Neverwinter Nights 2

[DominionSeraph]

I bought the game on release but it always crashed on me, I could never play more than 30min.

Release was AWFUL. I was getting like 10FPS with all details turned down on an X2 5200+ with 8800GTS, which was a pretty high-end build in 2006.
With the latest patch, I had it installed on my BiL's single-core 3200+ with my hand-me-down 8800GTS, and it played fine on high detail. (with shadows turned down)

The patches seem to have done their job.

 

[shortylickens]

Maybe i should reinstall it now that i have a SSD.

The load times and stability problems were just awful.

Just this afternoon I put BG2 on my SSD and it loads quick and quiet.
Am sure NWN2 would see a huge boost.

 

[DominionSeraph]

heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.

This totally goes against my powergaming, "Always play nice because that's ALWAYS the path to the most XP/gold/items."
I'm going to play this straight, too. I'll have good influence with Qara because I can play her chaotic, but Khelgar and Elanee are going to tank.
I think when I get him I'll remake Bishop as a Two weapon style ranger and dump Khelgar. Though I dunno -- I'm making Khelgar into a Ranger 10/Frenzied Berserker 5 (three favored enhanced power attack...)
I suppose I could just do that with Bishop. 16 base strength instead of 18 won't hurt that that much.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> "Always play nice because that's ALWAYS the path to the most XP/gold/items."

Not always in Obsidian games. They did a great job of making the dark side attractive in KotOR II. For example the scavenger's will on Dantooine, the dark side crystal reward on Onderon, and the fact that companions could attain Dark Side Mastery while I never could do that Light Side even with max influence.

Of course for Obsidian Dark Side was not evil, just an alternative to the hippie tree-hugging Ewok-petting self-abnegation of Light Side.

> but Khelgar and Elanee are going to tank.

Neeshka can do some good damage if you don't worry about sneak attacks and put her feats into toughness and normal damage. I think undead are immune to critical hits in NWN2 so don't bother much with that either.

 

[Kristijonas]

Just want to express my opinion abuot NWN2 (with latest patches and all expansions): I think it completely sucks. It was a very disapointing game to me. Quests, character creation, CONTROLS were all really bad quality, unfinished, frustrative and without good thought. I have played NWN1, BG1,2, DA1,2 and many other similar games, and NWN2 doesn't even compare to them. Sorry if my post appears idiotic, but that's the opinion I have after trying to play neverwinter nights 2, twice. I hope I won't have to touch it ever again.
Please do not hate me for my opinion, I do not think people who play NWN2 are idiots or that it can't be enjoyed by others, but in my eyes, this game falls very low below standards of other similar games and is completely unplayable to me.

 

[Acanthus]

Just want to express my opinion abuot NWN2 (with latest patches and all expansions): I think it completely sucks. It was a very disapointing game to me. Quests, character creation, CONTROLS were all really bad quality, unfinished, frustrative and without good thought. I have played NWN1, BG1,2, DA1,2 and many other similar games, and NWN2 doesn't even compare to them. Sorry if my post appears idiotic, but that's the opinion I have after trying to play neverwinter nights 2, twice. I hope I won't have to touch it ever again.
Please do not hate me for my opinion, I do not think people who play NWN2 are idiots or that it can't be enjoyed by others, but in my eyes, this game falls very low below standards of other similar games and is completely unplayable to me.

This was my opinion of the game as well on my 1st half assed playthrough of the original campaign. I'll report back results with my much more powerful rig, current patches, and the expansions installed.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Just want to express my opinion abuot NWN2 (with latest patches and all expansions): I think it completely sucks. It was a very disapointing game to me. Quests, character creation, CONTROLS were all really bad quality, unfinished, frustrative and without good thought. I have played NWN1, BG1,2, DA1,2 and many other similar games, and NWN2 doesn't even compare to them. Sorry if my post appears idiotic, but that's the opinion I have after trying to play neverwinter nights 2, twice. I hope I won't have to touch it ever again.
Please do not hate me for my opinion, I do not think people who play NWN2 are idiots or that it can't be enjoyed by others, but in my eyes, this game falls very low below standards of other similar games and is completely unplayable to me.

I'm not going to hate you for disliking it, but I'm surprised you thought DA_2_ was better. You might be the only one here who thinks DA2 was a good RPG.

I haven't played DA2 yet (waiting for a $10 Steam sale) but I have played the rest of your list along with the 7 Pool/Krynn Gold Box games, Wasteland, PS:T, FO1-3 & New Vegas, KotOR 1-2, Vampire:Bloodlines, etc. so I do have some experience to draw on.

In my opinion NWN 2 had adequate controls, a decent story, pretty good area design, enjoyable character interactions including the bits of romance, interesting items and item crafting (both things DA 1 failed badly at), a good character development system (though not as complex as BG 2).

It did have braindead AI for spellcasters, though allegedly fan patches and/or installing Storm of Zehir can help with that.

 

[Kristijonas]

This was my opinion of the game as well on my 1st half assed playthrough of the original campaign. I'll report back results with my much more powerful rig, current patches, and the expansions installed.

I played NWN2 on my old PC too, so possibly that affected my judgement too, but I'm not very sensitive to lag/low graphics.

DaveSimmons, I didn't enjoy DA2 very much. It was an "okay" game, especially the first part of it, but towards the end, I was just wishing I could skip all the battle scenes, because combat is so boring ;x

Spoiler

Also I was disapointed that I couldn't fight for the Qunari, as it seemed a logical choice for my mage character.

