Mask of the Betrayer Redux

[Cantousent]

It's not very effective

if you don't have Okku, it seems

. I read your suggestion of going back and forth 2-3 roundtrips for a 2 day trip and it doesn't work. 2-3 roundtrips I was at 45 spirit energy and 90% craving still.

 

What's really funny is with full craving there's a supposed "2 day trip" that will kill me if I have less than 96 energy. It leaves me with 4 when I arrive if I'm full when I leave. It's actually immensely aggravating. I feel like my character is trapped. 4 energy when you lose 6 every few minutes is not workable.

EDIT: Oh, I'm confused. No suprise there. Yeah, it's tough on someone who keeps their craving pegged. You have to manage trips very carefully and once you get past a certain craving, you're going to be stuck doing some tricky stuff to try to make sure your craving goes down. Bestow Life Force is the easiest way IF you've got enough to work with. Suppression is the best method over time. Satiate is your only recourse if you've gone down the spirit/soul eating path without picking up other feats.

 

Suppression IS the best way for a good aligned character to control craving. While some folks suggest round trips, I don't. If you read my suggestion, I use resting as an example. In fact, more resting equals better spirit energy control. If you'd like, in the spoiler area, I will go through a step by step instruction on how to play without using Devour Spirit (or Soul)

until the final battle

. I know this can be done because I've done it. In fact, unless my duties required otherwise, that's how I ALWAYS did it.

 

EDIT as regards the whole restoration thing: I bugged that. Too bad they left it in the game. Frankly, one level is not an excessive penalty in many areas. They used to have a timer on Satiate, though. At least if I remember correctly. As it should be, playing strictly good or strictly evil both require more effort on the part of the player.

 

Also, since editing, Okku really does help Suppression, but the plan I posted in the spoiler area works without him. Just more slowly. If you want to mix and match, you can devour and suppress. It's not even hard unless you devour more than once a day. Hell, suppress your craviing to zero and you can devour a spirit a day to keep the hunger away.

Edited October 21, 2007 by Cantousent

[Llyranor]

Finished the game yesterday. Went through

3

ending

s

.

Self-sacrificing and self-preservation were available from the get-go, but I had to fish around for the 'best' ending when I realized that I missed the 3rd mask fragment. Speaking of that, was there any indication in the game that you were supposed to drink from the wells of Lurue? I never got a hint there. My party consisted of S/K/G, but I swapped in Okku, dealt with the spirit bears and got tons of influence from big O. Yet, nothing was ever mentioned that I should come back in Act III to drink from the wells. Or, was that available already in Act II and I hadn't noticed? I thought this was a bit obscure. I'm just glad I had a save prepared from before entering the Gate, otherwise I would have had to restart a new game (which I actually wouldn't have minded). I didn't go for an evil playthrough, so didn't get that ending.

 

 

Overally, awesome game. Writing/story/characters/music are topnotch. Gameplay was fine, but I found it too easy. I was playing a bard/red dragon disciple, and despite having a party of spellcasters and playing on the hardest diff (double damage), I was still for the most part mowing through the enemies with melee (with buffs, haste, etc). Some of the battles involved more enemy spellcasters, but they went down so fast that their big spells weren't really an issue for the most part. The only part where I had a bit of difficulty was in

the death god's vault, which I probably wasn't supposed to explore until the end, I guess. Nevertheless, I explored as much as I was able to as soon as possible. The big army of vampires they sent at you at some point was a bit troublesome. Nothing a bunch of mass heals didn't solve, though.

 

 

I enjoyed the spirit meter mechanics. It wasn't perfectly designed, but it drove its point home. It was a nice balancing act, but the alignment changes they imposed on you were nasty, especially since I had to maintain some sort of neutrality. I ended up as lawful good too. I had a bit of difficulty with it in the beginning, but after using the 'last resort' measure once, I got it well in-check for the rest of the game with no problem. Reviewers emo'ing over this are full of sand, but this was already *known* to us.

 

The writing overall was nicely done, a good step up from NWN2. The story/plot itself was actually worth going through, and justifies NWN2's existence (whose plot I found to be a tad disappointing). The plot, perhaps as mentioned before, reminded me a bit of PST's, but also KOTOR2's. The party members were great.

A/S/G

were all closely related to the story, and had some good backstory.

Big O

as well, though I didn't keep him around except for that sidequest mentioned above (which was enough to grant me tons of influence, and get some backstory out of the intro. Good stuff. This is why I usually prefer to have fewer party member choices, but have them have more backstory and more integrated into the story (yet, optional - good stuff). I didn't particularly care for NWN2's character save a few - same applies to BG2 where you had too many choices; all were diluted in content.

