How do you feel about the OC? Why?
Arvia
Member Posts: 2,101
It's a topic that came up in another discussion where it didn't fit, but it still interests me. Moderators, please delete if there is a similar thread already that I overlooked.
I'm genuinely interested if it's true that many, or most, NWN players don't like the OC, and why. Or if they do like it, also why.
I ask anyone to be respectful of different opinions. Discussing points of view is welcome, attacking or insulting them is not.
I'd also like people to include in their post if they usually play single or multiplayer or prefer POW, and if that explains or influences their opinion. And I would ask people to say if they have completed the OC once or more often, and if not, why.
So, let me start with my opinion: I've played the OC only once, finished last week or something, and I liked it. I like the variety of approaches you can take to solve different issues, and that your choices have consequences, whether you like them and intended them or not. (I have to say that I played "no reload, only respawn on character death" with a roleplayed paladin, so I couldn't reload when I failed the innocent Uthgardt's defense and had to see him executed and his whole tribe named me "Oathbreaker" for example).
I like that there are many optional sidequests, and that you don't have only "kill them all" solutions. You can play your alignment and avoid quests that don't agree with it (unless you want to destroy the city instead of saving it). I like the random loot, although it worked against me many times. I like that more than always knowing from which opponent or which chest you get a powerful item. So, even playing again with the same character I might end up with different equipment.
I also liked the story, especially as a paladin, because it contains many warnings about human failure in times of crisis, and I would play it again.
I don't do multiplayer or POW, no time for that.
Now, I'd like to hear what you people think.
I'm genuinely interested if it's true that many, or most, NWN players don't like the OC, and why. Or if they do like it, also why.
I ask anyone to be respectful of different opinions. Discussing points of view is welcome, attacking or insulting them is not.
I'd also like people to include in their post if they usually play single or multiplayer or prefer POW, and if that explains or influences their opinion. And I would ask people to say if they have completed the OC once or more often, and if not, why.
So, let me start with my opinion: I've played the OC only once, finished last week or something, and I liked it. I like the variety of approaches you can take to solve different issues, and that your choices have consequences, whether you like them and intended them or not. (I have to say that I played "no reload, only respawn on character death" with a roleplayed paladin, so I couldn't reload when I failed the innocent Uthgardt's defense and had to see him executed and his whole tribe named me "Oathbreaker" for example).
I like that there are many optional sidequests, and that you don't have only "kill them all" solutions. You can play your alignment and avoid quests that don't agree with it (unless you want to destroy the city instead of saving it). I like the random loot, although it worked against me many times. I like that more than always knowing from which opponent or which chest you get a powerful item. So, even playing again with the same character I might end up with different equipment.
I also liked the story, especially as a paladin, because it contains many warnings about human failure in times of crisis, and I would play it again.
I don't do multiplayer or POW, no time for that.
Now, I'd like to hear what you people think.
3
Comments
The first issue I had was that the premise is ludicrous. There is a plague striking the city of Neverwinter, so they open an academy for would-be level 1 heroes to save the day? This must be one of the most silly responses to an acute threat I have ever heard of.
Otherwise, I feel D&D without a party it not ideal - the game system is not really balanced about it. And the campaign suffers from that. One henchman is not enough.
The beginning is less than realistic, and I also asked myself how the imprisonment, experiments and harvesting of body parts of sentient races can possibly be justified. In the end, the only neutral or good creature was the dryad, who gave her lock of hair willingly, but it could have been her heart that was required, and then what?
Also, does the inherently evil nature of a species (a thing unique to D&D) justify treating them the same way? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
By the way, the beginning of the story was probably meant like this: The city is quarantined because of the plague, many guards have died or are overwhelmed by chaos in the district, we're recruiting every able-bodied young person to train and support the guards.
I also prefer to play with a full party, and the bad companion AI and lack of inventory control didn't make me happy.
Still, despite all those differences to, for example, the BG series, the developing story grew on me.
That said, back in the days of really active PW’s (I’m looking at you early 00’s) that’s what I preferred to play on anyway (Mossbourne, FTW).
Comparatively, NWN2 provides a robust party AI customization system, NPC control, larger party dynamics out of the box, and an OC and expansion story that I really enjoy. Of the two games, I VASTLY prefer NWN2 for solo play and have beaten both OC and expansion multiple times (though not SOZ...maybe someday). To me, NWN2 is the better game, and that’s why I’ve returned to it.
