Looking to buy new game, need opinions

[Lord Ludtke]

Obviously this might be biased towards NWN since it is in that area, but I would like to hear from the people that liked it and hated it.

A little background:

I enjoyed the story of BG2 and played that one to death, but with set battles and hardly any randomness, its low replayability has forced it
onto my shelf until I forget enough to make it fun again. Usually played with autopause for a turnbased feel.

Diablo 2 is devoid of all story line, but the endless search for some uber weapon and online partying and PvP has had me playing it nonstop
until the recent rash of unpunished cheating made me lose all interest. The clickfest that is battles also wore a little thin.

So essentially, I need to know whats the best RPG to get out there right now with several questions to be answered:

1) Do battles turn into mindless clickfests, how much strat is involved?
2) Whats randomness factor? Monsters always in same spot? Is it possible to get a good item dropped from crap monster, or must buy or do
quests for good items?
3) Do I need to know people with the game to enjoy online games? Once my D2 buddies quit playing, favours were few and far between.
4) Can you play same chars in multi that you played in single game?
5) Has cheating taken over the multi yet, and how will it be handled?

Any help will be appreciated, and the games should not be limited to the ones in the forum here, but any games out there.

Thx

[Granamere]

This is my opinion and just that. NWN has medium replay ability. It could be fun to try the same stuff with different characters. The biggest continue ability for reply is the other modules that other people are putting out. With tons out there and more coming I doubt anyone would get board with this any time soon.
To answer your questions directly.

1. Not really a click fest type of game. With traps and figuring out how to get into certain areas there is some thought involved. Also the big fights you sometimes have to do a few times to win them.
2. Most monsters are in a set location so not much randomness that I have noticed. Also most cool treasure comes for the big fights. I have never gotten a really cool item from a goblin or kobold type of monster. Some give you nothing not even the weapon they were fighting you with.
3. You can go to the Bioware web site and see who is online. Sorry I am not the best person to answer this. Currently I do not play online.
4. Sorry I have not tried this either.
5. Cheating is been built into the game. The server you are on can either only allow illegal characters or not. If you do anything in the game to raise your stats or a host of other things it marks your character illegal and you can only play on servers that allow illegal characters. I have not seen any way around this yet but there always has to be a way. Also I have not really been looking for a way around it.

I hope this helps. So far I like it a lot and I bought it the first day it came out. Next thing I am waiting for is MOO3.

Granamere

[Lord Ludtke]

Thx for the reply, that cleared some things up.

Still need more opinions, IG used to be full of people just waiting to tell you what they thought.

[Granamere]

It is Thursday in the middle of the day. [img]smile.gif[/img] This place has always seem to get swamped on the weekends and when a new game releases that is covered here.If you want an old game that is a mix of what you are looking for try Darkstone. That is the game that I found this site with.

Granamere

[Micah Foehammer]

Here's a few quick answers:

1) Combats are pretty varied - some can be handled with brute force alone, others definitely require tactics. Some can made a lot easier by paying attention to certain clues and other's REQUIRE that you solve some puzzle.

2) Encounter Locations in the OC are generally fixed, but monster types can vary at those locations depending on the total level of your party (hencman, summoned monsters etc.). This may NOT be true with a lot of the new mods where random encounters may be more generally utilized.

3) That is impossible to answer - It depends a lot on YOU. In general though, yes, its not so hard to find a good group to play with. I have two groups I routinely play with: one is from the old interplay message boards, the other is a group from IW. [img]smile.gif[/img] One recommendation, try to avoid full PvP servers. That's a likely place for PK'ers to hide. [img]smile.gif[/img]

4) YES - without any problem at all. [img]smile.gif[/img] I have four active characters now: one has finished the game (YEA!), and three are still plugging through. ALL four of them have been used both in the single player OC and in multiplayer online games. Two of them have actually ventured into the realms of undermountain! lol

5) Some servers enforce legal characters which means that characters who have been edited to ridiculously high stat levels simply can not connect to those servers. Also look for servers that enforce item level restrictions. that prevents a level 3 character from carrying around the axe of the dwarvish lords or some such over-powered weapon. I almost always look for servers that enforce those two rules when I connect on line. That's one way to avoid the cheating problem.

[sep257]

I love multiplayer online. All you need to do is find a server thats up most days of the week, and one with DM support. That way the DM can alter monsters and events in real time to perfectly compliment or challenge your character. Once you have a couple mods marked in your favorites list, one of them is sure to be online. Also you can check out online mods by playtype, i.e. roleplaying, action, story, story lite, team, pvp...et al. I average about 3-4 hours a night playing and its always interesting. There are a few hangups, like disconnecting servers and the like. Overall it is a good value for my money (bought sealed copy off ebay for 30 bucks...check out seller by name of asena shop or something like that.

[Redblueflare]

1) Do battles turn into mindless clickfests, how much strat is involved?
This really depends on your character. With a ranger, fighter, or monk, you can just click on a monster and just watch it get butchered. Occasionally you might want to put on power attack, or stunning fist or the like. Mages, thieves, clerics, a lot more strategy involved. With protective spells, and sneak attacks. You get the idea. (No backstabs though )
2) Whats randomness factor? Monsters always in same spot? Is it possible to get a good item dropped from crap monster, or must buy or do
quests for good items?
Depends on the module. I've actually seen a goblin drop a +3 weapon lol. In the boring singleplayer mode this *ins't* going to happen *ever* [img]tongue.gif[/img] .
3) Do I need to know people with the game to enjoy online games? Once my D2 buddies quit playing, favours were few and far between.
Not at all. I just made some friends that told me they played D&D before NWN. With good old 2nd edition rules too lol.
4) Can you play same chars in multi that you played in single game?
Yes, again it depends on the server. With some servers, you *must* create a new character. With others you can just use the charaters on your cpu. The creator of the module decides. Most to my knowledge allow you to use your character.
5) Has cheating taken over the multi yet, and how will it be handled?
Nope, the closest thing to cheating i've seen is *any* mod is a bored dm with uber powerful weaponry.

Any help will be appreciated, and the games should not be limited to the ones in the forum here, but any games out there.
Thx
Multi Play is the reason to get this game, and since you enjoy that, buy it! I've heard good things about IWD2, and you're not a console gamer so i'll stop here. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Lord Ludtke]

Woohoo, thx guys!

That answered just about all my questions, plus I might try buying it on ebay since its still $80 on the shelf here(canadian money).