floor? If I was looking for immersion, those things would have given me a hissy fit. Wait, they did.


- Minimap is not only confusing, it's useless. Outdoor areas are not shrouded, so you can never tell where you have been and where you haven't. Round view window is painfully inconvenient. Yet again, outdoor map is textured, rendering it impaired as a navigation tool. There is no fog of war to speak of. I enter the dungeon, and I magically know its layout right away. Give me a break.

Mini-map is great. I especially like the "light cone" that shows in which direction your looking. And now that my Ranger has the Swift Tracker feat, the mini-map is fantastic since it shows the location of enemies at all times. True, both the mini-map and the regular map don't show where you haven't been yet, but how hard is it to remember where you've been?Ah hell, maybe you have a point. In a game that has no exploration possibilities there are only so many places where you could have been on the map.



- Non-contact schematic battles. There are next no battle animations, cleaves, flurries are missing. Hits are accompanied by the blade clipping through the enemy, with a ridiculous splash of blood accompanying the hit. The battles are less exciting than PnP as they lack any flourish yet leave nothing to the imagination. Bows have no arrows in them. Oh please, I know KotOR had no complex projective weapons, but would you at least try?

Disagree. There are all kinds of battle animations. The cleave and flurry animations (color streaks) are actually better than NWN because in NWN you can lose attacks due to running out of animation time if there are too many attacks happening. This implementation is better IMO because you can see what happened even though your character isn't swinging the weapon, and you get all the attacks you're supposed to.What are you talking about? There are no cleave animations. Playing NWN2 and NWN back to back is like playing Super Mario and Tekken back to back, and guess who gets my animation credit. Same goes for walking, idle animations, mostly about everything. It's not hard to do. If I could make models for NWN from scratch with all of these animations perfectly fluid in just a matter of a few days, then shouldn't the professional animation artists at Obsidian be able to pull it off? I guess not!


- The world transition trigger is huge, ineffable, resembles the UN logo, and destroys immersion.

Much better than the plain blue rectangle trigger points in NWN, and I don't see how a cool looking trigger point destroys immersion more than a giant blue rectangle.The giant blue rectangle mostly wasn't visible. It's a minor point, though. My personal pet peeve if you will.


- There is no feeling of travel or exploration in this game. You hop in the Ebon Haw.. oh wait, there are no starships here, but you still just do hyper-space jumps from one key plot location to another. Random encounter, a key part of any serious D&D game, did not make it in here.

Basically the same as BG2. I have had what seemed to be random encounters when I was travelling between map points.Scripted non-random encounter. Yes, it's like BG2. Lagging six years behind and proud of it.



- The dialog options never present any illusion of choice. Like someone said, most "character development" dialog options in this game can be replaced with three emoticons: . There's no interest in clicking on cookie-cutter dialog options which will inevitably lead to the same outcome.

They don't lead to the same outcome. At a minimum they can affect your alignment, and I was able to fight or persuade in several occasions so far.No, really, they often do lead to the same outcome, because in this game you will act the way it wants you to act. Certainly, if there's an option on the screen that nails your reply, then you don't notice the lack of variety. Like, if you're playing a good docile character. But try play an evil psychopath, and the OC with its script crumbles into pieces. As it did for me.


- There is no freedom of choice in this game, and the difference between good and evil is that evil simply kills everyone, while good talks to them a bit and then kills everyone. Lovely roleplay.

Incorrect. As I mentioned I have had several instances so far where I could have chosen to fight or negotiate and was able to successfully negotiate. Also in Neverwinter there seems to be a choice of evil (join the thieves) or good (join the Watch) path to get into Blacklake, but I can't be completely sure since I chose the good path.An option to choose black or white does not constitute choice in my book. I always look for KotOR (both 1 and 2) as pretty good examples of an interesting gameplay as far as morality is concerned, and NWN2 seems simplistic and trite in its choice of words and subtlety compared to those.


