Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Sammael

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    696

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Sammael

    Sammael's NWN2 Experience

    in Computer and Console

    Posted · Edited by Sammael

    Having completed the tutorial and the first battle last night, here are some more impressions.

     

    The tutorial was perhaps the best tutorial I've ever seen in a CRPG; it relayed all the important information about playing the game (not that I needed it) without being in-your-face with popups every five seconds. I managed to win all four contests and I got the cloak.

     

    Then came the "defend the village" part. I wasn't too fond of it. First, I disliked the scripted death of your female companion. I'm not sure if it can be avoided (by leaving her somewhere before approaching the mageduel) or not. Waves of duergar and bladelings were ridiculously easy to defeat. I think I got hit once during the entire battle. Anyway, the battle was drawn out a bit too much for my taste. Oh, and did they really have to put the "collect'n'heal five poke-militiamen" quest in? FedEx quests to start with? :brows:

     

    Pathfinding is very bad. I clicked on a spot that was maybe six feet away from my character; instead of going straight ahead, he turned right, and circled around to the spot. I checkd whether there was an invisible obstacle of some sort, but the path was completely clear. Bizarre.

     

    Leveling - I got to level my main character once, since he is a tiefling.

     

    Graphics remain nice. I was impressed with the rendering of the githyanki mage (he seemed much better done than the human NPCs from the village).

     

    I've noticed a number of recycled sounds, and the music is forgettable.

    Sammael's NWN2 Experience

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Well, SoU and HotU had a lot more roleplaying opportunities than the original OC, and I had hoped that NWN2 would have expanded upon those opportunities.

     

    But then again, the REAL reason why I wanted NWN2 was Sawyer's TBH module. Hopefully, it'll be available before NWN3 comes out. :D

    Sammael's NWN2 Experience

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Choice of diety and also race has no impact on the game beyond the tutorial.

     

    I am a wood elf and have not had a single reference to me being an elf outside the first village, and even my wood elf NPC has not ever said anything about me being an elf, much less a wood elf.

    That's disappointing, to say the least.

    Sammael's NWN2 Experience

    in Computer and Console

    Posted · Edited by Sammael

    System Specs:

    CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6400 (not overclocked as of yet)

    MB: Asus P5B Deluxe Motherboard

    RAM: 2x 1Gb @ 667 MHz

    GPU: Gigabyte GF7900 GS w/256 MB

    HDD: 2x Seagate Barracuda 320 Gb 7200.10 w/NCQ

    DVD: Pioneer 111 something

    Audio: Crappy integrated SoundMax card, until Audigy 2 arrives

     

    Got NWN2 last evening. However, I did not have much time to play, mostly because of two things:

     

    1) I wanted to patch it before playing, so I went to the auto-updater. However, it was very, very slow, and it croaked after downloading 85% of the patch (which took more than 2 hours; I am on a 256 kbit wireless connection, so it should have been done within an hour). I lost patience after that and decided to proceed unpatched.

     

    2) So I started the game, and immediately realized that sound didn't work. I spent the next two hours fiddling with the stupid integrated audio card (I'm still waiting on that Audigy 2 I ordered), and finally found some drivers for it that worked. None of the other games I installed prior to NWN2 had any issues with the integrated card, so the issue must be with the game.

     

    After this, I played for a grand total of 15 minutes, enough to make my character (a LE Tiefling Warlock), exit the house and run around for a while.

     

    Here are my first impressions:

     

    Character creation:

     

    The character model is not very customizable, though this doesn't bother me much. It would be nice to see more options (particularly for overall body shape, height, weight, etc/).

     

    I am glad to see the abominable BioSkills gone for the most part.

     

    Regional feats are not 3.5. However, the background bonus/penalty makes up for this issue nicely. I made a Ladies' Man tiefling who worships Shar. It was nice seeing that at least some people recognized me as a tiefling in the tutorial, and I hope this will continue throughout the game. I also hope deity choice was meaningful.

     

    There is a lot of room for improvement in the feat department as well.

