Well I just started NWN2 as a Gnome Bard and so far I like NWN2's OC more than the first one. I haven't played Hordes of the Underdark so can't comment on that.
Also The NWN2 OC is REALLY good so far. I just got to Neverwinter tonight. Maybe it's because so many people said it was lame that my expectations were lowered? If the OC is this good I can't wait for the legendary MotB. Anyway Neeshka and Piro, my Bard, are going to be best friends n_n
As far as mechanics go NWN is 3.0 while NWN2 is 3.5 which is actually a huge difference. Things like Bards being able to cast in armor or what classes/prestige classes are available. NWN2 also has a party while in NWN you only have one follower aside from HotU where you can have two.
My vote is on NWN2 because Party 3.5 edition Better OC No WATERDHAVIAN CREATURES
It kind of all depends on what you are looking for. Both games have some stuff to offer.
NWN is the older of the two games obviously and the graphics are quite dated and blocky as a result. However, actually building within the engine is something that even a novice can pick up on pretty quickly. That isn't to say that truly advanced things can't be done by experts, quite the contrary. But the beginners learning entry point is actually quite low. Plus there are literally hundreds and hundreds of modules out there to play. As far as the campaigns, I quite liked "Hoards of the Underdark" when it came out and think that it is the best of the lot as far as 'Official' campaigns, but there are so many more community mods and Persistent worlds to play that resting only on the campaigns is only scratching the surface.
NWN2 has better graphics, though they really aren't anything to write home to Mom about. You can actually provide gradient land areas instead of blocky plateaus. There are other things as well, but just firing up the game engine and you will see the differences. With that comes a higher initial entry point into the moding world, though it is not insurmountable. Generally it is considered that "Mask of the Betrayer" is either the best of the campaigns or the worst most excrible piece of trash ever. There are very few opinions in between. Either you like it a bunch or you hate it. I personally like it quite a lot, but then I thought that the other campaigns were pretty good as well. There are dozens or hundreds of mods by this time to play as well. Where I got sucked in was with Persistent worlds. There are more of them still active than NWN1, but there are still a bunch for both games.
If you are interested, there is a NWN2 Persistent world based on Baldur's gate set pretty much in the same area as BG1. I highly recommend the world as it was lovingly constructed and is a real tribute to what can be done with the engine. I haven't played there in years but I understand that it is still going strong. It is called 'Sword Coast Chronicles' and can be found by a simple web search.
I will recommend that with either game, you fully download all of the patches as there were a number of improvements and fixes that were needed in order to make the game worth playing. Also, check out some of the community mods such as TonyK's work among others. The interface fixes, prestige classes and spell fixes/additions are all worth the time. And there are fixes to the AI and pathing issues that the game suffers from.
Sorry if that is a ton of information. Let us know what you think.
I think that's like compairing apples and oranges. The two games have quite different feels to them and speak to different kind of players.
NWN1 feels more like Diablo and had it's focus on dungeon crawling and multiplayer. NWN2 feels more like BG2 and had it's focus on roleplay and story/ narrative.
I don't really agree on that assessment. The NWN OC is a bit diablo-ish, sure, but there is loads of other good single player content that is more BG-ish, including the official expansion HotU.
NWN2 OC is much more "on-rails" than BG, and the NPCs who are in the story even when they are not in your party make it more like Mass Effect and KotOR, and especially KotOR2, in style. Wheras the SoZ expansion is getting Bethesda-like in it's open worldiness.
Or am I just looking for things to grump about with this game?
I wouldn't rule that out.
I see similar grumps around Fallout 4 (not about the same things, but hopefully you know what I mean). It may be time for people to measure their expectations about what this game is, and what it isn't. That's not to say the game is better or worse than people say, but it does seem like the game they made, the game they set out to make, wasn't the game that people were expecting to see.
I personally haven't picked it up yet. But I do see a lot of people pointing to things in the game that they call signs the developers have "lost their way", and many of those things aren't bad things, they're just not what people were expecting.
@Dee - I am not discounting the possibility, hence the question.
However, this is supposed to be D&D and do the best of my knowledge 'Respecing' is not a D&D thing. I can understand moderating expectations, and by and large have tried to do that with this game. But when something like this gets thrown in there particularly as a post launch 'enhancement', I begin to wonder.
I can see the need of respecs in this case. They are adding new skill trees and I'd hate to have to restart because they released the Necro tree but I didn't have any points to put in it because it didn't exist when I made the character. I think instead of a manual thing it could be an auto-respec when a new tree is added to the game. That way one can change if they like with the new changes.
@the_spyder It's an optional feature that comes with a cost. You don't have to use it. If you feel like you want to police how other people should play CRPGs, you might want do an introspective.
There's actually precedent for it in PnP--a DM can allow a player to "retrain" their character to get rid of an unwanted level, proficiency, or feat and replace it with a new one. It does come with a cost, and it's entirely at the DM's discretion whether or not to allow it.
@the_spyder It's an optional feature that comes with a cost. You don't have to use it. If you feel like you want to police how other people should play CRPGs, you might want do an introspective.
That's not really the point. With any feature of a game you can choose not to use it. Some people find 'Power Reload' to be problematic. This however does seem to be more 'Diablo' than Dungeons and Dragons "To me".
There's actually precedent for it in PnP--a DM can allow a player to "retrain" their character to get rid of an unwanted level, proficiency, or feat and replace it with a new one. It does come with a cost, and it's entirely at the DM's discretion whether or not to allow it.
That sounds like one of those 'Optional' rules that are thrown in there because some DM's are going to do it anyway and because sometimes players will make mistakes. However, to make it a more or less standard feature is questionable in my book.
However, I think that me defending my position is contrary to me asking the question. Clearly others find it just fine and there I have my answer. "It's just me" that is bothered by it. Nuff said.
@the_spyder The point is there is nothing to be bothered about. Presumably you will never run into the feature unless you seek it out.
So not to belabor the point as (listed above) I think I have my answer. Any and all manner of 'Features' can be implemented into a game. I had a DM that implemented the rule that "All 1st level characters start off with 100 hp". For the type of game that he ran it made sense. I would not want that feature to be added to a game like BG because it doesn't make sense. If it WAS implemented in a game like BG, I would suspect that the development was taking a path that I was not comfortable with, even if it was only an optional feature "with a cost" and "only available if you sought it out".
Even though this is something that is 'Only a feature', it is the 'Type' of feature that strongly suggests a path for the game development that has me worried.
but this will be my last post on the topic as it is clear that I am the only one bothered by this (or more accurately I'm making more of this than others thing is necessary). I've got my answer. Thanks for posting and the discussion.
I don't want to make you feel unwelcome in voicing your opinion, @the_spyder, but the purpose of the variant rule I mentioned is more to help out players like @Vallmyr who may want to take advantage of something in a supplement that didn't exist before, or players who may want to take their character in a different direction after a specific story event. I remember a player I gamed with back in the day who retrained his levels in Wizard to replace them with Sorcerer when he discovered he shared lineage with a powerful dragon.
So it doesn't always have to be a tool for newbies who made a mistake and want to fix it, although not liking it is perfectly acceptable.
I'm under the assumption that if you pre-ordered, Rage of Demons is free of charge. Certainly hope so, it's the reason I finally purchased it about one hour before release time :P
I'm under the assumption that if you pre-ordered, Rage of Demons is free of charge. Certainly hope so, it's the reason I finally purchased it about one hour before release time :P
To my knowledge this is true. Also, we're close to the release of the game! Well. Release for me anyway. On the December 3rd patch is when I plan to finally jump into the game despite pre-ordering.
I'm actually sort of excited. I'll always welcome Drizzt as a companion whether it be fighting gnolls in BG1, Vampries in BG2, or other Drow in Menzoberranzan (The old dungeon crawler).
If anyone is playing the Drizzt card its Wizards of the Coast. In fact, SCL's DLC named "Rage of Demons" is named after the PnP Module also called "Rage of Demons". Also, Neverwinter's new expansion "Underdark" has Drizzt showing up as well for the assault on Menzoberanzan. These were set to coincide with the PnP Module "Rage of Demons". If DNDO were primarily set in the Forgotten Realms, something tells me it would have had a "Rage of Demons" update as well.
Comments
Also
The NWN2 OC is REALLY good so far. I just got to Neverwinter tonight. Maybe it's because so many people said it was lame that my expectations were lowered? If the OC is this good I can't wait for the legendary MotB. Anyway Neeshka and Piro, my Bard, are going to be best friends n_n
As far as mechanics go NWN is 3.0 while NWN2 is 3.5 which is actually a huge difference. Things like Bards being able to cast in armor or what classes/prestige classes are available. NWN2 also has a party while in NWN you only have one follower aside from HotU where you can have two.
My vote is on NWN2 because
Party
3.5 edition
Better OC
No WATERDHAVIAN CREATURES
The absolute worst plot element to start out a good game ever conceived.
NWN is the older of the two games obviously and the graphics are quite dated and blocky as a result. However, actually building within the engine is something that even a novice can pick up on pretty quickly. That isn't to say that truly advanced things can't be done by experts, quite the contrary. But the beginners learning entry point is actually quite low. Plus there are literally hundreds and hundreds of modules out there to play. As far as the campaigns, I quite liked "Hoards of the Underdark" when it came out and think that it is the best of the lot as far as 'Official' campaigns, but there are so many more community mods and Persistent worlds to play that resting only on the campaigns is only scratching the surface.
NWN2 has better graphics, though they really aren't anything to write home to Mom about. You can actually provide gradient land areas instead of blocky plateaus. There are other things as well, but just firing up the game engine and you will see the differences. With that comes a higher initial entry point into the moding world, though it is not insurmountable. Generally it is considered that "Mask of the Betrayer" is either the best of the campaigns or the worst most excrible piece of trash ever. There are very few opinions in between. Either you like it a bunch or you hate it. I personally like it quite a lot, but then I thought that the other campaigns were pretty good as well. There are dozens or hundreds of mods by this time to play as well. Where I got sucked in was with Persistent worlds. There are more of them still active than NWN1, but there are still a bunch for both games.
If you are interested, there is a NWN2 Persistent world based on Baldur's gate set pretty much in the same area as BG1. I highly recommend the world as it was lovingly constructed and is a real tribute to what can be done with the engine. I haven't played there in years but I understand that it is still going strong. It is called 'Sword Coast Chronicles' and can be found by a simple web search.
I will recommend that with either game, you fully download all of the patches as there were a number of improvements and fixes that were needed in order to make the game worth playing. Also, check out some of the community mods such as TonyK's work among others. The interface fixes, prestige classes and spell fixes/additions are all worth the time. And there are fixes to the AI and pathing issues that the game suffers from.
Sorry if that is a ton of information. Let us know what you think.
NWN1 feels more like Diablo and had it's focus on dungeon crawling and multiplayer.
NWN2 feels more like BG2 and had it's focus on roleplay and story/ narrative.
It's really a thing of taste.
NWN2 OC is much more "on-rails" than BG, and the NPCs who are in the story even when they are not in your party make it more like Mass Effect and KotOR, and especially KotOR2, in style. Wheras the SoZ expansion is getting Bethesda-like in it's open worldiness.
I see similar grumps around Fallout 4 (not about the same things, but hopefully you know what I mean). It may be time for people to measure their expectations about what this game is, and what it isn't. That's not to say the game is better or worse than people say, but it does seem like the game they made, the game they set out to make, wasn't the game that people were expecting to see.
I personally haven't picked it up yet. But I do see a lot of people pointing to things in the game that they call signs the developers have "lost their way", and many of those things aren't bad things, they're just not what people were expecting.
However, this is supposed to be D&D and do the best of my knowledge 'Respecing' is not a D&D thing. I can understand moderating expectations, and by and large have tried to do that with this game. But when something like this gets thrown in there particularly as a post launch 'enhancement', I begin to wonder.
However, I think that me defending my position is contrary to me asking the question. Clearly others find it just fine and there I have my answer. "It's just me" that is bothered by it. Nuff said.
Even though this is something that is 'Only a feature', it is the 'Type' of feature that strongly suggests a path for the game development that has me worried.
but this will be my last post on the topic as it is clear that I am the only one bothered by this (or more accurately I'm making more of this than others thing is necessary). I've got my answer. Thanks for posting and the discussion.
So it doesn't always have to be a tool for newbies who made a mistake and want to fix it, although not liking it is perfectly acceptable.
Also, we're close to the release of the game!
Well.
Release for me anyway. On the December 3rd patch is when I plan to finally jump into the game despite pre-ordering.
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/rageofdemons
I tried to play SCL, but for some reason my graphics card doesn't like it. So, I think I'll need upgrade my computer for christmas.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/325600/announcements/detail/48774876376144247
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/november-2015-survey
Also took the survey. Voted for next class to be the Bard of course~