48 réponses à ce sujet

[Seagloom]

nino1979 wrote...

Neeshka I can understand beacuse she's tiefiling and how everyone in Ferun "likes" half-breeds,exception for Aasimar and Half-Elves.

That's not universally true. There are areas of Faerun where half-orcs are accepted. Ditto with human subraces such as genasi. I disagree with some of the rest too, but everyone's entitled to their opinion, so whatev.

Modifié par Seagloom, 24 septembre 2011 - 02:55 .

[Progbear]

OK, finally finished the OC last night. Here’s some thoughts on the characters in the order you come across them:

• Khelgar: Finally! A traditional, dwarfy-type dwarf. The problem I had with NWN1 was they seemed to be going out of their way to avoid the “stereotypes” that made dwarves fun. Grimgnaw (creepy!) and Dorna (YAAAAWN!) totally did not cut it. And Khelgar had some depth to his character that didn’t make him a total two-dimensional “blah blah blah, I love to drink and I hate elves” dwarf. Depth of character is always appreciated.
• Neeshka: I originally disliked her and found her shrill and irritating. Then came her cutscene where she visited me before the battle with Lorne, which had me dying with laughter. After that, I decided that I loved her.
• Elanee: I didn’t hate her but I couldn’t help but be a bit creeped out by a character who’s been stalking you since birth basically and has this disturbing obsession with you. Are we supposed to find this “charming”? Her crazy jealousy doesn’t help. That said, she otherwise acted the way you’d pretty much expect an elven druid to act so she felt “real.”
• Shandra: I actually liked her. I felt her down-to-Earth personality was a nice contrast to the sort of in-game characters who take all these kinds of wild fantasy scenarios for granted. She felt like the most “real” character of the game for me.
• Sand: It was love the second he opened his mouth. Arguably the funniest character in the game.
• Qara: Oh! I’m torn! On the one hand, she’s such an obnoxious little brat! On the other, she’s one of the most useful characters in the game. I’ll grant her this; her cutscene inside Duncan’s tavern is pretty funny.
• Grobnar: Sure, he was a bit goofy, but fun. Until Chapter 3, anyway. Ouch! Can you say “character development” boys and girls? How about “Break The Cutie”? Again, this felt believable but it was still just this side of heartbreaking to see his reaction to Shandra’s death and all the tragedy that followed.
• Casavir: Meh. A credible character but I still found him pretty boring. Maybe it’s because I tend to find paladins boring. He totally sounds like a smoker.
• Bishop: What a d**k! They went way over-the-top in making him cartoonishly evil. It didn’t work for me. He just felt shallow.
• Zhjaeve: I don’t hate her the way some seem to but she failed to make much of an impression on me. Generic wise-woman character. I really liked the voice-acting, though.
• Ammon Jerro: I thought his character was much more credible than Bishop’s. There seems to be actual reasons for his actions other than just being a jerk. I kind of wish he’d been fleshed out more, though (I love it when he tells off Black Garius near the end, though!).

[Avalon Aurora]

Kelgar- was awesome, character development was done relatively well, hass oem real backstory and interesting history. If anything my main complaint is he was remarkably uneducated about the nature of the church of Try and the nature of monks for someone who wanted to join them. While I liked the character growth involved in his becoming a monk thing, I somewhat think he'd be better as an unarmed variant swordsage (if such existed in NWN2... maybe someone could make a mod that adds the Tome of Battle classes to the game...?).

Neeshka- I didn't have as much a problem with her voice as many others, I had a problem with being forced to accept a real 'thief' into the party. She was a pretty interesting character at times, relatively fun, and had many great moments, but her side-quests often felt strangely forced once you start heading into them, and often involved making you do rather out of character things for the XP and completoinist type thing, trying to clear up journal entries and make Neeshka like you better. I'd rather have done some other stuff to make her like me better, or other solutions to some of her quests, a certain NWN2/SG:SG1 crossover comes to mind.

Elanee: Was creepy and annoying at times. She was also frustratingly out of touch and often judgmental, yet submissive in ways that were not very appealing. Her side quests and stuff felt half-finished, and overall she felt rather sucky for a druid, although this is partly due to NWN2 game mechanics.

Shandra- I felt Shandra was a writing failure and story-crutch, but a relatively good character for such, especially how she contrasts with the rest of the party. My main problem was the way she goes about trusting all those demons and devils and messing up the Haven, leading to her death. It seemed weird and out of character for someone who was previously distrustful of the hero, and rather level headed, to go jumping around like that spilling all her blood. Killing off a character like that for drama is also bad writing in the D&D setting when the party already has access to ressurection magic, they didn't even try to magic-babble away why she couldn't be rezzed.

