NWN So how do you really feel about Neverwinter Nights 1?

[McPlusle]

I decided to reinstall and try Undrentide. I've tried with two different characters (a half-elf ranger and a human cleric) but damn, this game kinda plays like shit. Maybe it's the fact that you can't control your (tiny) party, or maybe I just don't like D&D 3.0 rules as much as my beloved AD&D2 rules from Baldur's Gate (I love class kits too much; I don't give a fuck how broken they may be), but something about this game just isn't clicking with me at all.

FFS, just play Hoards of the Underdark and come back to everything else if you like it. You asked what was the best on your list. The answer is HotU, so don't then fucking load up Shadows, LMAO.

I went with Undrentide first since Underdark is a direct sequel.

 

[d1nolore]

I decided to reinstall and try Undrentide. I've tried with two different characters (a half-elf ranger and a human cleric) but damn, this game kinda plays like shit. Maybe it's the fact that you can't control your (tiny) party, or maybe I just don't like D&D 3.0 rules as much as my beloved AD&D2 rules from Baldur's Gate (I love class kits too much; I don't give a fuck how broken they may be), but something about this game just isn't clicking with me at all.

FFS, just play Hoards of the Underdark and come back to everything else if you like it. You asked what was the best on your list. The answer is HotU, so don't then fucking load up Shadows, LMAO.

I went with Undrentide first since Underdark is a direct sequel.

Its not really though, you miss nothing in HotU by skipping SoU. I always found SoU painfully slow at the start. HotU is by far the best, once you get settled in, you need to play just long enough to get hooked. HotU added a lot of singleplayer specific features for gameplay - cutscenes, better henchmen control/mechanics, stuff I've forgotten. They obviously had an advantage over the OC in that they weren't making a game just 100% making a campaign.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

My very first impression of playing Neverwinter Nights the first few days it was released was that it ran like ass on my ATI card at the time... colorful swollen and distended mandrill ass, but ass nonetheless. I stopped playing 20 minutes into the game because my tolerance for frame rates per second wasn't being met. I attempted it again a year or two later with better hardware and found it easy and fun, having no real tastes or standards in cRPGs at the time. I was struck by the fact that I don't think I died once. This was not a bad thing I thought back in 2004. Getting killed constantly in PC games killed fun. Facerolling was a mellow and enjoyable experience for me in the OC and I was never bored or frustrated. I loved the ambient audio and music on the soundtrack, ie the sounds of plague victims weeping and moaning as they or loved ones died, and the voice acting, particularly Aribeth, was hilarious, not because it was bad, but because the voice actress was so earnest. Today of course I look at NWN1 as the greatest toolset for usermade modules ever devised. So many great memories, if not of the OC, then from the community.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I decided to reinstall and try Undrentide. I've tried with two different characters (a half-elf ranger and a human cleric) but damn, this game kinda plays like shit. Maybe it's the fact that you can't control your (tiny) party, or maybe I just don't like D&D 3.0 rules as much as my beloved AD&D2 rules from Baldur's Gate (I love class kits too much; I don't give a fuck how broken they may be), but something about this game just isn't clicking with me at all.

FFS, just play Hoards of the Underdark and come back to everything else if you like it. You asked what was the best on your list. The answer is HotU, so don't then fucking load up Shadows, LMAO.

I went with Undrentide first since Underdark is a direct sequel.

You asked which was best, not which ones fit narratively.

 

[abnaxus]

I liked when you were just about to fuck the Valsharess you were railroaded into a massive cockblock

 

[Cael]

So people don't like the retarded mechanics not the game per se.I take it that i like the game because i am a fucking story fag. It was pretty nice adventure in my book and the companions are very well written. My biggest regret is that i can't fuck Aribeth. Honestly i would have gone for a "mounting Neverwinter's head on pike and running away with the woman" option than letting her get killed. Ohhh we could have made a nice Luskan pirate team.

Yes. The story itself isn't that bad. The 3.0 mechanics were also pretty well implemented. It is the damned "physical" part of game world itself that makes things ugly for the OC.

 

[Roguey]

Josh Sawyer can tell you all about how the way Bioware implemented the rules was a fucking disaster that he had to fix with the sequel.

 

[Cael]

Josh Sawyer can tell you all about how the way Bioware implemented the rules was a fucking disaster that he had to fix with the sequel.

He can say many things, but NWN was close enough to the original that the discrepencies can be passed off as software limitations.

That said, NWN2 was easier to mod in the sense that more things were put in the d2a files. In NWN, it was harder because half the stuff were not present as d2a (including spell gain per level).

 

[ProphetSword]

My favorite NWN wasn’t any of the campaigns. It was the dynamic online worlds with tons of other players and DMs changing things on the fly. My own NWN PW has been running since 2004, and for a long time was the #1 server in the action category (even though we’re technically action/role playing).

People who don’t play multiplayer are missing the best thing about NWN.

