Why all the NWN 2 hate?

[hell bovine]

Also don't forget about the actual gameplay. It is a lot superior to planescape. Things like spirit eater mechanics, crafting and sphere combining, the character development is so much richer with dozens of classes, feats, perks, spells, traits etc, you can spend ages just creating your character. If MOTB was not an expansion pack but a proper massive rpg I probably would be playing it right now instead of sitting on forums lol.

It was the actual gameplay that was the most disappointing part of MotB for me.

Spirit mechanics alone was absurd, because it assigned alignment points dependent on your diet. I like playing evil characters, but in that game, the evil you did was outweighed by your food choices. Try an evil druid in this system; eat spirits - can't be a druid, don't eat spirits - can't be a druid, sacrifice yourself - yes, you can be a druid. I recall people complaining on the official boards - and they were absolutely right - that an intelligent evil character might choose not to eat spirits, but that doesn't make them good. Except it does, in MotB. Shifting was just bugged. The rest of perks, feats, spells were irrelevant in the long run, because there was no challenge to combat. Good ending was a cop out too, except for some hilarious reason my male bard ended up in a romantic epilogue with Gann. Okay, he was an elf, so I can understand the confusion, but still. :D

 

[Lord Andre]

Knights of the Chalice managed with 3 classes and the open source license to create an amazingly meaningful character progression and combat experience.
It was made by one guy.

But, by all means let's debate if NWN2 is shit for 19th time. The jury's still out...

 

[Commissar Draco]

Not hate it but was very dis-pointed how mediocre and biowhorean it was after KOTOR 2... Expected MUCH MORE from Obsidian and that Camera Man...

 

[Zed]

I've enjoyed playing NWN2:OC. Twice, I think.

MOTB is cool and different.

I haven't tried that other expansion pack.

NWN2:OC is a decent generic fantasy adventure romp. Some people complain about the camera but I didn't have any trouble with it and I find some games unplayable due to camera (Dungeon Siege 3 for instance).
I don't like the high level character creation in MOTB, but when you're in-game you kinda forget about levels and the standard RPG progression stuff.
Other than that I haven't got any major complaints about either game.

 

[FeelTheRads]

PS:T is more memorable for its setting than its writing. Take away the planes, philosophies, factions and cant (none of which were originated by Black Isle), then throw TNO into the Forgotten Realms. I rest my case.

Take away everything from MotB as well and have a guy with an artifact stuck in him thrown into the Forgotten Realms. I rest my case.

Of course the setting helped Torment a lot and it's simply superior to that of MotB which is pretty much just Forgotten Realms with some extra voodoo spirit bullshit added on top. But if you want to separate it, how would the writing in MotB be better? The quality of the writing itself or the story/plot? What exactly? I found both worse and was annoyed by the shitty Fag Of Dreams, the bald chick and several other small NPCs with stupid dialogue.

 

[Athelas]

PS:T is more memorable for its setting than its writing. Take away the planes, philosophies, factions and cant (none of which were originated by Black Isle), then throw TNO into the Forgotten Realms. I rest my case.

You're talking about a game where the titular plane-scaping is widely considered to be the nadir of the game - unless you thought the trash mobs in Curst/Carceri were the highlight of the game. BG 2 has more plane-walking than PS:T - ironically. Of course the game wouldn't be the same without the setting, but the writing is ultimately responsible for utilizing that setting in an interesting way.

 

[GloomFrost]

It was the actual gameplay that was the most disappointing part of MotB for me.

Spirit mechanics alone was absurd, because it assigned alignment points dependent on your diet. I like playing evil characters, but in that game, the evil you did was outweighed by your food choices. Try an evil druid in this system; eat spirits - can't be a druid, don't eat spirits - can't be a druid, sacrifice yourself - yes, you can be a druid. I recall people complaining on the official boards - and they were absolutely right - that an intelligent evil character might choose not to eat spirits, but that doesn't make them good. Except it does, in MotB. Shifting was just bugged. The rest of perks, feats, spells were irrelevant in the long run, because there was no challenge to combat. Good ending was a cop out too, except for some hilarious reason my male bard ended up in a romantic epilogue with Gann. Okay, he was an elf, so I can understand the confusion, but still. :D

I never said that MOTB gameplay was perfect and the best of the best. And 99% of games wouldn't even DARE to include something as risky as spirit eating mechanics, Obsidian did. But now try to remember what was leveling up in planescape like. Level up, spend a point on intelligence or wisdom, memorize new spell, DONE. And for a warrior level up, spend a point on strength or constitution, DONE. I would choose more complex but yes very unbalanced MOTB system over planescape any day. As for an easy combat PLEASE as if planescape had any challenging encounters. Also once again you are forgetting that the MOTB is just a small expansion pack while planescape was a proper big rpg.

