A good choice for multiplayer game?
 

I want to keep in touch with a couple of friends and hit upon the idea of playing a multiplayer game over the net. We are fans of RPG and the current plan is to try to play the Icewind Dale trilogy in multiplayer mode while chatting over Teamspeak. I have played (and love!) Baldur's Gate but not I have never played Icewind Dale which I believe has a similar game engine. Anyhow... I want this game to be fun and so I'm looking for a game that none of us have played before. So... is the multiplayer implementation decent or will it be laggy and buggy? Does this sound like it would be fun or would we be better off with a more recent RPG incarnation like Neverwinter Nights or somesuch? (another game I have not played)

Any advice?

- Gherbod

P.S. We plan to play through all of the games. I am assuming that IWD is like BG in this respect... that we could import our game into IWDII.

Re: A good choice for multiplayer game?
 

I played with xander a multiplayer game once. Each played with 2 characters. It was IWD2 we played.

We reached somewhere near the ice temple.

The game runs smoothly if you have a decent internet connection, with just very slight lags in some big battles and a tiny bit longer loading time. But otherwise it was great fun. Quite a nice experience when you just conrol one or 2 characters and the others are controlled by someone else. The fedex quests become a bit more boring, while the battles become much more fun, even the ordinary random monster battles.
Maybe xander can add a few things on how he found it.

The biggest challenge actually is to find spare time to play that would suit all players. It was difficult enough for me and xander to find a 2 or so hours once or twice a week... but this all depends on who you play with.


Just on a side notice, you cannot "import" an IWD game into IWD2. It is not like BG. You do not play the same party in IWD2 but make a new one from scratch. IWD2 uses a completely newe ruleset (though the engine is same).

Re: A good choice for multiplayer game?
 

Great info... thanks!! I agree that finding time to play will be difficult... will probably only be a couple of hours once per week. We'll see.

Thanks for mentioning that there is no import option. That means it may make more sense just to play IWDII.

Thanks!

- Gherbod

Re: A good choice for multiplayer game?
 

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience,just wish my PC had been up to scratch,it is something i would like to try again,but as ZFR stated when we played it was difficult getting the time to play,what with work commitments and all that.that said give IWD2 a shot,I am sure you will love it.