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NWN2


theacefes

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Well, I finally went and bought NWN2. I must say, I bought it more for its toolset than for the actual gameplay, but I decided to try and get my money's worth and play the OC.

 

So far, I've encountered the following pros and cons regarding the game. I think I'm only in Chapter 1. I have reached NWN and I am currently trying to get into the Blacklake District, so...not very far.

 

Pros:

- Love the KOTOR style dialogues.

- The graphics have improved since NWN1

- The map is cleaner

- Much easier to create a character overall

- More detail to the head of the character, rather than using a portrait.

- The game itself is more dramatic than NWN1, where I never felt any real urgency to do anything.

- I like how the PC actually has an established background...even if it is a carbon copy of BG.

- The new music is awesome!

 

Cons:

- Ridiculous CPU requirements for sorry to say...not very impressive graphics, though my system can run it at full specs, the pictures are just not worth buying a fancy video card for.

- The voice acting could be better. I feel as though they simply grabbed the same actors from KOTOR and assigned them these characters. Also, the PC's foster father is TERRIBLE. I nearly spit my drink on my monitor at how bad his voice acting was.

- Is it just me, or is Bevil(is that his name?) = Carth and that tiefling = Mission in terms of personality and manner? I guess we're back at cliche NPCs again...*sigh*

- The toolset is not very user friendly, and while I am grasping it slowly, the Aurora toolset was by far easier.

- Everyone's face is ugly.

- KOTOR executed the dialogues better (the PC jerks her head everytime someone else speaks in NWN2, makes it look like she's got a twitch)

 

My questions:

 

- Will the intro movie actually make sense in relation to the plot this time around?

- Will there be anymore movies or is it just KOTOR style cutscenes from here on?

- Why don't the thugs attack each other instead of you? Are they all just one unified gang?

 

 

Overall:

 

I'm really enjoying it and I can't wait to start building modules for it as well. I have to say that it's no Oblivion, which in my opinion is the prettiest game I've ever played, but it's still fun. :p

 

I guess I'll update this as I play. I don't have MoTB yet, but I've read that it's pretty good...I think I'll play the OC first and see what comes of that.

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Did you install all of the patches?

 

The faces are bad, but the elf faces are horrible.

 

Performance wise, the loading is far too long. You need at least a Gig of RAM plus a mid-range to high end video card in order to play this. I had to get a new video card before I could play this. It was something I was planning on any way.

 

The game starts slow but it gets better as you go along.

 

I enjoyed it as you can tell by the many screenshots I took of it when I was playing it.

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....

- I like how the PC actually has an established background...even if it is a carbon copy of BG.

- The new music is awesome!

 

Cons:

 

- Is it just me, or is Bevil(is that his name?) = Carth and that tiefling = Mission in terms of personality and manner? I guess we're back at cliche NPCs again...*sigh*

...

 

My questions:

 

- Will the intro movie actually make sense in relation to the plot this time around?

- Will there be anymore movies or is it just KOTOR style cutscenes from here on?

- Why don't the thugs attack each other instead of you? Are they all just one unified gang?

 

..

 

I guess a foster father is the token clean slate idea for any game. Anything goes. I really enjoyed the intro excellent movie. Especially how the moon appears through the clouds. Which game did you play where it made no sense btw?

 

@NPCs: I am uncertain how much character variety the avergae gamer is going to accept, so you get mostly decent, but obvious NPCs. Overall I found them not too obnoxious, but didn't keep the initial three anyway.

 

I enjoyed MoTB much more than the OC.

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Likewise. Although NWN2's OC is much better than that of NWN1, MotB is likewise much better than the OC.

 

- The voice acting could be better. I feel as though they simply grabbed the same actors from KOTOR and assigned them these characters. Also, the PC's foster father is TERRIBLE. I nearly spit my drink on my monitor at how bad his voice acting was.

Funny. I thought Daeghun actually did a good job, especially if you link the voicing to the personality.

 

As for hearing Kotor's voices... I've had several times in a game where I recognized the same voice actor/actress on a different role (for those that played Arcanum and Jade Empire: King Loghaire Thunderstone = Master Li). Sometimes, it seems sort of inevitable, in that decent voice actors are sparse, and companies tend to hire the same actor for different roles (sometimes even in the same game) - also, it's much cheaper that way :p .

 

- Everyone's face is ugly.

Actually, I feel they did a more than passable job on the males. It's the females which take the hit in this game. Try looking on the Vault for any improvements. Never really bothered to check, since I put the camera viewpoint so high up I don't tend to see detailed faces.

 

Will the intro movie actually make sense in relation to the plot this time around?

