So is NWN something for that old BG/BG2/IWD singleplayer veteran?

BelegCuthalion

Back in 1998 i played BG1 up and down, back and forth, then i played IWD and BG2 the same way, then i was into different mods in the ToBEx era, then i was playing the :EE-editions with new joy ... i've always played single player, never multiplayer, and appreciated the storytelling and isometric graphics.

And there has always been NWN – and it never really had a real appeal to me back then – started to play and somewhen in the process found myself playing BG again with some other variation to keep that interesting.
As far as i can remember, i never got far in NWN, the story didn't "get" me and the graphics felt less appealing. Also, i was never sure i was just playing a small pro-forma single player campaign in a defacto multiplayer / modding-platform game, or that singleplayer mode was some serious thing to play.

So is there anything for me in NWN i have missed so far and i could really like, or is it just for some other type of player and it's futile for me to try again?

Drewbert_ahoy

There were two expansions, both of which were better received then the vanilla campaign. Vanilla didn't have great graphics and the expansions improved in that area, if you bother to compare, say, the Balor to the Pit Fiend or the male frost/fire giants to the female variants. There were several premium mods, most of which were pretty good. The only one I didn't really care for was infinite dungeons, which lacked story and had about as much depth as the gauntlet arcade game from the 80's.

NWN uses 3e rules which are clearly better than IWD/BG2's. There is no full party control. You only control your character, which is one of the biggest differences. I prefer this and a number of classic games have similar control... like Fallout and Arcanum.

Cablefish

It might not hold up to the storytelling standard you're used to from BG2.

However it is pretty good. I found myself liking the expansions a whole lot better than the original campaign so you might wanna start there

Proleric

If the OC isn't your thing (which happens) I would definitely recommend the fan-made adventures, most of which are single-player. Here's a guide to finding and playing the best.

Staran

Yeah. The oc was terrible.
I am an avid gamer but I have played nwn more than any other game I have ever played.
The point to nwn it to do everything else but play the oc, it seems

voidofopinion

Staran said:

Yeah. The oc was terrible.
I am an avid gamer but I have played nwn more than any other game I have ever played.
The point to nwn it to do everything else but play the oc, it seems

The OC doesnt even have a name...



But the rest of the campaigns are pretty good. The Premium Modules are even better but the user made modules are by far the best reason to play!

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Proleric

EE is designed to work with old mods.

TarotRedhand

@voidofopinion said
The OC doesnt even have a name

While that used to be true it is not anymore. BD are apparently (at least in the streams) calling it "The Wailing Death".

Contrary to other people in this thread, I actually enjoyed the OC. Believe you me I have played a lot worse games in my time.

TR

voidofopinion

16 years later. After the launch of the EE. And it was the community that named it.

That's pretty late in development.

TarotRedhand

But is it a case of "Better late than never"?

TR

themazingness

I don't like it nearly as much as the Infinity Engine games because of combat mechanics, controls, and graphics (which I'm not usually picky, but this game is pretty ugly sometimes lol). However, it is worth picking up and playing. Regardless of my negative statements, it is a game I enjoy over lots of other games.

Emardon_Lareous

Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark were fun campaigns, you can solo them without the companions. I tended to find the best AI for a companion was to keep them in another room and lead enemies back to them :-P

The new expansions Tyrants of Moonsea and Darkness over Daggerford are pretty good and they've started flagging some of the best quality fan campaigns in the game itself. Crimson Tides of Tethyr which is the prequel to Tyrants of the Moonsea is also a really good fan mod.

Cerabelus

To me the OC served as an introduction to D&D, I played a little of BG2 but at that time it was way over my head because I'd never played an RPG before.

The OC is fun to me but I do see the issue's which is why after many playthroughs I went back to BG and IWD and I finally got it.

For me Chapter 1 is a bit weak but the side quest's of Chapter 2 are better, Chapter 3 heats things up.

The 1st expansion SOU I like and the 2nd HOTU is action packed but lighter on the other aspects.

I really liked Darkness over Daggerford but I haven't finished Tyrant's of the Moonsea but I was enjoying it.

In the end I like what I got but I know I'm in the minority when I say I liked NWN2 more.

Katzerchen

NWN1 has its fun moments.
The OC I found a bit lenghty, but not bad.

SoU I really liked the story.

