Why all the NWN 2 hate?

[Renevent]

So...i joined the codex recently (i'm nobody's alt, btw!) cuz I was highly impressed with the quality of the reviews + finally saw a list of "top something games" featuring my beloved Baldur's Gate and Fallout on their rightful places. One thing still bothers me though: although saying that "the Codex hates NWN 2" is an unfair assessment, considering NWN 2 made it to the top 70, I still don't see why SO MANY say things like "Obsidian botched NWN 2". I can totally see why MotB gets all the love, since it's a lot more polished, but IMO OC is also pretty enjoyable.

My question is simple: NWN 2 features D&D 3.5 rules (which I personally think is the strongest D&D version, Pathfinder -> ), Forgotten Realms (best D&D campaign set), a pretty awesome crafting system (for all your power building needs), above-average NPCs, interesting enough plot, CASTLE (anyone remember how AD&D clearly states that you're supposed to get a castle at higher levels? ), intelligent usage of the new damage reduction mechanic, well, I could go on for hours.

But still...not much love for NWN 2's OC to be found on the Codex. I'm not going to change my mind about NWN 2, I've already beaten it and saw every single ending available. I am, however, curious as to why people thrash it. Were they expecting the Second Coming? Did they forget how NWN 1 OC was the biggest disappointment ever (Hordes was pretty good, though)? Was 2005 a year full of awesome D&D + Forgotten Realms games I am not aware of? Did people never bothered to play a patched version of the game (yeah, it WAS pretty buggy. I remember not seeing Neeshka's tail during my first and second playtrough)?

Well, sorry for the long post. I'm just gonna pray Tymora grants me some serious answers.

I really enjoyed both the OC and SoZ, MotB not so much since it felt much more story focused which I could give a rats ass about. Anyways I agree with you, I thought the game was fun for many of the same reasons you did. The thing about the castle is a great point and I don't know why more RPG's don't do stuff like that. I remember as a kid reading through some old D&D books and there were tons of rules around not just castles (building costs, walls ,etc) but also siege weapons and all sorts of stuff. I would absolutely love a RPG where all the gold you get from adventuring is put into a castle of your design, and having to defend it as well.

Oh never thought it was all that buggy either...even on release and after a few patches is pretty solid.

 

[Ulminati]

Why not just play community content straightaway? Or MotB?

That's another thing - and the real killing blow for NWN2 for me. There weren't nearly as many goo dmodules for NWN2. NWN1s mediocre OC was salvaged by tons and tons of entertaining player modules. The slightly fancier graphics and less user-friendly toolset in NWN2 meant we didn't have al the lovely multiplayer servers running custom worlds as we did in NWN1. Heck, you couldn't even stream worlds in NWN2. People had to have the entire module downloaded to join your server. Which made frequently updated persistent worlds a thing of the past.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

No, NWN1 OC is bland and boring and has no redeemable features. It's Russian shovelware levels of bad.

But that's all you've got isn't it. Yes, it's bland and pretty boring. Bland and pretty boring is better than shitty, because different people have different thresholds of what is or isn't boring. But we can all agree it's not as interesting as other cRPGs while still being able to understand how boring can be better than shitty.

 

[Angthoron]

That's another thing - and the real killing blow for NWN2 for me. There weren't nearly as many goo dmodules for NWN2. NWN1s mediocre OC was salvaged by tons and tons of entertaining player modules. The slightly fancier graphics and less user-friendly toolset in NWN2 meant we didn't have al the lovely multiplayer servers running custom worlds as we did in NWN1. Heck, you couldn't even stream worlds in NWN2. People had to have the entire module downloaded to join your server. Which made frequently updated persistent worlds a thing of the past.

Yeah, I agree with this completely.

Also, this is a shallow complaint (and actually same as Infi's) - compared to NWN1, the combat, especially melee, is extremely boring to look at. It's entirely unsatisfying, even if the options may be broader.

 

[Ulminati]

NWN combat looked flashy and stuffies. Especially when you had a couple of well-placed light sources with the long shadows mimicking your fightan moves. NWN2 combat is obscured behind ugly particles

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Didn't mind Nwn2 that much.
But damn, MotB.

 

[Angthoron]

NWN combat looked flashy and stuffies. Especially when you had a couple of well-placed light sources with the long shadows mimicking your fightan moves. NWN2 combat is obscured behind ugly particles

Yup. I gotta admit, seeing my warrior or whatever it was, fighting against the sword spider, was pretty awesome. Properly animated hits, misses, dodges and parries are very, very satisfying to watch. Of course, NWN2 is a party-based game, but suddenly having worse animations was pretty silly.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

- Turning Khelgar into a Monk is the definition of "trash choice". He is an awesome fighter, no need to fix what ain't broken. And YES, you can finish his personal quest w/o turning him into a shitty monk.

