I disagree that the story of the NWN original campaign is "boring", or of poor quality. I am currently replaying it after a long enough absence that it is fresh to me, and I find it extremely engaging.
The rest of what I have to say is a spoilerpalooza if you've never played NWN 1, and don't want to be spoiled:
I just replayed the whole Aribeth-Fenthick-Desther mess in chapter one and moved on to Port Llast. I found the story of those three characters as tragic and engaging as ever. I felt like crying for Aribeth and Fenthick at the end, even as I remember that this tragedy is laying the seeds for a huge, complicated story arc for Aribeth that continues into Hordes of the Underdark.
I also enjoyed gradually uncovering the first information about the Cult of the Eye. I remember that it is all going to lead to a time-travel story involving the Ancients' attempt to save themselves from extinction by traveling to the future, but not exactly why they wanted to kill everybody in Neverwinter, or why they tricked the likes of Desther and Gulnan into helping them do it.
I even had forgotten about the "false Helmites" under Desther, and had been thinking, you know, Helm really is a total ass if he lets the likes of Desther get away with this. I thus found it enormously satisfying to restore the true Spirit of Helm to Helm's Hold.
BTW - combining fantasy with sci-fi elements is one of my favorite genre tricks - see my posts in the Might and Magic X thread.
I have Tony K's AI mod installed, plus another aesthetics and convenience mod that lets you access henchman inventory and control your henchie's equipment, which also adds a lot of eye candy, such as animated cloaks, and more detailed placeables like special fountains.
Tony K is the NWN equivalent of SCS. I found myself fighting THREE BODAKS - instant death gaze, 3x per day, in the courtyard of Helm's Hold! Thank Nobanion I was playing a cleric with access to the Death Ward spell, especially since Tony K has all three of them open by using ALL of their death gazes! Tomi and my dire bear went away really fast, and my flaming blunt mace couldn't scratch them. Thank Nobanion again that I had access to the Searing Light spell, which turned out to be super-effective against Bodaks, which are arguably the most frightening monster in all of NWN, with that death gaze!
I look forward to seeing all the NWN reveals again, paying more attention to the details this time.
I am exploring almost every dialogue option, something I hadn't done in years of powergaming my way through NWN, because I am so riveted by the story, and I don't want to miss any details about what is going on.
Also, there is an enormous amount of lore present regarding the cities of Neverwinter, Port Llast, and Luskan, and the churches of Tyr and Helm.
I don't quite understand why so many people say they don't think it's a good story.
Is Dragon Age pause-based? Can you control your characters' skill progression or are they like hirelings as in NwN? How large is a party?
I enjoy Baldur's Gate, but did not enjoy Neverwinter Nights (single character) or Knights of the Old Republic (3 character party). If I can upgrade my machine, I make look at DA:O later, depending on the sort of game it is. :]
1) Yes you can pause and make commands like in Baldur's Gate. 2) Yes you can control your characters (NPC's) progression. To a point anyways they do start out with certain spells/abilities/stats. 3) You can have a total of 4 people in your party (so you and 3 NPCs).
I found Dragon Age boring to the point of being unplayable. It has an uninspired pseudo-medieval European setting, bland class mechanics and customization, a simplistic generic good vs evil no shades of grey railroaded plot and a slightly MMO-like attitude towards gameplay (e.g. the hand-in filler quests, item-influenced 'rep' system for NPCs, lack of permanent deaths).
What really kills it for me though is how slow the game feels. Each time you reach a new area or stage in the game, it's fun for a while but then it just keeps on going and going and long after it's outstayed its welcome, it's still going. If the combat was really good, you might keep at it but it's merely okay. If the story was really good, you might suffer it to find out what happens next. But the story goes pretty much nowhere for most of the game. If the gameworld was deep and interesting you might actually enjoy searching every square of the map for books and other sources of in-game knowledge and lore but...the setting is too plain.
Want to know a popular mod for DA:O? Skip the Fade. Kind of like BG2s Dungeon-Be-Gone but whereas that skips the intro of the game so you can get to the good stuff, Skip the Fade's purpose is to cut down one of the main plot-required quests that's boring even on a first playthrough and enragingly tedious on a second or third runthrough. I prefer to just Skip the Game and play something actually fun instead.
