More NWN2 impressions (free for all)

[Blacklung]

I don't think I ever let the AI make any choices in BG, BG2, IWD, or IWD2 beyond attacking the next enemy. And, after seeing the "wonderful" AI in NWN and KOTOR 1 and 2, I doubt I would let the AI do even that simple task in NWN 2.

 

[Volourn]

"You're hardly a "chosen one" in the beginning."

Yes, you are. The whole game is about you being The Chosen One tm. You are 'special' from the get go. The NW prove yourslef quests was cool; but you are still the Chosen One tm. You were Chosen the moment you were born. R00fles!


" Major spoilers, next. You're not even fighting the main evil in the beginning."

Big deal. That describes 99% of RPGs. BG2 is one of the few exemptions to this rule 'cause Irenicus is introduced right away.

 

[Bah]

Do you feel so mpathetic you need to pull this bullshit to make yourself feel better? LMAO Just like the BIO boards. Whenever someone says the game is easy they're accused of playing on 'normal' difficulty. Fuck that. Normal is wusses. I play on hardcore, and it's still fuckin' easy. Act 2 is a little more challenging than Act 1; but still easy. We'll see about Act 3.

I've been playing on the hardcore setting too, and the first time I had to reload due to everyone in the party dying was in Act 2. I wasn't expecting those ogres to hit quite so hard. Combat is definitely a little harder in act 2, although that doesn't really mean anything. Hopefully act 3 gets harder yet.

 

[sabishii]

Spoilers

Well, how exactly are you the chosen one? The silver sword? Yeah, you have the shard in you... but anyone can just rip the shard from within you and kill you. The thing is that those who want to you have killed or convinced not to, and others are not evil enough to kill you for it. You're only the 'chosen one' because others allow you to be and the instinct of self preservation (or that you want to be the one to kill the King of Shadows). This isn't a perfect analogy, but saying that you're the 'chosen one' is saying that Frodo in LOTR is the chosen one. He's not; he's simply the one who chose to be the ring bearer. (One of many things that caused NWN2 to remind me of LOTR, btw)

So what else is there that makes you the 'chosen one'? The ritual of purification? You're not the chosen one here, either, because anybody can do the rituals.

 

[Volourn]

You didn't play the game. Come back when you do. You are the Chosen One. Moron.

 

[sabishii]

I thought you were the one still in Act II?

 

[Volourn]

Aye. It says a lot when someone who hasn't finished the game can clearly tell the PC is the Chosen One tm and you cna't. It's obvious from the get go, further backed up when you meet the Gith at end of ch1, and finallized as well as confirmed when you first meet Z (the stupid girl from the other gith race).

 

[sabishii]

Uh... you can also ask "Z" why she doesn't just kill you and take the shard, and she says she doesn't want to because she thinks you can do it (or something like that, I don't remember).

 

[The_Pope]

Even if you weren't explicitly the chosen one, the game certainly makes you feel that way. When you go to the orc fights, apparently everyone is in big trouble. You kill several million orcs single handed and kill their leader without the slightest bit of trouble. Hundreds of WWII games have proved that the player doesn't need to single handedly kill the entire SS, assassinate Hitler and stop the secret underground Nazi nuclear zombie program to have fun. RPG devs could learn from this.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Not enough WWII games involve assassinating Hitler. We need more Wolfenstein.

 

[The_Pope]

The thing that made it great in Wolfenstein/RTCW was the tongue in cheek nature of it. RPG devs make up stories even sillier and expect you to take them seriously.

 

[kris]

Even if you weren't explicitly the chosen one, the game certainly makes you feel that way. When you go to the orc fights, apparently everyone is in big trouble. You kill several million orcs single handed and kill their leader without the slightest bit of trouble. Hundreds of WWII games have proved that the player doesn't need to single handedly kill the entire SS, assassinate Hitler and stop the secret underground Nazi nuclear zombie program to have fun. RPG devs could learn from this.

the problem ain't exactly that you feel like ths choosen one for having "important" stuff to do, the problem is that you like with every other RPG have to depopulate big parts of the gameworld as that constitute most of the content...

 

[suibhne]

Played a lot more over a neato 3-day weekend, and I've definitely been taken in by the game. Otoh, I practically tore out my hair over some of the criminally-stupid quest design. For every high, like the defense of Tavorick and subsequent fight, there's a low point like The Greatest Thief. Bah.

The engine forces the "primary" character (the player-created character in single-player) to always be the talker, the special-action-doer, w/e. You can recruit a high-Charisma Paladin, but you're never able to use him as a talker; you can build other characters' Appraise skill, but you're never able to use them to barter with merchants. If you tell Neeshka (NPC thief) to sneak three screens ahead of the party, and she accidentally triggers a required dialog (with an NPC able to notice the thief without any Listen or Spot check), the PC is magically teleported to the scene, out of thin air, so he/she can be the talker in the dialog.

It's at least as stupid as it sounds. Many quests are designed around this limitation, but some are seriously compromised by this engine design (which means either bad engine design, bad quest design, or both). And besides that, it's just plain dumb; it means that only your main character's dialog skills matter even if other party members have considerable abilities in that area.

