Preview NWN2 preview at GameDaily

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment

<a href=http://pc.gamedaily.com>GameDaily</a> has posted a <a href=http://pc.gamedaily.com/game/preview/?gameid=3511>preview</a> of <a href=http://www.atari.com/nwn2>Neverwinter Nights 2</a>. The reviewer had played <a href=http://www.lucasarts.com/games/swkotor_sithlords/>KOTOR 2</a>, and thus, he's very enthusiastic about NWN2.
<br>
<br>
<blockquote>The original Neverwinter Nights was developed by Bioware, so it's no surprise that this sequel, which is being handled by Obsidian, carries such a theme. <u>Similar to some of the other games in both team's catalogue, you're going to make numerous decisions that will not only shape who you become but the world around you</u>, because like it or not, you won't remain an average for very long. Raiders suddenly storm your village, and although you and your fellow kinsmen successfully defeat them, you come to the realization that your quaint and secluded town harbors a dark secret. It was once a battlefield that hosted a bloody conflict between the King of Shadows and the very forces of Neverwinter, but apparently, its conclusion is a mystery. So it appears that part of the reason why you begin your quest is to discover why these raiders were so interested in the land, and to also figure out the history of the land.
<br>
<br>
I don't know if you can actually kill your party members, but I do know that your decisions will impact the lives of others. In fact, during the course of the campaign you will make life and death decisions. Not sure if you can wipe out entire villages, but hundreds, maybe even thousands could die.</blockquote>Killing "hundreds, maybe even thousands" is, obviously, extremely cool, but not as cool as enslaving nations with necromancy.
<br>
<br>
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com/">Blues News</A>

 

[Naked_Lunch]

For fuck's sake, I thought they would just make the plot a sandbox where you would develop your character into a hero or villian or at least that's what they made it sound like in the previews. Now I come back from a nice vacation and I get this ancient evil shit thrown in my face.

This is probably how it's all gonna go down:

The raiders are probably interested in the land because deep underneath it lies the ancient Shadow Dungeon where the ancient weapon of evil power used by the King of Shadow rests undisturbed for centuries. BUT! It can only be used be the descendant of the ancient King of Shadows' lineage i.e. YOU. And then it'll become standard BioWare (And now Obsidian, apparently) schlock with the "suprise" twist (OMG! YOU ARE THE SECRET WEAPON!) and non-linear ending (Kill yourself and rid the world of the weapon or destroy the world and become the King of Shadows!).

Sounds fantastic.

 

[Vault Dweller]

For fuck's sake, I thought they would just make the plot a sandbox where you would develop your character into a hero or villian or at least that's what they made it sound like in the previews.

Yeah, right.

The raiders are probably interested in the land because deep underneath it lies the ancient Shadow Dungeon where the ancient weapon of evil power used by the King of Shadow rests undisturbed for centuries. BUT! It can only be used be the descendant of the ancient King of Shadows' lineage i.e. YOU. And then it'll become standard BioWare (And now Obsidian, apparently) schlock with the "suprise" twist (OMG! YOU ARE THE SECRET WEAPON!) and non-linear ending (Kill yourself and rid the world of the weapon or destroy the world and become the King of Shadows!).

You forgot "find 4 artifacts/maps/jedi masters/whatever in a totally non-linear manner" feature

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

You can hear the faint cries from Obsidian HQ now that the cat is out of the bag.

 

[Volourn]

"For fuck's sake, I thought they would just make the plot a sandbox where you would develop your character into a hero or villian or at least that's what they made it sound like in the previews. Now I come back from a nice vacation and I get this ancient evil shit thrown in my face."

You are fuckin' stupid. From the time the story was first shared, this was the basic plotline dumbass. In fcat, I've brought this up manya time in other Codex threads on NWN2. This is their complete butchering of familiars are my two biggest complaints about the game. The third thing is the lameass new 'base class'.

Other than that, NWN2 will be great! Well.. better than any new game Troika makes!


Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Base class? Enlighten me.

 

[Volourn]

You telling me after all the spamming of NWN2 previews, articles, and interviews you've posted here you somehow managed to miss it? Geez.. That's even worse than your inanne ability to suck the dick of a dead company.

Hahahaha!


P.S. If you noticed, I'm not gonna help enlighten your dumb ass ignorant self. Do research if you are gonna feed us news!!


Hahahahaha!!!

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

With all the mentions of dick sucking recently, perhaps we should change our site's tagline to something that speaks better of our oral fixation.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

You forgot "find 4 artifacts/maps/jedi masters/whatever in a totally non-linear manner" feature

No, you see, MCA is gonna take a page from Planescape and you have to find 4 of your limbs in order to complete the sacred Shadow Artifact. In the first portion of the game, you're in an ancient wheelchair powered by ancient Shadow magic.

So volourn is right about the base class, it being "Cripple".

 

[Jason]

The Cripple class gets the Sympathy perk so players can romance female NPCs and get kick-ass parking spots in front of dungeons.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I liked how Naked Lunch managed to combine the storylines of Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Neverwinter Nights into one very well organized clusterfuck. I wouldn't doubt that the story will bear some uncanny resemblence to NL's story, either.

 

[theverybigslayer]

"
Other than that, NWN2 will be great! Well.. better than any new game Troika makes!
Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Best post on rpgcodex :D

 

[Avin]

Base class? Enlighten me.

v is complaining about "warlock", an optional class presented in "complete arcane".

 

[Sammael]

The warlock is a great (if slightly underpowered) class. It's what the sorcerer should have been.

 

[Section8]

I'm curious about Warlocks, anyone care to enlighten us, or otherwise provide a link that does? I always thought the distinction between Wizards and Sorcerors was a pretty fine line, so is it drastically different?

 

[Sammael]

The warlock has a very limited set of spell-like abilities (instead of spells) called invocations that he can use an unlimited number of times per day. He begins play with eldritch blast, which is a ranged touch attack that does 1d6 damage (it goes up by level), and one least invocation. He can learn a total of 12 invocations by 20th level.

In the beginning, a warlock is slightly better off in a combat-oriented game than a sorcerer or wizard because he can blast all day long. However, as the levels go up, the wizard's and sorcerer's firepower increases to match that of the warlock. The warlock makes up for his lack of flexibility by gaining the ability to Take 10 on Use Magic Device checks. By level 10 or so, an optimized warlock can use any magic item, made for any class, with almost 100% chance of success.

In pure math terms, the warlock can't match the equivalent level fighter's damage output. On the other hand, he can (for example) turn invisible at will, fly all day long, summon swarms, turn his eldritch blast into a cone, channel it through a weapon, etc.

For CRPGs, the warlock is an infinitely better choice than either a wizard or a sorcerer. He doesn't need to rest to regain spells. He can use all scrolls, wands, staves, etc. found in the game. He can wear armor. He even has limited regeneration (fast healing) and damage reduction. Additionally, none of the warlock's stats have to be particularly high for the warlock to be effective.

Here's a warlock I played for about 12 sessions in PnP game:

Myron LaCrylle
Male Illuskan Human Warlock 10
CN Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +3 Senses Listen -1, Spot -1
Languages Auran, Chondathan, Common, Elven, Illuskan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AC 24, touch 13, flat-footed 21
hp 53 (10 HD) DR 2/cold iron
Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +8; resistances (cold 5, electricity 5)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speed 30 ft., fly 30 ft. (good)
Melee Morningstar +9/+4 (1d8+2)
Ranged Touch +10 (by invocation)
Base Attack +7 Grapple +8
Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft.
Attack Options Empowered eldritch blast 3/day, Maximized eldritch blast 3/day
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Invocations (CL 9th, 11th vs. SR) Detect magic, eldritch blast (5d6) (1), eldritch chain (4), eldritch spear (2), entropic warding (2), fell flight (3), see the unseen (2), walk unseen
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abilities Str 10 (12), Dex 14 (16), Con 12 (14), Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 16
AC Bonuses +8 armor, +3 Dex, +3 natural
SQ deceive item, fiendish resilience 1 (1/day—fast healing 1 for 2 minutes)
Skills Bluff +12, Concentration +12, Diplomacy +7, Intimidate +15, Knowledge (arcana) +7, Knowledge (The North) +3, Knowledge (religion) +5, Sense Motive +6, Speak Language (Draconic), Spellcraft +9 (+11 to decipher scrolls), Use Magic Device +15 (+17 related to scrolls)
Region Silverymoon
Feats Light Armor Proficiency (B), Empower Spell-Like Ability (eldritch blast), Maximize Spell-Like Ability (eldritch blast), Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Simple Weapon Proficiency (B), Spell Penetration
Possessions +3 mithral breastplate (13,200 gp), gauntlets of ogre power (4,000 gp), boots of dexterity +2 (4,000 gp), amulet of health +2 (4,000 gp), ring of resistance +2 (4,000 gp), travel cloak (1,200 gp), +1 morningstar (2,308 gp), wand of cure light wounds (750 gp), ring of animal friendship (10,800 gp), charm animal DC 14), ring of natural armor +3 (18,000 gp), scrolls (teleport (DC 29), summon monster IV (DC 27), dominate person (DC 29), mass suggestion (DC 31))

