Interview Storms of Zehir interview @ Iron Tower

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir

Vince D. Weller (thankfully, not his real name) has <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=699.0">interviewed Tony Evans and Kevin Saunders about Storm of Zehir</a>:
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<blockquote><b>2. The design of the game is very close to PnP DnD games, which, ironically, is very different from computer DnD games where everything is epic, every temple is a Taj Mahal, and every dungeon is bigger than the Undermountain. Naturally, that led to some disappointments. What are you thoughts on that?</b>
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Tony Evans: Storm of Zehir is a very polarizing game. Many people seem to either love it or hate it. I think we could have done a better job of making sure people knew what to expect (or what not to expect) with Storm of Zehir. Despite all the interviews, previews and forum posts where we talked about the ways in which Storm of Zehir is very different from Neverwinter Nights 2 and Mask of the Betrayer, a lot of fans were surprised at how Storm of Zehir turned out. Many were pleasantly surprised and thought Storm of Zehir was refreshing and original, but others were disappointed because of all the ways in which it was not like Neverwinter Nights 2 or Mask of the Betrayer.
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Kevin Saunders: My thought on it is that Tony made a decision to make Storm of Zehir more like traditional D&D and I think it was a good decision for this game.
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<b>7. The game has a LOT of skill checks in dialogues, much more than one would expect from an exploration/combat/trading game. The trade off is that many are flavor-only. It seems that if you want to talk tough, you invest into Intimidate. If you want to sound like a reasonable guy, you invest into Diplomacy. In other words, you invest into developing a personality. Is it a new thing Obsidian is playing with? Any thoughts on SoZ skill checks?</b>
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Tony Evans: In the past, we’ve had to keep player responses as generic and homogenized as possible to avoid alienating players by giving them choices that they don’t want to choose. In Storm of Zehir, we opted to concentrate on providing a lot more responses based on skill, class, race, gender, deity, and ability scores so that players felt rewarded for customizing their party members. That approach allowed us to add more personality to certain special responses. For instance, if you are a Half-Orc Barbarian with an Intelligence of 8, we can assume that you will sometimes have something stupid to say.
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Kevin Saunders: All I have to say is that I ordered Tony and the designers to not have deity checks (I felt there are too many deities and it would create too much work) and they brazenly ignored me. George ignored my same demand for Mask of the Betrayer. Bastards.</blockquote>
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Bastards indeed.
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Thanks <b>Vault Dweller</b>!

 

[Helton]

My biggest complaint so far is the load times.

But also:
1. When I load a save on the OLM, or when I exit certain areas (like Crossroad Keep, for instance), my first character is always set to lead. He's a bard. I lead with my Rogue, and it really sucks that I get spotted and attacked (after a long load session), and have to load a random encounter -- and then load the OLM again -- all because the game doesn't pay attention to who I exit an area with, or who's in charge when I save.

and

2. Novelty choices are lame. The

Spoiler

Dragons in West Harbor

felt like a novelty choice. I get xp, extra trade good, extra quests, a party memer, horde of loot, two extra caravans, ect for doing it the "right" way. Seemingly, all I got for doing it the other way was the xp and a trade good which was more expensive. That's not a real choice.


I do generally like the game so far, though. There are a lot of cool, unique dialogue options as mentioned and some do indeed affect the quests.

 

[Volourn]

SOZZY

 

[OSK]

I wish it had been a standalone title with a bigger budget. If we knew how well the Overland Map was going to work out, this would have been a no brainer. We ended up with a full-game idea and an expansion-sized team to execute it. They did an awesome job, but the potential for a landmark RPG was there - we just didn't realize it soon enough.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Hopefully they learn from their mistakes and successes.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I wish it had been a standalone title with a bigger budget. If we knew how well the Overland Map was going to work out, this would have been a no brainer. We ended up with a full-game idea and an expansion-sized team to execute it. They did an awesome job, but the potential for a landmark RPG was there - we just didn't realize it soon enough.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Hopefully they learn from their mistakes and successes.

Well, at least they admit them and don't blame the audience for not understanding INNOVASHUNS and do a massive amount of self-congratulations.

