Finished NWN2 the other night...

[Whipporowill]

And I was curious about everyone's opionon - not that I expect there being a general concensus on it, since this is the codex after all - but still. This will contain spoilers, so read at your own peril if you haven't finished it.

Okay, first off - the game is seriously limited by being built on a modular engine, still it managed to roll with a couple of the punches and actually turn out good. The engine in itself doesn't feel very different than NWN - at least it doesn't give the impression of being different. It's rather more the story, writing and implementation of actual choices here and there. There are a lot of cosmetic choices that hides railroading, but you generally get to chose an answer that fits your personality reasonably well, no matter if it actually impacts anything or not. Anyway, no need to go into that as there are people blathering about that all over the place - what I was getting at was the fact that I liked it, a lot in fact and sort of got at least part of that warm fuzzy feeling - that the genre mightn't be dead after all. The AI might be stupid, pathfindig suck donkey ass and inventory and party management is about as userfriendly as diving headfirst onto a block of concrete. Also, the actual fact that it pretty much sets everything up for a sequel planehopping - possibly looking for Gith and the other shards of the sword, and finding out if Mephasm (or what other fugly figure it might be) is Neeshkas daddy-o? - is sweet as hell. There are after all numerous hints about this - mention of Sigil, dealing with all kind of denizens of the astral, lower and every other plane. One of your followers also claims to have known Dakkon for crying out loud...

... loose ends rocks!

If not based on the bleeding modular engine, this might have been a classic!

A questions though - did anyone manage to get any kind of influence with Zhaejve? Never managed to get her to slip me any kind of info ever... seems way to few opportunities to bond with her that I noticed.

 

[suleo]

I frankly, near the end of the game, edited the savegame and added +40 influence to every character, after numerous futile attempts to raise influence with specific key chars (Zhaejve, Ammon). Plus, with the small party limits, I didn't want to carry some jerk around so that I can increase his influence just by saying what the twit wanted to hear.

 

[Whipporowill]

I frankly, near the end of the game, edited the savegame and added +40 influence to every character, after numerous futile attempts to raise influence with specific key chars (Zhaejve, Ammon). Plus, with the small party limits, I didn't want to carry some jerk around so that I can increase his influence just by saying what the twit wanted to hear.

Yeah, I read about the influence cheat and might have used it if I hadn't already uninstalled the game... What I find weird is I used Zhjaeve a lot and only saw one instance of changing my influence with her - siding with Jerro, in what I considered a reasonably neutral argument. But that -1 was the only one I saw, I mean... there's plenty of opportunities to get all smoochy with Amon (Old Shandra influence gives a quick +10 boost).

 

[Zomg]

Doh, I just posted it in the next thread over. I'll link it here.

I also felt like I was bumping into the mod nature of the game, which I complained about in some other post about the fort and crafting stuff that I mention in the above.

 

[Whipporowill]

Doh, I just posted it in the next thread over. I'll link it here.

I also felt like I was bumping into the mod nature of the game, which I complained about in some other post about the fort and crafting stuff that I mention in the above.

I preferred the crafting system of ToEE. I'm not one of those "remember the recipies or look them up online"-guy. Only thing I bothered crafting was the infernal and summoning tokens.

Also, if you had a good relationship with Qara - is enough for Sand to leave - from what I heard. You can't get both. I liked Bishop as a character, he was interesting - as was his betrayal.

 

[Zomg]

A questions though - did anyone manage to get any kind of influence with Zhaejve? Never managed to get her to slip me any kind of info ever... seems way to few opportunities to bond with her that I noticed.

I hardly used her, but you can get a few influence points in the area where you get all the anti-Guardian spells from statues. One I remember is that, at that trapped door in front of a statue that gets weaker and weaker and eventually opens if you trigger it repeatedly, if you just take the damage on your main character until the door opens she compliments your nutty resolve and you get a point or two on her. I was a little tired of key hunting at that point.

I cheated up her influence after the end of the game, and she just says stuff about the Gith races that you probably already know via Dak'kon (or, I dunno, the Fiend Folio?).

