Volourn's Wowwy Journey With NWN2:Spoiler Edition

[Spider]

it bugs me that - unless your PC is a spell user - you don't get a joinable sorcerer until several hours into the game, and even then she seems a right pain.

 

I agree on the first part. It definitely took too long until you got a mage of some sort. I am playing as a rogue which made Neeshka (unfortunately because I like the character) kinda useless. Everything she could do, I could do better sort of thing.

 

Although I really liked Qara when I got her. She is definitely one of my favorite characters in the game, both how she is written and how she plays. She is the very definition of the word nuker. I also would have liked to have a proper cleric around a little sooner. A druid is all well and good, but it's not the same (although the offensive capacites of Elaness and Qara combined made short work of lots of monsters).

 

first up, NWN2 has the worst load times of any game i've played in several years. i have a 1.7 Ghz processor with plenty of memory but the load times are ridiculous.

 

Really? On my system with a P4 3.0 and 1GB memory the load times are excellent. When it loads a particularly large area it may take a little while, but most of the time its quite fast. Compare it to a game like Gothic and it feels like I'm in heaven. (I just wish I could have installed the game on my raptor instead, but the insane patch requirements preventd that from happening).

[Volourn]

Yeah, load timea area really quick overall for me. World map transistions do take a little time though.

[Deraldin]

first up, NWN2 has the worst load times of any game i've played in several years. i have a 1.7 Ghz processor with plenty of memory but the load times are ridiculous.

 

Really? On my system with a P4 3.0 and 1GB memory the load times are excellent. When it loads a particularly large area it may take a little while, but most of the time its quite fast. Compare it to a game like Gothic and it feels like I'm in heaven. (I just wish I could have installed the game on my raptor instead, but the insane patch requirements preventd that from happening).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Another 1.7Ghz processor here and I've got some pretty lousy load times here also. Definately not fast, but it isn't the worst I've seen by any means. Most area transitions are 15-30 seconds while world map transitions can hit over a minute.

[ramza]

Is the dwarf the only joinable NPCs that can multiclass?

[kumquatq3]

Did anyone else hit the duskwood text error where it says duskwood instead of emberwood in your journal?

 

ARGH!

 

I was going batty becuase there is a cave in the duskwood map that is blocked by a boulder that you can destroy, leaving a cave entrance, but it won't let you enter it. Sloppy Obsidian.

[Lare Kikkeli]

what level are you in when you get the shadow thief of amn prc?

[taks]

Did anyone else hit the duskwood text error where it says duskwood instead of emberwood in your journal?

 

ARGH!

 

I was going batty becuase there is a cave in the duskwood map that is blocked by a boulder that you can destroy, leaving a cave entrance, but it won't let you enter it. Sloppy Obsidian.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yeah, same here. i saw the boulder first, and blew it up, but couldn't get in. so then i assumed that maybe i still had to trigger the quest to get into that area and went about my business. after meeting the "trigger" for what i assumed to be "the quest" i still couldn't get in. much aggravation ensued. fortunately, others have seen this and i have been guided down the right path...

 

taks

[Wistrik]

Heh, read the description on the Wand of Frost, it talks about the Wand of Fire instead.

 

I've only progressed as far as getting to Highcliff so I mostly ignored references to future elements in prior posts. It's nice that a mage will be appearing soon. I'm still upset over

the loss of a perfectly decent mage right at the start of the game, shame on you Obsidian.

 

 

So far

the dwarf has been amusing, and we've had some fun chats. Neeshka is... interesting. I read her description from afar, before saving her from the Fort Locke goons, so I'm not suprised by her outbursts. It was hilarious how she took control of the conversation when Elanee showed up. It reminded me of the catfights one could experience if playing a male character and having Viconia, Aerie, and Jaheira in the group hitting on you.

I'm playing a male fighter and it's been a lot of fun.

 

Regarding the NPCs the campaign likes to throw at me, I think it's because Obsidian was hoping everyone would start the game with a warlock. Right from the get go I was assigned a fighter and a mage. The mage was alright, but the fighter was redundant. Later we grabbed the thief kid for help with some competitions.

