NWN 2 Impressions

[Skittles]

Neverwinter Nights 2, how I have wronged you!
For years I have snubbed you: “it’s not worth pirating,”
I cried in ignorance, blind to all your merits.
I remember how in years past your poxy prequel
Bored me to tears of rage and deep disappointment.
(Let no further mention be made of sex mods.)
The Codex convinced me, with a resounding ‘meh,’
That you might be worth it, in an age of dragons,
Popping moles, forced sex, and consolization.
A beacon you would be, monument on PC,
Of good, old RPGs, with tactics and stories.

A cruel lie that was! Of desperate searchers,
Yearning in misery for past halcyon days,
Blinded by Bethesda, butthurt by Bioware,
Was born this fantasy! Be deceived no more, bros!
Neverwinter Nights 2, original content,
Has its trash mobs galore, fought in real time with pause,
The lowest, derpiest of all combat systems.
Neverwinter Nights 2, tear-inducing content,
Has cities so sterile, you could eat food off them.
The devs took the city, and made it a dungeon!
Neverwinter Nights 2, wince-producing content,
Has writing so awful, this post reads like Milton.
Banal quests for MacGuffins, charaterization,
And flavor text so bad, I vomit what I ate
(In that above complaint, those of you following)!
Is it the bad AI, which makes me moan so loud?
Is it the mid-combat, fun-killing senselessness
Of spawning enemies next to my wizards? Why?
Neverwinter guardsmen can teleport through walls?
Is it the linear, colourless and bland
Dungeons filled with shit loot and five thousand enemies?
Is it the lame exploration, of two clearly marked rails?
Is it the bugs, killing invisible speakers,
Causing action to stop and quests to break forever?

No, my brethren! This is not it! It is ruination!
Neverwinter Nights 2, what other game could turn
Counter-insurgency, inter-planal travel,
Necromantic conspiracies spanning Sword Coast,
Inter-city politics, and memories of war
Into this Casavir, into these githyanki,
Into those feckless turds, Black Garius and co.?
Neverwinter Nights 2, what other game could turn
So many skills useless, so many feats broken,
So many builds stupid? Even spells are a chore.
Everything that could be, was turned from fun to dumb.

Ah, but what light breaks there? Through this comparison,
I can begin to see! The merits of the game,
And the point of this rant, now crest the horizon!
For a miserable, grey and rainy morning,
Can look so bright, after the shittiest of nights—
Neverwinter Nights 2, original content.
Rosy-cheeked Arcanum, your combat may suck hard,
Tedious as it is, but you have turn based mode!
Though it may be half-assed, it beats real time with pause,
When slogging through trash mobs—those fucking wolves and kites.
Knights of the Old Republic, your outstretched fingers tried
To move my heart to care about your characters.
Mostly you failed, but I liked the assassin bot.
He’s much cooler than these assholes in Faerûn.
Temple of Elemental Evil (name too long…),
Stay storyless, you’re awesome, don’t you change!
No writing is better, if your writer’s retarded.

The list goes on, but not my time, so let me say:
I have no god, not anymore. I’ve played that shit,
Neverwinter Nights 2, original content.
But despite its efforts, it taught me this nugget:
No game can be perfect, but most are better than
Neverwinter Nights 2, original content.
So make me a dragon, hawk me some console shit,
Give me access to some sweet digital poontang.
Neverwinter Nights 2, original content,
I wish I played you sooner, please accept my apology.
You have reinvented disappointment for me.
I still have hopes for Mask of the Betrayer, though.

I’ll play it after I download Dragon Age 2.

 

[Roguey]

That was amazing.

 

[SCO]

someone who never played NWN1 official campaign detected

 

[King Crispy]

Pretty good.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Good show OP.

I recently played through the OC and MotB again and noticed that the beginning of the game, up until you go to ammon jerros haven is like a completely different game. There isn't one interesting quest up until that moment, everything is just one drawn out fedex quest, with boring writing. Not that the rest of the game is much better, but when you get the the ruins of Arvahn or whatever, and you get to talk to the spirits of the people that created and fought the guardian there was a slight spark, as if the game was trying to become interesting. Same thing with Ammon Jerro and talking to the crystal dragon, all cool moments and characters that were stuck in a horrible piece of shit game with 99% filler combat and fedex quests. Looking back I am now more or less inclined to agree that at least the first half of the OC is horrible fucking shit. The rest is just shit, with the occasional cool thing thrown in. Also why the fuck did they squander the trial.

 

[octavius]

Were modders able to fix it?

 

[Excidium]

But is it art?

 

[Carrion]

I recently played through the OC and MotB again and noticed that the beginning of the game, up until you go to ammon jerros haven is like a completely different game. There isn't one interesting quest up until that moment, everything is just one drawn out fedex quest, with boring writing. Not that the rest of the game is much better, but when you get the the ruins of Arvahn or whatever, and you get to talk to the spirits of the people that created and fought the guardian there was a slight spark, as if the game was trying to become interesting. Same thing with Ammon Jerro and talking to the crystal dragon, all cool moments and characters that were stuck in a horrible piece of shit game with 99% filler combat and fedex quests. Looking back I am now more or less inclined to agree that at least the first half of the OC is horrible fucking shit. The rest is just shit, with the occasional cool thing thrown in. Also why the fuck did they squander the trial.