     

    Gameplay:

     

    One thing I noticed that bothers me is that I cannot equip that duskwood bow. I am not sure if this is (a) because it's a quest item, or (b) because I am not proficient with bows. If it's (b), then this is very wrong, as tieflings and aasimar are supposed to be proficient with all martial weapons (because they are outsiders; see clarification in WotC Main D&D 3.5 FAQ). Hopefully, this can be patched. Furthermore, I would prefer the option to equip weapons and armor I was not proficient with and suffer the penalties, instead of not being able to equip them at all.

     

    Other than that, I haven't had much chance to do anything. I like the way dialogs are handled (zoom in on your interlocutor), although it may become a bit cumbersome after a while. Camera works like a charm for now and I like it much better than in NWN1.

     

    Graphics:

     

    Very nice by my standards, and GREATLY improved over NWN1 (as they should be). I have the game set to 1280x1024, and most of the details turned to high. I am only getting 15-20 FPS outside, but this doesn't bother me much (and isn't even very noticeable).

     

    Models could be a bit more detailed.

     

    I, for one, am glad the tilesets are gone.

     

    Audio:

     

    Voice acting is meh in the tutorial, music is OK, but nowhere near music jewels like Torment, IWD1, and IWD2. I'll have to play a bit more before I get a full impression.

     

    Overall:

     

    Not enough data for a conclusion. Will play some more tonight (I hope).

    So how buggy is NWN2?

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    Such an assertion failure does not necessarily mean that the game has a memory leak. My (professional) guess is that there is an assertion in the code which assumes available memory is equal to X before creating a new instance of an object.

     

    Normally, such assertions are ONLY used in debugging. The production version of the code should have considerably more sophisticated error-testing, and the application should not crash - the error handler should unload another unneeded object, or try to create a version of the object which consumes fewer resources, or something.

     

    Somebody apparently forgot to write appropriate error-handling code and just left the assert there, which resulted in the crash.

    Vampire: Bloodlines

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    There is a creature in the sewers (somewhere) that has an attack which has a secondary effect of slowing down your character (which wears off eventually). On my one and only play-through VTM, after suffering one such attack, my character got permanently slowed down, and I only realized this after overwriting the previous saves.

    Vampire: Bloodlines

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Is the game patched enough at this point to be playable? I am mainly referring to (A) the perma-slowdown bug in the sewers, (B) the boat escape bug, and © Chinatown and beyond bugs.

     

    I'd love to replay the game on my new rig, but all the bugs I recall make me shudder.

    NWN2: Computer Requirements Q

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    7600GS may not pull out the absolute best, but that shouldnt matter too much.

    It's 7900GS, which is a bit better. :(

     

    Core2 is the one that may give you compatibility trouble, but most such problems are surmountable with some computer knowledge anda lot of patience.

    What sort of trouble?

    NWN2: Computer Requirements Q

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    Hello. I've been out of loop for a while, but I know two things:

     

    (1) I want to purchase and play NWN2 ASAP.

     

    (2) I need a new computer to do this because my current computer is horribly outdated (and I was planning on getting a new one anyway).

     

    Now, (1) should not be a problem. However, I want to make sure that the computer listed in (2) will do the job. Here's what I had in mind:

     

    CPU: Core2Duo E6400

    MB: Asus P5B Deluxe

    RAM: 2x 1 Gb DDR2 @ 667Mhz

    GPU: Gigabyte nVidia 7900 GS with 256 Mb RAM

    HDD: 2x Seagate Barracuda 320 Gb 7200.10 with NCQ

    Sound: Audigy 2

     

    I would like to hear from people with similar computers regarding the game's performance. 7900 GS is quite similar to 7900 GT, and benchmarks show that it's only about 5% slower (while being 20% cheaper).

     

    I want the graphics to look as good as possible. Will this computer be able to that?

    Fallout goes d20

    in Pen-and-Paper Gaming

    Posted

    Even Monte Cook has basically said that 3.5e is a sales gimmick in his review of it (which now seems strangely absent from his website now)

    This is the same Monte Cook who published a revised version of his alternative d20 PH, Arcana Unearthed, only a year after the original? Hah. Yes, I am well aware of his review, but the main point is - 3.5 rules are vastly superior to 3.0 in most of their aspects.

×
×
  • Create New...