When I bought the EE of NWN, I expected more than we received, to be honest about it. I don’t regret the purchase, but I was hopeful that NWNEE OC would get some of the better aspects of NWN2 incorporated into it. Had they done so, I’d probably have beaten the OC by now.
EDIT: clarity.
Huge 128x128 areas that were all but empty besides random crates that had junk loot that i would waste 2 hours looting for little reward. Inventory almost full of useless junk items every couple of areas is tedious and hurts more than it helps.
Only one companion and no control/inventory. Community built mods solved both these problems so it wasnt a limitation of the engine they were just too lazy to make this part good. . .
Pacing is either way too slow or way too fast in terms of narrative / action flow.
It's possible there's a nostalgia factor for me. I played the OC upon release in June, 2002. I spent that whole summer break playing, and it was a good time in my life. There wasn't a lot of other competition for RPG's - I had all the various Infinity Engine games, Might and Magic 6-8, Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3, and some loot-based RPG's like Sacred and Divine Divinity. (I had never discovered Diablo at that time.)
I really liked the third edition character building possibilities, and I played many times with many kinds of characters.
Unlike many people, I found the companion personalities and stories to be fun and engaging. I really liked Tomi Undergallows and Daelan Red Tiger, and they kind of became my imaginary D&D "bros".
I'm pretty generous with my suspension of disbelief in action stories, so I didn't even notice story flaws. I go into games expecting to have a good time, and I don't go in wanting to shoot it down or criticize it to death. I'm that way with movies too. I often enjoy movies that critics almost universally pan. I often want to say, "But I was thoroughly entertained for two hours, so I'm really glad I didn't listen to you."
I'm always wanting to recapture the feeling I had as a teenager playing tabletop D&D with my high school friends, and the NWN OC did that for me. It was the first new game since "Baldur's Gate" and "Might and Magic" that really gave me the experience and state of mind I always look for in my D&D games, and this was despite the companion control problems. I just learned the quirks and worked around it, without thinking about it too much.
Nowadays, I see the OC as kind of a solo game with a "henchman", similar to Diablo 2.
I also look for good music in a game, and bright colors, and NWN had that. The music tracks were especially enjoyable for me as a classical musician. The temple music track, the tavern music, and the Blacklake music in the style of a Mozart piano concerto really stood out for me. I used to often just stop and listen to the music. I'd sing along with the choir in the temple. Good times.
Also, remember, this was before any user-generated content, and before even SoU and HotU, so there was no basis for comparison on what the engine is capable of, and how the OC wasn't really using all the potential.
The OC has stood the test of time for me. I like the characters, and I like the story progression, although I think Chapter Two tends to bog down into too much grinding in generic dungeons, so I'll give the critics the point that there are pacing issues. I'll also concede that the graphics lack sharpness, and haven't aged well.
After playing the OC at least once a year for the past 17 years now, I'm sure my perceptions are highly influenced by nostalgia. But I've played so much, doing yet another run of the NWN OC feels like coming home, just as with BG or Might and Magic.
I know the feeling you describe, @BelgarathMTH, about flaws in story building, be it games or movies. People say "It's absolutely unrealistic that they did this and that" and I think, "You're absolutely right, but I never noticed before, or it didn't matter to me." So, even agreeing with most of the negative aspects mentioned here, I still don't regret playing it and will do so again.
I mean, if I play games with swords and magic and watch movies that include spaceships, or mutants with superpowers, or whatever, I don't expect "realistic". I don't expect Shakespeare in a game story.
It's interesting to hear the perspectives of people who have experience with tabletop D&D. I don't, so I have no idea which game comes close to that experience.
There's a special feeling of friendship that's hard to describe when you're in a D&D group with a group of people who are also your friends in real life. It feels like you're on a team and fight together and save each other's lives and the world on a regular basis.
Sometimes D&D friends get into fights like all friends do, especially young D&D friends, but when D&D is working its magic, and all the friends are getting along and working together to beat the problems being presented by the game, there's no other feeling of friendship quite like that.
If anybody ever writes an AI that can make game companions behave as intelligently as real friends, I'll be throwing my money at them.
I usually quit because the companion is not AI, as AI implies some level of intelligence and it has absolutely none. My PC is usually rogue and by fifth level OP for Acts 1, 2 or 3.
Also, watching my rogue or Tomi pick locks or disarm traps with a weapon in hand is too funny. As a DM, I deduct an automatic 50 points from the roll on any character trying to use these skills with their hands full. That the game doesn't astounds me.
