NWN 2: mask of the betrayer is out now.

[Starwars]

You might wanna read up on the basic happenings in the NWN2 story though if you're not feeling to lazy.

 

[Jaesun]

I am on the Aliens Team now. The last thing I did for NWN2/NX1 was the 2D portrait stuff (with assistance from Lead Programmer Rich Taylor).

Good to hear it! I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys/gals can pull off in the Aliens RPG. <3

 

[ricolikesrice]

...

any chance on NX2 btw ? :p

 

[Jaesun]

Re: ...

any chance on NX2 btw ? :p

That's what I was hoping for as well. I am hoping MYSTARY game (Not Alien) 1 or 2 at Obsidian is another NWN related one. But I doubt it.

 

[RK47]

Well, nothing really mattered in the NWN2 OC that carries over to the expansion pack, except for the gear you wear, so starting a fresh character is not so bad.

A little recommendation to the Obsidian staff:
You should let your party member identify your magical items for you through dialog. It seems tedious dragging items one by one to the mage, who would be encumbered and then dragging it back to me again to carry.

 

[Redeye]

Well, nothing really mattered in the NWN2 OC that carries over to the expansion pack, except for the gear you wear, so starting a fresh character is not so bad.

A little recommendation to the Obsidian staff:
You should let your party member identify your magical items for you through dialog. It seems tedious dragging items one by one to the mage, who would be encumbered and then dragging it back to me again to carry.

Or just let characters look at each other's inventories directly.

Context icon with an Eye graphic.

 

[RK47]

Hehe that'll work. But I don't mind having somebody like Deckard Cain in D2, I just walk up to him and click Identify. Done. All ID'ed.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

After playing MOTB for some 20 hours i now again have hope that Obsidian can fill the void that Troika left in me you still have to work hard, but maybe.

Now over all the campaign is interesting and every thing works a bit better then before and fell more natural in your choices and it dose not fell like you are being railed into one way only and gives a nice illusion of freedom.

The NPC are well made and have more interesting things to say and i love the Portraits.

Now the Relative negative things.
The lack of Henchmen talking to one another maybe i have missed it, but if it is not there i would really have helped this game to be even greater then it already is.

Over all MOTB is well made and very interesting.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Holy crap, I can't remember when last I saw this positive a reaction from the Codex to a mainstream RPG. Now I'm going to have to buy the expansion.

I'm actually pretty thankful for this, I was starting to think Obsidian would go the way of Troika, producing flawed gems which would eventually lead to it's downfall as a company. KOTOR 2 was, for me, better than KOTOR 1 for about 75% of the game...and then it fell apart. NWN2 had some good parts in the middle, with the trial and the thieves/guards, brought down by sections like the orc caves.

But now it sounds like they've pulled it off :D Hoorah! This industry needs more good/successful RPG devs.

I try to be optimistic and I do believe that when the time is right, the planets are in conjunction, and foretold time has come, we will see the rise of a new generation of RPGs that hearken back to the classics.

I too have faith that we will see another Golden Age. Everything operates in cycles. Our time will come again.

 

[Andrej]

Finished the expansion about an hour or so ago. All in all, i think it was good. Well, perhaps slightly better than good, because I seem to remember the NWN2 OC as good, whereas I'd now like to demote the NWN2 OC to decent and keep MotB at good.

So far, I got the optimal ending - which to me wasn't all that thrilling, I suppose a certain cleric got my hopes up a little high about how epic deeds I would really be able to preform - perhaps the BG series end left me a little unrealistic in my expectations.

Spoilerous thoughts:


I liked the companions, well, two of them (perhaps three, didn't get much chance to explore slimer). The first one that you're paired with never really struck me as any interesting - kept her along 'cause I felt I needed an Arcane spellcaster, despite my hate of wizards. However, dialog with the three humanoid companions was interesting - and the dialog with the... constructed compaion was interesting, if brief for me. Should have gotten it earlier in the game but didn't.

Also, atleast as far as the romance for male PC's goes, I really wish they'd left it out. It siginificantly disturbed me that while I was doing all this epic stuff suddently something lovey-dovey had to come into it. I felt as if I would have responded "Love? What is wrong with you woman!? I'm defying gods and ancient laws and you want to talk about love?".

On the positive side I really did appreciate the fact that I constantly had the option to lie to one of my companions in order to convince her that I was really on the same page with her.

Now... If there was some way to play with fuzzy-wuzzy and slimer at the same time, I would in my next replay.

 

[Starwars]

I suppose a certain cleric got my hopes up a little high about how epic deeds I would really be able to preform - perhaps the BG series end left me a little unrealistic in my expectations.

That's something I would agree with. It kinda feels like the game is moving towards (at least if you take your time to talk a lot with the cleric), er, that particular moment, and then sorta pulls out the rug from underneath you near the end. Plot-wise, that was probably the biggest 'stumble'.

I think I read somewhere on the Bioware boards that it was considered to be put into the game, but I guess it was considered to be to epic. I would agree with that, but again... It feels like the story is moving you towards it.

I didn't get slimer on my playthrough. Did you get a feel for him at all despite not spending to much time on him? I'm planning on getting him on my second playthrough.

 

[Andrej]

That's something I would agree with. It kinda feels like the game is moving towards (at least if you take your time to talk a lot with the cleric), er, that particular moment, and then sorta pulls out the rug from underneath you near the end. Plot-wise, that was probably the biggest 'stumble'.

Mmmh. Still being spoilerous i felt it quite anti-climactic with the head honcho saying "I can remove you from here with a thought", however, I liked it at the same time seeing as how it really did establish how you're not on the top of the foodchain, despite your massive 30 levels of epic power.

I didn't get slimer on my playthrough. Did you get a feel for him at all despite not spending to much time on him? I'm planning on getting him on my second playthrough.

