65 réponses à ce sujet

[nicethugbert]

Disatisfaction with gaming has been building up and I've been mulling this over with increasing frequency as I stick an ever increasing number of pins in my DICE voodoo doll for what they have done to Battlefield 3.   But, I still struggle to put it into words.  Therefore, discuss!  Or just cuss.

Oh, wait, I have something to mumble.

Practically every game I play subjects me to eventual tedium throughout the "module".  OC is a classic example of this.  No game, that I remember, lives upto it's potential.  Lazy development seems to be the one gaming industry standard.

It's not just NWN2, although, NWN2's sluggish action helps NWN2 suck.  It's a lot of games I have played:  DA series, ME series, The Witcher 2, Rage, Deus Ex: HR, etc.  Lack of immersion and tedium infect many games, even the top tier games.

To help facilitate discussing, I offer a question.  What are the high and low points of NWN2 gaming to you?

For me, a low point in NWN2 gaming is the action.  There is none.  NWN2 is too sluggish to have action.  Creatures stand around in combat to much to be said they are active.  NWN2 has interaction, not action.  DA2 has action.  You issue a command, the creatures does it, no hesitation.

The ruleset, and game mechanics, is a mixed bag.  On the one hand, there are lots of options.  On the other hand, I hate most of them.   The options don't facilitate replay as much as they simply allow the game to have wider appeal.

A side effect of the rules and game mechanisms is that it places calculable boundaries on the game.  You can calculate, or eventually get a feel, for your chances of sucess.  Which is not necessarilly a bad thing.  But worse is that you know what is possible and not possible in the game and eventually a feeling of constraint sets in.  Then immersion breaks down.

Yet, the lack of documentation, the act of finding out the rules and mechanism the hard way, is not helpful either as expectations get dashed, often incomprehensibly.  The developer's arbitrary decisions disappoint.  Descriptions of various game mechanisms reveal themselves to be hype; hint hint, class descriptions.

I'll say it helps a lot to use skills in dialogs, especially for less cannonical but reasonable uses.  It's immersive.

The idea of challenge in a game is not so appealing.  It's often frustrating.  I play a game for entertainment.  I play it for the same reasons I watch The Colbert Report or read a good book or listen to music.  None of these things are challenging.  They provide a pleasing or interesting perspective, or perhaps just another voodoo doll to stick pins in.

Now, I must set off to work.  Before I go, I'll say that the high points of NWN2 gaming for me often involve light and sound.  The most mundane act or statement in a game can entertain if the accompanying sound is right, like MOTB, or flying an attack chopper in BF3 while listening to THIS..

[Taurus Daggerknight]

Low points:

Combat itself isn't really bad... its just poorly presented. The lack of interesting combat animations and overdone spell effects make the spectacle of battle less than it should be in a fantasy game.

Can't comment on the responsivness part.. .I found NWN 2 to be far more responsive than 1.

Squad combat isn't nearly as intuitive as it is in the infinity engine, though I still appreciate its existance.

Voice acting quality varies... some of it is good, while some of it is really, really, really bad. The OC also had a lot of sound bites that suddenly dipped in volume for some reason. 

Some of the classes don't really have a reason to exist (Duelist and Swashbuckler really come down to the same thing at the end of the day).

SOZ's campaign was badly written and felt pointless.  The soundtrack also felt a bit overblown (Soz's... MOTB and the OC had a nice enough soundtrack).

The game doesn't seem to run as smoothly as, of all things, Crysis on my rig, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.... 

We never got a final expansion  



The highlights:

Multiplayer is AWESOME, especially with role playing.

Mask of the Betrayer had a great story line. The OC also had some memorable moments, despite a generic storyline (certainly better than the NWN 1 OC).

The toolset lets you do a lot, and its one of the easiest games to mod in general.

The sheer number of options available for character customization is amazing, along with the number of races. Personally, I think its the best FR DnD effort to date in regards to that.

Despite the animations, I still find combat fun, more so than Dragon Age (due to the build options...in Dragon Age the only class that really had different approaches to combat was the mage, which was overpowered).

Modifié par Taurus Daggerknight, 06 février 2012 - 02:02 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

High points

• Community here in the forums ( largely respectful and helpful unlike many others )
• Community Tool and Engine Developers ( skywing, kaedrin, kaldor, 010010, etc ) ( even zebranky when he's not cranky and other NWN1 focused modders like peachykeen, virusman ), If i've not listed you, well I'd be here all day and you know who you are.
• Module makers making new stories
• PW's and those that host them
• Hellfire and any minions he can recruit.

