Single player game... how is it really?

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First I must say I thoroughly enjoyed all the Baldur's Gate games,
I finished the whole series, BG1, TOSC, BG2 and ToB. I liked the
rich story throughout but did get annoyed with some of the battles
(come on, ending ToB by fighting someone 4 times in a row?!)

Was wondering what you think I'd think of NWN? Would mostly
be getting it for the single player game. How's the story? How
would it perform on a Celeron 600MHz machine? Etc...

I've never played any of the Icewind Dale games, how do those
compare to NWN from the single player perspective?

Thanks for any insight!

[ October 30, 2002, 19:24: Message edited by: Schven ]

 

The single player game in NWN is not that good.
When I say that I am comparing it to the Baldur Gate story line. The NWN story is really just one big fedex plot. The main reason to buy the game is to play online and build your own modules.

[ October 30, 2002, 19:59: Message edited by: Thorin ]

 

If you're getting it just for the single player game, don't bother. The storyline has potential, but nothing more. Essentially, it consists of "Go there, get such-and-such item and bring it back to me." For about 60 hours. If you're looking for good single player, you should consider IWD2 (or so I've heard - I haven't picked it up yet).

How will it perform on a 600MHz machine? Probably not too well. Really, though, it depends on your RAM and video. I am running it on 1GHz P3, 256MB RAM, ATI Radeon 8500LE and it runs pretty well, though it can be a bit sluggish on some of the bigger maps or bigger battles. When I ran it on the same machine but with my old Riva TNT2 M64, I had to run it at 800*600 with a pitiful graphics quality. Yes, this game made me upgrade my video card. That should say something about how good the multiplayer can be.

If, on the other hand, you are going to play online - which I do nearly every day - the game is well worth it. Admittedly, there are a lot of crappy servers out there running a lot of crappy mods with script kiddies aplenty, but once you find a good server.. wow.

 

I tried running it on my old Athlon 650 with a Matrox G400 32mg card and 256mb system ram. By mucking around with the graphic options (turning off things like shadows refelction, etc) I could get it to run reasonably well. It looks a bit naff when you compare it to a machine that can run it in full glory. However, if you don't make the side by side comparison, it probably looks ok.

As to the single player game, I agree that the campaign is a bit limited and has nowhere near the quality of story of the earlier Bioware products. The NPC development is also lacking and it is dissapointing to only have one henchman at a time. That said, it's not a terrible game, just not as good as their earlier efforts. I quite enjoyed it and liked the odd plot twist. I'll probably play it through again at some point as a different charcater class. It's also worth mentioning that the 3rd edition rules have been 'interpreted.' So if that is a draw be warned. There are some good ideas but they have made the rules even more combat focused. As someone who finds the exisitng 3rd edition 'roleplaying' rules too combat biased, I was dissapointed.

I also agree that multiplayer on-line is good fun. I haven't done much yet but have found it very entertaining provided you find decent people to play with. See the 'Lonely Multiplayer' thread for some ideas.

Finally, I should also stress another aspect of single player. It was mentioned that the game allows you to 'make' your own modules. Of course, it also allows you to 'play' other peoples modules. I have tried a few of these and reckon they are better (though shorter) than the Bioware campaign. So even if you buy it for solo play only and find the official campaign dissapointing you can download and play unofficial modules. That will give you a much longer play time than say Icewind Dale 2. If you want to take a look at the sort of thing available, pop over to the following link where you can see modules in fan-rated order:

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/modulesTop2.shtml

 

NWN's singleplayer is just crap, complete and total crap, it sucks so bad that i think Tetris has a better plot than NWN.

Celeron 600 you say? Not enough even if you had 256 MB of RAM and a Geforce 4. Celeron is a low cost procesor, i had a Pentium III overclocked to 566 Mhz and still had lots of problems. (but maybe if you overclocked your Celeron...)

[ November 02, 2002, 14:18: Message edited by: Fallen Paladin ]

 

The mains reasons SP (not Sorcerers Tal ) sux is because the plot is thin as a paper (do this, kill that) and feeling which it gave you, I didnt feel like I was part of the story, not like I was the big hero, just some errant boy.

The graphic sux too (not what I expected), Ill have IE over this engine any day now.

The only reasons I bought NWN was because it was made by Bioware and you could make your own modules...

Hope my insight helps

 

The single player game had it's good and bad points. However, I think there were two main reasons it was below par. Number one, it was made to be both a sp experience and a mp experience, and it excelled at neither. As a multiplayer game, it was just totally lacking. The dialog was quite long winded for each party member to try and sit through. I tried the sp campaign once or twice as a multiplayer game, and just found it more boring than when I played it as a sp game. Number two, the writing was just bad. As it is, the story wasn't that much worse than alot of rpg plots. And if you've ever tried making a module yourself, and have opened the official campaign and given it thorough looks, you'll know alot of time was actually put into it. I think it was just poorly presented. They didn't have to make it so "fetch this, get that" or transparent, but for some reason, they made a decision too, whether conscious or not. Perhaps the writers and crew that worked on the sp game just don't have it anymore. Who knows. Anyway, while it has it's points, overall it was a blah effort from what I played. Chapter One was the pits, and while Chapter two started out better, you'll soon realize that it's just more of the same really. They should have made the higher level npc's less involved, and led the main character own by other means. I don't like being drug around by a fishhook, just a simple plot hook will work fine thanks.

If you were interested in multiplayer, nwn is now showing that mp can be very good. At the start, it was really bad. But after a few months, it's starting to shine. Persistant worlds are the best place to play, unless you can scedule a game with a DM and friends. But head this warning: do not invest alot of time into a world until you learn some things about it. I made this mistake with the Dark Sun Online server. I jumped right in because it was Dark Sun, and I've always had fond memories of those games. And it was fun for a while. But the server's gone so far down the hole it's now even funny. Go read their message boards if you want a good kick, but for me, it's just sad. So, I would suggest looking at the servers website and message boards if the have one. If not, ask some people in game what the servers like, and if there's a big problem with kiddies and @$$h0|3$ running around. But there are fun ones that have a big player base, so hopefully this is where nwn can find a niche.

 

Thanks for the input folks, I appreciate it! I think I'll give
NWN a miss for now. Maybe when I get a better computer
(in a few years) I can get NwN out of the bargain bin at
CompUSA!

For now I'll try the IWD series, looks good and will definately
run on my box.

 

Fallen Paladin is insulting all tetris players...
NWN is a great game if story, quest, game engine and overall playability are not counted...

I does not run well in some occasions and i have 1,6 ghz P4, 256 mb ram, 64mb Creative blaster with Geforce 4...

With singleplayer, if NWN is more than 5 euro, it is not worth buying... buy Half-Life instead, it is much better considered from RPG side.

For multiplayer:...?

 

How do your characters and items work when you go to mulitplayer? I havent tried yet cause I just want to finish the SP b4 I even start. THought most say its a waste I guess Im just going thru it to get my moneys worth. I have a lvl 5 Fighter and almost done with the first chapter. WIll I be able to use this char on Multiplayer with all my current items or will I have to start over? Also How do you save your excess storage? I currently use chest's But If I want to go Multiplayer how does that all work? I appreciate and help given.

 

To skone751: Try bags of holding and those "lesser" bags of holding

[ November 18, 2002, 11:08: Message edited by: Taza ]