Games for Windows & NWN2: What the Hell?

[KieronGillen]

Fantasy's a big place.

NWN and BG are common or garden tolkein-derrived fantasy. PS:T isn't.

(I think the "adult" is confusing topic and approach. You could do a more self-conciously adult BG-esque game, if you wanted)

KG

[Chris Nahr]

So, since Jeff says we should wait for another couple of patches... what news of the next patches? I'm on 1.02 but didn't want to start (haven't had time anyway) if there are still so many unfixed issues.

[Mehrunes]

Originally Posted by Thierry Nguyen

I figure you don't like Minsc, but would you have made the same comment if Jeff had said "none of the characters quite rise to Morte-level greatness"?

I don't see how this is so complicated. Minsc is good comic relief, but he's not a good character even among the narrow subgenre of D&D CRPGs. So no. It has relevance because it usually helps if a critic has some idea what constitutes quality in regard to what he's reviewing. I'm just assuming he chose Minsc because he's better known, but that didn't stop me from taking pause and wondering what he was smoking.

[Matthew Gallant]

Originally Posted by stusser

The new nwn2 review is up, written by jeff himself. Looks about right to me.

1. The dwarf isn't grumpy, he's happy; enthusiastic, even.

2. "[camera has four modes]...all of which suck, as no matter what you choose, you'll find your view obstructed by walls." The ceilings go away if you go bird's eye, which is the default NWN1 view, and there's no problems. It should have been the default view for the sequel, but the camera is not a no-win situation.

3. "Why's it so hard to target yourself or party members?" Because you didn't read the bit where it said you can click their portraits. Um, just like in the last game, or in World of Warcraft, even.

4. "Why are so many of the interface components -- for spellcasting, item crafting, merchant selling, among others -- so cumbersome and non-intuitive?" Huh? Spellcasting is easy. Hit 'F', pick a spell from the icons (with tooltips) stacked by level. Selling is easy. Double-click what you want to sell. Same for buying. Crafting-- well, I guess they opted for that method instead of the WoW "craftin' catalog" because they wanted it to be tedious like real-life arts and crafts.

Performance, yeah. AI, yeah. But overall I say PULL IT.

[FIDGAF]

That is simply Priceless.... ;)

[Arawen]

I think Jeff Green's review is about right.

I bought NWN2 intending to mod the game, but the start of the NWN2 campaign has been less than enjoyable for me. I read reviews about a slow start, but I've spent so many hours waiting for the story and gameplay to get going that I'm writing off the shipping campaign.

The engine problems alone (UI, lag, camera, AI, less than impressive visuals at low settings) break my immersion and make playing a chore. The only camera angle that seems to work for me is top down, but that makes the game look very ugly and looks very bad in dungeons. There is no fog of war. Every character-view camera I have tried is woefully inadequate and does not stick properly.

Even with up to date drivers, the game runs really slowly. When I tried running the game in 800x600, I could not see the entire field of battle though apparently my party members and opponents could see each other welll enough to fire arrows and spells. Given the need to micromanage, that was poor design. Like Jeff, I tried the game on two computers, one recommended spec and one minimum spec, and the game ran poorly on both.

I don't mod for games that I don't enjoy playing. Given my dislike of the gameplay in NWN2, I plan on shelving this one. And I have made this decision even before taking into account the game's odd design choices that make it a far worse multiplayer game and Obsidian's non-functional beta DM client which crashes during basic functions like moving between areas. The toolset looks powerful, but it is much less user friendly than NWN1. For example, the undo command simply does not work for painting terrain.

Maybe in a year or so, there will be some good community content and the most annoying aspects of the engine will be patched, but I really think it is too soon to tell.

Arawen

[olaf]

Originally Posted by stusser

The new nwn2 review is up, written by jeff himself. Looks about right to me.

I think that is a great review. He gets about everything I dont like about the game summed up nicely. I have gotten used to the camera, but it still sucks and I still have to move it a hell of a lot more than I feel like I should have to. And the engine is a piece of shit, I dont care who says what. The visuals just dont merit the kind of hardware this game wants. Finally, the AI really has got to be fixed and they have to make the UI more conducive to managing your party during fights. Auto pause events and a select all are must adds, as is the ability to hotbar/shortcut broadcast commands.

I wonder what they are doing with regards to a patch. I wonder if they are going to pull the same kind of bullshit Troika and Atari pulled with TToEE, a bunch of finger pointing with customers left holding the bag. I hope not.

[Angie Gallant]

Out of the entire litany of adjectives I could use to describe Khelgar, grumpy would not appear.

Arawen, when the game is in a state that you find playable, give it up until the keep. I started to really love the game much earlier than that, but that seems to be the magic spot for everyone else.

[eliandi]

Originally Posted by Arawen

I think Jeff Green's review is about right.

Welcome Arawen, and thanks for a well thought out POV. I'm still on the fence for NWN2, and my criteria matches yours pretty well. Perhaps TW: Medival II or some other title will get my holiday dollars now.

