storm of zehir worth?

[deama]

I played NWN1/2 and expansions, I liked MOTB and hords of the underdark; would I like storm of zehir? Or is it just worth playing it for some feature its got? I haven't heard much about it.

 

[Morality Games]

I played NWN1/2 and expansions, I liked MOTB and hords of the underdark; would I like storm of zehir? Or is it just worth playing it for some feature its got? I haven't heard much about it.

You create a party of 4 and then recruit (2?) additional companions from the world. Dialogues involve your entire party in pretty much the same way as Wasteland II. There is a trading mechanic because your adventuring party are a bunch of traders trying to reestablish lapsed trade routes. There are cameos from the previous NWN2 campaigns.

Definitely more like Icewind Dale than Baldur's Gate.

 

[deama]

I played NWN1/2 and expansions, I liked MOTB and hords of the underdark; would I like storm of zehir? Or is it just worth playing it for some feature its got? I haven't heard much about it.

You create a party of 4 and then recruit (2?) additional companions from the world. Dialogues involve your entire party in pretty much the same way as Wasteland II. There is a trading mechanic because your adventuring party are a bunch of traders trying to reestablish lapsed trade routes. There are cameos from the previous NWN2 campaigns.

Definitely more like Icewind Dale than Baldur's Gate.

Would you say it's better than icewind dale or about the same?

 

[tindrli]

Its a good game but IMO icewind dale is better

 

[Dorateen]

Storm of Zehir is part Icewind Dale and part Pool of Radiance. Player created party, exploration is done via an overland map. Non-linear adventure. One thing that is often overlooked, this expansion introduced a more hardcore bleeding mechanic to Neverwinter Nights, meaning characters lose hit point when they drop below 0, and will not automatically pop back up after battle without proper healing. (Or raise dead!)

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

If you didn't like the OC, you'd probably like SoZ.

 

[Grunker]

Storm of Zehir is like a mechanical blueprint for an amazing RPG but nearly all of its content sucks ass. Cramped dungeons, banal main quest, NWN2's shitty camera and combat.

It's almost worth it just for all the cool ideas like the great overworld map, the best handling of party dialogue in an RPG period and character customization that makes your nipples explode with delight.

In other words expect a handjob that sounds great on paper but don't expect to cum

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

cue Volourn

he/she/zee has very special feelings for this rpg game

 

[Excidium II]

ctrl+f sozzy

 

[yes plz]

SoZ is sozzy.

No matter how much more balanced or difficult battles are compared to the other NWN2 campaigns it's still fought using NWN2's shitty combat and runs on the same god awful engine. Like Grunker said, it has a lot of great ideas but the execution of a lot of them is p. shitty and it's still NWN2.

 

[Nathair]

The user defined module that did something with all the mechanics in SoZ was the treasure of white plume mountain. Really good module that.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Really underrated game - reputation around here was single-handedly destroyed by Volourn coining the term 'sozzy' and using it repeatedly until it caught on.

Not that it's a 'great' game or anything. But for an expansion pack, that's doing something really different to the base game, it should have been something that the Codex loved. Even with the shitty 2 room dungeons and all. Just the oldschool setup of starting out as nobodies, exploring this big map with no starting aim other than getting rich, finding a bit of a story along the way once you're a fair way in (but still in the 'I'm an adventurer who wants to get rich' vein, not the 'I'm the chosen one' vein), much better crafting system, setting up trade routes - and again, it's an expansion pack, cheap like an indie game. It's the kind of thing where you'd expect that there'd have been a solid Codex fanbase. I've never seen one guy tear apart a game's rep like that since Skyway (before the discovery of 'I've only played KoTOR 7 times' destroyed him, and any future possibility of a Skyway or a Volourn coming in and getting taken seriously when they do that - even Mondblut, who generally has a ton more credibility in these parts than either of those guys, is basically dismissed these days as 'well, he's just a combatfag, so of course he'll hate X and love Y'.)

And the shitty engine isn't any explanation. We loved MotB because the PS:T fans (myself included - I'm pro-MoTB, it's awesome) were able to unite into some kind of Voltron mech that could fend off the forces of Volourn and Skyway, even when they were making entirely legitimate criticisms of how shit the engine is. The engine in SoZ is still shit, but it's by far the least shit implementation of it - it incorporates improved versions of the best AI mods to make party and caster management bearable, gives a far better zoomed out camera, and does everything it can to redeem the shitty engine. Which isn't much, but still - if the engine was the deal-breaker, it should have been a much bigger deal-breaker with MotB.