Sand- is great... up until you play a Qara favoring character and he sides with the BBEG against you in order to try to take out Qara. I've heard stuff about cut content, but normal playthroughs this comes out of left field, and either way defies his normal intelligence. Sand's status as a specialist wizard was also frustrating, on top of how late you get him, despite his early introduction. I actually feel lower level wizards have the potential to be more interesting as you level them up, for the challenge, but I assume Sand was supposed to already be high level, so you had to wait to recruit him. He's a good character, despite how rude he is and his strange olofactory obsession.

Qara- felt like a situation of really messed up executive meddling warring with pushed release and munchkin mode crossed with poor writing, for an overall disgusting character. Qara often felt more like she was chaotic evil, or perhaps chaotic stupid, or stupid evil, (despite her decent intelligence and average wisdom score). She had numerous 'too dumb to live' moments that went beyond simple immaturity or selfishness they tried to portray it as, and the dialogues you can have in convos with her besides forced stuff in the main game show just how messed up she is, really, she lit half a dorm and stables on fire in retaliation for people saying 'bad things' about her 'behind her back' when she could hear them, and from the looks of it, were entirely too true. She also has an annoying tendency to not target her spells very well, which seems to be indicated to happen due to more than just bad game AI based on some dialogue. She also joins the BBEG if you favor Sand for no real reason at all (I don't like Sand isn't a reason, especially if you'd been traveling with the PC group up till now fighting against the BBEG and you realize your likely fate joining them). On the other hand, it was far more believable for her to join your party than Grobnar or Bishop.

Grobnar- was almost too silly even for the Realms. I think he'd have felt less out of place if this was Dragonlance. He joins the party way too randomly as well, clearly the writers didn't have time to give him an actual backstory or intro. It felt more like they threw him in to show off how gnomes now have a favored class bard in 3.5, and how we're playing the new and shiny NWN2 with 3.5 ruleset rather than 3.0 ruleset used by NWN1. He had some great moments, but overall wasn't a very credible or well made character. If they put more time into developing him, perhaps had whoever came up with some of his better dialogue, he could have really been made into something.

Casavir- was a terribly generic attempt at a paladin. I say attempt because no real paladin would have continued adventuring with a group that includes the likes of Qara or Neeshka, a trigger happy egomaniac brat who doesn't understand the concept of friendly fire, and a real thief who is unrepentant about such, let alone Bishop, Ammon Jerro, or potentially even worse, evil versions of the PC. He was perhaps the worst case of the forced companion system in the OC, because they literally break the rules for paladins to keep him in the party, and tone down his paladiness and make him more of a background boring fighter type who sometimes complains when the party does 'bad stuff' to play lip service to him as a paladin, when he really feels more like a fighter who can use cure light wands, and might be lawful wishy-washy alignment. Bad voice acting, dull dialogue, and only romance option for female PCs only made it worse. Also, he seems downright freaky if you pick certain racial options for female PCs, although Elanee is probably worse in those kind of circumstances for male PCs...

Bishop- I think the only thing that I hate more about him than his stupid-evil alignment and forced joining (which paladin PCs should at least be able to get out of) was the glut of fangirls who formed up around him (probably because of how much fail Casivir was made out of). Bishop wouldn't have been out of place in 8-bit-theatre with how epicaclly and obviously he betrays you and was planning to all along, and not being able to get rid of him makes _NO SENSE AT ALL_ for good, or even pragmatic and intelligent of any alignment PCs. The best excuse I can see for keeping him is if your PC is attracted to him sexually (bisexual of either gender or a gay male character or straight female character), and thinks they can redeem the bad boy. For someone like me who prefers more perceptive, pragmatic characters, he is a pile of bad writing and game design, and horrible frustration, especially in a supposed RPG that is supposed to give you lots of choices.

Zhajaeve- she was irritating and unfun, if interesting. She didn't quite feel like a Githzerai fully though, although it didn't help that NWN2 lacks psionics and Kelgar sort of stole the monk party slot and she seems to have been shoehorned into the cleric slot, although a cleric acting monk-like might as well be a githzerai at least. Her manner of talking was an interesting take on the Githzerai culture at least, maybe, sort-of. It isn't what I'd change about her, that is for certain. Still, she came somewhat out of nowhere, and left the same way, which is actually kind of cool for a planar traveling character, but we don't get to hear much about who she is even from her.