 

[Shannow]

My biggest complaint so far is the load times.

But also:
1. When I load a save on the OLM, or when I exit certain areas (like Crossroad Keep, for instance), my first character is always set to lead. He's a bard. I lead with my Rogue, and it really sucks that I get spotted and attacked (after a long load session), and have to load a random encounter -- and then load the OLM again -- all because the game doesn't pay attention to who I exit an area with, or who's in charge when I save.

Yep. Bothered me a lot too. Problem occurs when a new modul is loaded. Some locations a separate modules, some belong to the OLM module...

The interview was okay, apart from the still ridiculous

It's also not fair that developers and publishers get no $ from used game sales

And VD was too friendly for my taste. I know that is part of videogame "journalism" but it is also one of the reasons for the " ", imho.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Kevin Saunders: All I have to say is that I ordered Tony and the designers to not have deity checks (I felt there are too many deities and it would create too much work) and they brazenly ignored me. George ignored my same demand for Mask of the Betrayer. Bastards.

So, uh... what deity checks have you guys found?
Question applies to MotB too. From what I recall, followers of Kelemvor didn't even get checks when talking to Kelemvor.

 

[janjetina]

If you you chose Mystra as your deity, the witch in charge of selling equipment in Mulsantir would recognize you as a fellow Mystran.

 

[MetalCraze]

I think we could have done a better job of making sure people knew what to expect (or what not to expect) with Storm of Zehir.

Yeah you forgot to let people know that it will be a bland boring game with poor writing/voice-acting, cheap dialogues and terrible storyline.
Both IWDs did everything much better if we are to compare dungeon crawls.
Oh but IWDs didn't have a useless overland map where 99% of encounters are filled with yet another boring NWN2 combat.

But I know it's all because of my EPIC expectations for a game that won't suck so I don't understand how gimmick dialogue checks that lead to the same response/outcome anyway are a great innovashun.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

SoZ is good fun unless you're the Volourn type (and that doesn't quite exactly mean having high standards). The map transition thing annoyed the crap out of me, too, since my party leader was a buckle-swashing swashbuckler and I was using a barbarian/rogue, Conan style, for the overland map - the few encounters I was forced to fight happened because of that.

And they're right that the ideas in this expansion have got quite a bit of untapped potential - and by quite a bit, I mean a shitload.

 

[Nightjed]

i have the same problem with SOZ that i had with MOTB, the story is nice, the skill checks are great, the npcs are midly interesting but i just cant fucking stand the NWN2 engine, i hate every goddamn second of every goddamn battle, either get a new engine or license something decent like TOEE's engine or something.

You could make the best damn cake in the world but if you use shit to separate the layers the whole cake tastes like shit, get me ? SOZ and MOTB taste like shit, get rid of nwn allready

I cant play SOZ for more than 30 minutes beacause i start wanting to throw my computer out the window

 

[Kthan75]

Kevin Saunders: All I have to say is that I ordered Tony and the designers to not have deity checks (I felt there are too many deities and it would create too much work) and they brazenly ignored me. George ignored my same demand for Mask of the Betrayer. Bastards.

So, uh... what deity checks have you guys found?
Question applies to MotB too. From what I recall, followers of Kelemvor didn't even get checks when talking to Kelemvor.

Haven't found any in MOTB, but in SOZ, if you are a follower of Wuakeen you'll get some extra options in the temple in the city of NWN, when talking to the priestess.

 

[Micmu]

Yeah you forgot to let people know that it will be a bland boring game with poor writing/voice-acting, cheap dialogues and terrible storyline. Both IWDs did everything much better if we are to compare dungeon crawls.

None of the above are neccessary for a good dungeon crawler like... the DUNGEONS are.
And "dungeons" in SoZ are terrible. Basically, all locations are nothing but a small map; two or three rooms with 5 enemies! Wow! The only dungeon in the game was the snake temple, just before the end.
Now, add terrible loading times and annoying encounters together with terrible loading times and you have one sozzy piece of soz game.
It had a lot of cool things in it (checks, dialogue system) but, IMHO, all wasted.

