Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir

[J.E. Sawyer]

The yuan-ti weren't my idea, but I am glad they are present.

[Tale]

*crosses fingers hoping for the return of Mephasm*

[Sand]

You're like a wise sage in comparion to me. Im that special kind of ignorant that actually used the "recommend" button.

 

BWAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAA!

 

 

 

 

BWAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAA!

 

That's worse than my werewolf incident.

Edited July 21, 2008 by Sand

[Jaesun]

You're like a wise sage in comparion to me. Im that special kind of ignorant that actually used the "recommend" button.

 

BWAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAA!

 

 

 

 

That's worse than my werewolf incident.

 

I used the default Recommend on the companions as well. Here, let me serve you a nice cup of shut the ...

[Volourn]

The map itself looks like cartoony junk that doesn't fit in with the rest of NWN2's style. That said, as long as the function is solid as it seens to be, it'll be dealable.

[Xard]

NWN2's style is cartoony

 

 

You're like a wise sage in comparion to me. Im that special kind of ignorant that actually used the "recommend" button.

 

BWAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAA!

 

 

 

 

That's worse than my werewolf incident.

 

I used the default Recommend on the companions as well. Here, let me serve you a nice cup of shut the ...

 

lol double fail

[Tale]

*crosses fingers hoping for the return of Mephasm*

Wow, me too. You and I have a lot in common.

 

Speaking of Mephasm, 1/3rd the characters I try to play are a rip off of him, including the main character I'm trying to get into a game of D&D 4e with. I like the character, needless to say.

[Gfted1]

That's worse than my werewolf incident.

 

 

Whoa, whoa, whoa...thats hitting below the belt.

[random n00b]

Will there be a sort of "fast travel" feature in SoZ?

Nope.

Not even (Greater) Teleport?

 

[newc0253]

I know most folks on this forum adored it, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thinks it isn't exactly a "masterpiece". I'm hoping the next expansion will return more to NWN2's roots... but we'll see.

i also belong to the "underwhelmed by MOTB" club.

 

don't get me wrong. i thought it was very well done and enjoyed playing it. i just didn't think it was anythink like as brilliant as others seem to think it was.

 

the 'soul eater' device was interesting from a gameplay perspective, but after walking around with a bit of gith sword in my chest in NWN2, i was a little weary of being destiny's b1tch once again. i'd have preferred plain old 'fortune and glory' at this point (which is why SoZ seems appealing). the setting was well-drawn and i always like a bit of plane-walking, but my irritation at being destiny's butt-boy kind of soured the whole deal.

 

i was also less than edified by the bald chick who kept on following me around and falling in love with me following what seemed like the briefest of conversations. i much preferred the chick with the armour and the wings, despite the fact that she was basically a celestial version of Falls From Grace.

 

lastly, i shared the (more general) criticism of the ending. It was probably too much to hope that a high-level character, even an epic level character, was gonna change the face of the planes. Certainly it would have been optimistic to suppose that WOTC would ever allow such a non-canon outcome. But that only made me all the more irritated at what i was getting sucked into: the patent unfairness of the Wall of Judgment or whatever the frak it was was a great hook for a story but why continuously tease a player with the phony prospect of changing things when you know the game is rigged?

 

I suppose another reason why i didn't think MOTB to be the greatest thing since sliced bread was because i actually liked the storyline of the NWN2 OC (despite its own significant flaws, including often painful linearity). it was a cop-out to kill off virtually all the cast from the original (and, really, who dies permanantly at high-level anyway? the apparent tragedy of all my friends being crushed by tonnes of rock was undercut by the thought that: couldn't i just go back and pay to have them resurrected eventually?).

 

although i think MOTB was a quality piece of work, it ultimately felt like i was replaying an echo or a riff of PS:T. i guess it's no bad thing for a game to emulate PS:T but PS:T in the final analysis had a depth and an originality that this lacked. They both had predestined conclusions, but only PS:T's felt organic and earned.

Edited July 22, 2008 by newc0253

[Gromnir]

"i much preferred the chick with the armour and the wings, despite the fact that she was basically a celestial version of Falls From Grace."

 

is numerous things we would dispute in newc post, but curiously we don't feel likes going 'round in circles at the moment. instead we gots a serious & legit query that is truthful and honest devoid o' any sort o' ulterior purpose. having seen the criticism o' motb bird-girl = fall from grace... we don't get it. the similarities is purely at superficial level and got pretty much 0 to do with actual character development. winged chick cleric. is where similarities really do stop.

 

ps:t fall from grace pretty much got 0 character development other than the metaphor o' the Mystery o' Woman crap. ooh, she has a diary Gromnir cannot open. *groan*

 

motb bird-girl, whether you like her or not, were given motivations and background and... character.

