NWN2: Storm of Zehir is out!

[taks]

unfortunately, i'm not going to be able to play again till sunday night. tonight is pool night which means i arrive at the house tired and buzzed, and playing is difficult (i sit back far enough from my monitor that i have to strain to read when i'm buzzed). tomorrow is a single's qualifier board for the local APA pool league and i intend to be there. there's also a charity tournament i'll get into, and just about everyone of my friends from the league will be there... all the people that i drink with. soooo, i'll arrive home tired and buzzed again tomorrow night, too.

 

too much drinking to play, in other words!

 

taks

[Bos_hybrid]

Why is it taking an extra 14 days to come out in Australia?

 

 

In all seriousness it probably takes longer to go through the Aussie ratings board as it's quite a bit stricter than anywhere else.

 

While we do have a strict(stupid) ratings board, I doubt SoZ would have caught their eye, MotB only recieved an M rating and I doubt SoZ will be as dark as that. Atari just seems to saft Aussies.

[samm]

taks: Agreed on it being suboptimal to be encouraged to have a jack-of-all-trades kind of character for main character in an CRGP, just because you can't use your companions to send forth, be it to talk, to sneak or whatever.

And also, even if you do have all skills available to you in the party. In a conversation it often you means you still have to make a choice which of them to use, since once you choose one, you often don't get a chance to use the others. This is not always the case, but quite often it is.

 

The game is fun as hell, I'm having trouble tearing myself from it. Definetely old-school though.

Oh man, this sounds good :D Edited November 21, 2008 by samm

[taks]

yeah, there's a feel about it that i can't place. not IWD/IWDII as everyone seems to want to compare. the only similarity there is that you build your own party. there is narrative, but just not the long drawn out crap like in NWN2/MOTB. mind you, it fit well in those two games as far as i'm concerned, but it got a bit tedious at points.

 

the striking part about this game is that i have a sort of goal, and a sort of direction, but overall, i'm lost. maybe it gets linear as i get into the plot (haven't played much yet), but really, at the moment it has a feel like "you're on your own, have at it." another thing: in this game, i'm actually concerned about death. not that the battles are so tough, but they happen often enough without chance for rest, and require sufficient tactics to prevent someone from going down. i went down in a cave recently because i didn't find a trap, and got webbed, then killed by baddies. apparently you MUST STAND STILL TO SEARCH FOR TRAPS! wow, novel concept. anyway, getting past an area is more fulfilling when the risk is greater (playing hardcore D&D rules, btw).

 

taks

[Gorgon]

Well I got it after all.

 

Still can't get over how cramped the camera is in those games, it's like you are literally fighting it every step of the way. It works tolerably when you are zoomed out maximally, but a lot of areas won't let you do that. Why didn't they assign left mouse button to the camera pans, and why are the camera pans so fast you always seem to wind up short of the angle you were aiming for.

 

 

Also I can't seem to specify the refresh rates, so it's at 60 hrz or something, there are still people with CRTs out there you know.

 

I also have no idea what I'm doing, seems like I have been stuck on the travel map for ages needing rest after every fight and getting woken up by another one. Too early to say anything about the story.

[Enoch]

Well, my Amazon delivery didn't arrive today, so it looks like I'll actually be getting some work done around the house this weekend. (Which is probably for the best, since the in-laws will be in town for Thanksgiving, and I'll be doing the bulk of the cooking.)

[Volourn]

Dinos are cute, and Volo can be funny!

[Dark_Raven]

Since these devs can't answer my simple question, I'm going to spread the word around not to buy this.

 

Dinos? How ****ing stupid.

[Volourn]

Dinos are the one of the best parts of the game. Totally sweet! Don't diss the dino!

[Dark_Raven]

This is a setting that takes place in what would be considered a Medieval Period. What the hell are dinosaurs doing in it? What idiot thought of that?

[Volourn]

"This is a setting that takes place in what would be considered a Medieval Period. What the hell are dinosaurs doing in it? What idiot thought of that?"

 

Your ignorance of the Realms is sad. One part of the world is LOOSELY based on the medieval period. Chult, the setting here, has dinos for a reason since it's not based on the medieval period. btw, The 'real' medieval period didn't have magic either. Or a billion gods. Tsk, tsk.

[Amentep]

This is a setting that takes place in what would be considered a Medieval Period. What the hell are dinosaurs doing in it? What idiot thought of that?

 

I'm taking a bit of a stab in the dark, but maybe James Lowder and Jean Rabe in their 1993 FORGOTTEN REALMS suppliment, The Jungles of Chult? It definately had a T-Rex type on the cover.

 

Besides which, the Forgotten Realms is a hodgepodge creation, medieval period, ancient Egyptian, and barbarian hordes for example.

 

(And are dinosaurs really that weird in a world with dragons? And weren't dinosaurs in one of the original Monster Manuals in 1e D&D?)

Edited November 22, 2008 by Amentep

[Volourn]

"Besides which, the Forgotten Realms is a hodgepodge creation, medieval period, ancient Egyptian, and barbarian hordes for example."

 

Yup, and like I keep telling people. This is a good thing. It's because the Realms are a fantasy world. Just like our real world has deserts, oceans, forests, jungles, plains, etc. all in one setting so does the Realms.

