Gorth

Cheating a bit with the quotes to circumvent the quote limit... 01) Linear Gameplay. The introduction of pathfinding not only removed exploration from the game in that you can no longer wander freely, but forced people to download custom content files to play online. A double step backwards and arguably (next to the overly strict adherence to pen and paper rules) the worst thing about NWN2 today. Linear.... my first thought when completing chapter in NWN1 02) UI is exceedingly counter-intuitive. The scattered and buried controls make it much harder to control your hero/party than ever thought possible. It crowds the screen that's already so zoomed in you cant see the entire map you're on. The time it takes to organize, buff , and finally attack a hostile in NWN2 is at least 30 seconds longer than in NWN1, and likely much longer for casters or scroll users. For some reason they decided to take away the clearly defined buffs indication icons and replace them with miniture green boxes. Without a magnifying glass you wont be sure what buffs you have. The UI is awesome and logically put together. Finally they got rid of that god-awful killer of joy, the radial menu 03) Henchmen AI. Ok so before there really was no AI, but at least they knew what to do and not just stand there, run away, or get in the way. Yes, in NWN1 they knew exactly how to make the worst possible decision at any give time. This time around, they actually have a personality and you can vent a bit by beeing mean to them if they piss you off 04) Details of the game! They all add up. But in NWN2 there aren't enough to add. Remember the seemingly endless list of armor to choose from and how they didn't all include the same round shoulder pad? Yeah gone are those days too. Remember how shields looked solid, and weapons didnt look like 1mm sheets of graphite? NWN2 likes it when your weapons look like 1 mm sheets of graphite. I remember a bunch of near identical armours with a few colour changes here and there. Only difference was which arms went with which legs and so on. All exceedingly ugly. 05) Corny and overused Spell VFX. Remember how you could actually tell what the oponent was casting, or what buffs he had in NWN1? Remember how impressive you looked when fully buffed in NWN1? Nothing to look at now. In NWN2 The spell vfx are so opaque and similar now that it's hard to tell one from another. Many spells don't even visually match well with the actual spell at all. Some are just flat out corny circles thrown on there with no reference to dimension. I think I saw my grandmothers quilting pattern and my local taco bell clerk's hairnet design! You should try the skill "Spellcraft" 06) Barely any Creatures! Remember the huge options list you had for NPC's and creature models? Kiss that goodbye. Obsidian seems content on giving you a demo's worth of monsters for NWN2. This may be attributed to the amateurish modeling done by the same part of the team that decided to hide their embarrasing body models with 12 tons of bad looking armor and the same round shoulder pad when naked. Ahh, I see. You are the professional giving the poor amateurs instruction on how to do their job. I'm sure they are now going to listen to you with reverence 07) Unprofessional Animations. Animations look like day one at Maya 101 ..at a Community College. When my teifling cheers it looks like he's tossing hay bails, when my sorcoress casts spells it looks like she's pouring water. The basic melee animation actually has one less animation than NWN1 2.5 years later...not more..less. We got it, you are the authority on the subject. The part of your resume that details your career exploits in professional game animation must be staggering. Again, does wonders for your credibility 08) No interior hieght map adjuster! you can no longer build raised terrain in caves. ??? Hello?? Echo???....Echo???...echo??? Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it. Makes the game completely unplayable out of the box. 09) NWN1's Emotes are outta there. When you see the cheer, you might understand why. I'd be embarrassed too if I was an Obsidian animator. Emotes? Who cares? 10) Inventory. Why is my scythe the same size as my scroll? And why can't I see either of them? "quick give me this or that item!" --"uhh" uhh" ok" wait" ..."no...hmm...wait think i found it...no, no nevermind that's not it" To get rid of the god-awful Diablo like inventory tetris of the first game ? 11) No Face Generator? No Body types? Amateurish unorganic looking faces, bodies and hair? 6 years after the Sims and this isn't in a game that is supposed to be built around making your character unique? Yes, yes, we got it the first two times. Your skills in implementing those features in the game engine are way superior since you claim them to be amateurs. 12) Limited furnishings for interiors are near hovel proportions. Remember the endless selections you had to make your interiors look every bit as unique as the feats and skills of your character? Those theme based object menus are long gone. Everyone is in a log cabin with the same rug and chests now, doesnt matter if you're a king or a peasant. Yeah, Nasher sure lived in a peasant hut. As did some of the other people in Blacklake district. 13) WASD controls might just as well give error messages now. Try simply running straight using the W key and have laugh at what follows. Anybody actually use those? 14) Load times. Get the popcorn and cross your finger you don't have to reboot..just from making a transition. NWN2 made good and sure you won't be playing online even if you do manage to find that servers pwc file somehow. Yeah, 5-10 seconds are unbearable. Online players are an insignificant minority. It's declared target group this time around were the players who actually play the game (while still enabling people to do modding). 