Review GameZone reviews MotB - 8.3

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment

<a href=http://www.gamezone.com>GameZone</a> has posted a <a href=http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r32283.htm>MotB review</a>, giving the game 8.3 (7.8 for gameplay), mentioning nothing about the choices, and implying that you need a PhD in DnD to play it.
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<blockquote>Mask of the Betrayer is not a starting point for D&D novices, or even those new to the NWN experience. If you don’t have a clue what you are doing, this game will eat you alive. It is better to work through the NWN 2 original campaign before moving on to Mask of the Betrayer. Yes, that sounds like a lot of work, but when you run into a game that is thoughtful in one regard, and immersive in another, you tend to want to savor the experience.</blockquote>Thank you for taking your time to write this incredibly thoughtful and helpful review.
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Edit: Almost missed this little gem:
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<blockquote>This is a truly solid and enjoyable expansion. It can be very hard on the player, but part of the magic of the NWN series is that it requires you to think about what you are doing.</blockquote>The magic of the NWN series? Really?
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPG Watch</A>

 

[MetalCraze]

Do people need to have low INT to be gaming journalists?

 

[inwoker]

Do people need to have low INT to be gaming journalists?

no.
absence of it.

 

[deuxhero]

Do people need to have low INT to be gaming journalists?

LTIC Contructs don't have Intelligence Wisdom Charisma or Endurence scores at all.

 

[Bluebottle]

I'd class myself as a DnD novice. My experience stretches as far as BG 1 and TOEE, both of which I never really spent that much time pouring over the machanics of. Never played PnP, and have never even seen a rule book.

I didn't have any trouble at all with MOTB, the only fights I really had to re-do were the Sprit Army, and the 3 Death Knights in Myrkul's (sp?) temple (which it turns out weren't required to progress). I have had some issue with the spirit meter now that I'm playing as an evil cleric, but that all comes down to me making silly mistakes (i.e. having my head up my arse), which (if my impressions are correct) are linked to game mechanics that don't reflect any specific elements of DnD.

 

[Jeff Graw]

I don't see anything wrong with the first statement. If you haven't played a D&D game before you aren't going to have an easy time with MoTB. You'll probably fail miserably at making a good level 18 player. I think recommending newbies to play the original game first is warranted. Besides, unlike that Eurogamer idiot he doesn't seem to spin that facet of the game into something negative.

The second comment though, yeesh. Has he played NWN at alll?

 

[kris]

I don't see anything wrong with the first statement. If you haven't played a D&D game before you aren't going to have an easy time with MoTB. You'll probably fail miserably at making a good level 18 player. I think recommending newbies to play the original game first is warranted. Besides, unlike that Eurogamer idiot he doesn't seem to spin that facet of the game into something negative.

Not that you need a really good build to be able to win most fights. But really, why should the RPG genre be the only one where players don't need to learn something at all? Even in the most simple FPS will it take a player a long time just to get hold of the controls.

 

[Jeff Graw]

I don't see anything wrong with the first statement. If you haven't played a D&D game before you aren't going to have an easy time with MoTB. You'll probably fail miserably at making a good level 18 player. I think recommending newbies to play the original game first is warranted. Besides, unlike that Eurogamer idiot he doesn't seem to spin that facet of the game into something negative.

Not that you need a really good build to be able to win most fights. But really, why should the RPG genre be the only one where players don't need to learn something at all? Even in the most simple FPS will it take a player a long time just to get hold of the controls.

I'd say it's a lot harder to learn the controls for an FPS than the mechanics for an RPG or strategy game. However, reviews just assume that everyone's played an FPS, and once you've played one FPS you know how to play them all.

Sometimes I wish everyone was forced to learn a game like Star Fleet 2. After going through the 100-some pages of required reading to play the game a couple times I doubt they'd ever complain about steep learning curves again. Heck, after I played SF2 it seemed that new games were a thousand times easier to learn.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Oh the "you need to be a DnD expert to play this game argument" again. The mind boggles. Since and including BG 1 , I cant remember a single DnD game that required you to "learn" the rules besides some basic things.

I mean wtf, whats so complicated about it? The lower (and now the higher) your armor class, the better. The more UBER epic + n your weapon, the better. If you have a melee fighter, select him, click on Enemy, makes your little dude kill enemy. You can use some special attacks or feats if you wish additionaly, but mostly theyre useless.

If youre character is any kind of magician in the widest sense, click on spell of universal nuclear mass vapouration of total destruction, select enemy, and watch enemy die.

OMFG ITZ ROCKET SCIENCE!

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't see anything wrong with the first statement. If you haven't played a D&D game before you aren't going to have an easy time with MoTB.

Why not?

You'll probably fail miserably at making a good level 18 player.

What's a good level 18 player?

I'd say making a decent Diablo 2 character is much more complicated than creating a NWN or MotB character. You pick a class, assuming you're smart enough to do that, anything after is being suggested (class configuration) or recommended. Since the game isn't difficult, you can't lose here. What would be an example of a wrong choice?

 

[ricolikesrice]

WoW combat is rocket science compared to NWN2 combat, yet 9 million play it........ somehow the concept of unchallenging Molyneux-like-1-button combat doesnt compute when the most succesfull PC game ever actually requires you to get half a clue about playing your class and mastering more than 6 buttons, with the more - the "better" you become.

not saying WoW is terribly hard, nor saying that there isnt a shitload of morons among wow-players........ however seriously, as much as i loved MOTB for all the other reasons and hate WoW for yet a shitload of other reasons as well......... in terms of combat WOW >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NWN2

so if you have troubles with NWN2 s char system / combat, there s at least 9 million people above you in the "common sense" food chain.

 

[Jeff Graw]

I'd say making a decent Diablo 2 character is much more complicated than creating a NWN or MotB character. You pick a class, assuming you're smart enough to do that, anything after is being suggested (class configuration) or recommended. Since the game isn't difficult, you can't lose here. What would be an example of a wrong choice?

You've got a point, although I'm guessing most people wouldn't use the recommended button as people generally like to have a hand in character creation. I guess a poorly thought out level 18 character could probably do ok if you set the difficulty lower as well. However, I really don't see a complete newbie being able to play MoTB unless they at least play the NWN2 tutorial section in order to get a feel for the interface.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I think that you're confusing newbies with idiots. The interface is point and click. Experimenting with buttons a bit (Hmm, I wonder what right click and hold does?) and a bit of manual reading (it's an ancient art these days) will provide more knowledge than you can handle.

Compare this with managing memory in DOS. Now that was a puzzle.

Install a game, type a command to start it.

Worst words ever - NOT ENOUGH CONVENTIONAL MEMORY ASSHOLE!

History lesson: Conventional memory is the first 640 KB of your PC's memory. It was used by all kinda drivers and programs, so if a game required 596 KB and your PC had only 585KB available, you had to play a game of skills and wit called memory management. To make things more confusing you had Expanded Memory, Extended Memory, Upper Memory Blocks, and other stuff.

Now that was a real puzzle. Comparing to it, making a decent MotB character is something a 5-year old can figure out.

 

[Jeff Graw]

I think that you're confusing newbies with idiots.

I hate to admit it, but you're right. I've let my expectations for people's intelligence drop over the years.

 

[Lumpy]

I'd say making a decent Diablo 2 character is much more complicated than creating a NWN or MotB character. You pick a class, assuming you're smart enough to do that, anything after is being suggested (class configuration) or recommended. Since the game isn't difficult, you can't lose here. What would be an example of a wrong choice?

You've got a point, although I'm guessing most people wouldn't use the recommended button as people generally like to have a hand in character creation. I guess a poorly thought out level 18 character could probably do ok if you set the difficulty lower as well. However, I really don't see a complete newbie being able to play MoTB unless they at least play the NWN2 tutorial section in order to get a feel for the interface.

I'm a complete newbie more or less - I've only played PST and BG2 before, both easy games. And the worse I've had to do, or Hardcore level, was to repeat some fights 3 or 4 times. Nothing impossible.

 

[pug987]

Compare this with managing memory in DOS. Now that was a puzzle.

Install a game, type a command to start it.

Worst words ever - NOT ENOUGH CONVENTIONAL MEMORY ASSHOLE!

History lesson: Conventional memory is the first 640 KB of your PC's memory. It was used by all kinda drivers and programs, so if a game required 596 KB and your PC had only 585KB available, you had to play a game of skills and wit called memory management. To make things more confusing you had Expanded Memory, Extended Memory, Upper Memory Blocks, and other stuff.

Now that was a real puzzle. Comparing to it, making a decent MotB character is something a 5-year old can figure out.

I remember I used to make boot disks so that no extra programs were loaded at startup. It was somewhat easier and less dangerous than messing with autoexec.bat and config.sys on my hardrive.

As for how difficult MotB is for DnD newbies there's a big downside in today's games compaired with BG1 and 2. The BG games had an 120 page manual each. I had never even heard of DnD when I played BG1 but reading the detailed manual was enough to know exactly how to make and play the character I liked. Today manuals are just too small and only offer the most basic information.
On the other hand NWN2 and MotB are way easier than BG1 and 2 and it's much more difficult to screw up at character creation. The other thing is that nobody reads manuals anymore and that's a shame. Imagine playing starcraft without having read the 60 pages backstory in the manual. You can still play the campaign but you'll have missed so much.

 

[Volourn]

"BG2 before, both easy games"

Easier compared to what?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Compared to dealing with you, Volly. Duh!

 

[roshan]

I'd say making a decent Diablo 2 character is much more complicated than creating a NWN or MotB character. You pick a class, assuming you're smart enough to do that, anything after is being suggested (class configuration) or recommended. Since the game isn't difficult, you can't lose here. What would be an example of a wrong choice?

You've got a point, although I'm guessing most people wouldn't use the recommended button as people generally like to have a hand in character creation. I guess a poorly thought out level 18 character could probably do ok if you set the difficulty lower as well. However, I really don't see a complete newbie being able to play MoTB unless they at least play the NWN2 tutorial section in order to get a feel for the interface.

Wouldnt someone who wants to have a hand in character creation also be interested in figuring out how to create a decent character?

 

[Solaris]

I would class myself as a D&D newbie when I first picked up NWN2. I knew what D&D was but never cared to play any of the games properly (board games or PC). But honestly, NWN2 wasn't that hard to work out. I didn't go the 'recommended' route either...took my time to read up a bit on the classes, feats etc. It aint that fucking hard, but I guess these days a lot of people just can't be arsed to do such things it seems.So no excuse really, just click the recommend button, jeez

Someone mentioned WoW. I'd agree that it can be considered more challenging, but only in the sense that it takes a shitload of time to get to a point where you can see the results of your build's balance etc. I would hazzard a guess that 90% of the WoW players don't really give a shit about racking their brains to get an uber build. I think they play it for all sorts of other reasons. Guild Wars is another game that looks simple on the surface compared to say NWN2 but PvP build permutations and even PvE party setups are almost a science in their own right (even with the limited 8 slot skillbar)...etc, etc. But those games are accessible immediately to the masses coz of the simplistic hand holding that is available. Only real hardcore players would number crunch for days on end working out new and better builds........ oh wait, doesn't that sound like D&D too?

My point is - most rpgs of this nature (stat based) can be as easy or complicated as you want them to be.

 

[Volourn]

"Compared to dealing with you, Volly. Duh!"

Ha!