Wistrik

Yeah, sort of like he decided it was okay if released in 2004, but it wasn't so time to move on. I agree it's got performance issues, but Obsidian is working on those. My computer is apparently less powerful than his, being just on the verge of the 'recommended specs', yet I can play the game just fine at 1024x768 with shadows set to Low, point shadows off, soft shadows off, and water effects off. Hopefully further improvements will allow me to enable environment shadows at least, as that would make the most impact on how realistic the game world appears. Regardless, I plan on upgrading my hardware due to other games and the fact that my own NWN2 modules will probably require more power than the average OC module will. (I'll allow full map exploration on every map, for one thing.) The lip movements aren't as accurate as those of Half Life 2, but NWN2's characters have teeth and a tongue which is a nice touch. Some models lack textures inside their cheeks so you can see through them though. I believe Kana is one such character. I've learned to use pausing to target accurately, at least until Obsidian improves that particular issue. It's also useful for reading the and doing other things. I still think the game deserves at least an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. If nothing else, the OC has shown me an example of what's possible with the toolset, so I'm looking forward to using that.

Whoa, I didn't notice she had needles through her thighs. What I meant to convey is that I don't like their default outfit, especially the way it's painted on. Hezebel's outfit is a little better, but her textures are of a lower quality. I'll do some playing around with this tonight and see what I can come up with. I wouldn't mind playing as either an Erinyes or a Succubi. It would help make up for the fewer head/body options female characters have. Succubi would probably be better off as some sort of sorceress or female warlock. The default succubi attire would work well for the sorceress class.

The premise is interesting, but what'll make or break it is the type of player they allow on the servers. Having played Diablo 2 online for a few years, I'm familiar with the heathens that can quickly populate a server and ruin the experience for others. Either by hacking, cheating, player-killiing, harrassing, or otherwise ruining the ability to roleplay and have a good time. Sure, we could, and did, create passworded games so only trusted players could join us, but that's not, to my knowledge, something you can do in a MMORPG. I'll play the wait and see game with this one. It'd be nice to finally find a MMORPG worth spending money on, but until then I'm sticking to singleplayer games.

They should try the "there is no spoon" approach.

That's gotta be the shortest review I've ever read. Hilarious. Edit: I love the manual.

Spoiler

I'm hoping so Morgoth. I tend to enjoy Bioware's games, though I avoid the sci-fi themes. I'll have to do some reading up on DA tonight before I voice any other thoughts.

Heh, no. I can give examples of bad roleplaying though. Fenthick: jibber jabber Desther is wonderful! jibber jabber Desther: We Helmites are your only hope. blah blah blah. Player: I know Desther's a traitor! (offers various lines of reasoning) Fenthick: True to my name, I am thick and will not accept your sensible reasoning. Desther: Bah, this fool thinks he can see through my deception. Fenthick: You need not put on an act around me Desther, I know you to be a caring, honorable soul. Player: But... Fenthick: Run along now, Player. Surely Aribeth can give you something more important to do than harrassing poor, hardworking Desther. I'm not the only one who knew Desther was a traitor shortly after meeting him the very first time I played the game. (And I hadn't read any spoilers either.) So much was obvious, especially after evidence started mounting, but never was I given the option to make a difference. This carried on later with Aribeth and others. I felt like my hands were tied through most of the OC. I agree that HotU was better, though we were still stuck with the one basic path. NWN2 is a slight improvement in that there are two possible outcomes for the story. It takes a lot of extra writing and scripting to go much beyond that, so I doubt we'll see much better unless a devoted player does it in a custom campaign.

Hah congrats on the lute. This silly game let my fighter, who can never have the perform skill, actually try to win the lute. I had Grobnar in the party, but the game ignored him for the most part. I failed, of course, but it was still amusing. So much for class checking.

