The bad of NWN2

No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip. I was under the impression that the right-click menu simply duplicated the commands that were available in the behavior screen. I was not aware that some functions were available only through the right-click menu. I'll try it tonight and see how it goes.

 

You don't have to assign the command to each separate individual. Right click off any character or item in the middle of the screen, then go to broadcast command (while having the stealthy character selected), and it'll command every OTHER character to stand their ground.

That was a basic feature of NWN1 .

 

It can be finicky. Even with my wizard in puppet mode, if I'm controlling Neeshka and have her say "Attack!" even my wizard character starts blasting fireballs all over the place. I'm going to wear my space bar out with all the pausing and micro-managing these NPCs require.

 

I very much wish broadcast commands could be setup in the quickslot . In the orignal NWN "stand ground" and "follow me" were two of my most used hotkeys. In NWN2 I use broadcast commands very sparingly, as its rather a hassle to issue them.

 

Well, so far so good. The right click menu, while certainly a hassle, seems to be getting the job done most of the time. Yes, it still has idiosyncrasies, but it's a lot better than the nightmare I had before. Thanks for the help on that.

 

They never worked for me.

 

Actually, a bandit camp is rarely ever just 1 little group of bandits........... It makes perfect sense.

Sometimes you can't just kill someone for the love of it... because the game doesn't want to have to make you restart after you got your ass beat down by city watch, or whatever force of law exists - Or because the character might be important, or because some places really just don't warrent violence despite what you might want to do. (Clearly, the fact that pvp mode is ALWAYS off... is annoying - but if you start it up as a multiplayer game and have pvp mode always on, that wouldn't be a problem - just make it private so people can't join).

In any case. We all know playing an evil character in almost any RPG is fun, but damn near impossible to fully explore. NWN1 and 2 fail there, as sometimes my characters would rather have someone else save the world. We have to face the facts that nothing will ever fully compare to Baldur's Gate 1&2 .

 

All in all, it seems that your only annoyance with the game, turned out to be the fact that you can't be horribly evil.

While some of your starting arguments were good, BTA shot them down with another view on all of it and I must say I follow BTA.

After the initial arguments were in the background, this just seemed to turn in a cat chase.

 

You can slit the forget-their-name brothers throat after the tutorial, just because they annoyed you. You couldn't kill the children, but we do live in a PC world

I did try to have the dwarf killed by the thugs, but he still insisted on being my friend and then invited himself into my party.l

 

That's why Fallout 2 was so good...

 

I never play evil, and I like the game more than catbert does, but he has valid points. Some of these rank higher on his annoyance scale than on mine, but don't get me wrong -- they still rank on mine too.

For instance, take the bandit camp. I have to agree that after my PC cleared out the camp, looted the containers, and even rested, it seemed silly to have a score of bandits appear out of thin air in the very places I had just searched, looted and rested. From my perspective, that doesn't make any "sense" at all. Personally, I didn't mind getting a few extra experience points and some more loot, but it was a poorly written plot device in my opinion.

And with regard to killing non-hostiles, I find it greatly annoying that this game has NO force attack option. It's not just unavailable at times -- it doesn't exist in the engine. You can't attack anyone unless the game has predetermined that you will fight. This is a problem not just for those who play evil, but also for those who would initiate an attack against a known enemy even though that enemy is not currently hostile. And this deficiency would certainly be a major hindrance to those who want to play evil.

We might add to this the fact that most buildings don't have doors, and that even buildings with doors usually have locks that can't be picked. So much for rogues who want to act like rogues. Even poor Kelghar, who loves to pick fights in bars and who is forced into your party, is prevented from acting out his character -- he can't pick a single fight in the game when he's in your party. Or the fact that only the protagonist can initiate a conversation. Why can't Elanee talk to the dryad to figure out why she wants the glowing rock, and what the rock does? Because she's not the protagonist? Again, shoddy writing that limits role-playing, and thereby limits fun. The list could go on and on.

If some people like these restraints placed on them because they believe it adds realism, then more power to them. I don't want to knock their enjoyment of the game in any way. But their enjoyment doesn't invalidate the preferences and opinions of others, for whom these are genuine frustrations.