He liked it when I lied to the cleric. Other than that, he doesn't seem to have much conversation right of the bat, but instead hints (or perhaps even states) that he has more to say if you take him out (to places) (thinking of it, he totally should have been the romance - regardless of PC gender). I couldn't ask my longhaired and blue friend about him either. Perhaps a bug.

 

[Astromarine]

how about we split this thread to spoiler and non spoiler versions? that way both discussions can go on without massive warnings

 

[Starwars]

That would be a good idea I think.

 

[Texas Red]

"I couldn't ask my longhaired and blue friend about him either"

I saw a screen of him and Im really surprised that nobody mentioned how perfectly emo he is.

 

[Spectacle]

I wonder how the consumer reaction to this game will be. NWN2 was fairly successful, wasn't it? MotB should be able to sell on that name recognition. Will the unwashed masses recognize quality when they see it, even if they just expecting more dungeoncrawling? I had a look at the NWN forums and there's already plenty of stupid people complaining about dumb things, but they still seem to be in the minority.

 

[ricolikesrice]

the reception in the NWN2 forums kinda off suprised me, i expected a lot less praise and a lot more flak for "ZOMG NOT ENUFF ROMANCE".

but when you go to some mainstream gaming forums the expansion is harldy getting any recognition aside from dumb people ("omg the spirit meter makes the game too hard", "the main game sucked, OBLIVION RULES fuck this expansion LOLZ", etc etc)

i wouldnt expect MOTB to show up in any charts but i hope it sells well enough for obsidian to make a decent profit.

given how little money they seem to spend on bribe...... err making adds and creating hype the chance might be high that low sales still make decent profit compared to some bigsellers who spend lots of money to create the hype that leads to such big sales.

still, wouldnt hurt to see some honest reviews too and praise where its due from the gaming media, but then again addons usually only get half a page (unless they re shivering isles or knights of the nine ) of worthless general information, no matter if said addons are a 10times more worth their money then most full-price games.

 

[Atrokkus]

WHy would you even think that NWN2 can be received poorly on the mass market? NWN was one of the biggest hits of the season, and the name alone grants NWN2 that title, + the actual quality that far surpasses the original.

 

[Starwars]

I think NWN2 is viewed badly by a lot of people. The reviews, while I think they were 'average-good' mostly, didn't give it that push for mainstream appeal. I also think it came at a bad time where the recent success of the 'simple RPG' like Oblivion. I can't shake the feeling that a lot of people went into NWN2 expecting something more similar to Oblivion, and then getting turned off because of evil things such as dicerolls and a heavy rulesystem.
While D&D people, and people who play 'hardcore' RPGs find the game very easy, I've seen plenty of complaints about it being to hard on other forums.

That said, I believe it still sold pretty good. But from where I stand, I get the feeling it's not viewed as a 'good game' by many. Neither in the RPG crowd or in the mainstream crowd. I also think NWN2 is a lot better than NWN1, but among the hardcore NWN fans, opinions are divided. Many people would've liked to see NWN2 to be even closer to NWN1. I'm not the biggest fan of NWN2 OC either, but I think Obsidian definetely has their shit together when it comes to producing a sequel that doesn't feel exactly the same, but also don't go off into other genres.

But yeah, the reception of MotB has been very good overall. And there are very few complaints that I see on the Bioware boards that I actually agree with. It's not hard to manage your spirit-meter, you even have a "last way out card" for crying out loud.

It never fails to surprise me how important stuff like the romances are to some people though. For some people, it seems to be the absolutely most important part of the game.

 

[Andrej]

Damn romances ruin the game. The totaly ruin the mood of the game and the imersion. Atleast in this game, for me. Well, the one romance that I was almost forced into.

As for NWN2, most of the people who liked NWN (Which was a really shitty game, a D&D atempt at Diablo) didn't like NWN2, which was more an atempt at Baldurs Gate 1 & 2. After all, NWN is a crappy game and NWN2 is a decent one. You can't expect people who love crap to suddenly start liking decent things.

And on the spirit meter, I thought the game was damn hard (due to my misuse of the spirit stuff) untill i played the last way out card, realized that it was only a tiny loss of xp and after that it got really, really easy.

However, NWN2 and MotB are two games that i'll gladly support economically in hopes of seeing similar games in the future.

 

[RK47]

Fuck western RPG romance, if I really wanted romance in the game I want it to go all the way. The Japanese understood this, hence their fascination with porn games with tactical squad play or pick your adventures or quasi-rpg hybrids with porn as a form of reward.

 

[Jasede]

It is pretty animalistic and self-degrading to see romance merely as a way to sexual gain.

 

[Neverwhere]

It is pretty animalistic and self-degrading to see romance merely as a way to sexual gain.

It is not quite that animalistic, but definately more self-degrading to see CRPG romance as a way to sexual gain.

 

[elander_]

The Codex may have been a bit too hard on Obsidian and NWN2 (including myself). One of the things that the Codex claims as quality in crpgs is how fidelity of a game to PnP games. NWN2 supports a sort of virtual grid, a complete PnP system, a flexible camera and a great editor. Their weak points are the rt with pause system instead of a system that would allow the player to switch between RT and TB, and NWN2 quests and companions which are a bit of an imposition and could allow more freedom to the player. Someone could actualy mod a Fallout game with this thing and, except for the lack of a TB mode, it would be possible to make a very good game, because the basic construction bricks are there.

Edit: Mixed Obsidian and Oblivion.

 

[Volourn]

"As for NWN2, most of the people who liked NWN (Which was a really shitty game, a D&D atempt at Diablo) didn't like NWN2"

Absolutely fuckin' bullshit that you pulled out of your pathetic ass.