NWN2(Launch day Impressions)

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-11-01 08:10am

Game has been released, my copy unlocked at midnight(Via Direct2Drive) sad to say, work is calling I have to go in. So I'll post some impressions later besides what I post here.

One thing I've noticed so far, the Editor is much more complicated via/creatures and much less friendly than the old NWN editor. Pretty it might be but it's going to be taking some adjustment I'm thinking.

Note however, the game itself looks VERY pretty, I messed with creating various charaters before trying out the editer and they all were looking pretty bad ass in even default armor.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-11-01 09:02pm

I picked it up today. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. The campaign is light years ahead of NWN's, and the game plays like a cross between the original NWN. The interface plays off the strengths of NWN and KOTOR2, with few of the weaknesses (my biggest complaint is that so far I haven't been able figure if/how I can map different sword and shield combos to a quick bar slot - in the original I could put a sword and shield in one slot, and then have that same sword dual wielded with another weapon in the next slot).

My biggest knock on the game is the graphics. While the graphics are very good (much better than Guild Wars), they're also low performance. And while the sequel gives you much more control over the graphics than the original, it still doesn't come close to Oblivions options. I still need to play with it, but I'm often getting single digit frame rates; that fastest I've seen so far is in the low twenties. And its not very resolution dependent, so I'm going to have to dig in to figure out what's causing the slow downs. Luckily, these slow downs don't affect the game play.

I thing this game is going to be just as big as a time sink as the first (if not bigger). I can't wait to see what the community comes up with!

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-11-01 09:06pm

Is the release version much better than the earlier screenshots? There's no way the shots I've seen on the NWN2 site are better than GW. They don't even seem to be using HLSL.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-11-01 09:37pm

I'm not too hyped about NWN2. Firstly, because I never liked NWN that much. Baldur's Gate kicked the shit out of it in every way, shape and form, and all the third-party modules for it didn't really interest me very much. Don't know why.

I might get it, but only if the single-player campaign is worth playing. I have no interest in third party modules or multiplayer.

The graphics don't look too good either. Looks like D&D KOTOR ...

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-11-01 11:56pm

I had a lot of good times playing NWN multiplayer. I could be tempted back to it if they do a good job on the sequel.

But damnit, CIV4 is soooooo awesome on my new rig...

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-11-02 09:54am

NW2 is short, brings my computer to it's knees with all settings on at 1024x768 without any AA.

(Knees being descrbied as dropping below 20 FPS more than once a minute)
To note I have a AMD 4800 dual core, a 7800GTX video card, two gigs of ram and the rest of my equipment is high quality.

xammer99 · Post by **xammer99** » 2006-11-02 09:57am

I just got a chance to do the tutorial last night and I really liked it. It's a very pretty game and the controls are well done. I also like the in built party too, letting you play whatever you want in single player.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-11-02 10:36am

Mr Bean wrote:NW2 is short, brings my computer to it's knees with all settings on at 1024x768 without any AA.

(Knees being descrbied as dropping below 20 FPS more than once a minute)
To note I have a AMD 4800 dual core, a 7800GTX video card, two gigs of ram and the rest of my equipment is high quality.

Why? It looks like KOTOR.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-11-02 10:53am

Mr Bean wrote:NW2 is short, brings my computer to it's knees with all settings on at 1024x768 without any AA.

(Knees being descrbied as dropping below 20 FPS more than once a minute)
To note I have a AMD 4800 dual core, a 7800GTX video card, two gigs of ram and the rest of my equipment is high quality.

Turn up the settings, and I think you'll find that you get 20 FPS no matter what they are. That's what other people have found, anyway. Rest assured that you can turn it up higher than that. I'm on a 9800 Pro and those are the settings I use without any real slowdown, but I had to put my sound setting on EAX from Miles Fast 2d and put the light sources from >4 to 4.

Anyway, the graphics engine is seriously wonky and inefficient. It looks nice (much better than KOTOR 2), but not in the same league as Oblivion, and performs worse. The animations are also not very good, and combat looks even jerkier than it did before.

Even so, though, I think most people will really appreciate the graphical jump from the first game, especially when it comes to outdoor terrain. No more 'hills' that are just four ramps leading up to a raised flat section. Now we have beautiful rolling terrain. The indoors look a lot nicer, too.

As we all know, graphics do not really make or break an RPG, and happily, they're really the only area that comes up lacking. If the original game's single-player campaign were a shit sandwich (and it was), this game's OC is filet mignon. One reviewer compared it to Baldur's Gate 2 in quality, if not in length (although length is supposed to be pretty respectable). I'm only a couple of hours in, but I can attest to it being very engrossing. Another major plus in its favor is that it can be played with up to 4 players, and everyone still sees all the close-ups, voice acting, and dialogue choices (unlike in the original, where only the speaker really had any idea what was going on).

There are much more tools made available to module and PW makers than in the first game, so the user-made content should be even more amazing. The game uses 3.5 Ed rules instead of 3.0, and it does seem to be an improvement, although there are still significant imbalances between classes (it's D&D, what do you expect?)

I'm just getting into it, but I'd call it the most exciting development in RPGs and gaming in all of 2006.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-11-02 11:30am

Gamespot's review pegged the OC length at 50 hours, which is more than I was expecting.

I'm also going to dig into the .ini file later to see if I can improve performance. Apparently, one of the settings defaults to setting the lights per object 1000 (OUCH)!

