Anyone else disappointed with NWN?

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Willard: Dude. Calm down. It's just a game. You can always turn your computer off .Some of the stuff you said in there was true, but most of it was bologna. I mean, why don't you just go and play BG2 or Diablo?

Actually I think telling FallenPaladin to just go do something else isn't really appropriate. When you pay good money for something, and have it built up by months of supposed releases then setbacks, you should expect to get some sort of value for money. He shouldn't have to go play some other 3 year old game if this one doesn't do it for him

Having said that, it is subjective, to a certain point anyway. I agree about the obviousness of the plot, 4 waterdavian creatures, 4 districts... duh . And okay, sure it's kind of stupid to find a healing potion in a pile of rocks. But if there was no random loot, or all chests or something someone would complain about that too. Frankly I'm not really that fussed on what containers I find gold in [img]tongue.gif[/img] . It doesn't get in the way of my enjoyment anway

I do agree that the stone of recall made it too easy. In my first game I exploited that something shocking; I tried not to my second time through. The idea of being able to get back to shops etc quickly is great, something that BG2 and such didn't have which I found irritating. If they'd made it so you couldn't use it during battle would have been perfect. And I liked the way most dungeons had a portal back to the top. Much time have I wasted in other games backtracking out of empty dungeons. Though I did find it annoying, especially in chapter 2, at the number of boring dungeons you had to do. When I was told to go save that chick from the prison guy in the orc dungeon I almost jacked up and left her there

Basically I liked it. I thought the story line was basic and obvious but not too bad on balance. The number of side quests was good, and spread out, unlike BG2 where you did them all in chapter 2 then hurried off and finished the story. And I know what people mean about fedex quests, but I didn't find them nearly as annoying as in for example BG2, where I spent half the time going between areas couriering things. Mostly in NWN I was heading that way anyway. There wasn't much backtracking really.

[ 09-09-2002, 11:10 PM: Message edited by: Aelia Jusa ]

[WOLFGIR]

Originally posted by Lady Avalon: Wow, what a rant thread Wolfie. I would have to say that you are absolutely right. It seems like you always find something wrong or things you don't like about any of the games out there these days. You're also right about Morrowind. It did get very old towards the end there. But it was still fun and overall, a pretty good game. I have to totally agree with you about Thief and also Thief 2. What terrific games. I enjoyed playing both of those and my interest was held throughout the whole game. I have never played Planescape Torment, but it sounds like I should pick it up.

Well I guess it is as with politics, stare long enough on a crack inthe wall and thoose walls will crumble down ontop of you.

THing is that I like playing NWN, mostly due to that I change the game with every character I make, what I don´t like is the range problems for bows and for spellcasters that has already been adressed in above topics.

But then again, my 13:th level fighter is really fun to play. I like the game in many aspects, but dislike alot of others, seeing the potential of what most games COULD have been can make you a bit angry. I remember Ziroc´s early rant at the toolset, not allowing you to customize too much yourself, your stuck with textures and models. Bad!

Well apart from Morrowind and Diablo and other games that fell short of the line, in that context, no game is good, however I have to admit that all games have given me some relief from everyday boredom. Some more then others though. Morrowind I played alot when I got it, but when NWN cames out, only Max Payne had been able to threaten it. I still have an unplayed Warcraft 3 installed on my puter, but the NWN playdisc is in my drive all the time. So even though I have arguments with it, I still play iy. I don´t have broadband so I can only grind my teeth at the lucky bastards playing online with friends, I don´t think many other games can even compair to NWN in that aspect, but well I knew that as early in -99 when they said that NWN will be mainly an online game.

Well LadyA, you definately have to play Planescape Torment, sure you will find flaws in it, but since you don´t choose overly much yourself, you will instead be dragged in into the plot, and that plot is IMHO the best CRPG plot in any game out there. Old graphics, 2:nd edition rules yada yada yada, don´t matter once you start playing it and get past the first awkward hour of getting the feeling for the game... Bring on thoose demons inside and outside!

I can only hope that ranting and rumbling will lead to more games based on the Aurora engine, because I like the engine alot. Outdated graphics? So what? Planescape is in 640x480, 2D graphics, cheasy effects, and I still love the game. But in NWN based single player games, you need thoose epic rules to make it playable for a single character.

