Well, I played MotB about halfway through before I got fed up with the spirit-eater mechanic, and I found that I needed every equipment based advantage I could possibly get. Some of the caster battles and battles against undead are pretty epic, I must admit. If you like "OMG, how am I going to get out of this alive" encounters, you'll probably just love MotB.
EDIT: Btw, I use Tony K's AI, which makes all the enemy behavior quite intelligent. I don't know how much that might have made a difference. Using Tony K is analogous to using SCS in BG, although Tony K doesn't quite up the difficulty as much as SCS.
Not really. TBH I thought it was worse. It seems like the only effort in the game went into the NPC companion faces, everyone else looks strange/fugly (including the vast majority of configurations for the PC).
The game overall seemed very underwhelming. I don't know if this is the fault of the engine they were using or their artists, but using a 3D engine doesn't make the game better if it looks worse than the games using the infinity engine.
Then there was the annoying camera and ultra stiff movement animations. OH and the terrible model scaling for buildings. You'll be outside a small house, then when you go inside it's a sprawling mansion. It was like that parody movie Loaded Weapon where the guy's beach trailer is a mansion on the inside.
I have to agree with the ugly faces. I just install mods to add faces and hairstyles that my character can use, and PC can now have a character of his own. For the others though, they would still remain ugly unless the mods replace existing files, not append as new ones. It seems outdated for the year of release, but it's bearable IMHO. It has to be the fault of the artists though as there are mods that produce high-quality surroundings and character heads, even better than the originals.
Was the building scaling that obvious? I didn't even notice; yeah, probably I have but I didn't give it much of an attention. Probably because I also play strategy games where units and buildings are way off in terms of size scaling.;p
I can't recall the number of times I've replayed BG & BG2 over the years waiting for a qualitatively comparable fantasy RPG to come out, so perhaps my thoughts on NWN2 could be of some use to you. My favorite RPG's include, apart from the BG games, the first two Fallout games as well as Planescape: Torment.
I have played through NWN1, HoTU included, a handful of times over the years. The plot of the main campaign is undeniably lacking in some areas, and features such as the "town portal" item are shameful (but can be willfully avoided), so NWN is far from a great game, but I found it to be an acceptably interesting RPG. I think that the main issue I had with NWN2 is the GUI and the camera movement. I feel that the original NWN found a simple, intuitive way to handle camera movement in a 3d environment, and that NWN2 took some serious steps back in the area. The gui wasn't great imo but I guess NWN1 wasn't exactly stellar in that area either...
I never finished DA:O or NWN2 due to issues that I had with them, ranging from difficulty (specifically the lack thereof) to camera and gui issues. Features such as post-battle insta-heal/resurrection (in DA:O) grind on me to the point that it dramatically takes away from the gaming experience for me.
Due to things that I have read about Mask of the Betrayer, however, I am planning on taking another go at NWN2 at some point.
I have to agree with the ugly faces. I just install mods to add faces and hairstyles that my character can use, and PC can now have a character of his own. For the others though, they would still remain ugly unless the mods replace existing files, not append as new ones. It seems outdated for the year of release, but it's bearable IMHO. It has to be the fault of the artists though as there are mods that produce high-quality surroundings and character heads, even better than the originals.
Was the building scaling that obvious? I didn't even notice; yeah, probably I have but I didn't give it much of an attention. Probably because I also play strategy games where units and buildings are way off in terms of size scaling.;p
What??? How come I haven't seen that mod? It must be new. It has to be. I played NWN2 mid last year, and I'm sure I would have noticed the mod since I've specifically looked for Elanee facelift. While I prefer the original Neeshka, Elanee looks gorgeous...and so are the others. It seems I'll have to make another NWN2 playthrough. See, OP? Highly replayable.:D
What??? How come I haven't seen that mod? It must be new. It has to be. I played NWN2 mid last year, and I'm sure I would have noticed the mod since I've specifically looked for Elanee facelift. While I prefer the original Neeshka, Elanee looks gorgeous...and so are the others. It seems I'll have to make another NWN2 playthrough. See, OP? Highly replayable.:D
Hehe yes.. it is relatively new.. I think he released the first version around November or December 2012 and guess what? It was also a reason for me to make another playthrough, too :P !!
bah i can not find my NWN nor my NWN2 discs anywhere so going to have to buy NWN2 again looking forward to playing on the BG server people keep talking about
NWN2 can be fun for some, but it certainly is not the same as BG. Icewind Dale (mentioned earlier) is different from BG in that there are not many roleplaying opportunities, but the combats are hard and heavy. Max Constitutions seem necessary, and bards are completely overpowered with a regeneration song that also gives an AC bonus (yep, its that good).
@baaddare I tred to log onto it, but it said my version was not the correct version even though I updated to the latest version. I agree, it looks awesome! If you are willing to repurchase it (I have repurchased several D&D-based games on account of lost discs) gog.com has it for digital download I believe for $15 with both expansions.
