Let's Play Neverwinter Nights

[sorophx]

but don't they get resized? and it's really hard to read the text in conversations if the resolution is smaller (800x600 for example).

[Gorth]

The size is fine for the purpose (IMNSHO)

[sorophx]

I would shrink the pics if this was a blog or something. but since here they get resized automatically I see no point. at least 'til now.

 

what exactly is the problem with them for you, Will? or why do you think they should be smaller?

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

but don't they get resized? and it's really hard to read the text in conversations if the resolution is smaller (800x600 for example).

They resize after being downloaded but actually downloading them takes ages.

 

Most LPs I see use a 640x480 or 800x600 resolution, but in those the game is played that resolution and I think the text scales. Widescreen is never really necessary either.

 

I was viewing these on a smaller laptop, though, might've just been the screen size.

Edited February 22, 2011 by WILL THE ALMIGHTY

[sorophx]

They resize after being downloaded but actually downloading them takes ages.

oh? takes no more than 20 seconds for me. well, that's probably because they're not compressed, I'll be converting the pics to JPG from now on, see if it helps

[sorophx]

and welcome back. I've decided to listen to Will's suggestion and will no longer post full-sized images (unless the majority votes otherwise), I will also be cutting them to pieces where possible. as a result most screenshots now look like crap, because JPEG doesn't like bright colors for some reason. but it does make the game look grim, dare I say "dark fantasy"? let's roll.

 

well, after some rest and recreation at the Inn in Port Llast Kaftan and Volo presented Lady Aribeth with the new evidence.

 

 

so, it was either the Neverwinter Woods or Charwood next. after three rounds of stone-paper-scissors the fate had decided to send our heroes to the East, where the East Road led deeper into the Neverwinter Woods.

 

the East Road area is completely overrun by trolls. fortunately, they're not nearly as tough as the ones in ToEE. you don't need any kind of magic to kill them, the usual stabbing and slashing does a good job. there's also series of troll caves and a fort. Kaftan and Volo decided to check out the encampment first.

 

on their way they were ambushed by a young werewolf, but a single blow to the head was enough to tranquilize the beast. it was Geth, one of Neurik's poor lads. Volo tossed a silver charm his way, and the wolf turned into a human.

 

 

will do.

 

the fort turned out to be a camp for an archeological expedition from Waterdeep. it looked ravaged, the people around the camp seemed agitated and scared. Kaftan tried asking around to find out what had happened.

 

 

so, Jax was the leader of the expedition, Lenton was the head of the guards. Volo went to look for Lenton, while Kaftan took it upon himself to speak to Jax.

 

 

with that taken care of Kaftan entered the barracks to check on Volo's progress with Lenton, but was stopped by some stupid looking guy. he said his name was Revat.

 

 

that's a very sad story, boy. Kaftan promised to look for his "momma" when he went to the troll caves.

Edited February 25, 2011 by sorophx

[sorophx]

Lenton had some very interesting things to say to Volo.

 

 

don't you just love people with a grudge, they'll do anything to get revenge. suits our team nicely, they were going to clear out the caves anyway, might as well get payed.

 

on the second floor of that building Volo found a rather aggressive halfling.

 

 

meet Delilah. she's one of the bounties Kaftan has been given in the beginning of the chapter, all we need to do is cut off her ear and present it to the authorities in Port Llast. when Delilah was bleeding like a pig she begged Volo to stop the fight and let her get away with her life, but Kaftan would have none of that and slit her throat swiftly. "It'll make a nice addition to my ear-necklace", he said cutting off Delilah's ears.

 

it was time to enter the troll caves. there are three possible ways to take, the main entrance leads straight to level two. while two others serve as back doors leading to different parts of level one of the caves. as per usual, the party went for the storage areas first.

 

 

this level isn't very fun. it's swarming with trolls, ogres. there are a lot of dead bodies lying around. one of them even had a note on it.

 

 

so Kaftan and Volo were on the right track. what's more, in the next big area they found the Troll Chieftain! it was Lenton's lucky day.

 

 

he was surrounded by a bunch of smaller trolls, but nothing Volo's magic couldn't handle. after the fight Kaftan claimed his prize:

 

the neighboring cave held another interesting encounter. they found an old woman inside a magical prison.

 

 

oh, you mean this ring right here?

Edited February 25, 2011 by sorophx

[sorophx]

that's right! Revat did give Kaftan some ring. here you go, Janis.

 

 

oh, I'm sorry, I certainly do not wish the wrath of such a powerful mage upon me.

 

in the other part of that cave Kaftan found another survivor. it was Darius, mentioned in the note they had found earlier.

 

 

what could it possibly be? they were about to find out soon enough.