 

The bandit camp argument is not holding it's weight. No matter how well you, "cleared" the bandit camp, keep in mind that if you fought "every" bandit at once, you would never survive. While the game makes you think that what you did was clear out the entire bandit camp (and they did a pretty bad job of designing the camp layout as a bandit camp would never have walls, since bandits don't stay in one place, EVER), when what you did, was clear out a portion of it.

Nonetheless I see your point. I especialyl see your point with not having the ability to kill at will (ie: my LG Paladin had the need to slay a few wrong doers but couldn't due to that pvp limitation).

I'm thinking a lot of every problem isn't really with NWN2 or the story, because it is quite alright, but more with the lazy programming. I won't even say it's the programmers, I blame management and above, because I've worked for a corporation and the biggest issues with getting things done is managers and other higher-ups that just plain suck.

Unfortunately I can't say NWN2 impresses me as much as NWN1 did when it came out, or even as much as the BG series STILL DOES. It is on the other hand not the worste RPG to have come out in the last year... and it is still considered a good one. (This last statement is exactly why I claim all forms of game reviews are stupid. It got 8-9/10's even though it's being released at an unfinished state, with billions of plot holes when you don't take the right characters out...).


One of my larger problems with the game was when I would head out to a quest and somehow manage to talk to the gnome who I left at the INN while I'm in the mountains. Man... them shards must give me long range telapathy.

 

Well, if you admit that the games makes you think this, then how did you figure out the "truth"?

I guess I was just lucky that none of the bandits in the other parts of the camp heard me slaughtering their cohorts, and that none of them wandered by during the full 24 hours I spent resting. If they did, it was very honorable of them not to kill me in my sleep, but to wait until I had rested and sufficiently buffed myself before springing their ambush.

 

Who rests in a bandit camp? For whatever reason? (lol) . Anyways, I figured the encounter was meant to be back to back, kill the camp, rescue the refugee's, clear out the remaining bandits. Since NO ONE does it that way and everyone loots before they go to the refugee camp... in true RP style I figure the bandits that appear later are a returning raiding party.

The rest I get though. The bandit camp is just a weak example of why this is a "bad" game. If it's so bad, it would probably benefit a person more not to play it. To be honest, I think some of the stuff you don't like is good - Look at it from a different perspective. If you were given complete free reign as an Open RPG, what motivation would you have to defend the world? I mean, an evil character might want to pillage, plunder or just gain power, but what motivation would he have to risk his life to stop a different evil creature?

Beyond the example of forcing an evil character to follow a story-line, the fact that cRPG's are more like books you play through than RPG's, means that you really should be kept to the story. Should you stray to far it's the same story anymore. Even the better infinity games limited your choices to follow the story - ie: Baldur's Gate 1&2. Of course they were better games for billion other reasons, but the fact remains for what it is, the story is compelling and well thought out - for the most part .

Single Player replay value is kind've out the window 'cause it's too strict along the story and what you have no choice but to do, but if the online community can get off the ground that won't matter will it?

Heh, excuse me, this is coming out a little agressive, but I don't mean it that way, I just like arguing the points that no one else seems to look at. That's the best way to see all sides clearly I think. Either way, I really do wish Obsidian would go bankrupt. They don't deserve to have made the NWN sequal. I hope BG3 (if there is one), is just plain developed by Bioware. In fact, I would love it, if the game was developed on the same engine, with the same grahpics (and maybe a 1280x1024 scale supported?), and just made well enough to last as long as BG2 did.

 

The game is fun, but's in an action game sold as an RPG.

I don't remember the last time my alignment shifted because of something I DID, but I can remember several cases of my alignment shifting because of what I chose to SAY. It doesn't seem like my actions have any actual influence on the plot or what other people think of me, as long as I choose the "right" dialogue options.

*slight spoilers*

I also really have an issue with the party interactions. The paladin doesn't seem to have any issue with helping me cut my way through dozens of members of the city Watch, looting everything in site, or becoming a squire for no reason than convenience. Neeksha comments on our journeys even though I haven't had her in my party since I arrived in Neverwinter. Etc, etc.

*end spoilers*

The poor party interactions really bother me because it's going to take away - significantly - from the replay value. I want to hear different dialogues depending on who I choose in my party!