NWN2: Forumite Impressions

[Volourn]

Just finished the prologue, and started the first chapter.

 

Quick NON SPOILING stuff:

 

Character control is same as NWN1 just with the option to control the npc henchmen as your own personal slaves in battle.

 

Interface is solid. Some improvements like the different battle commands like PA sticking (which we already knew about prerelease) are coo. I don't care much for the 'quickspell' junk. Quick slots are neat.

 

For some reason it seems you cna't combine weapon + shield in a quick slot ala NWN. Kinda dissapointing, imo. Unless I'm missing how to do iut.

 

The mini map is right on.

 

The prologue basically does what the NWN OC one did - introduce you to the game, and controls which is a-ok. The npcs in the prologue are a tad more interesting than the NWN1 OC.

 

Best part of the prologue is it instantly shows that dialogue skills do show up though I'm not sure if it really helped.

 

Graphics are good to very good. However, camera control, and the overview make sit really annoying to get a good look at everything. Camera control is really poor thus far, imo. Hopefully, I'll get used to that.

 

Music, and voice overs are solid.

 

Stability is VERY good. No apparant bugs or anything of that nature. Load times are fast. Sometimes so fast, I cna't even read the load screen tips. Heh.

 

One plea to Obsidian devs though: In the next patch can you please have it that when you overwrite a save you *don't* have to rewrite the save name file. If possible, it would be appreciated... at least by me.

 

 

I'm playing my usual dwarven fighter/cleric of Berronar. The ubering of the Earth domain is nice as I can got the toughness feat as a bonus. YAY! I'm level 2 fighter/level 1 cleric. LG, and male.

 

 

So far, I'm really liking the game. My BIGGEST beef which is dampering my enjoyment are the anal camera controls, Otherwise, it pretty much rocks.

 

And, oh, this is definitely a sequel to NWN1.

 

 

LONG LIVE NWN SERIES!

 

DEATH TO ALL OTHER SERIES ESPICIALLY BG AND KOTOR!!!!!!

[Killuminati]

Pentium 4 1.7(can be cranked up but it'll be of no use)

512 MB of RAM (400Mhz)

GeForce FX 5200 OTES(...I know, I know... that's bad)

 

I played Kotor 2 with this config with no at all problems. But...

[Musopticon?]

Woah, you should upgrade, since none of the this generation games are gonna work on that rig.

 

My poor 1,8 gigahz Athlon, with 1024 DDR ram and Gefroce 6600 is barely holding as it is.

[Haitoku]

Damn it, I want the game. My local Gamestop still doesn't have it's copies.

[Kelverin]

Damn it, I want the game.  My local Gamestop still doesn't have it's copies.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tried Fry's, Walmart and finally got it at ........ Game Stop.

[Big Bottom]

Pentium 4 1.7(can be cranked up but it'll be of no use)

512 MB of RAM (400Mhz)

GeForce FX 5200 OTES(...I know, I know... that's bad)

 

I played Kotor 2 with this config with no at all problems. But...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Sorry Killu, I feel for ya...

 

Are you expecting any lottery wins/long lost wealthy family member deaths/good blackmail prospects in the near future?

[Killuminati]

Man, in Croatia components are a lot more expensive than in the US. For example, I'd have to dish out 2300Kn (about 450 bucks) to buy a decent mainboard and CPU, and 2300Kn is the amount of my monthly pay working 8h a day, 6 days a week in my fathers construction company. Life sucks.

 

Maybe I'll buy a new rig next year or when and if Kotor 3 comes out.

[The Named One]

Would I have to put it on Low settings with

1gb RAM, Athlon 64 2800+ (does that mean 2.8ghz or something less? never understood that. belarc says it's 1.85ghz but I heard that means it's assuming it's a pentium or something), Raedon 9800 PRO

Or could I push it to medium? Any recommendations?

[Killuminati]

You're fine man. Don't worry. Those specs guarantee flawless play.

Edited November 1, 2006 by Killuminati

[Big Bottom]

Would I have to put it on Low settings with

1gb RAM, Athlon 64 2800+ (does that mean 2.8ghz or something less? never understood that. belarc says it's 1.85ghz but I heard that means it's assuming it's a pentium or something), Raedon 9800 PRO

Or could I push it to medium? Any recommendations?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yours is almost the same spec as mine. The 2800+ means that it runs as fast as a Pentium @ 2.8GHz, although the actual clock speed will be 1.85. Athlons have a different architecture and outperform Pentiums hugely at the same clock speed, especially for games.

 

My guess is that you could run NWN2 at medium acceptably on a lowish resolution, but it will probably slow down every now and then.

[Killuminati]

Yours is almost the same spec as mine.  The 2800+ means that it runs as fast as a Pentium @ 2.8GHz, although the actual clock speed will be 1.85.  Athlons have a different architecture and outperform Pentiums hugely at the same clock speed, especially for games.

 

My guess is that you could run NWN2 at medium acceptably on a lowish resolution, but it will probably slow down every now and then.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Don't think so. It'll probably run at medium smoothly.

[LadyCrimson]

What about a Sempron2400? Atreides was asking about that in Skeeter's, and I couldn't find a great answer since I'm not familiar with AMD. It clocks too slow for that "will your game run NWN2 site" to "pass" it...but will that be reality?

[The Named One]

Thanks for the responses Killuminati, Big Bottom. I'm looking forward to this now

[Ross_Witchen]

Load for NwN2 took 50 minutes.

