Review Tiny text and loading, downs in an otherwise fun SoZ

[Silellak]

"The only aspect of spirit-eating the casual WoWing crowd was able to grasp was that it prevented you from resting your party after every battle; essentially recharging all of your spells and hit points. This made killing shit and finding loot harder, which made them sad."

Fixed.

 

[Volourn]

SOZ is shit. Bring back IWD, POR, and TOEE.

 

[Anthony Davis]

SOZ is THE shit. Just like IWD, POR, and TOEE.

FTFY



Ah, just messin' with ya.

 

[Volourn]

L0L

FTFY = Fuck that fuck you? Sweet.

I'm gonna have to use that. Thanks for adding more lingo to my arsenal.

More seriously, I'm just ranting 'cause of how hugely dissapointed in SOZ...

People cry about how tough the wyverns ar ebut I just don't see it...

 

[Warden]

When will the bonus areas be released?

 

[Dorf]

I was playing MotB a few months ago but I fell out of it. Not sure exactly why but when I look back on it the game was getting more and more tedious, and one of the reasons I think I stopped playing was the spirit meter thing. To me it just got to be really annoying to manage it. Let me explain...

In NWN II my combat strategy was to let my melee guys operate on AI and I would sit back and manage my spell casters and a from time to time special items etc... But with MotB I had to more often than not micro manage my main character (because he is a barbarian) so that he could do his special spirit commands to drain power from people that were just about to die. I mean, it was annoying to sit there and watch the health of every monster he faced and waited until they got below 25%... then I would freeze the game and select my char and select to the special to drain the soul... After while it just got to be annoying. I was tired of micro managing it all the time since it seemed like it constantly drained quickly.

I might go back and play it some more when I get tired of playing L4D since I like a good story. I just don't like my character being cursed with something I have no choice over and then I am forced to micro-manage some spirit gauge.

Dorf

 

[Anthony Davis]

L0L

FTFY = Fuck that fuck you? Sweet.

I'm gonna have to use that. Thanks for adding more lingo to my arsenal.

More seriously, I'm just ranting 'cause of how hugely dissapointed in SOZ...

People cry about how tough the wyverns ar ebut I just don't see it...

Fixed That For You

...not that your response is bad, hahaha.

 

[Texas Red]

I have to agree with Volly on this. Even the 9 encounters, like wyverns, are quite effortless. I have, however, run in to places where I had to run away from or barely made it.

When will you reply to my thread in GD, Vol?

 

[Silellak]

I have to agree with Volly on this. Even the 9 encounters, like wyverns, are quite effortless. I have, however, run in to places where I had to run away from or barely made it.

When will you reply to my thread in GD, Vol?

The battle against the Yuan-Ti in the ruined temple on Hardcore difficulty was the most fun I've had in an RPG fight in a long, long time.

 

[Texas Red]

I have to agree with Volly on this. Even the 9 encounters, like wyverns, are quite effortless. I have, however, run in to places where I had to run away from or barely made it.

When will you reply to my thread in GD, Vol?

The battle against the Yuan-Ti in the ruined temple on Hardcore difficulty was the most fun I've had in an RPG fight in a long, long time.

Concur. I wandered in to an cave full of ogres and barely managed to survive, with every character on the verge of dying. Good fun. But despite this I'd still favor MotB like long conversations with interesting companions like One of Many.

 

[Silellak]

I have to agree with Volly on this. Even the 9 encounters, like wyverns, are quite effortless. I have, however, run in to places where I had to run away from or barely made it.

When will you reply to my thread in GD, Vol?

The battle against the Yuan-Ti in the ruined temple on Hardcore difficulty was the most fun I've had in an RPG fight in a long, long time.

Concur. I wandered in to an cave full of ogres and barely managed to survive, with every character on the verge of dying. Good fun. But despite this I'd still favor MotB like long conversations with interesting companions like One of Many.

I don't necessarily disagree. In general, I tend to rank "combat" as pretty low on my priority list for good RPGs. It'd be hard to consider Ultima 7 my favorite game if I cared all that much about good combat. In fact, I was never a big fan of the combat-heavy nature of IWD.

SoZ is fun in the same way I'd find a game like Pirates! fun, with the added bonus of D&D combat, skill checks, dialogues, actual NPCs, more "quests", and a somewhat better storyline. If I were rating SoZ as purely an RPG, I'm sure it'd be right down there with NWN1 OC on my list. Instead, it's at least on fun factor, it's definitely below MotB and the Witcher, but somewhere above IWD.

I'm not sure why I consider it so analogous to Pirates! rather than other RPGs. I blame the "Retire Whenever" button for putting the initial thought into my head.

 

[Volourn]

"Fixed That For You

...not that your response is bad, hahaha."

heh. posting on the Codex makes me loook for foul language even when it doens't exist.

 

[flushfire]

"If you go for total control, you're constantly pausing the action to wrangle with an interface geared for looking after just one character. The pull-down menu that never worked smoothly for the original Neverwinter Nights 2 is far worse when dealing with at least four characters."

oh of course, you didn't control party members in the OC, only your main.

with little tweaking the party AI actually works a little better this time. ranged attackers will try to distance themselves from enemies engaging them in melee. and overkill casting mode can easily be turned off for the whole party with one click, just like before.

 

[Silellak]

"If you go for total control, you're constantly pausing the action to wrangle with an interface geared for looking after just one character. The pull-down menu that never worked smoothly for the original Neverwinter Nights 2 is far worse when dealing with at least four characters."

oh of course, you didn't control party members in the OC, only your main.

with little tweaking the party AI actually works a little better this time. ranged attackers will try to distance themselves from enemies engaging them in melee. and overkill casting mode can easily be turned off for the whole party with one click, just like before.

