177 réponses à ce sujet

[Vaalyah]

On an Italian informatics forum, I read the news about the next NWN on line. Then I read the users comments and I got shocked. Some people where saying something like "NWN is great, but NWN2 sucks!"



I can assure you that after playing NWN I decided not to buy NWN2 and I got the game just because it was a birthday present. However, I left it on my shelf for years, before deciding to give it a try (about two month ago). And NWN2 is the game I was waiting for since BG2. So, my best hope is that the next NWN-series games would be more like NWN2 and less (far less) like NWN. For me, the opinion expressed in that forum is totally absurd. But I am curious.

What do you think about it? Which of the game is better? The first one? The second one? Do you like both or none? And why?
Please, let me know!

[nicethugbert]

I'm waiting for NWN3 for someone to finally get it right.

[Vaalyah]

:-D Ok, but please, could you also write what was wrong with the previous games?

[Hellfire_RWS]

Nothing. Some prefer one game over the other for their own reasons.

[Vaalyah]

Of course. And that's my point. I would like to know which are these opinions, because I am extremely curious. Since for me it is so obvious that NWN2 is wonderful and NWN is horrible :-P I would like to hear the other point of view :-)

[NWN DM]

I foresee much consternation in this thread reminiscent of the legacy BioWare boards.

[nicethugbert]

Both games have a lot of worthless hard coding. A lot of stuff in the game engine could be shifted to nwscript.

Examples:

There are no functions to control critical hits in nwscript. The result is that you can't make Improved Critical or Power Critical for custom weapons. So, you can't make a proper custom weapon.  You can't even correctly make the rest of the D&D weapons they didn't bother to implement.

Both games have an AB cap of 20. This cap applies to custom weapons but not stock weapons. So, you can't make a proper custom weapon.

The AB cap means that you can't implement other D&D feats such as Intuitive Attack or custom feats without making them inferior, in many cases worthless.

There is an ability bonus caps of 12 in both games that cause the same problem.

There are also AC caps getting in the way.

The stacking rules are hardcoded and not complete anyway. So good luck with your modifications.

Missing damage types.

There is a level cap.

None of these limits have any use, but, they are there getting in our way. Granted, there has to be some caps because computers have a limit on data size. But even a 1970's computer could handle the stupid limits imposed on the NWN series.

The animations suck and doing something about it requires special tools instead of freely available tools. So, we have a severe lack of monsters, not even half the Monster Manual 1 I suspect.

Area transitions take too long.

All exterior areas have a fixed border regardless of your needs or wants.

The Events that you can access in nwscript are too few and they're for NPCs. PC events would be incredibly helpful.

The spellbook is just dumb. Spells and feats are practically the same thing in mechanical terms. Spellbooks could have been handled using practically the same mechanism as class feats, just a bunch of lists, but, no because no.

There are dual spell casting classes in D&D, but, it's broken in NWN2 and I never heard of it happening in NWN1.

Spellcasting has a delay built into the front of it so there is no sense of urgency or imediacy in the PC/NPCs actions. They wiggle their butts and you get to watch and wait. Even melee attacks have this problem; run up, strike a pose, wait, zzzz...........

People are still trying to figure out how to modify the level up GUI. It's hardcoded.

The toolset allows plugins but things have to be reverse engineered because there is no documentation describing how it all works.

................................................

Modifié par nicethugbert, 04 septembre 2010 - 10:26 .

[avado]

Vaalyah wrote...

 I would like to know which are these opinions, because I am extremely curious. Since for me it is so obvious that NWN2 is wonderful and NWN is horrible :-P I would like to hear the other point of view :-)

The problem with this is, you arent open to hear any point of view!  Read what you wrote very closely!  It ISNT obvious, it is ONLY emotion, and emotion ISNT obvious.  You like 2 better than 1, so?  You post in nwn2 forum so you will be supported!  If you posted in nwn forum you would get lists and lists and lists of why your thinking, though YOURS and nothing will change your mind, is much more valid as it would be based on facts, not emotion.

