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Recently bought the Gamersgate DnD Anthology collection, which includes BD, BD2, ID, ID2, ToEE, Planescape Torment.

I had played BG2 previously using those old fashioned DVD things so I figured at $5 for that whole package how could it be a bad deal!?

Love ToEE
Really like BD
Like ID (haven't tried ID2)
Like BG, though if I can find a mod that 'updates' its look and feel and also adds content I'd prefer to play it through modded first time.

Planescape isn't my cup of tea.

So where does NWN fit into it? How does it compare to ToEE, the one I like the most, as well as the others?

 

You want an update for the BG looks, try BGTutu, it basically puts BG in the BG2 engine.

NWN appears to have been intended as a follow up for BG2: ToB, given the text of some of the loading screens in ToB, which allude to you being able to import your character in NWN. It's nothing like that, though.

All the other games are essentially Infinity Engine based (I believe, not entirely sure about ToEE), but NWN uses a different engine, the Aurora engine. This effectively means that the camera is now no longer top-down, but more third person. You can move the camera about, but only a limited distance from your character and mostly I just keep it locked to my character. Kind of like Dragon Age: Origins if you've played that game.

In keeping with the more or less third person perspective, you can only control one character directly, the rest just kind of does as it pleases, unless you specifically tell them to stay put or whatever. So you have a party, but they're not under your direct control.

Other than that it's more in keeping with the more modern Bioware productions, like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, i.e. it's more of an action game with some RPG elements like dialogue, inventory, etc. It is based on the D&D rules, though, so it's more similar to the other games in that way. It's mostly like IWD2 in this regards are both are mostly based on the 3e rules.

Character development (which classes, which skills and which feats) is, for me, the most interesting thing about NWN and the chief reason I played it for quite a while, regardless of the wonky controls. That and HotU is quite fun to play and there's lot's of user made modules out there, some of which are really good.

 

In a lot of ways, NWN is more like an MMO than the other games you mention. Multiplayer persistent worlds were where most of its fanbase spent their time, and though there are some interesting single player modules out there, none of them can really overcome the shortcomings of its gameplay, which just doesn't offer much from either an action or strategy point of view. NWN's single player campaign is pretty lacklustre, and as you can only control one character directly, there isn't much strategy other than ability selection & use. SoU and HotU improve things somewhat (personally, I think SoU is the best of the official campaigns), but it's the basic design that's the insurmountable problem. The highlight of the game is probably character creation, with total freedom within the 3e rules being offered. Appearance customisers are available as fan made add-ons which help that aspect even further.

Don't go expecting the same kind of experience as BG; really, DA:O is a far better single player RPG than NWN, and it also benefits from being free of the constraints of the AD&D ruleset.

 

NWN was supposed to be a step up from the infinity engine games but graphics-wise it just isn't. Although I find nothing wrong with the game's art direction, the 3D is nowhere near as nice looking as the models in BG2, the IWD series and ToEE.
Still, if you can get over the graphics then Neverwinter is a pretty decent game. The story quality is around the same as the IWD1 (same as IWD2 if you include the expansions) and several of the characters are very likeable (a few even made it into D&D canon - Deekin, in particular, now has a street named after him in Neverwinter).
Unlike the infinity engine games though Neverwinter is a lot more about builds than actual strategy/planning/interaction/hectic combat/etc, which I think is why most people compare it to MMOS. As people have pointed out, there are persistent (online) worlds that try to address this by attempting to bring the out the game's RPG side, with varying degrees of success. Considering that a few of these worlds are still online even today some of them did an excellent job.

NWN2 is not much better than NWN - the graphics are a bit better but the original campaign is a step down from NWN's imo. However, the Mask of the Betrayer expansion essentially turns NWN2 into something approaching BG2 in terms of depth, interaction, banter, NPCs, combat, strategy, etc. That's a HUGE leap, so if you ever plan on getting NWN2 make sure you also get Mask of the Betrayer.

DA:O is a great game. Good story, good characters, good combat, good dialogue, beautiful graphics at high setting and lots of room for strategy and character builds. Unfortunately, the game ends with a cliffhanger. There's a sequel, but we do not speak of it.