 

[Monica21]

I'm only halfway through the second act, and I'm really enjoying it. Yeah, the quest is pretty railroaded, but there are still a lot of opportunities for replayability. There are a lot of different ways to express your character through dialogue, and one thing that I liked was that you could chose to join the City Watch or the local gang in order to get access to Blacklake. Managing the keep is interesting also, finding a balance in gameplay style, getting what the keep needs and keeping your serfs happy.

Most of the people I have available in my party I've never used, like Qara because she got on my nerves as soon as I met her. My game is bugged and I can't pick Sand after the trial, but I'm sure I will in the next game. I pretty much take Casavir, Bishop and Neeshka with me everywhere, and mix it up with others when I feel I need to.

I've heard about Bishop's betrayal, and since I play a female character, it's a little disappointing from the romance angle, since he apparently does it no matter how high your influence with him is. I'm waiting until that part to see if it really makes sense, or if it just is kind of rushed so they didn't have to worry about two romances. I like the idea of a betrayal though, and he's certainly the perfect candidate. Casavir would have been even more interesting though, since from what I can tell, he's already doubting himself and his faith. That might be too much a play on Aribeth though.

So, I do think it could use some work technically, I think the storyline is good and the way you're able to play out a character is done very well. You don't really have to do to much pretending because it's all right there. Imagine that! :D

 

[WittyName]

How much overall play time is there for a first run through of the game? It seems some of you all are mowing through it pretty fast.

 

[Volourn]

Took me around 50 hours or so.

 

[Whipporowill]

How much overall play time is there for a first run through of the game? It seems some of you all are mowing through it pretty fast.

Considering I've been home sick since last wednesday, I'd say it's pretty lenghty...

 

[JrK]

It's really long. I've been playing every day for 1-4 hours and I'm still only at the beginning of act II. I have the game for a week or three now.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

It took me about a week, maybe more to finish. But aye, i really enjoyed it. The end of act 1 i was dreading the game, it wasn't so much the city watch quests, just the boring areas she sent you to. But after all that it really started to pick up.

Is it just me, or did qara not have all that much to say? my main companions were khelgar and elanee but i had qara tagging along alot, and near the end of the game she was still talking about johcris and something about torching uncle duncans "dumb establishment". Shame really, i thought she had quite a sexy voice . :shock:

 

[Monica21]

How much overall play time is there for a first run through of the game? It seems some of you all are mowing through it pretty fast.

Well, it's a holiday, and I've got the week off work. I got it Friday and it's going quickly.

 

[kris]

Also, if you had a good relationship with Qara - is enough for Sand to leave - from what I heard. You can't get both. I liked Bishop as a character, he was interesting - as was his betrayal.

His betrayal was amongst the most expected, but what I really hated about that is the "forced scene" nature of it. I was a fucking monk who easily outran anyone and had two mages behind me, still he just ran away from the scene with me not able to do something.

The "defections" did make some sense and i did like that part, not like the babies complaining about it on the official forums. But there was one very big exception. Ammon Jerro, while he didn't defect for me the mere possibility of it did not make sense. We talking about the guy who sacrificed everything, who spent his whole life for that moment and relentlessly worked for it and they put him on working against that if you don't have enough influence with him? does not make sense at all.

I'm glad I got Qara instead of Sand, she is much more useful.

Otherwise I agree with most about everyting you said in your first post Whip. Let me add that I found it nice that for once you could use ALL your companions in the end, it doesn't generally make any sense that some people wouldn't help in that moment.

 

[Lomer]

The "defections" did make some sense and i did like that part, not like the babies complaining about it on the official forums. But there was one very big exception. Ammon Jerro, while he didn't defect for me the mere possibility of it did not make sense. We talking about the guy who sacrificed everything, who spent his whole life for that moment and relentlessly worked for it and they put him on working against that if you don't have enough influence with him? does not make sense at all.

SPOILERS BELOW












I believe that Ammon Jerro will not betray you, even if your influence check fails.

 

[Texas Red]

And I was curious about everyone's opionon - not that I expect there being a general concensus on it, since this is the codex after all - but still.

I love this game. I am only in the beginning of the 2nd chapter, so hopefully I will be even more impressed because, as many here say, that is where it truly shines.

Also, the humour is a nice touch. I actually laughed out loud(it is a difficult feat to make me) when I chose the option "Wait, I need a lute to compete?!" with the bard in Blacklake.