 

[hell bovine]

I never said that MOTB gameplay was perfect and the best of the best. And 99% of games wouldn't even DARE to include something as risky as spirit eating mechanics, Obsidian did. But now try to remember what was leveling up in planescape like. Level up, spend a point on intelligence or wisdom, memorize new spell, DONE. And for a warrior level up, spend a point on strength or constitution, DONE. I would choose more complex but yes very unbalanced MOTB system over planescape any day. As for an easy combat PLEASE as if planescape had any challenging encounters. Also once again you are forgetting that the MOTB is just a small expansion pack while planescape was a proper big rpg.

What was so risky about the spirit eater mechanics? You hit sacrifice (or whatever that ability was), loose some exp and be on your merry way. Or if you didn't care about alignment, food was everywhere and - if I remember it right - you could even eat your own summons. Sure, NWN2 character system was more complex and interesting in theory. But in practice at least stats in PST could lead to some interesting dialogue options, whereas all those shiny feats were wasted in MotB, because the combat in the game never put them to test.

 

[Athelas]

MoTB has stat/skill checks too (albeit not as frequent) - and interestingly enough, a lot of misleads where using the usually insta-win Diplomacy dialogue skill was useless.

The spirit eater mechanic was not nearly punishing enough, but at least it was interesting to play with. Weren't the alignment shifts removed in a patch?

 

[Shadenuat]

Because orcs in caves
And if you don't kill all the orcs in caves you will be so underleveled, making any approach but grinding all enemies useless (stealth, invisibility, lol)

Forgotten Realms (best D&D campaign set)

Oh man, I'm ok with some FR but... ANY

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D&D

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setting

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would be fucking better

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than yet another

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FR game

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Agreed. Forgotten Realms is the dullest setting there is.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Agreed. Forgotten Realms is the dullest setting there is.

It's still more original and full of opportunity than... oh... another post-apoc setting with guns and shit...

 

[GloomFrost]

Agreed. Forgotten Realms is the dullest setting there is.

Play a game called Dragon age and you will change your mind.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

But anyway, back to the interesting topics, before you distracted me I came here to reply to this:

The difference still is that Obsidian could have given us another Torment at the drop of a hat. Mask of the Betrayer is proof of this. NWN2 OC was mediocre on purpose. Just think about that.

It has to be some kind of reason, as you state, because I just can't for the life of me figure out why being a publisher of note somehow forces you to write perma-generic crap, but not only perma-generic crap, but perma-generic crap that is itself even crappier than crap.

I mean, the whole Khelgar quest, for example, felt like it was written in structure by the receptionist, passed to the cleaner for revision, then half of it faxed to the president's PA and the other half posted to the receptionist in a different counties' head office, and both sent to each respective office's writing teams for blind implementation.

It's a common complaint of writers that back-seat forum goers couldn't write anything better, and most of the time it's true, or, at least, used to be. But some of the utter drivel you see popping up all around, pretty much ever since NWN 1, for main games seems to be below sub-par fan-fiction levels. I really do honestly believe 75% of the codex could formulate a more interesting and complex while still being coherent plot outline than the paid professionals of games, such as those of NWN 2.

It would be really interesting to know what that reason is, wouldn't it.

 

[GloomFrost]

You're talking about a game where the titular plane-scaping is widely considered to be the nadir of the game - unless you thought the trash mobs in Curst/Carceri were the highlight of the game. BG 2 has more plane-walking than PS:T - ironically. Of course the game wouldn't be the same without the setting, but the writing is ultimately responsible for utilizing that setting in an interesting way.

No.
Planescape plane walking: curst, maze you are send in by a lady of pain, modron maze, ravel garden, baator, negative plane, plane where the "advocat" lives
BG2 planes: prison where you rescue haerdalis, sphere plane, hell at the end of the game........ anything else?

 

[Athelas]

No.
Planescape plane walking: curst, maze you are send in by a lady of pain, modron maze, ravel garden, baator, negative plane, plane where the "advocat" lives
BG2 planes: prison where you rescue haerdalis, sphere plane, hell at the end of the game........ anything else?

You forgot the final area of Throne of Bhaal and the pocket-diimension.

And sure, I was exaggerating a bit (although it's close enough). But my point remains, PS:T didn't lean too heavily on the setting - they even omitted any mention of the deities, despite the planes being their seat of power. Chalking up the quality of the writing purely to the setting is pretty silly, especially since the part of the game where you actually travel to multiple planes is easily its weakest.