@baaddare I tred to log onto it, but it said my version was not the correct version even though I updated to the latest version. I agree, it looks awesome! If you are willing to repurchase it (I have repurchased several D&D-based games on account of lost discs) gog.com has it for digital download I believe for $15 with both expansions.
well going to get it from gamestop with both expansions for 7.44 USD
My last post was a bit subjective , lemme rectify it:
Why I like NWN1: 3rd edition is well applied, it's got rich scenarios and very good modules. The portraits are beautiful and you can play it forever.
Why I disliked NWN2; I felt that there was much more emphasis on graphics and "have your own fortress" than on roleplaying. The npc's have little personality and, well, the new graphics made them all look like barbies.
Why BG(2) is better: Party management and spell selection is way more interesting and dynamic. It's a truly replayable story and , well, the npcs are just too charismatic!
@baaddare I tred to log onto it, but it said my version was not the correct version even though I updated to the latest version. I agree, it looks awesome! If you are willing to repurchase it (I have repurchased several D&D-based games on account of lost discs) gog.com has it for digital download I believe for $15 with both expansions.
well going to get it from gamestop with both expansions for 7.44 USD
Toanwrath is wrong.
There are THREE NWN2 "expansions". Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate. And all three is on the Gog.com version.
But the expasion is a REALLY good game, the story is very fresh and well written.
Um, no. Is it flawed and not polished? Absolutely. Is it a bad game? Not in the least.
You don't play the Neverwinter Nights series for the campaigns. Those are just extras to kill your time or sample the game. Except that the Mask of the Betrayer expansion is compared to Planescape: Torment by the many hardcore fans.
The Baldur's Gate games focus on single player only and the multiplayer is just an extra. They are complete opposites, let's not compare apples to oranges, shall we?
The Baldur's Gate modability is small potatoes compared to the NwN games.
-They both have a toolset. Baldur's Gate doesn't. Which mean no new areas, unless you import them from other Infinity Engine games?
-Multiplayer is like 5% of the BG games. For the NwN games, it's the majority. And no, I'm not talking about "lol my build is better in PvP" or Mass Effect style, I'm talking about immersive RolePlaying worlds with stories, quests, people, DMs and events and expanding areas. Countless of them. Each with their own rules and areas. Baldur's Gate - The Sword Coast Chronicles, Dalelands Beyond, Tales of Amn, Sigil - City of Doors, Middle Earth. Those are just the big ones.
-It IS better than NwN1. Is it more polished? Nope. It has more races, more classes, more prestige classes, subraces, spells, feats, better toolset, better graphics, lip-syncing, better modability where you can just drop stuff in the Override folder without having to "install" anything and risking your current installed game. NwN1 has races so hardcoded, that you need an external tool to play a Drow and you have to throw everything inside the Override folder like a soup. Good luck removing stuff.
-Unpolished? Absolutely. You can blame that on Atari, which are infamous for not being able to tell their butthole from a hole in the ground when it comes to supporting a game. Rushed game? Check. Delayed Mysteries of Westgate for two years (?) just to find a new DRM? Check. Screwed up Temple of Elemental Evil? Check.
-Most of the NwN1 campaigns were pretty average to me. NwN2 with all the lack of polish and rushing, managed to pull a nice campaign where you have full party control, various companions, a stronghold, a great crafting system instead of "lol, you can change the appearance and color, that's not enough?" that NwN1 did. I'm exaggerating a bit but proper crafting and enchanting was never realized fully. In NwN2, it's a major focus.
Mask of the Betrayer is praised like I said from lots of people and even NwN2 haters. That says something.
Storm of Zehir introduced a more classic and hardcore campaign where it's about survival and making your own party from scratch like in Icewind Dale or multiplayer Baldur's Gate.
NwN1 never came close to that even after *three* expansions and tons of patches. Not even the community managed to fix that. At best you had a familiar you could possess if you wanted a controllable"party". Yay.
If Atari wasn't composed of idiots, NwN2 would be MUCH more polished and still being updated.
And I say that after playing the BG games, IWD, NwN1 and all it's campaigns plus many custom modules.
NwN2 is a rough diamond and I would take that any day compared to many polished turds of today's market.
@baaddare I tred to log onto it, but it said my version was not the correct version even though I updated to the latest version. I agree, it looks awesome! If you are willing to repurchase it (I have repurchased several D&D-based games on account of lost discs) gog.com has it for digital download I believe for $15 with both expansions.
well going to get it from gamestop with both expansions for 7.44 USD
Toanwrath is wrong.
There are THREE NWN2 "expansions". Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate. And all three is on the Gog.com version.
well gamestop is selling NWN complete which includes both NWN and NWN2 plus all the expansions for both all in one package so I am good.
There are THREE NWN2 "expansions". Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate. And all three is on the Gog.com version.