HotU, while it can be played solo, I won't recommend this. Not for the first time. You would miss a lot of the fun.
HotU also has a high replayability value, because the ending, like in ToB, will depend on player actions and what companions were with you at the end.

What is more logical than in the BG series is that instead of having reputation, your actions shift your alignment (well, with some of those shifts one may disagree) towards good or evil (OC), good, evil, plus towards lawful or chaotic (expansions).

What's great about NWN is the Aurora toolset with which you can modify existing modules or make you own without having studied informatics. That, and the literally hundreds of extra adventures out there.

The already mentioned Crimson Tides of Tethyr I can highly recommend for an old BG player, you'll see why.

unseeingeye

I actually find myself in somewhat of a similar situation, because I grew up playing the original Baldur's Gate and its sequel along with the other Infinity Engine games (I was 13 when the first game released), and those games along with the 2nd edition guides are what I cut my teeth on. Only I didn't know anybody else who played Dungeons & Dragons until much later on, so most of my experience with the game in general is with the CRPGs and endless reading and re-reading of the guides, modules and lore books of the eighties and nineties. I can vividly recall my reaction to the release of Neverwinter Nights, during which I would have been between 16 and 17 years old, and it was somewhere between nauseating revulsion and utter devastation, I mean my heart was seriously broken. And this reaction was based mainly on the move into 3D graphics with the rotatable camera, and to a lesser extent (if only because I didn't actually understand it properly) the change to 3rd edition (which likewise confounded me when approaching Icewind Dale 2). The graphics of Neverwinter Nights looked abysmal to me on the day it released, so I'm not speaking only in retrospect, and the focus on the toolkit and multiplayer in its presentation was very off-putting to me.

Many aspects of the game were changes from what I had naively come to anticipate, such as the loss of the earlier Forgotten Realms classic font, the fact that so many NPCs shared portraits, the total overhaul of the inventory menu, the streamlined UI imagery and icons, &c. The fact that you could choose your characters face and body type (primitive though those options be) emphasized to me the focus on establishing a visual presentation of the adventures, as obviously does the moveable camera, a major departure from the more imagination reliant sprites and paperdoll avatars and descriptive flavor text that arose while moving through the environment as if a DM were painting the scene in your mind and what you saw on the screen was more an interface for inspiration than it was a literal rendering of the atmosphere. The fact that you were engaging with a 3D interactive world and beheld detailed polygonal NPCs and monsters who all shared the same several portraits just clashed for me and ruined the experience. I won't bother detailing further the points of contention I had with the game, I just wanted to establish why I held such disdain for it for so many years.

Today I must acknowledge that enough time has finally passed to where the graphics of the game are now somewhat appealing to me, shameful as that is to admit. I not only held the opinion that the graphics have not aged well in comparison to other titles of the era, but that they were already grotesque from the start, especially in comparison to the gorgeous artistic rendering of the environments and UI of the Infinity Engine games. But these days I notice my feelings changing and I now find the graphics charming, superior even to its sequel from Obsidian. So for the first time in what, 20 years? I am now able to accept the visual presentation of the game enough that I am finding myself wanting to play it, and over the past few weeks I have been trying. I've long been peripherally aware of the consensus that the user-created content is in general much better than the official campaigns but am determined to finish the base game at least before I venture further.

Another issue is that I'm woefully unlearned in 3rd edition rules, my only experience being the few video games I've played that are based upon them, such as the Temple of Elemental Evil, Icewind Dale 2, and the more recent Pathfinder: Kingmaker game. None of which I've managed to progress very far with, unfortunately. But! Recently I've managed to acquire decent copies of the 3rd edition core books, and I am now determined to expand my horizons. I am for the first time very interested in learning how to master Neverwinter Nights, and am slowly beginning to absorb the altered rules. I am still relatively early in the base campaign because I kept rerolling characters in an attempt to figure out what works and how, but so far I've discovered that I was my own worst enemy all these years, preventing myself from enjoying what is evidently quite a good game. I don't have any answers to your pointed questions as I'm not far enough in yet to determine whether or not this game could ultimately appeal to fervent fans of Baldur's Gate, but as someone who has held similar reservations about it for so long I can share that what I've experienced so far has impressed me, and I can see myself getting into the game if the user created content is substantially superior to the official modules.