Spellcasters cast spells for free, no "ingredients' required is another negative factor.
I would love to finish the OC and/or the expansions, but I doubt I ever will. It's not time that stops me, I just lose interest too easily.
the only reason why i've been playing lots of NWN lately because i've completely exhausted the will to play BG these days, i come back to that series once every 6 months or so now, and i just needed to play something different, get my dnd fix from somewhere
first, the premise of NWN is kind of ass awful to be honest, as other people have said, not having a party, or even being able to control your team mates, is just bonkers, remember this game came out in 2003....? or 2001? whatever it was, there is no way in hades that they could have even had the notion that; oh yeah, our AI is going to be so awesome, there will never be a need to control the henchmen because they have "minds of their own" and all that jargon
even back then i remember playing the game, and not only did it require some big time hardware to not look great at all, the AI was just piss terrible, even for 2001 standards
but anyways, looking forward, i feel the OC campaign just takes waaaay too long to complete, as in, there is so much to do, which is "nice" but it kind of gets boring as hell because it feels like its being dragged out so much
i feel like it takes forever to get anywhere, and all this "recall" nonsense completely destroy ANY immersion, like seriously? lets take about this insanely power artifact called; the stone or recall
so many times NPCs would say silly things like; oh i wish we could find so and so and be able to send an army in to stop them kind of thing, while you could just say; ah no worries pal, with this stone of recall, i will find them, bring your army and all is good, but nope, not even the slightly notion of said tactic
looking back, at NWN when it first came out, it really felt like it was making a bunch of steps back on what the BG series was, the only "new and innovative" thing that NWN brought to the table ( at least in my perspective ) was that it was full 3d, and ironically i hated it, because it was so difficulty to find where the hell i was going, it wasn't until NWN EE came out that i realized there was a compass there not just for astethics but to actually help you navigate the 3D world because its hard as piss to do so
the game felt so clunky and hard to navigate when i was younger, so i got turned off from it and it wasnt until way more years later that i would slowly start giving it another chance
another thing i dont like about NWN is too much emphasis on "unnecessary realism", this is a fantasy game, not a real life simulator, a dnd fantasy game should be about the adventure and the story, not waiting a million years to unlock and disarm a chest and for the love of jeebus, the arduous amount of time you have to wait to rest, holy crap man, i might as well go to sleep in real life, apparently the manual says it takes 30 seconds, and for what game balance.....? lol ( insert a farting noise while saying this to show how "necessary" this was ) luckily i found a steam workshop item that toned it down to 5 seconds, but even then it doesnt need to be that high, and hence the reason why i play characters who dont cast spells ( despite the first time i beat the game it was with a cleric ha ) because resting is almost too much of a pain, and speaking about that, in the OC i love seeing this; you cannot rest because enemies are near by, 99% of the time when i see this i imagine myself that kermit the frog meme where he is looking both ways trying to find said enemies, enemies to close to rest? so what, tell those ninnies to go pound sand and get out of the way then, its funny, i can definitely tell they didnt want you to rest spam, but encounters are sometimes set up that you have no choice but to use your best spells on EVERY baddie, and "thankfully" your henchmen are so "intelligent" they will blast off meteor swarms on lowly kobolds that it just makes you want to pound your head against the wall
infact, speaking about this, i had a run where i brought sharwyn on my team, and she would cast sleep and sometimes i would get nailed with it as well ( oi ) but the worse part is, if she cast sleep on a baddie then she would cast daze on the sleeping baddie ( lulz....? ) and she would keep casting her spells on the incapacitated enemy until all of her spells ran out, before she would just start attacking *sigh*
now i dont know if its because the scripting in NWN is weak and cant put in commands to stop casting spells at certain conditions like you can in NI for IE engine, but its things like this, that make it so NWN is just so sub par
when i play the BG series ( or when i did play it ) the thing i feel when i played that game is the love that really went into that series when they made it, you can definitely tell a lot of hard work went into it, especially BG 2, bg2 was a perfect sequel to its predecessor; fix the things that need to be fixed, don't fix something that isn't broken, and improve on as much as possible without alienating your audience
and then i play nwn, and at times i feel there was some effort put into it ( like having 8 or lower INT makes your speech different in the OC would have taken a lot of effort and time to do, but not everyone is going to see this, so that is a lot of effort for a niche market ) and then other times, things just feel lazily put together
its like they put some sort of campaign together to show what you "can do" when you make your own adventures, but what if you don't give a damn about making your own adventures? out of lets say 100 000 players, how many of those players are going to make their own epic dnd adventures for others to play? im going to guess 1% at best, everyone will probably try, 90% will realize how much insane work goes into making a good campaign, the other 10% will keep going, and then out of that 10%, 9% will eventually just give up, because again, to make a whole campaign by yourself is quite a hard task, and takes tons of time and effort, and requires godlike dedication, so i think NWN kind of did its marketing backwards, where they should have showed off an amazing story, with the same effort put in to it as the bg series, and then said; oh by the way, here are the tools to make your own stories, but i digress, i dont know, at best the OC is a 6/10 and at worse it can be a serious 0/10, i wouldn't average it as 3/10, just mediocre across the field
*also note my % of players and statistics is just pure speculation with no research involved, im just doing vague guessing work, and from what i remember NWN didn't blow the socks off the community when it came out
now with SoU, the experience is interesting, the pacing is a bit faster, which is nice, you can tell they put a bit more effort into it ( which is always a plus ) making it so that more of your actions can change your alignment ( good good ) and then chapter 2 happens, some stuff later then game over, hmm...
