random.thought=bitch

They really need to just junk AD&D, and start working on some fresh RPG material for the PC, because the whole D&D thing is getting very boring.

Amen. I played a few hours of NWN2 but really couldn't get into it. While sitting through the trite dialogue, my eyes would just glaze over and I'd completely zone out. Though, to be fair, that would happen during combat too:

*click*
*watch as horribly boring and poorly animated fight ensues*
*rest*

Oh, and the AI is practically nonexistent. I was caught pickpocketing at least a dozen times within the first hour and nobody reacted at all. Nobody's dialogue even changed. Speaking of dialogue, the vast majority of dialogue is text and the majority of NPCs only have one or two lines. Pretty lame. If NPCs only have a couple of lines at the most, the least they could do is voice them. People don't seem to care when you break into their homes and steal from their chests either.

Levels are small and linear, offering very limited exploration or even interaction with your environment.

Camera angles are atrocious. There is an option for a chase cam as well as WASD controls except they are poorly executed. You use A and D to rotate your character, ala Resident Evil and W and S to move forward and backward, much like a tank. There isn't even mouselook in this mode.

But really, the main problem with the game is that it's a very faithful translation of the D&D ruleset. D&D was designed for pen and paper. The whole system of dice rolls came about as a means to objectively resolve situations that otherwise lie completely within the imagination of the players.

Computer games, on the other hand, don't have this setback. Situations can (and should) be resolved through skill or careful thought. Characters can react to the player through AI. Unlike pen and paper, computer games do not exist primarily in your imagination but on screen. Thus, sitting through the 99% stat-based gameplay of NWN2 feels really out of place. It's like playing with a calculator, only less fun.

If you are going to use the computer as a medium for your game, you should take full advantage of all its capabilities. Sticking to the D&D ruleset does not do this. Keep D&D on paper and away from computers.

Okay, I was bored, so I picked it up. I'll post some, probably disjointed, impressions.

The first thing that hits you is the absolutely INCREDIBLE amount of races and classes you can play. There's like 30 classes (a lot of them prestige though), and something like 15 races to play. Lots of customization options. Tons of feats and skills. Background feats that actually play through in the game (I took Militia background, and the entire tutorial makes mention of the fact that you're a militia member, so you have to help when the village gets attacked, etc.)
Very well done.

Graphically the game is nice, very nice. Strangely, however, this graphical nicety comes at an absolutely absurd technical cost. I don't have the world's greatest rig (64-3500xp, 1 Gig, 7900GT OC) but I do think that I the game should run a bit more smoothly than it does now. It's fine in dungeons, it chops a little in the first village, but when I went into the swamp area, my framerates were a solid <10fps.

Now, this doesn't matter terribly much since it's an RPG, but I'm not really sure what this game does that eats so much power when every other game runs pretty smooth on my system. (Gothic 3 notwithstanding).

Sound is okay, although for some INSANE FUCKING REASON the battle "music" isn't music at all, it's considered a "sound effect."

Couple that with the fact that it's the most excruciatingly irritating piece of music ever heard in a computer game, and it gets annoying really fast, and you can't turn it down with the music slider, you have to use the sound effects slider, which ofcourse also kills every other useful sound in the game. Brilliant thinking there.

A nice tutorial, actually pretty fun to play. Good voice acting, at least what I've heard so far.

They've made some changes from the NWN method of doing things, and I'm not sure they're all that much of an improvement. Despite the fact that the manual claims that "everything is now just two clicks away," that's actually not true. Summoning my animal companion takes three, for example.
I liked the radial menu better, I think.

Poor inventory management system, imo, it just seems archaic. Individually dragging items to a fellow party member may have been super cool back in the 90s, but now I'm just getting kind of annoyed with it. Also, if I'm on one side of the cemetary, and the dwarf is on the other side being mauled by zombies, I shouldn't be able to shift healing potions into his inventory. That just seems very odd.

Same world travel system as BG2, ie, no wandering around, you zoom between small pockets of land. I've never much liked that system, although I guess it works fairly well. It just seems to lack the sense of exploration.

And last but not least, while the story is well told (so far anyways), and had one pretty big surprise in it right at the start, which I won't spoil, it really feels "been there, done that."

Your village is attacked by evil creatures, looking for magical item X, you take the item to find wizard Y in city Z, along the road you find companions A, B, and C etc etc etc. Yawn.
You get sent off alone on the road to Neverwinter, and for a moment I thought "Cool, have to hide, can't fight alone, at least something new."

So ofcourse, your very first next stop is at an inn, where your next party member conveniently stands outside picking a fight with three bandits, so you can help him, and the two of you become friends.

Your next party member is one screen further, where she is being attacked by bandits, so you can help her, and the two of you become friends, except the first party member doesn't much like her.

Are we starting to see a pattern here? Never mind the fact that the second party member, the thiefling rogue, is EXACTLY the same character as the tiefling you partied with in Planescape Torment. I mean, EXACTLY the same. Probably even has the same voice actress.

So then I do some quests, and now I'm in a dungeon, fighting skeletons and zombies.

You know, it's fun, I won't deny that, at least the battles are harder this time, though having two archers in my party probably doesn't help against skeletons, but it all feels SO done before. They really need to just junk AD&D, and start working on some fresh RPG material for the PC, because the whole D&D thing is getting very boring.

Yay, new spells, 2nd level, let's see, I guess knock and melf's acid arrow will work again...

