NWN2: Forumite Impressions

[Jorian Drake]

The pros: Intro Music

 

The cons: Everything else.

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Pros: Graphics, new Music, characters, story, gameplay

Cons: system hog, scripting bugs, Half-Elf faces.

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correcton: nearly all faces

[Tigranes]

Colrom, the Azure bug happened to me as well. It's because when at low health he wants to stop fighting and initiate conversation, but if the nearby city guards are fighting with you, they don't "count" and Azure has to keep fighting them. Azure naturally cannot die until he's talked to you, but thanks to NWN2's baby-coddling you can't attack blue people, so.. reload and just leave the city guards behind, really.

 

Conversely, does anybody know just WHEN I can get rid of stupid

Shandra

? I don't mind being forced party members for a certain duration, but this is getting downright ridiculuos. I hate her. I hate the character, I hate her reasons for not leaving my party

It doesn't even make sense anyway. How is it logical to blame the player for her stupid farm burning down?

, and I'd much rather carry around another fighter type. I've just met

Zhjaeve after 'killing' Garius at the Crossroads Keep.

. When can I get rid of her?

[Deraldin]

Conversely, does anybody know just WHEN I can get rid of stupid

Shandra

? I don't mind being forced party members for a certain duration, but this is getting downright ridiculuos. I hate her. I hate the character, I hate her reasons for not leaving my party

It doesn't even make sense anyway. How is it logical to blame the player for her stupid farm burning down?

, and I'd much rather carry around another fighter type. I've just met

Zhjaeve after 'killing' Garius at the Crossroads Keep.

. When can I get rid of her?

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You don't have any control over when Shandra leaves. She will leave eventually. It's not as though she is taking up one of your party slots anyway.

 

[Tigranes]

That's true, but it's so messy. I already use the console to give myself more party members than allowed, because I like

Neeshka, Khelgar and Sand

and want a cleric/druid type in addition. I don't want

Sandra

helping me in battle, I don't want her talking, and I don't want to see her take up the room on the bottom right where I keep my Attack Queue and Enemy Highlight.

 

Bleh. The big thing is that with previous forced partymembers it made sense as to why you needed them around; with her there is no reason whatsoever. It's poor design decision.

[Volourn]

Shandra is awesome! One of the best npcs ever!

 

I Shandra!!!

 

 

"The big thing is that with previous forced partymembers it made sense as to why you needed them around; with her there is no reason whatsoever. It's poor design decision."

 

Weird. This isn't really true. There's quite a few npcs that are force don you when you don't 'need' them. it's part of the game. Everyone of us is likely stuck with at least once we really, really hate.

[Tigranes]

Everyone of us is likely stuck with at least once we really, really hate.

 

Fair enough, but Shandra you get stuck with you for really, really, really long. Looks like entirety of Act 2, so nearly a third of the entire freakin' game. She's the longest forced character I've seen in any RPG.

[Oerwinde]

Everyone of us is likely stuck with at least once we really, really hate.

 

Fair enough, but Shandra you get stuck with you for really, really, really long. Looks like entirety of Act 2, so nearly a third of the entire freakin' game. She's the longest forced character I've seen in any RPG.

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Well, the thing with Shandra though, is that she doesn't take up a party slot. You're used to only having 3 characters throughout act one, that when you have to have her and they up the character limit, then you don't really notice. She's really not bad either. I had her dual-wielding short swords and she was kicking ass.

[Volourn]

"I had her dual-wielding short swords and she was kicking ass."

 

Heh. That's exactly what I did.

[Cantousent]

Finally, for the first time in a couple of days, I'm residing with my desktop. I can play the game now! I'm only in act 1, but it's going well so far.

[Dark_Raven]

"I had her dual-wielding short swords and she was kicking ass."

 

Heh. That's exactly what I did.

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She's a good fighter. I have her dual-wielding a long sword sword, Angurvadal flame tongue and a short sword. Butt kicking for goodness!

[Tigranes]

Oh, she's definitely a good fighter. But it just irks me, because it also makes the battles even easier. In terms of combat I'd prefer to only have 3-4 characters at most; but I want as many as possible for dialogue and party interaction. Sandra tips the balance.

 

Meh. I suppose anything can be seen as idle nitpicking with the right perspective. I'm in the

Temple of Seasons

right now and having fun. I was really pleased with how they did the stronghold so far (only just started, really) - it's level ofi nvolvement in the game is ismilar to the De'Arnise Keep or other strongholds in BG2, just with more options. I like it, its just mini-gamey enough without being trivial.

[Jorian Drake]

"I had her dual-wielding short swords and she was kicking ass."

 

Heh. That's exactly what I did.

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She's a good fighter. I have her dual-wielding a long sword sword, Angurvadal flame tongue and a short sword. Butt kicking for goodness!

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She's a half-sister of Minsc? )

Edited November 12, 2006 by jorian

[roshan]

Having a goddamned farm girl in my party completely sucks. She even sounds like a sheep. I want Bishop instead!

