NWN2: Forumite Impressions

[Diamond]

O RLY? :crazy:

 

No factual evidence has been brought forth in this thread (or any other) that NWN1 had no npc interaction.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wrong.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Factual evidence.

[Fionavar]

I got NWN 2 and and I am into the third act. In playing it I am now able to give my own opinion of the game as oppost to "first impression".

 

You guys did good.  ^_^  The game is improved. The story is great. The graphics have been overhauled and fit right in to what us gamers expect from new games on the PC.

 

All and all you guys deserve to be acknowledged for a job well done.

 

It can hurt your pride to hear ppl put down EVERYTHING you do. We all know that KOTOR 2 was not the end result you were going for. As the only game to your record you may have not gotten the the kind of reviews you deserve.

 

With NWN 2 you have proven that you guys have made it as a company that can do some great games. I look forward to your future games. 

[astr0creep]

Sorry for bringing this back on the frontline...

 

 

Ok, well, I'm trying it again.

 

1-Because I want to like this game.

2-Because I have no more RPGs to play on PC.

3-Because the computer at work is the only one I have access to that can run this piece of fat lard.

4-Because all the forumites here that say it's a good game despite the flaws.

 

Well I can say for certain that it may be a good game but it is difficult to like.

 

Fully patched(1.03):

 

I start a new character, a Half-Elf Druid. I pick up the furs for my "father" and head out the door. So far, I love it! (w00t)

 

I meet my homies by the bridge and we make our way to Georg to register for the fair. A nice little conversation ensues. "This game ain't so bad Astr0" I tell myself.

I proceed to Galen the trader so I can get a bow and sell the furs but my posse stays behind, apparently in awe at Georg's beauty.

 

No biggy.

 

If they want to gather moss in the swamp, who am I to stop them? The frakkin' Chosen One? Hahahaha... ahem.

 

So I go "Yo Galen, Gotta bow for my Old man yo?"

Galen don't speak street apparently cuz he ain't respondin'.

So I right-click his a$$ to try another approach. Not only doesn't it work but in the radial menu I have missing 2D textures.

 

Waddup widdat?

 

Savin', more missing textures in that menu.

Click save and BOOM! Crash to desktop.

 

Should I now uninstall?

 

:angry:

[Spider]

That sounds pretty bad. I have not experienced bugs with that severity, although when I attempted to patch a few days ago I had modules missing. I'm not sure if this would have affected gameplay, but it was enough to prevent the patch, so I re-installed (which I didn't mind doing too much). Maybe your missing textures and aberrant companion behaviour is caused by the same thing, maybe it's totally unrelated.

 

Anyway, what I was really going to say in this post is that 1.03 isn't fully patched. 1.04beta is fully patched. I can't see myself ever playing this game again without that patch. The main reason is that combat modes now work without turning themselves off at the end of a turn. It makes a huge difference in how the game is played. All of a sudden, spellcasters can still be useful when someone has bumrushed them.

 

Maybe it fixes your problem as well, although I wouldn't count on it.

 

(the patch being beta means it needs to be downloaded outside of the autoupdater, more info @ http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewt...2088&forum=109)

[kalimeeri]

Waiting for 1.04 final... Can't bring myself to install the (any) beta on my clean machine, and I'm about to go to war in my (3rd) game in progress. But I check every night, can't wait to see the changes. Guess I'm going to have to play again to really enjoy them. Darn.

[Dyan]

I recently completed the game again... my second run through. First time I played an NG character who somehow wound up as LG, much to my eternal disgust, and second time, my LE character wound up as NE. The evil ending was a lot more fun than the good ending, and I must say, I preferred playing as a guy to a gal. It simply felt like there was more to hear from the various characters - then again, I've never liked Pallys, so...

 

I was kinda disappointed with the choice of prestige classes. I was really hoping they'd include the Mystic Theurge prc so I could try my druid/sorcerer out. My unarmoured wizard with four levels of duelist would've worked better if I could've selected the "Practised spellcaster" feat. I couldn't find it for some reason though. My first ranger4/sorc1/DDR10/knight-of-the-nine5 didn't impress me too much, but my monk3/fighter4/WM/duellist for my evil character did . I'm sure there are better combinations around though. Tried the warlock; didn't like it.

[metadigital]

I have missing 2D textures.