Even NWN2 itself didn't get as much hate as SoZ, and SoZ is leagues better than that game. The Voltron explanation is the best I can come up with. MotB had the old PS:T fans unite into something more powerful than the individuals involved, whereas SoZ had us divided into those shitty lion and tiger mech toys that were always really over-priced because mum and dad never let me buy them all to make Voltron and so they fucking sucked, because unless you had them all they were just 2nd-rate transformers, and shit, even the Constructacon transformers had the decency to each be individually ok Transformer toys, that you can turn from car into robot even if you didn't have enough of them to build Devastator. FUCK YOU MOM YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT ME TRANSFORMERS FOR MY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY LIKE I ASKED, NOT VOLTRON CRAP!!. We just couldn't overcome the forces of Volourn and Skyway combined in that form.

 

[Projas]

Play Mysteries of Westgate instead.

 

[Tigranes]

If you played through nwn1/2 you can clearly stomach the clunky engine and combat, which is an inevitability in all expansions. SOZ otherwise is very different, and quite fun, well built little adventure. I think it's worth a play.

 

[Azrael the cat]

More sensible answer: put it this way, if you're familiar with the shittyness of the NWN2 engine, then you already know the downside of SoZ. I don't want to talk up how much they improved the engine, because there's only so much that they could do with that shit, so just assume that it's NWN2 with better AI.

There - now you have the argument against playing SoZ, and it's a perfectly respectable one. Completely understandable if you were to skip it on that basis.

But if that hasn't put you of the game, then go for it, it's a really neat oldschool 'adventure for fame and fortune', with a full party, open world with survival skills, trade routes, sensible level range, lots of stuff that you never see anymore in crpgs. And even the engine will hurt a little less than it did with the other NWN2 games.

 

[Volourn]

"And the shitty engine isn't any explanation. We loved MotB because the PS:T fans (myself included - I'm pro-MoTB, it's awesome) were able to unite into some kind of Voltron mech that could fend off the forces of Volourn and Skyway, even when they were making entirely legitimate criticisms of how shit the engine is. The engine in SoZ is still shit, but it's by far the least shit implementation of it - it incorporates improved versions of the best AI mods to make party and caster management bearable, gives a far better zoomed out camera, and does everything it can to redeem the shitty engine. Which isn't much, but still - if the engine was the deal-breaker, it should have been a much bigger deal-breaker with MotB."

You are a whiny idiot. I don't mind the NWN2 engine and I actually liked MOTB you dumbshit. That doesn't change the fact that SOZ is quite SOZZY. It has some good ideas but it ruins it with garabge 'dungeons', l0llzy story, an overrated dialogue system, and a lazy merchant system. SOZZY isn't the worst RPG ever but the only NWN series related game that is close to beinmg as bad as it is SOU.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=184

Another review that no one reads.

 

[Azarkon]

Really underrated game - reputation around here was single-handedly destroyed by Volourn coining the term 'sozzy' and using it repeatedly until it caught on.

Not that it's a 'great' game or anything. But for an expansion pack, that's doing something really different to the base game, it should have been something that the Codex loved. Even with the shitty 2 room dungeons and all. Just the oldschool setup of starting out as nobodies, exploring this big map with no starting aim other than getting rich, finding a bit of a story along the way once you're a fair way in (but still in the 'I'm an adventurer who wants to get rich' vein, not the 'I'm the chosen one' vein), much better crafting system, setting up trade routes - and again, it's an expansion pack, cheap like an indie game. It's the kind of thing where you'd expect that there'd have been a solid Codex fanbase. I've never seen one guy tear apart a game's rep like that since Skyway (before the discovery of 'I've only played KoTOR 7 times' destroyed him, and any future possibility of a Skyway or a Volourn coming in and getting taken seriously when they do that - even Mondblut, who generally has a ton more credibility in these parts than either of those guys, is basically dismissed these days as 'well, he's just a combatfag, so of course he'll hate X and love Y'.)