The game is also pretty buggy. If you're playing a fighter you might not notice, but many other classes are severely weakened atm. Bardsong DCs aren't receiving their proper bonus, so they're much easier to resist than they should be; Many Shot doesn't appear to work at all; the Blackguard aura weakens the party as well as enemies (uh, lol?); many spells hurt the party even when they're supposed to target only enemies. Of course, BG2 had a whole raft of such problems when it shipped, many of which Bioware never fixed (requiring the fan community to step in), so this is nothing new.

Technical stability is average. I've gotten corrupted quicksaves three or four times in over 20 hours of play, and two hard crashes. As long as I restart the game every few hours, it seems to be pretty much okay. When there are errors, tho, they're significant; losing a quicksave often means retracing 30 or 45 minutes of play.

Otherwise the game is engaging. The plot is basically linear, but it's far more interesting than NWN's OC - at least partly because all of the characters are written so much better. There's really no comparison between NWN and in NWN2 in this regard; NWN's OC was a pathetic joke when it came to characters, especially for your henchmen, but party members and many other NPCs in NWN2 are realistic, consistent, and interesting. I can't imagine romancing any of these folks, but I'm genuinely interested in at least four or five of them, and that's an achievement.

 

[sheek]

So, spoiler time. The only thing I want to know is (how) do you get that sword out of your ass? Are there multiple solutions to the problem?

 

[sabishii]

Even if you weren't explicitly the chosen one, the game certainly makes you feel that way. When you go to the orc fights, apparently everyone is in big trouble. You kill several million orcs single handed and kill their leader without the slightest bit of trouble. Hundreds of WWII games have proved that the player doesn't need to single handedly kill the entire SS, assassinate Hitler and stop the secret underground Nazi nuclear zombie program to have fun. RPG devs could learn from this.

the problem ain't exactly that you feel like ths choosen one for having "important" stuff to do, the problem is that you like with every other RPG have to depopulate big parts of the gameworld as that constitute most of the content...

Right. When I was talking about the 'chosen one' I meant a character with unique god-given powers who is the only one who can stop the unstoppable evil. This isn't the case, but yeah, you are still 'special' in that you're somehow the only one who comes by and kills the whole orc army and all the crime in Neverwinter and etc. The funny thing is, the same thing kind of happens in the later Acts, too, but I didn't lose my suspension of disbelief as much because the fact that you're considered the best warrior in Neverwinter and leader of THE stronghold against the King of Shadows is justified by your acts in Act I. So, yeah, Act I is pretty much still a poorly written/designed (successful) cop-out, but IMO it's at least not a 'chosen one' plot.

Sheek: Yes, and no.

 

[RPG_Old_Timer]

Finally a game to knock BG/PST and Fallout off their thrones, long live the new king baby!

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Finally a game to knock BG/PST and Fallout off their thrones, long live the new king baby!

Who the hell are you and what have you been eating?

 

[RPG_Old_Timer]

Uhm, im me, been eating toast and stuff quite a bit today. Thanks for asking though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Finally a game to knock BG/PST and Fallout off their thrones, long live the new king baby!

Finally! A new moron to play with. 3 posts - 3 trolling one-liners. Very promising.

 

[RPG_Old_Timer]

Yeah IM the moron for having an opinion, and you're of course the smart clever dude who thinks that his opinion is greater than everyone elses.

Nice try, but im afraid you just owned yourself bud.

 

[RK47]

In any case I'll be grabbing a copy today after getting frustrated with G3 tweaking over the weekend. I'd like something that runs fine out of the box thank you.

 

[RPG_Old_Timer]

Argh please dont even go there, I spent about two days tweaking that pile of crap only to find out its an empty shell of an RPG, I was SO damn gutted as I loved the other two

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yeah IM the moron for having an opinion, and you're of course the smart clever dude who thinks that his opinion is greater than everyone elses.

I hate to break it to you, but "lolz this gaem is awsome!!! it pwnz other gaems" could hardly be called an opinion. If you can back it up, do so, if not, spare us these dramatic outbursts.

Edit:

Argh please dont even go there, I spent about two days tweaking that pile of crap only to find out its an empty shell of an RPG, I was SO damn gutted as I loved the other two

See above.

 

[Zomg]

Aiiieee, I've played more. This game is so heterogenous it feels like it was made by three or four different companies. Half the NPCs are unfunny Komedy Kharacters, some are just Bioware broad strokes, and a few are PS:T refugees that bury the needle. You never know if the next zone is going to be an unchallenging, mindless combat slog or a dialogfest or what - it makes me think that the Obsidian design philosophy is just to let a few designers come up with their own shit with a lot of autonomy and then stick it all together in the end.

 

[RK47]

Aiiieee, I've played more. This game is so heterogenous it feels like it was made by three or four different companies. Half the NPCs are unfunny Komedy Kharacters, some are just Bioware broad strokes, and a few are PS:T refugees that bury the needle. You never know if the next zone is going to be an unchallenging, mindless combat slog or a dialogfest or what - it makes me think that the Obsidian design philosophy is just to let a few designers come up with their own shit with a lot of autonomy and then stick it all together in the end.

Fallout 2 Anyone?