@fiscotgaymer Yes I was wrong. I seriously had not ever heard of Mysteries of Westgate until you mentioned it here. I have the CD version of NWN2 (Platinum? I think it says on the case) and has no mention of this. Time for a download I suppose, thank you for correcting me.
@Archaos: I loved NWN1's armor crafting, you could take the biggest, baddest full plate, and turn it into something so outlandishly whorish that it was just... heartwarming. okay, being 14 at the time might have had something to do with why I found this so fascinating.
on a more serious note, consider that a lot of people just aren't interested in multiplayer, and even less interested in persistent worlds (hell, even in MMORPGs I tend to take the "misanthropic loner" route), so for them the only thing that's left if single player... and NWN2 OC can quickly degrade (degrade? I wanted to kill every living thing by the end of tutorial) into a horrific experience.
btw let's not put all the blame on atari... I like Obsidian and all (though they seriously had to work on redemption after NWN2 OC), but they have a habit of biting more than they can chew, and release unfinished or buggy (but not both!) games - KotOR 2 is still a mess, Fallout: NV was next to unplayable at release, and NWN2... well, y'know.
Mask of the Betrayer was, however, (as if I haven't already licked it arse clean enough in a previous post) one of the best games of the last decade, so let's just say all is well that ends well.
also, can you elaborate a bit on atari screwing ToEE? I've heard it mentioned many times, but never knew what they actually did.
@DinsdalePiranha If you're not interested in the NwN games for the multiplayer or toolset or modules, then it's like playing Planescape Torment for the combat and to kill stuff, instead of the story. You're doing it wrong. Or you know, playing Minecraft for the story etc. Again, exaggerating to make a point.
I refuse to accept an argument that takes BG's biggest strengths and comparing it to the NwN games weakest one. Which are the campaigns, especially of NwN1.
The BG games focus on single player and are amazing at it. While the multiplayer and modding suffered. Yes, the modding. Installing multiple mods is hell and if you install them in the wrong order, you have a messed up game. In NwN1, just drop everything in the override folder and in NwN2 you can have subfolders to keep everything tidy. Once you're done, just remove them.
The NwN games focus on building your own modules and worlds with multiplayer. And so the campaigns suffered. Much less with NwN2, since the first campaign was decent, the second was amazing and the third is original and fun.
Let's give some credit to the game that improved on basically everything from NwN1 but had the misfortune of being rushed and halted support, yes?
PWs are nothing like MMORPGs. They are roleplaying worlds where you have to stay in character and know your lore: -One is based in the Sword Coast and the Baldur's Gate city, which was remade. Wondered how it's like to go for a drink and sit at the Friendly Arm Inn? Now you can. -Another is based in Athkatla. (Tales of Amn). New server. -Another is based in Sigil. How about going for a drink with a succubus or an ogre? I did there. -Or playing a Drow in an Underdark city on the various PWs? -Another in Middle Earth. You can play a Tolkien Elf or Hobbit and go for drinks or adventure with other ones.
I was like you, believe me and I still enjoy single player games mostly. But when I started playing on NwN2 PWs, I had LOTS of fun and still have.
Grew bored of a world? Go visit another. It's free. Then play a module. Then play the campaigns with mods, with new classes or races. (Kaedrin's pack) Why bother with the short campaigns, when you can play on two dozen and more, immersive and huge worlds?
And I put all the blame on Atari. They are the ones that financed it, that published it and "supported it". Dragon Age is polished because it took almost twice the time to be made. And it has no multiplayer, very few classes or races.
Bugs can be overlooked or fixed, or do you think that the BG games are not buggy? Go take a look at the Fixpack's list of fixes. And many people complained and still complain about the bugs of BGEE.
About ToEE, I don't know the details but I think that it's the same story with NwN2. Rough diamond that was rushed and the community tries to fix everything while Atari pulled the plug on the support after a while.
You think developers don't want to support their games? I believe the next patch of NwN2 was almost ready but Atari refused to pay more money to publish it. Check the Bioware forums.
Why did you think that Obsidian chose Kickstarter for Project Eternity? To avoid moronic publishers like Atari.
@Archaos: not doing it wrong, I just... don't care about PWs and multiplayer, to be honest. I can accept that they did a lot of things right, but if a game doesn't have a solid single player campaign, that just not doing it for me... and from the amount of crap that gets thrown upon NWN2, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone with this opinion. it's even more painful knowing that Obsidian can make awesome stories like MotB.
but let's just agree to disagree. or at least agree that MotB was mental orgasm levels of amazing, and SoZ was pretty decent, despite the ungodly control scheme.
also, iirc, NWN1's campaigns were actually quite okay. not mindblowing and earthshattering, but... okay. at least I don't remember having the damn near irresistible urge to kill, maim and murder every single thing I came across, and hoping for at least an tiny, hidden option that let's me level that particular section of sword coast and even salts the earth so nothing ever can grow there. (hmmm, that started out as something funny in my head, but might have gone a bit... psychotic? oh well.)
