Is NWN2 A Gaming Success?

this can't be right, considering oblivion sold in about 1,5 mil copies for both x360 and PC versions

personally i'd say the nwn2 sales haven't exceeded the 500k mark
regardless, even 500k should be considered a respectable market success, considering the game didn't live up to the expectations of most

 

i think Ironhawk missread Atari's statement, that the NWN frenchise sold more then 3million copies (nwn+hotu+sou+nwn2)

another statement says nwn1+expansions sold around 2million, so nwn2 must be around 1 million

[ April 28, 2007, 09:11: Message edited by: Equester ]

 

What I disliked about NWN2:

• Excessive hardware requirements
• Horrid standard user interface
• Abysmal product (non-)support
• Very linear story
• No customisability for armor and items, a feature of NWN I grew quite fond of (even though I found it moronic to have to invest skill points to change looks. Great idea, stupid implementation.)

You get the idea. Tal made a good point saying that NWN over time has matured. That's quite correct.

NWN2 is far from that. When I first played it I got caught in 'The Abominable Demon Loop' and needed to cheat myself out of it in order to be able to continue my game. To be able to play conveniently I deeded to install xUI, a fan mod for the horrible user interface. To be quite honest, as a chronic restater, I haven't even finished it yet. That much for a gripping story.

What I liked about NWN2:

• Nice graphics, when they eventually ran smoothly
• Better NPC choices than in NWN1, but with a lot room for improvement - why for example can't they choose prestige classes, multiclass? And what about diversity?

So was it a success? Not really, it is ok, looks nice, but is not really a great game.

 

I think it was a sucess. It had it's faults (I spent a month geting my character to the statues for the clensing ritual to fight the King of Shadows. I throw 1 fireball at an orc at the base of one of them and it's says the statue is in combat ) But the game was well done, and addictive to the extrem.

I vote for sucess.

 

I haven't played it since the first day when I beat it. It had plenty of... really, really bad bugs. Forunately, despite it's flaws, it was still fun to play through. I didn't mind the linear story-line so much because well... I really just wanted to kill stuff that got harder and harder as I continued. Everything else mattered not.

NWN1 OC was impossible for me to play when I started playing that game. I hated act1 passionately. But once I got passed that (and it takes me like 1 hour to complete it), the campaign was amazing, I think. Same issure with NWN2 but it takes FOREVER to start the game. Unfortunately I can't play it multiplayer and save just outside of Irenicus' dungeon for all future starts ya know?

In terms of success in gaming, the game sold enough I'm sure that it's a "success". In fact it has an xpac coming out, so... it's successful. I don't hate the game, I hate obsidian for not making it up to par.

As far as sales for PC games, they're nowhere near console sales. Xbox regularily sells over a million(or 7 million?) copies of games because consoles are mainstream, computer games aren't, so anything over 100k sales is good.

EDIT:
To the comments about the BG series, they are a marker for all good rpg's because they not only have a solid story line, but also great NPC's, Great interaction with the environment and RPG's. That's what makes an RPG as opposed to an action adventure game. Diablo2 is not an RPG...

 

The worst problem that NWN2 has is not bugs, changes in the Multiplayer procedures, or increased Toolset complexity. Very certainly, objecting to hardware requirements is a useless whine, with no major support. None of those come close to the disadvantage inherent in having Atari for a publisher. As already pointed out here, ToEE had great promise, but ended up being killed by Atari's disrepect for its customers.

In spite of that huge disability, GameFaqs reports that NWN2 has reached number eight in sales. Obsidian obviously has a far better financial arrangement with Atari than Troika had.

 

On the GameFaqs page. I was seeing a huge slowdown on everything on their site Saturday, while trying to get a copy of an Item_Tags list they've hosted. I'll pause in the middle of my current reply, here, and open a new window to determine whether they are still in Extra-Slow Mode or not (if so, I leave it to someone with broadband on their messaging and casual surfing box to visit there for you).

OK, no problem at all. Look at the "Top Ten Games" list on the left on this page: http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/

And next time you call me a liar, bring your dueling pistols, infant!

 

i wonder what diablo2 lod is doing on that top10 list
and stalker taking up the no.6 spot?

okay that table is weird and i don't really know what it represents either

 

i think we can rule out it being a sales figure or hardware requirement, because both wow and D2:lod requires less then nwn2.

Secondly if it was sales i have a hard time believing anything but wow should be on the top, with more then 8million subcribers, this game has clearly sold more then any of does on the list.

 

the statistic probably has something to do with the gamefaqs page itself, perhaps it lists the most commonly visited PC FAQs in the last month... that would make sense i think

 

I'm sad to say it wasn't a success in my eyes. I tried desperately to overlook the flaws, and with most games, I'm usually able to at least make it through to the end. But there was too much about NWN2 that frustrated and disappointed me. And I just wasn't able to stick it out (stopped playing in chapter 2 somewhere).

Performance issues. Linear plot. The "illusion" of choice. Numerous inexcusable bugs. Blah, blah, blah --All games have their problems, but for this gamer, NWN2's issues were enough to outweigh the enjoyment I should have otherwise been experiencing.

My take on this game is that it's chalk full of potential, but lacks the magic to gather that potential into a truly great game.

 

Couldn't disagree with you more.

I've found NWN2 to be one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a long time. I'm loving it, despite being extremely skeptical in the beginning. Maybe it's because I have a recently updated system and waited for full patching before giving it a serious go...but I really look forward to getting off work at night so I can trudge through the next dungeon. So what if it's a bit linear - most great stories/campaigns are.

I admit - I very large part of what I love about it are the visuals. From the cool weapons and armor, to the spell animations, to the vastly improved 3d character models - this really is a beautiful game. It's so pretty, in fact, that I've recently looked at screenshots from the original NWN the character models look so ugly in comparison, I'm not sure I even want to play it again. :sad:

So I would definitely consider the game an upper-modest success. What prevents it from being a great success IMO are the overly high system requirements and the apparent lack of a decent marketing budget on the part of the game makers / publisher. But overall I love it - and can't WAIT for the expansion, eventual premium modules and I hold out hope for some killer fan-created content (though not counting on it by any means - I got my hopes up way too high for the City of Doors initiative for NWN1 and was severaly let down).

 

NWN 2 was good, boring, but still one of the best computer games released at the moment. It could have been better, there was no reason to ruin the game with small problems.

After looking at the link for a moment, it seems it's based on the Game Ranking list (which looks like a smaller version of Metacritic). Number 8 in sales my arse.

Somebody get the dueling pistols

 

Honestly, I'm happy for you. At least some are able to find this game sincerely enjoyable, and honestly, I wish I could say I was one of them. Maybe if I'd be running a $6,000 top of the line system instead of my $3,500 one year old system the system requirements/FPS woudn't have become a constant source of frustration, and if I'd waited a bit longer to start playing (so a couple of patches would have been available), I'd be in a different boat right now.

But things didn't work out that way for me this time, and now when I look at games like Medieval 2 Total War, which is able render thousands of soldiers at high detail on my machine, with full shadows, high resolution and everything cranked up, I've just got it in my mind that NWN2 is a sub par game.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and while I don't fully agree with this, I think there is at least some truth to the statement.