Neverwinter Nights>Baldurs Gate 2

[Legacy_Travalanche]

                 I mean seriously, I FINALLY got to playing NWN 1 after YEARS, I have played pretty much every other rpg "at least mainsteam" within the last decade or so.  I mean I *personally* found Baldurs Gate 2 kind of meh, I ended up just running through towns killing EVERYONE midgame with dual Bastard swords funfunfun!!!  But yeah...  I didn't care for Baldurs Gate 2 very much probably because Minsc was annoying as it gets and I hated the elf chick you meet early game "I forgot her name" she basically whined CONSTANTLY until she turned on me after killing some random nobody npc for a few gold/fun (take your pick).

  I pretty much ended up just having me, the japanese bounty hunter guy, and the evil dark elf lady around because the rest were moral wrecks!  I actually ended up killing the paladin guy in the sewers immediately after talking to him... I think I did him a favor because he was literally insane, totally brainwashed by religion.

    Also I found Planescape Torment to be mediocre despite what everyone says, I mean it wasn't bad but it lacked choices, I hated going through a chapter worth of text to just find out that I have one or two options...  In fact I usually just killed the npcs off afterwards just because I couldn't take it any longer!!!

  It's like going to the bar and listening to some random middle-aged guy talking to you about his life or recent divorce, or even bragging about what-not.  You TRY to zone them out but eventually you just get angry and tell them to screw off and that you don't feel like listening to their incessant rambling. I mean yeah the story/ending was great don't get me wrong, one of the best easily but yeah I'm not a fan... 

  Kotor 1-2 were excellent, I liked the weapon/armor/robes designs in the second better but I found the original to have a better overall plot so I'm not sure which I preferred, I just hate plastered on jedi/sith robes so that knocks a lot of points off of KOTOR 1.

  Anyways back to the topic, I am having a blast with NWN1, I do kind of prefer the second story-wise but the original is awfully fun and has a lot of interesting encounters.  The one issue is with balance, I managed to get half-plate on the first mission after the tutorial and was able to plow through the game on my Barbarian/rogue easily and without a henchman, I mean It was on normal difficulty but still I could have done hard mode, the only times I died were by traps which are very deadly compared to most games!!!

  I also liked the fact that you didn't need to have a small army of companions following you around and judging every choice you make like in Baldurs gate 2. I mean I see life from a straightforward perspective, I do whatever I need to have fun which usually involves killing useless npcs for laughs and after the third or so time I do it they should just leave if they can't deal with it.  Not wait until it has happened a dozen times and then fight to the death like a moron just to get decapitated and become worm-food.

  "Jaheira watches me kill a beggar"  OH MY GOD HERO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE I CANNOT STAND FOR THIS YOU WILL DIE!!! (Hero instantly chops her head off with a giant sword)

  Yeah... we need more evil rpgs I mean I have only seen one and I think it's name was Dungeon Keeper or something, yes you CAN be evil in half of them but the plot isn't as advanced as it would be if you were say... a paladin, you don't get a random hooded guy coming up to you in the dark wanting to hire you to kill his wife while he is out of town so he can collect insurance money or anything fun like that! 

  Then again I am very biased towards Evil andchaos in almost every rpg I play and I have yet to finish a game as a good or lawful character, it's just not fun being good and seriously... when an NPC tells you that you are a pest or shoo you off early game why NOT kill him/her later on after you collect decent gear?  I mean thats just one less rude NPC in the game, your doing a favor!  Also you get to make a bloodbath in the middle of town and the guards knew the risks when they signed up!

  So yeah...  I found both NWN titles to be very fun and engaging but there should be more plot development for being a bad guy, I mean I remember playing Oblivion for the first time and being appoached by a hooded man in my sleep and after talking with him I literally cried tears of joy and went on murdering people in many different ways, that was one of the best moments in ANY rpg, yes Oblivion was pretty Mediocre in the story/quest department but that single part made it excellent in my eyes '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               An interesting evaluation and comparison.  It's always fun to read first impressions, a way we can experience vicariously the brand spanking new game through others... so, mucho gracias and welcome to the forums!

One thing to keep in mind when setting your game options... "Normal" is actually easy.  "Easy" is more-or-less a waste of time or perhaps for kids who are repelled by challenge when they play a game.  "D&D Hardcore" is Normal and "Very Difficult" is a good setting to test your mettle if/when you get bored with Hardcore.  The difficulty differences become most evident when casting spells, especially when you kill your party with an errant fireball or ice storm...  you'll notice that.