Khelgar is not "a shitty monk". I bet there are enough guys who would actually argue strength based monks are the way to go anyway. Especially fighting unarmed (no enchanted weapons). Not saying Monks aren't shit compared to casters, just saying Khelgar is OK for a monk (you lose a small AC bonus due to no WIS bonus and gain a shitload of damage due to very high STR, good tradeoff imo)

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Pretty sure hits, misses and dodges were animated in NWN2.

 

[Sizzle]

I think that probably the biggest reason people hate (or at least dislike a great deal) it, is that it actually does have potential to be a good game.

Underneath the frustrating camera, (mostly) obnoxious companions, and cliche story - lies something that could have been good, given more development time/a competent lead designer/whatever.

And that's NWN 2 OC's biggest fault - the fact that you're not playing it for it's gameplay, combat, or RP options, but rather just for those few brief moments when the game is (tolerably) good - which are mostly in some dialogues, Keep management, and a few story bits. And you keep playing it, hoping it will have more parts like that.

Everywhere else you just get the sad feeling that it could have been so more, but isn't.

 

[Irenaeus]

I liked the graphics and D&D system.

 

[Infinitron]

IIRC you get to fully respec Khelgar when he turns into a monk

 

[Eyestabber]

I think that probably the biggest reason people hate (or at least dislike a great deal) it, is that it actually does have potential to be a good game.

Underneath the frustrating camera, (mostly) obnoxious companions, and cliche story - lies something that could have been good, given more development time/a competent lead designer/whatever.

And that's NWN 2 OC's biggest fault - the fact that you're not playing it for it's gameplay, combat, or RP options, but rather just for those few brief moments when the game is (tolerably) good - which are mostly in some dialogues, Keep management, and a few story bits. And you keep playing it, hoping it will have more parts like that.

Everywhere else you just get the sad feeling that it could have been so more, but isn't.

Opportunity cost > all, it seems. I do agree with ppl saying NWN 2 is mostly about character creation. I did spend some godly amount of time thinking builds there...

 

[FeelTheRads]

I think that probably the biggest reason people hate (or at least dislike a great deal) it, is that it actually does have potential to be a good game.

Underneath the frustrating camera, (mostly) obnoxious companions, and cliche story - lies something that could have been good, given more development time/a competent lead designer/whatever.

And that's NWN 2 OC's biggest fault - the fact that you're not playing it for it's gameplay, combat, or RP options, but rather just for those few brief moments when the game is (tolerably) good - which are mostly in some dialogues, Keep management, and a few story bits. And you keep playing it, hoping it will have more parts like that.

Everywhere else you just get the sad feeling that it could have been so more, but isn't.

And that's how Obsidian's games typically are. It's not like with Bioware where you realize there's no hope and all is left is laugh at them. But Obsidian is so desperate to be (sub)mediocre despite their potential that it's infuriating.

In the words of TwinkieGorilla: Obsidian, home of the "Well, we tried!"

 

[Eyestabber]

IIRC you get to fully respec Khelgar when he turns into a monk

Not fully, his attributes remain unchanged and fighter-ish. You get to level him again from lvl 1 to lvl whatever.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

IIRC you get to fully respec Khelgar when he turns into a monk

& all other Monk quotes.

The problem with the Khelgar quest-line is that when you meet him he's a fighter. So you spec him to be a fighter (I mean in paid-for gear here). But he's also telling you he wants to become a Monk (that requires a different set of gear). You then find out that the game is actually going to let him become a Monk. There is also a Khelgar quest-line which permits you to receive a super-awesome Khelgar weapon and armour set. So, do you:

a) Be completely selfish and disregard the role-play of the good character and deny Khelgar becoming a Monk
or
b) Let Khelgar become a Monk and basically waste all the awesome set gear and have an unoptimised (but re-spec'ed but not attributes) Monk

Further to this, while in the Keep stage of the game, the game does not allow you to have both a Cleric Temple (with trader) and a Monk Temple (with trader), and this choice will be after you have made the Khelgar choice - randomly fucking anyone who is a Cleric who chose to make Khelgar a Monk.

Is the choice about whether you make Khelgar a Monk in anyway some form of deep moral choice with good/evil connotations? No, not really, it's just random yes/no.

But what I ended up with was an unoptimised Monk who was still more powerful weilding his set item weapon with no Monk shop to buy upgraded clothing. It's as if no-one at any time really thought the whole thing through. Could we have made the Monk change earlier in the game? Could we have made the keep choice between different classes than Monk/or? Could we have then made Khelgar's weapon/armour set quest a two pronged one whereby we could get items for either (and having these two-pronged type quests was quite common in this game) choice we had made for him?

