Agreed, while to some degree I can understand how people enjoy the other aspects of NWN I have never understood how anyone who claims they enjoy a good CRPG can say that the OC was a well designed experienced.

I don't think I'd claim it was spectacular or even strikingly good, but it was playable and solid in an area where there is very little credible competition for a game that offers the same sort of feature set all round.

I don't think you can really complain about the weakness of the story of the single player campaign in a thread dedicated to Dungeon Seige and the comparison of the two. It certainly wasn't weak enough to bring down the other strengths of NWN in comparison.

Bioware drank a potion of Feeblemind when they designed Neverwinter Nights, because their campaign is EXTREMELY basic. Even the first expansion, although the first chapter of that is really fun, falls into the ho-hum hack and slash doldrum of the official campaign.

Agreed, while to some degree I can understand how people enjoy the other aspects of NWN I have never understood how anyone who claims they enjoy a good CRPG can say that the OC was a well designed experienced.

Bioware drank a potion of Feeblemind when they designed Neverwinter Nights, because their campaign is EXTREMELY basic. Even the first expansion, although the first chapter of that is really fun, falls into the ho-hum hack and slash doldrum of the official campaign.

Having said that, none of this is the fault of the engine. There are some absolutely AMAZING things possible with the NWN engine.

http://adamandjamie.com/nwn/

I'm just going to keep plugging this guy until EVERYONE has played his modules.

Creston

Yes, I find the lack of ... unique stuff, upsetting in NWN. A nice example of what was lost would be the planar sphere from BG II, sitting in the middle of town, complete with a wholly unique interior.
I personally think that Bioware should have added in a lot more objects to play with, but if you consider how NWN is editable in ways that BG II simply was not, it's an understandable loss.

I understand from a poll on the Bioware site that they're considering releasing CDs periodically with more content, including perhaps short dungeons, more monsters, more tilesets etc.

From my memory of DS, there weren't that many more / different location types than exist in NWN. Off the top of my head, there was Snowy mountains, forest x2, snowy caves, desert + desert mountains, coastline, castle and a few indoor sets.
It's not significantly more extensive than NWN imo, it just feels that way because things aren't so square.

I think however, you'll find much more online content for NWN, and the combat *is* much deeper than that offered by DS. Even if I were comparing based solely on the satisfaction that a fighter type could have in combat only, NWN would win.

you can also set up NWN with a lot more types of combat - DS was typically limited to crushing groups of similar enemies, and had only one or two bosses to speak of. In NWN you could set up hordes of monsters, but you also have a greater choice in fighting a single overwhelmingly powerful enemy, which I would say was more satisfying.

Both games are not very good games. DS is repeative gameplay wise and NWN is repeative location wise. also the controls in NWN suck bad, especially when youre in a town. DS feels very creepy in dungeons or the swamp, NWN just makes me laugh (well, cry actually if I think about that these guys made the BG series). sorry, but I would rather play DS and see something new all the time than play this D&D wannabe game NWN. oh and sorry, the story in NWN isnt the best either. its more of a MP game, not singleplayer!

Nexus,

I agree about the NWN comments, but didn't you find the repetition of the textures tiring? Do they use other textures in the expansions? While I like the story in NWN, I wish there was some real variety of what I keep seeing....

All4naught

Just wondering

Hrrm. I actually used this as an excuse to look up the review I wrote (not that anyone probably every read it) at the time... [ http://www.the-nexus.co.uk/reviews/2.php ]

Personally, I've played the original through and had my fill of mindless repetitive combat, and I'm not in the least tempted to return there because that is all this game has ever offered.

I'd suggest saving your money and simply purchasing the NWN plus both expansions when they're available. There's multiplayer combat in that that's not nearly as shallow as DS, and it's perfectly easy to set up your own DS-near-equivalent in the editor, or simply find one online. As an added bonus, the SP portions are of fairly high quality and far more involving the DS.

The graphics of DS are nice, it's just a scandalous shame that there's not even any real depth to the combat underneath that, nor anything else.

Hey fuckwad...

That's almost as good as the f-tard I saw the other day.

I rahter play DS with out the combat. If there was skills that you could get and work towards like in Diablo, it would be much more fun. Instead you just get, Attack, Ranged and the 2 magic bars.

Theres none of the fun of planing a character like you got with Diablo and Neverwinter. Maybe they should have gone and played the Classic Dungeon Master. Someone needs to remake a system like that, bashing walls made you better

To Abelincon -

Hey fuckwad, I never said Diablo had a great story. I was comparing the game play - DS and Diablo are very similar in that respect.

Just saying I was expecting more from DS in terms of story, And as shitty as Diablo's story was, it was at least better then what DS offered - which was nothing.

Considering that the expansion pack costs the same as any other expansion pack ($29.99, meaning it'll be on sale for $19.99 at Best Buy in a week) you can hardly say that they're punishing people who already bought the game. Give it to your friend*, if you don't want 2 copies of the game.

* - Only applicable if you actually have friends, instead of just whining about getting things for free.

this game is a diablo clone. wtf are you people thinking???? do you play quake 3 expecting it to be super mario brothers?

I agree... they should make BETTER games with this engine.

So basically it's targeted at slack people like me, who never got around to buying the game in the first place, and not targeted at people who already bought the game, because you're asking them to pay for the original game all over again.

The original game went gold over 17 months ago. I sold it about 12 months ago. I'm considering picking this one up now that I know I wont have to rebuy the original again.

Go figure.

-TPFKAS2S
http://www.braglio.org

Ah, I didn't realize from the seqment posted here that this "expansion pack" also includes the full game. Interesting.

So basically it's targeted at slack people like me, who never got around to buying the game in the first place, and not targeted at people who already bought the game, because you're asking them to pay for the original game all over again.

There's nothing quite like pissing off your core audience, is there?

The expansion to Battle Realms did this (i.e. asked you to buy the game that you already bought) and that really torqued me off.

Dungeon Siege: Funding Dungeon Siege 2
Dungeon Siege: The Mod That Wasn't Free
Dungeon Siege: Now with 100% More Story (increasing dialog to two full pages!)

All criticisms aside, Dungeon Siege is absolutely beautiful with 3D glasses.

I really enjoyed DS when it came out, but I'm not sure what I would feel about an expansion now. I've just now gotten around to playing NWN, and I really like the more involved character creation and abilities that are closer to D&D type gameplay. So, I'm not really sure if I would want to go back to the more basic hack 'n slash style.

But, the one place that DS has NWN beat hands down is in the variety of locations. Jesus....the locations/tiles are so repetitive in NWN! I'm in one of the last forests now, and it looks exactly the same as the first one. Same goes for castles, villages, dungeons, etc...

All4not

Then you will need a lot more then just DS. I was very excited initially at DS's Diablo-killer potential, and IMO has the BEST engine of all the RPGs out there, but the story was lacking to say the least.

Will wait for it to show up in the bargain bin before I buy.

lolk story. can u believe this guy? what sort of faggot plays diablo for the storyline?

anyways, the origonal was super-cool. think diablo 2 single player but with better graphics, a party system, and really good game balancing. i tried multi a few times but it was gay (in a bad way.

teh moral of the story is if u want a fun single player progressquestlike expernce i am lookibng forward to dungeon siege expsnion pack

DS was a very pretty, but very boring game.

nin that was hilarious. oh man...haha

dave snider
co-founder | guzzlefish.com
my dvd, cd, and game collections
http://www.guzzlefish.com/?user=dave