Perhaps the only part that holds up to BG2 would be with NPCs, who are interesting in their own way albeit hamstrung by being products of a dull setting. Also, I prefer mana-based magic systems so that's a plus for me over BG2s rest mechanics. That's pretty much it. Even NWN1s toecurlingly boring OC had some redeeming moments/qualities but I just don't find anything in DA:O.
TL;DR I'd rather do a BG2 solo 3str wizard slayer run than be in the same building as DA:O.
There's a DA:O mod that lets you respec your player character, or any of the NPC's. It puts a raven into your camp, and when you click on the raven, it completely erases your character build and gives you back all your raw skill points to reassign however you want, including both attribute scores and abilities.
I might have never made it all the way through DA:O without it, because there are enough choices of builds that it triggered my restartitis.
While I don't agree with @FrozenCells overall conclusion, he makes some good points, and I understand his point of view. DA:O is an extremely talky game, and if you don't like wading through reams of dialogue material, it probably *would* be kind of boring. I can't bring myself to play Planescape:Torment for that same reason.
I liked the slow pace of DA:O during my first playthrough, and I spent several months and a lot of hours relishing the richness of the total experience, but that slow pace and massive dialogue commitment has killed most of its replayability for me.
I have started and then abandoned several replay attempts over the past few years, and I definitely installed that "Skip the Fade" mod. That particular stretch of game content interrupts your main quest at a very intense moment, just a little before the final battle of the mage tower area that you were gearing up for. It takes at least a couple or three hours to trudge through, and it is *extremely* tedious once you've done it one time. (The first time it's kind of interesting - but *only* the first time.) The comparison to Irenicus' dungeon is very apt.
I'd say that DA:O is a pretty easy game if you understand the mechanics. If you have a tank, healer and 2 DPS/CC party then it's a breeze. Having more than one mage turns it into a bit of a cakewalk.
For Rogues and Warriors it's almost always better to use passive abilities rather than active, as actives deplete your non-replenishing stamina resource so you will always run out in longer combats. If you've spec'd into lots of passives then your character can keep going all day.
Mages can pretty much spam spells of any kind as long as you have lots of lyrium (mana) potions, which have no cooldown. The mana-regen stat can be completely circumvented using this allowing your mage to focus on more spellpower. The basic potions are very cheap to make and once you've got 200 you'll never run out.
The AI script system used in DA:O actually works pretty well. You can choose to pause and issue orders individually but it's very possible to mostly leave your party to their own devices if you've given them decent priorities.
I'd say that DA:O is a pretty easy game if you understand the mechanics. If you have a tank, healer and 2 DPS/CC party then it's a breeze. Having more than one mage turns it into a bit of a cakewalk.
For Rogues and Warriors it's almost always better to use passive abilities rather than active, as actives deplete your non-replenishing stamina resource so you will always run out in longer combats. If you've spec'd into lots of passives then your character can keep going all day.
Mages can pretty much spam spells of any kind as long as you have lots of lyrium (mana) potions, which have no cooldown. The mana-regen stat can be completely circumvented using this allowing your mage to focus on more spellpower. The basic potions are very cheap to make and once you've got 200 you'll never run out.
The AI script system used in DA:O actually works pretty well. You can choose to pause and issue orders individually but it's very possible to mostly leave your party to their own devices if you've given them decent priorities.
try sometime using only dual wielders with dual flurry and whirlwind. now that is easy
a thing to note is that you REALLY want a rogue in this game. there is no knock or warrior bash to open locks for you.
I tended to go for Tank, Melee Rogue, Mage (DPS/CC), Mage (healer) @ChildofBhaal599. It was a bit too easy. There are a couple of mage spells (Crushing Prison and Mana Clash) that are instant cast and OHKO most mages. A dual-wielding Cunning spec'd rogue does an insane amount of damage later on as well.
The final battle has a couple of scenery items you're meant to use to defeat the boss but playing on normal I didn't realise. It was dead long before I looked for a battle-unique mechanic.