 

But, upon hitting Play, game " failed to initialize"

 

Clicked on update, but each of the 2 attemptes ( and 1.25 hours), update failed after reaching 52 % ( patch_english.html#crit...which came after unzip of Data\NWN2_models.zip.

 

I was directed to go to http:/nwn2.obsidian.net/support/....but I can't find a link for any such address.

 

So right now, I can neither play game, nor patch it. Will keep trying..somehow.

[Sand]

So far I will say this about NWN 2.

 

NWN 2 is the game I expected NWN 1 to be, minus the graphical goodness.

[Dark_Raven]

Seven discs? 

 

Glad I got the DVD version.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

DVDs are your friends.

[Deraldin]

Pentium 4 1.7(can be cranked up but it'll be of no use)

512 MB of RAM (400Mhz)

GeForce FX 5200 OTES(...I know, I know... that's bad)

 

I played Kotor 2 with this config with no at all problems. But...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You are a little worse off than I am. I'm playing on lowish settings right now with a P4 1.7GHz, 768MB RAM and a 9600 Pro. It's slow enough that I'm noticing some stuttering, however it hasn't really diminished my enjoyment of the game so far, probably because I'm used to the stuttering from other games.

 

If you lower everything down to the bare minimum you should be able to play the game. You may have really poor looking characters and have to run at 800x600, but I would think that you could possibly do it depending on what your tolerances are.

[Darque]

Seven discs? 

 

Glad I got the DVD version.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

DVDs are your friends.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[J.E. Sawyer]

Load for NwN2 took 50 minutes.

 

But, upon hitting Play, game " failed to initialize"

 

Clicked on update, but each of the 2 attemptes ( and 1.25 hours), update failed after reaching 52 % ( patch_english.html#crit...which came after unzip of Data\NWN2_models.zip.

 

I was directed to go to http:/nwn2.obsidian.net/support/....but I can't find a link for any such address.

 

So right now, I can neither play game, nor patch it. Will keep trying..somehow.

Ross, was that in a retail version or D2D?

[Dark_Raven]

Impressions. For one I am not impressed all with the cheap paper sleeve that you put your $49.99 DVD in. Jewel cases aren't terribly expensive by the bulk. The patch is too big. I will play without it for now once the internet congestion has lightened up. Nobody VO talent.

 

Nice manual. Not some cheap flimsy thing or a PDF file. This is a big plus with me.

 

I will get back with more after I played it a bit.

[Deraldin]

Impressions. For one I am not impressed all with the cheap paper sleeve that you put  your $49.99 DVD in. Jewel cases aren't terribly expensive by the bulk. The patch is too big. I will play without it for now once the internet congestion has lightened up. Nobody VO talent.

 

Nice manual. Not some cheap flimsy thing or a PDF file. This is a big plus with me.

 

I will get back with more after I played it a bit.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I can't remember the last time an Atari game came with a jewel case. Blame them.

 

About the patch, I don't think it's too big, I'm just guessing that the servers are really busy right now with lots of people downloading the patch and slowing everything down. However it still takes a really long time to install once it's downloaded. Took over an hour to do both here.

 

Can't say I've noticed any really bad VO yet, however I there hasn't been anything outstanding either. :ph34r:

 

Agreed on the manual though.

[Volourn]

My impressions still stand from page 7. I'm into the main game, and shoud be starting a SPOILER filled thread discussing my thoughts for those who care later on.

[Enoch]

Pentium 4 1.7(can be cranked up but it'll be of no use)

512 MB of RAM (400Mhz)

GeForce FX 5200 OTES(...I know, I know... that's bad)

 

I played Kotor 2 with this config with no at all problems. But...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You are a little worse off than I am. I'm playing on lowish settings right now with a P4 1.7GHz, 768MB RAM and a 9600 Pro. It's slow enough that I'm noticing some stuttering, however it hasn't really diminished my enjoyment of the game so far, probably because I'm used to the stuttering from other games.

 

If you lower everything down to the bare minimum you should be able to play the game. You may have really poor looking characters and have to run at 800x600, but I would think that you could possibly do it depending on what your tolerances are.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's reassuring. Keep us posted on how the game's treating your rig. I'm a bit better off in terms of CPU & RAM, but I don't know how a 9600 pro compares with a 6600GT. If I can play through the whole game on min settings, that's enough for me at the moment (I'm trying to put off upgrading until the new year).

Edited November 2, 2006 by Enoch

[Shadowstrider]

Complaint thus far:

Running the game in windowed mode kills my gameplay. Characters look like they're skipping, audio skips, dialogue sounds chopped. Doesn't seem to matter what I change my settings to. Conversely, if I crank my settings all up to max I can play in full screen with a solid 30fps and no hangs.

 

Then, there is the 6-minute loading after I launch the game and it just sits there.

 

Cool stuff thus far:

Spell icons.

Seeing character in different class clothing.

Casting animations and AOE indicators.

[Deraldin]

That's reassuring.  Keep us posted on how the game's treating your rig.  I'm a bit better off in terms of CPU & RAM, but I don't know how a 9600 pro compares with a 6600GT.  If I can play through the whole game on min settings, that's enough for me at the moment (I'm trying to put off upgrading until the new year).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well here's something for you then. Outdoor areas seem to work better than indoor areas. Although that might be because in the indoor area I had 4 light spells going at the same time, one per party member, so they were all casting light on the surroundings...

 

It really slowed down inside the

Graveyard crypts

almost to the point that it was similar in performance level to Dantooine on KotOR2 with an ATI card. Beyond that it's been playable if choppy so far.

 

Your 6600GT should beat the pants off my 9600 Pro. "