NWN2: Storm of Zehir is out

[Gromnir]

ps

 

is obsidian EVAR gonna patch the game?

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Tigranes]

Honestly? For me, SOZ is an Underdeveloped IWD. Now, I absolutely loved both Icewind Dales, and sometimes they had delicious areas, but for at least half of each game, the IWDs too were hackfests with 0 dialogue options and enemies simply placed into the map. They were characterised by BIG areas full of enemies (and thus combat after combat) with anything from minimal to some dialogue / choices, and accentuated by great visuals/music and areas that seemed to make sense (in terms of, Dragon's Eye really looks like a place where lizardkin live, unless you are a super lore stickler). SOZ is exactly like that, except with *tiny* areas instead of big, and missing the welcome exception such as the Severed Hand. Which tells me, underdeveloped.

 

It's fun enough for me to go on with despite the frequent loading times, which in itself should speak volumes, but it does feel, increasingly, like a good game that missed its opportunity to really be what it was meant to be.

[Nightshape]

SoZ reminds me a little of really old CRPG's like, Dragon Wars and PoR, in terms of it's general philosophy.

 

I'll have more to say when I'm done with it naturally, but I've played about 6-8 hours. I'm finding the fact that the narritive is fairly lite to be a good thing as I'm playing it in a more casual manner, jumping in and out of play for an hour or so at a time is actually making the experience enjoyable.

 

It just happends to fit with how much time I can dedicate to gaming at the moment.

[Stephen Amber]

I've read similar comparisons between some of these more modern crpgs and the classic paper modules. IWD and the G series, for instance, I suppose mainly because of the traipsing about in the underworld and fire/frost giants and drowish enemies. Premise behind the g modules was pretty silly, though: on pain of death ye are to assault and eradicate the giant folk in their lairs. As if a group strong enough to accomplish such could be intimidated in the first place... And dialogue in the G-D series was non-existent, if I recall right. Those old modules did have some very ingenious descriptive passages of the giant lairs and underdark, however. The discovery of the cult of the elder eye and ensuing transition into the underdark is really something... and a light bulb went off in RA Salvetore's head.

[Starwars]

I don't think Icewind Dale is a very valid comparison. OK, both games have party creation and lots of combat... But beyond that? Icewind Dale is a 'dungeon crawler' but I really don't view SoZ like that (because it doesn't have the deep and involved dungeons). It feels more like a mix between Darklands, HoMM/Kings Bounty and even Pirates!, with the D&D flavour of course. While I agree with most people that it definetely could've had a big dungeon or two, I'm really happy that I don't have to delve into hourlong dungeons in this one. I think it fits well with the open design.

The exploration in its sort of simplest form is the main draw for me in terms of the overall game design, just like in Pirates! I find it addictive.

 

Also, I was going through some of the Infinity Engine games a month or so back and I have an extremely hard time getting into Icewind Dale (still haven't tried IWD2 though) but I love SoZ, go figure.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Starwars

[Gromnir]

btw, one oft seen criticism of soz that Gromnir does not subscribe to is that soz story is terrible. soz story is not fantabulous, but it ain't horrible neither. soz is story lite, and there is no particularly compelling characters... which means that the story is gonna be forgettable in long run. nevertheless, you can follow story at own pace, and even though no character in the game is particularly well-crafted or developed, many is amusing or intriguing to at least a minimal degree.

 

...

 

the story fits the game... which is a kinda criticism we s'pose, but am not meaning it that way.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Volourn]

"SoZ reminds me a little of really old CRPG's like, Dragon Wars and PoR, in terms of it's general philosophy."

 

General philosophy, yes, but not general quality.

 

I love 'old skool' games/campaigns when they are *good*.

Edited January 26, 2009 by Volourn

[Rhomal]

> Says the guy who thinks SOZ is a great game, and a gift to old schook rpgs. LMAO

 

I think SoZ is good for what it tries to do with the limited budget they had. It is the best of its type? No, I'd day IWD series takes that title. But since we have had nothing close to that since I give them A for effort, C+ on execution. Its good and IMO captures the feel of those high adventure modules I posted about earlier. You clearly feel otherwise. Agree to disagree and lets move on as we are debating opinions at this point which inherently have no 'truth'. Public opinion will in the end validate one of us.

 

Of course you side stepped the who nwn1 OC fisaco but I'll let that slade as you wisely chose not to fight that battle which is lost (to all but you apparently)

 

> Of course, as usual, you ignore everything that disproves what you calimed before. Not surprising. Just like you conviently ignore the fact you believe that NWN2 would completely wipe out NWN1's player base. LMAO

 

And what am I 'ignoring' exactly? Again you have a opinion, as I do about this game. There are no 'facts' to debate here for the most part. And arguing opinion is pointless, however you make a career out of it. heh.

 

You are jumping all over the place... but if you want to change subjects... looking at the activity of nwvault I certainly blew that call to a degree, can't win them all. Is this what the discussion has broken down to now? Should I go dig up some old posts of yours where your predictions were in error? I really don't see a logical connection.

 

*snip the rest of the flamebait*

 

*pats v on the head* good boy...

