@subtledoctor , I just ran across a reference that mentioned that if you set the camera mode to strategy mode, there's a checkbox to "turn on marquee select" in the settings, if you're still interested in that. The author claimed that the strategy camera mode would create a more top-down, isometric rpg experience.
I didn't know about it, because I never use the strategy mode camera.
The reference is under "minor tweaks" in the "Neverwinter Nights 2 Best Mods" section of Lilura's Blog. @Lilura 's blog is a pretty popular website for NWN fans, with lots of good links and walkthroughs.
I think the game manuals represent aspiration rather than truth. Obsidian tried to add in BG style controls to a game engine that wasn't designed to support them. So they don't actually work very well. Say hello Qara.
I usually play in exploration mode, as I don't care for wasd controls, annd the top down view limits visual range too much less than bow/spell range.
Never played NWN 2. Disliked NWN 1 so never really felt tempted. The game was ugly, controls were -- well not really controls. Unlike some, I liked the story. But the engine? Terrible. I *really* hope Beamdog's confirmation that the they are using the unreal engine leads them to make a NWN like game.
Besides, it is a very different monster to that of the EE versions we have seen so far. It is 3.5 rules, different engine and different point of view. IE engine games have a fixed view. NWN 2 doesnt.
On any case, I think enhacing a game that, imo, doesnt need to be enhaced is pointless
Well Nwn 2 modding isn't very unified. There is no comprehensive unofficial fixpack for Nwn2. There are a number of mods you can shuffle into your override folder, but it's a bit of a mess compared to vanilla BG2 and not all of them are compatible with each other.
I would say it needs a patch more than anything. I think there was a final patch in the works, but Atari pulled the plug on that..Twats
I love NWN2, much more than NWN1. However there are plenty of things that NWN1 did better, as it seemed to be a better funded in house project and not a third party RELEASE IT NOW kind of deal: - Better animations, specially battle ones. While waiting for attacks to happen you would see characters crossing swords, sparks flying, various ways of dodging/parrying etc. NWN2 had none of it. If you have played BGEE/BG2 and IWD2 youll know what I mean, it happens in IWD2 low budget too, all the "idle" combat animations are cut. - Better controls, specially the camera. Not even the last patch, not even the unofficial patch that used some sort of injector to fix numerous things managed to make the camera as fluid as NWN1. NWN2 camera works in stances: low-middle-high-zoom, whereas NWN1 responded to your every input. It also had a nasty bug where it would start spining uncontrollably during dialogues under certain circumstances. There was also a sort of lag effect: while moving around your character would often stop while keeping the running animation and then go back to a previous point, like a MMO with bad connection. It was just terrible. - Cut content, LOTS OF IT. - Buggy all around, quests, classes, feats, dialogue checks.
Yet I still loved it, because of the sheer variety of races and classes. I even liked the OC campaign, that so many people hated. To me it was a classic sword&sorcery campaign, yes, full of cliches, but still very much enjoyable because of the characters. An EE could fix/improve all of that.
Mask of the Betrayer is my favorite rpg ever. The story is just beautiful. I would certainly play an EE.
Things that could be improved: 1. AI Even with Tony_k's AI mod, many monsters and NPCs are fairly stupid 2. Spell bugs There are many bugged spells in NWN2, defensive casting mode was bugged too as far as I know 3. Encounter Design The game is way too easy, it needs tougher encounters (not just a +dmg setting)
I think the camera is fine tbh. There was one really useful camera mode while the other two seemed to be there just to confuse people.
i never seem to have camera problems in NWN 2 ( dont know if i mentioned this earlier ) but people keep saying that the camera in NWN 2 is way worse than it was in NWN 1 and yet, they both seem the same to me...?
i never seem to have camera problems in NWN 2 ( dont know if i mentioned this earlier ) but people keep saying that the camera in NWN 2 is way worse than it was in NWN 1 and yet, they both seem the same to me...?
@sarevok57 , The problem is the speed of the camera turning. It's incredibly oversensitive, even at the lowest setting. The slightest touch at the edge of the screen causes the camera to jerk around violently, causing disorientation, eyestrain, and headaches to the players who complain, including me. That's why I found a workaround to slow it down so I could play the game.
NWN1 only has one camera speed setting, and the camera rotates at a reasonable speed, mimicking natural eyesight, as it should.
The difference is so obvious to me, it's hard for me to understand how anyone could not see it, but I think the NWN2 camera issue must be a similar thing to the "blue-dress/gold-dress" and the "laurel/yanni" phenomena.
Mask of the Betrayer is my favorite rpg ever. The story is just beautiful. I would certainly play an EE.
MotB gets a lot of love, but I could never really get into it. The whole soul-eater mechanic put a clock on my play-style that I found very uncomfortable, and I play games to relax. Which isn't to say that I'm right and everyone else is wrong, I can well believe that if I got over my discomfort there is a great game waiting for me, but could never find it.
OTOH, I seem overly fond of Storm of Zehir, which I think brought some great game mechanics to the NWN2 engine, and simply needed one more story-focused campaign with some depth to go with the mechanics to really shine. Sadly, that was where funding dried up
i never seem to have camera problems in NWN 2 ( dont know if i mentioned this earlier ) but people keep saying that the camera in NWN 2 is way worse than it was in NWN 1 and yet, they both seem the same to me...?
@sarevok57 , The problem is the speed of the camera turning. It's incredibly oversensitive, even at the lowest setting. The slightest touch at the edge of the screen causes the camera to jerk around violently, causing disorientation, eyestrain, and headaches to the players who complain, including me. That's why I found a workaround to slow it down so I could play the game.
NWN1 only has one camera speed setting, and the camera rotates at a reasonable speed, mimicking natural eyesight, as it should.
The difference is so obvious to me, it's hard for me to understand how anyone could not see it, but I think the NWN2 camera issue must be a similar thing to the "blue-dress/gold-dress" and the "laurel/yanni" phenomena.
interesting, i use the arrow keys to turn the camera around and it turns around just fine, if you hold right click and use the mouse then yes, it's warp speed, but the arrow keys, even when maxed out i almost find it a little slow
but with the mouse at the side of the screen with the arrow keys, perfect speed
I suspect it depends on the characteristics of the machine the game is running on. The time-base is set relative to the speed of the machine, with the assumption that the player will adjust it manually. Wheras in NWN1 an absolute value for time-base is used.
NwN2 absolutely needs an improvement. I don't understand people that say that NwN2 doesn't need. That pretty much shows that they haven't even touched it, or even heard about it, nevermind played it.
1) It's still very very buggy. There are bugs everywhere, from races, to spells (a ton there), to feats, to classes and Prestige Classes, to the campaigns. Some can be fixed with unofficial patches but not the hardcoded ones, unless you make a workaround.
Plus the way it's designed, if you have an unofficial patch that fixes things, it's not compatible many times with class packs that add new stuff, unless someone merges the mods.
2) It's still horribly unoptimized. As in, it makes modern PCs cry, especially when you turn Shadows on. Even without, it doesn't take advantage of multicore CPUs, which are the norm now. And there are reports that it might even run WORSE with modern CPUs, because it freaks out with multi-threaded CPUs.
3) There are various glitches with the engine, such as WASD movement and other stuff that make moving around a pain. I believe the last patch somehow broke something with the movement and so it's been like that for a decade almost.
4) The various models and animations are made in some outdated Autodesk 3DS Max format I believe, so it's a pain to make new models or animations. NwN2 modelers can better explain why it's a pain making new stuff for it.
5) No Linux/Mac version unlike NwN1EE. Plus less DLCs. There's exactly 1 DLC/Adventure module for NwN2 which is Mysteries of Westgate.
I'm rather worried about the news of Microsoft now owning Obsidian. If the IP rights of NwN2 were still in Obsidian's hands, then Microsoft has them now. Which means there is basically no chance of Beamdog doing an NwN2:EE, given that Microsoft isn't exactly known to give up on potential cash cows. And even if, it would very likely cost tremendous amounts of money to buy them off Mircrosoft...
Of course, if Beamdog had already bought the NwN2 rights then this won't be an issue at all... well, one can hope at least.
Despite owning NWN and NWN:EE I find it to be the worst of all the D&D video games >_>. NWN2 on the other hand might be my favorite video game of all time, tied with Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity.
There's nothing worth enhancing in nwn 2. You can play it already. It's not *that* old.
NWN 1 on the other hand needed the enhancements to run on modern systems and the new graphical bells and whistles. And we don't want Beamdog to split their resources and MP community between two games with a toolset and DM client.
There's nothing worth enhancing in nwn 2. You can play it already. It's not *that* old.
NWN 1 on the other hand needed the enhancements to run on modern systems and the new graphical bells and whistles. And we don't want Beamdog to split their resources and MP community between two games with a toolset and DM client.
Comments
I didn't know about it, because I never use the strategy mode camera.