 

personally, Gromnir were not a huge fan o' the motb jnpcs (joinable npcs) 'cause they were all 'bout a single hook. flat. is ok to start development o' a fantasy character in such a way, but there has gotta be... more. complex characters not necessarily equal better characters, but is not as if the dialogue were insightful or compelling neither. the womanizing hagspawn has mommy issues? kept waiting for something more, and it never arrived. 'course, to be fair, with a relative short game, how much could Gromnir expect, eh? too much character growth spaced out over a half-dozen or so meaningful dialogue encounters might seems a bit artificial and forced.

 

in any event, am honest curious why it seems as if some folks has embraced the bird-girl=fall from grace pov... or is it simply the obvious and superficial similarities?

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps yuan-ti is kinda overdone in the obsidian games, but am understanding useful addition from a game development approach. shape-changers is always useful... 'cause can use human avatars to represent yuan-ti as well as using genuine snaky stuff. yuan-ti is also, unlike the typical Horde of _______, yuan-ti has got the cold-blodded schtick; is planners rather than raving maniacs. dragons hoard gold? why? who cares, that is simply what they do, no? yuan-ti is serpents with rational motivations... unlike so many other d&d foes.

 

even so, given the vast range o' potential critters, is somewhat disappointing to see yet another obsidian/bis yuan-ti thing. if we gets a yxunomei clone, am gonna be feeling a bit cheated.

Edited July 22, 2008 by Gromnir

[newc0253]

is numerous things we would dispute in newc post, but curiously we don't feel likes going 'round in circles at the moment.

but, dude, watching you chase your tail is the best part!

 

winged chick cleric. is where similarities really do stop.

well, even if that were true, which it ain't, i think 'winged chick cleric' is a sufficiently distinctive category in the relatively short history of D&D-based story-driven CRPGs...

 

in other words, you'd think if they were self-consciously seeking to avoid overt comparisons with PST, they might have tried a little more to differentiate their NPCs.

 

but the similarities go further. for instance, they were both earnest, all-mission, no-sense-of-humour types. and, in keeping with hot higher beings, they were both diffident about the PC hitting on them. i agree they weren't identical, and the MOTB one was better drawn, but it was kinda hard not to notice the resemblance.

 

in any event, am honest curious why it seems as if some folks has embraced the bird-girl=fall from grace pov... or is it simply the obvious and superficial similarities?

superficial and obvious is what i do best.

Edited July 22, 2008 by newc0253

[Gorgon]

I think I've asked this before, but I can't remember the outcome. Whats the e.t.a on either of the two NWN2 adons ?

[taks]

with raise dead and resurrection, how does anyone die in D&D anyway? i was just playing moonshadows (not bad, but i'm ticked that i didn't find out till after i killed the ONLY merchant that, well, he was the ONLY merchant in this chapter) and there is a guy, maurik, that would not let me heal him because his wounds were "beyond healing." what? isn't that what "heal" is for? i can't fault NWN2 and any of its expansions or user modules for this, it's an oddity of the game mechanics of D&D. such spells cheapen death i guess. of course, from a crpg game perspective, losing a character and requiring a new one every once in a while would be a pain.

 

taks

[taks]

I think I've asked this before, but I can't remember the outcome. Whats the e.t.a on either of the two NWN2 adons ?

isn't it "sometime this fall" for SoZ and "once DRM is in place" for MoW? of course, the DRM thingy may hold up SoZ as well, which could eventually mean "sometime, hopefully, before we all die of old age."

 

taks

[newc0253]

with raise dead and resurrection, how does anyone die in D&D anyway?

i think permanent death makes sense at low levels. the standard D&D explanation is that raise dead and resurrection are sufficiently rare and/or expensive and/or costly in other ways to put them beyond the means of most people.

 

at high level, there's still lots of ways to deliver permanent death (e.g. torn asunder by cosmic forces) but MOTB tries to achieve its grief-stricken air by telling you that your fellow party members are killed in the most mundane way possible: crushed by giant rocks. to which an obvious question is, why not just resurrect them?

[Gorgon]

Because you want to be rid of them more than anything else in the world ?

 

Well maybe except for the Gith and the warlock, they were momentarily cool. I mean it's hard not to be cool when you are a Gith, you would have to work actively at it.

[taks]

the standard D&D explanation is that raise dead and resurrection are sufficiently rare and/or expensive and/or costly in other ways to put them beyond the means of most people.

oh, i realize this. i think PnP actually has XP costs for all higher level spells anyway, which would rule out saving a whole village of your minions should the need arise.

