Bioware/Bethesda appreciation thread

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Moreover, the fact that you controlled only one character was the little thing that brought the game closer to the p&p experience.

 

It was also the huge thing that turned NWN single player into a horribly boring experience.

 

That was only because the henchmen, and henchwomen, were not very well done for the most part - one or two of them were, in fact, good.

[Monte Carlo]

I like both single-player and party CRPGs altho' I much prefer party-based games.

 

Artificial intelligence, at the moment, just ain't up to it. One day there will be intuitive, light-touch AI for NPCs. Until then, paty based games where you control to a greater degree what's going on will be, for me, the ideal.

 

NWN1 suffered from the simple design premise that one character plus an NPC should be able to master every challenge. This is contrary to what D&D was originally about (I know I bang on about this but it's a small unit fantasy combat / tactics game where classes replicate the rock-scissors-stone or cavalry-infantry-archers idea). If you say "this is a D&D game" people will, not unreasonably, expect the classic D&D elements. OK, if you moved the whole concept away from dungeon with multiple challenges (i.e. where you need a thief, a cleric and fighter and a magic-user) to one that is neutral then fine. But in NWN1 they didn't. Notice how NWN mod-makers make extremely good single-player mods and fearlessly add the caveat - "this mod is intended for a thief type character." That works. You play a cleric at your peril. Even though it's single-player it feels like D&D.

 

The result of the single-player compromise in NWN1? It was my single-classed thief and the Bard NPC chick (who I thought was very well done) put a melee smackdown on a Black Dragon. Please. I didn't feel like I'd been really clever or skilfull, I just felt that the game was gimped in my favour.

 

For all my moaning, at least Bio realise that enough people like the old-skool model and implemented it in Dragon Age.

 

Cheers

MC

[Pidesco]

Imagine if you were playing P&P D&D with just one rolled character and a retarded DM. Is it fun? Well, that's the single player NWN experience.

[RPGmasterBoo]

For all my moaning, at least Bio realise that enough people like the old-skool model and implemented it in Dragon Age.

 

Its not the old school model, its the only viable model when DnD is concerned. If anyone wants to solo they have Oblivion and Diablo, which were made for that.

 

Everything was wrong about NWN. Its graphics were bad, its interface was ugly, the storyline was generic, the characters...wait what characters?, the fighting was pointless since you couldn't lose, there were no tactics at all, overall it was a lonely and pointless endavour and I'm ashamed to say I didn't see that right until the very end of the campaign. The expansions that were hyped in an effort to fix this were average themselves, and only looked good when compared to the OC, which doesn't say much since the OC sits somewhere around Oblivion level. Also the Shadows of the Underdark were blatantly overpowered, and somebody should have told me to turn left at Albuquerque when i was slogging through the 200 hours of Bg+BGII+ToB to get epic level characters, because apparently it can be done in a fraction of the time.

 

As for the toolkit: if I wanted to play build my own adventure I would have bought a bucket of LEGO instead of forking 40 euros for this trash.

 

 

The ultimate toolkit.

Edited August 27, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Darth InSidious]

Perhaps I'm simply lacking in patience, but I found NWN's OC so dull I couldn't get much beyond Port Llast. The "Fetch four magic animals" quest was bad enough - wandering aimlessly in some frankly rather ugly countryside, and seemingly-endless dungeons proved rather too great a tax on my attention-span. On the other hand, fresh memories of it made NWN2 seem like a masterpiece, warts and all.

Edited August 27, 2009 by Darth InSidious

[Pidesco]

NWN left such a strong impression in me, that every time a song from the OC started playing in NWN2 I had urges to quit the game. And sometimes I did.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

So is that a good thing?

[Volourn]

"Imagine if you were playing P&P D&D with just one rolled character and a retarded DM. Is it fun? Well, that's the single player NWN experience."

 

Actually, yes, it is fun. And, doable. There are even solo adventures officially puvblished for D&D.

 

 

 

"This is contrary to what D&D was originally about (I know I bang on about this but it's a small unit fantasy combat / tactics game where classes replicate the rock-scissors-stone or cavalry-infantry-archers idea). If you say "this is a D&D game" people will, not unreasonably, expect the classic D&D elements."

 

D&D cna be played with a 'solo' character and be quite fun. While 4 characters is the usual, it's far from the only number that cna be used. It's a myth to claim it's the only way to have fun with D&D.

 

P.S. NWN is awesome. And, the OC while not the greatest ever, is better than 90% of other D&D video games including SOU, SOZ, EOTB series, and tons more.

[RPGmasterBoo]

P.S. NWN is awesome. And, the OC while not the greatest ever, is better than 90% of other D&D video games including SOU, SOZ, EOTB series, and tons more.

 

Most of which are simplistic, limited by technology and downright unplayable today. So what's your point? Being better than a pile of outdated ancient era games is some sort of measure of quality?

 

The only thing "awesome" is that they had the cheek to release it and stamp a "From the creators of Baldurs Gate" on the box.

Edited August 27, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Volourn]

"So what's your point? Being better than a pile of outdated ancient era games is some sort of measure of quality?"

 

SOU, and SOZ are anicent games? IWD2 is ancient? POR2 is ancient? TOEE is ancient? L0LZ

 

let's also not forget that NWN is now a 6+ year old game.