It is unfortunate that people are controled by emotion without even knowing it.  Every good marketer and salesman knows this.  ANd to make your question even more difficult is, no one really cares!  nwn has nearly 10 years of history.  nwn2 has 3 or 4.  That we are still talking about a game with "sub par" graphics today after 10 years points to the flaw in your "nwn is horrible" argument! 

To my personal tastes, i prefer having 40 lvls to work with vs 30.  To get around the limited classes in nwn, i used the PRC set, which gave me much more than 2 did (i havent tried the PRC for 2 as i prefer 40 lvls!).  Does that make 2 inferior?  HELL NO!  Its a personal thing.   And i could give a rat's toot about graphics!!  LOL

[painofdungeoneternal]

nicethugbert wrote...
There are no functions to control critical hits in nwscript. The result is that you can't make Improved Critical or Power Critical for custom weapons. So, you can't make a proper custom weapon.  You can't even correctly make the rest of the D&D weapons they didn't bother to implement.

Things are very limited. Note that if you do a new base item, in the 2da you can wire it to any feat for Improved Critical or Power Critical.

However while most just don't have the chops to make this work, the following function in NWN2 gives a lot of control over combat. It basically allows you to micromanage combat. Lot of the "can't" you hear are based on not knowing how. The NWNX folks already have solved this for NWN1, and eventually will do the same in NWN2 ( projects are afoot which should allow a lot more options in this regard. )

/**
* This is a basic way to force a specific outcome during a
* creature's combat round. This is primarily designed as a
* cutscene aid, and is not intended for use on creatures
* with whom the player can normally interact. Therefore, these
* settings are not saved.
* ClearCombatOverrides() should be called on the creature when
* the cutscene is complete.
* @author Brock Heinz - OEI 02/02/06
* @param oCreature The creature to set the overrides on.
* @param oTarget This should be a creature, door, or placeable.
* Passing in INVALID_OBJECT Will allow normal target selection to occur.
* @param nOnHandAttacks
* @param nOffHandAttacks Creaturs must have a total of 1-6 attacks per round. Entering -1 for either of
* these means that the default logic will be used to determine attacks per
* round for that hand.
* @param nAttackResult An attack can have one of many different outcomes.
* You can force the attack results to be a specific outcome, or specify
* "INVALID" to allow the normal attack rolls to occur.
* @param nMinDamage
* @param nMaxDamage These are used to set the range for a random damage amount. For example,
* (1,6) would mean that 1-6 points of damage would be done. These can be set
* to the same value, and you can specify 0,0 for "no damage". Using -1 for
* either of these means that the default damage calculations will be used.
* @param bSuppressBroadcastAOO If TRUE then this creature can potentially cause an
* attack of opportunity from nearby creatures. If FALSE, this will be supressed
* @param bSuppressMakeAOO If TRUE then this creature will make attacks of
* opportunity when they are available. If FALSE, this will be supressed
* @param bIgnoreTargetReaction Normally, ActionAttack() calls are rejected if they
* are made on a hostile or neutral target. Setting this to TRUE
* will bypass that check.
* @param bSuppressFeedbackText If set to TRUE, this can be used to keep this
* creature's combat round feedback from being displayed.
* @see ClearCombatOverrides
*/
void SetCombatOverrides( object oCreature, object oTarget, int nOnHandAttacks, int nOffHandAttacks, int nAttackResult, int nMinDamage, int nMaxDamage, int bSuppressBroadcastAOO, int bSuppressMakeAOO, int bIgnoreTargetReaction, int bSuppressFeedbackText );


/**
* used to clear the effects of SetCombatOverrides
* @param oCreature
* @see SetCombatOverrides
*/
void ClearCombatOverrides( object oCreature );

[NWN DM]

Both are good, solid games.

NWN has benefitted from more years of patch support, and a significant community following, even now in 2010.