Hopefully they won't dumb everything down for eight year old gamers, like was done with Ultimas VIII and IX. After years of great story telling, a decent franchise was stripped to the brainless simplicity of Doom. I've enjoyed games of the past with different, yet derived rules, games like the singleplayer Ultimas and Bard's Tale, so I'm not too concerned about DA's rules. I do hope the story is well thought out and deep enough that I can't solve the entire plot while talking to the first bad guy I meet. Some of us gamers are adults, and expect a little more from a game than the kids do. I'd even be willing to pay a little extra for it, if that's what it takes to motivate developers. Perhaps the 'limited edition' would contain a more cerebral story and dialogs, thus actually being worth the extra cost. At least it'd be worth more to me than mere trinkets. Regardless, I am looking forward to DA. I don't mind its release being estimated as a year away; there's a lot I want to do with NWN2's toolset first.

Try opening them and see if your edits are there. If not, you're editing the default versions again. I didn't know the toolset did 2DA files at first, so I was extracting them and using Excel to edit them.

Did you check both override folders, the one in program files\atari\neverwinter nights 2 and the one in my documents\neverwinter nights 2?

Thanks Maria. I've been lurking for the most part because I'm not quite ready to start with the toolset. (Trying to finish second playthrough first.) I like the idea of an Erinyes character, though I agree with you on their appearance. I don't have the resources to edit the textures so I guess the BDSM outfit will have to remain. I've noticed some characters, such as Z and Ammon, don't change appearance when you equip them with armor. Maybe there's a flag that controls this. It'd be nice to put some clothes on the Erinyes. Not that her body is ugly (far from it ) but that outfit has to go. Also the only gender option should be female, correct? And what of their alignment? The cleric idea makes sense, possibly leading to a Warpriest PrC or the Divine Champion. I don't have a 3E MM handy or I'd look this stuff up myself.

I'm not used to games showing a helm when none is equipped in the helm slot. Whoever did that for NWN2 should visit a doctor. I was wearing Enkidu's full plate when I first had this occur. The trial script took off my character's swashbuckler hat and unequipped his weapon and shield. But since he was apparently wearing an armor with a helm flag set, he had this ugly full helm on his head the whole time during the trial. Now he's wearing a different full plate and still ends up with the same ugly full helm every time he takes his 'real' helm (swashbuckler hat) off. @Metadigital, those generic names show up for at least a few of the ore deposits. It's somewhat distracting.

Drat, I missed that. Probably one of those moments when I entered the courtyard only to have the game take control and whisk me off to yet another random area. Sigh. I really hope any expansion Obsidian makes will give the player more control over what he's going to do and when, like in most other CRPGs. Edit: by the way, when I killed the dragon in Mt. Galardrym, I was able to have the Greycloaks transfer the treasure to the keep. This netted us 200,000 gold in the keep's coffers. Something to keep in mind if you've been looking for an alternate source of gold for structural renovation.

Same, except for the cheating part. Scoring quest and conversation bonus points is better than killing hordes of low level creatures. My non-ECL characters were halfway to level 21 by the time I finished the game the first time. They'll do the same again this time.

I have no trouble making good/lawful points throughout the OC. I view the D&D alignment system as flawed and unable to accurately represent everyone all the time, and in the game it basically boils down to good/evil. Keldorn reacted only to Viconia's words, which made him seem childish to me. It was sad to see a man with so much combat experience fall victim to mere words. Furthermore, he conveniently forgot that my paladin was leading the group, and had shown mercy to Viconia. She in turn was behaving herself out of respect and, I suppose, friendship (tenuous for a drow female); despite what she said, she only did what I commanded. Keldorn could have learned from her. As it was, I edited the game to get rid of that bit of idiocy on his part. As for the orcs, my good-aligned characters always let them die on their own. There was never a question or doubt.