- The NPCs are forced onto you. Lone ranger? Not here. Skulking assassin? Not here. Antisocial mage? Not here. They stick with you faithfully on no premise even if you are a murderous psychopath, complete with their overused hooks and excuses for staying with you.

Probably true, but I wanted the companions so I didn't mind. It did seem like there were dialog choices to say "get lost I don't need you" though when you first meet them, but not having tried the options I can't say what would have happened if I did.What fight have been:
Gang: Hey, let's knock this dwarf around!
Khelgar: Bring it on, *******s!
Me: *shrug* Sure, beat him up, I'll get the popcorn.
G: On no, we'll beat you up too because you tried to con us into fighting the dwarf!
M: Wtf. Okay, let's fight. *two minutes of boring combat*
K: Arr, that was good. So how about I tag along with you?
M: Thanks, but no thanks, sod off.
K: Bah, why don't we go in the tavern, have a drink, and talk about how much you hate me?
M: 1. Okay / 2. Sure / 3. Fine / 4. All right


- The loot is boring. It was in NWN too, but I hoped this new improved campaign would address it. It didn't. The loot is still boring, there is just much less of it.

What would be exciting loot?Well hell, I don't know! In a game that's touted for its flexibility and variety, one might give me something other than fifty gems that I need to sell one by one to merchants that run out of gold (and no Fallout-like system to barter for goods), or a dozen of twin shortswords. Show me variety, different weapons, even of the same time, some cool-looking armours? I know, I know, not in this game.


- The quests are all regurgitated nonsense that we saw in NWN. Go to area A, kill baddie B, and bring quest token Q to move on. Only this time you have the NPCs tag along with their...

Disagree. I was able to open the way to take the ship to Neverwinter by negotiating with the lizarmen and the Highcliff elder. I could have just killed the lizardmen too it seemed, but I didn't have to. I was also able to save a priest of Tyr that got trapped in the Tomb of the Betrayers (and put the beat down on a ghostly Fenthic) What kind of quest should they have implemented?Actually, there is no other kind of quest you can implement in a single player game without making things too complicated. I just hate it when people say how interesting everything is in this game, while in fact it's the same old stuff with low replayability and dead multiplayer.



- ...unbelievably moronic AI. Wait, the AI is simply absent, just like it was in KotOR series. Fortunately for KotOR, there was never a game situation in which your party wasn't five levels above the challenge rating of any mob, so you could lay back, draw the lightsaber, and enjoy the show. Just as fortunately for KotOR, there was hardly ever a situation in which your party member didn't shoot at the enemy, or didn't have a straight line to charge in melee, leaving no need for any pathfinding. In NWN2, the story is different. Enemies are on par with the party, and pathfinding is ridiculous, and the only intelligence these brainless automatons possess is the one you impart on them by micromanaging the battle in pause mode and wishing that the AI was simply not there.

The AI is not bad; I use it most of the time. Elanee does have the habit of Flame-Striking the melee-ers at teh same time as the enemies though... BUt regardless, you have the option to control any of your companions if they aren't doing what you want.You lost me on not bad. Being pelted by friendly flamestrikes by your druid. Your sorcerer standing in the corner and buffing while fighters die in dire need of those buffs. The warlock rushing in melee with a 1d4+2 dagger instead of using their 8d6 eldritch blast. If that's not bad, then I guess getting syphilis isn't all that bad, and Hitler was such a sweetie. (Not technically Godwin yet)

Can't comment on the multiplayer part since I haven't tried it yet.I invite you to help yourself to a helping of that disaster. Most of my complaints are based on the fact that this game killed multiplayer. It doesn't work as singleplayer for me, it doesn't work as multiplayer, it's toolset is not conductive to community development on the scale that NWN's was, just as running large MP servers is beyond the game's capability. To me, this game destroyed everything that was holy about NWN by making it a sluggish singleplayer campaign with programming holes the size of Arizona, and that's why I'm ornery.