[Volourn]

O"f course you side stepped the who nwn1 OC fisaco"

 

Did no such thing. I responded to it. But, ebcause I didn't immediately agree with you that I'm a moron or a fnaboy for rating it an EPIC 7.5, I guess that's what you call 'side stepping'.

 

 

"And what am I 'ignoring' exactly? Again you have a opinion, as I do about this game. There are no 'facts' to debate here for the most part."

 

You laimed, and tried to pass of as a fact that if someone disliked SOZ it meant they weren't into 'old sckool' games, and/or had no experience in them. I posted for the one reason to prove your thesis wrong.

 

Besides, you haven't given any reaosn to why SOZ is good other than it's 'old skool'. Again, is it the 1-2 room 'dungeons' that make it 'old skool'. Old skool dungeons that i've played - be it pnp or CRPGs - have enver generlaly been 1, or 2 rooms.

 

 

 

"And arguing opinion is pointless, however you make a career out of it. heh."

 

Out of the two of us, I'm certainly not the only one. btw, I don't get paid so it's not a career.

 

 

 

"Should I go dig up some old posts of yours where your predictions were in error?"

 

If you feel the need, be my my guest. I don't live to be perfect. If I was perfect, i wouldn't be posting on the internet.

 

 

 

"*pats v on the head* good boy..."

 

Master argument. Treat someone with the opposing view like a master treats his dog. Sweet.

 

This makes me auto win.

Edited January 26, 2009 by Volourn

[Rhomal]

Clearly you are in one of your moods and out for blood no matter what so I'll let you get the final word and 'win' as that's what matters to you. Enjoy it.

 

For the record the 'patting on the head' I was visulizing patting a little kid on the head to calm his tantrum. If you wish however to view it otherwise theres probably some Freudian symbology to that but thats not here nor there.

[Volourn]

Nice. You posted in a topic about SOZ yet never mentioned it once. Sweet.

[Nightshape]

"SoZ reminds me a little of really old CRPG's like, Dragon Wars and PoR, in terms of it's general philosophy."

 

General philosophy, yes, but not general quality.

 

I love 'old skool' games/campaigns when they are *good*.

 

I don't believe I have seen enough to comment on general quality.

 

Needless to say I am having fun.

[Amentep]

I still haven't been able to finish the game because I'm never happy with my party. :|

[Rhomal]

I still haven't been able to finish the game because I'm never happy with my party. :|

 

simply swap out party members when you need to

[Amentep]

I still haven't been able to finish the game because I'm never happy with my party. :|

 

simply swap out party members when you need to

 

I know I can and have, but I'm never happy with them. I keep going back and tinkering.

 

I've spent several hours playing the game, and 9/10 of it has been creating characters.

[Llyranor]

It saddens me to say it, but SoZ has nothing on IWD. I haven't even bothered to complete it yet (in

Neverwinter

). Where are the great set-piece battles? Where are the awesome atmospheric dungeons? Most of what I've had to fight consisted of world map encounters, or short dungeons (well, areas, anyway - dungeon is giving them too much credit) with maybe a few encounters at most. It may also be that I'm really starting to get sick of the NWN1/2 engine. I'd probably have been fine with the game the way it is if it had, say, the ToEE engine (minus the bugs etc).

 

At least the music is good stuff.

 

And yet, character/party creation was the best part of the gameplay.

Edited January 26, 2009 by Llyranor

[Tigranes]

Nearly at the end of the game now I think.

Sa'Sani revealed herself as Yuan-ti and I am to crash the snake party.

Just finishing up a few bits and bobs, just how many bloody cohorts do you need to

feed One of Many

? I already did 3. Also got to do the West Harbour bit, I heard there be dragons.

 

My initial impression looks to be set in stone. Wonderful music and art direction, along with the overall well-done OM / Trade systems, make it a fresh and fun romp, but nothing memorable or awesome. I can understand budget constraints preventing bigger areas, but the battles are, in true NWN tradition, dump mobs.

 

Loading times are still silly when running back and forth, but hey, I played unpatched Gothic 3, so...

[Darth InSidious]

This arrived in the post today, and while there's no reason you should give a damn what I think, I'm going to give you another uninteresting, unilluminating and unsatisfying ego-post to scroll through to get to the rebuttal you're waiting for.

 

The music for SoZ is pretty good - it's not TSL in standard (which, to be fair, had some extraordinarily good music), but it's OK. The launcher music upward is pleasant, and it's far less repetitive than the music for MotB. The art direction overall seems excellent, in fact - just finished Samarach and returned to the Sword Coast for the fun to begin in earnest - and the blend of architectural/artistic styles used for Samarach and its cities works surprisingly well. It manages to evoke a decaying Ottoman town that could be anywhere from Ankarra to Alexandria, IMO. The jungle, similarly, feels jungle-like, although perhaps a little clear and dry to quite imitate the real thing. Elements of the design - particularly the jungle and the little ? and ! that appear over encounters remind me a lot of Dungeon Siege, although I've no idea if that's intentional or not. *shrug*.

