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Review of first NWN 2 modules

Starwars

Arcane
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Jan 31, 2007
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Well, I just tried out the module called "The Birthday" and I must say that I really enjoyed it. It took me about 1 and a half hours to finish it.
Very 'fairytale-ish', beautiful areas and nicely done dialogue. Probably the best module for NWN2 thus far that I've tried. Dark Waters is a lot more ambitious of course, so it's a bit difficult to compare then, but DW was really uneven and had some problems.

The only thing I didn't like about The Birthday was that it got a bit annoying navigating the woods because of how the trees can block your view. But other than that, highly recommended if you want something short and sweet to play through.
 

Surgey

Scholar
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Aug 14, 2006
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Unicorn Power!
Volourn said:
"It wasn't necessarily super difficult as much as requiring tons of charts."

Yeah, because 3E doesn't have any charts. L0LLERZ! :roll:

Not as many as AD&D. Also, system shock chart. Come on. What the fuck.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
24,924
It has as much if not more. Just the class, and prestige class charts alone rival D&D charts. If charts bug you so much than D&D in any incarnation is simply not for you. R00fles!
 

cutterjohn

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kingcomrade said:
It's kinda ironic that the D&D system seems more appropriate for video games (turn based ones) than it does for actual P&P.
That's exactly what I though of the 3rd and 3.5 ed rules. All of those skills and feats add an awful lot of extra bookkeeping and die rolling to a PnP game, but tend to support a more actiony kind of computer game based on the rules. Just the kind of thing to appeal to the Diablo kiddies, unfortunately they made the skills/feats a little more complicated than they'd likely be able to handle.

EDIT:
Just to add a little clarification, the extra die rolls in a computer game are meaningless as the program/engine would handle them behind the scenes v. having to roll every single time in PnP.

Also, it seems to me that they are much more suited to an action "RPG" now than a turn based game. I'd agree turnbased for 1st & 2nd ed rules, but feats just change the whole flavor of the game.
 

Jaesun

Fabulous Ex-Moderator
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Starwars said:
Well, I just tried out the module called "The Birthday" and I must say that I really enjoyed it. It took me about 1 and a half hours to finish it.
Very 'fairytale-ish', beautiful areas and nicely done dialogue. Probably the best module for NWN2 thus far that I've tried.

In case you missed the News Post on NWN Vault, there are a number of "Grimm's Fairy Tale Themed" mods that were posted for a mod competition. The Birthday is one of them.

It is clearly defined in the "Category" field for this mod: "Obsidian Mod Contest".

I have only played a few, but this is next on my list.
 

sheek

Arbiter
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Feb 17, 2006
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Cydonia
Are there any worthwhile mods out yet, that make the game worth buying?
 

Starwars

Arcane
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Well, I'd say no. Not to the point where it makes paying for the game worth it.

Two fairly good mods were recently released. Subtlety of Thay and Nighthowls in Nestlehaven. They both lack a lot of polish, and are a bit to combat heavy for my taste. But I do think they're the first glimpse of how good upcoming modules might become, and they're fairly lengthy (I guess somewhere around 6-10 hours). I think both will have sequels as well.

I think the first *really* good mod will probably be Purgatorio, which is planned to be released sometime in July I think. But there are more promising projects in the works as well, though they seem to be more secretive about themselves than Purgatorio.
 

Texas Red

Whiner
Joined
Sep 9, 2006
Messages
7,044
Baphomet said:
I think it was a year after NWN's release before we saw some truly good mods. I'm taking a look at the NWVault in November.

So you are going to skip the first part of the Planescape trilogy?
 

Starwars

Arcane
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For anyone thinking of buying at this stage, it'd probably be a good idea to wait until after the expansion is released. Perhaps they'll make a bundle deal on them, and hopefully the expansion will be better than the main campaign.
And hopefully a few good modules will be released during the summer.
 

aboyd

Liturgist
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Oct 28, 2004
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USA
Sorry for necromancy, but I just played another module. My first time doing NWN2 in a month. I played The Birthday, which others here have mentioned.