I think you will find that many members of the community would like the bigger party feel (as in BG) in NWN and are often looking for work-arounds to achieve that.  I enjoy the banter but managing a huge party was never my forte so I am happy playing solo or with a henchman.  IMO I spent most time trying to keep the rest of the party alive than following a combat strategy plan... but that is just my own play style, I suppose.

Where NWN really shines is multiplayer.  When the rest of the party actually has their own controls it changes everything and becomes suddenly a cooperative adventure rather than a test of manipulation like in RTS games. 

So you still have the best part to come with all the Persistent Worlds available and/or  LAN games with your family and friends.  May as well become addicts together, eh?

Besides the game itself, this has got to be the most dedicated community on-line.  Between helping each other getting the game to operate most effectively on any platform, the infinite community content uploaded to the IGN Vault, the utilities designed to expand the NWN experience and tutoring to aid any novice in creating their own adventures easily... well, it is just rare. 

So enjoy your virgin experience because it only happens once!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_Lowlander_*]

               The biggest complaints when NWN was releases was that it wasn't BG2...  Many people were expecting another party based game.

BG2 was great, one of my all time favorites, but I really don't want to do party control/management as it is more small group tactical battle sim, than RPG and I don't really associate as much with "my character" when I have full control of 4-6 characters all the time.

I much prefer the single player control, with henchman or occasional extras.  Deekin IMO is better than any character in BG/BG2.

NWN is my favorite game of all time.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Lowlander, 24 juillet 2011 - 01:36 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               The OCs are easy.  Push-overs.

Get ye forth to an Online server, like Higher Ground!

You will be humbled.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shiek2005]

               Ehhh.....

Might as well share my experiences here then.

And BTW, i usually (read 99.9% of the time) play the good guy in my RPGs, i recently tried the bad guy approach on Fable 3 and the game was seriously not designed properly for an EVIL character, but anyways...

I picked up BG2 back in early 2004, it was my first game of it's kind and i had little idea what the hell i was doing, so most of the time i just ordered all my dudes and dudettes to mass attack enemies...i guess that worked for the most part, but i eventually encountered a certain Umber Hulk on which aforementioned tactic didn't work, so i eventually got bored and moved on.

After that came NWN in late 2004/early 2005 which i highly enjoyed. I never finished the OCs (i'm working on fixing that right now) but nevertheless i spent a crapload of time on it on and off. I played a couple of modules, spent countless hours on various PWs, gradually learned how to use the toolset and how to semi-understand scripts and finally landed a position as a Builder and DM on a friend's PW. I made many friends, some of which i still regularly talk to with today and some enemies, honestly speaking NWN holds some of the best gaming-related memories i have.

Then came NWN2 in late 06, a couple months before i got myself a new PC, for among other things, NWN2. At first i was terribly disappointed at the overall "bleh" experience, even the toolset was modified to be beyond my current capabilities (i can't design any "outdoor" areas to save my own life) so i quickly ditched NWN2 and moved on to other things. However, in 2009 i picked up both expansions for NWN2 and dived back in, by then i upgraded the graphics card on my PC and got the game to run respectively well on my PC and was able to comfortably complete the OC and i think it's a great game nowadays, not "NWN great", but great in it's own unique way. However, i'am diappointed by the lack of half-decent PWs (at least since i last looked)...but then nowadays i also prefer modules over PWs, so maybe it's not that bad of a thing.

Earlier this year i saw BG on gog.com and picked it up, despite never finishing BG2, i had good memories about it and i had liked it a lot, so i figured BG would be an instant like...not. I was immediately put off by having to micromanage (which i HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE and yes.....HATE SOME MORE!!!) my 6 member party. I also found it to be not as linear as i would have liked, by chapter 3 i had rage quit the game with absolutely no intention whatsoever to play it again. A couple months ago i talked about the experience i had had with the game with my friend and his like "really?" and then his like "we need to play BG2 then so i can show you how fun the BG games can be", i'm like "sure, whatever" because i had NOT liked BG and i seriously DOUBTED i would enjoy BG or BG2 playing it with someone else...i always saw the BG games as single player games, like i usually do most RPGs outside of Action/RPGs like Diablo. Then about a month ago, we land back on the subject of BG and he suggests we play BG2 because at the time we were looking for a new game to play together after an incident on my laptop wiped all the save game i had for the game we were playing on Sacred, so i reluctantly agree on the condition that we play BG first because i already had it and if i was going to play BG2, i wanted to play and complete BG first.