I'm completely and utterly convinced that one is bound to go to hell for liking this game:lol: Hell, here I come!
Very! Retarded, unintuitive, ergonomic mishap. D- for effort and friendliness of use.Actually when you think about it, it makes sense. The default camera angle centers on the selected person, so it makes it easier to switch between party members when they are spread far apart since the portratis are always on screen when the avatar may not be.
With these companions? Raise a round of cheers. I was honestly hoping that if I'm forced to take the suckers, I'd at least be able to kill them off. No luck.Ah! Now it makes sense. I was assuming you'd want to keep your companions alive, but I guess that's not necessarily the case :)

What are you talking about? There are no cleave animations. Playing NWN2 and NWN back to back is like playing Super Mario and Tekken back to back, and guess who gets my animation credit. Same goes for walking, idle animations, mostly about everything. It's not hard to do. If I could make models for NWN from scratch with all of these animations perfectly fluid in just a matter of a few days, then shouldn't the professional animation artists at Obsidian be able to pull it off? I guess not!
The avatar doesn't animate in a swing for Cleaves or AoOs, but you get color streaks and bursts. The reason they do not animate those with the avatar is because when you are high level and have multiple attacks per round, there is not enough time and frames to animate all the attacks. Apparently in NWN when that happened, you lost attacks. I'd prefer to get all my attacks and see the yellow slashes for AoOs and (IIRC) purple bursts for Cleaves.

You lost me on not bad.Hehe. Well, at least I didn't say it was fine and dandy. IMO, it's better than the NWN AI and a complete improvement that you can control them directly if you want.

Actually when you think about it, it makes sense. The default camera angle centers on the selected person, so it makes it easier to switch between party members when they are spread far apart since the portratis are always on screen when the avatar may not be.I'm in no way saying "Remove the portrait-click selection and replace it with what I want". Just add the alternative for those of us who need it. But noooooo. Bad customer! Don't ask for traditionally convenient features, learn to use ours! - Obsidian.

Ah! Now it makes sense. I was assuming you'd want to keep your companions alive, but I guess that's not necessarily the case :) Which is kind of the point - if you play this game the way it wants to be played, then you will not notice even ten percent of the things which tick me off story-wise. You seem to go along with it in your play style, while all of my impulses went against its grain, and it didn't give me a choice to roleplay.


Late edit:
The reason they do not animate those with the avatar is because when you are high level and have multiple attacks per round, there is not enough time and frames to animate all the attacks. Apparently in NWN when that happened, you lost attacks.That's what the devs said too. Along with: "We couldn't come up with a way to skip animations when there's no frames left in the round to run them, so we decided to not animate at all". Even if the lost attacks theory is true, that's still a poor excuse, and the devs' statement holds just as much value as "We were far too lazy and incompetent to improve the engine, so we just cut functionality". I'll make a point of checking out the lost attacks in NWN, though. Got a 28 level hasted fighter (http://www.lawl.net/chizu.jpg) at hand for the purpose... (Ain't it a shame you can't make armours look like that in NWN2).

[ November 13, 2006, 18:24: Message edited by: catbert ]

The only things I find seriously lacking in these games is the banter. That which made the BG's extremely amazing games - was left out of the NWN's. This game is no better with that and even... doubly lacking because there's only 1 thing you can talk to your party members about and it never changes no matter how many times you go over it.

Actually, the whole idea of companions being immortal sounds ridiculous.

In BG2, I always played with the risk that a companion might die, or might run off if annoyed them. I only reloaded if the PC died. If there is no risk of an NPC companion dying - that sounds like a whole aspect of the game gone. It means that you wouldn't bother buffing them up or healing them during a battle because they're indestructible anyway.

Not exactly indestructible HB. If anyone "dies" during a battle they're out of the fight until you do something about it, or the battle is over. Pretty much the same result as if they really died, except if you want them permanently dead like catbert.

It's not that I want them permanently dead, but I'd quite like to have the feeling of risk that they might end up permanently dead if I don't look after them. If I know I can just go and revive them after the fight, I won't bother to heal them in the heat of battle. In IWD2 and BG2, you absolutely had to have things like the Heal spell ready to save your companions in big fights.

