[HOTU]: First impressions from anyone?

[philip]

Originally posted by andrewas: The TNT2 is the generation before the original Geforce. Its an OK card, but you will need a good CPU to drive NWN without hardware T&L and all that stuff.

I have a 733 MHz CPU with TNT2 rest is minimum of the requirements. So far I had some drops in frame rate in the intro movie (had about the same amount in SoU and NWN) The cutscenes were choppy. edit: the changing of cameras, spells and such were all ok. I don't know if that's because of the scripting of the camera angles and changing them (I've seen some cutscenes that way. also for these ones it wasn't noticeable from the voice acting that it was having drops in frame rate) in rooms with lots of visual effects, or packed with at least 10 monsters there wasn't any noticable slowdown.

Every system is different so it's only a small indication. BTW I did the following, kept in mind I might have need a new video card but buy it just to see if it works. And so far I can really live with what slowdown there is for me, and as I'm not planning to buy other games for some time, I'm not going to upgrade my video card or my CPU as there won't be a huge difference for me.

edit: might be the heavy parts for the video card still have to come but I'll post later if anyone wants

[ 12-07-2003, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: philip ]

[Larry_OHF]

I have confirmed that we do not need the "unlock camera=1" command in the nwnplayer.ini file anymore. As Memnoch theorized...the game rewrote the file and added in thier own command that makes our hak useless. I performed tests both with and without the command in place and they work equally...so I removed my addition to prevent problems.

[ScottG]

Spit'n Polish + (for the short version of my review).

For the (very) long:

I thought the "review" mentioned in the post b4 was nothing more than cooking together other info. leaks (i.e I didn't think much of it but I was glad that the link was posted), so here is my take (with limited exposure - level 2 of the "dungeon")

Of course everyone knows about the sky, robes, and camera views, new spells, feats, and classes. So I won't bore you unless its important and it hasn't been said elsewhere (or hasn't been emphasized enough).

Graphics:

I don't find the interface any different (beyond camera view functionality). However the interface, (excepting the quick slot), was already outstanding both graphically and functionally - so not much here to say.. Most of the mosters have more detail than before and motion is a little more "fluid", (running seems more like running). Speaking of motion there was one fix here: monks with a speed modifier and haste move like they should now - extremely fast (where b4 they were moving as if they only had haste.) The scenic areas I've been to so far are business as usual. If you remember the fire giant lair (the red dragon's lair) in NWN's then you know what the dungeon looks like for the most part. I'm hoping the underdark has a lot more to it - otherwise I'm unimpressed (it isn't bad - but it is a case of been there done that that you really don't get with the "town" setting). (and btw, I play with a digital-in on the monitor at 1600 by 1024 with a dot pitch of .23 on an LCD - so yup, I know what I'm talking about here "detail"-wise.)

Treasure & items:

Treasure seems to be "same old, same old" but there is one very interesting niggle and a fix of a clear oversight in the game. The niggle? (minor spoiler so be aware........
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your items are removed at the beginning of the game - so if you were one of those that really depended on you items then your in for a rough time. (i.e. build a character that can "stand" on its own.) Because I haven't gotten to chap. 2 yet I can't say wether or not you can still save at the beginning, go into your own treasure mod with your custom items, and then start a game from the 2nd chapter with the custom items.
The fix is that you can no longer use spellcasting wearables without wearing the item, (very nice and about time..).
Additionally (ion?) stones are back now, for those that were really interested, as are "intelligent" weapons.

Treasure item creation (in the toolset) however is a totally different story, the "limits" have been boosted big time (i.e. you can now have 20 damage per hit of each damage type), plus you have a few more options to choose from in most categories.

Items can be colored in game only modestly, (still nice though). You can't change the way they look like you can in the toolset, (bummer - I really would have liked to have seen this "malibu barbie" feature). You can however create you're own items in game provided you spend the skill points, (I don't really see this happening though - there are FAR to many usefull skills to spend points in. (In fact the shear quantity of skills relative to the quantity of skill points no longer seems correct - its a problem now, and one they will need to work on.)