 

at high level, there's still lots of ways to deliver permanent death (e.g. torn asunder by cosmic forces) but MOTB tries to achieve its grief-stricken air by telling you that your fellow party members are killed in the most mundane way possible: crushed by giant rocks. to which an obvious question is, why not just resurrect them?

yeah, why not. maybe they got blown to bits, too.

 

taks

[Volourn]

"ps yuan-ti is kinda overdone in the obsidian games,"

 

O RLY?

 

Were they in NWN2? How 'bout MOTB? They certainly weren't in KOTOR2. WOW! REALLY over doing them yuanti at Obsidian. L0L

 

 

"with raise dead and resurrection, how does anyone die in D&D anyway?"

 

Easy. In real D&D, casters whoc an cast said spells don't grow on trees nor do they cast it just for anyone. A LG priest will never cast it for an evil character. And, they have to be convinced to cast it on other good characters, and no throwing gold at them isn't always enough. Casting these spells come with a cost (experience, level, con) for both recepient and caster. On top of that, in the old days, raise dead/ressurection weren't automatic. In 2E, for example (not in the IE games sadly); every character had a ressurection survival percentage based on their con. If you failed it, the spell would fizzle. Period. And, you could also only be ressurected a maximum of times based on your 'natural' constitution.

 

Sadly, like everything, it got easier to pull off. Meh.

Edited July 22, 2008 by Volourn

[taks]

noted the additional cost...

 

i do recall the constitution check in earlier D&D versions. once you failed, you were a goner. as i recall, elves could not be raised, either. but they could be resurrected.

 

taks

[Volourn]

On top of this, having stats (in this case wisdom) high enough to cast these spells was not easy. Unlike now, you didn't get stat boosters every 4 levels. You needed a wisdom of 18 to cast ressurection which means even if you had a high enough level priest (level 14); they weren't guaranteed to be able to cast it, anyways. Now, a high level caster who doesn't have a 20 in their top stat by level 12 is considered sucky; but you had to be lucky (or have a really generous DM) to have such a high stat.

 

So, yeah, point is, raise dead/ressuretcion are only as common as the DM/campaign/game allows them to be. Period. It's not D&D 's fault (wqell.. other than the newer versions who *do* make it easier now...

Edited July 22, 2008 by Volourn

[taks]

yeah, i recall that, too. of course, in older D&D, 25 was the maximum stat anyway. i liked it better that way. a potion of storm giant strength made you as strong as a storm giant - 25 STR - not +10.

 

"other than the newer versions who *do* make it easier now... "

well, in all fairness, that is sort of the context of a discussion about a 3.5E game.

 

taks

Edited July 22, 2008 by taks

[Volourn]

Yeah, but even pnp 3.0(.5) with their relaxed rules from 2E are still much harder to raise the dead than in video games. Nature of the beast. Video gamers are not as hardcore as pnpers tend to be.

 

Reloading, for example, simply doesn't happen in pnp.

[Tale]

Additional limits on raise dead are divine intervention (at 2 points actually, a god must approve the spell, then a god could get in the way of it working, which is to say if the DM says "no") and the subject being willing.

 

It's reasonable that it would be limited to only those who are particularly in favor with the god the spell is being requested from or if they're a companion to such a person who is involved in a dire quest. And if the god whose realm the dead person will end up in is okay with it, too.

Edited July 22, 2008 by Tale

[Gromnir]

probably seems to newc as if Gromnir is chasing tail but our only mistake is wasting effort trying to keeps you from doing so... follow some joker running 'round in circles is bound to make it appear to the myopic that we is similarly deranged.

 

"but the similarities go further. for instance, they were both earnest, all-mission, no-sense-of-humour types. "

 

fall from grace cracked wise with the skull on occasion... really didn't come across as humorless or all-mission to Gromnir... in part 'cause there simply weren't enough development.

 

superficial and obvious. am s'posing that is good enough but doesn't seem fair... not that we would expect anything else.

 

"Were they in NWN2? How 'bout MOTB? They certainly weren't in KOTOR2. WOW! REALLY over doing them yuanti at Obsidian. L0L"

 

vol being vol. kotor2? you honestly use kotor2?

 

...

 

as there were not yuan-ti in motb and nwn2, Gromnir were thinking that it were a josh thing... 'cause josh were not so much part of design on those games. now we got another d&d game that gots yuan-ti and josh says he ain't behind the yuan-ti in it. is not a common or traditional d&d foe, but is gonna have now have been major players in most of obsidian's/bis' offerings. is sorta strange. again, ain't simply IN game, but is integral.

 

HA! Good Fun!