 

I currently have Neeshka, Khelgar, Elanee and the sheep.

[Tigranes]

Finally about to get rid of sheep forevaaaa by going to

Haven.

I assume that begins the Third Act.

 

I really like the keep, being able to go back to your previous areas and recruit people, and the interrelationship between the various activities in the keep is really cool. And in the end, it gets about as lifelike as any other modern CPRG town.

[alanschu]

Oh, she's definitely a good fighter. But it just irks me, because it also makes the battles even easier. In terms of combat I'd prefer to only have 3-4 characters at most; but I want as many as possible for dialogue and party interaction. Sandra tips the balance.

 

That hardly seems like a concern for you, since you commented that you allowed the game to give you more than the standard number of NPC party members anyways.

[Tigranes]

Which is precisely why instead of having 4 + Shandra, I'd rather enter the consoel code and have 5 of my own choice. That's why I described it as a scale of weights, on one side challenging battles and on the other maximum party interaction. And Sandra really wasn't wanted. I may have to revise my allegations about difficulty, though, since after halfway through Act II the game started getting a bit harder.

 

But all that is moot for now because I have passed that stage. )

Edited November 12, 2006 by Tigranes

[Darque]

Having a goddamned farm girl in my party completely sucks. She even sounds like a sheep. I want Bishop instead!

 

I currently have Neeshka, Khelgar, Elanee and the sheep.

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Shandra kicks major butt!

[Dark_Raven]

Not really, that would be Khelgar.

[Oerwinde]

Not really, that would be Khelgar. 

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"What you mean like headbuttin someone? I already know how to do that."

 

I love Khelgar.

[Darque]

Shandra's awesome. :D

 

Give her dual weilding of all flavors and she's a chainsaw

 

And the best part, she stays with you constantly (as in combat) as opposed to Mr. Headbutt who likes to stand around with a clueless look on his face.

[Tigranes]

Puppet mode?

[Pop]

Puppet mode?

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No, I got that with my whole party at times :angry: It wasn't Puppet Mode (indeed, Puppet Mode didn't work for me at all) it was that somehow the "stand your ground" command had been broadcast to my entire party, and thus they all stood there like they had their ears nibbled my illithid. Broadcasting a "defend me" command seemed to snap them out of it (didn't fix the ****ty pathfinding, of course) but that took me an hour or so of difficult battle to figure out.

 

Riddle me this, riddle me that: Was there originally supposed to be an underdark portion of the game? I can't help but look at that illithid concept art and wonder. Did I miss a part of the game with illithid? Hell, are there even illithid in the toolset?

[Volourn]

Yes.

[metadigital]

If one of your fighters dies in BG in that first room, you're at a significant disadvantage in the next two. If you don't have a raise dead spell + plenty of healing or a resurrection spell on hand, you're in for a steep challenge. You'll have to high-tail it back to a temple. In NWN2, provided you get far enough away from the people in the next room, death is no problem even if you don't have the spells to remedy it. Poison and disease become bigger issues than death. Doesn't that seem a little off?

 

You see, all it looks like this decision has resulted in is eliminating the tedious journey back to the temple. And if someone gets gibbed (permanently killed), for most players it simply means it's time to reload.

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It might be "more realistic" (sic, because the notion of magically reviving someone that has been run-through with a sword with a few chants of archaic poetry is realistic) to have to decamp and visit a temple for healing and resurecting, but is it any fun?

Yes, some people may be inconvenienced by it, but since (as you stated) all it really does is eliminate the need to waste time running back to a temple, it doesn't necessarily add all that much to the game if you stop and think about it.  The only situation where it would make an impact is if you don't have access to a temple (say you're stuck in a dungeon).  At which point, it becomes exceptionally easy for a game player to put themselves in a situation that becomes unwinnable.  Especially if they are an inexperienced game player and have a bad habit of overwriting saved games!

 

In the end, I think it results in less frustrated gamers, as I'm guessing only a small minority will consider it to truly be a detriment.

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Yep, step up "tr00 h4rdc0r3" gamers who demand permadeath, and anyone else is not allowed to play the games as they don't appreciate them!

 

Sure resting is overpowered, but I must admit it is much more fun to play a mage where the PC actually spends most of their time casting spells rather than running about screaming "Help!".

 

FWIIW I don't rest much at all with a non-magic character (like a Paladin or Monk) because they have permanent spell-like abilities.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this conversation turned into one about which character class was overpowered and those people who play them nothing better than cheaters ... after all, a tr00 gamer would only play a basic class like a fighter, and eschew all advanced feats like improved criticals, as they are just for the casual gamers. /sardonicisms

[Dark_Raven]

Shandra's awesome. :D

 

Give her dual weilding of all flavors and she's a chainsaw

 

And the best part, she stays with you constantly (as in combat) as opposed to Mr. Headbutt who likes to stand around with a clueless look on his face.

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Must be yours is broken. My Khelgar does a fine job of chopping away at the villians.