 

I don't mind the tiny dungeons, since I find three levels of hacking through zombies just to find the lost half-button for Sidequest #514 rather dull, myself. The overland map is great, although it does rather make me feel as though there should be a module parodying jRPGs. Something like Huntemon - Gotta Kill Them All!, in which you wander aimlessly between cities casually decimating the local fauna... but I digress.

 

The dialogue and story leave something to be desired, but this was hardly something unexpected in the expansion as it was sold on the 'story-lite' side, and I'm sure the trading side of things will keep me occupied in between - that looks to be good, although I can certainly see that operating as a hybrid game rather lessens the detail and consequently the fun attached to each individual element. The party members/cohorts and their lack of dialogue is also a little disappointing at times, but in truth that I think is more to do with being so used to it from other games in the genre released recently, rather than any need for them per se. The loading times, though are an issue - in particular with the encounters. They'd be a lot less painful if it didn't take so long for them to load. In all, I'm having fun so far, though as others have noted, I'm not expecting there to be anything particularly memorable about the experience beyond enjoying parts.

 

The Hellfire Warlock PrC is also a nice addition, which seems fun from what little of it I've tried of it. The Yuan-ti Pureblood race, though, seems like a more powerful Drow. IIRC, they have the same level adjustment, but the Drow also takes a -2 to CON and has, frankly, less useful special abilities. OTOH, I found building a Yuan-ti warlock in SoZ to be fairly hellish (no pun intended), although that may have had something to do with the all-spellcaster, all-level-one team.

 

I know, I know - tl;dr. So carry on scrolling past.

[Kelverin]

Finally picked this up today. Looking forward to playing it. Can't wait to see if I can play a 1st level character any length of time before dieing.

[samm]

feed One of Many

? I already did 3

11. I.e., as far as I know, all.

[Tigranes]

I need to cart back and forth throughout the whole game (including those who only appear temporarily)? Screw that, Ima kill him. (That is, if that 'Attack' option does give you a battle.)

[newc0253]

is SoZ as good as IWD?

 

it seems a strange question to me: IWD was an entire game whereas SoZ is just an expansion. it's a legitimate compaint that SoZ could have done more with the encounters dotting the map, that they were underdeveloped, etc. but to compare it to a game made with (i presume) far more time and resources strikes me as a little unfair.

 

it also seems a bit funny to criticise SOZ's story, dialogue and characterisation in the same breath as praising IWD. IWD was great as an old fashioned dungeon crawl but i don't think it won any awards for dialogue, etc. again, SoZ was a small game rather than a big one but i thought Obsidian deserves plenty of kudos for the party-dialogue system: for the first time, there's a decent mechanic for single-player CRPGs to recreate the party-based dynamic of D&D without resorting to pre-written NPCs.

 

i ain't gonna spend much time defending SoZ in other respects: it may be more a work of craft than of art, but better to have good craftwork than mediocre art.

[samm]

I need to cart back and forth throughout the whole game (including those who only appear temporarily)? Screw that, Ima kill him. (That is, if that 'Attack' option does give you a battle.)

Well, you only need to cart back and forth between him an the nearest inn really. If you attack him, you may need the right spells to bring him down, with my usual allround caster spell selection and without Lionheart (potion of L. lasts for one round ) for my close range fighter, I had a damn hard time

[Gromnir]

"is SoZ as good as IWD?"

 

is not a matter o' "good as."

 

developers, and others made comparisons between and betwixt soz and iwd. comparison were made... leaving Gromnir to wonder what were the similarities.

 

as for story of iwd v. soz...

 

iwd story had advantage o' being integral to every location in game. sure, dragon's eye were tedious at times, but step forward in dragon's eye were steps forward in advancing iwd story as a whole. soz, for all the functionality the engine provides for possibility o' storytelling and dialogue, seemed to purposefully allow story to be tangential for most o' game. Gromnir has compared soz to bg, but that ain't really fair. compare bg, up to and including completion o' cloakwood mines, and soz. is more accurate. is some small set piece encounters that advance story while allowing players to delve into that bizarre realm o' crpg "exploration."

 

is nothing wrong with soz approach to story as it allows players to revael story at own pace. soz approach works well enough in soz. as we has said before, soz story ain't bad, but it were seemingly s'posed to be little more than a very thin raison detre. is no soz characters or moments that is gonna endure in your imagination beyond end o' game, save for maybe some difficult combat encounters.

 

iwd story actually had some intriguing characters and some okie dokie dialogue... just not any dialogues that players could contribute to.

*shrug*

 

is different games... and that were Gromnir's point. is not so much good v. bad, as apples and oranges. am not seeing much basis for comparisons.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Monte Carlo]

^ I suppose that the expectation was that SoZ was billed as a story-lite dungeon-crawling romp. Without dungeons, as it turns out. Hmmm.

 

IWD was a story-lite dungeon-crawling romp (and fondly remembered by those of us who enjoyed that sort of thing). Comparisons were sort of inevitable given our collective tribal memory of the IE games and how those design decisions Must Inform Everything .

 

Personally, I'd be happy if the NWN2 modding community played to the strengths of the game and made IWD-inspired modules rather than try to tell stories (why not just write some fan fic and put it up on the web instead?).

 

Cheers

MC