Gameplay..

The first few battles can be difficult for some characters IF you engage in combat (there are "friends there at these battles as well, but unless you make the kill you won't get the xp.). Remember you don't have all your nice items yet and unless you have suitable magical protection you'll take some hits - maybe enough to kill you, particularly if you are right in the middle of things. Putzing around most of the dungeon however is for the most part easily do-able and you'll pick up a LOT of nice treasure quickly to compensate (puting you back in power-gaming mode with considerably less stress).

Why less stress rather than no stress with battles? Well they did the AI pretty well on the "encounters". I'd even say CONSIDERABLY better than either of the other modules - (remember the lame undead spawnattorium in the 2nd chp. of SOU). You have variations in your battles, but the ones that are really difficult now aren't the uber characters, remember you are "uber" now. (Or perhaps they are and I just haven't come across them yet..)

The battles that are difficult are the swarm type (dare I say "hordes"), battles with LOTs of melee-type character pummeling away at you with several mage-types, (and there divine counterparts), droping damage spells on you (think ice storm, fireballs, incindeary cloud). If you're a spell caster and you have the game's difficulty setting where your spells don't hurt you or friends then you shouldn't have to many problems - you'll be doing the same to them (firing off area effect spells), however you'll no doubt have adequate protection (greater stoneskin, ethereal vissage, premonition, various elemental protection, etc.). However you will either have to have a distraction (summoning, henchmen, etc.) OR you'll need to fire off your spells pretty quickly. (The key difference here is that your opponents in these situations won't have much protection.) For melee type characters things become a bit more difficult - just hope that you'll pick up adaquete armor quickly. Even then its more difficult than that, while you may be able to take-on the melee types crowding around you, you'll probably find that those spellcasters are dropping hell on you. The key then for the melee-types is to avoid the horde and run to as many spell casters as you can and take them out first. Even after doing so you're not "crossing the finish line", those hordes can not only dish out the hitpoint damage - they can take it to. Even fairly powerfully damaging weapons (and bonuses to damage) may take at LEAST two hits per monster with often 7+ monsters (sometimes double if your not carefull). Meanwhile even with a decent AC you will be hit fairly often with high damage. This of course then leads into certain combat feats, but if you pay close attention I think you'll find that the AI is MUCH better than before - and becuause of it more fun!

Combat Feats: they come in 3 sizes, the cleaves, their counterpart the whirlwinds, and the expertises. Both have the +'s and -'s and they are a VERY important part of the game for melee-types. First off the cleaves - no doubt if you've used 'em then you know how they opperate: attacks are normal but you get extra attacks and they happen VERY quickly when taking on a mob. Whirlwinds on the otherhand essentially hits everyone at once - like starting up a blender, the problem here is that you must select the function (like power attacks or the expertises) AND it slow to respond (rather like casting a spell), moreover it doesn't work with other skills like cleave. BUT you can select it over and over again (infinitly), (unlike a spell). (this is how I thought the arcane archer's hail of arrows feature would work.. much to my dismay that feat SUCKS! and can only be used once..) The expertises (for as much as +10 AC) also must be selected BUT they work with the cleaves, the downside is that they lower your ability to hit (by the amount of the AC increase) - however at this level against a mob type it shouldn't be to much of a problem (i.e. you should still be hitting fairly regularly).