Admittedly, this is also one of my gripes about NWN SoU and HotU when the NPC would just lie on the ground at almost zero health.

But, you typically can just go and revive them in the other games. Wands of Resurrection, spells of Raise Dead and Resurrection, or at a minimum trekking to a temple to raise them.

In this game (IMO) it's pretty important to keep everyone alive in order to keep everyone alive (if you get my meaning :) ). You don't want people out of the fight if you can help it.

This is just a little more convenient. Again, unless of course you do want them to remain dead.

That's how 3.0-3.5 works. If you hit 0 you can only make partial actions or fall to -1 and bleed, you don't die until -10 - you can make fort saves to stop the bleeding and if you get healed by a cure minor (1hp) you get knocked back up to 1 HP.

It is kind've annoying to have that mechanic and not actually follow the strict rules of the mechanic though. Unless you play in D&D Hardcore rules, your NPC's can't die (they are invulnerable I think, I started playing @ core rules), and even if you die, you don't have to reload, only if your entire party goes down.

Unless you play in D&D Hardcore rules, your NPC's can't dieOh, is that right? I've been playing harcore rules, so I didn't realize it was any different for other difficulties.

I've been playing hardcore too - the NPCs don't die, they just drop. I've had two fights where both my NPCs fell early in the fight and I had to finish it alone: The necromancer in the graveyard, and the Fort Locke lieutenant.

Luckily, the mighty Belisarius prevailed in both trials and won the day! :lol: :eek:

So, basicaly, if a party member 'dies' in the middle of a battle, that character can't fight, right? Or he just loses a round for 'dying' and next round is healed? Do you have to heal him/her? If so, isn't the same as if, for example, Keldorn dies and you take a round to resurrect him?
I'm just trying to understand the difference. Harbourboy may have a point when he says that you don't have to worry much to protect party members because you don't lose too much (at most a round or two).

By the way, for those who played NWN, which camera on NWN2 is closest to the one in NWN? I'm really having hard time to get used to the cameras.

Dying works kind of like KotOR's. Or exactly like it. If one of your people survives the battle, your dead will rise and shine at the end of it.

By the way, for those who played NWN, which camera on NWN2 is closest to the one in NWN? I'm really having hard time to get used to the cameras.Top-down cameras are nearly identical in the two, except the sequel's camera turn/zoom speed will be sluggish on lower framerates. And by sluggish, I mean abhorrently laggy.

I've gotto agree with OP on most points. I'd be happy even if it was only NWN1 with a better OC.

Gimme a couple of Infinity-games with old AD&D-rules please. I'm starved... :square:

The difference about party members "dieing" is listed under the rules for all the difficulties. Check 'em out :) .

The reason they do not animate those with the avatar is because when you are high level and have multiple attacks per round, there is not enough time and frames to animate all the attacks. Apparently in NWN when that happened, you lost attacks.

That's what the devs said too. Along with: "We couldn't come up with a way to skip animations when there's no frames left in the round to run them, so we decided to not animate at all". Even if the lost attacks theory is true, that's still a poor excuse, and the devs' statement holds just as much value as "We were far too lazy and incompetent to improve the engine, so we just cut functionality". I'll make a point of checking out the lost attacks in NWN, though. Got a 28 level hasted fighter at hand for the purpose... (Ain't it a shame you can't make armours look like that in NWN2).Actually, I'm not so sure about losing those attacks in NWN. As a shifter, I'd regularly be treated to the sight of opponents losing health (and receive poison damage) by the very potent stare of my Drider-form. So apparently the attacks don't need to be visually drawn to actually register.

^ Yeah, that is kind of what I am seeing with my monk - there are more damage rolls on the enemy than I see attacks. I might be just blind, but that's how it always seemed to me. No attacks lost, as many animated as time allows, the rest do the NWN2 thing - rolled but not animated. Although at that point I don't complain - the battle looks perfectly awesome.

I felt like I wasn't being credible enough in my bashing of this software contraption, so I installed it anew, and started a game with a CE char just to see the extent of how really evil the game won't let me be. Halfling, fighter. The ridiculousness of the evil conversation threads almost makes me cry, and I love how everyone seems to put words in my mouth.