 

Waddup widdat?

 

Savin', more missing textures in that menu.

Click save and BOOM! Crash to desktop.

 

Should I now uninstall?

 

:angry:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds like a memory problem; I used to get similar symptoms when I had been playing for a while (pre-1.03 patch) and the game was about to crash from internal RAMmorrhage.

 

How much RAM do you have?

[astr0creep]

I have missing 2D textures.

 

Waddup widdat?

 

Savin', more missing textures in that menu.

Click save and BOOM! Crash to desktop.

 

Should I now uninstall?

 

:angry:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds like a memory problem; I used to get similar symptoms when I had been playing for a while (pre-1.03 patch) and the game was about to crash from internal RAMmorrhage.

 

How much RAM do you have?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

1GB.

[metadigital]

Probably should discuss this in Skeeter's.

[taks]

i must say, now that i'm playing through on hardcore with a fighter type, this game can be excessively difficult. respawning/instaspawning orcs are the issue now. it is ridiculous. my characters get walloped by 20 or so at a time, and the party AI is sooooo bad that half the time one or more of my fighters is actually just standing there, not doing anything because a splinter in the floor is in his way (i'm assuming).

 

really need to get on the AI thing. it's abysmal. i guess it wasn't noticeable in NWN1 since you only had one partner at a time usually. eve then, their AI wasn't this bad.

 

taks

[Tigranes]

Where is this? And NWN1 AI was just as bad as NWN2, really.

 

I don't remember many respawns and instaspawns..

[Gromnir]

i must say, now that i'm playing through on hardcore with a fighter type, this game can be excessively difficult.  respawning/instaspawning orcs are the issue now.  it is ridiculous.  my characters get walloped by 20 or so at a time, and the party AI is sooooo bad that half the time one or more of my fighters is actually just standing there, not doing anything because a splinter in the floor is in his way (i'm assuming).

 

really need to get on the AI thing.  it's abysmal.  i guess it wasn't noticeable in NWN1 since you only had one partner at a time usually.  eve then, their AI wasn't this bad.

 

taks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

spellcaster ai is... unfathomable. our favorite example were watching as the elf tart woulds try to cast flamer's weapon as an Offensive spell. thankfully those zombie warriors weren't carrying weapons at the time... or maybe they were straight. am not sure. regardless, spellcasters will do some stoopid stuff made all that much worse by fact that their ai seems tied to normal mode. is no fear of using AoE spells.

 

sadly, while Gromnir is resigned to babysit joinable spellcasters, we really hates micromanaging bards... 'cause they gots spells and bardsongs and inspirations, and it seems as if making 'em useful is requirng lots of effort.

 

on the highest difficulty enemies do 200x damage, which seems fair considering fact that pc and party members gets max hps. that being said, some of the bad guy critical hits becomes rather extreme.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[J.E. Sawyer]

really need to get on the AI thing.  it's abysmal.  i guess it wasn't noticeable in NWN1 since you only had one partner at a time usually.  eve then, their AI wasn't this bad.

It was exactly the same, but you only had one character. You also couldn't select spells for companions, which directly ties into their AI. Most of the spells that OC companions used in NWN1 were... well, they were "no-brainers", selected in their package for you. We really should have re-visited the companion AI earlier, though.

[Guard Dog]

There always expansions to address the AI in. We hope!

Edited January 19, 2007 by Guard Dog

[taks]

Where is this? And NWN1 AI was just as bad as NWN2, really.

yes, as JE and i noted, only one companion so it wasn't that much of a deal. also, i usually play the spellcaster so i always had red tiger (brute) type npcs in NWN1.

 

I don't remember many respawns and instaspawns..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

NWN1 or NWN2? terrible in NWN2. i think it's been discussed in other places. i know sammael griped about it in his thread. i didn't notice as much the first time through because i was in "standard" rules, so AOE spells did not hurt. i.e. i could spam fireball, et. al., on the group and whack everyone w/out noticing that orcs/thieves/<insertbaddyhere> kept appearing out of nowhere. they all died before i did so i didn't care.

 

yes, josh, more time on AI!!! so far, that's really my only _real_ gripe about the game. there are minor things that don't change my gameplay, but nothing substantial. 2nd time through and i'm having a lot of fun anyway. it just gets frustrating when scores of baddies appear and qara is doing her best to fry us all. i almost went over and whacked her myself. fortunately, she finally ran out of lightning bolts.