to me, SoU is better than the campaign, at least structurally, but then again, it feels like everything was going good in the beginning and somewhere in chapter 2 its like the boss came in and said; alright team, we have completed the game up to the end of the interlude, we have 3 weeks to do chapter 2 and go! now the reason why i say this is because from start to finish doing EVERYTHING possible you will start at level 1 and finish the game at level 12, maybe 13? and the companion AI is just as crap as ever, with what others have said where half-orc holmes is casting negative energy spells on undead, now although a half-orc sorcerer with 6 INT might do this out of being dumb as a door nail, i think whats his pickle is around 10 INT, so no real excuse for that one
so for SoU, im going to give it a 6.67/10, to me its a bit better than the OC but not much, and having such a quick and wrapped up ending like that, really hurts in my opinion
now for HotU, this campaign to me feels like it was running the 100M race, was in first place for most of it, but then tripped over a pebble, and started doing comical cartoon cartwheels backwards into last place
so first off, we have chapter 1, i remember the first time i played HotU, i had no clue what was happening or what i was doing and just being thrown into some random dungeon that felt like too much work, and i went bleh, nope, so it would be years later before i gave it another chance
those years come by later, and i give it an honest play through, the first time i went through chapter 1 it really felt like a slog, back when i first beat HotU around 2016 or so, but now i've beaten the game around 5 or 6 times, and chapter 1 doesnt feel as bad as it used to, so party on, we are doing good so far, chapter 1 is one of those chapters that you just need to play it a few times, get a hang of whats going on, and it gets and feels better ( or at least that is what it felt like with me ) so with that said, i will give chapter 1 a..... hmm.... 8/10, so much better play experience than the original 2 campaigns
then we get to chapter 2, and wowzers, what is this feeling im having....? fun? is this actually fun? and indeed it is, out of all OC, SoU, and HotU chapter 2 in my opinion is the strongest chapter of them all, and its actually a fun chapter to play, i remember the first time i played it ( back in 2016 ) i was actually somewhat surprised that i was starting to enjoy HotU, i would even go as far as to make the extraordinary claim to give chapter 2 a 10/10 for how good it is, and then.....