 

[Roguey]

He can say many things, but NWN was close enough to the original that the discrepencies can be passed off as software limitations.

Not so much software limitations as it was the mental limitations of the people planning and implementing those decisions.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/49192-iwd2s-use-of-3e-was-a-mistake/

NWN doesn't have a system for stacking; its various spell and item scripts arbitrarily check for the presence of other effects and occasionally suppress them from stacking. That's the opposite of systemic. It's arbitrary and was vulnerable to (a great deal of) human error.
...
Arbitrary meaning it was up to individual scripters to check for effects across the various ones used in the game. Effect types and stacking rules were not explicitly built into how the effects worked. It's very easy for someone to add a new script applying an effect that modifies a stat and never checks (or is never checked for) other effect states on the character. To be honest, I think it's pretty weird that you like how NWN's stacking rules work. Considering that stacking rules were almost universally seen as a positive thing for D&D, and that NWN's ability scores (especially) got incredibly out of control because there were virtually no stacking elements in place for many things, it's an odd thing to support.

When we brought the stacking rules to the attention of WotC during NWN2's development, they were very much in favor of switching to an implicit no-stack system instead of continuing with NWN's method of implicitly stacking most things.
...
The IE built effects through item properties in the item editor or spell effects in the Spell-O-Matic. In IWD2, bonus types were built into the effect parameters, with types pulled from code and resolved in code (including "unnamed"). Stacking logic was resolved at the code level; it was not dealt with in the parameters or logic of a script, as it does in NWScript. Some armor bonus types are built into the NWN code base, but most of the other effect types are not defined anywhere. Of specific merit, enhancement bonuses essentially don't exist. That's why you can easily get dudes running around with 50 Strength: most bonuses are of the same undefined type, so there's no way to sort them. If applied bonuses in NWN had an bonus type parameter built into them 1) they could have been sorted according to THE RULEZ and 2) builders could still have applied bonuses with the "unnamed" bonus types to produce monstrous 50 Strength 10th level barbarians for their own campaigns.

Take a gander at NWN's extensive patch notes over the years and count the many, many stacking bugs they had to address.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I love it, but I've also never played the OC. For the sheer amount of excellent modules it's one of the best RPGs ever.

From the looks of those demon screenshots though, I might have to play the OC soon.

 

[Cael]

He can say many things, but NWN was close enough to the original that the discrepencies can be passed off as software limitations.

Not so much software limitations as it was the mental limitations of the people planning and implementing those decisions.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/49192-iwd2s-use-of-3e-was-a-mistake/

NWN doesn't have a system for stacking; its various spell and item scripts arbitrarily check for the presence of other effects and occasionally suppress them from stacking. That's the opposite of systemic. It's arbitrary and was vulnerable to (a great deal of) human error.
...
Arbitrary meaning it was up to individual scripters to check for effects across the various ones used in the game. Effect types and stacking rules were not explicitly built into how the effects worked. It's very easy for someone to add a new script applying an effect that modifies a stat and never checks (or is never checked for) other effect states on the character. To be honest, I think it's pretty weird that you like how NWN's stacking rules work. Considering that stacking rules were almost universally seen as a positive thing for D&D, and that NWN's ability scores (especially) got incredibly out of control because there were virtually no stacking elements in place for many things, it's an odd thing to support.

When we brought the stacking rules to the attention of WotC during NWN2's development, they were very much in favor of switching to an implicit no-stack system instead of continuing with NWN's method of implicitly stacking most things.
...
The IE built effects through item properties in the item editor or spell effects in the Spell-O-Matic. In IWD2, bonus types were built into the effect parameters, with types pulled from code and resolved in code (including "unnamed"). Stacking logic was resolved at the code level; it was not dealt with in the parameters or logic of a script, as it does in NWScript. Some armor bonus types are built into the NWN code base, but most of the other effect types are not defined anywhere. Of specific merit, enhancement bonuses essentially don't exist. That's why you can easily get dudes running around with 50 Strength: most bonuses are of the same undefined type, so there's no way to sort them. If applied bonuses in NWN had an bonus type parameter built into them 1) they could have been sorted according to THE RULEZ and 2) builders could still have applied bonuses with the "unnamed" bonus types to produce monstrous 50 Strength 10th level barbarians for their own campaigns.

Take a gander at NWN's extensive patch notes over the years and count the many, many stacking bugs they had to address.

To be fair, it isn't that hard to make a character with crazy strength. A Half-Orc Barbarian4/Bard 1/Red Dragon Disciple 10 could have 31 strength naturally by level 15. 33 at level 20. Add a +6 item and rage, you are looking at 43. All the stacking rules did was to give a max of an extra +6 to a stat. And that is before the +8 and +10 items came into effect in HotU. Even with no stacking then, you are looking at 47 Strength easy. Stacking only gave you an extra +2.

It is only if there was no limit to stacking that you have a problem, but the +12 limit was pretty much spot on in many ways. As I said, it could be handwaved as an engine limitation.

