NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[Jason Liang]

I thought ADwR part 2 was fine. The last dungeon was well done. It only fails through having even more cringe moments than part 1, and a huge boner of an underdark section that's pretty insipid after both BG2 and HotU. i doubt it's worth a "remake," since the first 2/3rds is so insipid. Perhaps an abridged version, around 2 chapters, to conclude ADwR part 1's story.

 

[eXalted]

I thought ADwR part 2 was fine. The last dungeon was well done. It only fails through having even more cringe moments than part 1, and a huge boner of an underdark section that's pretty insipid after both BG2 and HotU. i doubt it's worth a "remake," since the first 2/3rds is so insipid. Perhaps an abridged version, around 2 chapters, to conclude ADwR part 1's story.

So I guess I will have to put with the first 2/3rd of the game... I hope the last 1/3rd is worth it...

I noticed now while digging in NWN Script that it even provides an option to write commands to the NPCs. Are there modules that use this?

 

[Lilura]

I've finished my recounting of Snow Hunt, in two parts.

My final word on it:

Snow Hunt is a great five hour adventure that includes an intriguing main quest, custom itemization, two solid sidequests, custom mob/boss encounters, alignment shifts, XP scale adjustment for the Henchman, well-written dialogue with lots of checks based on the character, a level-up utility, a tracking mechanic, Henchman interjections, secret doors, traps n locks, implementation of community-made tilesets/placeables, an ending that plays out in two different ways, and solid replayability - all in a month's work?

Congratulations to Rogueknight333!

Also, there are orcs mounted on polar bears! (they are tough muthas)

 

[V_K]

So can anyone suggest me some good mods that are
1) puzzle-heavy
2) open-ended
3) allow multiple solutions to problems
or at least have 2 out of those 3?
Doesn't matter if NWN or NWN2

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Anyone else played the Sands of Fate series for NWN? It's from the same guy who did the awesome Conan Chronicles, any one has any impressions? Lilura?

 

[Lilura]

So can anyone suggest me some good mods that are
1) puzzle-heavy
2) open-ended
3) allow multiple solutions to problems
or at least have 2 out of those 3?
Doesn't matter if NWN or NWN2

Swordflight Chapter Two. It has all three (nine puzzles, four of which are build-dependent). Chapter One isn't open-ended, but I wouldn't pass it up.

Anyone else played the Sands of Fate series for NWN? It's from the same guy who did the awesome Conan Chronicles, any one has any impressions? Lilura?

I've heard good things about it. You're supposed to use your HotU character, or equivalent. I don't really like epic rules, though I did like Aielund Saga (which takes you from first to about thirty-sixth).

 

[Lhynn]

Meh, it seems the second Episode of Bastard of Kosigan is bugged to fuck.

Don't even bother with this shit until it gets fixed (which is likely to be never).

Exile of the West (episode 1, that I covered in depth) also suffers from numerous bugs and stupid things; moreover someone has just reported that the new episode, just uploaded, is bug-ridden to the point of outweighing the pros.

So basically, I'm dropping this series and can't recommend it at all, despite how awesome it would be if they play-tested it better in the first place.

Just my opinion, but the worth of mod that forces you to wrestle with bugs, CTDs and second guess the author is equal to zero.

The biggest problem is that the versions uploaded arent the latest versions more often than not. The vault going down really hurt the integrity of most nwn fan made content.
I played it up to episode 4 a few years back and never found a single bug.

 

[btbgfel]

Anyone else played the Sands of Fate series for NWN? It's from the same guy who did the awesome Conan Chronicles, any one has any impressions? Lilura?

post hotu mods in egypt settings where children throw fireballs for fun, pc are summoned to defeat bosses named war/famine and such. You can actually let final boss of the third mod succeed in his goal, then beat his @ss. Dungeon crawl is solid enough, with a few (sometimes lethal) puzzles here and there. Immunity items are nearly nonexist. Like all epic level mods, it has hp bloat, sadly.

 

[Lilura]

I'm calling forth the burn out demon with my next recounting, this one of Darkness Over Daggerford, a large-scale epic by Ossian Studios.

Darkness Over Daggerford - Part I
Darkness Over Daggerford - Part II
Darkness Over Daggerford - Part III

Excerpt from blog:

Ossian's Darkness Over Daggerford (2006) is a Forgotten Realms epic strongly influenced by the Baldur's Gate series, what with its world map system, explorative aspect, companion banter, large number of side quests, player stronghold and references to the lore. It's a solid entry in the line of traditional BG-esque epics for the Neverwinter Nights platform, in which arena I would place it below The Aielund Saga and perhaps on par with Crimson Tides of Tethyr - both of which I consider inferior to Swordflight. DoD was supposed to be released as a commercial Premium Module, but the Prime Evil known as Atari scrapped the program during its development. Not to be discouraged, Ossian completed the module and published it on IGN's Neverwinter Vault, free to download for all members - and the community rejoiced.

The World Map system:

 

[Lhynn]

I found it to be a very well made module. Boring as shit tho, didnt get very far into it before dropping it.

 

[Somberlain]

I too dropped it because of boredom the first time I tried, but I played it again to completion just a few days ago. It's well designed and very professional work, which of course is to be expected since it was supposed to be a premium module. Kudos to Ossian for finishing it despite Atari abandoning the program.

I had a few issues though. The henchmen were unappealing and there were only two of them, so I played through the whole module solo. I played a simple elven rogue/assassin, so I was surprised how easily I got through almost all the fights alone, even when I fought toe-to-toe, without traps of death attacks. Also, since I always play stealthy characters in pretty much every game where it's possible, I disliked how often the game forces you to reveal yourself to enemies before battle via a cutscene.

