Volourn's Wowwy Journey With NWN2:Spoiler Edition

[Volourn]

LOL You agree it's stupid yet you were arguing against me about it. LOL Who's the troll, again?

 

R00fles!

 

 

P.S. Obviously, I'm enjoying the game just fine with it; but it sure does hurt the game (imo). It's unneeded, and is an exmaple of poor writing.

Edited November 11, 2006 by Volourn

[Lare Kikkeli]

uh, when did i argue with you? i just said that its nothing new. and while i think its stupid i dont really mind it that much.

[Volourn]

Then why debate? Nobody claime dit was 'brand new' or 'unique' to this game. Heck, I even brought up games like KOTOR and JE that do the exact same thing.

 

Your illogic is illogic to me.

 

 

P.S. You 'argued' when you tried to use JRPGs and FF as 'examples' basically saying because they did it (though FO didn't at leats with your example) that it was a-ok for NWN2 to get away with it.

 

Hmm...

[Pop]

This is like watching paint dry.

[Volourn]

And, you enjoy every minute of it!

Edited November 11, 2006 by Volourn

[kormesios]

I still pissed that I was FORCED to fight when West Harbor was attacked. I wanted to hide inside since my character was going to be ROLE-PLAYED as a coward at early levels, but the designers didn't give me a CHOICE.

 

 

All RPG's force a bunch of things on you. You either go with it, or you don't. It's not like letting Casavir sleep at your keep, or using Bishop as for an hour or two of game time, is more fundamentally demanding than requiring that the player to take a ship to Neverwinter, or personally get involved in every little crisis that comes up. If you don't like it, fine, But it's on a par with everything else going on, and just because some people like it less doesn't mean it's objectively bad.

[Dark_Raven]

The gift that keeps giving.

[Wistrik]

Just got into chapter 3. More NPC disappointment with Shandra. Looks like Elanee is the only valid romance for male characters, however due to some wrong dialog choices way back in chapter 1, I can't get her to reveal everything about herself to me. Love it when you can't play the game right without having meta-knowledge. WTG designers. Ah well, Khelgor is a monk now and kicks butt. The Gith cleric runs like she's wearing concrete boots, meaning she's always the last to arrive on the scene.

 

I could have probably done more projects at the keep except there was one buggy ore deposit in one of the caves that wouldn't do anything when I clicked on it, so I was robbed of valuable resources by a game glitch. Nobody bothered to offer feedback on all the other ore deposits I clicked on, so I had no way of knowing if all of them counted.

 

The keep could have been easier to manage. With my character's exploits, resources should have been the least of his concerns. Ah well, my party is more powerful than the entire keep, so no loss.

 

Currently fending off an attack at Neverwinter Castle, but the game decided to crash (randomly) during a reload so I'm here posting recent thoughts. The statue questions are silly. Nobody told me I needed to memorize Neverwinter lore before getting this far into the game, and indeed, just when you could really use your Lore stat to answer a question, your Lore stat is completely ignored. Thus I'm resorting to wild guesses and reloads to get through the maze properly. WTG Obsidian.

[Deraldin]

Currently fending off an attack at Neverwinter Castle, but the game decided to crash (randomly) during a reload so I'm here posting recent thoughts. The statue questions are silly. Nobody told me I needed to memorize Neverwinter lore before getting this far into the game, and indeed, just when you could really use your Lore stat to answer a question, your Lore stat is completely ignored. Thus I'm resorting to wild guesses and reloads to get through the maze properly. WTG Obsidian.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's not as though it's really difficult to get past the little detour areas...

[Wistrik]

True, but you don't get quest XP for failing to answer properly, and I am trying to be a proper knight.

 

Please excuse the edge to the post, I've a headache and am waiting for meds to kick in. After that I'll get back to saving Nasher's backside.

[Volourn]

"Love it when you can't play the game right without having meta-knowledge."

 

Romancing Elanee or not (she rocks!) is not really a 'play the game right' kminda choice. It's an option. There's no way to role-play it 'right. You role-played yoruy character; you turned her off; game goes on. Just like real life.

[Spider]

I could have probably done more projects at the keep except there was one buggy ore deposit in one of the caves that wouldn't do anything when I clicked on it, so I was robbed of valuable resources by a game glitch. Nobody bothered to offer feedback on all the other ore deposits I clicked on, so I had no way of knowing if all of them counted.

 

I'm pretty sure that the amount of ore you find only matters when it comes to upgrading weapons. And there is more than enough available to do that. Much more. So missing one or two or five won't matter at all. There is still plenty of time to do keep stuff.

 

The statue questions are silly. Nobody told me I needed to memorize Neverwinter lore before getting this far into the game, and indeed, just when you could really use your Lore stat to answer a question, your Lore stat is completely ignored. Thus I'm resorting to wild guesses and reloads to get through the maze properly. WTG Obsidian.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's not like it's disastrous to get an answer wrong. You get to fight some (fairly) weak guardians and that's all. You lost out on about 50 XP per question you get wrong iirc. But yeah, Lore should have been an option there.