I get what you're saying. I really do. I buy games for the story mostly, also. Especially RPGs.
I believe the NwN2 campaigns are solid. Not amazing with the exception of Mask of the Betrayer. But it's more the lines of the Icewind Dale games. Standard RPG fare.
In way, they're tributes to the infinity engine games. The OC is more like BG, standard story-driven campaign. MotB is like Planescape, bizarre, great emphasis on story and with the whole planar thing. And SoZ like Icewind Dale, make your team from scratch and have fun exploring and adventuring.
Well, NwN2 gets lots of crap, true but you can't have everything, I say. Obsidian did the best they could with it. You can't have perfect campaigns, perfect toolset, perfect multiplayer and a perfect game with no bugs or glitches or whatever.
Dragon Age 2 only had a single campaign. No toolset, no multiplayer. And it failed at that too. At least NwN2 doesn't have enemies falling from the ceiling. And it was made by Bioware and financed and published by the one of the biggest and richest publishers around.
The NwN1 expansions were very average with the exception of Hordes. Which was nothing amazing, either. In the OC, you went into four areas, you got the quest item, then proceeded to the next chapter, rinse and repeat. But it was fun. If you didn't notice, Hordes has many similarities to Diablo 1.
-Town that gets invaded. -Journey into maze-like dungeons. -Descent into caves. -Going into Hell. -Fighting the big devil/demon. (Mephistopheles/Diablo).
By the way, you can configure the controls to make them more responsive in NwN2, there are various guides around. You shouldn't have to, I understand that, but it's fixable and not hardcoded to hell like many BG or NwN1 stuff.
In the OC, you went into four areas, you got the quest item, then proceeded to the next chapter, rinse and repeat. But it was fun. If you didn't notice, Hordes has many similarities to Diablo 1.
Looking for four X's is standard Bioware. NWN had four creatures to find (The first expansion had four items), Knights of the Old Republic had four Star Maps to track down, Dragon Age had four factions to rally, etc. It's kind of a downer when you actually realise it.
Can someone list out some recommended mods for NWN2 and the expansions and a brief idea of why you like them? Thanks!
Tony K's AI. It improves the AI of companions and enemies, making them much smarter plus including various options to customize it.
Kaedrin's pack. It includes new races, subraces, classes, prestige classes, feats, spells and TONS of bug fixes and improvements.
Appearance Changer. You can change the various pieces of clothing in the game but not fully customizable, more like switching through the various ingame ones. Great for that dreaded Mithral Full Plate with the stupid metal wing.
Tschos HD UI. If you have a big screen, get it from the NW Nexus. It gives you big menus and inventory screen.
Xaltar's Replacement pack. Replaces most of the heads with more detailed and realistic ones. But it might depend on your taste.
Nens Combo Hair pack. An alternative solution to the above. It's a compilation of tons of heads and hair for various races. Great stuff. Use one or the other, I say, for consistency.
Cute Cleaves. Adds a visual effect when a Cleave attack happens or an Attack of Opportunity. Nothing amazing but better than nothing.
Zhjaeve Unveiled. I think you customize her appearance and not have her in her robes and flip-flops when she's in full plate.
Alternate Female PC Spellcasting if you're bothered by the girlish voice of the female casters.
I think those are the must haves, for me. There are others that give the first two campaigns, functionality like Storm of Zehir. I think it's called, OC Makeover SoZ Edition? Not sure. Not compatible with Kaedrin's pack, I think. Also, many other mods are not compatible with each other so these are the ones that I think are must haves and don't conflict with each other.
If you meant modules, then you can search for them at the NWVault and sort them by downloads or rating.
Well, you got the standard OC which is fun, I think but nothing amazing.
Mask of the Betrayer is very heavy on story and dialogue, I don't want to spoil much but if you've played Planescape Torment, it's along those lines. Epic levels and bizzare.
Storm of Zehir is a strange case, some love it, others hate it. It's basically very light on story on mostly on exploration, becoming a trader and merchant and making your party from scratch.
Mysteries of Westgate, I don't have much experience with it. I think it's just a decent premium module set in Westgate. A bit outdated but not bad.
I didn't dislike NwN2 at all - I thought the story line was interesting. The camera controls are annoying - my recommendation is to heavily dial down the mouse scrolling speed!
As for humorous appearances, I have to agree here. Helmets and hats look silly/ridiculous across the boards, which is slightly immersion breaking. Aside from that, I thought it was just fine. Mask of the Betrayer (first add on/expansion) is fantastic.