[Pidesco]

I would like you to explain in detail how SoZ and IWD2 are worse than NWN, especially considering that the main activity in these three games is combat.

[RPGmasterBoo]

"So what's your point? Being better than a pile of outdated ancient era games is some sort of measure of quality?"

 

SOU, and SOZ are anicent games? IWD2 is ancient? POR2 is ancient? TOEE is ancient? L0LZ

 

let's also not forget that NWN is now a 6+ year old game.

 

NWN is better than IWD2? In what universe?

or

TOEE? This game, like IWD2 actually is DnD and has a small thing called party based tactical combat. NWN is what happens when DnD beds Diablo.

 

So a full game beats its own expansion and perhaps the worst DnD RPG ever made (POR2)? Yaay, there's probably an unlockable achievement for that.

 

Yes its 6 years old. Unfortunately Baldurs Gate is older. And better. In just about everything.

 

The criticism would never have been so harsh if NWN wasn't a generation behind the games released by the same company up to that time. It wouldn't even be so terrible only if there was any actual ambition behind it - so we could say: "look, they tried and didn't make it, better luck next time". But the only thing we can say is "look they saw Diablo II sales figures and went green with envy, and decided to slap together a Diablo of their own"

Edited August 27, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Aristes]

I actually liked TOEE better than NWN, although it was a toss up. I think both had potential that the design teams didn't achieve. I think I might have bought one of the NWN expansions but since I can't remember it, I might only have thought about it. Likewise, I played MotB. I think MotB was the highlight of the series for me. What I thought at the time was, "this is a great game, but I still see all the things that irritate me about the NWN engine and design." That's why I didn't bother with SoZ. I'm glad that the series is played out and they're going to... some sort of MMORPG or something now? Whatever.

 

Now, the Aurora engine (that's the one for NWN, right?) has morphed into other games, such as the Witcher and KotOR. So what was it about NWN that I just didn't like? Hell, I even played it with friends. I even created a room once and played around with DMing for folks. Just never really took. I enjoyed NWN for what it was, but by the middle of my second run my interests were waning. Considering how often I replay titles and how fast I used to go through them, that's not an A-list title for me.

 

Still nothing argues like success and the NWN franchise was extremely successful, not only for Bioware but also for Obsidian.

[Volourn]

"wouldn't even be so terrible only if there was any actual ambition behind it "

 

L0L The last thing people should criticize BIo for when it comes to NWN is 'lack of ambition'. HAHAHAHA!

 

P.S. NWN is no more Diablo than BG2 is.

 

 

"And better. In just about everything."

 

Absolutely false.

[entrerix]

nwn isn't even half as fun as diablo 1. let alone diablo 2.

 

BG2 and nwn 1 have almost nothing in common in my opinion except they both claim to be rpg's but only one of them really pulls it off

 

I refuse to believe those games were made by the same people.

[alanschu]

Heh, I didn't mind NWN.

 

Maybe because I played through it MP? I did enjoy HotU.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

NWN was a fun game, and it was only better if you had more than one person playing (in fact I bought several copies once it became cheaper so I could LAN). So, yeah, I agree with Alanshu.

[Volourn]

"BG2 and nwn 1 have almost nothing in common in my opinion except they both claim to be rpg's but only one of them really pulls it off"

 

I agree. NWN is more of a RPG than BG2 will ever be. Thanks for admitting it.

[RPGmasterBoo]

"BG2 and nwn 1 have almost nothing in common in my opinion except they both claim to be rpg's but only one of them really pulls it off"

 

I agree. NWN is more of a RPG than BG2 will ever be. Thanks for admitting it.

 

For someone relatively respected in the RPG community such as it is, you say awfully stupid things.

[Purkake]

Wait, someone respects him? Is it the troll clan that spawned him?

Edited August 27, 2009 by Purkake

[Pidesco]

"BG2 and nwn 1 have almost nothing in common in my opinion except they both claim to be rpg's but only one of them really pulls it off"

 

I agree. NWN is more of a RPG than BG2 will ever be. Thanks for admitting it.

 

For someone relatively respected in the RPG community such as it is, you say awfully stupid things.

 

 

who the what, now.

[Volourn]

"For someone relatively respected in the RPG community such as it is, you say awfully stupid things."

 

1. Respected by who? Nobody.

 

2. I'm not here to be 'respected'. I'm here to exchange opinions and discuss games. I don't care if people like me. It's completely irrelevant as I'm quite happy with my RL friends (or do I have any? lolz, only i know!).

 

People on the interent simply cna't handle differing opinions. Afterall, anyone who disagrees with you has got to be stupid. Right?

 

P.S. I'm unimportant. Let's discuss the actual topic(s).

Edited August 27, 2009 by Volourn

[alanschu]

In terms of providing the player with a divergent set of choices for how to proceed through the game, I don't remember BG2 being as diverse as NWN was. Certainly not BG.

 

Been such a long time since I played either BG game though. Or NWN for that matter.

Edited August 27, 2009 by alanschu

[Volourn]

Exactly. Of course, BG2 is overall better than NWN OC but I've never argued otherwise.

[entrerix]

how is nwn more of an rpg than bg2?

 

explain in clear terms so we can understand your apparent lunacy