[roshan]

In movies companions are not forced on YOU! In NWN2, companions are forced on you. Bringing up movies is completely pointless.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

they are all the time roshan. hell, even lethal weapon was a story about one partner forced on another. are you like, that far out of touch with reality that you don't realize this? your posts are actually completely pointless.

 

taks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

They are forced on the character in the movie. The character on the movie isnt you. In games the character is you so companions are being foced on you.

[alanschu]

Simply shouldn't eb forced to ahve npcs in your adventuring party; or your noverall group. It's beyond nonsensical.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You would think that Obsidian would have learned this lesson from the complaints about K2 forcing lame characters to do a quest or be in your group.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Or maybe those complaints weren't as numerous as you would like to think they are.

 

 

If people were really that adamant about forced party members in an RPG, they probably wouldn't have added them.

[alanschu]

Since this is the spoiler thread, I'll freely admit that I venture a snicker whenever anybody posts about how great of a character Shandra is

 

 

Bwahahaha Sawyer made fools of u.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I'm not sure how he made fools out of anyone. Shandra is a good character, and I'm not really sure why you'd snicker. I thought she was an interesting character, and still do.

[alanschu]

They are forced on the character in the movie. The character on the movie isnt you. In games the character is you so companions are being foced on you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If you want to argue semantics, the character in the game isn't you either. This can be demonstrated by the rather tiny amount of options you have to actually play this character. I wanted to do lots of different stuff, but since that character isn't me (I live in Edmonton, Canada, not West Harbour Faerun). In CRPG gaming, the character can never truly be you. It's always a designers character.

 

If you want to nitpick even more, all that character truly is, is a bunch of 1's and 0's stored in memory, and displayed in likely 32-bit colour on a computer monitor. The character doesn't actually exist, and hence can't be you

 

 

And I think a quadruple post should be enough for this thread. Moving on.

[Tigranes]

I just went through the statue questions and yes, they were stupid. It serves no purpose, the rewards and punishments are silly, the methods of testing are silly. It really stinks of makeshift filler because the designers got brain drain or they ran out of time.

 

I was amused by Sandra in Haven because my alignment is extremely Chaotic Good (on both spectrums), but because she hated most of my deciisons (i.e. the Ribsmasher against the door :D), she keeps calling me a monster and stuff. Still, if I hated carrying her around, that section was done well (and I'm FINALLY rid of her.)

[Wistrik]

I know not everyone agrees with my point of view, but if I don't post it here, an Obsidian employee won't see it, and one of the points of these forums is to provide feedback. (I never have any success with e-mail filters, so I post on forums instead.) With that out of the way, here are more observations from last night's further play...

 

There were several new areas opened up and I managed to find enough extra ore in most of them that my keep is now as fortified as it can be, and my soldiers have the best equipment that can be made for them. According to the keep report, I still have 53% of my preparation time remaining and I'm ready for war right now. (Side quests are slowing me down.)

 

The druids and 'wendersnaven' were a total loss as far as allies go, but I managed to bring in the Ironfist Clan and the lizardfolk. I also gained the asimaar Light of Heaven as a sargeant and her twin sister Joy as a dancer in my inn. Went with Deekin and the drow woman (fire giant prisoner) in the merchant shop, the Sun Soul monks in the old converted church, and the Neverwinter Nine in the rebuilt tower. Got a huge magic spider ally (from the goblin caves) in my basement, and a golem I haven't found the liquid for yet. (Haven't found the book I'm supposed to find either, but it's coming.) It's also nice having Torio around; she's quite civil compared to my previous encounters with her. Fetching too; she resembles someone I know locally.

 

We reformed the silver blade last night, but it was 2am, I was falling asleep, and my level 18 character managed to get himself petrified , so I closed the game and went to sleep. I'll try again in a few minutes.

 

I ran into a possible scripting bug with the fire giant dragon. I visited their king first and agreed to find and kill a nearby dragon. Then I found the dragon and agreed to kill the fire giants for her, and she agreed to fight with us. I got back to the fire giant area and destroyed everyone, but the dragon was nowhere to be seen. I returned to the dragon and she was stuck in a dialog loop, telling me to go to the fire giants and she would help us attack them, but she never left her area. I was hoping to gain her as an ally after reading/hearing about someone else fighting the King of Shadows with a dragon ally. Alas, until this bug is fixed I won't know if it's possible. Anyone else get this to work?

 

Yet again an evil character is injected into my good aligned party. Not only did AJ kill his granddaughter who was also my friend, but now I have to put up with his contrary comments and opinions. No wonder my influence with him is dropping like a rock. But since he completed one of the purification rituals, I apparently have to bring him along. Obsidian, if you make another campaign for this engine, please get rid of party shuffling, or at least let us have more control over who we want to include in the party.