This brings to the real downside of these feats, they all have prequisites and in the worst cases requires numerous other feats. (Note: however unlike the overabundance/lack of points problem with skills - the feats section still seems reasonable - THUMBS UP DESIGNERS!) So if your a pure fighter (15 levels or more) - get everything. If not then you have some serious des. making to do. From a prereq. basis the expertises require the least - only a 13 int. (2 feats total for Improved Expertise). The cleaves come in 2nd by req. 13 str. (base attack +4 for great cleave) and 1 extra feat (power attack) for a total of 3 feats. Whirlwinds however require a LOT more (6 total feats +13 int. & base attack +4, and for the Improved variety +23 dex. and level 21). To be fair though IF you are not using an extended melee weapon then you won't have need of the improved variety which knocks you down to 5 total feats and no +23 dex. or level 21. So what to do? If you can take the damage (sometimes over 100 hitpoints in that time) during the time it takes you to startup another whirlwhind attack AND you can spare the feats then I'd say go for whirlwind. If you can't take the damage, but CAN spare the feats, then look at the expertises (but only if you have a high attack number) and the cleaves. If you can't take the damage and can't spare the feats then look soley at the expertises (again however you will need a high attack number). The exception I've found here is the Monk class. IN PRACTICE I've found that both cleaves combined with circle kick and flurry of blows seems more "fluid" than whirlwind (and the improved version for them is useless while using unarmed attack) - and they only take 3 feats total + 15 dex. and base of +4 (power attack, great cleave, circle kick). One thing I haven't tried is to see if sneak attacks work with whirlwind (i.e. is it none, the first oppoent, or all opponents hit that it works with), if its the latter then I would STRONGLY suggest the whirlwind approach for a character that relies heavily on sneak attacks for damage.

One final combat feat I want to mention is Blind Fighting. Frankly I'd consider this one MANDATORY. To often you'll face an opponent that has improved invisibility OR many opponents that have cast Darkness (and even the better fighters seem to be able to cast improved invisibiiity). If you want to be able to target them then you'll either need very high spot and listen skills OR this feat (unless someone has removed the effects of the spell with a counterspell - and I don't think you fully can with darkness?). Even if it were not for the targeting function this feat would still be worthwhile - that no bonus for concealed opponets is VERY nice!

Note in relation to solo games: naturally hybrid classes (pure) will have a rather substantial advantage here by having decent melee abilities and strong spell casting. (i.e. Druids, Clerics, and Bards.)

Plot..

Not much to say here, you have to go through a big nasty dungeon to get to the nasty army of drow, (and other nasty extras). (notice the emphais on the "nasty".) I'm not sure the story line gels or not yet - haven't gotten that far. From the little I've seen so far the story line for SOU was MUCH more interesting, (that is untill you find out what your nemisis is actually doing). In this instance it is rather like two portions of BG's 2 expansion: TOB. In that game you had a mystic tower to trample through (if you chose to) and (among other things) a powerfull drow to kill. So far it seems they combined these two elements - trample through the mystic tower to kill the drow. Not too creative! Furthermore the characters (so far) still don't seem to have a enough personality and dialoge (though the cut-scene at the beginning was pretty nice). IF your picking up a henchmen once again the choice seems pretty clear - Deekin, Deekin - he's your "man", if doesn't do it for you no one can... (at least not in this game). (though it sounds like Deekin's voice was being done by someone else and isn't quite as good as it was in SOU.) Again the plot, characters (npc and henchmen), and the dialoge are being compared to what is possible (BG2, not something as sophisticated as Torment), and it comes up rather short.

Our starting point in the game is an inn in a cut-off portion of the city. I often complain that the various habitable sites are not correctly proportioned - here however the city of Waterdeep is cutoff so I can't really say that its bad. Even better, the reason for being cut-off actually fits with the plot! However a quick extrapolation of the size (horizontal coverage) of Waterdeep (freekin HUGE) does NOT translate into the size of the dungeon at all. The dungeon's levels are fairly large but by no means "freekin HUGE". Is it a problem? Eh..I'll leave that one up to you. The dungeon itself is rather hum-drum. It has a few puzzels BUT the ones I've encountered so far are at best mildly interesting and at worst a pain in the ass. Did the designers think to leave any clues for these puzzels? For the most part - NOPE! (oh well, thats one of they many reasons to post here). Since I've made the analogy to TOB I'll continue with it (hopefully many of you reading this have played it and know what I'm talking about). With the "mystic" tower in TOB you had a multitude of puzzels. The puzzels varied SUBSTANTIALLY (esthetically and type/style) and were VERY interesting but also very difficult. To get you through the puzzels though you had a variety of clues, that when put together still made it difficult but do-able. The dungeon here doesn't even come close to that level of artistry and sophistication. To be fair though there is a plot "wrinkle" that suggests the dungeon isn't working properly - so at least there is some support for the mediocre dungeon. Additionally however I'll also state that the "mystic" tower dungeon in TOB was the very best of the "dungeons" I've seen, (more like Torment in its superiority). So far thumbs down on the dungeon itself, BUT thumbs up on the battles with the occupants of the dungeon, (except for one large single opponent that didn't seem to do anything).