 

[Starwars]

There are deity checks for Kelemvor in MotB, as well as for Illmater I believe. And Mystra, Mie'likki and (I think) Lurue. It doesn't really go through the entire game though, which is perhaps difficult to accomplish in a story-heavy game as MotB. And an expansion at that.

There are many deity checks in SoZ. Waukeen, Umberlee, Shar, Kelemvor, Tyr are some that I remember off the top of my head, but there are definetely more. But again, they are mostly flavour.

 

[Shannow]

Yeah you forgot to let people know that it will be a bland boring game with poor writing/voice-acting, cheap dialogues and terrible storyline. Both IWDs did everything much better if we are to compare dungeon crawls.

None of the above are neccessary for a good dungeon crawler like... the DUNGEONS are.

I think we could have done a better job of making sure people knew what to expect (or what not to expect) with Storm of Zehir.

And the druid cohort worshipped the Dinosaur god and had lots of extra dialogue. Presumably a pc would have had, too. I still dislike fluff options. They don't do anything for me. Lots of effort for something that doesn't do anything seems inefficient but then there are enough people who like them. Probably need help larping their characters...

 

[DriacKin]

Kevin Saunders: All I have to say is that I ordered Tony and the designers to not have deity checks (I felt there are too many deities and it would create too much work) and they brazenly ignored me. George ignored my same demand for Mask of the Betrayer. Bastards.

So, uh... what deity checks have you guys found?
Question applies to MotB too. From what I recall, followers of Kelemvor didn't even get checks when talking to Kelemvor.

Haven't found any in MOTB, but in SOZ, if you are a follower of Wuakeen you'll get some extra options in the temple in the city of NWN, when talking to the priestess.

In MotB, If you were a follower of Ilmater, you would get a few extra lines of dialogue with Kaelyn.

 

[MetalCraze]

Yeah you forgot to let people know that it will be a bland boring game with poor writing/voice-acting, cheap dialogues and terrible storyline. Both IWDs did everything much better if we are to compare dungeon crawls.

None of the above are neccessary for a good dungeon crawler like... the DUNGEONS are.
And "dungeons" in SoZ are terrible. Basically, all locations are nothing but a small map; two or three rooms with 5 enemies! Wow! The only dungeon in the game was the snake temple, just before the end.
Now, add terrible loading times and annoying encounters together with terrible loading times and you have one sozzy piece of soz game.
It had a lot of cool things in it (checks, dialogue system) but, IMHO, all wasted.

Well you see the game is very close to PnP DnD as the Codex authority stated - and as we all know PnP players will never tell their DM to GTFO if he will spam them with small copy-pasta dungeons that have nothing in them - so SoZ is very close to PnP ya

And the worst thing about all this is that Obsidian understood nothing. As you see their response was "players just didn't know what to expect" instead of "yeah we fucked up big time by doing a bland and empty game where everything was poor gimmick and we will get the maximum out of our ideas with big potential next time"

It isn't polarizing because it has polarizing ideas. It is polarizing because there are people who like quality and there are people who like shit pretending to have quality.

 

[Crichton]

I may be biased because I mod with NWN2 and hence love SoZ for the overland map and party dialogue. But wtf is with all the bitching about everything SoZ?

Skyway I can understand, he spends every waking hour playing games he hates, but the other complaints are just silly.

People can't stand playing NWN2 because of the combat model? How did these people get through the IE games?

People bitching about loading times? I have a good, but by no means state of the art machine and each loading screen takes about 10 sec. If you can't wait 10 sec, how could you have played any games back in the day? I can remember playing dos games as a kid where there was a half-second delay every time the blob party took a step and every time you wanted to save, you had to read a copy protection phrase. 10 sec loading times, get out the pitchforks and torches! Seriously.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

People bitching about loading times? I have a good, but by no means state of the art machine and each loading screen takes about 10 sec. If you can't wait 10 sec, how could you have played any games back in the day? I can remember playing dos games as a kid where there was a half-second delay every time the blob party took a step and every time you wanted to save, you had to read a copy protection phrase. 10 sec loading times, get out the pitchforks and torches! Seriously.

