Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

NWN2 OC was not bad as people make it out

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,274
Location
Terra da Garoa
Camera & engine issues aside, it's a game that would've been MUCH better by simply making it shorter. More than the orc caves, you have those bullshit "clown-car houses" where it's a tiny house on the outside, but inside there are 400 rooms filled with bandits/guards/Githyanki... there's no encounter design or care, they are just thrown around to waste everyone's time.

It's the same shit that bothered me in Pillars of Eternity, this crazy need to make your 40hs RPG last 60hs by adding a shitton of filler content.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
The NWN2 OC had the best ending ever, though: "Rocks fall, everybody dies!". It's like a real D&D game where the DM has simply had enough.
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2013
Messages
6,165
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Last edited:

Delterius

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
15,956
Location
Entre a serra e o mar.
Other than Bishop, I'm not sure anyone died, considering the only character that was definitely dead (Casavir) was revealed to have survived in Storm of the Zehir.
Read: The DM calmed down a week after his ragefit and resumed the campaign.
Wrong. Another DM took over after the last one resolved never to play with randos ever again. First, the emo suicidal older sister of our hero and then some salty old sailor who was drunk from the start.
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2013
Messages
3,914
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Pretty much agree, it was generally fun, had c&c, sometimes good atmosphere etc.
I like it a lot, and I like it more than SoZ.
However...
good char and so was the thiefling girl mmm waifu right there motherfucka
Wtf am I reading??? I hated here so bad... One of the most disgusting characters ever written for an cRPG!
 

Taurist

Scholar
Joined
Dec 8, 2017
Messages
108
Its a better game than KOTOR 2 or 1 by a mile, and I never really understood a lot of the hate. It's the second best attempt at 3d baldur's Gate after Dragon Age, however faint that praise is (and its a LONG way from being even as good as DA).

NWN2 is just filled with weirdly unfinished cutscenes and trash combat, and a shit ending. You know, the three things every Obsidian game has.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
Other than Bishop, I'm not sure anyone died, considering the only character that was definitely dead (Casavir) was revealed to have survived in Storm of the Zehir.

Feeling pretty confident that Grobnar and Qara would never, ever come back.
 

grotsnik

Arcane
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
1,671
The thing about the orc caves, though: it's not just that they were overlong dungeons without real encounter variety using monotonous brown tilesets, reached after traversing monotonous mountain corridor levels.

It's also that they appeared in the context of NWN2OC's weird-ass plot structure, which is basically the Ur-example of the common video-game habit of dragging the narrative out by shifting the goalposts and installing unforeseen obstacles at every turn.

Lest we forget (I had to look this up) you end up wiping out a small orc nation, and then a second small orc nation, because you've gradually become a rising star in either the City Watch or criminal underworld, in the hopes of getting in through the wooden doors of a town district, to see this one guy who might know something about the plot device you took from the lizards after you were attacked by the Githyanki antagonists who turn out to be a distraction from the real antagonists, the devious politicians of Luskan, who turn out to be mere stooges for the real antagonist, the villainous sorcerer Black Garius, who turns out to be but a pawn of the actual antagonist, Shadow Monster Guy. (Meanwhile you investigate the murders committed by Ammon Jerro, who turns out not to be the antagonist either, but only after you've chased him through multiple scenarios and seen his motivations teased in multiple cutscenes.)

It's a sadist's exercise in denying your player narrative satisfaction, from start to finish.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Lest we forget (I had to look this up) you end up wiping out a small orc nation, and then a second small orc nation, because you've gradually become a rising star in either the City Watch or criminal underworld, in the hopes of getting in through the wooden doors of a town district, to see this one guy who might know something about the plot device you took from the lizards after you were attacked by the Githyanki antagonists who turn out to be a distraction from the real antagonists, the devious politicians of Luskan, who turn out to be mere stooges for the real antagonist, the villainous sorcerer Black Garius, who turns out to be but a pawn of the actual antagonist, Shadow Monster Guy. (Meanwhile you investigate the murders committed by Ammon Jerro, who turns out not to be the antagonist either, but only after you've chased him through multiple scenarios and seen his motivations teased in multiple cutscenes.)

Hot Take: The clusterfuck of antagonist factions with conflicting agendas is actually the best thing about NWN2's storyline.

It just needed to be executed in a good way, not as a series of hacked together episodic ass-pulls.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
What made the campaign extremely bad was the complete linearity and zero exploring or some sidecontent. The world was completely lifeless, too.
(It's remarkable that Obsidian took some of this bad game design over into PoE.)

Even the trial sucks because it doesn't matter ANYTHING. I still don't get why people think the trial is good. The idea of the trial is good. The execution is bad. And that's true for nearly everything in the OC.

The first really bad sign playing te game was the the first "city" you enter (forgot its name) where you supposed to meet npcs in the tavern (it's really clear from the dialogue and would make sense). Instead they are all standing OUTSIDE of the tavern in you can't even enter the tavern.

The game was unfinished with no side-content, with completely uninteresting encounter design and companions you couldn't even multiclass. Well, they couldn't even die and you were FORCED to take them with you, no matter how annoying they were or how much sense it made.

Really, the cam was one of the least problems this game had. Big disapointment. RoA HD - how amateurish it's made - is miles better by now than NWN2 ever was.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
It's also that they appeared in the context of NWN2OC's weird-ass plot structure, which is basically the Ur-example of the common video-game habit of dragging the narrative out by shifting the goalposts and installing unforeseen obstacles at every turn.