Oh, oh. I think I deserve a little something for saving you. Bam! One evil point. Damn mercenaries, they're clearly the pinnacle of all that is evil.

Finish off a stray duergar in the village? Evil point. Bevil: Oh wow, wasn't that excessive? Oh, I don't know, they only tried to chop your momma into pieces for souvenirs and then have their way with your brothers' and sisters' young developing bodies in ways that are illegal in only most states... before chopping them for souvenirs! But yes, a coupe de grace on one of them was so vile of me. I'll repent.

If killing a hostile invader in cold blood is evil, then I sure don't think much of all that scum comprising any nation's armed forces. Yet, oddly enough, beating a scared neigbour to pulp so they would join the militia did not give me evil points. Oh, it's only your typical tyranny, nothing evil there.

Also, more about the AI. In NWN multiplayer we used to play a game called "Zombie Tennis" where two people stand on opposite sides of a zombie lord and pelt it with sling bullets, and every time it's hit, it turns and walks towards the attacker. The point was to get the zombie to die closer to you for the win. In NWN2, AI does the same to my NPCs. Khelgar got caught between two bandits in the camp, who just happened to have their shots timed in a way that he kept running between them until he died. I laughed. The AI is about as smart as a zombie. :D

You know, I found Dungeon Siege as a game rather boring.

But I have to say this, its engine and its art work were far superior to what I'm seeing in NWN2 and made far less resource and system demands for it. :skeptic:

So Obsidian and Atari, couldn't you have done something similarly modest and efficient instead of blowing up our hopes and expectations in such a bs manner?

You cannot select the character under your control by clicking on them. Why? Because that's how it was in KotOR, and it stayed that way. perhaps this is not what you meant, but there is a option to make the action "left click on party member" cause you to switch to that person, in the options, primary tab (the one that is shown initialy) check the box "possess companion as default action" that was really annoying me at first, along with the automatic targeting of spells and effects on whoever was already selected (also remedied by an option on that first tab)

yes the party ai is horrible, but i like micro-management, i can tell them what is best for the situation much better then any ai could, because only i know what im planning to do next. although i dont go as far as puppet mode. i dont mind them using their own "judgement" for action like to "trip or not to trip" aka unlimited uses abilities, but even with "use items" off and "cast spells"=no they still use healing spells and healing potions, where it really bothers me is with potions, i dont want them using my (at this point in the game) expensive potion of "heal" unless i say its absolutely neccisary
and you think your examples of bad spell use are bad, i had a wizard cast cloudkill on a bunch of undead, he is trying to do CON DAMAGE on a creature with NO CON score, of course it wouldnt have happened had i not forgotten to turn off spell casting when he entered the party

the fact that they rez after a battle doesnt bother me, i always had at least a few items around to resurect my pals, one thing that bothers me in some crpgs is if my main character is a fighter, and i have a cleric with rez spells prepared (or anyone has items to bring back dead) and main guy dies, they should be able to bring him back, you shouldnt be forced to reload if theres a means for you to be brought back to life handy, at high enough levels no one is permanently dead (usualy) that shouldnt be changed simply because your the one that died instead of someone else (i play many high level PnP games, no decent party should ever loose a member after level 15 or so, unless your directly fighting the gods, but then youve got bigger problems :-P)

- Pathfinding in this game is a joke, to the point where characters simply warp to the locations as if they lag, skipping the pathfinding stage. And that's me, playing on stable thirty frames per second, leaving absolutely no room for frame lag. if they just warped FOREWARD it wouldnt be such a problem, but often the selected character will warp BACKWARDS, especialy if i click somewhere while they are moving, they will poof back to where they just were before they start for the new path, might happen with the other party members as well, but iv never noticed

something iv also noticed thats annoying me, zoom in and look what happens when you click someone to attack, the character runs up to them, runs into them like they didnt even see them standing there, stops, and then proceeds to start attacking, what about charge attacks, not that charge attacks are that important to me, i just dont want my character to "bump into" the enemy before he starts hacking away

i just hope some of the issues get worked out soon (i havent been able to patch yet, it wouldnt work at all for version 1.01, and after reading the posts about problems with 1.02 im not even gonna try untill version 1.03 or later) the patching problems are one of my biggest issues

just to clarify, i agree there's problems, but i still find it an enjoyable game over all, i loved nwn, have been looking foreward to this game for ages, and have never played either of the kotor games so ill have to take your word on their similarities