NWN2 also has a solid community, although not as large.  But the versatility of NWN2 means the community can do some significant things with it.  Like re-writing much of the networking code to reduce area load times and transition crashes in MP.  If we had been given the ADL with the first expansion, or even with SoZ, the community would have been much larger.  That failing can be laid solidly at Atari's feet for pushing it out early IMO.

That said, neither is perfect.

I just don't fathom why it has to be one iteration or the other.  Both are good and anyone who enjoys either/both game(s) really should just be happy they've got something that is so very cheap in entertainment/hour calculations... they really shouldn't have to justify their likes/dislikes.

I've played, built and DMed in both... my suggestion to everyone would be to give both a try.  For the cost, you really can't go wrong and you could have two games to enjoy instead of one... and what could be wrong about that?

[dunniteowl]

Avado, bear in mind Vaalyah's native language is Italian, not English and cut some slack for some of the wording instead of taking it at face value (thus most likely misinterpreting it due to syntax and context errors.)

Also, if you read the other posts, your expressed opinion of this being nothing more than a desire to support one's own point of view by posting in the NWN2 forums comes across as sort of hollow. The other posters, noteably NWN2 preferent, strike some pretty clear bells of information on the limits and coding. So it's not just about being fans of the game here.

Personally, I liked the OC for NWN better than I liked the OC of NWN2. At least I managed to actually finish the NWN OC. The NWN2 OC I just sort of gave up on it. It didn't really grab me.

I don't think the story itself sucked more or less, it's just the nature of the plot didn't seem to pull me in.

I've played a fair number of player made (I prefer to cal them Community Made) modules for both NWN and NWN2. I also played Kingmaker, a premium module for NWN. I liked all the Community Modules in each of the respective games far more than the OCs of either.

There are going to be some folks who, for whatever reasons, cannot accept that one or the other is actually a good game in it's own right. I can.

I bought both games for the toolset. As toolsets go, I prefer the NWN2 toolset. I like the terrain creation tools far more than the tiles. And even though great strides have been made with tiles recently, I still prefer to make my own hills and valleys, swamps and deserts.

There was a lot of disappointment by many when NWN2 finally shipped. There were, by many's estimation, too many promises broken and there was just never any going back. Sadly, this has resulted in some rather bitter feelings over time and some rather heated and difficult topics over time regarding both games. I can relate to the disappointment, but just not the level of disappointment that some seem to have felt. In fact, I was pretty disappointed when it came out.

I think it's always going to come down to some personal preference. That said, the level of acrimony and bitterness at times on either side of the aisle, quite honestly, baffles me. I think at that point, it boils down to someone really being more vested in being 'right' than in the actual merits of the arguments themselves.

I say they're both great games with differences that make them really different, though related games. Each one has points that the other doesn't and so, which ever one someone prefers is totally fine by me. Hell, I don't even have any issues with someone preferring DA:O over the NWN or NWN2 games.

That's just my own interesting point of view, however,

dunniteowl

[avado]

dunniteowl wrote...

Avado, bear in mind Vaalyah's native language is Italian, not English and cut some slack for some of the wording instead of taking it at face value (thus most likely misinterpreting it due to syntax and context errors.)
Also, if you read the other posts, your expressed opinion of this being nothing more than a desire to support one's own point of view by posting in the NWN2 forums comes across as sort of hollow. The other posters, noteably NWN2 preferent, strike some pretty clear bells of information on the limits and coding. So it's not just about being fans of the game here.

I posted to try to make a balanced point.  Posting in nwn2 forum will get one result.  Posting the exact same in nwn forum you get a totally different result.. how can that be?  LOL  im kidding, of course.

My point is "hollow" because, honestly, this is one of the most tired arguments on the internet!  Well, amongst the nwn community!  Neither game is better!  Oh crap.. i gave away the secret! DAMMIT!    Neither game is inferior.  They each have their reasons and that is good (i have both and i enjoyed what i got from each).