Summation..

It may not sound like it, but overall I'm farily enthusiastic about the game, (irrespective of all the very nice extras). After all, certain elements of 3rd edition rules have essentially fostered pure power gaming on us via NWN's - and this means that the game largely hinges on battles. Most of the battles in the game I've found are fun and challenging, and they are not absurdly placed plot-wise. Moreover consider that you are battling at advanced levels with complex characters - which makes your character development, (and consequently you're battle techniques), MUCH more interesting.

[ 12-08-2003, 03:26 AM: Message edited by: ScottG ]

[Niadh]

I haven't played it properly yet, just looked at details. Wow.

The depth of customisation. Thin kthat the armour makes you look liek a wuss? Change it!
Needa robe for the winter?
Add it to the armour.
and so on.

time to start it really.

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally posted by philip: quote: Originally posted by andrewas: The TNT2 is the generation before the original Geforce. Its an OK card, but you will need a good CPU to drive NWN without hardware T&L and all that stuff.

I have a 733 MHz CPU with TNT2 rest is minimum of the requirements. So far I had some drops in frame rate in the intro movie (had about the same amount in SoU and NWN) The cutscenes were choppy. edit: the changing of cameras, spells and such were all ok. I don't know if that's because of the scripting of the camera angles and changing them (I've seen some cutscenes that way. also for these ones it wasn't noticeable from the voice acting that it was having drops in frame rate) in rooms with lots of visual effects, or packed with at least 10 monsters there wasn't any noticable slowdown.

Every system is different so it's only a small indication. BTW I did the following, kept in mind I might have need a new video card but buy it just to see if it works. And so far I can really live with what slowdown there is for me, and as I'm not planning to buy other games for some time, I'm not going to upgrade my video card or my CPU as there won't be a huge difference for me.

edit: might be the heavy parts for the video card still have to come but I'll post later if anyone wants [/QUOTE]Exactly what framerate are you getting (on average and particularly when you step into the tavern main with linu, tomi etc. in it for the first time)? Hit the tilde '~' and type Trace fps and hit enter.

The reason I ask is cuz I tried (for the buzz really) running HOTU on my other system with a geforce 2 mx 32mb and it was crawling. I'm talking max fps 23 and lowest 8. So I have already upgraded that so I can play on 2 systems when I need to. I am curious though as to how well it is actually running for ya.

[philip]

Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: Exactly what framerate are you getting (on average and particularly when you step into the tavern main with linu, tomi etc. in it for the first time)? Hit the tilde '~' and type Trace fps and hit enter. The reason I ask is cuz I tried (for the buzz really) running HOTU on my other system with a geforce 2 mx 32mb and it was crawling. I'm talking max fps 23 and lowest 8. So I have already upgraded that so I can play on 2 systems when I need to. I am curious though as to how well it is actually running for ya. [/QB]

Around the same, it starts at 8 when I enter the inn but a second after it goes to 10-15, when I'm in combat it's somewehere between 8-15. The worst part is just after loading then it's a bit slow but after that it's ok. Is that crawling I didn't find it very low, the game looks great (lowest settings otherwise I can't play but it's an improvement on NWN and SoU) and I find it fun to play. I can remember that sometimes in the original with a lot of fire animations it'd go so slow, a lot slower than I have seen so far in HotU including heavy combat and cutscenes, I didn't find it fun anymore. Might be I just got used to the frame rate but still it's not so bad that I notice my system having trouble with it.