I loved how Bloodlines parodied its own plot with the Frankenstein RPG advertisement.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
I have complicated thoughts regarding the NWN2 OC. It's like a talented person was forced to clean up a mess and salvage a working project, which is basically what it is. There were glimpses of dramatic understanding in there that is rarely seen in RPGs, like Bishop and Casavir's arguing over a female PC (inter-personal drama in an RPG!!!!), Bishop's betrayal (an RPG companion who isn't just a puppet and has his own agenda!!!), Sand and Qara's quarrel (that actually goes somewhere in the end!!!!), the Keep, an interconnected web of antagonists and hidden motivations, natural camaraderie that isn't Biowarean "witticisms" and is actually sometimes funny (I still remember Neeshka making fun of Elanee like "this water is so unnatural and deep, not like the swamp of dead people I grew up in"), story choices that affect gameplay (Khelgar becoming a monk or not), a natural and logical progression of the social standing of the protagonist, a mounting sense of pressure with the "darkness" spreading from the swamp and many more such things.

On the other hand, you have crudely copy-pasted fights, generic environments, overlong narrative detours that are forgotten the moment they end, like the entire section when you get to Neverwinter and finish at the orc caves, pointless companions (Elanee, Neeshka, Khelgar, Casavir, Zhjaeve, Grobnar), the trial's ending, the main antagonist being a force of nature rather than a character, rushed ending, it feeling unfinished in general, etc.

So, yeah, I wouldn't say the bad outweigh the good in this case, as I've been known to recommend a playthrough of it, but when it's bad it's very bad. It needs an overhaul and almost complete rewrite, but it has potential.
 
Last edited:

Delterius

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
15,956
Location
Entre a serra e o mar.
Even the trial sucks because it doesn't matter ANYTHING. I still don't get why people think the trial is good. The idea of the trial is good. The execution is bad. And that's true for nearly everything in the OC.
The mark of a true storyteller is to conserve his ammunition. Think about it. How does the Magician make people want more? By creating an oasis in the middle of the desert. That the water is particularly tepid doesn't distract from how refreshing it is in the arid morass of NwN2's OC.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
How the fuck does anyone even tolerate the tiefling though?

Wasn't she written by Avellone? That would perhaps explain people ignoring how she's so terrible. Or it doesn't stand out in a game where all the characters are on the level of Bioware's worst.

Also while trying to find out if she was written by Avellone I found out that she appears as a sort of easter-egg in SoZ. Just goes to show the kind of bubble game developers like Obsidian live in. Just as they can't understand how NWN2 had a terrible camera and terrible optimization they can't understand how the characters were actually shit.
Speaking of which I think the whole NWN2 saga must have at least 4 or 5 "dumb big brute talking about himself in third person" spread around, with 2 only in MotB.
Quality writing, it's the least you can expect from Obsidian . :lol:
 

Morkar Left

Guest
Even the trial sucks because it doesn't matter ANYTHING. I still don't get why people think the trial is good. The idea of the trial is good. The execution is bad. And that's true for nearly everything in the OC.
The mark of a true storyteller is to conserve his ammunition. Think about it. How does the Magician make people want more? By creating an oasis in the middle of the desert. That the water is particularly tepid doesn't distract from how refreshing it is in the arid morass of NwN2's OC.

And then going on with "LOL I pwnd you guys it was all a trick. See, that's how this simple trick works. How dumb were you to believe me that's some complicated shit!" ?
I think not.
 

Delterius

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
15,956
Location
Entre a serra e o mar.
Even the trial sucks because it doesn't matter ANYTHING. I still don't get why people think the trial is good. The idea of the trial is good. The execution is bad. And that's true for nearly everything in the OC.
The mark of a true storyteller is to conserve his ammunition. Think about it. How does the Magician make people want more? By creating an oasis in the middle of the desert. That the water is particularly tepid doesn't distract from how refreshing it is in the arid morass of NwN2's OC.

And then going on with "LOL I pwnd you guys it was all a trick. See, that's how this simple trick works. How dumb were you to believe me that's some complicated shit!" ?
I think not.
I believe you are unable to see things for what they truly are. :M
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,152
Camera & engine issues aside, it's a game that would've been MUCH better by simply making it shorter. More than the orc caves, you have those bullshit "clown-car houses" where it's a tiny house on the outside, but inside there are 400 rooms filled with bandits/guards/Githyanki... there's no encounter design or care, they are just thrown around to waste everyone's time.

It's the same shit that bothered me in Pillars of Eternity, this crazy need to make your 40hs RPG last 60hs by adding a shitton of filler content.

Absolutely. Condense NWN2 down to about half the size and with a bit more of the saved development time invested in those kept areas and it would be a significantly better game.

At a certain point the "badness" of a game has little to do with how bad it is in absolute terms. People enjoy bad movies all the time, and similarly enjoy games that aren't objectively great but are relaxing and easy to play. What makes a bad game truly awful is being too long with nothing memorable.

Hot Take: The clusterfuck of antagonist factions with conflicting agendas is actually the best thing about NWN2's storyline

It just needed to be executed in a good way, not as a series of hacked together episodic ass-pulls.

I'm not sure how it could be executed well. The problem is chasing an endless stream of nothing-leads in a linear game. But if you made it non-linear you'd have to discard most of the plot development since the whole campaign has a very clear "while you were doing x they were doing y and so z is now important" make up.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
In one of his various interviews Josh said Obsidian was really worried about getting NWN2 to hit the 30 hour mark, and it took them by surprise during their complete playthrough playtests how it ended up twice that. It's hard to estimate how long something's going to be as you're making it, so they always err on the side of too much.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
oh nwn2 oc is indeed miles better than PoE in everything but the combat department. I don't think that's a "hot take" at all. NWN2 OC at least had actual characters and dialog that were memorable.

and speaking of nwn2 oc's villains i'd take that clusterfuck any day over the x-treme blandness and generic-ness of poe's antagonist jeeeeezuhs.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom