To MOTB or not to MOTB. That is the question

[Solivagant]

The OC starts to shine during the Trial. Keep maintenance is interesting if you're into that sort of thing, I enjoyed it a lot.

The only thing I disliked in the game was the excessive loot. I had to spend a lot of time organizing all that crap, even resorted to a piece of paper to help me submit specific types of items to specific characters, like, all swords went to this guy, all armor to that guy, etc.

Of course, when you get into MoTB, you see what can really be done with that engine. Using the loading screens as narration for what you're doing while transitioning from one place to the other, among other tricks, are some of the little details that make MoTB a great GAME.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

If by "decent", you mean a fucking cesspool of bad game design, terrible writing, and technical assrape that makes Oblivion seem good in comparison.

LOL

on topic:

The OC isn't half as bad as the resident whiners want to make one believe.
It's always the same few songs they sing in every thread about NWN2.

An example is The Orc Caves Blues, a lament either sung by the D&D noobs that can't quickly dispatch of a couple of Orcs that dwell in a couple of Caves or sung by those with reduced attention span that just aren't capable to focus themselves for the 1 realtime hour that the process of eradicating said Orcs might need.
Either way, it typically leads to a lot of frustration and sadness as reflected in the lyrics of the Orc Caves Blues:

Orc Caves , Orc Caves bbbaaawww
da da da dadamm
Ohohoo Orc Caaaaves baaawww
da da da dadamm
Obsidian sucks babe baaawww
*weep weep*
da da da dadamm
shit shit Orc Caves
Oh shit shit Orc Caves
da da da dadamm

TEH Orc Caevs makes dis gaym UNPLAYABLE!!1!! BBBAAAAAAAWWWWWWW

Of course there are more songs. One is about the camera. There are rumours it was first written by an anonymous author who was just confused by all teh funny checkboxes and buttons and other nerd shit in teh Opshuns of teh gaem. But later more gaymers added staves to it, cuz it was not possible to make camera liek in some other RPG like Halo for instance.

Of course we should not forget about the terrible trial, terrible because you have to fight teh wussie Lorne anyway. Were it not for the fact that the camera and the Orc Caves already made this game *unplayable* and *totally shit* and *suck beyond comprehension*, the fact u haz to fight Lorne would make it so for sure.

 

[nomask7]

The camera didn't bother me in either game. The OC sucks because it's terrible. MotB has a good atmosphere, is imaginative, non-cliche. The OC is rotten shit. The OC of NWN1 had a better atmosphere than the OC of NWN2, which has a rotten shit atmosphere. I actually began to enjoy the OC of NWN1 at some point, not too long into the game. I never really enjoyed the OC of NWN2. (If you haven't played the add-ons of NWN1, you have some pretty good stuff waiting for you. Hordes of the Underdark is pure atmosphere genius.)

edit: the final dungeon is where the OC of NWN2 begins to pick up a bit.

Did I mention that the OC of NWN2 was custom designed to please wide-eyed retarded nerds aged 7 to 14 who still baby crawl their way in real life and think dog shit tastes "interesting" when they happen to stumble on it and (of course) eat it (as babies do)? The addon, made with less pressure to sell to a "wider" market and sell out, is a game by adults for adults. That's the difference in a nutshell.

 

[Wyrmlord]

The camera didn't bother me in either game. The OC sucks because it's terrible. MotB has a good atmosphere, is imaginative, non-cliche. The OC is rotten shit. The OC of NWN1 had a better atmosphere than the OC of NWN2, which has a rotten shit atmosphere. I actually began to enjoy the OC of NWN1 at some point, not too long into the game. I never really enjoyed the OC of NWN2. (If you haven't played the add-ons of NWN1, you have some pretty good stuff waiting for you. Hordes of the Underdark is pure atmosphere genius.)

edit: the final dungeon is where the OC of NWN2 begins to pick up a bit.

Did I mention that the OC of NWN2 was custom designed to please wide-eyed retarded nerds aged 7 to 14 who still baby crawl their way in real life and think dog shit tastes "interesting" when they happen to stumble on it and (of course) eat it (as babies do)? The addon, made with less pressure to sell to a "wider" market and sell-out, is a game by adults for adults. That's the difference in a nutshell.

The OC was not even custom designed for anything.

The development of the game's campaign had been going on and being stretched for months with absolutely no coordination or clear idea of what they wanted to do with the game. Obsidian was in chaos, everybody was delegated some arbitrary task which they would do in a half-assed manner.

Eventually, a man called Sawyer was brought in. He reportedly said in an interview that he didn't even like the OC or the content in it, but his concern back then was to shape everything, and salvage whatever mess they had into a shippable game.

I am amazed that the things I saw in the OC and strongly disliked about it are the exact things that Obsidian developers themselves have said that they did not like about the game. When asked or prodded on such things, then in message boards, they will always remark that the game had an excess of powerful loot thanks to its level scaling and that it had excess of filler areas that add nothing to the game.

Developers of this game themselves did not like it, and it makes you realize just how bad it is.

Chris Avellone was once interviewed on the NWN2 OC, and asked about what he liked most about it. He gave an answer, "I love the tutorial. I kept playing the tutorial over and over. I'd even say it is the most fun and creative part of the game." That man was really forcing an answer out, trying to keep a straight face and giving some good PR to the game which really had nothing to show for itself.

It just happens that producers themselves will have some vague idea what the product should be, and they'll give this vague instruction to people working on the game, based on their vague impression of what they think people want from the game. When working on Torment, Feargus Urquahart said, "We need some more XP, some more loot, and some more enemies to kill", and the result was the awkward and devoid of fun Carceri section. That's more or less what happened in NWN2 as well.

Basically, NWN2 is a case of a game made by a studio with no idea of what it was doing.

 

[1eyedking]

Fuck both and play another game.

PS: Stop changing your goddamned avatars, I can no longer tell at hindsight whether or not the post will have some reasonable degree of intelligence.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I'm playing through NWN 1 and 2 OC. They're not that bad if you play with a fun character concept (Try gnome paladin, or dwarven sorcerer, or orc rogue, or halfling barbarian - the game could use some difficulty, so less than stellar builds are perfect here). Also, an alignment you don't usually choose (for me, it's chaotic evil).

 

[TripJack]

^^ NWN1 is one of the most boring single player experiences I can think of... so good luck with that.