Is NWN2 worth playing?

[Lilura]

All the while you're fiddling with a submenu that stubbornly refuses to show a decent amount of information in your gigantic 10 year old screen. That is not an example of very good combat.

Seems like he was handling the radial menu pretty well, though I prefer to use the quickbar and hotkeys. Btw, radial menu clearly labels icon when you mouse-over.

NwN has all the cute little details that make for a half decent ruleset. Its excellence lies in the community it spawned, where modules are more often than not praised for their writing, which is telling.

Role-playing and exploration, too. See Swordflight, where combat is also made more interesting due to tactical and strategic considerations based on resource management.

The game's controls just did not age very well in comparison with the IE games and some of the other titles that came out since.

Cam and control is fine for the most part; you can interact with your environment much more than in the IE RPGs. In regards to companion AI/limited direct control of what companions do, it's better to restrict/emphasize role of companions to either simple tanking or utility purposes such as passive buffs/debuffs that are always active; f.e, bardsong and perma fear aura (as Swordflight does with Zarala and its lich companion).

Re. meatshield line subversion, or however you put it: Aurora is far more capable than Infinity, but that's the province of Tony K's and other custom enemy AIs.

 

[Lilura]

Maybe the first time I run through NWN2OC it feel like tedious and long pace.

I'm trying to get through it now.

• Inability to escape key out of innumerable dialogue cutscenes.
• Inability to shave off tedious segments of the game.
• Takes longer to explore any area due to micromanagement hassles, worse pathing routine and slower overall movement rate.
• Slower UI due to fade-ins/outs of GUI modes. Takes longer to swap in and out gear or transfer gear. Context sensitivity dropdown lag. Selection of combat unit lag.
• Drawn out combat segments consisting of trashmobs. I estimate it takes twice as long to put down a trashmob in the first quarter of the campaign than it does in NWN OC.
• Much, much longer load times.
• General kludge and clunk.

 

[Delterius]

Seems like he was handling the radial menu pretty well, though I prefer to use the quickbar and hotkeys.

Radial menus just aren't very good additions. That whole 10 pages of vancian spellcasting could and were handled better in NwN2.

Role-playing and exploration, too.

My point is that, personally, a NwN module is good for its roleplaying and exploration. Combat being a third rate concern at best. You don't have to argue that.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

My point is that, personally, a NwN module is good for its roleplaying and exploration. Combat being a third rate concern at best. You don't have to argue that.

My point is that, personally, a NwN module is good for its roleplaying, exploration and Combat. You don't have to argue that.

 

[Delterius]

My point is that, personally, a NwN module is good for its roleplaying and exploration. Combat being a third rate concern at best. You don't have to argue that.

My point is that, personally, a NwN module is good for its roleplaying, exploration and Combat. You don't have to argue that.

Well, some people are just not very good at thinking about stuff.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

My point is that, personally, a NwN module is good for its roleplaying and exploration. Combat being a third rate concern at best. You don't have to argue that.

My point is that, personally, a NwN module is good for its roleplaying, exploration and Combat. You don't have to argue that.

Well, some people are just not very good at thinking about stuff.

My condolences.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

'course there's this one story when i was just getting a buzz going one saturday evening but some cunt suddenly walks up and asks me what do i think of the negative effects of the globalization on the traditional chinese culture?

i was taken a back as you can imagine and my only response naturally was 去你妈逼的

and that was that

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I prefer to use the quickbar and hotkeys.

I don't think I've ever used a hotkey or quickbar in any RPG ever. I couldn't tell you why other than possibly that I subconsciously like to approach each combat with the mindset that I might like to try something different. Saying that, I think I can remember using hotkeys/quickbar for heal potions and, where applicable, mana potions or etc in games where that might seem like a very repetitive function, but on the whole I have an unusual phobia of quickbars/hotkeys. They just feel restrictive to me for whatever reason.

 

[Lilura]

Radial menu has its advantages, such as the ability to display every ability/spell etc. that the char has access to.

Quickbars have to be customized.

But NWN2 quickbar is draggable and moddable to more rows displayed.

I also liked the Quickcast menu in NWN2 (F-key), with metamagic tabs along the top. You can drag the spells from there to your quickbar, too (not just from your spellbook).

Also, you can't drag Feats and skills from your charsheet to the quickbar in NWN; you have to use radial menu by right-clicking on quickbar cells.

 

[Lilura]

(That said, despite not employing XML the Aurora UI still does some things better than the Electron one; plus it looks better, is more responsive, and has well-drawn item icons that are not all the same size.)

 

[Stokowski]

Just this morning I finished the OC for the first time. I will never do it again. Thank heavens for supercheap gog.com specials or else I would feel robbed as well as raped.

The UI is cancer.
The camera is AIDs.
The first act is pneumonia.
The final few areas are Ebola.
The Crossroads Keep component is a ludicrous gold sink.
The courtroom trial section was ... pretty good fun.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

The things you do when you're out of a job...

lol

 

[Iznaliu]

I couldn't get past the middle of Act 1; too much meaningless shit.