chapter 3, oh man, what kind of opposite day, born in the twilight zone nonsense is this? the pacing was so great from chapter 1 to chapter 2 and then chapter 3 dynamited the air brakes and came to a complete stop, and chapter 3 is just a complete slog, oi, its just painful, even with the 2 neato "cameos" im going to call it, that alone is not saving chapter 3, once you wake up the sleeping man or whatever, its just one boring ass slogging puzzle after another, and some puzzles are unnecessarily drawn out to add game hours to time played im assuming? like the puzzle that has the rotating arrows on the platforms and you have to teleport to each one, one at a time, like come on, its just ass awful,
and infact, chapter 3 is actually so short it is entirely possible that you won't even grow up one level, despite the fact it feels like it took as long as chapter 1 and 2, you level uping is basically stopping here, because the puzzles are so drawn out to take as long as humanly possible just for the sake of game play hours, its kind of a real bummer
i can just imagine the advertising for HotU; this expansion brings in an extra 50 hours of gameplay! wow! thats so amazing! cool! and then you see the pie chart and it looks as follows; actually playing the game:20 %, wasting time with rest/thief mechancis and other things of that calibre that take too long; 20%, doing puzzles that take an unnecessarily long time to complete for the sake of making the game longer; 247% ( lewls ) - for those of you not getting the joke, i am being a wee bit extreme here, but i think you get what i am saying though -
now with all this said and done has does this compare with NWN 2? for OC wise for both games, the OC in NWN 1 is probably better, but because just pure game mechanics wise NWN 2 is astronomically better in every way, so even though NWN 2's OC is weaker story wise, i prefer NWN 2 over NWN 1
when it comes to NWN 2's "epic" campaign vs NWN 1 "epic" campaign, im going to have to say that NWN 1 wins here, in my opinion, nwn2's epic campaign is just ass awful, i've never been able to finish it ( i've only attempted to do it maybe 5 times, and only once did i really kind of get far-ish? ) in fact, i almost would have made the insane claim that HotU is better than ToB if it wasn't for chapter 3, despite the fact that ToB is no master piece, but in my opinion for epic gameplay wise, its still the best we got
and then we came to the last 2 campaigns; NWN SoU and NWN 2 SoZ ( wow arent those abbreviations close eh? ) to be honest, cant really compare these 2, because they are so wildly different, but i can say, out of ALL the NWN/NWN 2 campaigns, SoZ is my favourite one, finally after what was it? 8 years they got it right, just in time to never make a sequel ever again? lulz, although to its credit, SoZ is a very niche game, in fact the first few times i played SoZ i didnt like it much and i couldn't get into it, but after more attempts, i started to understand it better and i started to enjoy it more, so in my opinion SoZ is the best campaign
so at this point, what does this all mean? i've no doubt been rambling like an allip with my zero punctuation statements and what to take from all this?
NWN in general has better campaigns
NWN 2 in general is just mechanically better in almost every way ( getting rid of the radial menu was incredibly dumb though, having to press SHIFT and right click *insert fart noise here* )
but other than that, NWN 2 is just the superior game, in my opinion of coarse, if i lived in a perfect world, where pigs were flying and fairies were granting wishes, i would have wished that NWN 2 got the "enhanced edition" over NWN 1 to be honest, but thats just me
Sure, the AI controlling those henchman needed (and needs) improvement. But, I think if a person wants to, they CAN issue orders, and painstakingly rein in the henchman, getting use from their presence and enjoying the actually very well written dialogue some of them have.
When the last patch from Bioware was being prepared, I opened the OC in the Toolset, and went through all the dialogue. ALL the dialogue. I found, corrected, and sent in every typo or other mistake I found (not all, obviously). Anyway, reading that dialogue like that was awesome. I saw so much great writing there, it blew me away. One could play the OC a dozen times, and not see all the dialogues, I'd think.
Overall, the main thing I really liked about the OC though, was the overarching story. It is not a throwaway storyline, however imperfectly it may be told. The ideas are as deep as any novel, when one overlooks the shortfalls of the medium: Betrayal, tragedy, a fall from grace, redemption, self-sacrifice, loss of faith, pride, anger, greed, sorrow. Those things are in the OC, even if the terrible AI of Linu can make one forget them or overlook them.
JFK
I ended up going solo in the OC somewhere in Chapter Two, because my henchman got himself killed all the time, and Stand Your Ground all the time doesn't help, because there are some places where you have to go in together. I know I miss interesting content if I don't take a companion. But he was consuming all my healing supplies, and from a roleplaying perspective I can't be responsible for his death over and over again, just because it doesn't cost anything.
The OC campaign was the weakest part of the game. It was a failed attempt to create a great epic - moving tragic story of the heroin who fails partially because of her own weakness, partially because bad luck and cowardice of others. It had ambitions.
The problem was that it did not work. I felt nothing for the tragic heroin, just feeling acutely that the author of the story really overestimated his abilities.
The NWN is a great game, but not because of the OC. Rather despite of it. Thinking about how bigger splash it could have made without the OC disaster...
But that's probably also because I have a different attitude towards Aribeth than you, as I'm playing a paladin and like to get immersed, identify with and roleplay my character. I found the story of a paladin's fall from grace pretty credible. But tastes are different, of course.
Of course, if you expect the game to play like Baldur's Gate, you're pretty much set up for disappointment, as the henchmen in the OC are neither here nor there in regards to playing with a full party (Icewind Dale, Storm of Zehir) or NPCs that join you (Baldur's Gate).