My whole point, and i apologize as conciseness is something i am working on, is to say "which is best" we need to wait 8 years and see how nwn2's community is doing then!  Will there be comparisons between nwn2 and DAO6?  who knows. 

I have always looked at it like this: which game do you like better: Pong or donkey kong?  Right, they dont share a name, but honestly, that is about all nwn and 2 share.  nwn or nwn2 bashing is not a good thing and it has been going on way too long.  Let's end the bickering 

[Urk]

Both are excellent platforms for modding.

NWN is easier to build with and create custom content for, allows for mounts, and there's a lot more fan produced custom content available for download. In fact NWN has been so heavily modded that you can use it to recreate Sci-Fi and modern settings.

NWN2, on the other hand, is much slicker looking, has a much better implementation of henchmen, and creates infinitely superior areas, especially outdoors, but it also takes much longer to work with.

Modifié par Urk, 05 septembre 2010 - 04:53 .

[Thorsson64]

Yes NWN2 is a better game at base (and so it should be, but it's also not as much of an advance as it should have been, given the time between the two). However it made things harder for modders, and it didn't get the sales that NWN did (the things it didn't do alienated a lot of NWN players, which didn't help). This meant less support, so there are things in NWN, done by the community, which may never see the light of day in NWN2.

[The Fred]

Yeah, this is an issue which has caused a lot of arguement in the past. As DNO said, a lot of people were disappointed when NWN2 came out (I was one of them, when I realised it didn't even work on my machine due to its inefficient programming and the hardware it required but shouldn't have). As such, there was a lot of bad feeling about it, and a few members of the NWN1 community now hate and insult NWN2 with a vengeance.



However, I think there's a big difference between comparing them as games and comparing them as modding engines. Whether you think the NWN1 Original Campaign (OC), Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark, the NWN2 OC, Mask of the Betrayer or Storm of Zehir had a better storyline or was more enjoyable to play, the value of both NWN games comes in their ability to make custom modules, and I believe that NWN2 is better for this, because it can do *most* things that NWN1 can do, but it can also do a lot more. Yes, it still has a number of silly restrictions and hardcoding issues, but less than NWN1 had. GUI modding, for example, is badly documented as so is a hell of a pain to do, but it's possible, where it wasn't really in NWN1.



Just be aware, though, that there has been some bad feeling between the two games, so asking this question can sometimes trigger some angry responses, unfortunately...

[Haplose]

The biggest problem with NWN2 are horrible camera controls. They can really spoil the experience and make you quit sooner then you actually get to know the game.



Oh and the fact the it's a resource hog. Even modern machines will lag in outdoor areas with environment shadows on (for reference I'm using Intel Core 2 Duo 3 Ghz with ATI 4850 and I'm getting heavy lag outdoors in 1280x1024 with enviromental shadows on).

NWN1 runs fine even on laptops. DAO is FAR less demending as well (can run it fine with high-res texture packs installed - and it looks gorgeous).



Then there are poor/hardly existing animations. Poor icons and effects for many spells (NWN1 did a much better job with many - though not all - of them).



40 level cap is better then 30 level cap. Epic BAB progression in NWN2 is all wrong too. And the fact that we can't progress PrCs beyond level 10 is just sad.



But on the upside, NWN2 does have much better graphics, especially outdoor.

Much better party support (though I enjoyed the henchman system from NWN1 - it allowed me to focus more on MY character).

Many more character building options out of the box - subraces, many PrCs, more base classes. DnD 3.5 ed. rules are generally better then 3.0

The Official Campaign is admittedly better then it was in vanilla NWN1. In both cases the expansions were better then the original games.

In general I think NWN2 is a more powerfull platform, but not quite able to fully replace NWN1 still.

[Vaalyah]

avado wrote...



You like 2 better than 1, so?  You post in nwn2 forum so you will be supported!  If you posted in nwn forum you
would get lists and lists and lists of why your thinking, though YOURS and nothing will change your mind, is much more valid as it would be based on facts, not emotion.