 

The way you found out about the fate of your previous allies wasn't perfect, but good enough. I probably would have minded if they were actually memorable. It was nice to see

Khelgar and Sand

get an appearance in some of the endings. The endings themselves were good (<3 music), and the variants made sense. Given the divergence of fates, you probably won't be importing this char again for a potential xpac, which is a good thing. Lvl 1, thanks.

 

Music was excellent both in quality and quantity. VA was good. Excellent audio work, Mr audio director thingie.

 

Length was good. It was long enough to provide a strong story without feeling as though bits were missing, but short enough to not feel like it was dragging on (I didn't really get the sense that some areas were really needless). This is how NWN2 should have been in the first place; that game would have been better had it been half its length and had the extra resources put into polishing the remaining content.

 

Nicely done, Obs team, your CEO commends you. It's nice to see rising talent. MCA, you're going down.

 

Good review, Eldar.

[Tale]

Dear Obsidian,

 

THANK YOU for having a Balor with Epic Gate instead of the Horned Devil, like with regular Gate, as described in the manual.

Edited October 21, 2007 by Tale

[Starwars]

Llyranor,

 

 

You can drink from the water at anytime really. I went there as soon as I 'unlocked' The Wells of Lurue, and drank from the well. I suppose the trouble is one could potentially miss it since the Wells don't draw attention to themselves. I imagine it could be a problem especially for people who control the game with the keyboard.

 

If you're feeling like it, I'd recommend an evil playthrough as well. I'm not normally one who enjoys playing evil, but I had a lot of fun with it in MotB

 

[Cantousent]

What I really like about the game is that it rewards the player for role-playing. I'm talking in-game rewards. Sure, there are tons of rewards fashioned for evil or good, chaotic or lawful. That's all well and good. Nevertheless, the real rewards for me are the ones that transcend bonuses and items. When the PC

releases the scribes in the Death God's Vault (I wrote the bug report to put that in the game, by the way) the act itself is a real reward. Getting some essences is just icing on the cake.

 

 

Good and Evil are both rewarding for reasons other than in-game rewards. I think the good ending is more rewarding, but the evil options are truly awesome. I especially like the option where,

having offered eternal rest to the Priest, you can change your mind and say, "You'll rest.... in my belly!" haha

 

[Llyranor]

Hmm, well, they should have made it more apparent.

 

Two further random thoughts in the interim.

 

1) My two favorite moments in the game were

exploring the dreamworld in the sunken city

and the awesome encounter with

Myrkul. That guy is awesome. The reason behind his curse, the reason behind him telling you to start a new crusade, tricking the founder into getting into this in the first place. Good stuff.

 

 

2)

At one point, I was pretty dead-set on tearing down the wall. The nice thing about the game was how it was making me second-guess myself. Sure, it's a cruel fate for the faithless, but then what would be the alternative in terms of gods relying on faith to exist? If I were to be actually able to tear down the wall (so much for that, har har), there'd be no short-term solution to faith and gods would be in trouble/vengeful/etc etc. I was already thinking this as I was going through the Gate, but Kelemvor also brought up the argument. The 'choice' didn't feel clearcut, and that was nice.

 

[Xard]

I've only reached

red wizards academy

, so I don't know what all kinds of awesome awaits me, but so far

Dream sequence at The Wall where you meet Bishop is strongest single scene in NWN series by a mile. I have no idea when crpg last time manipulated my feelings like that scene but I swear it, I actually felt nauseated by it. Text was strong, narrator's delivering great and... well, you get the picture. Unforgettable. As is many other scenes/places/things in this xpack, but that's so far been above all. Such as the insane hag who was driving me crazy with her rants.

 

Narrative and storytelling is great overall. Using only few cutscenes, dreams and dreamworlds, magnificent shadowplane etc. makes narrative very strong. This is how games should try to tell stories instead of mimicking movies.

 

 

Yeah, dialogue is superb. MCA (who worked mainly on dialogue it seems) and others who've done writing on this title all deserve praise, but for the lead writer/Creative Lead George Ziets only temple/shrine on my backyard would be enough, next Avellone's one for PS:T. What a glorious way to start in Obsidian!

 

 

Also, MotB's handbook has real names of our moderators. Stalky stalky

Edited October 21, 2007 by Xard

[Llyranor]

IIRC, MCA only did the dialogue for K and G. The rest is probably mainly from Ziets and Saunders or something (major kudos).

 

Now, the game isn't perfect, so I think it's fair to get a bit of criticism on the way.

 

1) Complete lack of intraparty interaction. The party members basically don't talk to each other. NWN2 at least had a (very) small amount of it, but here it's absent. Strangely enough, I was compelled enough into the story/characters that I didn't notice/mind this until I've thought about it post-game.