Ammon Jerro- way better than Bishop, but still not very credible. He gets handed the idiot ball _way_ too much, both to push the plot, add encounters for XP, and in his general backstory, although at least he fesses up to it. Unfortunately, his motivations occasionally seem confusing, and his capabilities when not controlled by the player seem over-the top, especially with however he got a hold on all those powerful demons and devils and somehow bound them to this wonky 'Haven' before hitting epic levels, and as a warlock, rather than a proper spellcaster. He probably would have worked better as a wizard or sorcerer in terms of the Forgotten Realms setting and what he does in the backstory and such, although warlock works nicely for his general theme, it fails with all the summoning and binding he does before you get your hands on him, and whatever he did to set up that haven (shouldn't he need at least some item creation feats or something?). It felt like they were shoehorning him into the shiny new class they were throwing in, possibly after initially writing him as a wizard, likely a conjuration specialist. The best thing about him is admitting his mistakes if you push him properly with the right skill checks and dialogue options.

[OfficerDonNZ]

The conpaions I liked the most were Neeshka (no suprise there!) Khelgar and Sand

Next come Elanee and Casavir, both have their short comings but I use them a fair bit.

The three I always kick to the curb are Qara, Bishop and the bloody gnome.

Shandra, Ammon and Z-girl well they are required for the plot but boy do I want to leave them behind at times as well.

[nino1979]

Actually the thing I hate most is party AI;for instance playing a Barbarian;surounded by half dozen enemies and naturally hit rage button,but oh no here comes smart-ass cleric,druid or spirt shaman to restore me!! What in Nine Hells?!!.They desrve axe into skull not an enemy..

[Kaldor Silverwand]

I want NPC's to be useful and to have interesting weaponry or talents and possibly an interesting side-quest. I don't like them for their chatter. I don't want them to be used as deus ex machinas (probably not the correct plural. I don't know Latin.) I also don't want them to be limited in class selection. And I certainly don't want them to be either immune-to-death or doomed-to-die. That being said I didn't really like any of them much. I tolerated Elanee, Neeshka, Khelgar, and Casavir.

For those who feel similarly I encourage you to try the OC Makeover and MotB Makeover and celebrate some freedom of choice.

Regards

[Laamaa]

I rlly can't stand Quara (Allthough she's strong ^^)
I love Sand & Elanee the best.

[Bayz]

I love Khelgar and Amon Jerro...bearded baldies ftw

I don't really dislike Elanee but felt guilty pleasure in letting her know how much she did not belong into the group. I just don't see her fitting and a druid able to use metal armor is just no.

Hated Zhaeve for her speech pattern, and kinda disliked grobnar.

[Seagloom]

Any druid can wear metal armor in that game. That was a developer decision, not Elanee breaking druid taboos. XD I never equipped her in metal armor.

[HoonDing]

It felt strangely fitting to keep Elanee in shambling mound form continuously.

[Bayz]

Seagloom wrote...

Any druid can wear metal armor in that game. That was a developer decision, not Elanee breaking druid taboos. XD I never equipped her in metal armor.

Fair but I wasn't playing a druid then. So all the ****ing went to Elanee which was the one at hand.

[themincer]

I have to admit, when this happened on my playthrough, I lol'ed (not my video, in case you're wondering):

www.youtube.com/watch

... gets my vote...

EDIT:

As for the other characters (only from the OC - I'm actually working through MotB right now, so can't comment on its characters yet):

Liked/felt truly loyal to - Khelgar, Neeshka.

Definitely had some redeeming features, but also left a few bad impressions (mixed bag) - Shandra, Elanee, Sand, Ammon Jero, Bishop, Qara.

Didn't give a crap either way - Zhjaeve, Casavir, Construct.

Btw, the left-ist most character in each category is the one I favour the most in that grouping, and the last in each list is the one I favour the least.

My character romanced Elanee, and I role-played honestly, so even if I could've romanced Neeshka, I guess I would have still ended up with Elanee anyway (I pretty much always had higher rep with Elanee).
But you know what - if it were possible for Shandra to live and you could romance her, I'm pretty sure my character would've ended up with her, actually. I seem to have a thing for highly critical, self-righteous, know-it-all women in rpgs, who have a vulnerable-side/soft-spot underneath *coughBastilacough*

Modifié par themincer, 07 décembre 2011 - 11:34 .