Somewhat. IIRC, the intro in the first game showed Lord Nasher on one of his earlier adventures. As for this one, well... that would be telling :p

 

Will there be anymore movies or is it just KOTOR style cutscenes from here on?

KOTOR style cutscenes, as far as I can recall (been a while since I played the OC).

 

Why don't the thugs attack each other instead of you? Are they all just one unified gang?

I take it you've joined up with the City Guard? If you join up with the other team, you'll notice that, indeed, they are a unified gang. I could even tell you what gang, but then I might be spoiling a possible second playthrough :D.

 

Oh, as to the cardboard NPC's: regrettably so. Some of them are worked out a little better than others, but overall they have the regrettable 'quality' to only really have any input on the story at the time they enter it, and for a short while after. MotB does a better job at this, IMO.

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Um... yeah, I was highly disappointed by the game.

 

Short version = <insert 2 hour rant about the failure of the game to live up to what it could have been, ridiculous system requirements, etc., etc.>

 

My advice is to find good mod content and/or a Persistent World that suits your fancy (like the High RP oriented PW in my sig :p ). That community (Exodus) is why I still have the game on my HDD and the only reason I bought MotB; because I have no plan what-so-ever to play it. As indicated by Lord Ernie there are some really cool things on the Vault; once you get past the +15 AC g-string stuff.

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Forget about the faces. The hair. Most of it looks like bad toupets. I haven't tried making a female, but there is exactly one human male hairstyle and face that I like. Amazingly enough all my characters end up looking pretty similar.

 

They even added a couple of new hairstyles for MoTB and most of them have visible gaps in the hair behind which you can see their pasty white heads.

 

And the new MoTB human male heads, shudder. They look like something out of Fallout...creatures that lived below ground for years and interbred heavily.

 

And you are correct the graphics while better than NWN are nothing to write home about, so why the high end graphics requirement? NWN2 toasted my then current videocard. I picked up a new one which ran the game fine. But now I have a 22" monitor and if I try to run it in 1650 x 1080 (much more impresssive than what I was running before 1024 x 768?), it causes my new videocard to overheat!!! Fortunately this card is smart enough to drop the speed down rather than let itelf burn-up.

 

Bevil and Carth are the same voice actor.

 

Daeghun sucks over yonder. Gah! The little folksyisms didn't suit him well. I found him infuriating the first few times I played the game. I actually consider playing an evil character because it fit how I would have felt as child growing up in the care of Daeghun. Suprisingly if you do what he says rather than arguing with him or disscussing anything with him, conversations with him become more bearable. He definitely isn't one to mince words.

 

The PCs are for the most part pretty cliche.

 

The intro movie is background and does make sense in the context of the story.

 

I don't recall any movies beyond the first one.

 

Forget about the thieves all attacking you, I actually wanted to be able to subdue and arrest some of them and the subborned guards. Having to kill them all or talk your way past them letting them get away with whatever they were doing stuck in my mostly lawful/neutral good craw.

 

Verdict. Game was not bad, but could definitely have been better.

 

MoTB is better than the OC, but again it could have been better as well.

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I guess a foster father is the token clean slate idea for any game. Anything goes. I really enjoyed the intro excellent movie. Especially how the moon appears through the clouds. Which game did you play where it made no sense btw?
I think she was talking about the original Neverwinter opening cinematic (Nasher fighting that minotaur).

 

IMO, unless you can match Blizzard quality, it's better to stay away from cinematics. You just look like a joke. Hooray if NWN2 only has the opening cinematic, and doubly so that NWN only had the one pre-render.

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Yakes, cirerek, that's harsh :p I dunno, I think some of the new character faces are fine, I *love* the gensais, and I installed that WB's hair package, and it had a few haistyles I digged.

 

I really like the graphics (hated NWN1), never had any problems with anything, have a 22" monitor as well.

 

I liked most of the OC companions, and tbh, I'd rather the MotB companions weren't all freaks that didn't belong to the setting. I think for the both games, I only truly hated two companions - Shandra and Gann.

 

And I liked Daeghun, I think he was spot on.... Anyways, lol, I guess, I am easy to please. though yep, I kind of hit the low with the MotB atm. I think I might try some mods before finishing the XP.

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Oh, I just can't resist! There is going to be one more mod on the Vault by tomorrow :p Bishop's Romance - OC. Putting finishing touches on it right now! Weeee!!! My first NWN2 'real' mod.

I'd like to try MotB and just wondered if I should go through the original campaign again (it was alright, but I wasn't too fond of it), but now I'll definitely have to! Yay! I'm looking forward to playing your romance during Christmas holidays. :p

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