 

2) Influence worked well in terms of getting in the backstories of the party members. However, mechanically, it feels like it's gone a step back in terms of actually trying to influence party members. In KOTOR2, for example, you could at least convert people into Jedi and make them go Dark Side or whatever. Here, though, it seems a tad lacking. Maybe it's just my playthrough, but I didn't - for instance - get the opportunity to try to make G

believe in the gods

or K

give up on her crusade

. In terms of application, that didn't really bother me during my playthrough, but having the options would have been nice, since it's - like - an influence system or something. Actual characterization of the party members makes up for this.

 

3) I didn't think about it at the time since it made sense and I (as mentioned in my prev post) already had doubts about it, but apparently many people have had problems with how easily the PC gives up on

taking down the Wall

. The game justifies it by having

Big K tell you that basically you're not strong enough to challenge a god in his home plane so get some xp nub.

While that's fair, the game could have probably done a better job pushing the point forward. More argumenting with

Big K about how the wall sucks should have been included, as opposed to just 'giving up. They probably could have given the option to fight Big K anyway and try to tear down the wall, but people would have been as annoyed as just having being sent out the plane without even being able to strike at Big K or having an unbeatable fight and would have complained about it as much, so whatever. What I do think Obs should have done is give the PC the option to not 'give up' just like that. You could have continued the fight with little K, continuing your crusade and pulling off a few people off the wall here and there, bidding your time until you were powerful enough to challenge Big K. In any case, destroying the wall would have been anti-WotC, so can't expect that to happen.

 

 

4) Having

Ammon Jerro join up was nice, but that was half-baked. As I said before, it was 'okay', but they really could have done something more with that.

 

 

5) From a gameplay perspective, the last events were pretty lackluster. Didn't mind so much.

 

6) Lack of official confirmation of a 2nd xpac. What were they thinking?

Edited October 21, 2007 by Llyranor

[Tale]

ARGH!

 

Sunken City, at the end

the fight against the sleeping Coven won't initiate. If I choose to try to kill them, it just loads the room, then... nothing. It's me and One of Many. My groupmates don't join me, a fight doesn't start.

 

 

Back to digging in the toolset.

 

Edit 1: I see the problem. It calls up Gann for conversation, but Gann isn't even in the bleeding group! The conversation fails a node, conversation drops, and the game breaks.

 

Edit 2: Well, I quick fixed that dialog. Here's to hoping the override folder works as it does for other games.

 

Edit 3: FUDGE YEAH! I'm good. Worked like a charm.

Edited October 21, 2007 by Tale

[Xard]

1) Hmh, true... Never noticed either Though I have to disagree on OC part. NWN2 IMO had very, very much party interaction

 

2) You get stat bonuses and other boosts (they too sometimes, e.g

if your charisma and diplomacy skills are high enough when you first interact with Gann he'll get feat that grants him +1 CHA

if you have enough influence with them.

 

To give some criticism: Although new cameras are vastly better than anything in NWN's before and strategic camera mode works great and character mode too mostly, latter has some problems in interiors. At worst this was in Sunken City where I had to play in strategic camera mode all the time if I didn't want to get lost all the time. Same in some dungeons.

 

Overall, however, I don't have that much to criticize about. That's my biggest annoyance yet in game.

 

edit: To my knowledge MCA did Gann, and when thinking about Kaelyn's dialogue there certainly is "Avellonean" (yay new word) feel in it. I also believe Saunders and Designers (Husges, Fenstermaker etc.) have done at least some dialogue - didn't in Fallout's Designer of certain quest/area also deal with most of writing related to it. "Designer" was Avellone's title for this and he definetly has written something, so I guess others have too. Although I'm sure great majority of writing and dialogue came fron Ziets's hand, after that propably Avellone had most writing with all of his mighty "Creative Lead Director" or something title.

 

Anyway it doesn't matter who wrote what and how much. MotB proves OE has numerous highly skilled writers in their team

 

By the way it looks like Mitsoda didn't have anything to do with this game though - and IIRC he is creative lead for OE's third project. I guess this means this third project definetly isn't meeting New Jersey's end if its lead writer is busy

Edited October 21, 2007 by Xard

[Starwars]

Brian Mitsoda was the guy who did writing for Vampire: Bloodlines right? That game had some great writing as well.

[Xard]

EXACTLY

 

One of the great additions to OE team

Edited October 21, 2007 by Xard

[Tigranes]

My favourite parts were

Myrkul

and

Thayan Academy

actually, which was just a well designed, fun place. Except for the freaking mirrors. Seriously. it's stupid. However, the

Fiends or Devils or Demons or whatever that bargain with you

more than made up for it.

