NWN Mysteries Of Westgate: Worth a Buy? Also, IGN...

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

GOG is having a sale and I was wondering if Mysteries of Westgate was worth buying the NWN2 pack, so I looked up a review on Google:

By the end of the game you'll have carved your way through so many mages and gangs that you may find it hard to remember who was conspiring against whome.

watisthisidonteven

I'm no grammar Nazi, but come on. You'd think that between the writer and the editor, someone would be using spellcheck.

by Steve Butts

Side note/main topic: Is MoWG worth a buy or not? What about SoZ?

 

[Infinitron]

Check out the official Codex review: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=192

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Cool, thanks. Though I also want the opinions of the unwashed masses...

 

[Gord]

I just spend several hours on overcrowded trains and am in need of a shower, so I guess I fullfill that particular requirement.
I also played MoW once.

My opinion: If you can still get it and it's cheap, it's worth playing.
Unless you are one of those NWN2 haters, in which case you wouldn't enjoy it. Actually you should still buy it then.

So anyway, MoW.
The nice things are that you get some C&C of varying degree, it's set in a good level-range for DnD to have some fun and is generally well-made.
Tthe companions you get aren't too much of a stereotype and the story mostly works.
Should replay it sometimes soon, actually.

What I didn't like so much about it is that in the end the overall story didn't seem that interesting anymore. At least I don't remember much about the last third or so.
I also felt that they didn't really use the engine to it's full (albeit outdated by now) potential.
In comparison, Darkness over Daggerford, their good but failed attempt at an NWN1 premium module (failed because the premium module model got ditched before they could release it), managed to produce some of the best visuals I have seen in any NWN1 module.

Nevertheless, if you liked NWN2 in general (engine, campaigns, mods), it's worth playing.

 

[Infinitron]

In both of the Ossian modules, the story starts out on a low key, with a relatively "mundane" main storyline and a focus on sidequests - which are excellent and very imaginative and are the main reason you should play the modules.

But in the final act, they suddenly introduce high-level NPCs from the Forgotten Realms lore and it all goes a bit fan servicey.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Hmm. Sounds pretty meh then. If I have to struggle through the NWN2 engine, the game has to be pretty freaking brilliant.

I despise the NWN2 engine. MotB somehow managed to overcome it and be an awesome Torment-y game, but I HATED NWN2 itself. Story, characters etc (I was so glad that my character got to impale all my companions heads on spikes at the end.) - but the worst part of the game was that it didn't even look good. It's the Oblivion of D&D games: dumbed down AND an ugly, awkward mess.

 

[Infinitron]

Hmm. Sounds pretty meh then.

Depends what you're looking for. The endings are fan servicey but they aren't exactly BAD. If you like high level conspiracy type "mindfucks" you might find them quite entertaining. Ossian is pretty good at mindfucks. A lot of their sidequests are like that too.

Darkness over Daggerford is available here BTW: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=modules.detail&id=5122

It's kind of a homage to Baldur's Gate. I liked it, even with NWN's crappy uncontrollable combat.

 

[Roguey]

I thought the combat pacing was good but everything else is kinda meh. It also railroads you into playing a spellcaster.

It does have what's probably the best combat encounter created in the NWN2 engine (optional last arena fight against a developer self-insert party).

 

[Baron Dupek]

Still better that OC and can give you some fun, if you're not nwn2 hater and don't have traumatic encounter with OC.

 

[Erebus]

I didn't care for Darkness over Daggerford (didn't even finish it), but I really like Mysteries of Westgate. I've replayed it several times (the last time actually being yesterday).


MoW isn't perfect, but it has very good things :

- It'll bring your PC from level 8 to level 14, which is pretty nice (less annoying than low-level D&D and nowhere as silly as high-level D&D).

- There's no pointless combat, which makes it fairly unique as far as CRPGs go. There's a decent number of fights, but it doesn't feel absurd or repetitive.