@AHF You're asking for OC mods, right? (1) Kaedrin's PrC Pack comes to mind first. (2) Tome of Battle is a close second - with this mod, you're no longer limited to knockdown and disarm feats; you can now have an arsenal of maneuvers. More than a hundred, in fact! If you're melee-oriented or you want to mix melee with some magic, skip fighter class..they're boring, pick Tome of Battle. (3) Wicked Magic is a great spell pack that gives you access to BG spells like contingency, chain contingency, wish spells, etc. (4) If you want you can also have a UI greatly inspired by Baldur's Gate. (5) There's another important mod to improve combat experience, but the name escapes me; it adds blood in combat. (6) Cute Cleaves makes combat a bit more interesting as well. It adds visual effects for AoO and cleaves. There are actually too many more to choose from that I can't recall them all. Some are for re-texturing of interiors and trees; some are for adding new faces and hairstyles. More recently, there's an NPC facelift that Kurumi mentioned, and a nature-focused PrC pack that includes an Archdruid. If you know a little bit of the toolset, you can also edit or add spells to your liking. Me, I've edited a few...like adding a Timestop spell for Tome of Battle, overpowered but I did it for fun. I also added in-game backpacks to make the adventure more realistic. KEMO animations can also make your play more immersive if you dig roleplaying.
Part of the fun is to look around the NWN2 Vault to find what mods suit your taste.
...and for the camera issue. Actually, after sometime you might get used to it and may come to like it like I did. If you have a mouse that has extra buttons, you can configure one for free movement of the camera. I enjoyed being able to easily see different angles of the battle. Just tweak the camera options to your liking. The camera limitations does make it imperfect, but you can come into terms with it.
@Illustair The problem is that Kaedrin's pack is not compatible with Tome of Battle. And I think that while it's excellent in PnP, it's a bit tedious to switch through them and very hard to get into unless you know what you're doing. Tome of Battle is a very unorthodox ruleset.
I doubt Wicked Magic is compatible with K's pack either as it modifies the spells.2da, I think.
There is a compilation mod that combines K's pack, ToB and other stuff but I don't know how buggiless it is and it uses an older version of K's pack.
The BG UI is fun but it lacks some features like the Sort button, I believe. Which is bad.
And you're talking about Camb's Combat Splatter, I think. Very fun indeed. Turns the battlefield into a blood mess. Heh.
@Archaos There are combined hakpaks for ToB, Kaedrin's, and Wicked Magic...I, for one, use this pack; and I can attest that it's cleanly done...I didn't have problems directly from it (there are, however, minor bugs caused by the individual mods; they're easily ignorable or fixable). I had to do some manual edit before to make the new versions of the individual mods compatible though. But it seems the combined hakpak has just been updated very recently, so nothing to worry about on that aspect I guess.
Aha! Yes, that's it - Combat Splatter. I can't remember the missing sort button, but yes IIRC it does lack that. I probably liked BG so much that I didn't mind. But since I combine parts of other UI mods, I might have fixed that as well, who knows...I forgot, and I'm too lazy to open up the game now.
Comments
EDIT: Btw, I use Tony K's AI, which makes all the enemy behavior quite intelligent. I don't know how much that might have made a difference. Using Tony K is analogous to using SCS in BG, although Tony K doesn't quite up the difficulty as much as SCS.
And I hate NWN2 .
And none compare to BG.
Subjective opinion is subjective.
In spite of its many flaws I would however recommend NWN2 if you can get it on sale. Which you can. At gog.
The game overall seemed very underwhelming. I don't know if this is the fault of the engine they were using or their artists, but using a 3D engine doesn't make the game better if it looks worse than the games using the infinity engine.
Then there was the annoying camera and ultra stiff movement animations. OH and the terrible model scaling for buildings. You'll be outside a small house, then when you go inside it's a sprawling mansion. It was like that parody movie Loaded Weapon where the guy's beach trailer is a mansion on the inside.
Was the building scaling that obvious? I didn't even notice; yeah, probably I have but I didn't give it much of an attention. Probably because I also play strategy games where units and buildings are way off in terms of size scaling.;p
I have played through NWN1, HoTU included, a handful of times over the years. The plot of the main campaign is undeniably lacking in some areas, and features such as the "town portal" item are shameful (but can be willfully avoided), so NWN is far from a great game, but I found it to be an acceptably interesting RPG. I think that the main issue I had with NWN2 is the GUI and the camera movement. I feel that the original NWN found a simple, intuitive way to handle camera movement in a 3d environment, and that NWN2 took some serious steps back in the area. The gui wasn't great imo but I guess NWN1 wasn't exactly stellar in that area either...
I never finished DA:O or NWN2 due to issues that I had with them, ranging from difficulty (specifically the lack thereof) to camera and gui issues. Features such as post-battle insta-heal/resurrection (in DA:O) grind on me to the point that it dramatically takes away from the gaming experience for me.
Due to things that I have read about Mask of the Betrayer, however, I am planning on taking another go at NWN2 at some point.
Icewind Dale (mentioned earlier) is different from BG in that there are not many roleplaying opportunities, but the combats are hard and heavy. Max Constitutions seem necessary, and bards are completely overpowered with a regeneration song that also gives an AC bonus (yep, its that good).
