NWN2 Professional Reviews Thread

[Diamond]

I dunno, I'm pretty happy using function keys for selecting characters. It is quick enough for me.

[Pidesco]

With my idea you'd still be able to use function keys, because they wouldn't untoggle the "select all" function.

[Diamond]

I think it would be even better if you could hold a key (e.g., Ctrl) for the toggle function. Then you don't have to worry about "untoggling". Ctrl+click = everyone moves to the target spot/attacks.

[Enoch]

The frustrating thing to me is that the "attack nearest" broadcast command apparantly un-toggles puppet mode. I tried using that early on in the game to clean up a lone zombie, and Wham!-- my character chugged an invisibility potion, Neeshka threw an alchemy grenadelike, etc.

 

If "attack nearest" simply ordered each character to attack the nearest enemy with the weapon they currently had equipped, without removing puppet mode, the game would go a lot faster for me.

[Gromnir]

*chuckle*

 

so for alan exception to be an actual exception to Gromnir general rule, you gotta have small number of folks and voice over analogous to roger wilco? you is working pretty hard here... and strategy games ain't really analogous to nwn d&d combats.

 

again, interface gotta work for other than just alan situations. radial menu is terribly slow and unwieldy for virtually all mp situations (feel better?) so interface can't simply be designed for alan and vol. try not to lose sight of forest for some tree.

 

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Fionavar]

[quote name='

[Volourn]

"radial menu is terribly slow and unwieldy for virtually all mp situations (feel better?)"

 

Total utter bull. You apparantly never played NWN MP - eitehr PW or small groups if you think the radial menu is so 'unweildy' in MP for you.

 

Also, none of this chnages the fact that puase can be rtaher sueful and people *do* use it in MP.

 

Period.

[Sargallath Abraxium]

[quote name='

[Musopticon?]

Yeah, anyway.

 

This always happens with new games. No game has a perfect record. And there were quite a bit of blaming reviews just after launch too. Just as there are new shining ones coming out even now. Just check here:

 

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/922154.asp?q=NWN%202

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Volourn]

Dejavu!!!

[17243_1556103691]

[quote name='

[Volourn]

Dejavu!!!

[Pidesco]

What, where??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What, where??

[mkreku]

If you think that is bad, you should check out IGN's review of Gothic 3.

 

http://pc.ign.com/articles/747/747903p1.html

 

4.9/10!

 

Apparently Americans aren't so hot on bugs

[Sargallath Abraxium]

[quote name='

[Musopticon?]

I'm delighted and thoroughly elated on the prospect of seeing Thiefie's reaction to Wemic.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

As far as the Amazon reviews go, I would say it appears that a few people gave very high reviews and a few more gave extremely low marks. While some of the reviews are good -like the ones listed below- many are simply one-to-three sentences in length and make me think of a pissed off ten year old. Also, the problems reported are inconsistent and makes one believe that the reviewer received a bugged disk, not a faulty game....

 

Here are some examples:

 

I would have to say I disagree with most of the low score posters on this board. NWN 2 is a complete overhaul from NWN 1 and every change has been for the positive. The graphics are beautiful this time around (much less blocky and sterile). My computer is not the of the line (1gig ram, gforce 6600, 2GHz Athlon) but I have no problem playing with reasonable settings. Set down your draw distance,water reflectivity or the shadow complexity. Those are major hogs. It's better to just set up the texture quality. Plus a large draw distance is silly for this game.

 

The interface changes are all greatly appreciated. The old NWN radial menu interface was cumbersome and silly. The button maps and context sensitive menus make the game's menus much more intuitive and enjoyable to traverse.

 

Character creation is always my favorite part of these games and NWN2 delivers in this respect. The amount options are amazing (fallout-like background traits, subraces, a large variety of prestigee classes). The level you can customize your characters appearance is not at oblivion's level, but it's a great improvement over the previous installment. Each race has plenty of head/hair combinations to make your character feel unique.

 

The packed in campaign is a joy to play. I never enjoyed any of the past NWN official campaigns. I always felt they were a bit dry and uninteresting. The story and characters in the NWN 2 are colorful and engaging. Each recruitable character feels very unique and you feel that your relationship with them is developing as the storyline advances. I've really got nothing bad to say about the story as well. I haven't gone through the entire campaign yet, but the 10-15 hours of played through so far have been a blast. It remind me of the golden age of the old infinity engine games from interplay/biowares, which isn't unreasonable since from what I understand Obsidian is made up of a few of the old Black Isles developers.

 

My only complaint and the reason I didn't give it 5/5 is that the tool set is not as easy to use as the old NWN toolset. With the old toolset I could easily sit down and push out a basic module in no time. The tool set seems to have way more options now and is also not as logically layed out as the previous incarnation. Also (at least for me) alot of the menus and wizards take an awful long time to load up, which adds some frustration. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.

