Why do I hate Neverwinter Nights 2?

[Abedeus]

Seriously. I have few reasons... But a truly great game would ignore them. Then why do I hate it?

1. Graphics, while good, are NOT when it comes to human beings. They look fugly, plastic, unnatural and Neverwinter Nights 1 with non-moving lips had better models.

2. While the story is great, I feel ripped off. We were promised that Bards (my favorite class) will be stronger in battle. Well boo-hoo, I couldn't pass the first fight after prologue. And I couldn't pass it. Me. A person that has spent at least 5000 hours in NwN1, on arenas, HnS servers, roleplaying servers, powerleveling servers and know almost every detail of the game itself. An average RPG player would be just scared to death...

3. Requirements. And this is the strangest thing I don't like in NwN2. I bought NwN1 when I had a Celeron 400, while the game requires 433 minimum. I was crashing every 30 minutes because of it, but I enjoyed the game anyway. Why does the game bunny hop on me all the time, if I can run Crysis in nice details on 25-30 FPS and more? I can blame bad optimilization...

4. Finally, the main reason I enjoyed NwN1. Multiplayer. A week after game's premiere there were hardly any servers (I knew that new modules required more RAM to host, but geez...), no arenas and barely anyone played normal servers. Last time I installed NwN2 was in summer and I was shocked to discover that the situation wasn't much improved. Frankly... There are more people playing NwN1's multiplayer.

Am I wrong/right? And is it worth buying the add-ons for the multiplayer/plot?

 

[videot76]

Have you seen the ending yet? There's the final reason for never touching it again and boycotting all further outings, regardless of how much more sense people tell you they make...

 

[Pirate Pete]

I haven't played 2, but I'm re-playing 1 with a new character style, and I find that the bard isn't very under-powered in combat terms, if you use it right (Only up to the last part of chapter one now, but anyway).
The bard I'm using is getting all the buff-spells possible, and using longbows. DEX will be the main stat, because I'm just about to become an Arcane Archer, but CHA started off high enough to cast any spells I'll have (I get to start my Arcane Archer levels at 9, so not many).
With that character, on normal difficulty, I've had an easier time than a straight fighter against some of the harder fights in the first chapter (Like the swords in the tomb in Blacklake District. Only needed a couple of potions for that). It was generally slow to kill things at the start, but I'd have enough AC to not worry about dying.

 

[Abedeus]

See here's the problem, to be Arcane Archer, one of the few sensible combinations with Bard, you have to be elf or half-elf. I enjoy playing human bards. And I really like roleplaying them, so it was very hard for me - have a good character to roleplay, and to whack monsters.

Videot - what about multiplayer? Is it worth playing?

 

[Sccye]

I'm totally with you here. It's nowhere near as good as the 1st; graphically or gameplay wise. It wasn't just the character models that looked worse, but the armour and weapons looked hideous in comparison as well. Instead of the modular construction of items in NWN, they just stuck with some really ugly templates that looked more like plastic than metal. Plus, I hated the interface changes with a passion. Plus what they did to the inventory screen. Another factor was the slash in level-cap from playing HotU. I *liked* having an epic sorceror loaded up with 3-dozen additional spells from the PRC. Playing NWN 2 felt like a huge step back in every way possible.

Bleh. It was kinda fun, but not the sequel you'd have expected.

 

[Kevvers]

Yeah, I was totally disappointed my the character models, theyre just not very good.
Half-elves are especially bad, they all have giant noses, or squints. Basically all the playable characters look like theyve been beaten by the ugly stick.
That said, people like my bro still rate them higher than NWN1 because 'theyre not cartoony'. I on the other hand found the cartoony quality charming.

I can't back you up on the bard thing, because ive always found them to be a serious bunch of arse.

However, it does have some redeeming features. There is a fairly decent party system like BG (which I recall was one of the major disappointments of NWN1 for me). Storm of Zehir has a pretty good combat mechanic (although perhaps you could say the the companions were lacking).

In terms of modules there are a few good ones on the vault, probably just check out the hall of fame, mainly made by elite mod builders from NWN1. However, another disappointment for me was the toolset. I really can't understand how they actually use that thing. For me its crashy, irritating, user UN-friendly, UNintuitive. One of the great things about nwn1 was tinkering with the toolset, Id even made a few modules and a NWN PW server (yeah they werent all that great, but I had fun!). This toolset on the other hand, its not just making areas thats become more difficult (NWN1 toolset was tile whereas this is much better TBH). Its everything else too. Say Ive been spending an hour or so tweaking some characters in the toolset, I load up the game for a test, and they dont look the same at all. There isnt the same variety with items either as in the old toolset.

Yeah, I know Ive said alot, but I really really wanted this game so much it hurt when it actually didnt live up to NWN1, let alone the high hopes for it to be better.

 

[Kevvers]

Epic levels.... well I hate them personally, but I can see why people like them but really they are the kindve thing that a programmer would only worry about later in an expansion pack, I mean thats what they did with NWN1, and thats what they HAVE DONE in NWN2: MOTB

 

[Abedeus]

Ah, yes. Interface. I don't mind when they change, but only if they change in plus.

After 2 days I still had problems fighting without active pause.