Note: 3.x has always disallowed stacking.

Yes, NWN2 did it better and it was closer to the 3.5 rules than NWN was to the 3.0 rules, but for a COMPUTER game, it was within acceptable limits, in my opinion.

 

[Cael]

I love it, but I've also never played the OC. For the sheer amount of excellent modules it's one of the best RPGs ever.

From the looks of those demon screenshots though, I might have to play the OC soon.

Demon is from HotU, not the OC. That is Mephistopheles himself.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I love it, but I've also never played the OC. For the sheer amount of excellent modules it's one of the best RPGs ever.

From the looks of those demon screenshots though, I might have to play the OC soon.

Demon is from HotU, not the OC. That is Mephistopheles himself.

Those are 2 "expansion" type campaigns to the OC, right? So you can take the same character and party through them?

 

[Cael]

I love it, but I've also never played the OC. For the sheer amount of excellent modules it's one of the best RPGs ever.

From the looks of those demon screenshots though, I might have to play the OC soon.

Demon is from HotU, not the OC. That is Mephistopheles himself.

Those are 2 "expansion" type campaigns to the OC, right? So you can take the same character and party through them?

Yes, you can. NWN automatically saves your character when you complete a campaign, so you can use that character to start the next campaign.

However, both the OC and Shadows of Undrentide (1st expansion) assumes you start with a brand new level 1 character. The OC ends around level 20, Shadows about level 15.

Hordes of the Underdark is supposed to be a continuation of Shadows and assumes you start off at level 15. Even if you make a brand new character, you will be given enough XP to get to level 15 before the campaign starts.

 

[Haplo]

Josh Sawyer can tell you all about how the way Bioware implemented the rules was a fucking disaster that he had to fix with the sequel.

NWN2 fixed casting prestige classes and ranged touch attacks and had newer 3.5 ed. ruleset. Also better graphics. But badly borked epic level progression (also much lower level cap).

NWN1 had much better animations, spell effects, GUI, camera, epic level progression and easier modding.

 

[Cael]

Josh Sawyer can tell you all about how the way Bioware implemented the rules was a fucking disaster that he had to fix with the sequel.

NWN2 fixed casting prestige classes and ranged touch attacks and had newer 3.5 ed. ruleset. Also better graphics. But badly borked epic level progression (also much lower level cap).

NWN1 had much better animations, spell effects, GUI, camera, epic level progression and easier modding.

NWN2's spell effects was a major problem with the game. You can end up with so many spell effects on you, each with their own unique sparkling nonsense, that you can slow the game all the way down. It was ridiculous how the developers went and put so much twinkling crap on buffs. It was obvious that the game developers have no bloody idea how DnD style RPGs work and never played a single TT game in their entire lives. The sparkle-killer mod is a must if you want to buff in NWN2.

 

[Nerevar]

If Nwn 2 is so "good" why cant you cast time stop or any of the good spells or summon familiars?

Nwn > Nwn 2

 

[Cael]

If Nwn 2 is so "good" why cant you cast time stop or any of the good spells or summon familiars?

Nwn > Nwn 2

Umm... Are you high? NWN2 most definitely allows you to call a familiar if you are a wizard or sorcerer...

 

[Nerevar]

Umm... Are you high? NWN2 most definitely allows you to call a familiar if you are a wizard or sorcerer...

That isn't useful for anything, the familiars on NWN did things and were actually a factor in choosing a class.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

Umm... Are you high? NWN2 most definitely allows you to call a familiar if you are a wizard or sorcerer...

That isn't useful for anything, the familiars on NWN did things and were actually a factor in choosing a class.

I liked the Pixie familiar's ability to pick locks without me having to blow a Knock spell/scroll or needing to take levels of Rogue, and the Faerie Dragon was ok (after you installed the pet fix fanpatch). Panther was decent but squishy. Most of the other familiars seemed pretty unremarkable for one reason or another. I didn't really take familiar choice into account too heavily when choosing class levels, usually, because they're kind of useful but hardly something you build a character around IMO.

 

[Abu Antar]

I never completed any of the expansions or the OC. Still spent over 100 hours in online modules.

 

[Lhynn]

Roguey sawyer is wrong. Stacking rules worked towards creating a more fun experience in nwn1. I actually missed them in nwn 2.

 

[Roguey]

Roguey sawyer is wrong. Stacking rules worked towards creating a more fun experience in nwn1. I actually missed them in nwn 2.

A fun experience that makes it nigh-impossible to create enjoyable combat because the gap between a moderately competent character and a character that's stacked into the stratosphere is extremely large.

 

[Cael]

Umm... Are you high? NWN2 most definitely allows you to call a familiar if you are a wizard or sorcerer...

That isn't useful for anything, the familiars on NWN did things and were actually a factor in choosing a class.

NWN2 was closer to the 3.x rules than NWN. You get the bad with the good.