Approximately two and a half weeks ago we began playing BG, i rolled a Ranger and my friend a Fighter, about 4hrs in my friend was not content with his character, so we start over, this time i roll a Mage and my friend rolls a Paladin, i also roll a Cleric to help out with healing. We take Imoen and later Khalid and Jaheira with us. After a while, i realize i'm actually enjoying the game a lot and yes, my opinion of the game changed drastically. We finished the game yesterday and plan to begin working on BG2 as soon as today, we had many great moments throughout BG, exchanging ideas for defeating impossible odds, debating the answer to a riddle or simply laughing at the absurdity of things (seriously...a mage casting lightning bolt which goes on to ricochet around the small room, decimating 75% of the enemies, including the very caster herself and leaving my friend with just 1HP...thats priceless '> ). I can only hope that BG2 holds as many great moments as BG did and my personal suggestion for those that did not enjoy the BG games on their own, grab a friend or even someone you know online or whatever thats willing to play with you, once the burden of micromanaging a 6 person party is divided between 2 people (or even more if you are so inclined) the experience only gets better. Just make sure that whoever you get to tag along with you for the ride is a good playing and not just someone who randomly runs around like a headless chicken.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_bokhi]

               Hm...I must say, I never really enjoyed NWN 1 for the OC. I was always more of a multiplayer/module player with that one (and some of those modules were/are actually far more impressive than the OC/expansions combined). BGII is, in my opinion, a far superior single-player experience. Of course my all time favorite Infinity Engine game was Planescape: Torment so clearly our tastes are very different. As a note though: PS:T is a very different play experience depending on your PC's WIS/INT/CHA stats. It won't be much fun if you play it like Diablo - a lot of people I spoke with who didn't like PS:T tended to play hack-slash type characters, so I'm just tossing that one out there.

That being said: The thing about NWN was that combat drove me nuts. I actually enjoy micro-managing my battles, and the truly awful AI in NWN drove me up the wall. Tony K's AI hak, of course, improved the game-play greatly, but my first play through I gave up on being a rogue or fighter and played a mage instead because...Arrrgh. Srsly, the spell casting AI was so, so broken when it was first released. So. Broken.

In terms of character and storyline - well I didn't really like any of the henchmen, except maybe Tomi and Deekin. The OC was so awful that I never finished it - the first chapter is seriously like, the same quest over and over in different sections of the city (one giant fetch quest, really) and wow, how convenient that every sector of the city suffers from one specific thing. I mean, really guys? Really? Blargh.

The expansions were better, but still not that great. To be fair I did enjoy SoU and HotU, but for some reason HoTU lost some of the improvements made in SoU over the OC (though it did come with its own improvements over SoU), and never made much sense to me. Both expansions were also incredibly linear, and in true Bioware fashion, didn't really have sensible evil PC options. Chaotic Evil isn't Chaotic Stupid. Of course, BGII suffered from this as well (re: Bioware game), but with that one you only had reputation shifts, not entire alignment shifts (at least until the end game). Granted sometimes these rep shifts vs. companion angst made very little sense, but I actually preferred that over senseless alignment shifts.

I actually quite enjoyed the twists and turns in SoU, but the henchmen (except Deekin) were boring. I didn't really care when Drogan died because I wasn't invested, and the entire experience had a lot less in way of emotional investment/impact. In HotU they improved the henchmen (kind of. Nathyrra is still boring and largely useless, and Valen apparently learned to speak out of godawful romance novels or something. Not quite as bad as Anomen, but close), but the plot had a lot less in the way of twists and turns. The entire first act is basically one long, boring dungeon crawl and the entire second act is basically go to various points and gather allies in various convoluted and suspiciously convenient ways. Once more, lack of emotional investment because the game forces a geas on your PC, so everything's rather obligatory. Last act of HotU was also a bit meh...the Hells, really? Aribeth, really? =/ Oh come on. I did like the blood war sequence though, just for the gleeful carnage =).

BGII of course is dated, but I do argue that plot devices in BG II were a bit more forgivable because you were basically playing as a character who was the progeny of a dead god. You also got to do nifty **** like turning into a lobster-inspired killing machine and getting your own pocket plane. Add in the myriad of side quests and little secrets you could ferret out and I must say I was far more entertained during my first BGII/ToB playthrough than my first NWN playthrough. I will however admit I never finished BG I because I found it incredibly boring. Also, an ankheg killed me. '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               Is there an OC?