I tended to go for Tank, Melee Rogue, Mage (DPS/CC), Mage (healer) @ChildofBhaal599. It was a bit too easy. There are a couple of mage spells (Crushing Prison and Mana Clash) that are instant cast and OHKO most mages. A dual-wielding Cunning spec'd rogue does an insane amount of damage later on as well.
The final battle has a couple of scenery items you're meant to use to defeat the boss but playing on normal I didn't realise. It was dead long before I looked for a battle-unique mechanic.
yeah after one game of my dual wielding deal I switched back to balanced parties because it was boring overpowered. dual flurry hits a bunch of times and always hits, no misses, as long as they are not running away. mages are certainly powerful, but in my experience not as powerful as that group was.
the final battle was slightly annoying at that point with the ballistas. i really enjoy the feel of the entire final sequence, but on the hardest difficulty the ballistas that can attack the archdemon from its safe spot can end up both broken and you end up using your bows and magic instead. It wouldn't be so annoying if they never permanently broke, or if you didn't need a rogue to repair it. my first game had no rogues because Zevran betrayed me and I didn't find Lelliana so I actually had to give up on the final battle because the boss was impossible. the archdemon could not be killed without them breaking. other than that part I enjoyed the entire sequence with calling in your armies and fighting hordes of enemies. It was what ME3's final battle should have been.
DAO is poorly balanced in terms of classes. Warriors with two-handers are severely gimped, while the AW/BM can solo through the whole game without even noticing it.
i played DA2... people says that is a horrible game, and i love it. With a few exceptions is a very good game with replay value. Combat mechanics are addictive... i found nothing wrong with the wheel menu that everyone complains (im on PS3, maybe at a pc is not good). Solo play is fun and chalenging. Nice graphics. DAO is better. DA:I seems that will be even better.
I remember actually being happy when I beat DA2. Usually I am quite sad to see something end because that is the end of that character. That of course explains why I desperately wanted epilogues for Mass Effect so that I could see into the future and know my story isn't just over. Anyway, I was happy to beat DA2 because it actually meant it was time for me to move on from it! Never have I felt that way but I was sick of tapping A until my enemy died, and doing boring fetch quests.
DAO is poorly balanced in terms of classes. Warriors with two-handers are severely gimped, while the AW/BM can solo through the whole game without even noticing it.
what is AW/BM? I guess it's been a while for me to remember the abbreviation. I do agree though that 2 handers were at a great disadvantage. it was awesome that the weapons showed they have weight, but the additional damage doesn't felt like it is enough of a counter to the slower animation that you do much less dps. I also find the powers to not be as good.
AW/BM is Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage Mage specialist class combo. The Arcane warrior is bugged as anything in early patches and has a mana-based shield that absorbs damage and *doesn't break* when you run out of mana.
Blood Mage has a bunch of health->mana spells as well as some really nasty damage/CC stuff IIRC.
oh never bothered much with the arcane warrior because if you get a weapon out over a wand it takes longer to cast spells because you put the weapon away.
i have issues about games that have an end. I mean last boss is down and credits and game over... Thats why i like MMOs and games like skyrim... is very difficult to reach an end... you stop playing when you dont want that game anymore, not because you beat last boss.
Why? Because i feel sad already in the begining because i knoe that character i am creating and building will meet his end so soon. I think "i will not overthing the build because will not last long"... sad thing... no game should have an end.
@fvmedeiros "All good things must come to an end." A story without an end, is probably a bad story.
I personally dislike MMOs as they're mostly boring, paying, grindfests. Even the "free" ones are usually "pay to win". They're only fun if you play with friends, I guess but if you play by yourself, it's very boring.
I mean, in the context of a game, what does a hero do after the story is finished? Derping around and pwning noobs? A story must have an end for the person to have that release and closure, instead of going "meh, I guess I'll stop playing when I get bored".
