20 réponses à ce sujet

[Del]

After playing NWN2 for years, I uninstalled it right around the time Mysteries of Westgate was (finally) released to make room for the next great crpg. Unfortunately for me, it never came! Sure, I've played many games since then but nothing has captured me in recent memory like NWN2. DA:O was a decent attempt but not nearly as good in my opinion. Of course, I'm biased to the ever-evolving D&D ruleset and have lots of nostalgia for its early 80's heyday. In any event, I'm posting because I want to reiterate how great  this game is. So big, so complex, and so fun. Yep, it's back on my hard drive and I'm amazed how it towers over the vast majority of crpgs that have been released in it's wake. So thank you Obsidian for making such a gem. It really does stand the test of time.

[E.C.Patterson]

Hear, hear.

Its complexity (or depth, variety, richness) is definitely part of its appeal to me.

[Dorateen]

Nice post, and I fully agree. I've had the game installed since 2006, along with each of the subsequent expansion. Not going anywhere.

Long live NWN2 and Obsidian

Harumph!

[kevL]

ace! I hope the boys (and girls) at Obsidian hear about this: their child has grown up.

[foil-]

Nice homage!

It really is the only game in town so to speak. No other game save NWN1 comes close to offering the flexibility to keep on building, and intelligent user interface, that this game offers. But for me the item that put it over the top and finally exceeding the infinity engine, was the addition of the SoZ features.

Now I don't see anything that can replace this in the near future. Although I'll still have fun (hopefully) with the new Neverwinter and maybe even attempt building a small module.

But for real epic story telling and fun game mechanics and interface, there's nothing to top this game.

[MokahTGS]

 wait...I thought NWN2 was dead...yup...dead dead dead...

oh...here's proof...pictures of its corpse.

[NWN DM]

Yes, it has well weathered the passage of time, as has NWN to a reasonable extent.

Both excellent products with massive value.

[Gecon]

Well, NWN2 is the game that, with the expansions, offers more variance in how to build your character than any other game I know off, resulting in huge replayability.

While DA:O offers less variance in this respect than even simple rulesystems like that of Vampire: Bloodlines or Star Wars: Knight of the old Republic.

Storywise, DA:O is a bit stronger. Serious romances, for once.

[Arkalezth]

Replayability? While what you describe is great, there are a gazillion modules and PWs out there, you don't need to replay the OC with a different character just to have a different experience.

[Gecon]

Nobody forces you to replay if you dont want to.

But NWN2 makes it more enjoyable by giving you choices. With DA:O, the experience is much more uniform each time.

[kamal_]

^^^ wait until you discover community made adventures and persistent worlds

[ottery]

I love NWN2. Loved the OC despite/because of its flaws. It's such a quirky game - at times the tone reminds me of Diana Wynne Jones's 'Tough Guide to Fantasyland'. I've replayed it several times and prefer it to DA:O by quite a stretch. So much of DA:O felt like Old Owl Well X 20.

[foil-]

I'm digging this slightly stale topic up again because I've been playing the BouncyRock module "Misery Stone" lately and was comparing it to Dragon Age 2 and other screenshots.  I can't see why this engine was abandoned.  It still has so much potential in the right hands (which brings up the threads on contracting out the source code and other topics of late).  There are areas where Dragon Age looks better (architecture and character animations), but environments aren't one of them.

Here's some screens from Misery Stone.  I don't know how they improved the fog effects over Vanilla NWN2 (an area I always found lacking), but they set the Ravenloft world feel better than I've ever seen it before.  And this says nothing about the overland map they made which is above and beyond commercial value.  This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  This game looks better than a lot of DX11 titles and with a little more work for a new game or sequel could easily match anything out there in the fantasy rpg realm.

Misery Stone (sound design is amazing as well)

Screen 1
Screen 2
Screen 3
Screen 4
Screen 5
Screen 6
Screen 7
Screen 8
Screen 9
Screen 10

Modifié par foil-, 19 août 2011 - 09:53 .

[kamal_]

The nwn2 engine has always been very good at things like lighting and fog. With those being crucial to getting the Ravenloft feel, I'm sure the Bouncy Rock team spent a lot of time building their default area daynight set (and it shows). The fact it looks better than stock speaks well of their art team, and also the fact they had infinite time to work (no beancounters pushing release dates) and the setting making it crucial (whereas no official area would need that except maybe motb dreamscape)

[dunniteowl]

Misery Stone, compared to Pool of Radiance: Remastered, compared to Legacy of White Plume Mountain, compared to Dark Waters, compared to Serene, compared to Red Prison and so forth. Compared to the OC and then holding up DA:O, well, it just doesn't compare, does it?