I agree with those who don't enjoy the start of the campaign very much. Besides the ridiculous premise, it feels very much like your character is just the spectator to Aribeth's story.
I'm really not a big fan of "chosen one" narratives - and it's even worse if it's not the character you play as but some other character that the story basically revolves around.
All told, not the biggest fan of the story.
However, I do enjoy the atmosphere of the OC. The music in particular fits the story nicely.
I guess my biggest issue with the OC is the incredibly formulaic nature of it: You have to find four creatures to get four reagents, so there are four districts to search for them. Same for every other act, with the exception of the last one.
On top of that, the area design feels very formulaic, too.: Every dungeon has two or more levels that are mostly empty and simply filled with foes and random loot.
Plus that one prisoner who can always find their way back to the surface on their own after freeing them.
Speaking of random loot: The ridiculous number of seemingly randomly distributed boxes, crates, kegs, baskets and piles of rock could have been toned down by A LOT. Simply featuring lots of searchable containers does not make an area more interesting to explore for me.
So yeah, the area setup is probably my biggest issue with the OC. While I don't think the story is great (or rather: not told that well), I really wish the campaign would feature a more diverse and unique area design.
Which is a shame, because I really like the idea behind many areas: An archeological dig overrun by trolls, a quarantined city, a prison where the inmates have taken over, hills riddled with goblin caves, a maze as part of a contest, a barricaded zoo...lots of neat ideas which suffer from predictable area designs.
The story makes a lot of sense to me. Yes the send newbies to solve a dire situation, and no it doesn’t make sense - unless you’re actually not trying to solve it in the first place. Honestly who chooses a mentally frail paladin to lead such an important quest only aided by a bunch of newly trained rookies?
Choosing Aribeth and the academy heroes to deal with the crisis aught to be a guarantee for failure - only charname makes the difference against all odds. Odds that seem skewed towards failure. And even despite charname success the conspirators still have their bet hedged by luring Aribeth to their side. The dice seem rigged and somebody have placed their bets against you. I like it and I like the odds.
When letting the story unfold I always feel that much is left unspoken and that the OC still has lots of stories untold. Who in the city besides the conspirators have helped the them? What does Lord Nasher or his counsel know? How much is incompetence and what is on purpose, and who is pulling what strings. It’s like the minor side quest in BG2 in the Athlaka sewers, where the Alhoon is building an army. You dip into a part of the story, but not the full picture. And it left me longing for more.
So what other sees a flawed and a unbelievable story, I see a very compelling mystery in the making. But that’s just me. Either way I like the story so much better than the rest of the original campaigns and BG2 (which is my favourite game), who all have nonsensical stories
The lack of henchmen control is actually relieving, they are not NPC’s but hirelings. You may have paid their fee, but you don’t control them. Henchmen and joinable NPC’s would be treated differently in PnP as well I’d reckon. Play solo or get over it
I haven't played the OC to completion personally (yet, but I have seen it played to completion... and I still hope to do it myself someday! The further I got was Chapter 2, Charwood village/castle) but the thing that frustrates me is that I really like the story and the characters and the dialogues in the OC, the part I dislike is the mechanics of it... in my mind the OC could have been so much better if it was better thought as places that made actual sense, instead of trying to gamify every aspect of the locales.
By that I mean, mostly the traps, the locks, the puzzles, the ambushes out of thin air when you walk over a floor tile, to me all of them don't make sense, mostly... and they're annoying to deal with in this game.
Also, take into account other aspects like the area design, the monsters, the encounter design, the level scaling (which is *crazy*, really aggressive level scaling,) the fact that you're mostly soloing and babysitting an AI at the same time, the fact that there are a trillion locked crates/boxes/containers that you're *expected* to open, since they are the ones that often contain the loot needed to progress in power, the fact that there are also trillion traps all over the place often blocking critical doors.
All those mechanical aspects are what made me not want to play the OC (i.e. made me give up several times) and the reason I couldn't finish it to this day, sadly.
Also w.r.t. the starting of the campaign, yeah, the starting premise is kind of nonsensical to me too, but it could have been easily fixed by making the whole "training" something that happened way *before* the events in the OC, for example, in a different module that you're supposed to play before it, and let you start the game as an about to be graduated adventurer... The scene with the attack can still happen as it is at the start of the OC, but with a bit tougher enemies, since it would be happening during your graduation, the only thing that changes is the fact that it doesn't happen all in the same instant as you start... (and then you can remove the delay from the end of the "fighting" (when the WDC escape in the barn... what kind of adventuring academy has a "barn", and why were the WDC held in a barn?!) to make more sense even. "The creatures JUST escaped! Let us take some time off to rest before we go after them!")