 

Excellent posts! Thank you so much gentlemen

Just as a point of clarification: "DA:O?". . . ah yes the wonders of Google advanced search

Yes indeed! It may well be time to give that one a whirl!

I recall several years back some online buddy or RPG friend nearly having a debilitating nerdgazm as he ranted about the impending release of this game (or perhaps it was the sequel). My general habit is to hold off on most game purchases for a year, or in some cases YEARS, and this generally allows me to weed out the bad apples. For example it sounds like NWN is not something I want to prioritize adding to my collection, thanks to your kind responses.

I think I shall seek out this BGTUTU mod and try to do a a complete playthrough of the BG series!

I do love ToEE. There is very little negative I can say about that game, apart from the fact that the vanilla content is relatively limited, at least compared to the Co8 mod. The artwork and graphics are nearly perfect. The interface is overall brilliant (those radial menues are fantastic). The tactical dynamics, and strategic dynamics wonderful. I do wish that Troika or someone would make a few sequels to ToEE which basically just rehashed virtually the exact same game with new content and perhaps a few minor feature upgrades.

Basicallly, take the Co8 mod, and tackle one of the other Greyhawk campaigns! That would be fantastic.

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Sadly not having any luck getting Easy TUTU to run.

Seems to install just fine but then when I launch it crashes.

 

You can try giving BGT AKA Baldur's Gate Trilogy a shot it does pretty much the same thing as EasyTUTU

 

The D&D anthology versions have a mod-unfriendly reputation. This thread should help though. Look for the post by "keyed".
For BGT there's this post by Tyr4nt (see bottom).

From what I can make out, you either need to download and copy a missing file into your BG installation, or play around with the game's directory path.

 

Nobody mentioned ToEE. I will mention that ToEE has more in common with Pool of Radiance 2:Ruins of Myth Dranor than the BG, IWD, or NWN games.
In many ways, the way things are set up it looks like they took the PoR2 engine and greatly enhanced it even more than BG2 enhanced the BG1 engine.
I realize that some of it is probably just me being fooled by the interface skins which look somewhat similar.

Since you "love ToEE", you MIGHT want to consider giving Ruins of Myth Dranor a shot. Be aware that just as BG1 seems primitive compared to BG2, POR2 will seem far more primitive compared to ToEE.
It is an inferior game in all aspects except that the font size looks decent to my eyes, while I'm squinting even with my glasses on with ToEE unless I greatly increase the display DPI on my system such that everything else is blown out of proportion. As such I never finished ToEE as messing with the DPI like that is too much of a PITA and I can't just leave the system like that.

That said, ToEE is far more true to P&P's combat system than any other D&D cRPG I've played. I'd like better if there was a more elegant solution to the tiny text.

 

Thank you gentlemen. I will follow up on those links and suggestions.

Miraculously, my BG TUTU just started working. Also, the D&D Anthology collection installer from Gamersgate suddenly allowed me to install wherever I wanted!?

Yesterday I spent a lot of time trolling on MS, NVIDIA and Asus help sites, and based on a suggestion to create a dump file to post on one site I started examining the setup on this machine (my wife's old laptop, now mine I guess). I came to the realization that, unlike my longstanding machine (which has suffered a mortal blow to the harddrive) she never did change any of the UAC settings. Basically, I had my old machine setup so that there were very few hidden folders, default storage paths tended to avoid those semi-hidden places under the User directory, and all users pretty much had maximum permissions (since I was the only one). Having realized that this machine never got those kinds of setting changes (but not remembering exactly how to do it or even what to do), I started changing such things on this machine.

The end result was a bit disconcerting: two folders I keep on the desktop have become 'shadow' directories, meaning the stuff certainly still seems to be on the machine, but the only way I seem to be able to find it is to do a search or to open it through their respective applications recent list. As a result of this I attempted to reverse these changes by doing a system restore: no change, but, suddenly my Gamersgate installer allows me to install wherever I want.

Also a reinstall of the BGTUTU into a fresh install of the Gamersgate D&D Anthology in the C drive works!

So, in sum I have BG TUTU up and running, which is nice.