And about the builds, trying out different classes and builds is part of the fun in an RPG. When I'm done playing with a Paladin, I would want to try a Sorcerer for example or Blade or Shapeshifter or Assassin.
there is something I can agree on. I like the option to continue doing extra content after I am done. there needs to be an ending to the adventure, but it isn't an end for the character. i usually mess around a bit, pretend I am retired, or maybe rather continue my adventures as a hero. before broken steel for FO3 I would practically never finish the game because it would end, or maybe I would save before the end sequence so I can load back and keep doing things. I actually never beat Fallout New Vegas because I get a feeling in the open world like I don't want it to end
on more story driven games like Baldur's Gate it is a different story. not much to do in BG when everything is over with anyway, but then epilogues give me a life goes on effect. it is just a little sad to think it is over. this is why I have some weird character RPs go on between similar game series. a character from one fantasy game I might imagine moves to a different world and the adventure continues
@Archaos I get your point... and try different classes is smth i also like to do... The main plot can come to an end... but would be much better for me if i could explore with my high level char, and level even more to face hard mode dungeons etc... OR, like in diablo 3, i could take my character to the next difficulty with same level and gear... NWN had this mechanic if i remember. I dont know, i guess that many solutions could make a game longer... but "final credits" and "game overs" annoys me.
About MMOs, i agree that some are a grindfest only, others dont... i think you should check elder scrolls online when it comes out... it is nice to have a living world, with lore, tons of things to do and explore, and not only do quests. You can really role-play there... you can have fun solo.
Of course some people dont like too much action, others dont like too much strategy... we will always have the "mind vs skill" thing... i like somewhere in the middle, like dragon age and elder scrolls.
just sitting tight waiting for ESO to release. only thing I would call bad that I heard of was public dungeons. I can't imagine running into 100 other people deep down in a dungeon. they should be lonely other than the party you took in. i will likely stick to private ones if there are enough. if i want to kill with random people I will be running around the wild with them
maybe will be like living world events in guild wars 2, you can party if you want, but you can go alone if you want, and automatically "group" with other lonely people, without needing to find party members... but of course, must have a good mechanic and rules to work well and be fun. They will come with pretty nice new things...
Actually I would love a Heart of Fury mode like in Icewind Dale where you can take your high level party and start from the beginning but now, monsters are deadly, even the goblins.
Thing is, in Baldur's Gate you can pretty much explore the whole map in both games before continuing with the main plot. There wouldn't be much point to keep going after you finished the game.
The NwN games have the ability to export your characters, true, though the enemies stay the same. It's not fun killing level 1 goblins with a 30 level Sorcerer. Well, it is fun for a while but there's not challenge, you just click them and they evaporate.
In the Elder Scrolls games there are many things you can always do so it makes sense that the game is not over when you finish it. And I enjoyed that mechanic in Chrono Trigger/Cross or Vagrant Story and other games where you can start the game again with the same character but in all those games there are things that are unlocked only after you finish them.
For example in Chrono Trigger you can defeat Lavos very early in the game with just one character but you need to be very very strong. That gives you a different ending.
Though in the Baldur's Gate games this doesn't really work.
I found Dragon Age boring to the point of being unplayable. It has an uninspired pseudo-medieval European setting, bland class mechanics and customization, a simplistic generic good vs evil no shades of grey railroaded plot...
And here's where you lost all credibility. Shades of grey is like the entire point of Dragon Age.
Comments
The rest of what I have to say is a spoilerpalooza if you've never played NWN 1, and don't want to be spoiled:
I also enjoyed gradually uncovering the first information about the Cult of the Eye. I remember that it is all going to lead to a time-travel story involving the Ancients' attempt to save themselves from extinction by traveling to the future, but not exactly why they wanted to kill everybody in Neverwinter, or why they tricked the likes of Desther and Gulnan into helping them do it.
I even had forgotten about the "false Helmites" under Desther, and had been thinking, you know, Helm really is a total ass if he lets the likes of Desther get away with this. I thus found it enormously satisfying to restore the true Spirit of Helm to Helm's Hold.
BTW - combining fantasy with sci-fi elements is one of my favorite genre tricks - see my posts in the Might and Magic X thread.
( "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws)
I have Tony K's AI mod installed, plus another aesthetics and convenience mod that lets you access henchman inventory and control your henchie's equipment, which also adds a lot of eye candy, such as animated cloaks, and more detailed placeables like special fountains.