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-11-02 11:48am

Vympel wrote:Why? It looks like KOTOR.

You make that... sound like it's a bad thing.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-11-02 01:50pm

Arrow wrote:I'm also going to dig into the .ini file later to see if I can improve performance. Apparently, one of the settings defaults to setting the lights per object 1000 (OUCH)!

WHAT?!

Unless they define Lights very differantly from every other engine, that's massively wasted, nevermind you will never have that many lights per scene unless every fucking particle is a light source...

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-11-02 07:15pm

Stofsk wrote: You make that... sound like it's a bad thing.

It's not, but what I mean is KOTOR ran fine on those settings (higher resolution, actually) on my now-retired 4.5 year old PC even without my mid-life graphics card update. It's incredible to me that it runs so slow on a much better machine, and like was said above, obviously the graphics engine is seriously inefficient (like Halo on PC was).

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-11-02 07:16pm

Ace Pace wrote:WHAT?!

Unless they define Lights very differantly from every other engine, that's massively wasted, nevermind you will never have that many lights per scene unless every fucking particle is a light source...

Well, I can't find that setting in my config files. So either someone was blowing smoke, or it was removed in the patch.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-11-02 09:18pm

Ok, I love the henchmen in this game (especially the dwarf!). Currently, they're all picking on each other, and the dwarf is the one I find myself consistently siding with. These guys are lightyears ahead of BG2, NWN and KOTOR.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-11-02 09:50pm

I love the Dwarf. Just got the Tief and am soldiering my way through.

Playing a highly effective Smite Cleric ATM with Death and strength domains. Is it handy to be able to get 26 STR at level 4? You bet!(And that's without enchantments). Long live Kelemvor: Lord of the Dead, Judge of the Damned. If only I could get a nice Scythe to remind all these people that all men must die. For death is the final step. Besides any God who's Anti-Zombie is fine by me.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2006-11-02 09:56pm

How does the game compare to Oblivion? I'm currently playing that and want to see if there are other games to play with.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-11-02 10:07pm

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:How does the game compare to Oblivion? I'm currently playing that and want to see if there are other games to play with.

So far, I think the story is far better than Oblivion's. Its not "OMG, the demons are coming and only you can stop them!", which is basically what Oblivion's story in a nutshell, and you know it up front. I've yet to figure out what the hell the story is, anyway. All I know is that I need to carry this object to Neverwinter, I'm being chased by some mysterious force, and the local idiots keep getting in my way.

Graphics wise, Oblivion has the edge. It looks better (especially moded), and runs better. Sound wise, while both sound excellent, NWN2 gets the edge because they didn't recycle same seven or so voices for each NPC.

They're really no way to compare the gameplay. Oblivion is FPS, while NWN2 is over the shoulder point-and-click. NWN2 really plays like a cross between the original NWN and KOTOR, with bits of BG2/Icewind Dale thrown in.

NWN2 is definitely worth the money, and based on the original's history, its going to have long, long life with user mods (many of which were almost professional quality) and expansions.

My only complaint about NWN2, other the graphics performance (its still playable, though), is that I need to finish it before Medieval II comes out!

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-11-03 01:57am

Well. I am pleased.

I'm in Neverwinter now; being able to join the city watch just piles on more k-rad points for the win. I'm also loving that Black Isle tendency to throw in stuff from the Planes - 'yanki and bladelings abound already, and I think I caught mention of some 'zerai in the patch files. And if there were any doubts as to the quality of the campaign and its immersion, the conversation with Duncan and Sand obliterated them.

Graphics are a wee bit on the weak side. A lot of the character creation stuff is nearly identical to D&D Online. The hair in particular is weaksauce. I do like the graphical style however, it's vast improvement over NWN. For the most part, armor, shields, weapons, and helms look like the perfect blend of practical realism and magical fantasy, something I always thought was a little lacking in the Infinity games (except Torment for obvious reasons) and especially NWN 1.

The toolset... ergh. A steeper learning curve is to be expected, but some of it is ridiculous. One must now meticulously fuss over even the tile-based interiors just to construct a simple, cohesive area without missing walls and the like, line up open spaces precisely, etc. It looks like a goddamn chore.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-11-03 02:56am

Arrow wrote: My only complaint about NWN2, other the graphics performance (its still playable, though), is that I need to finish it before Medieval II comes out!

Ha! We don't even get NWN2 until 23 November. A week after M2TW comes out here (I have the latter pre-ordered).

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2006-11-06 03:16am

Got it last Friday, and all i can say is OMFG talk to the dwarf about why he wants to be a monk!

Best lines ever in a RPG

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-11-06 04:46am

In having played a few more days, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the singleplayer component rivals the KotORs. Excellence. And I'm not even done with Act II yet.

Multiplayer, however... hoooo. Well. Two words come to mind: catastrophic failure. Essentially, one must manually download files for any given custom module externally, via external hosting, to be able to join and play that module in-game. For a veteran NWN player with an obscene amount of hours clocked in the original (99% of which were accrued in multiplayer), the ramifications of this... design decision are too numerous and staggeringly incomprehensible to go on at length about here. Unless they implement some sort of solution to this soon, they've effectively dealt a mortal blow to the local vault NWN2 community before it's even had a chance to form, and the damage to server vaults and multiplayer in general is also pretty severe.