@baaddare
I tred to log onto it, but it said my version was not the correct version even though I updated to the latest version. I agree, it looks awesome! If you are willing to repurchase it (I have repurchased several D&D-based games on account of lost discs) gog.com has it for digital download I believe for $15 with both expansions.
well going to get it from gamestop with both expansions for 7.44 USD
Why I like NWN1: 3rd edition is well applied, it's got rich scenarios and very good modules. The portraits are beautiful and you can play it forever.
Why I disliked NWN2; I felt that there was much more emphasis on graphics and "have your own fortress" than on roleplaying. The npc's have little personality and, well, the new graphics made them all look like barbies.
Why BG(2) is better: Party management and spell selection is way more interesting and dynamic. It's a truly replayable story and , well, the npcs are just too charismatic!
Toanwrath is wrong.
There are THREE NWN2 "expansions". Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate. And all three is on the Gog.com version.
But the expasion is a REALLY good game, the story is very fresh and well written.
You don't play the Neverwinter Nights series for the campaigns. Those are just extras to kill your time or sample the game.
Except that the Mask of the Betrayer expansion is compared to Planescape: Torment by the many hardcore fans.
The Baldur's Gate games focus on single player only and the multiplayer is just an extra. They are complete opposites, let's not compare apples to oranges, shall we?
The Baldur's Gate modability is small potatoes compared to the NwN games.
-They both have a toolset. Baldur's Gate doesn't. Which mean no new areas, unless you import them from other Infinity Engine games?
-Multiplayer is like 5% of the BG games. For the NwN games, it's the majority. And no, I'm not talking about "lol my build is better in PvP" or Mass Effect style, I'm talking about immersive RolePlaying worlds with stories, quests, people, DMs and events and expanding areas. Countless of them. Each with their own rules and areas.
Baldur's Gate - The Sword Coast Chronicles, Dalelands Beyond, Tales of Amn, Sigil - City of Doors, Middle Earth. Those are just the big ones.
-It IS better than NwN1. Is it more polished? Nope. It has more races, more classes, more prestige classes, subraces, spells, feats, better toolset, better graphics, lip-syncing, better modability where you can just drop stuff in the Override folder without having to "install" anything and risking your current installed game.
NwN1 has races so hardcoded, that you need an external tool to play a Drow and you have to throw everything inside the Override folder like a soup. Good luck removing stuff.
-Unpolished? Absolutely. You can blame that on Atari, which are infamous for not being able to tell their butthole from a hole in the ground when it comes to supporting a game.
Rushed game? Check. Delayed Mysteries of Westgate for two years (?) just to find a new DRM? Check. Screwed up Temple of Elemental Evil? Check.
-Most of the NwN1 campaigns were pretty average to me. NwN2 with all the lack of polish and rushing, managed to pull a nice campaign where you have full party control, various companions, a stronghold, a great crafting system instead of "lol, you can change the appearance and color, that's not enough?" that NwN1 did.
I'm exaggerating a bit but proper crafting and enchanting was never realized fully. In NwN2, it's a major focus.
Mask of the Betrayer is praised like I said from lots of people and even NwN2 haters. That says something.
Storm of Zehir introduced a more classic and hardcore campaign where it's about survival and making your own party from scratch like in Icewind Dale or multiplayer Baldur's Gate.
NwN1 never came close to that even after *three* expansions and tons of patches. Not even the community managed to fix that. At best you had a familiar you could possess if you wanted a controllable"party". Yay.
If Atari wasn't composed of idiots, NwN2 would be MUCH more polished and still being updated.
And I say that after playing the BG games, IWD, NwN1 and all it's campaigns plus many custom modules.
NwN2 is a rough diamond and I would take that any day compared to many polished turds of today's market.
Yes I was wrong. I seriously had not ever heard of Mysteries of Westgate until you mentioned it here. I have the CD version of NWN2 (Platinum? I think it says on the case) and has no mention of this. Time for a download I suppose, thank you for correcting me.
on a more serious note, consider that a lot of people just aren't interested in multiplayer, and even less interested in persistent worlds (hell, even in MMORPGs I tend to take the "misanthropic loner" route), so for them the only thing that's left if single player... and NWN2 OC can quickly degrade (degrade? I wanted to kill every living thing by the end of tutorial) into a horrific experience.
btw let's not put all the blame on atari... I like Obsidian and all (though they seriously had to work on redemption after NWN2 OC), but they have a habit of biting more than they can chew, and release unfinished or buggy (but not both!) games - KotOR 2 is still a mess, Fallout: NV was next to unplayable at release, and NWN2... well, y'know.
Mask of the Betrayer was, however, (as if I haven't already licked it arse clean enough in a previous post) one of the best games of the last decade, so let's just say all is well that ends well.
also, can you elaborate a bit on atari screwing ToEE? I've heard it mentioned many times, but never knew what they actually did.
