NWN2: Storm of Zehir expansion (now confirmed)

[Anthony Davis]

Can you comment on that we might get to experience the deity changes that happen in 4.0?

THAT would be cool.

Do you mean story wise?

 

[Jaesun]

Can you comment on that we might get to experience the deity changes that happen in 4.0?

THAT would be cool.

Do you mean story wise?

Yes. I was hoping the main plot might touch on and we get to experience some of these.... changes. Obviously, the Mystra change could only happen at the very end of the game. :D

 

[fastpunk]

Basically, you will at certain points in the game be able to bring up the party generation screen. This screen will allow you to create new characters, export characters, and add or remove characters from your party.

Sounds good. But will these player generated party members have some sort of personality, opinions of their own, a background etc. ? Seems pretty hard to do that, since they're generated by the player. You'd need some sort of 'personality presets' when you generate characters. That's the part where I think we're all a bit fuzzy. The party dynamic.

 

[nomask7]

I hope it's going to be as intelligent as MotB. I've learned to trust Vault Dweller's judgement on these matters, so I'll wait for his review of it, before making any decisions about buying it. If it's good, I'll support Obsidian et al. by buying it full price and recommending the same to everyone I know.

 

[Xor]

I'm officially excited about this.

Basically, you will at certain points in the game be able to bring up the party generation screen. This screen will allow you to create new characters, export characters, and add or remove characters from your party.

This could be a great mechanic. Recruit an NPC you meet. Assign him stats, levels, and skills. He comes with a personality, and maybe some differing dialog depending on what class(es) you made him.

So, we're keeping party banter and character personalities, but I won't be forced to decide what class to make my 'main' character based on the party members I'll be picking up.

 

[Nathaniel Chapman]

Will there be dialogs with skill usage? Diplomacy, alignment based choices and so on?

Absolutely. This is one of the main focuses of the expansion. Don't be surprised if you see more alignment, skill, class and race based dialog options than in previous titles.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Will there be dialogs with skill usage? Diplomacy, alignment based choices and so on?

Absolutely. This is one of the main focuses of the expansion. Don't be surprised if you see more alignment, skill, class and race based dialog options than in previous titles.

Hey Nathanial! Are you acting as producer for NX2? Let TPTB give you a nice little dev avatar

 

[Jaesun]

They should use this as a side quest in NX2:

Lathander's mind broke while trying to comprehend just what the fuck the writers were doing when they made Tyr kill Helm.

 

[Starwars]

Great to see another developer, welcome Nathaniel! That sounds like good news indeed as well.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I'm officially excited about this.

Basically, you will at certain points in the game be able to bring up the party generation screen. This screen will allow you to create new characters, export characters, and add or remove characters from your party.

This could be a great mechanic. Recruit an NPC you meet. Assign him stats, levels, and skills. He comes with a personality, and maybe some differing dialog depending on what class(es) you made him.

So, we're keeping party banter and character personalities, but I won't be forced to decide what class to make my 'main' character based on the party members I'll be picking up.

There are two aspects to the party system. Characters you create and place in the party, and companions you meet along the adventure who will join your party.

Companions, or as we call them in the context of NX2, cohorts, will have a personality.

The characters you create will be just like any other created character in the player vaults.

 

[Rohit_N]

When are your games coming to Steam?

 

[Nathaniel Chapman]

Will there be dialogs with skill usage? Diplomacy, alignment based choices and so on?

Absolutely. This is one of the main focuses of the expansion. Don't be surprised if you see more alignment, skill, class and race based dialog options than in previous titles.

Hey Nathanial! Are you acting as producer for NX2? Let TPTB give you a nice little dev avatar

Actually I've moved over to design and scripting on this project

 

[Jasede]

That sounds great! I'll play it once I have a computer that can handle NWN 2. (2014?)

 

[Jaesun]

And the #1 obvious question. Will there be a large amount of Choice and Consequence... as much as MotB had.. or more?

 

[Volourn]

YAY! Another expansion to the best series of all time!!!!!

 

[Shair]

Great news! I was hoping for another NWN2 expansion after Alpha Protocol, which I am not too interested in to be honest.