 

I love this game, and I bought it for the official campaign alone (I haven't had this much fun playing a computer RPG since KOTOR 1&2), but NWNs strength is in it's continued community support through player added content and modules. I know the engine is solid and fun. I hope the tool set isn't too unwieldy for the community. I'd love to see what people can do with it.

 

...

 

I thought I'd add a bit more to the end of this post and comment on the camera problems. Yes the camera does need to be adjusted quite often if you have it zoomed in or at an angle. I usually play with the camera zoomed out and overhead, which I've found to be the best configuration requiring the least amount of adjustment. This configuration makes the game reminiscent of the isometric RPGs of old. I zoom in if I want to get a good look at something, but honestly you are better off keeping the camera zoomed out for the majority of the time. Also the '*' key cycles through camera modes which includes a self regulating over the shoulder follow cam. It's not the smartest follow cam, but it will reposition. The camera certainly isn't optimal, but I don't believe it kills the game.

 

Also, I was surprised that some people complained about the official campaign's story. I found the story to be a breath of fresh air. I also liked KOTOR 2 better than KOTOR 1. Many people wouldn't agree with me on that. I guess it's all subjective.

 

Level of Detail... This thing looks like it's using the doom3 engine! how in the world is that not an improvment?!

 

 

..The click area around an enemy is too small. I have seen a lot of complaints about this one. You have to pause, click on the enemy, and then unpause to fight. Oh yeah and rotate the camera and oh yeah rotate the camera some more. Folks it's a mess...

 

The graphics aren't bad, although if you're a fan of actually doing anything in your game, I'd recommend turning most of the graphics options off for performance reasons. Obsidian threw in the obligatory major "overhaul" of the user interface (read: "Change for change sake") so even if you're a NWN junkie like me, it's good to run through the tutorial. Especially since if you don't, a bug in the game won't let you save.

 

And speaking of not being able to save, devote a lot of time to playing. Every time I quit, my save games and settings disappear.

 

This is what happens when the pros don't work on the sequal to a best seller. NWN wasn't perfect, but Bioware didn't release something this bad.

 

 

As a lover of BG2, Diablo2, NWN and all their expansions, this was super disappointing. I can deal with almost anything but controls that simply don't work...

 

(The game has an inbuilt "darkness" spell because I spend half my time just trying to move the camera in position to hit the darn thing / click to open doors / click to loot etc.)

 

I just put in a new graphics card (a 256mg NiVidia BFG)that cost me near hundred half. My PC is running XP pro, 3.4 Intel 4, 2 g ram, so it's a gamer computer and should be able to run this game with no problem...yet I've had to turn down much of my settings just to get a half way decent picture.

 

I have no idea why the requirements are so high...really, Morrowwind is much cooler and did they want to sell it to millions of people or just a select few with spouse/parents who don't mind their spouses/kids spending a small fortune on a high end pc?

 

Word is that they will create patches to make it more playable...my suggestion to anyone thinking of dropping $40 on this game...wait, until all the patches are out and it's playable.

 

I'll drop the latest patch in when it's release and come back with another review.

 

Let me start off by saying I am a big fan of D&D and have played the original NWN. If you've perused online reviews and the official forums you'll find a lot of mixed reactions to NWN2. Unfortunately a lot of the criticisms aren't unfounded, but if you read some of these reviews it seems like people just complain just to complain. Yes the game has some flaws but bottom line,the game is fun. Nearly all of the flaws the game has can be fixed with a patch. Granted some of the things should have been there to begin with, but even so the game provides hours of fun, and at the end of the day that's really all that matters.

 

I bought the collector's edition of the game and I'm either spoiled by the CE of the Guild War's series, or maybe it just takes more to impress me than 2 cheap rings and a crappy cloth map. For 20 extra bucks that's what you get, and a manual-esque "art book" with a few scans and character designs. That's it. A much better version of the CE was released in Europe and Australia which included the Original NWN, a D&D miniature, and a soundtrack cd. A much much better CE than what we got here. Guild Wars gives you a soundtrack cd, a poster, a hardcover artbook, and a nice sturdy, nicely designed box to keep it in. It's nothing earth shattering but it actually speaks more about the total NWN2 experience than you'd think.

 

Obsidian had a HUGE task with NWN2. I peruse the forums every now and then and some of those guys are die hard enthusiasts. They'll complain about every little tiny detail from cloaks not flowing right to this spell wouldn't do this in D&D. Granted, there's no way they could please everyone with this, but a lot of the complaining was defintly warranted.