Tony K is the NWN equivalent of SCS. I found myself fighting THREE BODAKS - instant death gaze, 3x per day, in the courtyard of Helm's Hold! Thank Nobanion I was playing a cleric with access to the Death Ward spell, especially since Tony K has all three of them open by using ALL of their death gazes! Tomi and my dire bear went away really fast, and my flaming blunt mace couldn't scratch them. Thank Nobanion again that I had access to the Searing Light spell, which turned out to be super-effective against Bodaks, which are arguably the most frightening monster in all of NWN, with that death gaze!
I look forward to seeing all the NWN reveals again, paying more attention to the details this time.
I am exploring almost every dialogue option, something I hadn't done in years of powergaming my way through NWN, because I am so riveted by the story, and I don't want to miss any details about what is going on.
Also, there is an enormous amount of lore present regarding the cities of Neverwinter, Port Llast, and Luskan, and the churches of Tyr and Helm.
I don't quite understand why so many people say they don't think it's a good story.
2) Yes you can control your characters (NPC's) progression. To a point anyways they do start out with certain spells/abilities/stats.
3) You can have a total of 4 people in your party (so you and 3 NPCs).
@Archaos I might have to reinstall NWN2 and join you some day.
What really kills it for me though is how slow the game feels. Each time you reach a new area or stage in the game, it's fun for a while but then it just keeps on going and going and long after it's outstayed its welcome, it's still going. If the combat was really good, you might keep at it but it's merely okay. If the story was really good, you might suffer it to find out what happens next. But the story goes pretty much nowhere for most of the game. If the gameworld was deep and interesting you might actually enjoy searching every square of the map for books and other sources of in-game knowledge and lore but...the setting is too plain.
Want to know a popular mod for DA:O? Skip the Fade. Kind of like BG2s Dungeon-Be-Gone but whereas that skips the intro of the game so you can get to the good stuff, Skip the Fade's purpose is to cut down one of the main plot-required quests that's boring even on a first playthrough and enragingly tedious on a second or third runthrough. I prefer to just Skip the Game and play something actually fun instead.
Perhaps the only part that holds up to BG2 would be with NPCs, who are interesting in their own way albeit hamstrung by being products of a dull setting. Also, I prefer mana-based magic systems so that's a plus for me over BG2s rest mechanics. That's pretty much it. Even NWN1s toecurlingly boring OC had some redeeming moments/qualities but I just don't find anything in DA:O.
TL;DR I'd rather do a BG2 solo 3str wizard slayer run than be in the same building as DA:O.
I might have never made it all the way through DA:O without it, because there are enough choices of builds that it triggered my restartitis.
While I don't agree with @FrozenCells overall conclusion, he makes some good points, and I understand his point of view. DA:O is an extremely talky game, and if you don't like wading through reams of dialogue material, it probably *would* be kind of boring. I can't bring myself to play Planescape:Torment for that same reason.
I liked the slow pace of DA:O during my first playthrough, and I spent several months and a lot of hours relishing the richness of the total experience, but that slow pace and massive dialogue commitment has killed most of its replayability for me.
I have started and then abandoned several replay attempts over the past few years, and I definitely installed that "Skip the Fade" mod. That particular stretch of game content interrupts your main quest at a very intense moment, just a little before the final battle of the mage tower area that you were gearing up for. It takes at least a couple or three hours to trudge through, and it is *extremely* tedious once you've done it one time. (The first time it's kind of interesting - but *only* the first time.) The comparison to Irenicus' dungeon is very apt.
For Rogues and Warriors it's almost always better to use passive abilities rather than active, as actives deplete your non-replenishing stamina resource so you will always run out in longer combats. If you've spec'd into lots of passives then your character can keep going all day.
Mages can pretty much spam spells of any kind as long as you have lots of lyrium (mana) potions, which have no cooldown. The mana-regen stat can be completely circumvented using this allowing your mage to focus on more spellpower. The basic potions are very cheap to make and once you've got 200 you'll never run out.
The AI script system used in DA:O actually works pretty well. You can choose to pause and issue orders individually but it's very possible to mostly leave your party to their own devices if you've given them decent priorities.
a thing to note is that you REALLY want a rogue in this game. there is no knock or warrior bash to open locks for you.