A lot of people bash Sword Coast adventures but with high level of detail due to a lot of existing material on them, with various factions and whatnot, Sword Coast games can be pretty intricate both story and gameplay wise. So far that seems to be the aim.

*adds this to expected games list along with Aliens RPG and AoD.

 

[Jeff Graw]

"even longer than ME"

Why do you lie, troll?

Mass Effect is something like a ten hour game. Sure, it takes longer if you play around a lot with the shitty exploration elements, but if you've played Star Control 2 or any of the Starflights you'll be bored out of your fucking mind.

 

[Murk]

i like the way it sounds based off that description - seems rather sandboxy but i'm guessing obsidian would give it some moxy and substance

i guess i need a new video card then ;(

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

NWN2 with last patch and MotB run very well on an average-to-low spec rig with most settings maxed out.

Depends what you mean by low spec... because the laptop I'm on now has a 1.6Ghz (2000+ I think) Turion, 1Gb of Ram and a GeForce Go 6100 and the game runs like crap with all updates and on low settings. Of course I didn't mean upgrade this computer, I know laptops can't be really upgraded, duh... but the computer at home isn't much better: Just a P4 3Ghz, 1.5Gb of Ram and a GeForce 6600. I remember the game ran somewhat better on that, but still not good enough to bother. Interesting how Half-Life 2 for example ran perfectly. Someone explain, plz?

Ah, well... upgrading for just a game... or how I heard it just one expansion, maybe two doesn't seem to be worth the effort. Don't need to play anything else that my computer/laptop can't handle.

Actually the game seems to be completely random in individual performance.

My specs are almost the same as your home computer's (2.6 Ghz and Radeon 9700 being the difference) but I run it smoothly with 1280x1080 with maxed settings without antialising or shadows. I had to lower draw distance until I upgraded my RAM to 1Gb.

 

[Volourn]

"Mass Effect is something like a ten hour game."

Keep lying. It's amusing.

 

[vrok]

My final save game for Mass Effect reads 11 hours.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

"Mass Effect is something like a ten hour game."

Keep lying. It's amusing.

Volly, you know we all love you, our Pretty Princess, very much. You don't need to ask for attention.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I personally don't understand the big deal over 'length of game'. I have always preferred quality over quantity - Fallout 1 and Portal leap to mind in that regard.

Occasionally you get both, like in BG2.

Mass Effect seemed the right length to me, whatever the time played on my save game said.

 

[MetalCraze]

I'm officially excited about this.

Basically, you will at certain points in the game be able to bring up the party generation screen. This screen will allow you to create new characters, export characters, and add or remove characters from your party.

This could be a great mechanic. Recruit an NPC you meet. Assign him stats, levels, and skills. He comes with a personality, and maybe some differing dialog depending on what class(es) you made him.

So, we're keeping party banter and character personalities, but I won't be forced to decide what class to make my 'main' character based on the party members I'll be picking up.

There are two aspects to the party system. Characters you create and place in the party, and companions you meet along the adventure who will join your party.

Companions, or as we call them in the context of NX2, cohorts, will have a personality.

The characters you create will be just like any other created character in the player vaults.

well it's indeed as I thought - BG2 way.
but I would've wished that when you create a character game would assign a personality to him/her.
just think on it - you will have a character like you wish it to be - from appearance to basic stats but with a personality assigned depending on character class or some other factors (or simply letting player choose a personality from some list with character names). yes I know it will be hard to make plus voice-overs and other fluff - but then it would be the most awesome character creation EVAR.

I personally don't understand the big deal over 'length of game'. I have always preferred quality over quantity - Fallout 1 and Portal leap to mind in that regard.

or Blade Runner.
6-8 hours long game. has 12 endings, each time you will play it something will be different + a fat load of C&C. and writing is on a par with movie/book

 

[Nathaniel Chapman]

Yeah, to be entirely honest, while I understand the general notion that longer == better than, I don't agree. In general I think there's a certain point where the more content there is in a game, the less polished that content ends up being.

Then again, maybe I'm just getting old. I loved Betrayal at Krondor and BG2 and obviously those games were really, really long. But, especially with BaK, there was an excitement to exploration that I seem to rarely find in games these days.