NWN2: Storm of Zehir expansion (now confirmed)

[Starwars]

Obsidian continues to lubricate the old-school RPGers.

From somethingawful:

We're definitely going very old-school on some aspects of the game. As Josh mentioned, Darklands and Fallout are major influences, as are the Gold Box Games, Betrayal at Krondor, and other RPGs of that ilk. I think that there's been a real dearth of those kinds of games in the last, oh, 10 years.

Gotta keep the hype down... gotta keep the hype down...

And lulz at Avellons drawing.

 

[easychord]

I think that it's time to put a damper on the enthusiasm and say that this might not be the best game ever. I can't be sure though, need to wait and see.

 

[Gragt]

Obsidian rox0rz. So far the expansion sounds good and it's nice to have people working on the game talking about it, thanks about it guys.

 

[Jasede]

Darklands and Fallout as major influences? Cautious optimism here.

 

[Kingston]

Fuck cautious optimism. Go go Obsidian!

 

[Volrath]

Too bad Ziets isn't working with Obsidian anymore, the unsung hero of MotB.
I wonder what he's working on at Bethesda?

 

[Andrej]

MotB was great so I'll actually go ahead and look foward to this. I'm officially anticipating NX2.

 

[Monolith]

Wow. They will be SO fucked if it turns out to be garbage.

 

[nomask7]

Thanks for the response Nathaniel. Sounds promising!

 

[Solohk]

I've been gaming for over 20 years, and by now it is rare for me to get excited about a game before it's out. However, after greatly enjoying MotB and reading the info posted from Anthony and Nathaniel, I'm excited for this game.

Overworld map?
Creating your own party?
Combat that isn't just a breeze all the time?

Sold!

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

You could just have some backround traits for the created companions. Like something that doesn't affect gameplay but makes the characters occasionally blurt out some lines dealing with the current situation/etc. Not in-game dialogue but I think that'd be an easy way to flesh out the creeps a bit.

And I like the idea of creating a party, I can stuff all the stupid character ideas I have in to a single playthrough.

It'd also be cool if some of the prestige classes would be unlockable by doing stuff, like in the OC. I haven't actually read any D&D books but isn't a pale master supposed to experiment with corpses in a cave for a time or something like that?

 

[butsomuch]

Too bad Ziets isn't working with Obsidian anymore, the unsung hero of MotB.
I wonder what he's working on at Bethesda?

He works at Zenimax Online, not at Bethesda

 

[Lumpy]

He works at Zenimax Online, not at Bethesda

That's a relief.

 

[AlanC9]

I wouldn't get too excited about a permanent death system. I've been fooling around with this a bit for my own mod, and it's more trouble than it's worth unless you're throwing in cheap resurrection too. 3.5 offers too many ways to die instantly. Yesterday I had a 5th level character critted for 48 damage; even with NWN2 max HP, that's hard to survive.

Sure, you can get around this by never giving out 3x crit weapons, never using save or die and disabling spells, and so forth. But you're fighting the system.

 

[MetalCraze]

in BG series it was the same with characters dying. my mages usually died from 1 critical hit as well. and what? notice that your party members are already getting knocked out in NWN2 so you will need to use 'resurrection' on them anyway if you want them to continue fighting.
the perma death however will return sense to resurrection rods and clerics as you wouldn't cheat by finding a silent place between combats and wait while your guys will get up and get ready.
the only thing I will want in this case from Obsidian is good AI - where clerics will resurrect fallen companions - because I hate micromanagement when it is a real-time combat system.

 

[Lumpy]

But resurrection fucks up the setting. I'd rather have no party member death at all.

 

[nomask7]

Without "permanent death", resting at least would have to be made much more challenging than it is now. There's just no juice left in the system when having half of your party killed doesn't feel like anything at all. I can imagine my wizard and cleric and rogue being knocked out, and myself thinking to myself after the battle: "Oh you died there a moment ago? I didn't notice--I was just hacking away, hacking away! Well, good to have you back, I guess."

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Well Permanent death could be done like a iron man mode.

If you don't want it in your game then no problem don't click pick that option and if you want it on then pick that option that way every one gets what they want and no one can bitch about it.

 

[Jasede]

Ressurection and Raise Dead spells are very common in D&D, logic of it or not aside. I suggest doing it just like in BG 1/2: everyone, including the main character, can die. They die when they reach -10 HP. If they get between 0 and -10 they don't die; they will rise at 1 HP at the end of the encounter, like in KOTOR. Ressurection and Raise Dead should be suitably rare and expensive, so death is more than just an inconvenience. I think this solution would satisfy both camps, those who are used to KOTOR auto-raise and those who liked more classical games. An argument is that clerics will be able to Raise Dead at level 9, but that doesn't have to be that bad- You'll likely not be level 9 until half the game, and even then, Raise Dead only works when the body isn't mutilated (which requires Ressurection and could be simulated by having Raise Dead not work on any character with less than -20 HP).