It is unfortunate that people are controled by emotion without even knowing it.  Every good marketer and salesman knows this.  ANd to make your question even more difficult is, no one really cares!  nwn has nearly 10 years of history.  nwn2 has 3 or 4.  That we are still talking about a game with "sub par" graphics today after 10 years points to the flaw in your "nwn is horrible" argument! 

To my personal tastes, i prefer having 40 lvls to work with vs 30.  To get around the limited classes in nwn, i used the PRC set, which gave me much more than 2 did (i havent tried the PRC for 2 as i prefer 40 lvls!).  Does that make 2 inferior?  HELL NO!  Its a personal thing.   And i could give a rat's toot about graphics!! 
LOL

Since NWN system requirements are smaller than NWN2, I simply suppose that not everyone who has played NWN has also played NWN2. In my opinion, it is more common to had played NWN if you have played NWN2. This is the reason why I wrote in the NWN2 section instead of the NWN one.
I don't need the others support to fell good with my own opinion! [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/smile.png[/smilie]

Instead, why you seems so offended by my words? I just said that for me it's incredible to prefer NWN over NWN2, so I asked "those of you who have tried both, can you tell me what do you think about this?". Do you prefer NWN? Ok, why?

I don't base my opinion on graphic or ruleset. I just base my opinion on the variety of the plot. And BG2 is a game of, about, 1998 and the plot is far better than the NWN series games. So it  is not even a question of  "elderly" of a game.
From what I read, it seems you are more oriented on the growth of the PC. Ok, thank you for your point of view [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/smile.png[/smilie]

Modifié par Vaalyah, 05 septembre 2010 - 01:51 .

[Vaalyah]

@NWN DM: I don't pretend one game should always be better than the other, but in my opinion the plot in NWN OC was too linear. As in the IWD series, you simply go to a place, kill everyone there, go to the following place. At the beginning of the plot you can already imagine what the entire story would be. That a bit frustrating for me. This is the reason why I prefer NWN2. This and the more depth presence of NPCs



@ Dunniteowl: thank you for having said that English is not my mother-language. I suppose I have written something bad in my first post, since people seem so picked up with this thread, but I cannot understand what o_O

You said that when NWN2 came into shop, there were disappointment for "broken promises". Can I ask you which are these broken promises, please?



@Avado: I didn't know this subject has been already discussed so many times. I was just curious!



@The Fred: from what I read, seems that many people are far more interest in the level of the toolset, than in the games itself. However, I still can't understand why if 2 people prefer a different game, this could be a problem... I am not writing here with the aim of offending or mocking someone, mine was just curiosity, in fact I am totally calm and curious of the development of this discussion, not angry or whatever

[Vaalyah]

Sorry for multiple posting, but my answer was a bit too crowded for a single post and I got confused o_O



@ Haplose: sure, the camera control is horrible (but also NWN shares the same bad impact on my way of looking around the game! :-P ). About performance... well, of course NWN being older runs smooth even on older computer. Do you know something about Crysis? Its requirements are so high that even now (and that game has come into shops some years ago) few computers can run it smoothly. Of course in 10 years, even a laptop could run Crysis without problems ;-P

However, since I had to wait for a new computer in order to play both NWN and NWN2 (2 different computers during the years), I can understand easily your concern! :-D

[The Fred]

Vaalyah wrote...
I suppose I have written something bad in my first post, since people seem so picked up with this thread, but I cannot understand what o_O

You said that you were reading an Italian forum. I think you might also have said somewhere else that English is not your first language. So, it's not that your English is really bad (it's much better than my Italian!), just that we already knew.

By the way, the camera controls *are* really bad, but there's a page on nwn2.wikia.com which explains (though not very well) how to fix them so they're not as bad.