 

level two doesn't have anything of interest, except for Ghasts, Ghouls and Troll Berserkers.

 

 

the undead have this nasty aura, a stench that lowers Constitution temporarily, good thing there's not a lot of them. level 3 is even more trivial. there's a pretty epic battle waiting as soon as the party enters this new area, but Stoneskin, Haste and Fireballs make any battle a walk in the park, at this point. after clearing the caves Kaftan and Volo finally found the stairs that led into the ancient ruins.

 

they found a locked gate and a golem guarding it.

 

 

seemed like the only way past it was to find some way to persuade the golem to let the party through or destroy it. it looked pretty tough though, so Volo proposed to check out the accessible parts of that area first.

 

 

see the statues? those are gargoyles, they come to life as soon as you approach them. not a big threat, more of a nuisance.

 

 

this area also houses Minogons and Horrors. both creatures are constructs. and Minogons have this nasty Area of Effect stun attack which they use constantly while not engaged. thank goodness we have Volo and his Fireballs or else this could've gotten ugly.

 

one of the chests contained a weird looking ring, after clearing the area Volo took the ring back to the Guardian, and what do you know, it worked.

 

 

the next level had a similar layout, but this time the Guardian wanted a password. it was time for more exploring.

 

 

this is an interesting encounter, that chest in front contains the scroll with the password, but once you open it, three Flesh Golems come out of hiding and attack. I suppose this fight could become hard for a single character, but for our party it was a piece of cake. and here's our prize:

 

Edited February 25, 2011 by sorophx

[sorophx]

the third Guardian wasn't so nice. as soon as Kaftan approached it, the golem went hostile.

 

this game has a rather strange bug. whenever a creature turns hostile towards one of the characters, it stays friendly to any other player character. and you can't hurt friendlies with spells. you already saw it in Helm's Hold. and this time Kaftan had to kill the golem on his own. good thing NWN is a game for pussies, and golems here have their resistance to slashing weapons toned down. didn't take long to destroy the giant. but! the gate was closed! now they had to find the key...

 

 

what's that? a new type of enemy? I don't remember the name of that gray thing, but it was just as susceptible to Fireballs as any other monster we've encountered so far, so who cares. the other room had a group of Minogons, after disposing of them Kaftan looted the chests and found two interesting scrolls.

 

 

so these scrolls suggest the Creator race is still around? that can't be good...

 

Volo found a note on a dead body, along with a key.

 

 

heh, poor fellow. at least he was able to help us after he had died. the key opened the gates to the inner sanctum.

 

three sorcerers were waiting for Kaftan and Volo. this is one of the toughest battles, right up there with the animated swords from Neverwinter tombs. the lizards start the fight by casting invisibility on themselves, then they summon Dire Boars and begin tossing Fireballs at the party. I wasn't prepared for that kind of power.

 

 

as you can see, Daelan is already down, Volo is near death and the only thing keeping Kaftan alive is his Stoneskin. we had to retreat and revise our strategy, so I teleported back to Port Llast. after healing and buffing up we came back... only to find the place empty. due to a bug the sorcerers disappeared. well, good for us, now we can loot the place and finally get out of this... oh, hello?

 

[sorophx]

the sorcerer had managed to cast Fireball before Kaftan closed the distance between them, that was the best the lizard could do, very soon it was begging for mercy.

 

 

and there you have it. the lizard attacked Kaftan with those last words and had to be put down. looting the place produced two ancient tomes.

 

 

this Morag sounds like a very nasty bitch. somehow Volo had the feeling they'd be meeting her soon.

 

 

must be the book Jax was looking for. the pressure plate in the room teleported both drow and their companions to the surface. they went straight to Jax with their findings.

 

 

and Volo took the Troll Chieftain's head to Lenton to get the reward.

 

 

he also picked Revat's money on the way back. and that was that for the East Road. next stop - the Neverwinter Wood.

[sorophx]

not a comment in two weeks, hmm. I guess I should just keep updating disregarding the amount of pics on the page?

[Morgoth]

Ah, NWN, it was my first RPG. Without NWN I would have never played the IE games and become a RPG fanboy.

[Nihilus5078]

not a comment in two weeks, hmm. I guess I should just keep updating disregarding the amount of pics on the page?

Starting to become a bit like me.

[Gorth]

not a comment in two weeks, hmm. I guess I should just keep updating disregarding the amount of pics on the page?

I admire your persistence. I gave up on NWN1 shortly after starting on chapter 4 when playing it originally

[sorophx]

it's a matter of principle

[sorophx]

ok... there's been a development, that can put a halt on this LP.