As it was the whole Khelgar thing was just a kind of jumbled mess (fitting to the rest of the game, I know).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

NWN2 has shitty camera presets, but once I took a minute or two to tweak it in the settings, it was really convenient.
Plot was alright - good enough to keep me entertained.
Slow pacing is fine by me, I don't like when you suddenly become a badass guy after spending a day or two fighting in a bar.

My main complaint was the inability to have more than 3 or 4 additional party members (it's possible to fix that, though), since I rarely replay games, and seeing as much content as possible is the goal for me.

I remember dropping NWN1 after an hour or two, feeling as disappointed as a guy who dragged a girl to his house, prepared for an act of tasteful rape and then realized that the girl has a cock.

 

[Taxnomore]

Sometimes, you can enjoy shit games. There's nothing wrong with it. The OP and everyone in this topic needs to be reminded of that .

I thought Oblivion was okay. So was NWN2, and I pretty much enjoyed the NWN OC even if I don't remember any of it. I also enjoyed Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods. And you know what?

Fallout 3 was not that bad

 

[Jaesun]

Fallout 3 was complete fucking shit.

 

[Shannow]

I also hated the cinematic dialogue NWN2 had.
Ugly characters with clipping issues, weird and overblown FX, and ugly backround should not be shown up close. I also hate dialogue where I cannot re-read what came before. This goes especially for banal/boring dialogue.
Go Torment. Show Obsidian how it's done.

 

[Eyestabber]

Sometimes, you can enjoy shit games. There's nothing wrong with it. The OP and everyone in this topic needs to be reminded of that .

I thought Oblivion was okay. So was NWN2, and I pretty much enjoyed the NWN OC even if I don't remember any of it. I also enjoyed Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods. And you know what?

Fallout 3 was not that bad

I clearly stated that I enjoy NWN 2, so I don't see what I need to be reminded of. Also, Fallout 3 raped the fallout lore, it's a fucking despicable abomination. New Vegas is the one who deserves the "was not that bad" award.

The problem with the Khelgar quest-line is that when you meet him he's a fighter. So you spec him to be a fighter (I mean in paid-for gear here). But he's also telling you he wants to become a Monk (that requires a different set of gear). You then find out that the game is actually going to let him become a Monk. There is also a Khelgar quest-line which permits you to receive a super-awesome Khelgar weapon and armour set. So, do you:

a) Be completely selfish and disregard the role-play of the good character and deny Khelgar becoming a Monk
or
b) Let Khelgar become a Monk and basically waste all the awesome set gear and have an unoptimised (but re-spec'ed but not attributes) Monk

Further to this, while in the Keep stage of the game, the game does not allow you to have both a Cleric Temple (with trader) and a Monk Temple (with trader), and this choice will be after you have made the Khelgar choice - randomly fucking anyone who is a Cleric who chose to make Khelgar a Monk.

Is the choice about whether you make Khelgar a Monk in anyway some form of deep moral choice with good/evil connotations? No, not really, it's just random yes/no.

But what I ended up with was an unoptimised Monk who was still more powerful weilding his set item weapon with no Monk shop to buy upgraded clothing. It's as if no-one at any time really thought the whole thing through. Could we have made the Monk change earlier in the game? Could we have made the keep choice between different classes than Monk/or? Could we have then made Khelgar's weapon/armour set quest a two pronged one whereby we could get items for either (and having these two-pronged type quests was quite common in this game) choice we had made for him?

As it was the whole Khelgar thing was just a kind of jumbled mess (fitting to the rest of the game, I know).

There is an option for making him become a disciple of Tyr without becoming a Monk. High influence needed. His alignment will also change to LG, but he will not be respeced into a Monk.

Just because someone enjoyed it despite it's shittiness does not mean it isn't shit. It just means they're shitlovers. Those base primates whom get off on rolling around in each others feces aren't exactly the arbiters of taste.



Fuck off.

Go outside and breathe some fresh air.

 

[Infinitron]

- Slow paced start can also be said about BG, IWD and Fallout 2. Dem double standards...

That's not what I'm complaining about when I say "bad pacing".

 

[Athelas]

Actually, in what is a suspiciously sensible design decision in a game full of bad design decisons, the tutorial in NWN2 is skippable.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

There is an option for making him become a disciple of Tyr without becoming a Monk.

Well... that's just spun my head through a few more hoops... I can't even...

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

NWN2 is like a skim decaf single-shot latte. Otherwise known as a "Why Bother?"