 

taks

[Dark_Raven]

sadly, while Gromnir is resigned to babysit joinable spellcasters, we really hates micromanaging bards... 'cause they gots spells and bardsongs and inspirations, and it seems as if making 'em useful is requirng lots of effort. 

 

on the highest difficulty enemies do 200x damage, which seems fair considering fact that pc and party members gets max hps.  that being said, some of the bad guy critical hits becomes rather extreme.

 

HA! Good Fun!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never had any problems with the AI where bards are concerned. That bard that joins your group did as fine job with his songs.

[metadigital]

 

sadly, while Gromnir is resigned to babysit joinable spellcasters, we really hates micromanaging bards... 'cause they gots spells and bardsongs and inspirations, and it seems as if making 'em useful is requirng lots of effort. 

 

on the highest difficulty enemies do 200x damage, which seems fair considering fact that pc and party members gets max hps.  that being said, some of the bad guy critical hits becomes rather extreme.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never had any problems with the AI where bards are concerned. That bard that joins your group did as fine job with his songs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a good point, though: I don't particularly want to become an expert in Bards: I don't want to learn all their special magics, and that makes it very difficult to have one in the party if s/he is unable to manage without player micromanagement.

[Volourn]

"It was exactly the same, but you only had one character. You also couldn't select spells for companions, which directly ties into their AI. Most of the spells that OC companions used in NWN1 were... well, they were "no-brainers", selected in their package for you. We really should have re-visited the companion AI earlier, though."

 

I'm sure what Mr. Sawyer says is no doubt true technically; but it doesn't come across that way while playing the game.

 

And, that's not to say that NWN1's AI wa sperfect. Far from it - espicially when it comes to choosing which spells toc ast; but it seems to be much better than NWN2 (I'm referring to NWN1 w/o expansions; w/ expansions it's no contest). Of course, I presume that NWN2's AI will improve as time goes on espicially when the first expansion pack comses out just before Christmas.

Edited January 20, 2007 by Volourn

[Rhomal]

On the initial release of nwn1 the AI wasn't any better frankly. However it got slowly better with time the expansions. One could then assume the same will occur with nwn2.

[Gfted1]

Well all things being equal, why would they roll back to previous craptacular versions of the AI when later versions were superior? Its like reinventing the wheel over and over.

[Rhomal]

Someone from OEI correct me if I am wrong, as it has been a while since I had this discussion. but a while back I believe on of the devs stated (Mr. Davis or The Kommander?) they were in charge of re-writing the AI.

 

My point being nwn2 is going to go though some of the the same pains nwn1 did (and many other games) on release. nwn1 AI was far from perfect (if you have your rose colored glasses on go peruse the nwn1 archives of the first 6 months.) but it did get better. I am sure the AI is on OEI's to-do list. I'd be shocked if it wasn't.

Edited January 24, 2007 by Rhomal

[Sand]

HARM ON A SKELETON!

 

WHY LINU?!?!? WHY!?!?!?

 

[Rhomal]

HARM ON A SKELETON!

 

WHY LINU?!?!?  WHY!?!?!? 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

QFT!

[metadigital]

Well all things being equal, why would they roll back to previous craptacular versions of the AI when later versions were superior? Its like reinventing the wheel over and over.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Could be all sorts of reasons, most likely the code base Obsidian were given did not include all the latest updates (if they were added as part of the expansions, and the expansions weren't part of the hand-over, for example). This makes sense if Obsidian thought they were going to overhaul the AI, and wanted the stripped-down basics to bolt together and optimise themselves, say.

 

Programming is quite often counter-intuitive; take the example of the "unlimited undo" feature in a word processor. Adding "undo" is not impossible, but it is actually easier to re-write the word processor from scratch with the unlimited undo function in mind, then it is to add it on afterwards, because it is so integral to the way the processor works.

 

I'm not saying this is what happened; I'm just speculating about why we might see the AI in NwN2 seemingly less optimal than, say, HotU.

[Sand]

Is it bad when you buy a second copy of the game just because you want the cool artbook in the LE edition that you just happen to find at the local Hastings or is that just a sign that one is too obsessed?