15) Portraits. As if NWN2 could be any less immersive they decided to take away even the simplest but profound customizations when they made sure you can't use custom portraits now. No photo realistic heads for you, nope. You're forced to look at that poorly modeled character you regretfully settled for earlier. Oh ****, my face looks like me :'( 16) Multiplayer nightmare. This one may be the death of NWN2 yet. Not only are clueless noobs never going to join your server because they never knew about pwc files, but if they did find out how to join they'd face the near inability to interact with other players compared to NWN1. No clear way to invite or be invited. No player list for the server. Text screen fly's by, fonts are displayed too small or too large, dialog pauses, transition crashes, entire party's are forced to transition together when just one wants to go increasing the likelihood that more than one of you will crash. It's ugly...real ugly. And the multiplayers are... insignifcant compared to the singleplayers in numbers. 17) Recycled music and voicesets. Though some of the same voicesets availble for character creation is appreciated, ALL of them are not. Remember the one song you wished stayed from NWN1 was either the taverns or the enchanted peaceful forests? Well the Tavern song is now a hokey ho-down from down south, a knee-slapping number almost country complete if it had the twang accented voice from the tutorial NPC you encounter earlier. The rest is NWN1 digitally unmastered. I actually hear air changes on some of the different voices and expect to hear a cough and a car alarm in the background. Who's obsidians sound guy? The biggest problem here is that they recycled any at all. Most of the NWN1 stuff that wasn't outright bad was forgettable. Crossing fingers and hoping to never hear Aribeths grating voice again in any game/mod/whatever. 18) Dialog options in the OC are actually less diversified than KotorII. You know what's about happen next, and how to get there. Zzzzzz You are cheating. Comparing to Kotor2 now, are we? That makes it 49 ridiculous claims why you think NWN2 is worse than NWN1, not 50 Unlike NWN1, you can at least use dialogue for something in NWN2. 19) 3.5 Likeness. They spent so much time trying to adhere to 3.5 rules making the game more pen and paper than playable game, they actually forgot to give RDD's wings, and Palemasters bone grafts. lol..and someone called it "immersive" in the Fine Wine thread. Shudders at the thought of Deekin with wings. I can see how it is problem though, that they tuen a D&D game into a D&D game. 20) Toolset. This cryptic piece of unintuitive aurora alpha gone wrong could peplex a CIA data analyzer. Why do I need to guess what the x y z is? What about sliders? No Wizards? Good way to make sure only the truly skilled and patient get to work on modding, and leave out everyone else. Why even have item creation with so limited options? Good luck even seeing the item you want to make in the preview window, it's all blacked out anyways. For a self proclaimed superior game developer and animator, it shouldn't really be a problem. Ask Oerwinde if you need some hints. 21) Target aquisition is still in beta test right? When I want to click on a hostile I miss and run past him 75% of the time. NWN 1's Bioware team managed to remember people actually need to play this game, The pause button is your friend. 22) No combat animations for any moves? NWN1 did this better and it's 5 years older. You'd think they'd have made one for cleave, dance of death even? Since cleave (especially greater cleave) is a sequence of events happening out of turn, enlighten us, oh guru of game desigen, how would you illustrate those 20 out of turn attacks without just being a blur? 23) The Feats list on character creation is stacked for the same type of feat eg: Weapon focus. There's no sub menus? No organization Was this meant to fool us into thinking there were more feats? Bioware managed to streamline that before public release. Or it could be a deliberate attempt at distancing itself from the menu system of NWN1. Radial menus still brings back bad memories. 24) Remember how in NWN1 you could simply open a door and walk through, or bash it and do the same? Obsidian wants you to feel challenged so they made doors trap you so you get killed by NPC's or get frustrated and quit the game. I find myself fighting more doors than actual creatures or thugs. I remember a bloodcrazed dwarven monk yelling "Death and Damnation" and bashing my poor crates to cinders... If you doors were bad, you should try fighting Gazebos. I know a cleric named Eric that would love to have you in his party. 25) Having the ability modify what you want to select/see in the toolset, so that you don't accidently select trees when you mean to grab NPCs, and you don't have a screen cluttered with waypoints when you don't want to be looking at them. No comment. Still to try actually creating a finished module. Modding doesn't interest me. 26) Remember how in NWN1 multiplayer you could zoom out and see the map as needed when big wars between factions/guilds or psimply party's broke out? In NWN2 Obsidian felt it better that you can;t plan ahead and that you can only select a hostile when they get real close and that's if your cursor even works and doesnt click past them. Ah yes, multiplayer... I've heard rumours about those things happening. 27) Remember how you had to get near an area to reveal it in NWN1? Remember the excitement that generated when you couldn't tell where you might be going? There is no Fog of War in NWN2. I hated it as much as I did in BG2. Damn nearsighted elves can't see more than 30 meters without turning blind. 28) You can't die in NWN2. You're forced to endure more of the same hour long inevitable foregone conclusion dialouge and "AI Party mumbers do it for me or run away" combat. No but seriously you can't die. I see, you love the load times, so it doesn't bother you to experiment a bit every now and then with different tactics and then reload? 