I not a big storyfag or C&C fag but it was a bit annoying that farther the main quest goes, less evil options who get with it. Not that there are almost any even in the early mq, but the endgame barely even let's you pick Bioware-ish "okay, I'll help you but it's only because of money" style "evil" options. The final boss was also way too easy. I beat it toe-to-toe with only the assassin spells and few Cat's Grace/Bull's Strength style potion buffs on Core rules difficulty.

Overall, it's definitely worth playing but it has many problems that are common to commercial generalist campaigns that are designed for every alignment and class.

 

[Lilura]

I also complained about the cutscenes on my blog:

The module often employs cutscenes or locks the camera at a certain angle with only dialogue being selectable by the player. These are primitive, over-used and add nothing to the atmosphere or immersion - indeed, quite the opposite. There is no need to take control of the camera and character from the player for such simple segments that can be scripted in real-time. I mean, wow: A halfling steps into a wagon - MUST HAVE CUTSCENE. Really, now? The Aielund Saga is a good example of how to script segments in real-time, adding to the immersion instead of breaking it. Moreover, there are two other problems brought on by cutscenes: first, they break your stealth and can cause the enemy to get the jump on the party and that's simply unfair; second, Ossian were not thorough in preventing the player from trying to skip cutscenes with the Esc-key, so that if the player hits Esc it can cause awful bugs to manifest, such as the area repeatedly reloading, over and over, for example. So yeah, cutscenes: I can't stand them.

DoD is thus far a doddle, yes: a quaint and casual campaign that is fairly fun and has so far made me roll my eyes, giggle a lil' and raise an eyebrow here and there. I've just hit the overworld and I'm enjoying it despite its many shortcomings. I'll probably have an essay of criticisms by campaign's end, as I did for Exile of the West.

 

[Somberlain]

I also found the weapon itemization kind of lacking. While DoD had many unique weapons that had unusual abilities, they were just too ineffective to use. For my dex-based Weapon Finesse character, turned out that

Spoiler

the generic +4 daggers you can buy from the smithy right from the start were pretty much the best weapons in the entire module. Well, I also found a +3 shortsword with 1d6 cold damage, but that's about it. You get an option to upgrade an existing weapon later in the game though, so that's a small bonus.

 

[Lilura]

Yeah, I noticed even just in Daggerford city some weapons were over-itemized and some under. Ah, well.

Have you played Swordflight series, btw? Best NWN modules I ever played (and one of the best RPGs).

 

[eXalted]

I suppose the conversation cutscenes are there because it removes the ability ti skip them with Esc. Force quitting in this way may make some not yet triggered conversation scripts to... umm, not trigger.

This is something that I am in a middle of considering for my module. Cutscene mode is the only way that you can stop a player from escaping conversation and thus breaking the immersion.

...or there are some other ways?

 

[Somberlain]

Have you played Swordflight series, btw? Best NWN modules I ever played (and one of the best RPGs).

I haven't, though I was thinking about it just now, since I started a NWN marathon a week ago. I'm at SoU endgame now, so after HoTU, I think I'll try Swordflight.

This is something that I am in a middle of considering for my module. Cutscene mode is the only way that you can stop a player from escaping conversation and thus breaking the immersion.

...or there are some other ways?

I don't think there are. And it's not really a problem per se, it's just that DoD uses these cutscenes a lot when they really aren't necessary. I'm also developing a NWN module right now and I'm using cutscene mode in few conversations. Also, in some places, I'm using "attack if aborting the conversation" if I want some conversations to end up in a fight, unless you talk your way out of them.

 

[Lilura]

Check out this draw distance and tree density..

The Thread.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

An NWN2 module I always wanted to play was Legacy of White Plume Mountain but it had too many random crashes, especially in that first multi-level mine you encounter. Going from one level to another could randomly crash your game. Fuck that. the author himself seemed clueless about WHAT was causing these crashes. Tis a pity because it was a HUGE open world mod that had a lot of work put into it.

 

[Urthor]

OP is MIA and I'm polishing off something I shoulda done years ago but life and the backlog never let me. Apart from JOG's list are there any qol mods for Mask of the Betrayer that I need to pick up to play it at 1080?


http://mods.jo-ge.net/nwn2/index.htm

 

[Lilura]

For a no-bullshit list of mods (with links) just read the last few sections of this post.

 

[eXalted]

I seem to be unable to sate my NWN hunger (NWN modules hunger that is, not OC).

Can someone (Lilura ) recommend me a horror module or/and one whit global confict, armies clashing that you are part of one way or another?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I seem to be unable to sate my NWN hunger (NWN modules hunger that is, not OC).

Can someone (Lilura ) recommend me a horror module or/and one whit global confict, armies clashing that you are part of one way or another?

Dunno about NWN, but NWN 2 had Misery Stone, which, while not quite scary, has an excellent atmosphere of despair and general Ravenloft-ness, I think.

 

[Fenris 2.0]

Hmm... the first one isn't a true horror module and even the second is more like a mean mindfuck, but
Elegia Eternum
and
Excrucio Eternum were pretty dark.

 

[Echo Mirage]

Speaking of horror. Was there ever a mod to fix the "HD" faces in NWN2?

 

[Fenris 2.0]

Yeah, most faces in NWN 2 are unfortunatly ugly. If you don't like the Facelift Pack you can just browse the models sections, put some of them in the override and hope for the best. Over the years I collected some decent ones, but I can't find them on the web anymore

Edit:
I.E. I stole Head 67 from this Pack:
http://www.nexusmods.com/neverwinter2/mods/82/?