It took me about 3 hours to complete. Three things bothered me:

1. The PC in the game will be auto-leveled to 5, but (as a human) just turned 18, still lives with the parents, and has no equipment or money. Very hard to make sense of that.

2. The trees. Very hard to navigate. I ended up doing a top-down view, pulled back as far as possible.

3. The talk of fairy-tales such as Cinderella really pulled me out of the game. If the developer had made a fairy-tale story LIKE the Grimm Brothers fairy tales, that would have been great. But to actually refer to a bunch of fairy tales that are non D&D based, that seemed weird.

Three things were great about it, too:

1. The module levels you up. No need to do it beforehand.

2. The story took a VERY uncomfortable turn in the last part (in a good way). I really felt caught by a fairy-tale-ish dilemma.

3. My cleric kicked butt. I gave him the animal domain and sun domain, which worked out (too) great. His animal companion did most of the fighting (important in a module with scarce loot), and my searing heat or whatever that 2nd-level sun spell is took out some of the endgame critters very quickly. Probably quicker than the developer planned for.

Traditionally weaker characters such as wizards would probably have a not-easy time with a couple of the battles. It seems geared toward fighters. But lots of the Codex members say that NWN 2 is too easy, so perhaps taking a wizard would be the way to spice up the challenge.

Anyway, it's a good module. I like it a lot. Using my old rating system, I guess I'd put it at an 8 out of 10.
 

Lumpy

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Sep 11, 2005
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aboyd said:
1. The PC in the game will be auto-leveled to 5, but (as a human) just turned 18, still lives with the parents, and has no equipment or money. Very hard to make sense of that.
Would that be level 5 as an Internet Flame Warrior? Because that certainly fits the description.
 

aboyd

Liturgist
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Oct 28, 2004
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843
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I thought it was "this summer." So they've still got a couple of months.
 

Lumpy

Arcane
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Sep 11, 2005
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It's been in internal beta for about a month, and it should enter public beta pretty soon.
 
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Feb 19, 2005
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Strap Yourselves In Codex+ Now Streaming!
Posted 1 or 2 days ago by MLMarkland on our very own forums:

Ha! Indeed. We're still working, still making progress. We've got the first 12-15 hours in pretty good shape right now. It's just a matter of time before we'll have a full progression that is relatively bug free, and then we'll do the publicclosedbeta dance, fix everything that is discovered and it'll be ready to go. Come hell or high water we're releasing Purgatorio no latter than a fully year after we started planning and pre-production (September 12, 2007-September 12, 2008). That's our drop dead date. The module will be released by or on that date no matter what. I am still optimistic that we can beat that date.
 

Roz

Novice
Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
1
Location
Tennessee
As of right now September is the mark we're aiming for.

Right now we're compiling resources, finishing up the writing, and quality controlling the module.

All in all, we've had to push back, but the final result will be well worth the wait.
 

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
I've just finished playing "The Pirate Island" (part one of three) and really enjoyed it. It's set in the Caribbean, you start as a child helping at a tavern, then you're a deck hand and finally you can choose whether to take the rogue or buccaneer class. The story, while a bit cliche, is written very well and the mod has some quite original ideas. You frequently have to make a choice in the dialogue, I'll certainly replay the mod sometime to check the options I didn't take. Also, I haven't figured out how to do some things, the mod isn't exactly a cakewalk. Nice. The writing, as I said, is really good and conveys the atmosphere of harsh piratical reality pretty well, in consequence the mod had to be officially "for adults only". Looking forward to play the second part.

It's by Studio Sarmatia, the same guys who made the (very good) Devil in the Stone mod for NWN1. And, yeah, it's in Polish only and is available for all registered users of the Polish version of NWN2 from CDProjekt's site. That's quality support :D
 

Starwars

Arcane
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Jan 31, 2007
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Sweden
Purgatorio in September?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You evil people you!

Dangit, Pirate Island sounds like fun. Do you know if there are any plans on translating in to English?
 

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
I haven't heard any. With that kind of language (not only good writing per se, but also the pirate lingo etc), it would take a pro to do this properly.
 

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