Can anyone say.. Fallout 3 in Aurora environment??? I can!

[Madriver]

Originally posted by Tancred: I think it's less that this game is BETTER when used in a multiplayer context; it's more that this game was not designed for single players at all. When they release ID2, I reckon we'll see how a REAL Aurora Engine single-player game works. Well, I HOPE. It can't be this bad ALL the time, surely? Damn, I need broadband.

Yeah, the SP campaign was too generalized so that every class could complete it. It would have been better if they had several smaller campaigns that were specific for the different classes.

The multiplayer aspect of NWN is above the rest, no contest. Once Bioware releases additional content (which they definitely will) you will see more variety in the modules.

For those who don't know, the Bioware support team (the best support I've seen for any game in the past 15 years, no contest) is developing a new module that will be available for download for free. This module is supposed to expand on the surveys that they have been taking, more role-playing and less hack and slash. It should be interesting. [img]smile.gif[/img]

IWD2 doesn't use the Aurora Engine, it uses an updated version of the older Infinity Engine and it shows. If you like the single player party aspect than this game will be fun, but don't expect party member interaction like they had in BG2. IWD2 fulfills its purpose very well, a single player party based hack and slash game, and supposedly it gets difficult at the end.

[Madriver]

Originally posted by FallenPaladin: ---snip--- Let's take things from the beginning. The single player campaign. Quite simply the biggest pile of RPG crap I ever had the misfortune of playing. Wuite simply I have NEVER played a worse RPG campaign. It reminds me to much of Diablo and doesn't even manage to surpass that game at what it does.

Yes, the campaign was not as good as previous works by Bioware, it was made to satisfy too many people. As I posted above it would have been better if they had made a smaller campaign for each class as opposed to a huge campaign for generalized for all classes. It looks like they also toned down the enemy AI so that the weaker classes could make it to the end.

Why on earth are noblemen cupboards filled with healing potion, and the crates in their living rooms filled with weapons. Why the hell did a noblemen trap a chest in his bedroom with a cloudkill trap? Why ios everybody locked, which leads to the next problem of having to wait forever for almost every door and chest to be unlocked or broken in order to proceed. Unlike in BG where unlocking and bashing was imediate now you just have to wait continusly in order to continue. There's no tactics with just one party member, you just click an enemy and wait. At least in Diablo you fought hordes of different monsters none of which took more than a hit or two to be killed, so you constantly did somthing. Here its 'click on enemy, wait while henchman rushed blindly forwards, wait, zzzzzzzzzzzz'. That teleportation gem and respawning just go more into making this look like a Diablo game instead of a true 3D game.

A little nit-picky here, it almost sounds like your expectations of the game were fantastically high, and since it didn't meet those expectations you have decided not to like any part of it. I did a little research before I bought the game and noticed that the campaign was 60 hours long, immediately I knew it wouldn't be as good as BG2 (over 200 hours long), regardless of the marketing put out by Infogrames.

I found that the tactics were there, just not the same as a 6 person party. If you are a spellcaster you have to decide which spell to use for which enemies, as a rogue you want your henchman fighter to attack the enemy first so you can get sneak attacks and stay relatively safe, as a fighter you wade in a swing with maybe using a feat here and there (that's what fighters do [img]smile.gif[/img] ). I actually never made use of the recall stone, except to quicken the return to the town to sell goods. And I don't think I used the respawn either, I still save all the time and would reload if I had trouble.

After having endured the sit quests of chapter 1, I went to chapter 2 to find such amazing quests as 'there are 4 areas, and four cursed boys in each area, go and find them' and 'there are 4 areas and evidence for this cult or whatever in each area, find the evidence in each area'. Trying to enjoy this, I go to the first area, and enter the Orc caves, to find guess what, another huge endless maze full of Orcs to kill and pretty much nothing else. I'm sorry but that's not what I call entertainment' I quit the single player campaign then.

You missed the best part of the stories if you quit there. In chapter 2 and 3 there are several quests that are not hack and slash at all, and the writing is quite good. Otherwise there is a lot of fighting, but that's what D&D is, especially D&D CRPG's.