[Thiefy]

i actually liked bishop, not for his "good looks" (lol i had the hardest time trying to figure out what his guyliner was) but for his personality.

yeah i said it. i just thought he was a fun and refreshing character. i didn't always like what he did or said from an RP perspective, but from a player/metagame perspective he made the game more fun.

that and i never play 100% good or evil; i always go for the the more practical or pragmatic but slightly mischievous approach.

the character that annoyed me most was elanee. i actually opted to kill her my first play through and i never do that to companions. brought bishop along for the snark as well. :3

[The Fred]

The thing is that I can totally see disliking a character, but liking how well they were written to be dislikable. After all, the title of this thread suggests as much. This is most noticeable with a lot of bad guys in a lot of things. You absolutely despise them but you despise them because they're well written.

The problem is that a lot of the guys I disliked from the OC I felt were not as well done as they could have been, or a bit too one-dimensional. Bishop for example was OK in himself, but the fact that you got lumbered with him even when your character and he hated each other made little sense.

Qara was another one who I disliked, but I felt that the whole "I like to blow things up without thinking because I'm a sorcerer" line got a bit strained. I mean, I get it, but I wanted something more than her constant bickering. Maybe a backstory of a troubled upbringing due to her powers might have been more interesting than some irrational feud which resulted in my killing 50+ students of the academy. I mean, that's more like a war than someone disliking the girl.

[NoirAuteur]

Let's see... if it would've been workable, my OC party would've been Elanee, Grobnar, and Construct. But if you're not a rogue and don't feel like activating every trap in the game past the Orc caves or so, Neeshka is pretty much a requirement. Which just made me hate Neeshka even more.

Elanee was dreamy, and Grobnar was good times. Construct was less annoying and/or cooler looking than the other warrior-types (except maybe Shandra, but I'm not counting her).

I liked Sand well enough, so if I was playing a melee character he'd probably replace Construct.

Qara was the worst. There was nothing redeeming about her at all.

Ammon Jerro is interesting in the sense that he's evil and knows he's evil, and why, unlike most D&D players, who do evil things and then whine about taking an alignment hit because they "had good intentions".

Don't really care any which way about the rest of the OC characters.

As for MotB, I didn't really hate any of the characters (although I've only played through once and had Okku instead of One-of-Many).

I liked Okku, and Safiya is okay but when she tried to get all-up-ons I told her I was with Elanee. Which I would've done because right thing to do and all that, but I preferred Elanee anyway.

Kaelyn would've been tempting, though I didn't have her in the party much for one reason or another and didn't have much influence with her by the end. Her dedication and compassion were admirable, though, and that's why all her potential endings are ****ty.

Modifié par NoirAuteur, 21 décembre 2011 - 09:18 .

[likeorasgod]

Doing a Halfling playthrough today....going to be a Dagger Spell...so Wizard 4/Rouge 1 at the moment. I have come to love Khelgar for the simple fact that every cut scene I look smaller than a kid. Hell kip was even taller than me when I was doing the harvest fest part.

Speaking of Kip...I still would of loved to atleast played him through the attack allso. I liked his smart a** comments when you enlist him cause you don't have a Rouge in the party (oh and one level is all it takes). I can just see him as a short sword swinging crazy kid that will some day turn out to be the next great hero...or dead in 5 mins flat of the combat starting, but not cause he decided to help the mage out, but instead he got stuck looting some house on fire.

I keep meaning to do the make over cause I want to adjust a few of the chars.

[nino1979]

to likeorasgod:funny man,btw did u try any of tiefling builds I put up? just wonderin...

[devilsgrin]

 of all the characters in NWN2, be it the OC or MotB, i've seldom ever used several of them... i have never used Grobnar in a group regularly, only twice out of a zillion playthroughs have i ever used him enough to get his buff before the Lorne duel. Casavir bores the hell out of me, none of my female playthroughs can bring themselves to romance him (save 1, just to see the dialogue). 

Love to Love: Bishop - he's a loathesome jerk, but he's also the iconic bad boy who a good girl wants to redeem, and a bad girl can't get enough of. His character reveals a lot of depth the more you gain approval with him. He IS ultimately evil, but evil does not preclude love. Sand - acid tongued, incredibly useful wizard, not as deep as i'd like, but deep enough to be awesome. And the possibility of him escaping at the end is excellent - something about an iron golem? Since the trial is my favourite part of the whole game, i'm predisposed to liking him anyway, but he's also a great character.
                           