 

Just because dinos are instinct in 2008 Earth doesn't mean they should be extinct in the Reams/Abeir Toril. The Mainland (ie. the area that people are most familair with) are LOOSELY based on the medieval period. Like you mentioned, hwoever, the Realms have other stuff like Egyptian based dieties, and stuff. Even some of their gods like Tyr were 'stolen' / 'borowed' from random places. *shrug*

[J.E. Sawyer]

I fondly remember reading about how, during the Battle of Cr

[Pidesco]

[Llyranor]

That's not funny, JE. Gabrielle was asking you devs how she could change the menu music back to the MotB one, because the SoZ one SUCKS. Instead of popping up 'witty' non-jokes, how about answering her questions? I'm going to spread the word around not to buy this as well.

 

I mean, seriously, what kind of developer doesn't even answer to its fanbase? You let a game-breaking bug LIKE NOT BEING ABLE TO CHANGE YOUR MENU BACK TO THE MOTB ONE WHICH WOULD BE EASILY FIXED BY JUST RENAMING THE BMU FILES AROUND IF YOU WEREN'T A BLOODY CLUELESS HADES in the game, then ignore your fans? And THEN you make up false statements about history. You don't joke about history, man.

 

Join us, my brethen. We shall spread the work around not to buy this game. We'll name ourselves the 'Bring the MotB music back via an official patch lol how do u rename files' brigade.

Edited November 22, 2008 by Llyranor

[Zoma]

That's not funny, JE. Gabrielle was asking you devs how she could change the menu music back to the MotB one, because the SoZ one SUCKS. Instead of popping up 'witty' non-jokes, how about answering her questions? I'm going to spread the word around not to buy this as well.

 

I mean, seriously, what kind of developer doesn't even answer to its fanbase? You let a game-breaking bug LIKE NOT BEING ABLE TO CHANGE YOUR MENU BACK TO THE MOTB ONE WHICH WOULD BE EASILY FIXED BY JUST RENAMING THE BMU FILES AROUND IF YOU WEREN'T A BLOODY CLUELESS HADES in the game, then ignore your fans? And THEN you make up false statements about history. You don't joke about history, man.

 

Join us, my brethen. We shall spread the work around not to buy this game. We'll name ourselves the 'Bring the MotB music back via an official patch lol how do u rename files' brigade.

 

Chill pills. You're way overdue for the subscription. Chill.

 

To be fair, bug reports is best to be delivered to NWN2 forums at Bioware since its Rob who compiles the bug list. This thread is simply background noise as far as we know.

 

In addition, I don't think J.E is involved in any part of NWN2 development any longer aside from giving feedbacks on the game during his spare time. So demanding answers or solutions from him is futile. All he can do is simply deliver the message to Rob, but it should be done in NWN2 technical forum instead for easier compilation.

[crakkie]

Plus, SoZ music is better.

[Starwars]

I believe you failed a sarcasm check Zoma.

 

Game is still awesome, I'm having a great time with it.

[Rosbjerg]

Finally got it yesterday from Atari's online store.

 

I don't know if I would compare it to IDW2, but I see what people are getting at. It's much more focused on combat, encounters and exploring than the previous titles. There's no movie-like-dialouge as far as I can tell, like in the other games (you know were they zoom in and you can see the characters talk) it's all done like the old interplay games, where you have the text and some of it is voice recorded.

 

I have a ranger in my party and I can usually sneak around any monsters, so I'm not being attacked all the time. Some people were complaining about encounters being too frequent and I agree to some extent, but as long as you have someone with a high survival, listen and spot you won't have a big problem.

 

The story is ok, not as good as Mask of the Betrayer, but the other elements are cool. And I really missed being able to create an entire party, so that's a welcoming return!

 

Good expansion and worth the money, I'm particularly looking forward to the mods.

[kefka]

Overland map "should I attack" is driving me nuts. The AI refuses to attack during combat so it becomes a manual clickfest. Any solution to this major annoyance?

[Starwars]

Yes, either turn off "Peaceful Follow" in the Behavour tab for your companions. Or simply push "V" and choose "Attack".

 

I control it through the "V" key, I like having Peaceful Follow on so party members don't run away when I don't want them to.

[Gorgon]

It seems to be related to distance. What annoys me more is that the cleric AI can't heal. Casters can now buff, which is great, but you still have to cast 21 low level healing spells yourself, to get the party back to health. That is just retarded. Why not have a script next to 'buff' called 'heal'. Should be pretty easy to do.

[kefka]

Yes, either turn off "Peaceful Follow" in the Behavour tab for your companions. Or simply push "V" and choose "Attack".

I tried both methods and they work. Thanks! Was getting very frustrated for a while.

[Rostere]

My first impressions:

 

First of all, I have to give my compliments to Alexander Brandon for the music, which feels like it has a character of it's own at the same time as it ties in with the theme of the game very well and reminds me of the music to the BG games a little.

 

Second, when I first heard what other people had said about SoZ I became afraid that Obsidian had changed course from their earlier games (like KotoR 2 and MotB) and instead went for a game with more sparse dialogue with a greater focus on combat. After playing the game for a few hours I must confess that while this is in part true, the game is also unmistakably an Obsidian game and fans of Obsidian's other games like myself will not be disappointed.

 

I have not really gotten into the trading aspect of the game and the new crafting system yet, but so far both seem interesting, especially the former one. Traveling on the overland map offers the player a way to explore the game world which was sadly missing in MotB and in the OC, but is it just me or are those encounters a little tedious (since you have to watch a loading screen twice for X secs every time you get into a fight)?

 

The only real complaints there are regards the game engine in itself. The camera is buggy at times and the game doesn't always run as smoothly as you would expect one with a 2- year old engine to do. The interface is also very ugly but I guess there wasn't really the option to change that all over for SoZ.