The characters do nothing for you. The voice acting is pitifull, I almost cried when I first heard Aribeths voice. And the graphics, well though the animations are nice, the environments, and models are rather too simplistic. The graphics are dated truth be told, and they detract from the game) But then there's the Aurora toolset right? Well unfortunately it falls short of the revolutionary tool it was hyped out to be. Unfortunately, apparently the only thing it can do is produce identical, boring, and unoriginal location. Why can't I change the colour of the walls in each room, add paintings on the wall, and add some carpets around? Why is it that I can't make my own indoor rooms, havng to settle only for what's in the toolset. The contents are simply extremelly limited. The tile structure means you can't have any decent cliffisides or really narrow coridors, circular rooms or really small rooms. And practically all custom modules look the same due to the small amount of content available, every town has the sime architecture as Neverwiter, every forest the same trees and features. It looks more liked everything was build by the same builder just following different design plans.

I definitely disagree here. They developed the game so that it is easy to use the toolset, if they included everything you wanted to do it wouldn't be easy. The tilesets are limited right now, but we can definitely expect more in the future, from both the community (there are several already) and Bioware. And I think the graphics in the game are fantastic, just a little bit less than Dungeon Siege, but great none-the-less.

---snip--- Custom content right now is severely limited and badly supported and difficult. Customising and adding new contnenmt should be as easy as 'create model,skin, sound, portrait, click import in toolset, select file, voila'. Unfortunately it's not, you have to dowbload a huge lot of unofficial user made utilities, hack into .2da files, and do stuff which I don't understand, and don't care to understand.Adding new content is a difficult procress as it is, meaning few module builders care to use it, and few people care to try and add custom content. Ever since the release of the game I've been watching the forums, and there's barely any progress being made in the custom content front. ---snip---

This game has the best developer support I have ever seen from any company, hands-down. They are on the forums every day helping out players and mod builders alike, you don't usually see this from companies after release. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well, this kind of custom content (the .2da files) were never supposed to be added. Your talking about adjusting spell effects, changing or adding feats, changing the basics of the game, etc. This type of content was never supposed to be the responsibility of the user to add, but some people are trying it anyway, and more power to them. I understand being upset over the game not meeting your expectations (sounds like it was supposed to be BG3 [img]smile.gif[/img] ) but it's silly to critique the game over functions it's not supposed to have.

Lets' not talk about the locked Diabloesque camera (why they couldn't do it like BG2 is beyong me), the small selection of monsters and placables, the lack of a Z axis, the lack of dresses for women and robes for wizrads (!!! come on, robes for wizrds should be a stable for D&D games !!!) . And then there's MP, which is supposed to be what this game is for. Unfortunately, none of my friends knows what D&D is so I can't play any organised games, and most open games are non-role-playong, so taking away most of the point of the game. Let's not go into character imbalance brought about by the incorrect implementation of 3ed rules, and the adding of Bioware's own rules or the way many skills have been ignored), as well as many gameplay quirks I'd rather not go into.'

Use the camera hack. It was not included (you can lower the camera past 45 degrees) because it would have greatly increased the minimum requirements of the game (plus you would see creatures spawning), but it looks excellent and your archers get a nice line of sight.

As for the "limited skills, monsters, feats, spells, and other content" wait for additional material to come from Bioware. Don't forget that this is the first game on this engine, they didn't have the time to add all the content that BG2 had (this game was developed from a previous engine and all they did was add content). Compare the material to BG1, where you maxed out at level 7 (4th level spells) so they didn't even need that much material.

Wow, what a rant. Also, for MP games try neverwinterconnections.com to play with non-pkers and meet people interested in RP'ing.

[ 09-10-2002, 09:16 AM: Message edited by: Madriver ]

[Mellagar]

I for one enjoyed smashing the chests. You had to be of a certain strength to get away with opening a locked box in the BG series. This time I got to vent all my frustration out on it. I caught myself shouting "YEAH, YEAH, HIT IT AGAIN!!!"
In my honest opinion I was delighted to play NWN. Simple for all to play and enjoy with plenty of action and a solid plot. As for BG and the series, this is not BG, and to compare this to that is rather ridiculous. You don't compare Ferrari's to VW Bugs. Two completely different things. In short people should just stop labeling games as though they are the end all be all of existance. In years to come complaints about VR games will sprout. "Oh that just didn't seem real enough to me!" someone will complain. All those who do nothing but complain either do one of two things:
1.) Attempt to better these games by directing one of your own (Not likely to happen)
2.) Pack up your computer games and computer and play with a top. Read a book or do something else. After awhile your little computer junkie minds will be screaming for Pac-Man.

