Wistrik

Aye, my fighter looked at the stats and decided to stay a fighter.

I'm back to playing NWN2 after I found out the beta patch works great on my computer. Can even run the toolset without crashing. I've noticed quite a few things working better. Camera speed is no longer tied to framerate, targetting is a bit easier on some creatures, performance is up about 20% overall, FSAA really helps with the rough edges at 1024x768, the increased bag storage applies to all containers in the game, no crashes all evening, saving/loading seems faster, playing from a current saved game with no glitches at all, quests trigger properly, context menu delay is saved properly, can no longer sell items worth 0 gold (partial stack of bullets), etc. I feel like I'm playing a non-beta patch, and it's quite fun.

I found out last night it takes 20 influence points to get Elanee to tell you about her druid test, and several other things of a more personal nature. It took me until Jerro's Haven to get her to open up about that. That's almost Act 3 (where I went immediately after the Haven). I now have 22 influence points with her and I haven't even visited her druid circle yet. She's easily got the highest influence requirement in the game for unlocking a dialog subject.

Continued... (Spoilers!) Blooden, a good way to lose 3 influence points with Elanee really quick. Just tell Blooden she's the most beautiful woman you've ever seen. (You can also gain 3 quick points by siding with Elanee earlier in the meeting.) For various reasons it seems this character is the closest Obsidian got to NOT painting clothing onto a character as a skin texture. Either that or this character has clothing attached as "accessories". Note the black outline at the bottom of her attire. Another angle showing that her attire isn't entirely painted onto her as a skin. My character just happened to drop his eyes to a convenient level when I hit the screenshot key. I love this shot she takes at Ammon. History repeats itself for the thousandth time. This guy is much better than any hollywood actor at being a devil. His name, Mephasm, is interesting as well. Sort of a cross between Mephisto and something else. Most of the time you only talk to him in dialog boxes, but at the end we get to hear his deep voice as he damns Ammon. Good stuff. It's a challenge taking screenshots of this guy because he blinks a lot. That's all for now. Currently battling my way through Neverneath.

There be spoilers in these screenshots! Cover thine eyes if thou art given to trembling at the mere sight of yon spoilers. Spent some time in the Haven last night and tried to get some screenshots to show off the 4xAA I get. It's frustrating doing this without a first-person camera, but until it's added or someone hacks it into the game, I'm stuck looking over my character's shoulder. I also miss the NWN camera's ability to drop to ground level, which made scenery shots more interesting. Anyway, here are a few pics, starting with an Erinyes... This character looks better up close than her boss, Hezebel. Hezebel looked great in the cutscene dialogs, but up close her textures (even on high) leave something to be desired. This gal could bench my character with those arms, and do several other amazing things I'm sure. Here is Baalsiban (sp), a spokesdemon for Gold's Gym and possibly every other franchise. This is Zaxis, the failed Marileth and one of the uglier gals I've ever met. Her bedside manner is atrocious. Ah, Korobouros. Together with Baalsiban, he gave me flashbacks to Exodus' castle in Ultima III. More shots in the next post.

Interesting. As a knight I had Nya from Port Llast defend me, not the gnome lady. And Dark Raven, you've modified your portrait a bit... kinda chilly?

Even better. The other one reminds me of morning breath.

Breath of the Dying?

I was aware of that. I do read the occasional thread from time to time. I'd rather the animations were done the way NWN did them, but I offered a possible alternative, which is more than most people do. Also, I found nothing strange about NWN's animations for Great Cleave, and it was enjoyable killing every zombie around me with a greatsword and a single GC.

This sounds like a cool idea at first, until you factor in the double cleave that the Frenzied Beserker gets. Couple that with Great Cleave, and if you're strong enough, it's entirely possible to kill every one around you in a single attack, and you'd end up having people watch half of the fights in slow motion matrix style. It would get old, very quick. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The other option is to increase the number of frames that can be rendered per unit of time, which this engine seems incapable of what with current performance issues. I'd make the Matrix view a toggle option for the fun of it.

Hah, love how Sand's robe collar is clipping his hair. Bokishi, I'm definitely ordering an 8800GTX tomorrow or Monday. My widescreen monitor is going to waste with 1024x768.

