Norfleet said:
I'm not saying NWN is good, but Volourn *IS* right: I mean, what real choice do you have?
I tried NWN again last night. I started an excellent module that opened up into a city teeming with people. As I entered the city, a well-done scripted event drew me into a controversy. Later, wandering the city, a town crier mentioned failed "turnip crops" and I couldn't help thinking of Jan from BG2. I almost believe it was deliberate. The game certainly felt like it was built by someone who loved BG2.
However, after about 2 hours, I realized I was fighting to keep my eyes open. I couldn't put my finger on the problem at first. I mean, the game was clearly built to cater to people like me (a BG1/BG2/Arcanum fan). It had action, moral dilemmas, and cool tie-ins to other games I have enjoyed. Why was playing it like pulling teeth? Finally, I figured it out. It was pure gameplay issues.
I cannot stand the way the character will not run unless I click far away (but click too far away and it doesn't register). If I accidentally click twice, the character may initially run and then slow to a walk. I can't stand the pathfinding. I know, people said it was awful in the BG series. However, I set the pathfinding value sky-high in my BG games, and rarely had a lot of problems. In NWN, I cannot seem to prevent my character from standing face into a wall, never going around, always trying to go through.
I cannot stand the sluggish interface for inventory & purchasing. It's not that much different from other games in the genre, but it isn't snappy, even on a 2.5 GHz box that I (doggedly) built just for NWN about a year ago. It certainly works, but I want it to be more responsive. The artwork for the objects is nice to look at.
Although most of the bugs have been patched out, I still get occassional lameness. The worst is that, 50% of the time, I cannot shut down my computer after playing. It's not awful. I lose no data, and if I want to keep the box running for days, I'd never know. But when I select shutdown, if the system slows to a freeze, inevitably, the app I ran was NWN.
I cannot stand the sub-par writing. I had hoped, long ago, that the dull writing that came with the built-in modules would be quickly put to shame by the mod community. I mean, I knew up front that most modders would be high school and college kids -- so I didn't expect them to be writing stories that would appeal to a 34 year-old dad. But a few college kids majoring in English, hey, some good has to come of that, right? Instead, time and time again, I've been stuck with the standard 3-response cliche ("I'm good, here's my selfless response" and "Meh" and "I'm eeevil, here's the bad reply").
Wandering around in the same wilderness over and over gets boring. Trying to quickly navigate over ground I've already covered gets boring.
Lastly, I'm weary of the balance issues. Either the games are so easy that there is little excitement (the built-in modules), or the game has some ridiculous insta-kill moments (deliberate or not). In a game I played last week, my cleric (with toughness and max HP) was killed in a single shot by 1 enemy. I could tell that it was deiberate, as some things that couldn't be normally possible were scripted in to give the opponent greatly improved odds.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Fate has better gameplay. It's basically Diablo, and I can't respect that at a writing level, story level, plot level, etc. But the controls seem responsive, I can move from place to place without a lot of drudgery (unless you're on level 25 and have no way to cast a portal), and two things that I assumed would be stupid (the pet and the fishing) are actually great ways to keep me playing in the dungeon. I load my pet up with stuff to sell at least 3 or 4 times before I ever bother to go back up to town. I come away from Fate feeling like I actually accomplished something, even though the quests are meaningless. NWN on the other hand, has been an exercise in frustration.
I'm so desperate for some real D&D (or D&Dish) gameplay, I keep trying and retrying NWN. I even sold my copy and then re-bought it months later. I hope really hard that Obsidian will find a way to get the game mechanics humming for NWN2. I don't see much else out there, and NWN ain't doing it for me.
-Tony