 

[Ladonna]

I have heard a lot of people who cannot get the patches to work give up on it.

Has anyone successfully played the unpatched, out of the box version? How was it?

 

[whatusername]

The unpatched version of the game was much more unbuggy than the patched version of the game. One time too many do bugs occur for me.

 

[Whipporowill]

The "defections" did make some sense and i did like that part, not like the babies complaining about it on the official forums. But there was one very big exception. Ammon Jerro, while he didn't defect for me the mere possibility of it did not make sense. We talking about the guy who sacrificed everything, who spent his whole life for that moment and relentlessly worked for it and they put him on working against that if you don't have enough influence with him? does not make sense at all.

SPOILERS BELOW












I believe that Ammon Jerro will not betray you, even if your influence check fails.

I got that impression as well, although I did suceed my influence check with him. Anyone able to back his eventual betrayal up? His motivation for sticking with you might be quite different than the one he expresses with a successful check.

 

[Nael]

Did anyone kill Elanee? I had a sense of Deja Vu from KOTOR1. Instant 10 pts of EEEVVIILLLL.

 

[Monica21]

Also, the humour is a nice touch. I actually laughed out loud(it is a difficult feat to make me) when I chose the option "Wait, I need a lute to compete?!" with the bard in Blacklake.

If you have Bishop in your party, I heard that he's a great heckler if you chose to do that.

 

[kris]

The unpatched version of the game was much more unbuggy than the patched version of the game. One time too many do bugs occur for me.

I had one single bug occure to me over a lot of playing time. One. Had mroe in pretty much every other game I played. Oblivion crashed on me two times as I only played for 5 hours.

Whip and Lomer. Good, I hope that is correct, since the opposite would make no sense. I was a bit surprised with the defection of the other mage though, didn't expect that.

 

[Whipporowill]

I had some weird text garbling which required the game to be reloaded and a crash ot two, however - the worst bug I was hit with was the areas refusing to load updates and had me revert to older savegames once or twice. Luckily I kept many saves... and so should everyone!

B t w - does Casavir have any sidequest other than the Old Owl Well one where you meet up, never had anything trigger for him. Khelgar must be the follower with the biggest storyline as from what I saw - and no problem there, liked the bastard. What happens if you manage to talk him OUT of becoming a monk - i e finishing the trials and having high enough influence to to make him rethink his point. I wanted him to lead the Ironfists after what he did for them...

 

[Lomer]

I didn’t have any significant performance issues with the game (3000 AM 2 Athlon CPU, 2 GB RAM, X1600 PRO 512 MB video card), but still encountered 2 game stopping bugs. The first one happened during the transfer from AJ’s heaven to Neverwinter. My gamed crashed repeatedly and I had to do some search at the official forums. I turned out that the bug was caused by an undead summon in my party, so I unsummoned it and it worked just fine. The second major bug (which is quite common btw) happened after the battle with a certain lizardfolk shaman at Highcliff in Act 3, when I was trapped in a closed area without any conversation options to get out. The workaround is to decrease temporarily the difficulty level to normal or easy before the battle starts, as at higher difficulty settings the shaman will kill with AoE spells one of the neutral lizards, who is supposed to trigger the exit sequence. This bug is expected to be fixed with the 1.03 patch.

 

[Whipporowill]

The workaround is to decrease temporarily the difficulty level to normal or easy before the battle starts, as at higher difficulty settings the shaman will kill with AoE spells one of the neutral lizards, who is supposed to trigger the exit sequence. This bug is expected to be fixed with the 1.03 patch.

I played on Hardcore D&D up til then and gave up after that - HC is basically impossible unless you run all your followers in puppet mode. Sadly.

 

[kris]

The workaround is to decrease temporarily the difficulty level to normal or easy before the battle starts, as at higher difficulty settings the shaman will kill with AoE spells one of the neutral lizards, who is supposed to trigger the exit sequence. This bug is expected to be fixed with the 1.03 patch.

I played on Hardcore D&D up til then and gave up after that - HC is basically impossible unless you run all your followers in puppet mode. Sadly.

You only need your mages in puppet mode though. I had HC troughout the game. Qara was still the best with her buffs and powerful AoEs.