 

For instance, I have a relatively powerful PC. It's not bleeding edge but like everyone else has said, if you can run Oblivion you should be able to run NWN2. Sadly while I don't have the horrible performance some people report, it's nowhere near the buttery silkiness that I get with guild wars, which NWN2 very much resembles. It's really quite baffling at what the problem is when the graphics are nothing special. They're light years ahead of NWN1's tiled , ugly look, but if I can run Oblivion at high settings I should not in any way have problems running NWN2. It's like in a lot of aspects the game could have used a few more weeks of polishing. I know they wanted to get it out before xmas, but with such a huge title, a large, vocal community who will call them on it, and the greatness that was the first game, it's crazy how they didn't polish this thing till it gleamed. From the crappy CE to lagging graphics you can see how some nerdy fans (me included) are so vocal about it.

 

What get's NWn2 off the hook is two things. The gameplay and the huge possibilities it has with expansion. The game ships with a toolset (which i never use) that lets any D&D fan create stories and adventures till their hearts content. For sure a lot of hobbyist silliness is created, but there have been quite a few gems from the NWN1 era that rival some professionally created games in terms of scope and fun. You can download professionally created amateur modules many places, and the original NWN featured several official modules created by Bioware. So the game will surely have a very long lifespan. And that;s great considering the engaging battles and RPG gameplay.

 

Battles are very tactical now as you have the ability to take 4 companions with you at any given time. Many different people will come and go in your party and all of them have different personality and classes. If you've played Knights of the Old Republic the party interaction is similar to that. Your character is still a silent mute, which is unfortunate. I'd like atleast once for RPG's like this to give your character personality. Let you pick a voice style when you create your character and have them actually talk and react. That's another thing, characters talk and act much better than NWN1, but they still only have so many animations that they cycle through. Sometimes you're party will get jostled, and you'll be having a conversation with an important character only to have one of your party members staring off in the complete opposite direction. Sometimes even when a NPC is directly addressing them. It seems nitpicky but it really jars you out of the experience. Another thing is any city you go to , it doesn't matter what time of day it is, the exact same citizens will be in the exact same places for days and days on end. In the City of Neverwinter there's these 3 people who sit in the same spot by a tree and never move. If i remember correctly in the original NWN the npc's had cycles. If it was night, the city would be empty and if it was day they'd actually go about their business. Little things like that take you out of the RPG element.

 

Even despite these flaws though, Ive played the game for hours on end and really enjoy it. It took what was great about the first game and put some polish on it, upgraded it and made it shine. Battles are fun, spell effects are great, managing your characters is easy, leveling up is easy to do, and just so many things make this game fun to play despite it's flaws. Most of the issues that the game has can surely be patched up. Obsidian seems like they're in it for the long haul and are behind the game 100%. If you read the forums the devs are responsive to criticism and attentive to game issues, which there are plenty of.

 

If you're looking for a good RPG for a xmas gift, then this is a great game to give. Even with it's flaws you can get this up and running easier than Oblivion. Oblivion has some steep system requirements and isn't for casual gamers. NWN2 is more accessible and a lot more tactical. If you're a fan of D&D or RPG's then you will surely love Neverwinter Nights 2.

 

Multiplayer: Here's the basis of my low score. The Multiplayer options whether it be LAN, Gamespy or just hosting a game for yourself is *Borked*. What i mean is that it flat doesn't work and there are more than enough threads at the NWN2 site to back this up. Be prepared to do a lot of work opening and forwarding ports to and from your router (if you use one). I spent the entire weekend with D-Link support trying to find out why every multiplayer game i tried to connect to or start always tried to connect to IP: 127.0.0.1:5121 That's because that is a loopback IP and isn't a real IP. You're going to need to know your IP or you won't be playing any Internet games. First off, you need to have a goodly amount of ports open to even play this game online. Then you have to be able to do this yourself. I'm no novice and i can't even get it to work right.

 

Let me say that NO game should be this difficult to play online out-of-the-box. No game i've ever played was this frustrating. To make matters worse is no Devs have even commented on what the problem is or whether there's a patch in the works? There had better be because i spent $100 on two copies so my wife and i could play together and we can't.

 

To everyone that has said how great the game is you probably have only played single player or you haven't run into the numerous networking/internet bugs this game has.

 

Single player does work fine, but to be honest, i got the game for the multiplayer option for my wife and I. I have no interest in playing the single player campaign.

 

I have to say that if you have to buy this game be prepared for a lot of headaches. If it all works for you, consider yourself very lucky. If it doesn't, just remember i told you so.