 

Well,

the useful mage got killed off and the thief disappeared completely, so I was left with the redundant fighter, go figure. Thus I had no way of disarming traps until I ran into Neeshka. What a pain.

I did take a single level of Thief, but that only goes so far.

 

I like how

Elanee was watching us and then sprung out of nowhere with that Entanglement spell. I was instantly attracted to this woman of action. Haha. And then Neeshka fired up and I just sat back and laughed. Ultimately I had the final say, however, and now Elanee is in the group.

 

 

It's nice being able to talk to the characters. They have a bit more to say than did the henchmen of NWN, but their topics are still level/quest driven in that at some later time they'll have more to say about things. This is fine with me as it gives me something to look forward to.

 

AI control is, unfortunately, not as robust as Tony's AI mod for NWN. As mentioned many times, there is no way to select the entire party in order to focus on one target. I'd like more options, like 'Stay out of Combat' and 'Use Stealth to Backstab', but it'll probably take a player mod to address these things. I've also noticed instances where an NPC will get stuck attacking something, usually a dead corpse, and will ignore me completely until I command them to follow me. Oops. Not much improvement in the AI department.

 

The inventory system suffers from the same problems that Diablo 2's inventory has, namely a glut of items and not enough space to carry things. Sure, there are bags, but amazingly you still can't auto-stack things in them like was possible in BG2's bags, and they only hold 24 items/stacks per bag. I have to remove a stack of arrows from the bag, combine the stack with another stack I picked up, then place that new stack into the bag. Ugh! Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems like a huge step backward in inventory management. I also can't just drag items over the bag and drop them into it like I could in BG2. I was hoping these limitations of NWN would be addressed in NWN2, but sadly it's the same. Thankfully I can still edit BASEITEMS.2DA to control what stacks and what doesn't, and how big those stacks can be. I did this almost immediately when I discovered how many items I was ending up with in a short time. Maybe some of you don't mind this stuff, but I strongly dislike playing (more like working) the Inventory Management mini-game.

 

I may try crafting later, but for now I'm just trying to get used to the new game engine. In NWN crafting was lame, and I got better equipment by paying one of the special blacksmiths to forge weapons for me. I suspect from reading the manual that NWN2 is better in this regard, but time will tell.

 

I'm definitely getting ideas for my own module/campaign. It's nice how there are three dialog types: cinematic, standard, and one-shot. The cinematic dialogs in a module would only be good if there was recorded speech involved, otherwise the standard dialog would probably be best. No recorded speech in a cinematic dialog would be like watching a mime movie. The one-shot dialogs, if they can be called dialogs, are basically when you click on a generic NPC and they tell you something and then walk off.

 

For some reason I couldn't hear any sound effects, only music. It turned out that when the game copied NWN.INI into the MyDocuments folder, it kept a reference to RAD EFX sound utilities. Well, the game uses Miles. Since no RAD EFX existed, the game played no sound effects. I copied the Miles entry from the NWN.INI in Program Files and commented out the RAD EFX line, and that fixed the problem.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Wistrik

[Volourn]

Donb't hide your spoilers in this thread! That's considered rude and poor etiquette!

 

Otherwise, good post.

[alanschu]

I didn't really have a problem with the QUANTITY of inventory. I'd suggest having other people pick stuff up to help keep it simple.

 

I did this because finding stuff in the inventory can be rather difficult. But even then, it was mostly just split between Khelgar and myself. Though I'm not one to pick up every single item.

[Volourn]

Same here. For exmaple, I never bothered with non magic missle ammunition.

 

Heck, I wish there was fewer inventory pages. As in, only 1.

[Wistrik]

I meant quantity of different items. Obviously one can limit themselves to grabbing what might be useful and leaving the rest behind.

 

I have party members I can use for inventory, but I hesitate after having the game modify my party makeup earlier without giving me any say in the matter. Now I don't know from one moment to the next if my party will be disbanded again or not. I disliked in BG2 when party members took off to do their own thing without even asking, and I feel no different about it in this game.