[dunniteowl]

Off the top of my head, Vaalyah, here are three of the (most likely) Top Broken Promises*:
Mounts will be in NWN2
We will support fully PWs and continue that legacy
More Community Control

Mounts will be in NWN2
Mounts, while not super important, were something that every paladin using player wanted.  Nothing like the Paladin's Warhorse when it comes to perks.  And it was a bit of a shock to learn that we couldn't get mounts and that, upon release, it was indicated that not only were they too hard to do, but that they were virtually impossible to do at all.  This was a fairly serious blow to the conviction of many that Obsidian was going to be able to hold up their end of those claims many held out to be "Promises" to the fanbase of loyal NWN fans.

It should also be noted that by the time this was announced, the DLA team had released Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, which, at long last, had mounts for NWN.  So it was disheartening in the eyes of many that, even though they were two different platform engines, effectively, a Community Team had managed to create mounts in the legacy game, but a larger team of paid professionals couldn't manage it for a successor game.

We will support fully PWs and continue that legacy
This game was supposed to be a better, more powerful version of the NWN series, and, Obsidian directly stated that part of their intent was to provide even greater power and functionality to the PW crowd.  While PWs and MP is statistically a very small part of the NWN pie on the whole, they are vocal and do provide a lot of WoM Advertising (Word of Mouth) which, apparently, Atari's entire advertising budget can't seem to hold a candle to.

Making this a cornerstone of their efforts, as far as the Community was concerned, meant that now, finally, there would be some form of Official support for PWs.  This was seen as a very important point and created a lot of hope and good will on the part of the Community for Obsidian's effort.  And, as I came into the forums sort of late in NWNs life, the verbage and indicatios from Obsidian definitely indicated that while they may not be able to "Officially" support PWs per se, the MP aspect was going to get a whole lot of new abilities, fixes and developer love.

Only that didn't happen.  The game, when released, didn't even include the DM Client functionality of the original!  This, to my view, was the single largest negative blow to the Community.  It was like, as many said, a slap in the face.  I know that term is overused, but think about it for a moment.

You're in a large public place.  Things are focused on you and suddenly, in the middle of a conversation, your partner, who is conversing with you, suddenly screams, "You pig!"  And then delivers a loud cracking slap across your face.  It's not the physical blow (of which, in this description, there really isn't one) that causes the hurt.  It's the sting of the insult and the direct shock and humiliation you feel right there in front of everyone.

That's what the imagery, "like a slap in the face" should -- and in this case, did -- convey.  It felt a lot like a betrayal to many.  To all in the PW side of the Community it was exactly that.  And that, as far as I see it, alienated a decent segment of the online population when it came to NWN2.  Sure, it's primarily a Single Player game, and sure it comes with a toolset that allows folks to build their own modules, but not shipping a successor game to the masses without even the same level of MP tools the original had?  That stings.

I can see that easily and I have never played the Multiple Player (MP) component of the game.  I imagine that there had to be at least a decent percentage of players who don't MP and probably never will, who saw it the same as I did.  This was a major lapse of keeping faith with the Community.  Whether it was oversight and overconfidence on Obsidian's part, or whether Atari rushed them makes absolutely no difference in this particular matter.  What matters is that this was seen as a major breach of trust to the waiting and loyal fanbase.

And it definitely hurt NWN2 on release.  I don't care if MP/PW fans would only be 4% of sales. *(I beileve the estimate is closer to 10% though not quite there.)  With what little advertising Atari vested in this release (which, as far as I could tell was virtually NONE to speak of) the Word of Mouth ability of an already present fanbase on release would be important.  And it just slapped them right in the face, just prior to release.  There's no way that didn't have an overall effect on perception and sales.  Not enough to kill the game, sure, but there had to be an impact there.

More importantly, it created a serious trust issue with many in the NWN side of things.  I can't say that I blame them.  It's hard to forgive someone who pretty much completely failed, for whatever reason, to come through on a promise.  And, to many, this was a really big breach of trust.

And this is not about pointing fingers, or being mad, or even being disappointed in telling this.  It's just seeing how things might look from one side of the coin.  It can be explained by running out of time, not having the 'zots' to focus on it, or being too confident that it would be easy to integrate at the end of the development cycle, or that, in the end, they were told, "Ship it as is," by higher ups.  All those are nothing more than explanations for one simple truism: There wasn't enough concern in keeping that faith and trust by keeping that promise of greater MP/PW support.  How could it be othewise? 