 

I've been playing this game for a few days now and I must say that I'm really enjoying it, i'd give it a 9/10 overall. After reading page after page of nay sayer's reviews and fearing that it wasn't going to be that great, I am pleasantly surprised. It seems that most complaints you hear are about the system requirements. Let me put this into perspective - I have been recently playing the original NWN on my system with alot of the tweaks turned on (anti-aliasing, etc) and the framerate drops dramatically during big combat scenes (BTW, my specs: AMD Athlon 64 4000+, 256 MB Raedon x850 graphics card, 2 gigs ram). On NWN2 I have LESS lag than on the original with the tweaks turned on. I think most complaints are because people's systems aren't powerful enough to run the game properly but, as anyone who follows game design knows, these days, software is ahead of hardware. Remember when Oblivion came out and people were talking about horrible framerates and rendering issues? This is no fault of the game.

 

The character models are detailed and really nicely designed. Some have said that there aren't many options as far as modifying your appearance but, if you factor in skin tones, hair styles, armor and weapons, etc there are LOTS of variations (NO, it's not as varied as Oblivion, but what other game is? Plus, most of the time there is going to be a helmet on your head, do we really need to see how pretty and full your character's lips are or how arched your eyebrows are?). There are ALOT more sub-races to choose from in this game. Some of the more powerful ones carry a leveling penalty, ie - 1,2 or 3 levels behind standard characters. The monsters designs are fantastic. Really I'm quite impressed by how great they look. Enviroment designs aren't as detailed but still good (remember the blockiness of NWN's backgrounds?) plus you can see the sky which has nice details like twinkling stars at night. As has been said before, the magic effects are terrific and offer so much more eye-candy than NWN or perhaps any other game I know of.

 

Lots of people have complained about how difficult the camera is. This is simply untrue - you have basically the same options as in NWN and one more "free mode" which, to me, is useless. It does seem that the camera freaks out sometimes either by unwanted zooming or rotating but that may be because of my controller and isn't necessarily a game design flaw.

 

The new drop down menus all seem user friendly to me (they quit using the radial menu from NWN). You have a FULL 10 LEVELS of quick menu at the bottom of the screen to use. My biggest pet peeve so far (and it's a small one!) is that when you overwrite a game, you have to type a name for it and can't automatically use the old one.

 

I am really looking forward to developing my character (Tiefling bard/future red-dragon disciple), exploring the game further and seeing what user content (modules, hacks, etc) comes out for it. Although there are some minor technical issues, this game stands as a major achievement and upcoming patches (the first of which is already out) will only improve it's stability and gameplay. If you're into computer RPGs, this, like NWN before it, is an incredible value. Don't believe the hype - this is a great game.

 

Extra, Extra, Extra...

[Sargallath Abraxium]

I'm delighted and thoroughly elated on the prospect of seeing Thiefie's reaction to Wemic.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

...I always tries ta make a good first impression...

 

 

...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!...

[17243_1556103691]

[quote name='

[Sand]

[quote name='

[Wistrik]

There are a few ways (and combinations of ways) NWN2 could end up 'dead' in my eyes...

 

- Obsidian stops supporting NWN2 before Bioware stops supporting NWN.

- The toolset/engine proves inadequate for creating the campaign I want to implement.

- Dragon Age is released; surpasses NWN2 in every way; and has an excellent toolset. (I can live with a derived ruleset.)

 

My first point addresses my concern with there not being much content in the OC as far as models, textures, and so on. NWN's expansions added more and more content, and I'm hoping Obsidian will follow suit with NWN2. Or perhaps someone will figure out how to import NWN textures into NWN2, since many of NWN's textures were nice looking when zoomed in.

 

The second point is closely related to the first point in that I can only build varied maps if I have a decent pool of resources to work with. Currently the pool is very limited, though some players are starting to produce things (like winter textures.)

 

The final point is typical of my expectations for a paid developer (I'm often disappointed). Still, if DA's story takes me back to the days of the better Ultimas, and it has a toolset, then I'll be moving completely into DA for modding.

[Sand]

Last I heard Dragon Age will have a very limited tool set released. Even more limited than the one in NWNs and TES games.

[Sargallath Abraxium]

[quote name='

[Wistrik]

Last I heard Dragon Age will have a very limited tool set released.  Even more limited than the one in NWNs and TES games.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah I was doing some reading in that regard as well. Still, if I like the game enough, I can figure out the data formats and write my own editor easily enough. I've done it before, but I have to really like the game to put that much effort into it.

[Dark_Raven]

"radial menu is terribly slow and unwieldy for virtually all mp situations (feel better?)"

 

Total utter bull. You apparantly never played NWN MP - eitehr PW or small groups if you think the radial menu is so 'unweildy' in MP for you.

 

Also, none of this chnages the fact that puase  can be rtaher sueful and people *do* use it in MP.

 

Period.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Radial menus suck. Hmm right click on it, find what you need, oppsy! My character is dead.

 

Game Over.