NWN 2: mask of the betrayer is out now.

[Trash]

On the odd chance that anyone around here has some interest in it, Mask of the Betrayer is in the shops now. I played around with it for a bit and came away not that impressed. But mostly because of gameplay issues.

Some initial impressions:

Graphics have improved, a little bit. But the areas seem to be a bit more developed. Nothing spectacular though, if you did or didn't like it at first you're not going to be swayed.

There is now a new movement scheme. You can play in bird eye view and over the shoulders view. Somehow rotating the camera in the bird eye view doesn't seem to work. Making this extremely irritating. Over the shoulder view is also rather annoying because moving your character with the keyboard is a hassle, and using a mouse just to walke around doesn't feel intuitive. Perhaps I'll get used to it.

Roleplaying. Well, I don't know, haven't delved that deep in it. The start of the game is less exciting as I hoped for, with you waking in some cave with the shard ripped out. It sounds cool, but it looked almost amateurish when I first saw it. The dialogue's seem quite okay so far, with a number of skill checks and hints at something bigger.

Somehow that cool starting movie with the mage fighting doesn't appear anymore. In it's place is....well nothing. Just the usual atari, nividia and obsidian logo's, followed by the title screen. Dunno why, but I'm disappointed by this. I actually liked that movie and not being able to select it in a menu or something kinda sucks.


All in all it's a bit early to say how the expansion will turn out. Personally I'm a bit underwhelmed. Then again, I had the same with the original NWN 2 campaign.

 

[Barbader]

auto-pause or configurable pauses?

 

[Starwars]

Personally I'm more impressed by this so far than I was with the NWN2 OC (though I pretty much loathed the first act of that so not a huge accomplishment).

Main premise of the story is more interesting I think, but I do think they could've made the first moments a bit better. You kinda expect a kinda big and elaborate opening, but it moves on a bit to fast leaving a hurried feel to it.

After the easy opening area, the difficulty went up quite a bit. Granted, it's my experience that I kinda suck at these games (I'm also just "familiar" with D&D, but I haven't played for any long periods of time). But I found the fights so far to be a lot more fulfilling than those in the NWN2 OC. I don't know if they will phase the D&D veterans, but I'm having fun with them so far.

I didn't have any problems with the control scheme. I configured the strategy mode so that it worked just like before (I never had any problems with how the camera worked originally in the game though), and I just use the character mode to get a closer look at things since you can just press a button basically.

Can't really judge it yet obviously, but I think if you absolutely can't stand NWN2 then I don't think you'll be a great fan of MotB either, though I think most will say that it's definetely an improvement all in all.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

How's the romance option? Is she hot? I heard she was bald? Is she bald in a sexy way?

More impressions, dammit!

 

[Starwars]

Not ugly, but not hot. I think the baldness works for her all in all. I'm playing a female character though, so no romance there for me (I don't think she's bi at least, haha).

Influence system actually looks to be approaching something I might actually like though. It seems a bit more elaborate now (a larger scale). One nice touch is that I lost influence with her at one point when I criticized the Red Wizards (or something like that), but I got the option to follow up with a Diplomacy check explaining more in detail what I meant. I succeeded and got the lost influence back.

I've only gotten this companion so far, but she seems to be a bit more talkative than the NWN2 companions, and far less annoying as far as I'm concerned. But, time will tell...

 

[Trash]

How's the romance option? Is she hot? I heard she was bald? Is she bald in a sexy way?

Well, you meet a bald woman as the game starts. If she's a romance option I'm gonna laugh.

I didn't have any problems with the control scheme. I configured the strategy mode so that it worked just like before (I never had any problems with how the camera worked originally in the game though), and I just use the character mode to get a closer look at things since you can just press a button basically.

I like to turn the camera around, so this was some getting used to. Especially since I've been spending way to much time with games like world in conflict and homeworld. Games that have easy to understand and intuitive controll schemes. However, I'm getting the hang of it now. Just expected something a bit more bg from the strategic view and a bit more kotor from the character mode.

auto-pause or configurable pauses?

Same as nwn2.

Further on, I'm kinda enjoying the story. The beginning feels a bit rushed, but the story is slowly growing on me. The combat is more interesting so far. With some interesting fights, though nothing really hard so far. The way they handled the soul system and the resting seems cool. At least it ads some strategy. Oh, and like nwn 2, it's a monty haul.

 

[Saxon1974]

You mentioned that the area's are a bit more developed. Can you elaborate on that?

Can you enter all or at least most buildings? Can you openly explore? Is this as linear as the first?

If so, Im going to pass.....I couldn't play NWN2 OC campaign due to these issues.

 

[Monolith]

How much of the game consist of fighting? And do you fight hords of easy enemies (fodder) or are there less, but tougher fights? If it's the former than I won't even consider torrenting that shit.

 

[Starwars]

I think Trash might be further along the story than I, but I'll answer some.

You mentioned that the area's are a bit more developed. Can you elaborate on tha

Personally, from what I've seen so far, it just looks like far more thought was put it into the areas. It's mostly cosmetical from what I've seen so far, but really, it actually adds a lot more atmosphere to the game. It just looks plain better.

Can you enter all or at least most buildings? Can you openly explore? Is this as linear as the first?

Sorry to disappoint, so far (again, I'm merely a few hours into the game) it still feels like NWN2 in this remark. You can't enter most buildings, and so far the story has been leading you. The good thing is that the story seems far more interesting this time around.

How much of the game consist of fighting? And do you fight hords of easy enemies (fodder) or are there less, but tougher fights? If it's the former than I won't even consider torrenting that shit.