And the shitty engine isn't any explanation. We loved MotB because the PS:T fans (myself included - I'm pro-MoTB, it's awesome) were able to unite into some kind of Voltron mech that could fend off the forces of Volourn and Skyway, even when they were making entirely legitimate criticisms of how shit the engine is. The engine in SoZ is still shit, but it's by far the least shit implementation of it - it incorporates improved versions of the best AI mods to make party and caster management bearable, gives a far better zoomed out camera, and does everything it can to redeem the shitty engine. Which isn't much, but still - if the engine was the deal-breaker, it should have been a much bigger deal-breaker with MotB.

Even NWN2 itself didn't get as much hate as SoZ, and SoZ is leagues better than that game. The Voltron explanation is the best I can come up with. MotB had the old PS:T fans unite into something more powerful than the individuals involved, whereas SoZ had us divided into those shitty lion and tiger mech toys that were always really over-priced because mum and dad never let me buy them all to make Voltron and so they fucking sucked, because unless you had them all they were just 2nd-rate transformers, and shit, even the Constructacon transformers had the decency to each be individually ok Transformer toys, that you can turn from car into robot even if you didn't have enough of them to build Devastator. FUCK YOU MOM YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT ME TRANSFORMERS FOR MY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY LIKE I ASKED, NOT VOLTRON CRAP!!. We just couldn't overcome the forces of Volourn and Skyway combined in that form.

It's very easy to explain why SoZ didn't catch on. In fact you pretty much had it, but just didn't connect.

The worst aspect of any Obsidian game is either the engine, the user interface, or the combat. The best aspect of any Obsidian game is either the writing, the characters, or the choices & consequences.

SoZ focused on the former, while MoTB focused on the latter. Thus, one game played to Obsidian's weaknesses, while the other played to Obsidian's strengths.

It isn't hard to figure out which succeeded, and why.

SoZ was terrible because it DEPENDED on the engine, the user interface, and the combat of Neverwinter Nights 2, all of which were terrible. MoTB only managed to succeed by asking players to ignore these flaws of the game and to pay attention, instead, to the story telling, character building, and decision making. Thus, MoTB succeeded by convincing you that you played a different game, while SoZ failed because you were forced to play the same game, except this time with no other positive to distract you from it.

 

[nikolokolus]

If SoZ had been implemented in a different engine that had a better UI and if Obsidian could have developed the lairs and dungeons, it would have made for a great D&D sandbox. As it was, the world map implementation was the only memorable thing about it; something I and a few others used in a (stillborn) persistent world project.

What might have been.

 

[laclongquan]

I have to describe one things that will destroy its supposedly goodness.

200+ mini area inside that world map. It's a fucking drag on the loading system. It's a step backward compared to MOTB or OC. People around here doesnt mention that feature much, but I bet that tiny pinpick on the uretha is enough to destroy plenty of enthuasiasm. And it's unfixable.

There are other things, of course, but this deserve honor mention above all.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I have to describe one things that will destroy its supposedly goodness.

200+ mini area inside that world map. It's a fucking drag on the loading system. It's a step backward compared to MOTB or OC. People around here doesnt mention that feature much, but I bet that tiny pinpick on the uretha is enough to destroy plenty of enthuasiasm. And it's unfixable.

There are other things, of course, but this deserve honor mention above all.

I haven't ever had an issue with loading for SoZ. Maybe your computer is just slow?

 

[Darth Roxor]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=184

Another review that no one reads.

cool review

 

[ArchAngel]

For me this was the best NWN2. OC was well OC, MotB would have been better if it wasn't placed in epic level content that was anything but epic but SoZ hit the right spot of similar to BG1 which I adored (but not nearly as good).
The amount of freedom was enough for me to finish it 3 times and start it up a few more times. Although when I came back to it after years of not playing NWN2, I could not force myself to deal with NWN2 shitty engine and UI :D

 

[Grunker]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=184

Another review that no one reads.

cool review

too neutral-positive and apologetic

 

[Deleted member 7219]

People think I am an Obsidian fanboy but even I didn't play SoZ (and I never will).

MotB was designed for people like me, and SoZ was designed for the opposite. Hell, Dungeon Shite 3 had George Ziets as its writer (and made it worth playing as a result), but I don't see the point of playing SoZ.

A rare misstep from Obsidian. Every studio has to make a bad game and SoZ is theirs. I won't play the tank MMO or Pathfinder either.