[Wich game had the best ingame feeling?]

This post shows all of your ignorance and lack of understanding thowards the matter. You don't necessarily have to like Baldur's Gate, but such a demented and disrespectful post is really offending.

Baldur's Gate II graphics were great, the 2d engine made a fantastic work and I'm pretty confident that Throne of Bhaal reached a higher graphical "realism" than NWN (I've never been incredibly fond of NWN appearence, in fact).

But it's not the graphic part that I found the most outrageous in your post: it's what you wrote about the character background. The pre-determination of your character biography was exactly what made the storyline so unique. WHAT THE HELL do you mean with the statement :<<they pretty much wrote the biography of your character for you, taking away from the feel of uniqueness one would want to feel from playing a character of their own creation>>.

Now, don't make me laugh. What kind of background creation do you expect in a videogame? What possibilities gave you NWN regarding that? None, none at all. Your character wasn't customized, but the exact opposite, flat and totally lacking of detail and personality.

And finally, those elements that you find disturbing and unappropriate were quite interesting and stimulating in my opinion. There was no single moment in all of the NWN campaigns (OC, SOU and HOtU) that I've found as involving as Imoen's rescue.

This post isn't meant to flame you or cause pointless controversy, but I felt obliged to manifest my strong dissent regarding almost all of your points, in fear similar ideas may end up influencing negatively (in my opinion) one of the games I await with greatest anticipation...

 

 

Now thats exactly my view. Even though nwn maybe a 3d engine, i personally think the flat, warcraft look of the game made it worse than those before it. You may have liked nwns graphics, but they were flat, uninteresting and uninspired. Just because they were graphic sprites doesn't mean they were less realistic than those in nwn. The enviroment was easily better than anything created in nwn. The Towns, Cities underground areas were easily better.

 

I still go back and play the baldurs gate and icewind dale games, but i've only ever completed nwn and the expansions once, and i won't be going back to them. To say i play baldurs gate, a gate which is now 7 years old is testament to the game. I like many others love them to bits.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Agreed. 2D or not, BG2 still looked a 1000 times better than NWN. I think the transition to 3D should not have been made that soon, even if other games were doing it. The 3D technology at the time was just not that great. Only now is it reaching a stage where things are becoming more believable.

 

Not only that, but the artwork in BG2 was far more awe-inspiring and realistic than NWN's. Every area was unique, and looked well thought out. (I could point out hundreds of things in NWN where the artwork was really shoddy.)

 

Couple all that with a superb story, and you have a true classic. I'm yet to find any real problem with any of the BG series, the original was equally brilliant. You really felt like you were part of something greater. It was also challenging, whereas NWN was an uberfest with virtually no chance of dying no matter how badly you played.

[Magic System Discussion]

A Mana based system does exist in a WotC book.  Unearthed Arcana has those rules. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Unearthed Arcana is such a munchkin book. I'll stick to the regular system thank you very much.

[Neverwinter Nights 2 or Dragon Age?]

Lots of misconceptions here.

 

DA has MP. DA also has a toolset. However, DA is more focused on the SP that either NWN1 or NWN2 will be. DA will support PWs as much as NWN1 did or NWN2 will most likely.

 

I'm looking forward to NWN2 because I love D&D, and I'm sure it'll be a pretty good game and since Obsdiian is focusing more on the OC than BIO did for NWN1; I believe the OC should be better than last time.

 

DA will also be cool. The rules system will probably make or break it though. Since we know very little about it though at the moment it's hard to judge the game.

 

NWN2 is a must buy. Knowing BIo; I'm sure DA is also a must buy.

 

 

 

"mana based magic system"

 

*PUKE* Absolutely disgusting.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Bioware have never supported PW's, they were merely a side effect apparently. They have said that PW's might work with DA, they might not. Either way they aren't adding anything that will help PW makers, like Obsidian is apparently going to be doing.

[Neverwinter Nights 2 or Dragon Age?]

At first I thought that Dragon Age was gonna be the better game, however now I'm not so sure. The more I think about it the more I think that they're not gonna be able to come up with a ruleset to top DnD's. The unpolished feel of NWN has somewhat shaken my faith in Bioware too.

 

There is always the possibility that a new setting just won't take off. While they have a singleplayer and multiplayer campaign, the multiplayer campaign is apparently just an adapted version of the SP campaign. They're not supporting PW's either, which I don't approve of at all.

 

But hey, we know little about either game and only time will tell.

[Why's Forgotten Realms more popular than Greyhawk?]

I suspect we'll be be seeing more of those areas in future WotC releases.  Note that the Unapproachable East (the area bordering Kara Tur) has been out for a while, and the Shining South just came out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The Unapproachable East book was pretty weak, I haven't gotten Shining South yet. I don't see any such books due for next year. There is the much awaited Waterdeep book next July that should be great, Lost Empires Of Faerun (Netheril, Imaskar etc.) and some more environmental books, Maelstrom and Sandstorm. Perhaps the interest for other regions isn't really commercially viable.

[Why's Forgotten Realms more popular than Greyhawk?]

One thing that Bioware, Black Isle, and Obsidian have not done is explore many of the other areas of the world. Faerun is just one continent one whole world. BG 1&2, ID 1&2, and NWN 1&2, only really occupy one sliver of land on the western coast, about 1/30 of the whole continent. If anyone has read the novels (like me) you would know there is ALOT of material that still has not been gone over. The Campaign Book for FR alone has about 150 pages on just the geography. Lands can differ from anything form Mediterranian, African, Exotic Jungles, Arabian, and even an entire country shaped after ancient Eygpt. Theres alot of untapped material I would like to see in video game form, the designers just need to go there.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Its because most of the other regions were made just to squeeze a few more bucks out of the public by satisfying niche markets.

 

You do realise that 99.99 percent of the areas mentioned in Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting are in Faerun?

 

The less popular regions like Mulhorand (the Egypt one) only have about a paragraph of information, whereas areas like the Silver Marches have an entire book to themselves.

 

Areas outside of Faerun like Maztica, Kara-Tur, Zakhara etc. are really badly done, boring stereotyped copies of real life with no attention to detail. The FRCS just skims over all of those in one page. The vast majority of people set their campaigns in Faerun for this reason.

 

Its not a good idea for a game to get too generalised anyway, it just sacrifices detail.