 

This will be easier after I've completed the game and can use meta-knowledge in future adventures, but I'm not going to implement NPC shuffling in any modules I make. Ugh.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Wistrik

[Deraldin]

I have party members I can use for inventory, but I hesitate after having the game modify my party makeup earlier without giving me any say in the matter. Now I don't know from one moment to the next if my party will be disbanded again or not. I disliked in BG2 when party members took off to do their own thing without even asking, and I feel no different about it in this game.

 

This will be easier after I've completed the game and can use meta-knowledge in future adventures, but I'm not going to implement NPC shuffling in any modules I make. Ugh.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

What the heck are you talking about? You make it sound like the game disbands your party every 5 minutes when that is not the case. With the exception of one area that I can recall you are never required to swap out more than one character at a time.

 

When did party members take off in BG2? I don't recall anything like that although it has been several years since my last playthrough. Unless you are somehow referring to Imoen or Yoshimo.

 

EDIT: I always managed to find a store by the time my main character had filled up his inventory, so I never really needed to use my NPC's as pack mules.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Deraldin

[Wistrik]

What the heck are you talking about? You make it sound like the game disbands your party every 5 minutes when that is not the case. With the exception of one area that I can recall you are never required to swap out more than one character at a time.

That's not what I meant, and yes merchants so far seem to be convenient enough that I haven't had to resort to muling. Also I'd prefer never having to swap out any characters. Keep in mind that I'm early in chapter 1 and don't know what's ahead. The game has already taken three NPCs from my party in West Harbor, so I'm wary of losing more. In general I'm used to having the people who join me stay with me to the end. Or I say the hell with it and go solo.

 

When did party members take off in BG2? I don't recall anything like that although it has been several years since my last playthrough. Unless you are somehow referring to Imoen or Yoshimo.

Jaheira, Keldorn, Nalia, Imoen and Yoshimo have this behavior. For the first four its due to quests and you ultimately get them back, but it still leaves the party depleted until they return. I usually bring Yoshimo or make my character a rogue of some sort to cover for Imoen, but the rest always annoyed me to some extent. Usually I try to time their antics so they won't happen in the middle of some other quest, but that's after I know about their behavior. I'm just particular about it is all.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Wistrik

[Deraldin]

What the heck are you talking about? You make it sound like the game disbands your party every 5 minutes when that is not the case. With the exception of one area that I can recall you are never required to swap out more than one character at a time.

That's not what I meant, and yes merchants so far seem to be convenient enough that I haven't had to resort to muling. Also I'd prefer never having to swap out any characters. Keep in mind that I'm early in chapter 1 and don't know what's ahead. The game has already taken three NPCs from my party in West Harbor, so I'm wary of losing more. In general I'm used to having the people who join me stay with me to the end. Or I say the hell with it and go solo.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't worry about losing that much of your party again. That was a one time thing only. You will end up swapping out one character at a time for a certain quest here or there so that they can show you where to go, but that's it.

 

When did party members take off in BG2? I don't recall anything like that although it has been several years since my last playthrough. Unless you are somehow referring to Imoen or Yoshimo.

Jaheira, Keldorn, Nalia, Imoen and Yoshimo have this behavior. For the first four its due to quests and you ultimately get them back, but it still leaves the party depleted until they return. I usually bring Yoshimo or make my character a rogue of some sort to cover for Imoen, but the rest always annoyed me to some extent. Usually I try to time their antics so they won't happen in the middle of some other quest, but that's after I know about their behavior. I'm just particular about it is all.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ah. I never used Jaheira and never did Keldorn's quest. I don't recall Nalia leaving beyond the "I'll wait for you at the quest location", but that was before you even got her in the party. Could be missing something there. Imoen going missing wasn't so bad, because it was all of maybe 30 minutes into the game and you likely already picked up another thief before you lost her and another mage isn't hard to find. Yoshimo was the only one I didn't like, because he was the only pure thief in the game. <_<

[alanschu]

I love the fact that NPCs aren't autonomous drones that follow me around and are essentially pack mules that do my every bidding.

 

 

Still, I never found inventory to be a big issue. Things like crafting items I never picked up, since I couldn't craft items. I gave them to the people that could craft items instead.

 

No point in hoarding all of those scrolls, since I couldn't use them, so I gave them to other people that could.

 

Given the fact that the game really isn't all that hard, there was only one time I found myself going "Doh!" when I realized a weapon was on a party member I didn't have on me.