 

yesterday I found out that the whole line of laptops, one of which I'm a proud owner of (HP Pavillion tx2500), has a serious design flaw that practically makes it only a matter of time before the machine fries. the motherboard (or chipset) manufacturer made a mistake when calculating the maximum temperatures the board can withstand. as a result, the overall durability is a lot lower than it should be. one of the engineers made a wrong entry in the documents and the hardware was designed that way.

 

how in hell it made it past the QA tests I have no idea. but on average these laptops don't live more than a year and a half. it's a well-known issue, but HP won't admit because nobody wants to have to call back the whole shipment. they keep blaming nVidia and motherboard manufacturer (some Chinese firm).

 

the good news is my laptop is still alive and kicking. but since it's 3 years old, every time I turn it on there's a pretty big chance of it frying. I have two possibilities; keep going as if I didn't know about it and wait for it to die eventually, then send it over to a service center to have them replace the northbridge/southbridge/whichever goes first. will cost me from 50 to 500 bucks. or I could stop using it and try to modify the cooling system.

 

what does it have to do with this LP? well, Volo's character is in there, and I don't have a third machine currently to replace my HP with. so either I keep going and risk my machine, keep going without Volo (which is even worse), or just stop for now. I'm still waiting for an expert to reply on my chances of saving the laptop, but don't be surprised if I'm not updating this LP.

 

I do have another LP in the works. I could start it in the meantime... oh, we'll see.

[Nightshape]

not a comment in two weeks, hmm. I guess I should just keep updating disregarding the amount of pics on the page?

I admire your persistence. I gave up on NWN1 shortly after starting on chapter 4 when playing it originally

 

Bugs made NWN 1 a total misery for me on release... I revisit it now and again, but I mostly played multiplayer.

[Gorth]

not a comment in two weeks, hmm. I guess I should just keep updating disregarding the amount of pics on the page?

I admire your persistence. I gave up on NWN1 shortly after starting on chapter 4 when playing it originally

 

Bugs made NWN 1 a total misery for me on release... I revisit it now and again, but I mostly played multiplayer.

I bought the... silver box thingy? The one with the original and SoU (no HotU). I think it was fairly stable (if butt ugly).

 

That is why I love this thread and should probably post more encouragement. It's like listening to a horror story rather than living through it

[BicycleOfDeath]

NWN, how I love thee. So many hours spent in persistent worlds.

[Nightshape]

not a comment in two weeks, hmm. I guess I should just keep updating disregarding the amount of pics on the page?

I admire your persistence. I gave up on NWN1 shortly after starting on chapter 4 when playing it originally

 

Bugs made NWN 1 a total misery for me on release... I revisit it now and again, but I mostly played multiplayer.

I bought the... silver box thingy? The one with the original and SoU (no HotU). I think it was fairly stable (if butt ugly).

 

That is why I love this thread and should probably post more encouragement. It's like listening to a horror story rather than living through it

 

 

Oh I actually own, I think 4 copies of NWN's + expansions... I invested heavily in the multiplayer... All's said though, it was a shower of crap on released, and me being me I bought it on release, and the patch to fix the save bug took forever to come. That's before all the other bugs etc...

 

Volo has spent the entire period of time swearing that NWN's had no issues on release, because he didn't have any, for me it was utterly spoilt by several trashed save games. I will go back and play it all one day, but my backlog is already so impressive that I tend to play mostly based on my work requirements, which meant I chewed through loads of FPS's over the last couple of years, now I have time to play what I like. So when I'm done with Baldur's Gate, I may infact give NWN's a proper and fair shot... Which reminds me, I want to play NWN2 again, that was WAY better, but from what I recall the retarded camera is even more noticeable after playing Dragon Age.

 

Why did Obsidian screw up the camera so badly? I still hope the offending programmer/designer had to answer for himself, its an abortion. I also hope that Obsidian learnt from the experience, a single, concise, simple camera, is a much better option for players than a complex bunch of different camera's.

[sorophx]

I like the free camera in both NWN and NWN2, very useful.

 

oh and NWN still has the save corruption bug

[Tale]

What's the save corruption bug?

[Nightshape]

What's the save corruption bug?

 

The one in NWN's that I recall, is that basically if you saved at a certain point it buggered the entire savegame, it was a total game breaker. Sucked ass... really hope it isn't still around, I had it 3 times in that first week in chapter 2 and 3.

[sorophx]

the game also tends to crash while saving, corrupting the file and the one you were trying to overwrite (if you're like me and don't like to keep more than 5 saves). first time this has happened to me, I was making my way to second-to-last fight in the game. and I didn't have a back-up save from the last chapter. so I deleted the game in frustration.

[Volourn]

L0L None of this mythical stuff happened to me. R00fles!