Take it easy, its only a game. Don't like it, take it back, but for crying out loud do it quietly.

[Whailor]

I think that your problem is that you expected yourself too much from NWN. You have been playing BG, BG2 and so on, and when NWN was announced, you pictured it to be as BG in 3d world. Well, it isn't, it was never mentioned that it will be 3d BG. So basically you blew more and more air into your bubble of imagination, till it popped hard in the end.

I personally see that NWN is quite nice. Sure, it does not compete with BG regarding the deep plot and dialogues and whatever, but it wasn't it's intention anyway. And I like as it is, it's pretty flexible game. And calling me "brainwashed" is a serious overstatement from your side.

I see many modules on the net, people are literally building their own worlds. Show me any other so flexible game. Comparing NWN to Diablo or Diablo2 is rather silly, makes me wonder if you REALLY played NWN at all, or just tried a bit here and there. Or maybe you got too "happy" in the Toolset and overdid something too much.

I personally like NWN as it is, to me it has filled the shoes I expected it to fill. And I knew that this will NOT be a BG-type of game, so I am not dissapointed either.

[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

Originally posted by Mellagar: I for one enjoyed smashing the chests. You had to be of a certain strength to get away with opening a locked box in the BG series. This time I got to vent all my frustration out on it. I caught myself shouting "YEAH, YEAH, HIT IT AGAIN!!!" 2.) Pack up your computer games and computer and play with a top. Read a book or do something else. After awhile your little computer junkie minds will be screaming for Pac-Man.

Sounds like SOMEONEs been taking lessons from the Lilacor [img]tongue.gif[/img] hehe, funny sword that... erm, and you're second point, I *do* read books when I get sick of the pc or need to take a break... and no I *dont* cry out for a pc... I can quite happily loose myself in a good book for HOURS, and NO, I am NOT exagerating... [img]tongue.gif[/img] sad huh? ah well... NWNs was a good game, IS a good game, but I STILL feel they could have tweaked the single player just a LITTLE more, and made it a REALLY good game... like a defection option *cough* oh and MAKE the RANGED WEAPONS BETTER! LONGER RANGE! MORE CAMERA EXTENTION! like in the map editor... you can see just about anything from any angle, it wouldnt have been TOO hard to give extended view on bows? could it?

[Gabrielles blades]

I thought the game was good, but not nearly as good as bg2.

the game had too much of the feel of the modron cube from planescape torment.

if they had added a ton of easter eggs like fallout 2
or had inter-party talk (made max numberof party members more like bg2 etc) it would have been more fun
and make areas more unique (more like Bg2 or planescape torment)
oh, and fix the story ending!

[Suzaku]

Okay, one more word.

I spent what, about 80$CDN on this game, hated it, and returned it for about 1/4 price(my store does trades and stuff). Wasted 60$ or so. After 2 yrs of BG2, I was really expecting a seriously great RPG, and things were dropped rather sharply in terms of what I got, but that's just me and my expectations. It said in the Bg2 loading screens that you could import your BG2 character into NWN, but how much higher can you go than TOB? I guessed something would seriously dissappoint m\e here, but that was at least assumed. I started getting hints when Black Isle and Bioware had *problems*, but neway...

And yes, I now spend time back at BG2, and not on the computer as much. But hey, I hope NWN taught a few ppl a few things, and they'll have better in the future. *sigh*

[Megabot]

In the beginning i thot the game was wery boring but when i played it for some time i liked it but when i come to chaper 3 i think it begin to be WERY boring again so i don`t play it anymore and i am sure i not will play it anymore so i have started to play Wizardr8 again and i think that game is mutch better! [img]tongue.gif[/img] and also Morrowind is better than NWN.