Yeah, kids these days. I remember playing Deus Ex on a 400mhz AMD, Voodoo 2 8 MB accelerator (yep, it required a stand-alone gfx card to work) and fuckin' 48 MB RAM rig. Also Max Payne. And many, many other games that the system was sub-par for (still, it also goes to say something about engine optimization - nowadays most developers don't seem to give a rat's ass about that) But, the hugest loading times I got was when playing Vampire: Bloodlines with a comp that had meager 256 mb RAM - transition to a hub location took up to several minutes and got longer overtime, since the game's such a fucking resource hog. And played NWN2 on that same computer, but having added another 256 mb RAM - the loading times were acceptable. Didn't yet play SoZ on that one since I've got a high-end laptop now, but damn, it sure as hell takes less than 10 seconds most of the time. If you're bored during the loading times, you can wank and learn zen erection maintenance - try to keep your boner up until the next loading screens appears, and so on until you beat the game or off.

 

[Shannow]

People can't stand playing NWN2 because of the combat model? How did these people get through the IE games?

People bitching about loading times? I have a good, but by no means state of the art machine and each loading screen takes about 10 sec. If you can't wait 10 sec, how could you have played any games back in the day? I can remember playing dos games as a kid where there was a half-second delay every time the blob party took a step and every time you wanted to save, you had to read a copy protection phrase. 10 sec loading times, get out the pitchforks and torches! Seriously.

Gameplay feels very different. I blame free 3D cameras, no auto-pause and an engine that can be demanding - especially in combat - even for rather high-end systems.

On loading times: Not everybody played "back in the day" and why are you ignoring the time in between when loading times where < 5 seconds? Not to mention that, even if we take your exageratedly low estimate of loading times around 10 seconds, you have 20 seconds of loading time for a random encounter that will usually be resolved in under a minute... That's not Mark of Chaos "load for 3 minutes to duel for 50 seconds" bad, but it certainly isn't "load 3 minutes" play through most of the game" Gothic or "load for under 5 seconds an explore the region for 10 - 30 minutes" BG good.

Pointing fingers and saying:"See, that was worse then", doesn't absolve the game from criticism. I realise that part of the "problem" is the NWN-series' modular set-up, which of course makes the mod community possible. Doesn't change the fact that many longish loading times intespersed with rather short periods of exploration are "suboptimal".

 

[Volourn]

"so SoZ is very close to PnP ya"

I know youa re being sarcastic; but no way. SOZ has very little in common with pnp. Pnp is fun. SOZ is not.


"But wtf is with all the bitching about everything SoZ?"

SOZ is one of the worst games - RPG or otherwise - that I ahev ever played, and that's coming from someone who loves NWN series (both NWN1 and NWN2).

SOZ is simply SOZZY.

 

[Helton]

Yes, exactly. I doubt loading times are any longer than in NWN2 or MotB. Why would they be?

Yet in both of those games I often got to play for long stretches of time before the next loading screen. Sure, there were plenty of instances when you'd pop into a shop for a minute and then back out -- but then there were also times you spent half an hour running around the dock district or having conversations with Kaelyn.

In SoZ, on the other hand, I doubt I've ever gone half an hour without a loading screen -- and I usually don't go five minutes.

And as much I as appreciate the OLM map, it is clearly at fault for this.

And I'm looking at load times more around 20 to 40 seconds.

 

[Nael]

If you you chose Mystra as your deity, the witch in charge of selling equipment in Mulsantir would recognize you as a fellow Mystran.

I believe Chauntea does as well with the leader of the 3 witches in Mulsantir.

 

[ricolikesrice]

worst cRPG since oblivion. no clue what the fuck is wrong with you people (or obsidian for releasing this piece of shit)

little CnC (less than even bioware games), bland/repeative/dull setting/quests/npcs, shit combat.

Whats next , an interview with GPG about the misunderstood milestone "Space Siege" ?

Guess shit stinks less if isnt from beth or bio for once.

 

[Jasede]

RPGs are more than C&C.