To begin with, I feel that it would have been best if NWN2 was to NWN1 as Baldur's Gate 2 was to Baldur's Gate 1, an improvement in nearly every facet of the game engine and campaign. However, because the dev team for NWN2 is different than the team that made NWN, this simply couldn't happen. To illustrate, look at how IWD differed from BG, and how IWD2 differed from BG2 (rule differences aside). 1. This is a campaign limitation, and it was stated before the game was released that the NWN2 OC was being designed for singleplayer. 2. This seems to be more of a resistance to change than anything else. I haven't played NWN for some time, so it didn't take long to get used to the UI of NWN2. If you are switching back and forth between games, then I can understand how you might be frustrated. 3. Both games feature weak party NPC AI. Both games allow players to code their own AI. This has already been done for NWN, and I expect a similar project for NWN2 if it hasn't already started. NWN2 allows additional control of the UI through XML coding, so the potential for improvement is greater. 4. I miss NWN's vertex weighted tunics and armors, and hope that a future patch will add this functionality to NWN2. However I don't think it'll happen so long as armor is simply painted onto a model as a skin texture. NWN2 took a shortcut in this regard. 7. NWN did this better. I get a chuckle when I see various animations, instead of "awesome!". That whole bit of casting so hard you lift yourself off the ground is also very silly. 10. Some people, myself included, didn't like playing Tetris with their equipment, so the change was made to BG/IWD style inventory where everything uses one slot. It can be a challenge picking one weapon from another, but that's what tooltips are for. I'm still waiting for items to stack properly when placed into bags. That little glitch carried over from NWN, but actually got worse. Now we have to remove the previous stack from the bag, combine it with the new stack, then place the resulting stack back into the bag. Ugly. My short-term solution is to drop all the stackable stuff in one inventory page and throw everything else into the bags. 15. If there were more head/hair options, there would automatically be more portrait options, since the latter is derived from the former. It would also be nice if the portraits weren't flattened; they tend to give a Geiger look to the skulls of the characters. I'd rather have a portrait that accurately reflects my in-game avatar, so I think NWN2's portrait system is better. 21. Agreed, NWN had almost no problem in this regard. The beta patch doesn't quite get it right, so hopefully future patches will finally fix this annoyance. Best thing to do now is pause, carefully click on the target, then unpause. 22. Some claim it was to support the ultra-fast movements. In that case I would like to see a matrix-like slowdown effect where the enemies slow to a crawl while the character does his greater cleave, and then the action returns to normal when the attack completes. It's not impossible to do, just takes some imaginative coding. 27. I don't miss this in the outdoor areas. It never made sense that I could stand on a hill and not be able to see clearly the entire forest below me. I'm all for indoor or subterranean fog of war, but not outdoor. 34. There are already several player-made UI mods (at NWNForge) that address this issue. 39. I only use the minimap as a compass so I know which way I'm traveling. The beta patch has disabled scenery from showing in this window so now all you see is your heading and points of interest, which is all that was useful to begin with. Use the automap for finding your location and the compass for getting your bearings. 40. Many of NWN's quests were of the FedEx "go get that for me" type, so yes the NPC would take the item from you. NWN2 doesn't do this very often, so you're left with quest items after the quest is completed. Dump them into a container somewhere when you're done with them, and move on. 43. NWN's camera wasn't perfect either, especially when it came to dialogs, but at least it let us move the camera around during the conversation. The beta patch improves NWN2's camera, and it will continue to get better. I've had no major problems with it in top-down mode. 44. NWN2's story stands on its own. It's linear, sure, and not as epic as NWN's "save the world" plots, but it's still fun to smite the bad guys and save the day. 50. Odd, NWN's OC gave away the plot the moment I met Desther. Very transparent and non-immersive, with characters who didn't react well, if at all, to changing world situations. HotU finally got it right, but after the fact. On the other hand, I enjoy most of NWN2's OC right out of the box. That's typical PR for you. They'll never admit that someone (or a group of people) dislike their product. It's not good for sales. However, they certainly aren't ignorant of "sour grapes." I'll be happy as long as they continue to support their product, which they are presently doing. Edit: damn tag count limitations; disables tags if there are too many of them, so I deleted what I was quoting and posted answers instead.

For some people when they tried to install the 1.03 beta patch the patcher would stop at that file claiming that it is different than the one that it's supposed to be looking for. The end result was that the patching process would fail. The file provided above is I assume a copy from a brand new install and so would be what the patcher is looking for. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Aye, I used 'sword' to paraphrase the rather lengthy filename of "c_silver_sword_attack.utc". It goes into your main NWN2 folders like so (for my default install)... c:\program files\atari\neverwinter nights 2\campaigns\neverwinter nights 2 campaign

Here is my beautiful druid with 4xAA in the new patch. She's wearing elven chain armor, which doesn't look any better at 1680x1050 than it does at 1024x768. For that matter, none of the textures do, though distant object details render better. My character is standing next to her wielding the Gem Sword. The AA makes her eyes look much better, and even helps a bit with the teeth showing through the gap in her lips, but it'll take a model tweak to make the glitch go away completely. (Happens with all characters who speak.) My FPS is up about 25% but that's all. The AMDXP version of the EXE runs about half the FPS of the normal one now, which is a complete reversal. I still have to run with Low Shadows and no water effects in order to keep my framerate at an enjoyable 15-20 FPS. (Any less and things get choppy as I wander around.) It's going to take a hardware upgrade to make this thing run any better, I fear. But that's okay because I've got other games that will benefit from an upgrade, and I imagine Dragon Age will require even better hardware than NWN2 does. Oh, by the way, here is a copy of the sword UTC file that will allow the patch to install normally, without you having to re-install the game. I got it from someone at the Bioware forum and verified that it works. (I also scanned it with AVG to be safe.)