[HRose]

That's a very good review for the space he had available.

[Rock8man]

Arawen and others who are having problems with the camera: Have you tried Driving camera in combination with mouse button 3? If you go into options and turn down the camera lag to almost zero, the combination of driving camera and mouse3 suddenly made the game very very playable for me. Most of my awkwardness with the controls went away when I switched to that.

(Mouse3, when pressed, acts like a "mouse look" toggle so you can look around easier, instead of having to take the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen).

[unbongwah]

Interestingly, Jeff's review voices a number of the same complaints as Matt's, yet he does it much more succinctly: e.g., half a sentence about the heavy emphasis on D&D rules (". . . success is largely determined by the understanding of a rule set that only a genius or a 13-year-old could fully comprehend") and another sentence on the hackneyed plot ("Obsidian's campaign doesn't break new ground (Uh oh! Something evil is happening in the Forgotten Realms!) . . ."), rather than Matt's rambling paragraphs.

Jeff then goes on and talks about the things Matt didn't but should have: the graphics, performance issues, weak AI, interface annoyances, etc. In short, he provides a better summary of the game's strengths and flaws, with roughly the same number of words and about the same conclusion: there's a good RPG in here, but it's got more warts than one would like.

I liked Kieron's review better - which basically boiled down to "This is just 'more of the same' and it doesn't run as well as it should, and yet it's still pretty darn satisfying" - but overall Jeff's review is much stronger than Matt's was.

[Slainte Mhath]

I usually like Matt's articles and reviews, but this time I think a critical point was missed in the construction of Matt's criticism of NWN2. Basically, at the core, NWN and NWN2 are supposed to be pen and paper D&D rulesets brought to life on your computer. I mean, come on, they even included the digital version of a DM for NWN for crying out loud.

NWN and NWN2 are not self-contained video games in the same sense that Oblivion and Diablo are. Instead, they are toolsets, extensions of a pen'n'paper mythos into a digital dimension. We expect that there is a system underneath the layers, and that we'll be held to the same standards and practices that we would if we were sitting at a table actually throwing dice.

Also a factor in any review of NWN2 should be the fact that it's not really comparable to a stand alone product like Oblivion, because NWN2 is a game AND a toolset. It has far more in common with spiritual ancestors like SSI's Unlimited Adventures or the Adventure Construction Set than to a current Bethesda or Blizzard product. We expect a high quality "module" to ship with the game, and one does, but we buy the game knowing that much more content is yet to come thanks to the tools we're provided alongside that module. Saying NWN sucks because the module it comes with is not to your liking is like saying D&D sucked because "Keep on the Borderlands" or whatever it came with was a crappy module.

Some minor bugs, crappy NPC AI and a clunky interface are all valid points to ding in any review of the game. Knocking it for doing what it's supposed to do is not. I think the review is well written, and I look forward to reading more of Matt's stuff in the future, but I simply disagree with the criteria he used to review this game.

[roguefrog]

NWN2, Great D&D Game...OR Greatest D&D Game?

[Bill Dungsroman]

Originally Posted by roguefrog

NWN2, Great D&D Game...OR Greatest D&D Game?

Great. Greatest traditional D&D game is BG2 IMO.

[Slainte Mhath]

Originally Posted by Bill Dungsroman

Great. Greatest traditional D&D game is BG2 IMO.

QFT. Damn straight chuckles.

[Dawn Falcon]

Slainte Mhath,

The thing is, it takes people who enjoy the game to develop mods for it in general. Oh, and the NWN->NWN2 transition has managed to lose a good number of the most talented developers.

I seriously doubt we'll see anything of The Hex Coda's quality for NWN2.

[stusser]

So you're saying that NWN1 official campaign was better than NWN2's? Or that the modding tools were better? The performance problems will be patched away or simply overcome by hardware progressing, and the rest of the issues like AI can be fixed through community scripting. It's too early to ring the bell, NWN2 can still succeed as a community content platform. It's up to atari.

[Draikin]

BG2 fucks too much with the faerun setting to deserve that "traditional" title, too many lich walking around in the streets.

I think NWN2 is the most "plausible" high-level D&D campaign.

The thing is, it takes people who enjoy the game to develop mods for it in general. Oh, and the NWN->NWN2 transition has managed to lose a good number of the most talented developers.

You've to remember a lof of previous Bio-fans jumped ship after the NWN OC scandal.

[caesarbear]

Originally Posted by Dawn Falcon

Slainte Mhath,

The thing is, it takes people who enjoy the game to develop mods for it in general. Oh, and the NWN->NWN2 transition has managed to lose a good number of the most talented developers.

I seriously doubt we'll see anything of The Hex Coda's quality for NWN2.

Most builders that I know were not overly enthused by the NWN1 OC. And I don't see that the NWN2 transition is causing the loss of talented builders and content creators. There's going to be a lot of new talent in the NWN2 scene and we're seeing hints of it already. Some of the more notable talents with NWN1 have already moved on, not because of NWN2, but because they've simply moved on. There are quite a few talented builders that first released for NWN1 only in the past year, and I think most of them are eager to work with NWN2. It's going to take some time though. The wealth of content and know-how available in NWN1 took years.