I still have NWN2 on my hard drive. And the expansions. And all kinds of modules, additions and Vault content. Mmm. Yummy.

dno

[AndarianTD]

foil- wrote...

I'm digging this slightly stale topic up again because I've been playing the BouncyRock module "Misery Stone" lately and was comparing it to Dragon Age 2 and other screenshots.  I can't see why this engine was abandoned.  It still has so much potential in the right hands (which brings up the threads on contracting out the source code and other topics of late).  There are areas where Dragon Age looks better (architecture and character animations), but environments aren't one of them.

I don't know that NWN2 has been "abandoned." It hasn't. Not even NWN1 (which is even older) has been "abandoned" yet. Dragon Age has its own advantages and disadvantages, both with respect to the OCs and the modding community, but anyone who left NWN2 for DA because they thought NWN2 was "obsolete" was making a mistake.

Leaving aside a number of gameplay advantages, the simple fact is that NWN2 was significantly overdesigned for the computing resources of its day, especially as regards graphics resources. I had to buy a whole new computer and upgrade to a much more powerful video card to be able to play it at all. Only high-end systems could play it in 2006 when it was released. Then the shift from single core to multi-core systems started, which only made things worse for NWN2 because it was only designed to run on a single core. Single core 2.4 ghz systems gave way to dual core 1.6 ghz, which didn't help NWN2's playability and in some cases hurt it.

Now that the industry has moved forward so that dual and quad cores are passing what single cores were capable of when NWN2 was released, and powerful GPUs able to handle it are more commonplace, NWN2 is actually well positioned as a modern CRPG. Or would be, if people weren't conditioned to assume that any game more than 2 years old MUST be obsolete and "abandoned."

Modifié par AndarianTD, 20 août 2011 - 01:55 .

[AndarianTD]

For those who are interested in NWN2 (and NWN1), The Academy for Modding Excellence is still active in reviewing and giving awards for player made modules and custom content. Some of our most recent award nominations can be found here. So if you think that NWN2 is still a viable and robust modding platform and want to help us to promote it and to get it the attention it deserves from the gaming community, please consider volunteering to work on the AME panel.

Modifié par AndarianTD, 20 août 2011 - 01:55 .

[kamal_]

Needs a "beautiful screens/areas thread", with modules and areas identified.

[foil-]

AndarianTD wrote...

foil- wrote...

I'm digging this slightly stale topic up again because I've been playing the BouncyRock module "Misery Stone" lately and was comparing it to Dragon Age 2 and other screenshots.  I can't see why this engine was abandoned.  It still has so much potential in the right hands (which brings up the threads on contracting out the source code and other topics of late).  There are areas where Dragon Age looks better (architecture and character animations), but environments aren't one of them.

I don't know that NWN2 has been "abandoned." It hasn't. Not even NWN1 (which is even older) has been "abandoned" yet. Dragon Age has its own advantages and disadvantages, both with respect to the OCs and the modding community, but anyone who left NWN2 for DA because they thought NWN2 was "obsolete" was making a mistake.

When I say abandoned, I wasn't really refering to the community (although you're right, it shrank quickly for the reasons you gave in your post about its graphical demands on cards of the day).  Unfortunately there is some enificiencies in the engine also which lead to poor porformance which were apparently pointed out by AMD at the time.  Even my nVidia 560Ti today stuggles under certain conditions (lower than 20fps) and underperforms in regular conditions (30 - 60fps which is playable but lower than expected).

I was more interested why the developers abandoned it and didn't tune it to work with other games like their Dungeon Siege III.  Maybe they did and we just don't know it.

However, I think the reason it possibly due to the engine not being well tooled for console use which many developers and publishers at the time were chasing.  Now they're chasing handhelds and social gaming which is an even further step back for games like NWN.  (although a step forward for turn based gaming as in "Heroes of Neverwinter" which is great to see).

And the beatiful screenshot area is a great idea.

Modifié par foil-, 20 août 2011 - 02:57 .

[dunniteowl]

I was just going to post a "correction" to what I feel was a misinterpretation. foil- didn't say the game was abandoned, but that the engine itself was abandoned. This is, indeed a truthful statement. It doesn't mean that the game is being left to rot, or that no-one likes it, but that the developers are no longer going to or have been developing anything based on the engine that was used to make this wonderful game.

Other than that, all other points made are spot on.

dno

[foil-]

dunniteowl wrote...

I was just going to post a "correction" to what I feel was a misinterpretation. foil- didn't say the game was abandoned, but that the engine itself was abandoned. This is, indeed a truthful statement. It doesn't mean that the game is being left to rot, or that no-one likes it, but that the developers are no longer going to or have been developing anything based on the engine that was used to make this wonderful game.

dno

Exactly, thanks.