Yeah, the first half of the game or so is absolutely terrible and doesn't have a single original character or idea. You're forced to go through about a billion boring quests around the country just to get to the other side of a fucking gate. Things do get notably better in the second chapter and most of the quests from that point onwards are actually pretty good. There's also notably less filler combat in the later parts of the game, although I guess pretty much all combat is filler since there's little challenge to speak of in the game.

If you took the best parts of the NWN2 OC, you might actually have a pretty good 15-hour-long game. That is, if you can stand the combat. That didn't stop people from enjoying MotB, though.

 

[Majestic47]

Were modders able to fix it?

I cannot even recall a single mod I've played with the basic NWN2 ...eventually I gave up waiting and made space for other games in my harddisk. Skipping other stand alone packs completely until today's Steam Sales that is...might replay it when I'm free.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Majestic.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I didn't read that shit but I posted in this thread anyway.

I'm the only winner.

 

[Infinitron]

I liked that there were multiple factions of bad guys chasing you around in NWN2, who also fought each other. Black Garius and his flunkies, the Shadow Cultists he was only loosely allied with at first, the Githyanki, Ammon Jerro's demonic horde. It was cool that Ammon Jerro himself seemed to be the King of Shadows at first.

 

[janjetina]

That was the best post I've read on the Codex this year.

 

[J_C]

Nice OP, but shit in the same time. NWN2 wasn't as bad as the OP says.

 

[laclongquan]

Here, +5 Kodex Kool Kredit for ya, Skittles!

 

[Roguey]

@J_C - Yes it was.

I recently played through the OC and MotB again and noticed that the beginning of the game, up until you go to ammon jerros haven is like a completely different game. There isn't one interesting quest up until that moment, everything is just one drawn out fedex quest, with boring writing. Not that the rest of the game is much better, but when you get the the ruins of Arvahn or whatever, and you get to talk to the spirits of the people that created and fought the guardian there was a slight spark, as if the game was trying to become interesting. Same thing with Ammon Jerro and talking to the crystal dragon, all cool moments and characters that were stuck in a horrible piece of shit game with 99% filler combat and fedex quests. Looking back I am now more or less inclined to agree that at least the first half of the OC is horrible fucking shit. The rest is just shit, with the occasional cool thing thrown in. Also why the fuck did they squander the trial.

Anything good that came from Act 2 was from Ziets, Fenstermaker and Husges (keeps a low profile compared to the other two but he's a Black Isle veteran). Also from what I've observed, Act 3 is also near-total shit: Solo section, pushover fire giants, millions of undead, multiple scroll-gimmick fights, massive gimmick end-boss.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

'Scuse me, but what's the point of making verses if it's completely rhythmless?

 

[J_C]

@J_C - Yes it was.

IMO, it wasn't. If you guys think it was shit,well, that's too bad.

 

[Renegen]

I found NWN2 much better once I got the camera working.

 

[Eyeball]

Thanks for making this thread, NWN2 Platinum Edition is on sale on Steam right now for the price of a blowjob in Thailand and I almost got it. Then I remembered that I played it before and how utterly terrible it is, even for somebody like me who really, really liked NWN1.

I wanted to play MOTB, but then I read it's a continuation of the OC storyline, and fuck playing through that garbage trying to get to the supposedly competent writing of MOTB. So thank you for saving me five dollars, I can now afford more Thai blowjobs over the Christmas season.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Thanks for making this thread, NWN2 Platinum Edition is on sale on Steam right now for the price of a blowjob in Thailand and I almost got it. Then I remembered that I played it before and how utterly terrible it is, even for somebody like me who really, really liked NWN1.

I wanted to play MOTB, but then I read it's a continuation of the OC storyline, and fuck playing through that garbage trying to get to the supposedly competent writing of MOTB. So thank you for saving me five dollars, I can now afford more Thai blowjobs over the Christmas season.

You are not required to go through NWN2 to play MOTB.

 

[CappenVarra]

I approve of this message (OP)

 

[Esquilax]

Thanks for making this thread, NWN2 Platinum Edition is on sale on Steam right now for the price of a blowjob in Thailand and I almost got it. Then I remembered that I played it before and how utterly terrible it is, even for somebody like me who really, really liked NWN1.

I wanted to play MOTB, but then I read it's a continuation of the OC storyline, and fuck playing through that garbage trying to get to the supposedly competent writing of MOTB. So thank you for saving me five dollars, I can now afford more Thai blowjobs over the Christmas season.

I hate NWN2 as much as the OP did, but Mask of the Betrayer blew me the fuck away. It only provides a very loose continuation of the original storyline (i.e. there are some references, but it is isn`t necessary at all to play through the shitfest that is the OC in order to understand what`s going on in the expansion). Seriously, get it just for MotB - it has some flaws, but it`s a real treat for storyfags.

 

[racofer]

I found NWN2 much better once I got the camera working.

Something I never managed to achieve.

 

[TripJack]

why did you write all that stuff you could have just said that it was shit everyone here already knows why