Storm of Zehir

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Hi,
I just bought it and played it for about six hours.

Is anyone playing it, too?

I must admit it has some bugs that annoy me (and that are discussed intensely in the official forum) like the issue that unwanted random weapon switching occurs sometimes, or that buffs will allways be dispelled upon entering the overworld map.

But on the other hand this game is pretty enjoyable.
You can freely create four party characters and have the option of 2 more joinable premade characters ingame.
There is a followable story but free exploration of the world is encouraged by the game.
Encounters are not scaled, so one can encounter a pretty tough battle if one is striving off too far . I like this aspect.

 

I have been thinking of trying that game. Might just buy it. Haven`t decided yet though... I got very annoyed with the previous expansion pack. The new camera controlls, for instance. Had to spend a LONG time fixing that one back to what it was like in the original campaign. And I didn`t like how they made every outfit in the game show no skin at all (apart from the face). Felt like every character was dressed like some leather\metal-clad nun, of sorts. Even their hands were covered.

From what I have read about the new expansion pack; it does look to have alot of very good features. the overland traveling sounds fun. A couple of new races, and classes as well. Creating an own party, is going to be fun as well.

I got a few questions for you though. Since you have played it.

1. Did they make proper helmets for this expansion pack? The previous ones had no helmets in it (visually).

2. How much hack and slash is it in the game?

3. Whats the level-cap?

4. Did they add anything to the character creation thingy? New heads, haircuts etc.

5. Any new weapons?

 

1) Helmets should work like in the original. Though I didn't put one on, I know they are buyable.
(on second view I find this strange. iirc I had the visual helmet appearance in the 2nd expansion)

2) It has a bit of that Icewind Dale Flavour: Plenty of fights.

3) There is none. Though I heard it is finishable without mindless grinding at about lvl 15.

4) I didn't pay much attention to this aspect as I usually find at least one setup I like.
Though I must admit that some elven heads still look pretty ugly.

And concerning your camera problem:
There are 3 styles choosable now via GUI.One I heard resembles the style of the original NWN2.Though I prefer the strategy mode.

The own party creation indeed is very good.
Though don't expect from the joinable NPC's as much personality as MotB or BG II.

Another point I like is, that allover it is a low-magic world. +3 weapons are considered high class already.
Armour enchantment is capped at +4 and Ability items are capped at +6.
Crafting has been made easier and more balanced as well.


One aspect that might annoy users of slower PCs: there is plenty of loading, because everytime one has an encounter on the overworld map it loads a small encounter-map,
and when you finish it you have to load the overworld map again.

 

I will get it eventaullky, but not at release. Motb was not up to standard. The spirit eater made me use a cheat. A cheat needed to end a game is a sin.

 

I think one can 'live' with the spirit feature.In doesn't make it unplayable in my opinion, but you're right, I found it annoying as well.
It gives a kind of unwanted pressure to the player, so a free exploration of the game world is hardly possible without worrying about the spirit meter.
But the superb characters are redeeming this first expansion a bit .

But SoZ is pretty different from MotB.

 

I got SoZ now. Not bad at all. Reminds me more of Icewind dale, than anything else. They finally included helmets and hats too. Very nice. Not too fond of the skins for the yuan-ti race though. Looks like they just paintbrushed the human skin, really. Doesn`t look unique at all. I have only played about 1 hour into the game so far, but it does look promising. And most likely it has great replayability value.

 

The 3d map is getting really anoying. I made the mistake of having my barbarian selected, while traveling. I got attacked by dinos imediatly. And once the fight was done, and after some slow loading, I got attacked again, before I had the chance to switch to my sneaky character. This happened 6 times. I mean, seriously...how many dinos can one small jungle have? Probably killed 50 of them now. Around that lumbermill thingy.

 

You must have entered a breeding station of dinos .
Or your Barbarian really LOVES fighting ^^.


edit:
So far I didn't have this much problems having too much encounters, using a Ranger with maxed Search, Hide and Survival.