I refuse to accept an argument that takes BG's biggest strengths and comparing it to the NwN games weakest one. Which are the campaigns, especially of NwN1.
The BG games focus on single player and are amazing at it. While the multiplayer and modding suffered. Yes, the modding. Installing multiple mods is hell and if you install them in the wrong order, you have a messed up game.
In NwN1, just drop everything in the override folder and in NwN2 you can have subfolders to keep everything tidy. Once you're done, just remove them.
The NwN games focus on building your own modules and worlds with multiplayer. And so the campaigns suffered. Much less with NwN2, since the first campaign was decent, the second was amazing and the third is original and fun.
Let's give some credit to the game that improved on basically everything from NwN1 but had the misfortune of being rushed and halted support, yes?
PWs are nothing like MMORPGs. They are roleplaying worlds where you have to stay in character and know your lore:
-One is based in the Sword Coast and the Baldur's Gate city, which was remade. Wondered how it's like to go for a drink and sit at the Friendly Arm Inn? Now you can.
-Another is based in Athkatla. (Tales of Amn). New server.
-Another is based in Sigil. How about going for a drink with a succubus or an ogre? I did there.
-Or playing a Drow in an Underdark city on the various PWs?
-Another in Middle Earth. You can play a Tolkien Elf or Hobbit and go for drinks or adventure with other ones.
I was like you, believe me and I still enjoy single player games mostly. But when I started playing on NwN2 PWs, I had LOTS of fun and still have.
Grew bored of a world? Go visit another. It's free. Then play a module. Then play the campaigns with mods, with new classes or races. (Kaedrin's pack)
Why bother with the short campaigns, when you can play on two dozen and more, immersive and huge worlds?
And I put all the blame on Atari. They are the ones that financed it, that published it and "supported it".
Dragon Age is polished because it took almost twice the time to be made. And it has no multiplayer, very few classes or races.
Bugs can be overlooked or fixed, or do you think that the BG games are not buggy? Go take a look at the Fixpack's list of fixes.
And many people complained and still complain about the bugs of BGEE.
About ToEE, I don't know the details but I think that it's the same story with NwN2. Rough diamond that was rushed and the community tries to fix everything while Atari pulled the plug on the support after a while.
You think developers don't want to support their games? I believe the next patch of NwN2 was almost ready but Atari refused to pay more money to publish it. Check the Bioware forums.
Why did you think that Obsidian chose Kickstarter for Project Eternity? To avoid moronic publishers like Atari.
but let's just agree to disagree. or at least agree that MotB was mental orgasm levels of amazing, and SoZ was pretty decent, despite the ungodly control scheme.
also, iirc, NWN1's campaigns were actually quite okay. not mindblowing and earthshattering, but... okay. at least I don't remember having the damn near irresistible urge to kill, maim and murder every single thing I came across, and hoping for at least an tiny, hidden option that let's me level that particular section of sword coast and even salts the earth so nothing ever can grow there.
(hmmm, that started out as something funny in my head, but might have gone a bit... psychotic? oh well.)
I get what you're saying. I really do. I buy games for the story mostly, also. Especially RPGs.
I believe the NwN2 campaigns are solid. Not amazing with the exception of Mask of the Betrayer. But it's more the lines of the Icewind Dale games. Standard RPG fare.
In way, they're tributes to the infinity engine games.
The OC is more like BG, standard story-driven campaign.
MotB is like Planescape, bizarre, great emphasis on story and with the whole planar thing.
And SoZ like Icewind Dale, make your team from scratch and have fun exploring and adventuring.
Well, NwN2 gets lots of crap, true but you can't have everything, I say. Obsidian did the best they could with it.
You can't have perfect campaigns, perfect toolset, perfect multiplayer and a perfect game with no bugs or glitches or whatever.
Dragon Age 2 only had a single campaign. No toolset, no multiplayer. And it failed at that too. At least NwN2 doesn't have enemies falling from the ceiling. And it was made by Bioware and financed and published by the one of the biggest and richest publishers around.
The NwN1 expansions were very average with the exception of Hordes. Which was nothing amazing, either.
In the OC, you went into four areas, you got the quest item, then proceeded to the next chapter, rinse and repeat.
But it was fun. If you didn't notice, Hordes has many similarities to Diablo 1.
-Town that gets invaded.
-Journey into maze-like dungeons.
-Descent into caves.
-Going into Hell.
-Fighting the big devil/demon. (Mephistopheles/Diablo).
By the way, you can configure the controls to make them more responsive in NwN2, there are various guides around. You shouldn't have to, I understand that, but it's fixable and not hardcoded to hell like many BG or NwN1 stuff.
It's kind of a downer when you actually realise it.
Kaedrin's pack. It includes new races, subraces, classes, prestige classes, feats, spells and TONS of bug fixes and improvements.
Appearance Changer. You can change the various pieces of clothing in the game but not fully customizable, more like switching through the various ingame ones. Great for that dreaded Mithral Full Plate with the stupid metal wing.