I.e. in detail, move the training/tutorial to a mini-campaign outside the main OC, and assume that the plague still hasn't happened yet so no mention of that, and then change the OC to make the PC start at L2 or L3 (i.e. the training made you actually tougher so you're now a real "entry" level adventurer.) You can import characters between modules, so, you could just import the char from the tutorial and have it just be boosted to L3 if it isn't already.
So it can make some sense to have someone like that take care of the investigation then, and during this mini-campaign you can use the goblins and weak goblins here, as a sort of surprise final test before you're given the "adventure" title
((Don't worry about the Spoilers for me, I already know what happens and how it goes... I watched several playthroughs of it.))
I'd say there's probably two major problems:
1, too many random loot containers
2, too many big areas of nothing but killing enemy after enemy (you could cut those areas in half and lose nothing, for example)
Fix those and a lot of smaller issues are more easily overlooked. For example...
- Not being able to equip companions is annoying (and the game calling them henchmen in-character), but both SoU and HotU fix the equipping issue
- The story is lackluster at times (at best) but it's mostly serviceable enough (and there are gems like the whole Charwood substory)
- Somewhat formulaic "Welcome to hub X, go to the 3-4 areas surrounding it and get multiple doohickeys for the plot to continue" in the first three chapters
Probably like 60% single player/15% multiplayer/25% persistent worlds overall. I've completed the OC at least 3-4 times, going to do another playthrough soon while trying to imitate my original playthrough like a decade and a half ago (Elven Sorcerer with Weapon Finesse to stab stuff with a rapier, plus relying mostly on having a small army of companion, familiar, and summoned monster).
So I lumped three quotes together on the same subject -- people griping about the AI (justifiably for spellcasters) and wanting full party control.
I don't want full party control.
Why?
If I play a Fighter, I want to play a Fighter. I want to be my Fighter, be immersed in my Fighter, and see everything from my Fighter's point of view. But if Full Party Control exists, then if I bring along Linu or Boddyknock I will wind up spending 90%+ of my time playing Linu or Boddyknock because the spell system in NWN requires that kind of micromanagement.
Which is what happened in Dragon Age (2). I spent 90% of the time managing the mages and pausing a ton to micromanage everything.
I liked Mass Effect (2/3) a lot more where you always play your character but have some control (orders and rough build choices) over your companions. And I feel like NWN is closer to that.
Also, other games like Divinity: Original Sin (2) are turn based in combat meaning there's no opportunity cost for controlling your companions -- unlike NWN where everything happens all at once.
If you use something like my minion control tool (which I think I need to go back and polish up in a few corner cases) and avoid companions who are primary spellcasters, I think the NWN system works well (also, the spellcaster AI definitely CAN be improved, Bioware just did a horrible job).
Yep. And you're not constantly yanked away from your character.
Would making people click a few more buttons in-game to unequip and then reequip weapons before and after picking locks/disarming traps REALLY add anything?
In PnP you just say "I pick the lock with my hands free" or something.
...actually it's funny that you have it completely backwards and didn't play on initial release.
Originally (through SoU I believe) you just needed to not be able to see any enemies to rest. In HotU they made it so any enemy anywhere within your entire screen (like 20 meters or something) prevented you from resting -- even if that enemy was on the other side of four walls between you and him.
Which then makes stuff in the OC like the lockdown rooms in the prison not work properly (when they did on launch).
So...yeah, they definitely wanted you to rest spam and resting used to be much easier.
Show me a character that starts at level 25 or below and doesn't gain at least one level and I will be very surprised. Pretty sure I usually gain at least two levels.
Mechanics: I played it for the first time back in 2004, and for one who's fresh out of AD&D games it certainly set the tone on what to expect from 3e : dwarven monks, elven paladins, half orcs , stat modifiers (either positive and negative) , multiclass for all... it was surely a breath of fresh air. Although it wasnt perfect, the use of skills on the game was also very pleasing and made the while character creation very versatile , undoubtely a person who had just read the 3e PH would be happy with playing NWN.
Plot: Let me start with the positive factors. The plot itself is very good and epic, lady Aribeth and most joinable NPCs are memorable and the ending is even more epic. It doesn't seem lazy or badly written at first.