However DA2 is much better to my tastes than NWN2

DaveSimmons, I would appreciate if you could give some more of your opinions about the games you'e mentioned.
Particularily 7 Pool/Krynn Gold Box games, Wasteland and KotOR 1-2. What are the Pool/Krynn Gold Box games?

 

[DaveSimmons]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Radiance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champions_of_Krynn

SSI did a very good series of AD&D 1 games back in the late 80s / early 90s in the days of 8088 / 80286 processors and CGA (later EGA) graphics.

Combat was true turn-based not pauseable continuous like BG1/2, and it had the unforgiving features of AD&D rules like resurrection costing you a point of constitution. They were a lot of fun for their time but would seem very dated now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasteland_%28video_game)
Wasteland was the classic post-nuclear RPG that inspired the Fallout series. It uses its own character system not D&D rules.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1-2 use D&D rules "under the hood" and were done by Bioware and Obsidian. Although 2 wasn't really finished (the ending is rushed and incomplete) it's still in my top 10 favorite PC RPGs.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Quests, character creation, CONTROLS were all really bad quality, unfinished, frustrative and without good thought.

??
The only hiccup I can see on character creation is the skill/feat kits, where it's not immediately obvious how to not choose any. ("Customize" being a separate button)

Controls take a little getting used to with the right-click focus, but once you get used to what that does it's easy. You can run pretty much the entire game with just the mouse -- the only thing I use the keyboard for is to highlight items and quicksave -- and I wouldn't even need the keyboard to highlight if the darned game would let me map mouse3.
Ha! I just downloaded X-mouse and set a profile for the middle mouse to simulate "z" for nwn2main.exe. That solves that!

As for quests, they're kinda generic, but not broken.

As for my playthrough, I'm now at level 9, picked up Qara, and together with Elanee (AI set as caster) are cleaning up.
But damn, I'm not prebuffing at all with all the resting to recover spells, and so poor Khelgar is waaaaay underpowered compared to what I'm used to.
A Natural Leader Bard gives +2AB from level 1. +4 at level 5. +5 at level 8 (with +2 to damage). Playing a melee-oriented playthrough and you always have Bull's strength and Flame weapon going -- as you can see in post #22 where a level 5 Khelgar had 16 AB with a vanilla greatsword. MY Khelgar is level 9 with a +3 greatsword and he's only at 17AB!

 

[rchiu]

Just want to express my opinion abuot NWN2 (with latest patches and all expansions): I think it completely sucks. It was a very disapointing game to me. Quests, character creation, CONTROLS were all really bad quality, unfinished, frustrative and without good thought. I have played NWN1, BG1,2, DA1,2 and many other similar games, and NWN2 doesn't even compare to them. Sorry if my post appears idiotic, but that's the opinion I have after trying to play neverwinter nights 2, twice. I hope I won't have to touch it ever again.
Please do not hate me for my opinion, I do not think people who play NWN2 are idiots or that it can't be enjoyed by others, but in my eyes, this game falls very low below standards of other similar games and is completely unplayable to me.

Really? Character creation in DA2 was better? What character creation is there in DA2? Not sure how you can like the character creation in NWN1 and complain about 2, one follows D&D 3rd edition and one 3.5, not that much difference. And NWN 2 character creation are really not just "good thoughts", they follow the D&D rules.

I agree NWN2 story and quests are bit blah, but I find the character creation one of the most flexible and enjoyable out of the games you listed. (yeah I played everyone of those too) As for the control, you do know there are different modes there right? with one of the mode (forgot which one), it's not that much different from NWN1 or BG series (as far as I remembered)

 

[Kristijonas]

rchiu, DominionSeraph, I must agree with you. The character creature, as I can remember, is not that bad and is similar to IceWind Dale (?) and is quite customized. I remember I still didn't like something about it, but it's nothing big.
Controls were a tragedy to me. Not only character controls, but camera controls too. Perhaps they are better when you are used to... and yes, both quests and game world were not to my tastes.
rchiu, character creation of DA2 was more -satisfying- to me. On the last few hours of game it really felt like I'm playing an earth/force mage. Far from being good, though.

 

[shortylickens]

Just want to express my opinion abuot NWN2 (with latest patches and all expansions): I think it completely sucks. It was a very disapointing game to me. Quests, character creation, CONTROLS were all really bad quality, unfinished, frustrative and without good thought. I have played NWN1, BG1,2, DA1,2 and many other similar games, and NWN2 doesn't even compare to them. Sorry if my post appears idiotic, but that's the opinion I have after trying to play neverwinter nights 2, twice. I hope I won't have to touch it ever again.
Please do not hate me for my opinion, I do not think people who play NWN2 are idiots or that it can't be enjoyed by others, but in my eyes, this game falls very low below standards of other similar games and is completely unplayable to me.

I think my biggest beef was the controls and camera angles. Getting people around a dungeon was always a hassle, and there was never a perfect way to look at things.

Those are two issues Baldurs Gate got right.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I made Shandra into a Cleric (swapping CON for WIS), and damn. Fire Domain.

Fireball and Empowered Fireball really fill out a Cleric's spellcasting. (Glyph of Warding is a pale imitation. 36% less damage, smaller radius, and a much shorter casting range)

d8 HP, medium BAB, and being able to cast Fireball in Full Plate? :hmm:

 

[shortylickens]

Fire Domain in table top is even better. You get one spell at EVERY level not just a couple of them.

Actually all the domains are like that in table top. I dunno why they feel so gimped in the video game.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Fire Domain in table top is even better. You get one spell at EVERY level not just a couple of them.

Yeah, but none of them are Fireball.