Infinity Engine v. Aurora Engine
booinyoureyes
Member Posts: 6,164
- Infinity Engine v. Aurora Engine25 votes
- Aurora Engine32.00%
- Infinity Engine68.00%
0
booinyoureyes
Member Posts: 6,164
Comments
Modding
IE- because of NI the infinity is mind bogglingly easy to mod ( some things like area creation are a pain ) but for "baby's first modding experience" it is the go to, and even with the "limited" tools at your disposal you can drastically change your infinity engine games
AE- now to be honest i've never really tried with the aurora engine all that much ( i've only diddled with the nwn2 toolset) but with that being said, to me it feels way more complicated then it needs to be ( or at least the way i see it) because i have been contaminated by how easy NI is too use, i feel that with the NWN toolsets i need a whole computer engineering degree to figure it out, with NI i never had to look online how to figure things out, just press more tabs and buttons and the features told themselves, but with the NWN toolsets, i find myself going online for constant help way too much to figure it out ( plus to be honest im not really interested in NWN1 toolset when i feel that NWN 2 is the better game, i would love to learn how to use the NWN 2 toolset to it's full potential)
Game Flow
IE- the flow of gameplay with the IE is so much smoother in my opinion ( especially with the upgrade that came with bg2 ) in fact, this is a problem i have with a lot of other games, where the game play feels so choppy and clunky, one thing i found funny about this was when i was looking at BG reviews on steam someone was complaining how clunky the gameplay was, and i kind of laughed to myself because i feel the exact opposite when i play, but that could be because i've played the game for so long
AE- oh my flipping god, is the gameplay clunky as hell ( especially at lower levels ) so many fights at lower levels are just so boring because it comes to the point where everyone's AC/DR is too high and everyone's to hit is complete garbage, that you are basically standing there waving your willies at each other because battles take way too long to complete sometimes, it more arduous than fun in my opinion, i never feel the "edge of my seat" moments in NWN, i have the "*sigh* when is this going to be over" moments in NWN
Looks
IE- even though it's pre rendered backgrounds with 2d sprites, it still doesnt look half bad, in fact i remember back in the day when people would say that BG looked like crap ( and im talking about 1999, not 2018 ) and i was saying to myself: BS holmes, the best at that time was N64 and those 3d models looked like complete garbage, and speaking about garbage...
AE- im sorry, but NWN 1 is an ass ugly looking game, it was ugly back when it first came out, and it's even more vomit inducing now, so the IE has aged, quite a bit, it's obvious, but the graphics dont make you want to puke, NWN on the other hand, yikes, it's almost sore to the eyes, and the thing i dont understand is, there was a game called baldur's gate dark alliance which looked INFINITELY times better than NWN and that game came out before NWN, so what's the deal? there was no excuse to make NWN look as garbage as it did, and even though im not one who is a huge stickler for INSANE OVER THE TOP GRAPHICS, i also don't want diarrhea smothered all over my screen either
The Single Player Experience
IE- when it comes to the IE games, the single player experience is very user friendly, although i felt that as the engine started to age the games were becoming a bit more bland ( How, IWD 2 ) it was still very easy to control your team and micromanage very easily to make the play experience much better
AE- oi, NWN hurts really hard with it's single player experience, first of all this madness where you can ONLY control your main guy at all times, or only one character nonsense is exactly that, i hate the fact that i cant just mouse box all my characters and command them around all at once, NWN really made it a nightmare to micromanage your team and that really hurts the experience, now what a lot of people might say is that the multiplayer is where it is at and all this server business is where this game shines, will to be honest MP can go pound sand, im one of those weirdos who buy games for the SP not MP, if i want to play MP i will go over to a friend's house and play a console with split screen
In fact, thats what i think really hurts NWN, it's all about the MP, all this enhanced edition stuff is about improved MP this MP that, toolset this toolset that, but absolutely no love to the SP, in fact there is practically no difference between the SP of GoG NWN to the NWN EE ( now with this being said, the last time i played NWN EE was.... when it was first released with that starter edition or whatever it is, so i dont know if it has improved from there) so i feel those of us who play games for the SP get jipped on NWN EE because it's basically no different from the GoG version, so it makes me wonder why should i even bother buying the EE? ( even though i bought the deluxe version haha )
so even with all this being said, i am going to give NWN another go, when i get my PC back and running again ( since i haven't been on my PC in 2 months ) and go through all of NWN ( to justify my purchase ) and hopefully it won't be a painful boring experience, but im pretty sure i know how its going to happen
For making stuff: AE. I'm quite the opposite of @sarevok57 here. I think that the IE is absurdly counterintuitive for modding and even reading online guides (like the Weidu readme) I often need to call for help to understand something. The opcodes sometimes works in obscure ways and I see a experienced modder being surprised by how Weidu works every now and then.
And I must add that all we have for modding IE was created by players who must have being through hell and high water to discover how things works. AE was shipped with an easy and intuitive point-and-click modding tool.
The AE has far too common out of sync actions/movements.
If I try to run through a opening too small, my character will sometime appear to go right through it, only to spring back into place moments later.
Or I can be in combat, take lethal damage, but stand around attacking for a another second or so before the game decides that I actually died.
Result: Every action I take in the AE feels like getting a troll to lie down in the old IE.
The AE's implementation of Attacks of Opportunity.
- The 5-foot steps creatures taken in melee combat almost always results in the computer getting free AoO's by putting the player in a position where they cannot reach their target, causing them to run around triggering AoO's. There is no way to disable the players 5-foot steps or to switch their default from run to walk, while manually taking the 5-foot steps using the side-step keys risks disengaging, which is just as bad.
- If two creatures run up to each other to initiate melee combat, one of them will almost always get an AoO against the other for no reason.
Result: I have to assume each enemy will get at least one undeserved AoO against me in every melee engagement, making the tumble skill an automatic selection.
If you put what was created with them IE hands down.
But think about which games we'd be missing. I mean, sure, if NWN never existed, many of us would live hollow and miserable lives. But if Baldur's Gate never existed, humankind probably would have destroyed itself in a nuclear holocaust simply out of the sheer, crushing despair at not having a sufficiently awesome RPG to play.
Play Baldur's Gate and save the world from nuclear warfare.
Anyway, what difference is therr between the two other than 3D and DnD edition? The coding language? No player needs to see that part.
Unless I go hunting or haul firewood. Because you can't put a deer into the hatch of my wife's Impreza. Well, not twice, anyway.