Now the negatives . First, even though it has class specific quests and npc quests and such , it has no character development at all. Even npc dialogues are more about the npc than yourself, and that is one of the OC's biggest sins , and one of the reasons why it didnt become BG's successor. To be honest it would be easy to tie that knot considering that they had already developed most NPCs backgrounds and personality!
Another negative is how shallow some quests are. Once again I blame them failing to make the plot meaningful.
Peninsula district , for instance , lots of chaos and an intellect devourer behind it , lots of room for psychological thrill and paranoia but in the end its just "Get into a prison break and kill kill kill" . When I was a teenager it didnt really bother me, but that's why I think that the OC didnt age well and quickly became forgettable.
Balance: 3rd edition as a whole isn't really the most balanced system , specially because the game is basically a solo adventure. I consider resting all the time/anywhere a form of metagame, but a 10th level mage can't go through a dungeon without doing so to replenish his firepower because 3rd edition monsters have way more HP and resistances, while a 10th fighter with strength 16+ and a magical sword has a consistent quantity of damage per hit , all he needs is to heal himself from time to time. I am not saying that this or that class is useless, it is just less balanced .
Reminds me of the intention behind the “I am legend” novel: you become the monsters you are trying to kill.
I don't like the OC at all. I find it very dull an unengaging, the opposite of what I want from a game. It's too linear and formulaic, and I feel like I'm constantly being railroaded everywhere.
The worst thing is the formulaicism. It makes the game so trite and tiresome, like every task you have to accomplish in-game is a step through a sluggish mire. Again and again it's the same. You arrive at an area/quest hub. You have to fetch X items. From the hub you have several "quest spoke" areas that you have to go to to get one item each. Each spoke is completely sequestered from the rest of the game and nothing you ever do in either one will ever affect anything outside of it. You will never return or interact with any of the characters established again. All while you have to murder your way through constant filler combat.
Arrive at Hub 1. Go to spoke 1:1. Fetch item X1. Go to spoke 1:2. Fetch item X2. Go to spoke 1:3. Fetch X3. Go to spoke 1:4. Fetch X4. Hub 1 conclusion. Arrive at Hub 2. Go to spoke 2:1. Fetch item Y1. Go to spoke 2:2. Fetch Y2. Go to 2:3, fetch Y3. Hub 2 conclusion. Arrive at Hub 3. And so on.
I don't know if you've played anything with the editor, but in it there is a helpful tool called the Quest Wizard. It helps you set up a simple fetch quest without having to do any of the actual coding yourself. The quest, of course, will be incredibly barebones and a straight forward Go-To-Target, Speak-To-or-Fight-Target, Fetch-And-Return-To-Sender kind of deal, and is pretty much an automated quest tutorial for people new to the toolset.
Well, for me, it feels like the entire game was set up with this tool. The structure is so completely uninspired. See, the Hub/Spoke model outlined above is of course nothing unique to the NwN OC. It's evident in both the expansions too. It's so common in Bioware games that that is what I consider the "Bioware Model". You can recognise it in KotOR, in Mass Effect, and in DA:O too, and of course also in many non-Bioware products as well. But the NwN OC stands out in that is by far the worst implementation of this formula that I can recall. See I don't think this is necessarily a bad structure. It's sound, it makes sense. What matters is how you package it. The level of effort you put in to disguise it and make it seem natural and free-flowing like it's a net or it grows naturally into that shape. And I don't think the OC succeeded in that at all. Instead it becomes boring and unengaging. Running back and forth starts to feel like a chore instead of an adventure.
And that's the main reason I don't like the NwN OC.
As for the idea of recruiting green adventurers, giving them a modicum of training, then sending them out hoping at least one of them will survive to complete the mission has been the method of many a military force I've heard of, especially with medieval armies. If they didn't just conscript them and send them to die.
It's a policy that fits perfectly well with Nasher's character.
Seek and destroy a (biological) weapon is a potential military operation. Or even searching for ground zero of an outbreak.
Hireing some green mercenaries simply shows desperation.
And maybe the students were meant to guard the creatures or something after the graduation. Or to be sent to fan out and investigate. Curing the plague doesn't stop the terrorists from developing a new bio weapon. A large scale hunt might.
Who knows how Aribeth would have proceeded, had her little army not been slaughter except for one...
But, you probably paid more attention to the dialogue than I did, so I could be entirely off base.