I have to agree that the options for role playing are limited at best and illusionary at worst.

My companion paladin seems to have no issues cutting down members of the Watch left right and centre. Neeshka voices her opinions of other female party members even after I leave her in the tavern from the moment I enter Neverwinter.

The big one for me, so far, however, has been...

*spoiler*

I elected to take the "evil" path when getting to NW. Well, guess what? After I burn down the Watch headquarters and slaughter dozens of guards, I become a squire to a local knight anyways. Ok, not so bad, the knight is a scumbag and it's all for show. Oh wait, except that now members of the Watch are defering to me and following my orders. And I'm getting orders from the Lords of Neverwinter. Gee. Why didn't I just join the Watch from day one?

*end spoiler*

^ :lol:

Also, has anyone noticed that stealth doesn't really work? Or do the the CR 3 mobs constantly have active spot skill in the 20s?

If you stealth during combat you have a -20 to the hide check. It's pointless to do stealth during combat unless you have "Hide in plain sight" feat.

^ Well, clearly that's not what I was doing. I tried to sneak Neeshka around the bandit camp, starting from way outside the gate, but everyone seems to notice her from half a mile away. Thought it could be a fluke, loaded a few times - nope... Every single time, they see me almost before I see them.

That might be a trigger issue - as they're supposed to know when you're party marches in there. It's unfortunate, but it's happened in the BG's and NWN1.

Otherwise, maybe her hide just isn't good enough? Or their spot (since they're bandits and all), is as high as her hide?

I know stealth worked in the graveyard because I'd have Neeshka sneak in to disarm traps while the undead were on the other side of the trap.

Are BTA and Catbert actually playing the same game? Maybe there are two versions of NWN2 and BTA has the version set to "good" and Catbert has the version set to "crappy".

I know stealth worked in the graveyard because I'd have Neeshka sneak in to disarm traps while the undead were on the other side of the trap.Which is odd, the undead react to my fighters.. um.. half of the time. Sometimes they start attacking from far away, and sometimes I approach them and they don't move until I'm practically standing in front of them.

Playing a fighter hides a lot of confusing f*ckups this game has. If I don't try to use tactical positioning, I don't notice strange follow behaviour, or the fact that my loads screw up the party positioning from the save, or the fact that stealth hardly ever works, or that ranged sneak attacks have the strangest conditions set on them.

On the other hand, my psychopath halfling is nearly invincible thanks to spring attack, and at this point I am completely convinced that the campaign offers no roleplay, just a point-and-click adventure tailored for a neutral good ranger.

Which is odd, the undead react to my fighters.. um.. half of the time.Well, in the cases I'm talking about, after I disarmed the traps, they reacted to my non-stealthed characters after I brought them forward...

...tailored for a neutral good rangerSweet! That's what I'm playing! :lol:

I haven't ever been able to get stealth to work -- not because I can't hide, but because my idiot plate-armored party can't figure out that they aren't supposed to follow the sneaking rogue.

A typical attempt: rogue goes stealthy, detects trap, tries to disarm. Dwarf follows rogue. Bad guys see dwarf standing around and move to attack. The problem here is that even in puppet mode (assuming you can get it work properly) characters follow the point man when not in combat.

Bombur,

Have you tried commanding them to stand their ground through the rightclick menu? Before I realized this I had the frustrating experience of trying to assist Neeshka go stealthy through a house of enemies in one of her quests... I had to go back to my other characters every 2 seconds and stop them from moving.