 

Was just outside that lumbercamp. I got alot of XP, though. So some good came of it, I suppose. Another thing I noticed; that was kind of lame, is that when you clear out a dungeon, you still can rest inside it. Makes no sense. I am sure alot of these issues I have been having, will be fixed with a patch though. So I suspect they will be temporary.

 

The last map is really annoying because of this, even on a stealthy character you will get ambushed again and again (and again) by groups of dinosaurs, two headed trolls and yuan-ti until you finally reach the temple. The worse thing is that I had to get out of the temple to rest at some point and couldn't because my team was getting attacked like crazy on the overland map, where mobs respawn so fast you can't do anything to avoid them, even with a rogue sporting all the "travelling skills".

In the end, I found this add-on way too short (only ten hours to get it done and I wiped like crazy on the final encounter), the story is REALLY lackluster (even the Icewind Dale games had better scenarios), there isn't enough big dungeons (in fact, the only real dungeon is the temple at the end) which is pretty disappointing in a game with such an emphasis on combat and the "rest isn't allowed in this area" crap is just INFURIATING. I know they implemented "alarm stones" to cover this, but they're unreliable, bugged and annoying to get.

It's too bad they chose to build an adventure for lvl 4-15 characters, because it limits the min-maxing which was a huge part of the fun in Icewind Dale 2 in my opinion. Itemization is pretty bad too, I finished the game with my level 1 robe on my wizard.

I wouldn't say Storm of Zehir is bad, but it's definitely underwhelming.

EDIT : Oh yeah, and the whole merchant thingy with caravan to buy and trading routes to set just left me wondering if this was a Cvilization game instead of a RPG.

 

I was thinking the same thing about the merchant bit. I hated how it was forced on me as well. It should have been optional. Seems to me that the only thing in the game, is the overland travel, and the merchant system. Every location you can visit is mostly small battlemaps, and the occational cave. My conclusion is that the game looks good, at first glance. But after a few hours of playing, I wonder where the game itself is. The whole thing has the feel of a very basic demo, and not an expansion pack.
They added helms and such, wich is a good thing, though.

Ohh my bad. I fired up the original campaign 1 hour ago. Figured I should start a new game, and finally finish it. Guess what? No helmets in the original campaign. Thats just lazy. They could have added that to the OC. I doubt ti would have taken a long time to do.

 

I purchased NWN2 last month but have not gotten a chance to play the OC or the first expansion. Should I buy the 2nd expansion and skip both the OC and the first expansion?

 

Actually, now that I think about it, SoZ is remarkably similar to Sid Meier`s Pirates. Instead of controlling a ship, on the map, you controll a fellow that is walking around. One of 4 characters. In pirates you can pick what ship to use when walking. Pretty much has the same options when you visit a town as well. Visit the tavern etc, sell goods. Instead of attacking ships, you attack monsters.

 

You're right

 

I agree, now that I've played a bit more (not yet finished though),
it has some flaws.
Nevertheless I find it quite enjoyable.
It could have been better if the devs just had put some more effort in a few areas, but I guess time and resources weren't on their side.

Imho, if they only would have done one or two 'remarkable' dungeons midgame
like, e.g., Durlag's Tower or Watcher's Keep or similar,
that would have beefed up the game a lot.


edit:
@Munchkin Blender

Blackthorne TA is right, both campaigns are fun on their own way.
(And both have their flaws, but it's the same with SoZ, so...)

 

1) thats not right, the original did have visible helmets, it was disabled only on the npc's since it didn't work with their custome heads. they worked fine on the main char. secondly npc's with custome heads showed helmets from motb and does so in SoZ

2) picture something like bg1 + Icewinddale, it got it's amount of hack'n'slash, not more nor less than the previous titles

3) there are non/ 30. but most end the game around lvl 18-20

4) two new races, gray-orc and yuan-ti pureblood. they have some new heads etc. also they optimized the graphic a bit in general

5) no new weapons, but lots of new weapon models, they espacially improved scimitar and they added things like broken bottles and woodenplanks.

 

Actually. I fired up the OC recently. With the SoZ installed. And nope. No helmets showing. Not even on my main character.

 

That strange because my main character picture changes according to the helemet he is wearing. Do you have the latest patch installed, 1.21?