 

On the big Belt - the fastest way I think is to

kill Okku and use his essence in a belt for automatic +10Str.

 

[Dark_Raven]

Brian Mitsoda was the guy who did writing for Vampire: Bloodlines right? That game had some great writing as well.

The very one. Brian is awesome.

[Tale]

Does anyone have a good MotB wallpaper? This game needs one. I've been wanting to set my desktop to such.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Finally picked up a copy of MotB, and I'm in the process of uninstalling NwN 2, so I can reinstall for 'safety'.

 

Can't wait to fire this puppy up!

[Jora]

The RPG Codex review is out:

 

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=159

 

"To put it simply, the game is a masterpiece. Sure, it has flaws and things-that-should-have-been-done-better. Overall though, it

[Xard]

It's is FANTASTIC. Flaws are very few and minor until the final "sequence" begins. Don't get me wrong, there definetly is complete ending(s) (no cliffhanger a la NWN2, no lack of it aka K2) and that "final sequence" has many good things about it too - very final bit of game shows effect of great art direction - but it has one very, very annoying "twist" in it that, giving somewhat lackluster aftertaste. Thank god last half hour of game after that (although pretty easy for my character) very great.

 

However, I doubt that "twist" was OE's idea... They really should get their own IP's and fast.

 

"I have to mention the spirit meter because it was criticized in every review for being confusing, hard, and just not fun. Well, guess what? It's a pretty damn good feature and an excellent moron indicator. If you failed to understand this feature, odds are you’re a ****ing moron. Sad, but true. Let's blame the clearly failed education system and the leniency toward degenerates in your homeland. "

 

 

"To put it simply, the game is a masterpiece. Sure, it has flaws and things-that-should-have-been-done-better. Overall though, it’s one of those rare games that people will remember for a long time and I definitely expect to see it on “top 10 RPGs” lists in the near future. It probably won’t get any “RPG of the Year” awards from the mainstream media as such honours are reserved for awesome games like Halo 3 and cult classics like Oblivion: Fighter’s Stronghold Expansion, so if you liked what I had to say about the game, go and buy it today. Support Obsidian's efforts to bring us something different and vote with your money."

 

Cult classic, hah

Edited October 26, 2007 by Xard

[Gorgon]

The spirit meter is a nuisance. No one likes plot devices that hamstring gameplay.

 

At the very least you should have been able to feed on anyone's spirit, not just the blue glowy things you desperatelt run around trying to find. Maybe not in agreement with the premise of the plot, but, who cares.

 

The special abilities associated with the curse aren't fun to use either, if you play as a caster you can just ignore the meter and use the satiate ability once in a while, you will hardly know the difference, but a mele character is seriously hampered by a forced plot device. That is a really stupid idea.

 

And consider the way it was introduced, here's 6 pages of special rules and abilities regarding your curse and something else to clog up your HUD. I bet a lot of people where underwhelmed. Would have been a better idea to introduce in stages, as the curse strengtened.

Edited October 26, 2007 by Gorgon

[Tale]

At the very least you should have been able to feed on anyone's spirit, not just the blue glowy things you desperatelt run around trying to find. Maybe not in agreement with the premise of the plot, but, who cares.

You can. If you go evil.

Edited October 26, 2007 by Tale

[Gorgon]

Hmm, I think generally a lot of the 'evil' dialouge options are illogical, I usually can't get myself to select them.

How long does it take before you gain that ability assuming you start out with an evil character ?

[Tale]

Hmm, I think generally a lot of the 'evil' dialouge options are illogical, I usually can't get myself to select them.

How long does it take before you gain that ability assuming you start out with an evil character ?

You end up getting contacted by a little girl sometime after

you kill Okku.

She'll lead you to another area with a very short quest that'll give it to you.

[Zoma]

Whoah, Codex's review even got its place in Obsidian's front page?

 

Seems Obsidian do take these guys seriously.

[poolofpoo]

Good game overall.

 

The whole 'epic character thing' makes storytelling somewhat problematic though.

 

Why would a simple lodge of berserkers attack me and my party of godlike companions, it's clearly suicide, yet they act like they would beat me easily. It doesn't make sense, and it doesnt make sense that fight is so god damn hard either because that would imply that the berserkers in the lodge are almost godlike as well.

 

It seems like all students in the Thay academy is way above level 15, is that really reasonable?

 

A few pirates I met in the Sloppy theater apparently were the most epic pirates in Faerun since they killed me and my party quite easily.

 

Even though i meet people from all over faerun none has ever heard of me, and no one pays me any respect either, i demand respect, you hear?

I'm like the grim reaper, killing anyone who crosses my path and yet no one is afraid of me? Why is that? I'm death walking the earth god damn it.

[Tale]

Because they don't have the internet, yet.