Chain mail is a loose armor of sorts, so it shouldn't look painted on, which is more obvious on female characters. The game even stretches the links and makes it look a tad unrealistic. It'd be nice if the armor actually rendered over the character's body, rather than being an alternate skin texture.

To simplify/clarify, you don't need debugmode and the command should be lowercase, so this is all you need: showfps

Ah, well I've got an 8800GTX lined up as part of a new upgrade I'm planning, so I'll have plenty o' vertex pipes soon enough. It'll be nice to run the game at a modern resolution for a change. (1024x768 is amost two decades old, and I didn't buy a 21" widescreen only to play newer games at that old resolution.) Bokishi's picture gives me hope. Might not seem like much to some, but I want to be able to run with all visuals enabled.

Alright, broke down in a moment of 'huh-wha?' and downloaded the patch. Backed up my folders and fired away. Install failed even though I'm fully up to date according to the game's update feature. No mods installed, just a few tweaked 2DA files. I've seen it mentioned before, but I'm not going to jump through hoops to fix it. Obsidian can fix it, when they're done getting drunk and destroying a few thousand more programmer brain cells tonight. Paraphrased... "Old file not found, but file with same name exists. Not patching because file contents don't match: c_silver_sword_attack.utc" "Install Failed" Ah well, no harm done, and I got a cheap laugh at Obsidian's expense. Way to go guys.

That's hilarious every time I see it. If I could do that for real I wouldn't need a car. And just imagine the looks on everyone's faces.

Clipping in this game is far less annoying than it was in Ultima IX where you could see wildlife standing in mid-air because they had a huge collision cylinder and part of it was still touching the hillside. Thankfully I haven't seen that in NWN2. And so far in NWN2 I haven't seen my character or other NPCs, or items, fall through the ground, which is something that still happens in Ultima IX. I was hoping for a real patch before this long weekend so I could enjoy some improved gaming in NWN2. Maybe by the Christmas break they'll have it ironed out.

Depends on your computer I suppose. My computer eats spell battles for lunch, but lags when rendering the scenery. Go figure. At least I don't have to worry about my fps dipping every time there's combat.

Certainly mixed results on Bioware's patch thread. I'm going to wait for the real patch. Needed a break from this game anyway.

Here are some commute nitpicks, since I have the joy of commuting 60 miles per day on a crowded country highway through various farming hickvilles of the northwestern USA. (I feel sorry for truckdrivers who have to travel roads like this one all day long.) Yes, I know cities have potentially bigger issues, but thankfully I can avoid traveling in/through cities most of the time. - Drivers who have plenty of time to turn onto the highway, but wait until I'm right there to pull out in front of me - Drivers who don't maintain a relatively constant rate of speed, varying by as much as 30mph in how fast they drive from minute to minute (makes cruise control useless) - Drivers who are incapable of driving faster than 45 mph on the highway, yet will gladly do 10-15 over the limit while in town - Farm equipment that does 25-30 mph on the highway and will not pull over until it gets to its destination (typically 10+ miles of travel) - Oncoming traffic on passing straightaways, no oncoming traffic on corners - two-lane country highways - Any of the above resulting in being stuck behind the same idiot for 10+ minutes (feels like an eternity at 6 a.m. when it's dark outside) There are some days when I get the distinct feeling that these people are conspiring against me. It's eerie. I travel with hundreds of people each day, and most are courteous drivers. It's those few from the lower planes who tend to stay in a person's memory.

They also don't understand that their ancestors, led by Mograth, were soundly whipped mere years ago in the same general neighborhood.

I'm writing of my own experiences with the games. That means I may not know of certain dialogs that could allow avoidance of combat. For example, I've never played an evil or neutral aligned character, so monsters often attack me on sight purely out of principle (I suppose). Where there is a chance to communicate, many times my attempts to avoid combat proved futile. My 99.9% figure wasn't meant to be exact, as no statistic ever is. I wished to convey my feelings that the majority of combat in those games was inescapable, based on my experience. I've been surprised by the number of battles I've been able to avoid in NWN2, even while playing a LG character, and so I feel it's an improvement over the games I mentioned. Maybe you had different experiences, but that doesn't negate what I experienced.