After going through the entire campaign, I can count on one hand the number of keys I used. More often than not, the game locks/unlocks doors based on quest flags. It tells you a key is required, but this a generic message and usually isn't true. My stronghold is better than the first time, as one might expect. I left my recruiting standards at Greycloak level and managed to end up with 157 soldiers total. This time I focused on getting them good weapons and armor early, and that helped immensely with their special missions. If you're careful searching for ore deposits, and giving yourself an extra point for the bugged deposit, you can get the best weapons and second best armor very early. I found out Light of Heaven hangs out next to the old church, near the wall, and way off the beaten path. I'm not sure why she prefers to be isolated like that, unless it's due to her aasimar heritage. Her sister certainly isn't as shy. It's a shame there's no dialog option to let the player arrange a meeting between the two sisters, as Joy mentions she hasn't seen her sister in some time. Khelgar is probably going to remain a fighter in this game. I focused him on warhammers so he'll do a better job with Torim's hammer. The scripted portions of the game are more irritating this time around because I know what I need to do and they keep slowing me down. There are several sequences where I'll get up and do something else while the game goes from NPC to NPC, area to area, through yet another 10 minute cutscene. It gets old. I find myself wondering "Can I play yet? Can I play yet?". I learned the hard way to save the game immediately after such a cutscene so I don't have to put up with it again if I have to reload for any reason. The gem mines in Arvahn seem oddly constructed, and thus out of place compared to the other structures in the area. Why is there a library and troop facilities in a gem mine? Assuming the troop facilities were for the defense of the mine, why are they behind a library full of flammable materials? This area should consist almost entirely of mining tunnels. Instead its like there are three different areas merged into one. I didn't play the game much last week, partly due to the more annoying parts which were really grating this second time through. Once I finally finish this session, I'm going to get serious with the toolset and make myself a module that won't feature any of the annoyances of the OC. (Well, things that annoy me, like forced party configuration, contrived dialogs, Monty Haul treasure drops, and long cutscenes.) I'm presently almost ready to talk to Nevalle and trigger the events leading to the siege. I'll finish the game in no time once that starts. My influence with Elanee is 24 now.

Looks like I'll need to get my hands on some 3/3.5 books soon. I used the 2E books a lot when editing BG2. I like the D&D rules; it's the computer implementation that often leaves a lot to be desired, and no CRPG will ever be as flexible as a human DM with a group of friendly players. Alas, it's easier to find a computer to play a CRPG on than it is to find a competant DM and friendly players. You could edit the experience-related 2DA files if you wanted a long-term change to the way you get XP. That's what I did. I'd rather much rather get 4 XP than zero XP. Sure I don't learn anything from killing yet another orc, but I am getting more combat practice, and practice makes perfect. I even sparred with Sir Nevalle to gain an extra +1 to hit.

I've had this happen a few times as well. The trick is to right-click for the context menu, select Broadcast, and tell those dolts to Follow Me!, or Attack Nearest if you're already in combat. (If you click Follow Me while in combat, they'll run to your side and stand there like idiots for a round or more.) The game seems to forget what the AI was supposed to do sometimes. I don't allow the devs any leeway on AI scripting, especially when unpaid gamers frequently develop better AI scripts using the devs' engine and tools.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> I concur, wholeheartedly. The only races I've played in the past have been human, elf, and half-elf. (Well, I did play a 'fuzzy' in Ultima 3, but with its generic graphics it really didn't matter what race/gender my characters was.) I might consider an aasimar someday.

Heh, it's the only magical version of the swashbuckler hat you can buy. I can't remember which merchant I got it from, but it was in Act 1. I don't care much for how helmets look so I wear the hat instead. Plus since I'm wearing full plate, taking the hat off replaces my character's head with a really ugly full helm that doesn't even exist. Ugly bug that one.

Male predominantly, but I'll try a female character from time to time, especially in the rare case where a female character will have skills/abilities a male character doesn't. Though not an RPG per say, I played female characters in D2 a lot because I preferred their skill sets (sorceress, amazon).

Okay, so the games I had in the 80s did come with maps, maybe because I tended to play CRPGs more than anything else. (all Ultimas except the UO crap, all Bards Tales, etc.) I just got used to receiving a map along with the manual(s). Sometimes it was cloth, sometimes glossy paper. BG1 and BG2 came with maps, and so did the IWD series (if I recall correctly.) I get annoyed about Khralvar in the OC. Every time that guy shows up to tell me something, someone rudely interrupts him. This happens even after I'm the Knight Captain. Apparently it's okay to ignore my character's authority whenever Khralvar is around. Sure it's probably an in-house gag, but I don't think it's funny. Edit: not that I need a map, but it's a nice touch.

Here's a video someone posted on YouTube about their LE NWN2 set. The guy's speaking Spanish or Italian I think so it may be a european version. Doesn't look as flimsy as the US LE version. It's lame that wall maps have moved from standard box to LE box. Obsidian would have been laughed out of the industry if they'd done this in the 80s. Spanish/Italian LE NWN2?