Is it just me, or they should've updated spell effects, add PRC/CEP and everything would be much better?

 

[Pirate Pete]

See here's the problem, to be Arcane Archer, one of the few sensible combinations with Bard, you have to be elf or half-elf. I enjoy playing human bards. And I really like roleplaying them, so it was very hard for me - have a good character to roleplay, and to whack monsters.

Perhaps a dex-based Bard/Weapon-Master? Should play similar; High AB and AC, with some buffing ability. Could even go 2 weapons, or use a shield for even more AC. You probably wouldn't get to WM for a while, due to all the feat requirements, but the human part would help that slightly...

 

[Abedeus]

Yeah, I was thinking of going WM with a Rapier, but... You can't have a good pure Bard. Unless you have friends you can buff and stand behind and shoot a crossbow, that is.

 

[geldonyetich]

You probably hate Neverwinter Nights 2 for the same reason I do:

You burned out on Neverwinter Nights 1 and Neverwinter Nights 2 introduces nothing particularly better than the original other than a minor graphics upgrade while being considerably more cumbersome to deal with.

I tried to get back into NWN2 a few times, quite recently in fact, but sooner or later it dawns on me that it's the same old dumb D20 mechanic. I can't do everything, and every character I do pick is hobbled by some terrible weakness or another. The upper level game in particular is a nauseating exercise in excessive spell juggling.

4th edition might rekindle my inters in the game. They streamlined out a lot of the more annoying aspects.

 

[The_Toe_Bighter98]

The game is a buggy mess from the get go, so it forces you to either patch the game or have many saves to prevent your game from being stuck (fucking lizard men fortress glitch...). Thanks to that damn glitch I had to replay through several area's. If any game cant play well enough without patches and even punishes you for its own damn mistakes, then its obviously not finished.

As we have all stated, the game is stuck in the uncanny valley. Especially when you try and talk to someone, sometimes the NPC or you aren't even facing each other - or bothering with trivial things like emotion or facial movements. Another thing about its graphics that bothered me, when you start your immediately given ugly armor to wear which immediately alienates you from the villagers which your meant to be apart of.

Also if your planning to get an expansion like Mask of the Betrayer, you better get a patch or have to deal with the inability to enter areas from opened doors (say, in the very beginning of Neverwinter Nights 2). How did they miss something like that!? Speaking of that expansion, it gets rid of any pretense of having NPC companions by having you control them entirely so much that they don't even attack monsters attacking your party.

I just plain hate this game with all its poor choices, ugly graphics and idiotic endings. Speaking of endings, another thing I hate is the plot. Maybe it would have worked, if every character you met had the ability to look like they cared about anything that happens, or have sensible plot and character decisions, as well as better romance I might as well admit.

Another point, the last one, it's made by Obsidian. Obsidian, who are the parasitic lamprey living off whatever Bioware produces. Cant wait for their remake of Dragon Age's engine, just like I cant wait for their Mass Effect clone /sarcasm.

/poorly written rant

 

[Helnurath]

Dungeon Hack is still more fun then NWN2, and what the heck is with that bizarro land story? I mean Githyanki? Feels like im playing a retarded version of Planescape.

 

[videot76]

Know that the Githyanki are an ancient and venerable race. Know also that they made the sword of power now in your care, which you should hold aloft and say "By the power of Greyhawk!"
Know that it will not transform you into a defender of good and justice, and know that the Githyanki will not stop hunting you for a second in spite of that action, you know?

Zhaevje's manner of speech was another thing that irked me, as you might have figured from the passage above.
And I never even tried multiplayer, so I can't comment on that aspect. Didn't feel like it, after being repeatedly kicked in the face by the single-player campaign.

 

[s0denone]

I found the story great, but combat lackluster in every sense of the word.
Dialogue was great, although largely unfinished for several characters, it seems; Oh, and the ending was pure crap.

Combat is/was way to easy, I don't want to force myself to play on other levels than normal, or one level harder than that at most; The same problem occured in NWN 1, I remember beating chapter one in level six. (Or is that chapter two? The chapter were you run around in all the districts, killing all 4 mini-bosses?)

When difficulty was turned up, I found that I needed to micromanage my "squad" every two seconds, since they were utter shit in combat by themselves. So much for competent AI.

You say bard is too hard, I say fighter is too easy.

 

[Akihiko]

Oh I didn't like NWN2, the combat just annoyed me, never been a big fan of point and click RPG's anyway too(Yeah you can move with the arrors, but the camera was meant for point and click, so it just kept on being annoying).

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Because it bastardized NWN and took a winning formula and ruined it...

 

[Fightgarr]

I liked NWN, most of the problems likely come from Bioware giving the franchise to one of its sub-companies. I wanted to buy NWN2 at first, but I've heard so many bad things about it that I'm tempted to leave the thing behind me and go back to the first installment and buy the new expansions.

 

[Pirate Pete]

...I'm tempted to leave the thing behind me and go back to the first installment and buy the new expansions.

Yeah, the expansions for 1 are great. Shadows isn't that good in itself, but along with Hordes, the characters you can get are, quite literally, epic.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I still play NWN1 occasionally and have for years. The customizable server options make it a game well suited to my ADD.