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shiek2005]

               

bokhi wrote...

I will however admit I never finished BG I because I found it incredibly boring. Also, an ankheg killed me. '>

You have NO idea how many of those killed me and my friend, they even managed to kill us when we were max lvl:mellow:
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_bokhi]

               

Shiek2005 wrote...

You have NO idea how many of those killed me and my friend, they even managed to kill us when we were max lvl:mellow:

Late reply but must say...

BG was actually my introduction to DnD, and I had no idea what an ankeg was (CR? DUUUR WHAT IS CR?) - and for whatever reason I ambled northward at lvl 2 with just Imoen in my party. For some reason I was convinced I had to kill this thing and spent all my time thereafter dying over and over and over...

XD 

Ahhh, n00bness. MEMORIZ.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Estelindis]

               Baldur's Gate was also my introduction to D&D.  If I hadn't tried it, I probably would never have played a tabletop RPG or done a single bit of NWN modding.  I'm grateful for the positive impact it's had on my life.  :-)

In terms of evil role-playing, I'm currently writing a giant flow chart for all the choices in my module, and creating a story that would allow for a well-written evil plot and a well-written good plot would really be twice the work of an ordinary one - or maybe even more than twice, if the narrative branches kept splitting.  Only so many options are really practical to write.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Estelindis, 30 septembre 2011 - 02:50 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Drewskie]

               I never found where the demi-lich was on my run through bg2 back in the day.  Was thinking I "might" re-install after all these years and try to find that and a few other things I missed...  The hand rendered backgrounds of those old 2d games still look awesome to me.  NWN I consider to be the best multi-player game of all time, which is what's kept me here all these years.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Frawns]

               

Travalanche wrote...
 
 when an NPC tells you that you are a pest or shoo you off early game why NOT kill him/her later on after you collect decent gear?  I mean thats just one less rude NPC in the game, your doing a favor! 

Killing someone because they are rude is maybe a bit drastic.

Your overall moral standing seems a bit questionable^^ You chaotic evul you
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_bokhi]

               

Estelindis wrote...

Baldur's Gate was also my introduction to D&D.  If I hadn't tried it, I probably would never have played a tabletop RPG or done a single bit of NWN modding.  I'm grateful for the positive impact it's had on my life.  :-)

In terms of evil role-playing, I'm currently writing a giant flow chart for all the choices in my module, and creating a story that would allow for a well-written evil plot and a well-written good plot would really be twice the work of an ordinary one - or maybe even more than twice, if the narrative branches kept splitting.  Only so many options are really practical to write.

That's certainly true, but I keep thinking there must be some way to minimize that particular headache by limiting either the impact of the choices or keeping such turns low in number, or both. Granted, I've never actually managed to finish a module myself despite all those hours (nay, years in summation...) I've spent plotting, so maybe I'm not the best judge. 

Though on the other hand, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to harbor such a desire (to play a really well made evil RP option where Evil =! Stupid) as a consumer. Not saying it must absolutely fulfilled (since I'm still buying and playing games, obviously), but it's a sort of hope one can hang onto. =)
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               Hmmm...

BG (and BGII) are certainly milestones in the history of CD&D (computer D&D games).  Just like the Gold Boxes were (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Asure Bonds, etc).  In length, scope, etc, BGII was certainly a pinnacle of playing pleasure.

BUT...

NWN introduced the 3rd dimension AND true Online play.  And it introduced something that we never, EVER had before - the possibility of playing a true D&D closed campaign online.

A true D&D closed online campaign is really the epitome of the computer D&D experience.  Because of the DM Client and the ability to host a persistent Module, and due to the relative ease of Modding that NWN provides (and the enormous content the Community has created), this was THE leap forwards that needed to occur.

Anyone who has played in such a Campaign will attest to this.  With the visual aid that NWN provides, there is no other thing like this.  NWConnections is a great example of how this concept took off and still continues to this day.

I have had the rare honor to have participated in a number of such Campaigns, and I prefer to play NWN like this.

As such, NWN is greater than BGII.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shallina]

               I won't say NWN > to BG or BG2, but the fact than NWN introduced true 3D, and the toolset and a true multiplayer environnement made it clearly an amazing game and that was a step in the right direction.

BG and BG2 are incredible story based game. NWN isn't as good as a story based game, but it is so much more.