And that's where many folks saw it as a major "Broken Promise."

More Community Control
What does that mean, really?  Many took it to mean that hard coded limits that had been vocally complained about in NWN should be done away with when NWN2 came out.  Additionally, we needed more scripting commands to allow us, without having to do workarounds, to create our stories and be able to focus on the story, not developing new techniques to get past the next set of hardcoded walls.  Also, there was a desire to make it easier to introduce custom content, add to the complexity of the game and still be able to do more than the original allowed us after several years and many patches.

I think, personally, it also should have meant that when it came to patches and updates, we were going to have a good deal more input, more conversation regarding the issues, such as they were and possibly a lot better communication from the Developer Staff prior to and definitely post release of the game.

Hardcoded limits.  I am not sure, but there were little to any removal of the hardcoded limits to the original in NWN2.  There were definitely some added functions and additional tools, but they also came at a cost.  Models were now much MUCH harder to introduce into the game.  Models that were in the game, in many cases, couldn't be tinted, or changed or even modified without access to some pretty high powered 3D modeling tools, pushing the barrier to Custom Content higher, not lower.

Some of the things you could do in NWN with regard to models and character customization, you couldn't (and still can't) do in NWN2.  Item dying and changing through crafting your armor's look to get that 'just right' for the player's desire, of color, style and look to armors, clothing and items -- well, you still can't do a lot of that in NWN2, even though it's supposed to be a "Jump" up in power and player control.

Emotes, animations and features.  There's a lot of new, cool stuff in NWN2, make no mistake.  But the animations, the emotes and the ability to use them in game is much less powerful than it should be, and in some ways, NWN still beats out NWN2 in this regard.  I couldn't list them all in their specifics, but I do seem to recall that one of the developer quips about emotes and animations indicated that, "...imagine a line of knights dancing, a la Monty Python's Holy Grail..." would be not only possible, but relatively easy to do.  There was a direct indication that machinama fans would really love the power and ease of use of the Cutscene Tools to make these sorts of things.

I'm not seeing that happen, 4 years later.

Broken Promises Stop here.

Okay, that's a pretty thorough treatment, I think, on the whole, without going into a doctoral dissertation on this.  Again, this is not about blaming, or pointing fingers or assigning a scapegoat.  It's what it basically is.  A list of the top 3 things that I think hurt the Community on the whole when it came to "What they Said they Would Do," versus, "What Was Delivered."

These are the sorts of things that upset a lot of folks (myself included in many small ways) and ended up totally alienating a good portion of the NWN side of the Community from being able to even invest the time to buy the NWN2 game.  It hurt the Community as a whole and created, in some cases, very bitter disputes in both NWN and NWN2 threads over time.  It occasionally still rears up and bites.  And, Vaalyah, unfortunately, the titles of most of those threads are very close, if not exactly, titled as yours is.

So if folks seem a little edgy, I hope now you can better understand.

best regards,
dunniteowl

[Vaalyah]

@ The Fred: I am asking: which part of my first post sounds offensive? I've read it again but still I can't find what is sounding so bad :-(

I'll go to have a look at the wikia, thank you! :-)



@Dunniteowl: thank you very much for the detailed answer. I am unable to start my toolset without seeing it freezing, so obviously I am not the most adapt person to speak about that. I understand these points and I can easily share the disappointment.

But from what I see, all these points are referring to development (and support) of CCs and modules. I don't know almost anything about that (but I am reading tutorials :-D ) so I would take your words as the perfect truth, but in the Italian forum they were just referring to the game itself, not the toolset and CCs world.



The single-player games were compared and from what those guys said, NWN2 is boring compared to NWN. This is a thing that I can't understand, because in my opinion, NWN2 has a plot incredibly more intriguing (not finished yet due to hardware problem). While for finishing NWN OC I needed all my determination and obstinacy. Because it was totally boring.