 

[Fedora Master]

I didn't dislike the OC. Then again I didn't outright dislike the OC for NWN1 so maybe I'm just a faggot with bad taste.
The camera and UI being cancer is true though. Has anyone ever attempted fixing those via modding?

 

[Alkarl]

Radial menu has its advantages, such as the ability to display every ability/spell etc. that the char has access to.

Quickbars have to be customized.



But NWN2 quickbar is draggable and moddable to more rows displayed.

I also liked the Quickcast menu in NWN2 (F-key), with metamagic tabs along the top. You can drag the spells from there to your quickbar, too (not just from your spellbook).



Also, you can't drag Feats and skills from your charsheet to the quickbar in NWN; you have to use radial menu by right-clicking on quickbar cells.

(That said, despite not employing XML the Aurora UI still does some things better than the Electron one; plus it looks better, is more responsive, and has well-drawn item icons that are not all the same size.)

The hall-mark of any good rpg, pretty buttons.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I booted this up after quitting a playthrough ~5 years ago. Looks like I was level 7, swashbuckler, still in act 1. I couldn't remember why I quit playing, then I left the uncle's tavern and got ganked by 20 mage students who insta-fireballed the whole party.

-Uninstall.exe

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

Certainly enjoyed MOTB more than obsidian's recent offerings.

 

[SCO]

Stopped playing NWN2 after they copied badly, the assault on bandit camp trope from BG1. They made the 'headquarters' of the bandits a gigantic warehouse of 'loot' in the middle of nowhere where each room had a container and a mob in addition to being a bad maze.

A warehouse that is a maze just contemplate this worldbuilding for a moment. I'm repressing the camera. Fuck this game.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Maybe the first time I run through NWN2OC it feel like tedious and long pace.

I'm trying to get through it now.

• Inability to escape key out of innumerable dialogue cutscenes.
• Inability to shave off tedious segments of the game.
• Takes longer to explore any area due to micromanagement hassles, worse pathing routine and slower overall movement rate.
• Slower UI due to fade-ins/outs of GUI modes. Takes longer to swap in and out gear or transfer gear. Context sensitivity dropdown lag. Selection of combat unit lag.
• Drawn out combat segments consisting of trashmobs. I estimate it takes twice as long to put down a trashmob in the first quarter of the campaign than it does in NWN OC.
• Much, much longer load times.
• General kludge and clunk.

• To sell an item you have to double click it, then a prompt comes up asking "are you sure you want to sell this" and you have to click OK, there's no hotkey.
• All the dialogue, inventory and spellcasting interfaces are just too damn small. Text is a pain to read, icons are a pain to click and easy to miss.
• If a summon bugs out and gets stuck blocking a passage you can't get it out of the way except by unsummoning it.

Doing SoZ not OC but it's the same list of problems.

 

[Lilura]

• To sell an item you have to double click it, then a prompt comes up asking "are you sure you want to sell this" and you have to click OK, there's no hotkey.
• All the dialogue, inventory and spellcasting interfaces are just too damn small. Text is a pain to read, icons are a pain to click and easy to miss.
• If a summon bugs out and gets stuck blocking a passage you can't get it out of the way except by unsummoning it.

Doing SoZ not OC but it's the same list of problems.

Confirmation-on-sell can be disabled in options.

Agree with the other two. SoZ has lots of unique technical problems, too. Mostly surrounding the OLM.

 

[laclongquan]

OLM is a new mechanism so I give it a pass. Mostly. Fucking loading 100+ minimap.

 

[taxalot]

So, I have been playing this. The OC. It's clearly not one of the best games ever, but the hate is pretty much unwarranted. Two questions though :

1. Can anyone recommend a HD mod or something that will make the game look better ? No big deal if nothing decent is there. The stuff I have seen on NexusMods is, uh, dubious.
2. I am playing the game in normal and I am starting to regret it. Except in a few super rare instances, the game is extremely easy, as this game mode turns off friendly fire. My wizards can spam the entire battle area with area effects spells like fireballs while a few melee fighters keep the enemies busy. I am late in the OC and refuse to switch. However, since my version came with MOTB and Storms of Zehir, how difficult are those two ? Should I switch to Hardcore then or were these games more designed with the Normal difficulty in mind making it more of a challenge then ?
3. Is Mysteries of Westgate worth playing ?

 

[Sizzle]

3. Is Mysteries of Westgate worth playing ?

Can't help you with the first two questions (never modded NWN2 much, and it isn't a game I played for the combat), but as for MoW - yes, definitely. An excellent little module with plenty of great role-playing and C&C.

If you still haven't read it, VD's review does a good job of explaining why :D

 

[Krivol]

Just like in NWN1, in NWN2 DLC's are usually much better than OC.

 

[NJClaw]

Just like in NWN1, in NWN2 DLC's are usually much better than OC.

Unlike NWN1, however, you can play through NWN2 OC without dying of boredom.