 

Like a true friend, Elanee stuck with me through the whole Shandra thing and has finally opened up to my character. I was able to convince her that the druid circle had been corrupted, so together we rescued the one uncorrupted druid that was there and disposed of the rest. I'm calling these relationships 'friendships' right now, instead of 'romances', because the romance aspect is kept very low key (so far) compared to other games with a similar feature. Unfortunately the game keeps forcing Bishop into the group and he can't seem to say anything about Elanee/Shandra that isn't crude and distasteful. (I've thought about loading the modules up with the toolset and removing Bishop from the campaign altogether. He is useless to me.)

Edited November 12, 2006 by Wistrik

[Dark_Raven]

During the Ember quest to look for evidence to save your good name, I came across a goblin cave. The goblins wanted me to clear out the giant spiders and they would give me a piece of evidence that I needed. Being a drow has its advanatages on this quest, must be race related dialogues, I met up with a magical huge spider that talked to me. I gained a 1000 EXPs for letting it go without a fight. The spider being Lolth's "child" and being a drow it was a nice set up by the devs.

 

Part of the bargain was to feed it. In order to do this go to Duskwood first and in a cave you will fight some baddies and they have a collection of bugs on them. You can use the bugs to feed the spider.

 

After my trial I had Khelgar do the fighting for me in my place in the fighting ring. He is far better fighter than me to fight Lorne to the death.

[Wistrik]

My human fighter saved the same "magical" spider, with no Lolth references, and all else in that area played the same way. Seems quests don't vary from class to class, though some text/dialog may vary.

[Deraldin]

Just finished that fight with Lorne for the second time. Had Neeshka "ehlp" me out a little bit. Managed to go toe to toe with him using my Fighter/Rogue. He didn't land a single hit on me before he used his Frenzy. After that he landed three 50 point crits in a row. If it wasn't for those I could have just kept wailing on him till his frenzy wore off, instead I had to run away for a single round before I could kill him.

[Volourn]

"The spider being Lolth's "child" and being a drow it was a nice set up by the devs."

 

Sorry. Had nothing to do with lloth. Besides, that spider is too 'goody' or 'too neutral' for Lloth's taste. It's an abomination. Did yopu spit on Lloth by murdering all other spiders in the game? You MEANIE!

[Tigranes]

Speaking of Light of Heavens, where the heck do you find him? I fought him once at Llast, and apparently he's also around at Merchant Quarter, but theres a third place, isnt there?

[Pop]

Speaking of Light of Heavens, where the heck do you find him? I fought him once at Llast, and apparently he's also around at Merchant Quarter, but theres a third place, isnt there?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

After you fight her in the Merchant Quarter, she stands outside Crossroads Keep, kinda between Orlen (or the farm, if you didn't get him) and the ore merchant. Once you skool her, she becomes a pretty kickass lieu.

 

Speaking of captains, who are all the captains you can get to work for you? There's the guy from the prologue and Light of Heavens, and those are the two I had. Are there any more? I couldn't find Marshal Cormick, who was one of my favorite characters, and seemed ripe for captainship.

[Wistrik]

Casavir's right-hand gal can also become a sargeant. I had all three. I never saw Cormick again after his injury outside Aldenon's estate, but if you talk to the old-timer Watch guard who patrols Blacklake with a two-handed sword, he'll update you on Cormick's health.

 

End game spoilers follow, don't read if you haven't finished yet, unless you don't care.

 

I finished the game with most of my characters being level 20, and very close to 21 if it had been available. That's what happens when you get your quest rewards right, which is why I preferred to answer the questions of Never's statues properly. I had more history feats than I knew what to do with by the end of the game. One bad mofo.

 

The suckiness of NPC shuffle came to a head in the final meeting with Garius. Suddenly these NPCs I tried not to adventure with were turning on me as if I'd wronged them somehow. Thus I had to sit there and read (with equally silly responses) a bunch of false claims about things that never happened. I enjoyed slitting their throats when it was all done. For the curious, the betrayers were Bishop (no surprise there!!!), Neeshka (I ditched her early because of her constant whining), and Qara (I didn't need her because I had Sand and Ammon Jerro, and I didn't feel like babysitting a spoiled brat). It was funny seeing Ammon side with me, though I did bring him along to read truenames, and generally we saw eye to eye in quest matters and combat preparedness. I never adventured much with the paladin or the bard, but since they were of good alignment that wasn't an issue. I hadn't wronged them either. Elanee was ready to bear my children, so I knew she'd stand with me. "

 

The ending was a bit disappointing. All that hard work only to end up trapped in ruins, or so it would seem. Ugh. The rest of it was just fine, though the narrator doesn't have Bioware's awesome narrator voice. It sounded too much like a programmer reading a script, but it was passable I suppose. I wanted to help Elanee start a new druid circle, but I guess that'll have to be in my module. I thought she and my character made a great couple.

 

It was nice seeing Brelaina and others doing good things after my passing. I still think Brelaina is one beautiful digital woman. Sometimes I wish I was like Tron.

 

Well, time to take my experiences in the virgin run-through and use them to make up a better character. This time I'm going to experiment a little more with this funky forced-party crap.