Jeff's review is far far better, yet still it is only a review of the OC and not of the entire NWN2 package. I agree with Slainte Mhath in that the perspective of treating the NWNs like just another RPG is a very incomplete picture. Yet right now a full review of the whole package just isn't possible. Plus it has some serious problems and issues outside of the singleplayer experience, that will undoubtedly be addressed. So while treating NWN2 today as just a SP RPG is not incorrect, it would be nice to see, although I doubt it would actually happen, a follow up in about a year or less that reviews the rest of the NWN2 product. How does multiplayer perform? How has the toolset improved, what didn't improve? Can it allow the community and prosperity the first NWN?

[unbongwah]

Originally Posted by Dawn Falcon

The thing is, it takes people who enjoy the game to develop mods for it in general.

Normally, yes, but a lot of people who disliked NWN's OC still went on to support and develop for NWN. The toolset should be judged separately from the included campaign.

Now, if the toolset sucks or people can't run it on their PCs due to high system requirements, that's another matter...

I seriously doubt we'll see anything of The Hex Coda's quality for NWN2.

FYI, Stefan Gagne recently announced he's cancelled HeX coda 02 and is considering working on NWN 2 projects. So there's hope he'll continue his fine work on NWN 2's engine. *crosses fingers*

[foogla]

Originally Posted by Draikin

BG2 fucks too much with the faerun setting to deserve that "traditional" title, too many lich walking around in the streets.

I think NWN2 is the most "plausible" high-level D&D campaign.

All I know is the only FR D&D adventure (I don't count Undermountain as FR, you can place that anywhere) I owned had a random encounter that had the possibility of getting captured by Velsharoon. Yup the (now) Demigod of Necromancy. Only then (1995 or so) he was just a level 23 or so Necromancer with an army of Vampires "and other intelligent Undead". And this was just a throwaway.

I felt the level of the opposition in BG2 was exactly right.

[roguefrog]

So the City of Amn actually has like five resident liches living literally a door down from some common folk, a beholder cult that openly broadcasts itself to the other churches, a crazy mad scientist dungeon built into the sewers just below a major market place, a techno-wizardry planeshifting sphere in the slum, cyborg elves from outer space with laser assault rifles...

[foogla]

Originally Posted by roguefrog

So the City of Amn actually has like five resident liches living literally a door down from some common folk, a beholder cult that openly broadcasts itself to the other churches, a crazy mad scientist dungeon built into the sewers just below a major market place, a techno-wizardry planeshifting sphere in the slum, cyborg elves from outer space with laser assault rifles...

You forgot the various high-level parties with artefact-level weaponry hanging around everywhere. Oh and the mage guild with limitless teleporting ability and uncountable ~11th level mages.

Sounds about right, yeah. :)

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Angie Gallant

Out of the entire litany of adjectives I could use to describe Khelgar, grumpy would not appear.

Grumpy, no. But he is definitely the stereotypical dwarf. Poor choice of words. But he's spoiling for a fight, and has a short temper.


Me, I'm still mixed. The performance is so bad I'm thinking of shelving it.

And I'm behind Jeff on the UI issues. Sure, you can click on the portrait. But I'd rather be able to click on the person themselves, since they are closer to where my mouse will be.

But oh god the camera. NWN2 is going to be my hallmark for how not to make a camera from now on.

[Kevin Grey]

Originally Posted by Charles

And I'm behind Jeff on the UI issues. Sure, you can click on the portrait. But I'd rather be able to click on the person themselves, since they are closer to where my mouse will be.

Did you select "possess character on selection" or whatever in the options or are you referring to something different?

[MikeJ]

Originally Posted by Charles

And I'm behind Jeff on the UI issues. Sure, you can click on the portrait. But I'd rather be able to click on the person themselves, since they are closer to where my mouse will be.

You can click on the person to select them, it's just not the default option. For some arcane reason...

There's also some camera lag parameters that you want to turn down to zero. They only make the camera worse.

[Luke M]

I still can't believe they left the RTS controls out of NWN2. It's a party-based PC RPG in a post-Infinity Engine world! That it feels somewhat like the KotoR series doesn't give it license to compromise good interface design.

[Charles]

I turned the camera lag to zero. Didn't know about the character selection option. I'll look for it. Not sure if it will help or hinder though. There's a UI bug where your click in the world doesn't register until the next frame. So if you are moving, it's nearly impossible to click on something. I'm forced to get in to the habit of pausing to click on an item or person.

I tell you, there are some seriously green bugs in this game.

[Soldats]

You guys know you can select your characters with F1-F4 (F5 too later on), right? I couldn't get used to the click-to-possess cause I kept accidentally clicking a different person when they were bunched together, but with the F-keys, I have had no problems at all.

Their inability to stay in Defensive Casting/Power Attack/Flurry of Blows continues to piss me off though.