 

[Vault Dweller]

Base class? Enlighten me.

v is complaining about "warlock", an optional class presented in "complete arcane".

That I know of. I thought it was something else, like a new "neutral" class for a starting hero or something.

 

[trystero]

(Kill yourself and rid the world of the weapon or destroy the world and become the King of Shadows!).

Corporate would never allow the option to kill yourself.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Warlocks sound like a very versatile, and interesting class. They might not be as powerful as other classes in certain situations but their strength definitely lies in their ability to adapt.

 

[Jason]

I rarely play "pure" spellcasters like wizards so the warlock sounds like fun to me. What's the problem with it?

 

[Sol Invictus]

The hardcore players don't like jack-of-all-trades, hybrid or new classes. It's the same with any game that starts off with 'hardcore' classes based around the 'holy trinity' of damage dealing/tanking/healing. Who cares what they think, heh. If they had their way, classes like Monte Cook's Ranger and the Paladin wouldn't be around.

 

[obediah]

The warlock is just the logical progression of dumbed down magic brought to us by the mana potion. After reading developers commenting on how playing a mage was too hard in BG, and the complete (and utterly obvious) suckfest playing a wizard in SP NWN was, I'm not surprised at all.

The entire attraction of playing a PNP wizard was that you were weak, vulnerable and a hindrance to your party 90% of the time - but 10% of the time you were a complete badass and pulled of the impossible to save their asses. But it takes brains - to pick which spells to memorize and to pick when to use them.

The warlock removes all that, and introduces the jack-of-all-trades that is heresy to DND but just the thing for Never-Winter-Diablos gameplay. Magic is reduced from doing the impossible to doing the same thing as a fighter but with different animations - replace arrow with firebolt and sword with lightning. Maybe throw in some MMORPG style buffs, debuffs, roots, and AOE spells to make the class feel special - it may add a bit of complexity to combat, but it adds nothing to magic as a system.

As a kid, I did some pretty nasty fucking things to D&D ("You slay the kobold, he has a vorpal sword and 30000 pp"), but reducing the wizard class to running in circles to stay out of the bosses reach while mashing the firebolt key for 30 minutes for teh win - damn. I can only assume the goatse guy is actuall gygax and one of the bioware guys is taking the picture.

 

[Sammael]

The entire attraction of playing a PNP wizard was that you were weak, vulnerable and a hindrance to your party 90% of the time

That can only be attractive to masochists. The true attraction of the wizard class has always been the flexibility - the knowledge that there is no problem, no matter how difficult, that a wizard can't solve provided he has access to his spellbooks and enough time to study them.

BTW, magic was never "doing the impossible" in D&D. If that was the case, then why the fuck were 99% of Gygax's player characters (and henchmen, and hirelings, and cohorts, and so on...) wizards? In D&D, magic is commonplace. Even more so in FR, and particularly in Eberron.

Hearing things like "heresy to DND" makes me shake my head in disbelief. Read the original Uneathed Arcana, for fuck's sake.

 

[Volourn]

Huh? Wizards are weak in pnp? WTF pnp game did you fuckin' morons play for fuck sakes? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

And, playing a wizard in NWN was, is, and always will be fun.

Wizard > then this no overrated and sucky class. It adds NOTHING new. NOTHING.

At worst, it plain old sucks. At best, it's a moderately solid PrC.

 

[kingcomrade]

I never could stand the sorceress class in D2. As a matter of fact, the only class I ever liked playing was the paladin, and in the original the sorceror was incredibly more powerful than either of the other classes.

edit: I see Volourn has declared himself the arbiter of what is fun and what isn't.