29) Why are all rooftops the same peat moss and straw? That never happened in NWN1. When you went somewhere in NWN1 you knew it was somewhere different than the place you just left. Now, The rooftops have the NWN2 shoulder pad syndrome, theyre all the same. Peat moss and straw is a very common building material on the Sword Coast ? Not uncommon for mediaval buildings to share a certain similarity in building style and materials. 30) Remember how you could put everything you needed into your quickslots? For NWN2 Obsidian fancied hiding your combat modes in the far reaches of the bottom right of your monitor so much that they made good and sure you have to go there to find tiny combat mode buttons to switch, not intuitively in the middle where they belong in quickslots. Yeah, it really sucks playing on those 42" plasma screens. Modes disappearing completely off your field of vision. 31) Remeber hwo you could just walk up to a peasant and bhead him if you so chose in NWN1? Maybe you wanted some evil points or possible loot. Well Obsidian in all of their Disney Splendor decided to protect the random villager and spare them from your fury now as you can no longer randomly attack non combatants. The ultimate in immersiveness. Peasant executions. Personally I'm a campaigner for more Ritual Virgin Sacrifice ™ in crpgs, but nobody listen to that either. 32) To further compound the above issue, you cant make a non hostile hostile. How does this fair for PVP? Well take a look at how like 2 people are playing online total and figure it out. NWN had the foresight to knwo that basic fundamental option needed to be there. Yes, a fundamental need to behead innocent peasants in coop, how dare they? Blame it on the all being leftist reactionary Californians. If that fail, play the "Terrorist" card. Make sure those peasants suffer. 33) NWN1 though limited graphically still managed to make armor and weapons look believable. Armor and weaponry looks unresearched in NWN2 . None of it looks either Forgotten realms authentic or conventional Medieval. Believable, maybe. That would make them ugly but believable. 34) Remember how in NWN1 you could see all of your character stats right there at once? Now you can't even see your actual AB and BAB in the same locaition let alone item bonuses. Since most of my memories of NWN1 are bad, I would rather compare it to the IE games, they were nice. 35) Um..Hair anyone? Obsidian should be saying: "Can we get a pro in here?" Ah yes, you are the pro. Why don't you show some examples of how you would program the engine to support better hair without choking it? Don't tell me, you are also an authority on hairstyles besides game engine programming and animation? The girls are going to be all over you :cool: 36) Casters suck now. Remember how being a caster was a viable option in PVP or even OC? Yeah well your level 20 gets like 10 spells total for some reason. Good luck with that. Caster was not a viable option in NWN OC because of the god-awful radial menu system. Not even with a lot of quickslots used. 37) Underwear? Why are my PC's underwear enough to arm a milita? Is this because the modelers were trying to hide the poor body modeling they "baked" down and rushed out? Now we are getting somewhere. There is no option for g-strings and chainmail bikinis... this is probably more a reason for resentment than many of the other pointless points (I might add that it would have been nice with a dial to adjust breast and male genital size too). 38) PVP? Once a staple of NWN1 This new game has been stripped and reduced down so badly that PVP isn't anything more than two unbeleivebly poorly modeled meshes with shoulderpads making 1985 animations to attack one another and the ensuing death doesn't even look real provided you can even kill each other. This such an outright lie, that I can't even be bothered to post screenshots of 1985 games. 39) Minimap is far inferior to the basic Map of NWN1. At least in that you knew where you were going. try to follow the minimap going from a to b...no seriously try it. Make that square already. Good riddance to squares, tiles, 45 degree ramps, etc. If they did a minimap like in IWD2 however... 40) Quests dont remove quest items on completion. I'm left being confused as if I even finished the quest even after I know I did eg: recovery of an item. NWN1 managed that on release. Haven't run across that one. I have a few quest items in my inventory that I can't sell, so I just dump them in my favourite barrel. 41) Remember CEP's great models for NWN1? Custom modeling is made so inaccesible because Obsidian thought their horrid models looked good enough to restrict from public access. So there is no option to tweak their meshes or get an idea of what we can all rebuild to work in game. And if somebody releases a CEP for NWN2 in a few years time, who knows? It might have some interesting stuff in there too. 42) No sense of weight or flex tension to any of the characters! Bioware looks like a George Lucas Movie team compared to the Obsidian portfolio day work on animation model naturalism. NWN2 boasts flmsy beta characters that look like line drawings weilding plastic swords skating across the ground like some bad action figure frame animation. So, we are now down to 38 reasons as this is just repetion. You like hearing your own voice much? 43) Camera's. I've heard these were patched, but man o man, if you don;t have that patch I feel sorry for you. This was a non issue for NWN1. As in? The cameras are great, both pre- and post patch. 44) Remember how NWN1 "felt" epic? The overall look and feel and mood of NWN2 was left unrealized when somewhere between the art director and the project lead they lost focus when trying to reinvent the wheel. This quote by Echolocating seems fitting: -- "I

I tried the beta patch too. Now I'm having a hell of a time controlling my camera because everything moves too fast... I used the "slider" adjustment bar to lower the speed, but it's still a bit on the fast side. The anti aliasing was a nice touch though

I think Purgatorio is an Aussie... and possibly an evil language fascist!! Like metadigital!! But ... I like Australian slang! You drongo! Mate, you should try spending some time down here... :D I thought you were a Belladonna fan? I think I'll add bot programmers and virus programmers to my pet peeves.

@Both Dark Raven & Pidesco: Thanks

Just to get a bit back on topic again... Got to a point in the game that gave me a good laugh and raise an eyebrow. G'Orthagnan the dual rapier wielding, fedora wearing Duelist is on his way to the rescue... I really like this game

I actually have a third save called "Gorth" That one is used as an extra backup for Quicksave when I retire my game in progress for the night. Thats about it.

The last major issue seems to have gone from the list. Wouldn't that sort of justify build 0.8b1 ?!?

Hmm... found a strange party AI bug. Annoying until I found out that it was reproducable and therefore could be worked around. Is there an official bug submission form anywhere? Screaming, yelling and ranting at forums doesn't count My partymembers would leave their brains back in the Inn when you change party members in the wilderness, during some of the scripted encounters/party members. If you remove a member and add a new one, they will insist on acting as if in puppet mode. No toggling of puppet mode will change that until you go back to the city Happened for me in both scripted out of town encounters that I've run across so far. Anybody else noticed that, or are my party members just homesick for cheap beer and bad tavern music? :p" Edit: The workaround is not to change your party composition.

Don't you guys have some mining operatios up on Svalbard?

Yes, the best Star Wars games aren't on the list Of course they are silly, K1 and K2. Once upon a time in a galaxy far away, Lucas Arts made not only games, but great games How can you possibly compare the Kotor games to the goodness that is the x-wing/tie-fighter games?!?

A genuine idealist I just went shopping for some crackers, gruyere, grapes and a bottle of Merlot. Preparing to play NWN2 all evening/night :cool:

Yes, the best Star Wars games aren't on the list

Yay, finally got my prestige class. After working a bit in the city of Neverwinter, I got my duellist rank, after 7 ranks of ranger. I even managed to find a fedora along the way. So, with Fedora, the blue cloak of the city watch and dual wielding rapiers, even D'Artagnan will go green with envy :D

Come on guys, only 1 major and a mere 60 minor issues before 8b1

It's Ok to vent a bit every now and then, if that is what it is, and people cool down after the venting Just out of curiosity, how does it make the game unplayable? I didn't have a widescreen available when I played the game (and I played it alot :"> ) Does it distort the screen, or does it just look odd with big empty spaces on the sides? I'm asking because I use a (widescreen) laptop these days and intend to reinstall the game once the TSLRP is finished.

Thanks I do put some effort into not selecting all the "black boxes" in the forum :cool:

I think it is talking about Kotor2, not NWN2 >_

First impressions from a NWN2 n00b >_ Summed up: Having great fun >_ I'm playing on a laptop and crossed my fingers, that it would run. It did, without any major trouble. It didn't like the dynamic shadows, but that was about it. Not sure how to estimate framerates, but it runs as smoothly as a politicians election lies. I don't get it what all the whining about the graphics is about, my only complaint there is the walk/run animations which honestly suck. I noticed that in Kotor2 too (Kotor1 had nice walk/run animations). I decided to do a "test run" first, created a warlock and played until finishing the tutorial and the first "dungeon". I got my first two party members (and I already want to strangle one of them, kudos to a well written character, she really *is* annoying). The dwarf on the other hand is a pretty good conversationalist... if he would just stop talking... >_ I can't really say anything about music and sound as laptop speakers just doesn't do it any justice. When I finish building my new pc, I might be able to enjoy it in 5.1 As for rules/combat/difficulty/game mechanics etc. I'm not really entitled to an opinion. I never really played PnP versions "like it was intended to be used". That also means, I am unlikely to spot bugs, left outs, add ons, other things considered heresy by D&D radicals, 3.5 purists and other extremists. Now off to start a new game with a character I intend to finish the game with. Duellist prestige class looks like my thing... :D

Perhaps I should stop reading forums for a while... Now, I'm wondering about those emails too. I always thought it was the cab driver, being one of those who are more than what they seems, pulling the strings as a means to an end only he can fathom. Now I suddenly don't know who sent them :'(

Just started playing NWN2. Runs smoothly on my laptop. Only 1024x768 as more is wasted on the small screen, but otherwise most effects cranked up, except shadows. For some reason it doesn't like the fancy shadows. Doesn't slow it down too much, but it creates some ugly artifaces. Currently having a blast, finishing the tutorial and getting my first genuine partymember. A shame I couldn't keep whatshisname wizard from the tutorial. He was quite hilarious, reminding me of the holographic doctor from one of those Star Trek TV Series I once saw a few episodes of. I sense a conflict of interests looming in the future... work vs. nwn2

I think there might be some minor differences in the content of the limited edition around the world. I found one on the shelf of a store today and bought it. I had the game dvd, manual, art book, two rings and a cloth map (yes, cloth) Now I've just have to find the time to install (and patch) and play the thing :">

Well, they do, but sheesh it's crappy. It really shows, that there has been no competition for Telstra. It's their terms or no terms...

Apparantly, Australia is part of the US then Looked like Unreal Tournament meets Starsiege Tribes. Edit: Perhaps "Outside the US" means Canada and Mexico?

American Heritage Dictionary n. Informa. Something about which one frequently complains; a particular personal vexation. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms pet peeve A particular or recurring source of irritation, as in My pet peeve is that neighbor's cat running through my herb garden. [Early 1900s] WordNet pet peeve n : an opportunity for complaint that is seldom missed; "grammatical mistakes are his pet peeve"

I don't really know which is more fun... people who writes bots that pretends to be human or people who treat bot created posts like they were written by humans