Tschos HD UI. If you have a big screen, get it from the NW Nexus. It gives you big menus and inventory screen.
Xaltar's Replacement pack. Replaces most of the heads with more detailed and realistic ones. But it might depend on your taste.
Nens Combo Hair pack. An alternative solution to the above. It's a compilation of tons of heads and hair for various races. Great stuff. Use one or the other, I say, for consistency.
Cute Cleaves. Adds a visual effect when a Cleave attack happens or an Attack of Opportunity. Nothing amazing but better than nothing.
Zhjaeve Unveiled. I think you customize her appearance and not have her in her robes and flip-flops when she's in full plate.
Alternate Female PC Spellcasting if you're bothered by the girlish voice of the female casters.
I think those are the must haves, for me. There are others that give the first two campaigns, functionality like Storm of Zehir. I think it's called, OC Makeover SoZ Edition? Not sure. Not compatible with Kaedrin's pack, I think.
Also, many other mods are not compatible with each other so these are the ones that I think are must haves and don't conflict with each other.
If you meant modules, then you can search for them at the NWVault and sort them by downloads or rating.
Well, you got the standard OC which is fun, I think but nothing amazing.
Mask of the Betrayer is very heavy on story and dialogue, I don't want to spoil much but if you've played Planescape Torment, it's along those lines. Epic levels and bizzare.
Storm of Zehir is a strange case, some love it, others hate it. It's basically very light on story on mostly on exploration, becoming a trader and merchant and making your party from scratch.
Mysteries of Westgate, I don't have much experience with it. I think it's just a decent premium module set in Westgate. A bit outdated but not bad.
As for humorous appearances, I have to agree here. Helmets and hats look silly/ridiculous across the boards, which is slightly immersion breaking. Aside from that, I thought it was just fine. Mask of the Betrayer (first add on/expansion) is fantastic.
You're asking for OC mods, right?
(1) Kaedrin's PrC Pack comes to mind first.
(2) Tome of Battle is a close second - with this mod, you're no longer limited to knockdown and disarm feats; you can now have an arsenal of maneuvers. More than a hundred, in fact! If you're melee-oriented or you want to mix melee with some magic, skip fighter class..they're boring, pick Tome of Battle.
(3) Wicked Magic is a great spell pack that gives you access to BG spells like contingency, chain contingency, wish spells, etc.
(4) If you want you can also have a UI greatly inspired by Baldur's Gate.
(5) There's another important mod to improve combat experience, but the name escapes me; it adds blood in combat.
(6) Cute Cleaves makes combat a bit more interesting as well. It adds visual effects for AoO and cleaves.
There are actually too many more to choose from that I can't recall them all. Some are for re-texturing of interiors and trees; some are for adding new faces and hairstyles. More recently, there's an NPC facelift that Kurumi mentioned, and a nature-focused PrC pack that includes an Archdruid. If you know a little bit of the toolset, you can also edit or add spells to your liking. Me, I've edited a few...like adding a Timestop spell for Tome of Battle, overpowered but I did it for fun. I also added in-game backpacks to make the adventure more realistic. KEMO animations can also make your play more immersive if you dig roleplaying.
Part of the fun is to look around the NWN2 Vault to find what mods suit your taste.
...and for the camera issue. Actually, after sometime you might get used to it and may come to like it like I did. If you have a mouse that has extra buttons, you can configure one for free movement of the camera. I enjoyed being able to easily see different angles of the battle. Just tweak the camera options to your liking. The camera limitations does make it imperfect, but you can come into terms with it.
The problem is that Kaedrin's pack is not compatible with Tome of Battle. And I think that while it's excellent in PnP, it's a bit tedious to switch through them and very hard to get into unless you know what you're doing. Tome of Battle is a very unorthodox ruleset.
I doubt Wicked Magic is compatible with K's pack either as it modifies the spells.2da, I think.
There is a compilation mod that combines K's pack, ToB and other stuff but I don't know how buggiless it is and it uses an older version of K's pack.
The BG UI is fun but it lacks some features like the Sort button, I believe. Which is bad.
And you're talking about Camb's Combat Splatter, I think. Very fun indeed. Turns the battlefield into a blood mess. Heh.
There are combined hakpaks for ToB, Kaedrin's, and Wicked Magic...I, for one, use this pack; and I can attest that it's cleanly done...I didn't have problems directly from it (there are, however, minor bugs caused by the individual mods; they're easily ignorable or fixable). I had to do some manual edit before to make the new versions of the individual mods compatible though. But it seems the combined hakpak has just been updated very recently, so nothing to worry about on that aspect I guess.
Aha! Yes, that's it - Combat Splatter. I can't remember the missing sort button, but yes IIRC it does lack that. I probably liked BG so much that I didn't mind. But since I combine parts of other UI mods, I might have fixed that as well, who knows...I forgot, and I'm too lazy to open up the game now.