Of course that is till I see it run on a better graphics card, I guess

[Cloudbringer]

Got mine last night! I started but didn't get beyond the well room. Just about keeled over laughing when my ranger/arcane archer's bear companion started pounding a door she tried that was locked (ranger moved on, bear kept at the door) and a note came up saying "your alingment has shifted one point toward the chaotic due to Brownie's actions".


LOLOL! My companion animal now adds to my alignment if he beats on a locked door! [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

PS: I got some dye and made my ranger's armor pink! LOL!

[ 12-10-2003, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Cloudbringer ]

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally posted by philip: quote: Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: Exactly what framerate are you getting (on average and particularly when you step into the tavern main with linu, tomi etc. in it for the first time)? Hit the tilde '~' and type Trace fps and hit enter. The reason I ask is cuz I tried (for the buzz really) running HOTU on my other system with a geforce 2 mx 32mb and it was crawling. I'm talking max fps 23 and lowest 8. So I have already upgraded that so I can play on 2 systems when I need to. I am curious though as to how well it is actually running for ya.

Around the same, it starts at 8 when I enter the inn but a second after it goes to 10-15, when I'm in combat it's somewehere between 8-15. The worst part is just after loading then it's a bit slow but after that it's ok. Is that crawling I didn't find it very low, the game looks great (lowest settings otherwise I can't play but it's an improvement on NWN and SoU) and I find it fun to play. I can remember that sometimes in the original with a lot of fire animations it'd go so slow, a lot slower than I have seen so far in HotU including heavy combat and cutscenes, I didn't find it fun anymore. Might be I just got used to the frame rate but still it's not so bad that I notice my system having trouble with it.

Of course that is till I see it run on a better graphics card, I guess [/QB][/QUOTE]That was what my Geforce 2 gave me and to me that was terrible lol. My other 2 cards give me about 50 fps with most settings on medium or high so I'm kinda spoiled. Hey, if you can tolerate it great. The thing is I couldn't [img]smile.gif[/img] .

[philip]

Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: That was what my Geforce 2 gave me and to me that was terrible lol. My other 2 cards give me about 50 fps with most settings on medium or high so I'm kinda spoiled. Hey, if you can tolerate it great. The thing is I couldn't [img]smile.gif[/img] .

I can understand you find that low [img]smile.gif[/img] I never saw NWN in really high frame rates. But my system is over 3 years old now so it might be I need a larger upgrade soon so I'm not upgrading anything till I absolutely need to.

Seems there'll be a huge improvement once I get an upgrade, and I find it goodlooking now [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Charlie]

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: I have confirmed that we do not need the "unlock camera=1" command in the nwnplayer.ini file anymore. As Memnoch theorized...the game rewrote the file and added in thier own command that makes our hak useless. I performed tests both with and without the command in place and they work equally...so I removed my addition to prevent problems.

You never needed the camera unlock caper. The cam was hacked at the start and I myself posted links to Brandons cam hak. Not really knocking the game here but it seems the developers are taking credit for stuff that was already in place the best part of a year ago, I've always been able to look up in the air in my game and originally had 1st person perspective. The cam arguments about clipping planes and this, that and the other jargon ran into reams on the official NWN boards as they defended their position on the original camera angle, they have eventually (possibly) got it right after the shoddy cam unlock affair which was used as a work around to avoid accrediting the guy who properly unlocked the camera. I haven't seen their version yet but I'll bet it's no better than this. This can be used by those without HoU, is compatible with the original NWN and SoU. http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/hakpack...60389795.shtml

As for crafting....again, developed by the players not the developers per se. The ATS (Ambrosia Tradeskill System) has been in use for eons, people were crafting armour, weapons, jewellery etc in game far before even SoU was heard of.