Resting should be possible everywhere, but there should be suitably challenging encounter tables. A good game to play (Obsidian, are you listening?) is RoA, Realms of Arkania. I felt it had very, very balanced encounters when resting in dungeons - you could get lucky and have a safe rest, or you could end up damaging your battered party even more. Resting should not just be a free heal! There have to be random encounters, and a (low) chance of it being a rather dangerous one, to discourace "resting" through a dungeon.

If you think this is not very mainstream compatible, I'd really encourage it if you could at least enable a "core rule difficulty" that will cause party members to die permanently (barring Raise Death) in combat. I really, really do not like the Kotor auto-raise system, and if you really want to make something old-school (Bravo to that! I wouldn't dare to make such a game, it seems a little risky! All the more praise to you!) you should at least allow people who want to put themself through this extra-challenge a corresponding option.

 

[Armacalypse]

While characters dying for real instead of fainting makes things more challenging as long as there isn't any limited-use ressurection items to use on the hardest boss, it's not everything. The game obviously needs more challenging and tactical battles overall.

 

[Volourn]

"Ressurection and Raise Dead spells are very common in D&D"

No. No, they aren't. Not in a reasonably well ran campaign which no video game D&D campiagn is - not even the better ones get it right.

 

[MetalCraze]

Ressurection and Raise Dead should be suitably rare and expensive

agreed. but while they die like in BG1/2 don't make the resurrection like in BG1/2. how come resurrecting dead characters was cheaper than healing wounds?
also character deaths will be a healthy reminder to those guys that got used to simply blindly hacking through enemies in NWN2 and MotB to use their brains.

 

[quasimodo]

There is a lot to like about NWN2 and MOTB was a very welcome addition, but whoever designed the combat in this series is an evil sadistic bastard. " I know lets make an awesome TB game, but the player won't actually get to play it, he'll just get to sit and watch it.....and all the action will happen all at once....so he won't even get to actually see it clearly.....but he'll know that there is this really awesome TB game in there just out of waiting to be played....just out of reach." Sadisitic prick.

 

[Volourn]

Huh? I swear I played NWN OC, SOU, HOTU, NWN2 OC, and MOTB. I surely didn't watch it. I know I played it... Was it a dream? Maybe. Who knows. *shrug* Anyways, back to waiting to play more OF THE BESTEST GAMING SERIES EVAR!!!!

 

[Shannow]

Ressurection and Raise Dead spells are very common in D&D, logic of it or not aside. I suggest doing it just like in BG 1/2: everyone, including the main character, can die. They die when they reach -10 HP. If they get between 0 and -10 they don't die; they will rise at 1 HP at the end of the encounter, like in KOTOR. Ressurection and Raise Dead should be suitably rare and expensive, so death is more than just an inconvenience. I think this solution would satisfy both camps, those who are used to KOTOR auto-raise and those who liked more classical games. An argument is that clerics will be able to Raise Dead at level 9, but that doesn't have to be that bad- You'll likely not be level 9 until half the game, and even then, Raise Dead only works when the body isn't mutilated (which requires Ressurection and could be simulated by having Raise Dead not work on any character with less than -20 HP).

And what about people who like the classical games a lot more but think that the control scheme in NWN2 is so fucking awful that it really does not lend itself well to perma death?
But turning perma death on/off sounds good to me. Like "hardcore D&D rules". Yes, you will be hurt if you stand in the middle of a fireball. Yes, even if it was cast by Quara...

Resting should be possible everywhere, but there should be suitably challenging encounter tables. A good game to play (Obsidian, are you listening?) is RoA, Realms of Arkania. I felt it had very, very balanced encounters when resting in dungeons - you could get lucky and have a safe rest, or you could end up damaging your battered party even more. Resting should not just be a free heal! There have to be random encounters, and a (low) chance of it being a rather dangerous one, to discourace "resting" through a dungeon.

That and resting should take 8 hours. The amount of hit points healed should be whatever healing spells were left over before resting + char level * (1 + con bonus) or whatever the correct rule is.
And of course time should actually matter. At least for some quest. If you dwadle too long the merchant daughter should be eaten by the trolls, the raiders should have burned the village to the ground, the competing merchant business should gotten the contract you wanted, ect.