The final battle has a couple of scenery items you're meant to use to defeat the boss but playing on normal I didn't realise. It was dead long before I looked for a battle-unique mechanic.
the final battle was slightly annoying at that point with the ballistas. i really enjoy the feel of the entire final sequence, but on the hardest difficulty the ballistas that can attack the archdemon from its safe spot can end up both broken and you end up using your bows and magic instead. It wouldn't be so annoying if they never permanently broke, or if you didn't need a rogue to repair it. my first game had no rogues because Zevran betrayed me and I didn't find Lelliana so I actually had to give up on the final battle because the boss was impossible. the archdemon could not be killed without them breaking. other than that part I enjoyed the entire sequence with calling in your armies and fighting hordes of enemies. It was what ME3's final battle should have been.
Shapeshifters are totally pointless, for example. You can trade in being an OP mage for being a mediocre melee who cannot cast? Oh Joy!
DA:O, like skyrim, is a game I think benefits heavily from gameplay mods to make things more interesting.
Blood Mage has a bunch of health->mana spells as well as some really nasty damage/CC stuff IIRC.
i assume the bug is fixed by now?
Thats why i like MMOs and games like skyrim... is very difficult to reach an end... you stop playing when you dont want that game anymore, not because you beat last boss.
Why? Because i feel sad already in the begining because i knoe that character i am creating and building will meet his end so soon. I think "i will not overthing the build because will not last long"... sad thing... no game should have an end.
"All good things must come to an end." A story without an end, is probably a bad story.
I personally dislike MMOs as they're mostly boring, paying, grindfests. Even the "free" ones are usually "pay to win".
They're only fun if you play with friends, I guess but if you play by yourself, it's very boring.
I mean, in the context of a game, what does a hero do after the story is finished? Derping around and pwning noobs?
A story must have an end for the person to have that release and closure, instead of going "meh, I guess I'll stop playing when I get bored".
And about the builds, trying out different classes and builds is part of the fun in an RPG. When I'm done playing with a Paladin, I would want to try a Sorcerer for example or Blade or Shapeshifter or Assassin.
on more story driven games like Baldur's Gate it is a different story. not much to do in BG when everything is over with anyway, but then epilogues give me a life goes on effect. it is just a little sad to think it is over. this is why I have some weird character RPs go on between similar game series. a character from one fantasy game I might imagine moves to a different world and the adventure continues
I get your point... and try different classes is smth i also like to do...
The main plot can come to an end... but would be much better for me if i could explore with my high level char, and level even more to face hard mode dungeons etc... OR, like in diablo 3, i could take my character to the next difficulty with same level and gear... NWN had this mechanic if i remember. I dont know, i guess that many solutions could make a game longer... but "final credits" and "game overs" annoys me.
About MMOs, i agree that some are a grindfest only, others dont... i think you should check elder scrolls online when it comes out... it is nice to have a living world, with lore, tons of things to do and explore, and not only do quests. You can really role-play there... you can have fun solo.
Of course some people dont like too much action, others dont like too much strategy... we will always have the "mind vs skill" thing... i like somewhere in the middle, like dragon age and elder scrolls.
Actually I would love a Heart of Fury mode like in Icewind Dale where you can take your high level party and start from the beginning but now, monsters are deadly, even the goblins.
Thing is, in Baldur's Gate you can pretty much explore the whole map in both games before continuing with the main plot. There wouldn't be much point to keep going after you finished the game.
The NwN games have the ability to export your characters, true, though the enemies stay the same. It's not fun killing level 1 goblins with a 30 level Sorcerer. Well, it is fun for a while but there's not challenge, you just click them and they evaporate.
In the Elder Scrolls games there are many things you can always do so it makes sense that the game is not over when you finish it.
And I enjoyed that mechanic in Chrono Trigger/Cross or Vagrant Story and other games where you can start the game again with the same character but in all those games there are things that are unlocked only after you finish them.
For example in Chrono Trigger you can defeat Lavos very early in the game with just one character but you need to be very very strong. That gives you a different ending.
Though in the Baldur's Gate games this doesn't really work.