Love to Hate: Elanee - she's a wierdly argumentative druid. her dialogue often borders on preachy, but its balanced by one of the deeper stories.

Like: Zhjaeve - once i get her, she rarely leaves my party, she's just intriguing in every way. and who doesn't like a powerful cleric in their party] Neeshka - She's funny, useful, and whilst VERY whiny, i can't help but enjoy her company. Unless i'm playing a Rogue myself, she rarely leaves my party; Ammon Jerro - such a fierce character to be added to your party. Every word he says, every action he takes, just drips with intensity. Kaelyn-the-Dove - so doomed and tragic, i truly enjoy her company. Ganneyev - the softer, "Seducer" type opposite of Bishop in many ways. His story is also rather tragic, but perhaps because of the smaller cast, he's deeper than most from the OC] Safiya- a powerful red wizard - who wouldn't want her along for the journey. Hers is perhaps the least tragic story from MotB, and perhaps because of that, she's the most interesting.Okku - just plain cool, Okku is a different type of companion. We've not had a beast companion til that point, and to get a "god" is extra nice (a Throne of Bhaal gesture perhaps?). He's kind of like the opposite of the Construct. Khelgar - for his loyalty and early game usefulness, his gregariousness and his greater depth than any character in the OC, Khelgar is great, but he IS shoved down our throats a lot. 

Indifferent: Grobnar (and Construct); Casavir (also see above)

Just outright LOATHE: One-of-Many - it took so much effort on my part to actually play a character who could get this guy, and seriously - i missed Okku instantly. His cameo in SoZ is fun, but otherwise, a useless character. 
Shandra - I wanted to kill her myself. And my male characters would happily have given her to Bishop to warm his bedroll. The whiniest character in the game. All that PC hate-blame she dishes out... grrr she makes me angry. Ignorant Peasant is the NICEST thing i can say about her. Qara - beyond both OoM and Shandra, Qara is the character i despise most. She gets that one funny scene with Neeshka and Khelgar, but apart from that she's a spoilt brat in the most psychopathic way.

Little shout of support to Torio. Once you recruit her, i truly enjoy her ****iness, but she is also very useful. (obviously with repeated playthroughs, thats arguable since we know where the recruits for Xroad Keep are... but still, she's a recruit for it herself)

Modifié par devilsgrin, 16 janvier 2012 - 12:37 .

[I_Raps]

Faerunner wrote...

"Exactly, so let's dump every negative hippie stereotype that people recognize into this character to make her as useless and unlikable as possible!" "That's awesome! Take that, vegans!"

Nothing compared to their beautiful, beautiful smackdown of Goths! 

[Dann-J]

likeorasgod wrote...

Doing a Halfling playthrough today....going to be a Dagger Spell...so Wizard 4/Rouge 1 at the moment.

A transexual halfing wizard?

[likeorasgod]

nino1979 wrote...

to likeorasgod:funny man,btw did u try any of tiefling builds I put up? just wonderin...

I been busy with other mods haven't done a Tiefling in a while.  I'm kinda waiting for some ones certain Thief mod to get finished to do a play through of one bada** thief that will put Neeshka to shame....

[likeorasgod]

DannJ wrote...

likeorasgod wrote...

Doing a Halfling playthrough today....going to be a Dagger Spell...so Wizard 4/Rouge 1 at the moment.

A transexual halfing wizard?

The funny thing I tend to make female chars (I'm male)  cause I hate most of the faces of the male's.  Specialy the none human males.   But the female halfling can actualy do a better image of a topknot kinder than the male version....so I can just pretend it's male.


Yes I was that guy that brought a kinder to table top in a dragon lance game...and actulay didn't get killed by half the part a number of times.... I swear he was related to Tass allso, a sister, cousin, brother, aunt, Grandparent twice removed........

[Dakedoom]

I_Raps wrote...

Faerunner wrote...

"Exactly, so let's dump every negative hippie stereotype that people recognize into this character to make her as useless and unlikable as possible!" "That's awesome! Take that, vegans!"

Nothing compared to their beautiful, beautiful smackdown of Goths! 

ROFL

But anyway

Love - Bishop, Sand

Like - Qara, Neeshka

Neutral - Khelgar, Casavir, Elanee, Construct

Dislike - Ammon, Zhjaeve

Hate - Grobnar, Bevil

Would Murder for Free - Shandra