The reference is under "minor tweaks" in the "Neverwinter Nights 2 Best Mods" section of Lilura's Blog. @Lilura 's blog is a pretty popular website for NWN fans, with lots of good links and walkthroughs.
https://lilura1.blogspot.com/p/neverwinter-nights-2-mods.html
I usually play in exploration mode, as I don't care for wasd controls, annd the top down view limits visual range too much less than bow/spell range.
Besides, it is a very different monster to that of the EE versions we have seen so far. It is 3.5 rules, different engine and different point of view. IE engine games have a fixed view. NWN 2 doesnt.
On any case, I think enhacing a game that, imo, doesnt need to be enhaced is pointless
I would say it needs a patch more than anything. I think there was a final patch in the works, but Atari pulled the plug on that..Twats
- Better animations, specially battle ones. While waiting for attacks to happen you would see characters crossing swords, sparks flying, various ways of dodging/parrying etc. NWN2 had none of it. If you have played BGEE/BG2 and IWD2 youll know what I mean, it happens in IWD2 low budget too, all the "idle" combat animations are cut.
- Better controls, specially the camera. Not even the last patch, not even the unofficial patch that used some sort of injector to fix numerous things managed to make the camera as fluid as NWN1. NWN2 camera works in stances: low-middle-high-zoom, whereas NWN1 responded to your every input. It also had a nasty bug where it would start spining uncontrollably during dialogues under certain circumstances. There was also a sort of lag effect: while moving around your character would often stop while keeping the running animation and then go back to a previous point, like a MMO with bad connection. It was just terrible.
- Cut content, LOTS OF IT.
- Buggy all around, quests, classes, feats, dialogue checks.
Yet I still loved it, because of the sheer variety of races and classes. I even liked the OC campaign, that so many people hated. To me it was a classic sword&sorcery campaign, yes, full of cliches, but still very much enjoyable because of the characters.
An EE could fix/improve all of that.
Things that could be improved:
1. AI
Even with Tony_k's AI mod, many monsters and NPCs are fairly stupid
2. Spell bugs
There are many bugged spells in NWN2, defensive casting mode was bugged too as far as I know
3. Encounter Design
The game is way too easy, it needs tougher encounters (not just a +dmg setting)
I think the camera is fine tbh. There was one really useful camera mode while the other two seemed to be there just to confuse people.
NWN1 only has one camera speed setting, and the camera rotates at a reasonable speed, mimicking natural eyesight, as it should.
The difference is so obvious to me, it's hard for me to understand how anyone could not see it, but I think the NWN2 camera issue must be a similar thing to the "blue-dress/gold-dress" and the "laurel/yanni" phenomena.
OTOH, I seem overly fond of Storm of Zehir, which I think brought some great game mechanics to the NWN2 engine, and simply needed one more story-focused campaign with some depth to go with the mechanics to really shine. Sadly, that was where funding dried up
but with the mouse at the side of the screen with the arrow keys, perfect speed
I don't understand people that say that NwN2 doesn't need.
That pretty much shows that they haven't even touched it, or even heard about it, nevermind played it.
1) It's still very very buggy. There are bugs everywhere, from races, to spells (a ton there), to feats, to classes and Prestige Classes, to the campaigns.
Some can be fixed with unofficial patches but not the hardcoded ones, unless you make a workaround.
Plus the way it's designed, if you have an unofficial patch that fixes things, it's not compatible many times with class packs that add new stuff, unless someone merges the mods.
2) It's still horribly unoptimized. As in, it makes modern PCs cry, especially when you turn Shadows on. Even without, it doesn't take advantage of multicore CPUs, which are the norm now.
And there are reports that it might even run WORSE with modern CPUs, because it freaks out with multi-threaded CPUs.
3) There are various glitches with the engine, such as WASD movement and other stuff that make moving around a pain. I believe the last patch somehow broke something with the movement and so it's been like that for a decade almost.
4) The various models and animations are made in some outdated Autodesk 3DS Max format I believe, so it's a pain to make new models or animations. NwN2 modelers can better explain why it's a pain making new stuff for it.
5) No Linux/Mac version unlike NwN1EE. Plus less DLCs.
There's exactly 1 DLC/Adventure module for NwN2 which is Mysteries of Westgate.
Of course, if Beamdog had already bought the NwN2 rights then this won't be an issue at all... well, one can hope at least.
NWN 1 on the other hand needed the enhancements to run on modern systems and the new graphical bells and whistles. And we don't want Beamdog to split their resources and MP community between two games with a toolset and DM client.