It's a good game, steep on the requirements side for no discernible reasons, it's a good RPG, but if you're getting a bit weary of the D&D thing, you'll probably have the same deja vu overload that I'm having. Up to you whether you can live with that or not.

I'll finish it, it's good enough for that, but I'm waiting on Dragon Age for something fresh.

Creston

The rings, one good one evil huh? well I got 2 evil, one that didn't even have the colouring...

Ah, you got the Limited Edition "Fucked Up" ring. So instead of "Good and Evil", you can be "Evil and Fucked Up".





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GW: Nilaar Madalla, lvl 20 R/Mo / Tolyl Nor, lvl 20 E/Mo / Xylos Gath, lvl 16 W/Mo

http://www.richardcheese.com/ http://www.myspace.com/richardcheese

Well, I finally got my game, and I'll tell you, someone really screwed up...
The map, cloth map, I could have made with a printer and a visit to any fabric shop, it's going to fall apart in no time.
The rings, one good one evil huh? well I got 2 evil, one that didn't even have the colouring...
Thankfully the only reason I bought it was for the in game perks...

--edit--
comment is useless now...
This comment was edited on Nov 2, 15:50.

This is a really good game... I like it better than Oblivion. Hated KotoR 2.. No comparison.

Down load it unless you absolutely have to have the crap Limited Edition version or just want to have it on disc.

Oh, try to get the huge 82.7mb patch while you are waiting for the arrival. I went the pre-order route but had it over-nighted and thanks to God they used UPS not Fed-Ex(those asshole won't leave anything without a signature, even after signing the authorization for them to do just that).

Anyway downloading the patch now and read most of the manual off the net last night.... Sad, I know.

Words cannot express the feelings I have towards EB right now.
I went in town (20 min drive because the one here sucks balls and didn't offer the pre-order deal) to pick it up today, not in, the guy that said today wasn't right.
Then I see it at WalMart and call them, yeah it's in, so I make another trip...and the Limited Editions arn't in...
Oh, and the kid behind the counter tells me, "we'll call when it's in"...likely story, they didn't call me or my buddy for our BF 2142 pre-orders...

So, I hope you're all happy playing...I gotta wait till...who knows when.

Like others here, I'm waiting on buying because of KOTOR 2. Early reviews suggest the game might be on the too easy-side but will wait for full reviews.

how many of these people here even know what Planescape: Torment is?? much less played it? much less enjoyed it immensely????

I remember that I started Planescape three times from scratch over a span of about 4 years. On the third run I actually finished it and only then I began to see what a marvelous game it was. I can honestly say that no other game surpasses Torment even to this very day.
Getting NWN2 tomorrow....

im about to get in this in a couple hours.. i'll post some impressions later

i have a feeling it will be at least decent.. possibly a good bit better than average..

but im not really expecting anything mindblowing

(and i hope they included some better scripting wizards in the toolset this time, instead of just giving you a C++ parser and telling you to go at it)

________________________
music from space captain:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/6/errantways_music.htm
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/4/invisibleacropolis_music.htm

Well, to be fair, his exact words were: "I think it's the best game THESE GUYS have done since Planescape Torment."

Wait wait wait...that's a bit of a stretch from "it's the best singleplayer RPG since Planescape: Torment."



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GW: Nilaar Madalla, lvl 20 R/Mo / Tolyl Nor, lvl 20 E/Mo / Xylos Gath, lvl 16 W/Mo

http://www.richardcheese.com/ http://www.myspace.com/richardcheese

It'd be nice if it wasn't so... I dunno... mindnumbingly boring, this time around?

Creston

Nope sorry Creston after yours and Rays pissing contest over who's X3 it was, you cannot sit on the fence, back to the front porch with ya

I'm so fucking depressed today, and it has nothing to do with video games.

SHIT FUCK AND POOP!!

FUCKING BITCH!!!, Just let me see my kid already!!!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I feel better.
A little.



Pardon my french.


-Tony!!!;)


This comment was edited on Oct 31, 21:21.

Well, to be fair, his exact words were: "I think it's the best game THESE GUYS have done since Planescape Torment." Which, given the team and its origins, means he thinks it's better than the Icewind Dales and their expansion packs (although I don't think Chris Avellone worked on those anyway) or KOTOR2, which got off to a good start before kind of dropping away...

I enjoyed the IWD series, but they were intended more toward combat and adventuring than story.

Of course, then he goes on to say: "Easily the best D&D game since BG2." There haven't been many since BG2: Troika's TOEE was even more of a hack-and-slash than the IWD series, Dragonshard didn't make much of a splash, and so on. And since he specifically says "D&D Game" he avoids putting NWN2 up against Oblivion, Gothic 3 (heck, even Gothic 2 or 1 - forget when the former came out), Vampire Bloodlines, and so on.

Sorry folks I'm still holding my Kotor 2 grudge against Obsidian and waiting for your reviews. Creston this means you!

Move over on that fence buddy, because I'm sitting on it as well. Someone else will have to do the reviewing bit

Creston

Well, Desslock is saying that it's the best singleplayer RPG since Planescape: Torment. That ought to count for something.

I hope so, but ever since he's started writing for PC Gamer, Desslock has more and more become the "If it's made by a big company, it's a good RPG, because they buy ads!" monkey. An issue or two ago of PC Gamer, he actually wrote an article how Oblivion was NOT dumbed down compared to Morrowind. He could have worked for the Iraqi Ministry of Information with all the bullshit he wove.

Still, I DO hope this will be good. I need a good RPG.

Creston