 

[GloomFrost]

You forgot the final area of Throne of Bhaal and the pocket-diimension.

And sure, I was exaggerating a bit (although it's close enough). But my point remains, PS:T didn't lean too heavily on the setting - they even omitted any mention of the deities, despite the planes being their seat of power. Chalking up the quality of the writing purely to the setting is pretty silly, especially since the part of the game where you actually travel to multiple planes is easily its weakest.

Fair enough I see your point. Planescape feels really unfinished especially when you get into crust. But then again ALL Black Isle games feel that way lol.

 

[Sykar]

You forgot the final area of Throne of Bhaal and the pocket-diimension.

And sure, I was exaggerating a bit (although it's close enough). But my point remains, PS:T didn't lean too heavily on the setting - they even omitted any mention of the deities, despite the planes being their seat of power. Chalking up the quality of the writing purely to the setting is pretty silly, especially since the part of the game where you actually travel to multiple planes is easily its weakest.

I consider Ravels maze to be a rather good part.

 

[Athelas]

I consider Ravels maze to be a rather good part.

It was, but it was more due to the person in the maze rather than any Planescape-y aspect to it.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

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[eremita]

The difference still is that Obsidian could have given us another Torment at the drop of a hat. Mask of the Betrayer is proof of this. NWN2 OC was mediocre on purpose. Just think about that.

Wait a fucking minute here.

MOTB was better than the OC (not saying much there), but it wasn't that good, it was 'ok' but it's hardly this work of creative genius everyone calls it.. It was passable, it was what the original OC should have been but it's hardly outstanding and to put it anywhere near a reference to Torment (I assume you are talking in terms of writing and plot) is simple brain damage.

Anyone who understands why is writing the strongest part of Torment would never claim that MotB doesn't come close. (IMO it's actually better.)

PS:T is more memorable for its setting than its writing. Take away the planes, philosophies, factions and cant (none of which were originated by Black Isle), then throw TNO into the Forgotten Realms. I rest my case.

I respect your knowledge and insight when it comes to RPG systems Lilura but you're wrong here. The philosophical approach to the motive of immortality/reincarnation and power of one's personality is what really made the game. TNO's tragedy is a synthesis of a) as a subject, he's a clean slate every time he's reborn b) as an object, he's the same man. In other words, he may not remember but others do. And that actually shapes his future self - if he's remembered as vicious and cruel man, he's gonna be remebered this way. So when he's reborn again, the world's gonna treat him unjustly (but is it really unjust? It's still him after all... Or it isn't?), which is how the Paranoid incarnation came to be etc. etc.

This is obviously a work of a very smart and deep man and it obviously doesn't have anything to do with the setting.

 

[Shannow]

What was so risky about the spirit eater mechanics? You hit sacrifice (or whatever that ability was), loose some exp and be on your merry way. Or if you didn't care about alignment, food was everywhere and - if I remember it right - you could even eat your own summons.

You remember wrongly. The game lacks this kind of consistency. It's one of my major gripes next to the out-of-dialogue alignment shifts.
Also: The mechanic "should" have punished rest-abuse and travelling from area to area without "cause". It punished neither. If you decided to go a certain way it even encouraged rest-abuse. The only thing it punished was exploring...
A thoroughly badly implemented feature.

 

[laclongquan]

Rest abuse is a common problem of IE games. it persist until NWN2, until some modders intentionally corporate rest-punish into their works. Rest abuse is why mages are so overpower.

Using end-of-world spells. Rest. Repeat.

 

[Grinolf]

Because
1) Plotwise it was on Bioware level of writing with a very large quantity of content only few parts of which were on decent to good level and the resy full of fetch quests. fantasy cliches and annoying and/or boring companion drama.
2) Typical for Obsidian gameplay full of bugs, atrocious UI and broken combat system but this time without anything, that could excuse it.

Not the worst thing ever, but not good. Also I reemember writing the almost exact some thing a year ago, so NWN 2 apologism exist there for a while, that probably contributed to "hate", that you wrote about.

 

[Perkel]

Rest abuse is a common problem of IE games. it persist until NWN2, until some modders intentionally corporate rest-punish into their works. Rest abuse is why mages are so overpower.

Using end-of-world spells. Rest. Repeat.

This was almost never rest problem but save scumming problem. In BG2 most of the sites were unsecured and with party consisting of more mages this could end up really bad. Part of why also fighter was so awesome because he wasn't as shit as other classes in such cases.

if for example player would be able to save only in town then mage play would be different with more scrolls/wands usage than native spell usage.

People always complained how low level mages and bards are shit. That is wrong. They are most powerfull class at low level because they can use scrolls and wands which was mostly neglected by most people.