It still follows the NWN formula so there's quite a but of fighting. I'd say the amount so far has been comparable with NWN2. Definetely no cases of the Orc caves so far, I'm finding fights fairly challenging and generally a lot more fun than the NWN2 OC. And yes, I've not gotten into the "Spirit eater thing" to much yet, but even without it your rests can still be interrupted if you're unlucky depending on where you rest. Good change.

Well, you meet a bald woman as the game starts. If she's a romance option I'm gonna laugh

Laugh away then. She's the romance.

 

[Greatatlantic]

MotB is out in stores? Which country are you from? I checked websites (USA) and they said it wasn't out until October. Are you sure you're playing a "Store Bought" version?

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Well, you meet a bald woman as the game starts. If she's a romance option I'm gonna laugh

Laugh away then. She's the romance.

Hell yeah!

Have any of you gotten far enough in the game to see what this "spirit eater"-thing is all about? Is it basically what I think it is; a health meter which you must keep filled by eating dead monster souls so you won't die or is it something far better/worse and what exactly does it mean for the PC?

Edit: It's out in European stores.

 

[Starwars]

MotB is out in stores? Which country are you from? I checked websites (USA) and they said it wasn't out until October. Are you sure you're playing a "Store Bought" version?

For quite possibly the first time in history, a game is actually being released in EU before the US. That said, I don't think the official release date is until tomorrow (28th). But many received copies that they ordered online early, and I picked my copy up at a local gamestore where a friend of mine works (no idea if they were gonna start selling it today).

I've not gotten to the point where the Spirit Meter comes into play yet.
That's one of my complaints so far actually, since you have this hunger from the start of the game (and something happens related to it). But you don't really get a chance to reflect on it much in the game with your companion, despite it obviously being a rather huge thing for your character.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Hmmm... Next question, anybody know a European retailer willing to ship to the US?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I think amazon.co.uk does.

 

[MetalCraze]

HOLY SHIT! Mask of the betrayer is out? O RLY?

well I don't expect it to be a classic/great game. But I'm so fucking starving for a RPG now. However it's a good news. And let's see if MCA > Sawyer.

 

[Greatatlantic]

I think amazon.co.uk does.

Just checked, no they don't ship PC games to the states. Any other possible European vendors?

 

[inwoker]

And let's see if MCA > Sawyer.

how?
Sawyer wasn't lead designer of OC. He came lately.
Btw, MCA did pst and Sawyer did ..uh.. iwd2 and some hm.. don't know

 

[Livonya]

I usually try to get European versions of games, and the place that I usually find them is GoGamer.com so you might check with them as they might have the European version soonish.

- Livonya

 

[Starwars]

For MotB, wiki says that MCA is "senior designer" for MotB. I've no idea what that means. George Ziets is the guy that (if I remember correctly) is responsible for writing the story of MotB and is creative lead for the project.

I think Chris Avellone wrote two of the companions. I know he worked on Gann and I think Kaelyn.

 

[OSK]

I usually try to get European versions of games, and the place that I usually find them is GoGamer.com so you might check with them as they might have the European version soonish.

- Livonya

That's where I got my UK version of Silent Storm Gold when it looked like Sentinels would never be released in NA.

 

[cutterjohn]

I think that it's only out in Europe ATM. Oct. 8th is the official USA release date.

(Saw someone at rpgwatch said that German/UK, and I guess general EU has been released or is available anyways.)

 

[fastpunk]

It's out? Nice. It's interesting that Atari chose to publish it in Europe before NA. I still gotta finish NWN2 so I will not be getting it for another couple of weeks though. Will the codex make a review?

 

[MetalCraze]

It's interesting that Atari chose to publish it in Europe before NA

Well they need to beta-test it before releasing at home you know.

 

[thesheeep]

I've got the game and.. lol!

There are no race descriptions, no skill descriptions, no campaign descriptions, no sounds in the Intro movie, no sounds in dialogues, etc. I think this is somehow similar to the Gothic 3 desaster, although it may be fixed with only one patch. It seems like some DVDs simply had wrong TLKs on them...

Wow... I must say I'm impressed

Skyway seems to be right. I'm obviously participating in the European beta.


Edit:

Just happening in the Bioware forums..

I can recreate this by installing the original game and patching to 1.10 and after this installing MotB.

Installing MotB without patching of the OC results in broken OC

So, we can basically decide if we want to have screwed up descriptions & sound, or screwed up OC?

Nice... I don't really remember the last game that let me choose the lesser of two evils.
So that was what Obsidian meant when talking about choices & consequences...

 

[Starwars]

Sucks that there are technical problems. Anyways, I choose broken OC without a doubt, lulz. Not good for Obsidian though since the weekend is coming up, and they won't be able to give support (unless they get a fix out today which I doubt). Wonder if it was Atari or Obsidian that messed up.

I'm a bit further in the game now, and I have to say that I'm really liking it. I just ran into a certain area and got promptly slaughtered. Someone on the Bioware forums said that crafting your stuff is highly recommended. Sucks for me since I don't usually do that, guess it's time to start.

The companions so far I've gotten (I suspect I've gotten all of them except one, I think I blew my chances of getting him) are interesting I think, and (get this)... Not annoying! I actually like all of them so far. The sucky thing is that right now (in NWN2 OC this increased the further along the OC you got) is that I can only bring 3 of them along.

Something I was not fond of in NWN2 returns here though, and that is the repetition of certain plot points. Just like in NWN2, where if you wanted to exhaust as much dialogue as you could from characters, you'd be forced to hear the exact same stuff about the Guardian/Illefarn about a million times from different NPCs. This seems to be the case here as well which is a shame. It doesn't bother me that much though.