Puppet mode only means that they will not perform an action, they will follow unless you order them to stop.

Late edit:
Consider me as having the 'good' perspective that BTA expresses. My Neutral Good druid\warpriest is having a blast.

Right. In order to separate Neeshka (or my Ranger, or both), I have to send the appropriate commands to the other party members. Which I admit is a bit of a pain. It would be nicer if this was easier.

BTA has found a weakness!! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!

I am enjoying this game. There are weaknesses, that I feel would make the multiplayer version of this game cumbersome. But for a stand alone adventure - I'm having fun.

How's Hallen Rwn working out in this game? At least you don't see the arrows sticking out of you when you get hit, eh? LOL!!!

Hehehe! That's true, no pincushion Hallen :D

But BTA is doing well, I'm heading into Orc territory now, looking for some emmissary.

However, I did just send a screenshot of the impending death of Moire to Tal, and I distinctly see an arrow being fitted to Elanee's bow... :)

Have you tried commanding them to stand their ground through the rightclick menu?No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip. I was under the impression that the right-click menu simply duplicated the commands that were available in the behavior screen. I was not aware that some functions were available only through the right-click menu. I'll try it tonight and see how it goes.

You don't have to assign the command to each separate individual. Right click off any character or item in the middle of the screen, then go to broadcast command (while having the stealthy character selected), and it'll command every OTHER character to stand their ground.

That was a basic feature of NWN1 :p .

Although don't forget that if you broadcast "Stand your ground" with your stealth character selected, the moment you'll switch from the sneaky to anyone else, the sneaky will dash to the new party leader. Yeah, I tried the rogue way at first. It was a pain in the rectum.

It can be finicky. Even with my wizard in puppet mode, if I'm controlling Neeshka and have her say "Attack!" even my wizard character starts blasting fireballs all over the place. I'm going to wear my space bar out with all the pausing and micro-managing these NPCs require.

I very much wish broadcast commands could be setup in the quickslot :( . In the orignal NWN "stand ground" and "follow me" were two of my most used hotkeys. In NWN2 I use broadcast commands very sparingly, as its rather a hassle to issue them.

Well, so far so good. The right click menu, while certainly a hassle, seems to be getting the job done most of the time. Yes, it still has idiosyncrasies, but it's a lot better than the nightmare I had before. Thanks for the help on that.

In the orignal NWN "stand ground" and "follow me" were two of my most used hotkeys. They never worked for me.

*played some more*

No, really, this is a good story?

In NWN, you could threaten people and kill them. Threaten them for money, take the money, and then kill them. Or you could just kill them. Don't like the way someone's talking to you? Well, use your 10 BAB! Not enough payment? Do them in and take what they got.

In this game it's:
NPC: Blah blah blah you suck.
Me: Fine. Prepare to die.
NPC: Nope, I think I'll just go away!
*PvP Mode Off!*
Me: Guh.. guh.. speechless.

Why give me the goddamn option to attempt violence if the game will not ever let it happen (unless intended by plot, in which case there will be violence like it or not)? Crap story, lots of phony dialog to create some kind of illusion of choice, I say.

And then, dumb linear things, like that bandit base. I clean out the base, then clean out the house - kill the sargeant, chief, couple of mages, find mad loot, go out into the desolate slaughtered base. Ooh, some people in a pig pen. Talking to them, and suddenly out of nowhere 12 bandits appear around me. But I just wiped out the base! Is it my fault that I broke the linearity of the quest? Of course, the bandits were just hiding behind a tree until I appear. Or maybe they paratrooped in. Or maybe they were invisible? Whatever.

What I expected was "Oh no, the bandits will see us!" Oh, I already killed them all. "Wow, you're mighty! Thanks for saving our souls!" Who said I saved you? Gimme all your stuff. "Gah, you vile monster, here, take all we have!"

Actually, a bandit camp is rarely ever just 1 little group of bandits........... It makes perfect sense.

Sometimes you can't just kill someone for the love of it... because the game doesn't want to have to make you restart after you got your ass beat down by city watch,