[taks]

did you play hardcore, or normal rules, alanschu? i'm guessing hardcore is a bit of a pain for a spellcaster given the swarm mentality of the enemy AI.

 

taks

[Deraldin]

did you play hardcore, or normal rules, alanschu?  i'm guessing hardcore is a bit of a pain for a spellcaster given the swarm mentality of the enemy AI.

 

taks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, yes it is. I know that I played on hardcore. As long as you buff your spellcaster up before you start throwing those damage dealers around it's not so bad though. At least for me as long as I wasn't throwing AoE's I would only get a few enemies coming at me rather than the whole mob. I could throw disintergrates around without much trouble, but the moment you let go of that chain lightening...

[Volourn]

"did you play hardcore, or normal rules, alanschu? i'm guessing hardcore is a bit of a pain for a spellcaster given the swarm mentality of the enemy AI."

 

It's still easy even on hardcore. I laugh at them when they chase my spellcasters. It makes them even easier. LOL

 

In fact, NWN2 is easier than either KOTOR which were rather easy themselves. *shrug*

[Deraldin]

"did you play hardcore, or normal rules, alanschu? i'm guessing hardcore is a bit of a pain for a spellcaster given the swarm mentality of the enemy AI."

 

It's still easy even on hardcore. I laugh at them when they chase my spellcasters. It makes them even easier. LOL

 

In fact, NWN2 is easier than either KOTOR which were rather easy themselves. *shrug*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You've got to be kidding. Easier than KotOR? At least in NWN2 there are some fights in which you can be killed. You can go through KotOR without any equipment at all and never be in danger of dying once.

 

:crazy:

[Volourn]

Let me put it this way with a simple example - Troll area = absolutely no damage taken by my party AT ALL. None. Zilch. Zero. Nadda.

[Deraldin]

Let me put it this way with a simple example - Troll area = absolutely no damage taken by my party AT ALL. None. Zilch. Zero. Nadda.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oooo, you managed to get past the troll area without any damage? Congratulations.

 

Where are you in the game right now?

[Volourn]

Ahh.. I sense sacasm.

 

 

I'm at the Gith base in ch1 chasing after Shandra (which, btw, I love her part in the story thus far). Giths are another enemy in this game that i thoguht would be a challenge who I have walked over. I mean they were hyped to the hills, and the main story - the shards - is based around them as much as the PC - and they still are a joke.

 

At least, unlike the trolls, they can damage me. And, their spellcasters can do some seriosu damage with their offensive spells so I always target them first or else I do get threatened. The meleers are funny though.

 

Then again, with an of 32, most anything is funny. LOL :D

[Deraldin]

Ahh.. I sense sacasm.

 

 

I'm at the Gith base in ch1 chasing after Shandra (which, btw, I love her part in the story thus far). Giths are another enemy in this game that i thoguht would be a challenge who I have walked over. I mean they were hyped to the hills, and the main story - the shards - is based around them as much as the PC - and they still are a joke.

 

At least, unlike the trolls, they can damage me. And, their spellcasters can do some seriosu damage with their offensive spells so I always target them first or else I do get threatened. The meleers are funny though.

 

Then again, with an of 32, most anything is funny. LOL :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ah. Haven't hit most of the fights that I found difficult yet. I agree that most of chapter one is pretty damn easy.

 

I assume you mean an AC of 32 there. I never had higher than a 27 or so, mainly because I kept waiting and waiting to get the good stuff, but then ended up forgetting all about it and stumbling around without any really good equipment. :">

[Pop]

Ahh.. I sense sacasm.

 

 

I'm at the Gith base in ch1 chasing after Shandra (which, btw, I love her part in the story thus far). Giths are another enemy in this game that i thoguht would be a challenge who I have walked over. I mean they were hyped to the hills, and the main story - the shards - is based around them as much as the PC - and they still are a joke.

 

At least, unlike the trolls, they can damage me. And, their spellcasters can do some seriosu damage with their offensive spells so I always target them first or else I do get threatened. The meleers are funny though.

 

Then again, with an of 32, most anything is funny. LOL :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh, it only gets better from there.