- The secondary quests are nice. Fairly entertaining and original.

- The three companions are all pretty good (I liked Mantides less than the two ladies, but the fact that you can have a major influence over his fate is nice). There's a thief, a warrior and a cleric. It's a pity that there isn't a fourth companion (wizard or sorcerer), but it's not a major problem.

- The urban setting is pretty decent. It's not Sigil, but it's above average.

 

[Grunker]

I found it a bit bland to be honest. The beginning is trivial, the endings are meh, but the middle part is kindda cool.

SoZ is worth playing to think about what could have been, I think.

 

[Erebus]

the endings are meh

C'mon, you can't deny that the final villain (in the Good Ending, which I find much more satisfying than the Evil one) looks crazy awesome.

 

[sea]

I liked Mysteries of Westgate but I feel that some like it a little more than it deserves. It has a lot of high points but also a lot of flaws that prevent me from enjoying it as much as Storm of Zehir or Mask of the Betrayer.

Pros

• Good writing with a nice branching main quest line. I found the characters and voice acting to be a bit annoying/cliche, but it's not terrible and certainly no worse than the stock campaign. A lot of the time it pokes fun at itself too.
• Companions are pretty okay for the most part; while not memorable, really, and still arguably a bit stock, they fall into categories that most D&D games don't explore as much and all have their own motives for helping that sometimes conflict with your own goals.
  
• Absolutely no filler combat. None. It's one of the few games where every fight is properly contextualized and makes sense. The fights that do happen typically have good or even great encounter design, and never wear out their welcomes.
• Great environment visuals and a pretty huge city to explore with a lot of fun side-quests, several of which have some interaction with the main story.
• Non-combat gameplay that is actually interesting and fun. There are some quests that are just (rather hard and fun) puzzles, and dungeon design tends to have interesting gimmicks and challenges. Really good stuff here that some other devs could learn from.
• Good quest design, with several options in most of them, that often take place outside of dialogue trees and rely on using skills and items in the environment.

Cons

• The story turns to shit near the end. I did not like how it wrapped up at all and it felt completely out of place to me with the relatively low-key political and factional intrigue stuff. The "mindfuck" ending felt arbitrary to me and came out of nowhere, and led to the entire story kind of feeling like an arbitrary mess.
  
• There is an abundance of "fake" choices, where many skill options either cannot fail, always fail no matter how high your skill is, or you get identical results between success and failure. I get that these are used for flavor but I am not a big fan of labeling choices as being based on character stats or skills, only to find that's not the case.
• A lot of locations are closed until they are arbitrarily opened by the main story, and it's not well justified why (i.e. some tiny house in a slum is mysteriously locked with a level 99 unpickable lock). It doesn't feel as open and free as you might expect a large city to be.
  
• Several locations feel unfinished and cutscenes, animation, etc. tends to be super buggy (it's the engine at fault to a degree, but still). General lack of polish and interesting new systems/gameplay ideas.

Overall it is still fairly good, if still kind of unremarkable and unpolished - if you get Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete, definitely play it, but I'm not sure I would go crazy trying to hunt down a stand-alone copy. And if you hate the engine as a matter of fact, well, you probably won't enjoy the module. I enjoy it mostly for "academic" or "on paper" reasons like the lack of filler combat and branching story, rather than the fact that what it does is especially fulfilling or engaging.

 

[gromit]

I've been wondering about MoW as well; thanks for all the good posts.

(MoW) didn't really use the engine to it's full (albeit outdated by now) potential. Darkness over Daggerford (...) failed because the premium module model got ditched before they could release it (...) managed to produce some of the best visuals I have seen in any NWN1 module.

This comes dangerously close to counting "got released" as a con. Which only counts as a con for most games.

 

[Irxy]

Bought it on gog yesterday but decided to replay the main campaigns at first.
Oh how I missed the drag'n'drop inventory system, despite all the faults still 10x times better and more convenient than the godawful lists plagueing the jenre nowadays.