Reading here around, I heard of people who really liked the story, so I was asking for explanation, because maybe I was unable to appreciate the real sense of the plot.

[The Fred]

Vaalyah wrote...

@ The Fred: I am asking: which part of my first post sounds offensive? I've read it again but still I can't find what is sounding so bad :-(

Sorry, you didn't write anything that I would consider offensive. I thought you were saying you thought you had written some bad English which is why dunniteowl thought you weren't a native English speaker, and I was trying to reassure that actually your English is fairly good (certainly compared with my foreign language skills, at least) and he probably only thought that because of what you said about an Italian forum.

Maybe I should just keep quiet.

[nicethugbert]

painofdungeoneternal wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
There are no functions to control critical hits in nwscript. The result is that you can't make Improved Critical or Power Critical for custom weapons. So, you can't make a proper custom weapon.  You can't even correctly make the rest of the D&D weapons they didn't bother to implement.

Things are very limited. Note that if you do a new base item, in the 2da you can wire it to any feat for Improved Critical or Power Critical.

However while most just don't have the chops to make this work, the following function in NWN2 gives a lot of control over combat. It basically allows you to micromanage combat. Lot of the "can't" you hear are based on not knowing how. The NWNX folks already have solved this for NWN1, and eventually will do the same in NWN2 ( projects are afoot which should allow a lot more options in this regard. )

/**
* This is a basic way to force a specific outcome during a
* creature's combat round. This is primarily designed as a
* cutscene aid, and is not intended for use on creatures
* with whom the player can normally interact. Therefore, these
* settings are not saved.
* ClearCombatOverrides() should be called on the creature when
* the cutscene is complete.
* @author Brock Heinz - OEI 02/02/06
* @param oCreature The creature to set the overrides on.
* @param oTarget This should be a creature, door, or placeable.
* Passing in INVALID_OBJECT Will allow normal target selection to occur.
* @param nOnHandAttacks
* @param nOffHandAttacks Creaturs must have a total of 1-6 attacks per round. Entering -1 for either of
* these means that the default logic will be used to determine attacks per
* round for that hand.
* @param nAttackResult An attack can have one of many different outcomes.
* You can force the attack results to be a specific outcome, or specify
* "INVALID" to allow the normal attack rolls to occur.
* @param nMinDamage
* @param nMaxDamage These are used to set the range for a random damage amount. For example,
* (1,6) would mean that 1-6 points of damage would be done. These can be set
* to the same value, and you can specify 0,0 for "no damage". Using -1 for
* either of these means that the default damage calculations will be used.
* @param bSuppressBroadcastAOO If TRUE then this creature can potentially cause an
* attack of opportunity from nearby creatures. If FALSE, this will be supressed
* @param bSuppressMakeAOO If TRUE then this creature will make attacks of
* opportunity when they are available. If FALSE, this will be supressed
* @param bIgnoreTargetReaction Normally, ActionAttack() calls are rejected if they
* are made on a hostile or neutral target. Setting this to TRUE
* will bypass that check.
* @param bSuppressFeedbackText If set to TRUE, this can be used to keep this
* creature's combat round feedback from being displayed.
* @see ClearCombatOverrides
*/
void SetCombatOverrides( object oCreature, object oTarget, int nOnHandAttacks, int nOffHandAttacks, int nAttackResult, int nMinDamage, int nMaxDamage, int bSuppressBroadcastAOO, int bSuppressMakeAOO, int bIgnoreTargetReaction, int bSuppressFeedbackText );


/**
* used to clear the effects of SetCombatOverrides
* @param oCreature
* @see SetCombatOverrides
*/
void ClearCombatOverrides( object oCreature );

My understanding is that the lack of an attack event for the attacker means that this has to be handled by the defender.  But, the defender's events are limited so it's not enough.  Then there is the problem of PvP.

I've heard that the PRC is bug ridden and kludgy.