More importantly, who the Hell uses the pull-down menu when manually controlling their characters? What would they use it for?

Spells? Fast cast menu.
Feats? 9 different hotbars.

If you have to use the right-click menu for something in combat, you either:

1. Are doing something incredibly specific for a specific fight
2. Have no idea how to play

 

[Texas Red]

Just got to the Sword Coast and the game improved tremendously. I can see myself playing SoZ over and over again.

 

[DemonKing]

I've never liked the NWN2 engine with regards to combat - if they could have fixed that one aspect the whole series would have been a lot better.

As it stands, it's too fast moving and the camera too restrictive to be very tactical.

I've only played a bit of SoZ so far, but I'm quite enjoying it.

 

[Volourn]

"Just got to the Sword Coast and the game improved tremendously."

Yeah.. like all games I happen to dislike, it magically improves 5 minutes after the spot I quit. L0L

The idea of SOZ is awesome. Really is. The implementation not so much.. And, I love the Aurora (update or otherwise) Gameplay Engine so I should be loving this more than everyone else...

 

[notnats]

Holy crap Obsidian should've used MUTHAFUCKIN' HUGE 1/4 SCREEN SIZE CONSOLE TEXT because SoZ text is too small for those blind console 'tards.

Yeah, god forbid should the font size be adjustable, that would be so consolish, oh wait...

NWN1's text is much smaller than NWN2's text btw. And that wasn't a problem for them.

What was the max resolution for NWN1 again?

 

[Jaime Lannister]

What was the max resolution for NWN1 again?

It's your native monitor resolution. It is a 3D game, after all.

 

[Disconnected]

NWN1's text is much smaller than NWN2's text btw. And that wasn't a problem for them.

Yes it was. It was less of a problem since screen resolutions were lower and many gamers still used CRTs, but it was a fucking huge problem. Especially since the game was even more resource intensive when using AA, than when running higher resolutions. The minuscule fonts made PW play almost as effective a headache inducer as a sledgehammer.

That people in the mean time have switched to panels with native resolutions much higher than 800x600, and a great many of them much higher than 1024x768, just compounds the problem. Increasing the fonts by 2 points does not offset the increased resolutions, and with panels, especially the shitty panels most people use, going below native res isn't an option.

It's ironic as hell you compare it to console UIs as if that would somehow make matters worse. It wouldn't. Console UIs tend to suck on PC because they're too large and because they bury functions within functions. But mate, it's a hell of a lot better to have a legible UI than one you can't fucking see. If you absolutely have to fuck it up, better make it too large than too small. And as for the burying shit, it's a crime NWN2 is as guilty of as any shitty console interface.

That NWN2 also opted for ultra-busy, minuscule icons for items and spells, requiring the player to learn something loathsomely similar to the Chinese alphabet, seriously doesn't help things either. Fuck, the NWN2 UI is like a classic run-through of everything you shouldn't ever do with a UI.

Obs next time hire a fucking fern to design your UI. I know it won't do much of a job, but at least then you can go "But Disconnected said we should" instead of the utterly fucking retarded: "Of course people who have the cutting edge gaming rigs required to run the game don't use 14" CRTs, but we're so fucking dumb we'll design the UI for 14" CRTs anyway. Don't you just want to dropkick us?"

Also, before you go looking for a nice fern, kindly post a sticky with the following for your janitor:

"Please fix:
The bug that, when right-clicking the party leader, sometimes disables the escape menu and makes it impossible to de-select the party leader.
The Alt-Tab bug that makes animations go wonky when returning to the game.
The Skymirror bug introduced in patch 1.21 that makes the game CTD when you're supposed to obtain a twig.
Thanks
- The guy who pays the guys financing your employer."

Thanks in advance.

Before you ask; I'm appealing to your janitor, because appealing to you lot is a fucking waste of time. Whether it's because you're inept or operate under the misconception that it doesn't affect the future of your company, I won't speculate.

And why did I just buy SoZ then? Because apparently I'm almost as short in the brain department as you Obsidianites. Or I'm a sucker for punishment. Either way, patch-patch-patch or I promise it won't happen again.

 

[Sovard]

Question? That had a period at the end of it.

 

[Shannow]

What was the max resolution for NWN1 again?

It's your native monitor resolution. It is a 3D game, after all.

Do you even play games? Or do you just post shit on the internet to make the other internet retards look less stupid? /rhetorical question


Nice rant, Disconnected. Don't agree with everything but sure was fun to read.

And as usual, TWD starts liking the game when it loses most of its attraction for me. I feel relieved.

I've never liked the NWN2 engine with regards to combat - if they could have fixed that one aspect the whole series would have been a lot better.

qft. Hell, even an auto-pause feature would have been a significant improvement.

 

[Elwro]

Just for this I should buy SoZ. The problem is that it will force me to go in society.

:D

 

[MetalCraze]

Goddamnit people, out of all problems nwn2 had font size is not the one.
I never had any problem with nwn1 or nwn2 fonts and my monitors never were huge wall panels either; and in 2002, when NWN1 came out, 17" were a norm. In fact NWN1's font isn't smaller than the one in Fallout - and somehow I never noticed people jumping out of the window just because Fallout is too small on the monitors that were hardly two times wider than two average cocks.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

I don't understand that, either. Perhaps you people just have bad eyesight? (Not that games should presume that people have good eyesight, though.)

SoZ cost me 20€. For hours of fun / € it was pretty good, and I might re-play it on hard difficulty.

I just hope OEI's next D&D game will be turn-based and have a fast, stable engine. Hoping it will be 2D is propably pushing it.