( note that i basically listed people, but the engine allows those people via plugins, NWNx and the toolset to remake the game in our own image. )

Low points

• Negative community members who expect things exactly a certain way but don't seem to get the fact the only way to get that is to do it yourselves. They don't seem to stick around long.
• People who have invested years of effort eventually leaving. Fortunately our community benefits forever from each of their projects.
• Lack of Atari and other companies allowing this game to reach it's potential ( leaving it to us in the community ).

[Shallina]

Low point :

Animation could clearly be better.

Walkmesh is an horrible little thing.

Optimisation, the game runs poorly.

[MokahTGS]

In truth, the NWN series has always been about building for me, so the toolset is by far the highest point of both NWN 1&2.

The games themselves have always been a toss, since I looked at them as a tutorial for the toolset.  If I had to make a list (and I do) then it would go something like this:

• Party Creation and Mechanics - Very much a high point of NWN2.  I've always enjoyed creating a group of adventurers and NWN2 finally allowed this with SoZ.  It’s very sad that this feature came so late.  NWN2 might have been received very differently if this feature came in the original.
• Character Customization - The sheer amount of builds is just silly.  I can create pretty much anythingI want with the NWN2 system and play how I want.
• Very rich bestiary and story hook possibility - The is one area where DnD shines and the NWN games have so many creatures and races that creating many different encounters and stories is very easy right out of the box.  DA suffered horribly in this regard.  In that game you have an undead mutant...and another kind of undead mutant to work with...blech...
• The Overland Map - Again, a feature that should have been there from day one.  It added so much old school fun to SoZ that I could easily see myself playing just on the OM and never needing anything else.  Sadly the OM is such a custom system and the documentation of that system is so bad, that the community has largely skipped this wonderful feature.
• Visuals - I know there are prettier games, but bang for buck, NWN2 has some real potential to wow when it comes to eye candy.  NWN2 in the hands of a talented builder can make areas that evoke deep emotional responses.  That is something to be praised.
• Flexibility - People will debate this of course, but the NWN series was built with the community in mind to do what the community does best:  Mod.  Some of the mods and modules over the years have simple astounded me.  There are not many games that allow this kind of freedom in building.
• Multiplayer - The NWN series kicks arse here.  No other game out there even comes close to the flexibility, depth and RP potential of these games here.  I spent several years running a weekly game in NWN and some of the best gaming of my life was just standing around RPing a shifter with multiple personality disorder that couldn't control her shapes when in high stress situations...oh fun times.

Now, here some stuff that just doesn't measure up:

• Combat Implementation - The combat of both NWN 1&2 suffered the same problem.  PnP shoe horning.  The 6 sec round systems are all well and good for PnP DnD, but in CRPG terms each round is an eternity.  This was a fault, I actually blame on the community, as they insisted that a system that worked in BG could work in a fully 3D game like the NWN series.  Bioware should have had the nads to just rewrite the system so that the dance of death never existed.  Instead, they bowed to pressure and just screwed the pooch.  The sad thing is that the combat system is not what is broken...it is how it is implemented.  Skills, feats, and dice rolls can be done in a roundless system...it just wasn't.
• Lack luster writing - I'm not sure why this is, but games just don't have good writing.  There are a few gems, but really, for the most part, game designers fall back on the "go kill 10 rats" mechanic. How many side quests did we need in the NWN2 OC?  Really?  They had this epic story, and we're spending the first half of NWN2 running guard errands?  Just not acceptable.  Not make a 40-60 hour game if you don't have that much REAL story.  Keep it tight, good, and leave out all the stupid fluff...I don't care about Kelgar's dreams to be a ballerina...THE SHADOW KING IS STORMING THE CASTLE!!!!!
• The broken engine - I don't understand why this is so hard.  Don't game developers play games?  Haven't they ever played a game that has smooth camera work, a slick and responsive UI, and smooth animations?  Really?  Do they have to reinvent a broken wheel with every game?  Look at ANY MMO and you will find a smoother game experience.  Why can't they just use that system?  If the game is designed for isometric gameplay, then JUST LEAVE IT THAT WAY.  If it is designed for 3D, the JUST LEAVE IT THAT WAY!  Don't try to make some sort of unholy offspring of the two.  Figure out who you are and what you are making and DO IT WELL, or don't do it at all.  There is a reason WoW is popular, and it's not because people like Blizzard.  The game just works.  Say what you will about the MMO gameplay, but you can't argue the game mechanics.  I wish more SP CRPGs would just license an established MMO engine and make the game from there.  NWN2 would have been HUGELY popular if it had worked well right out of the box.  By patch 1.23...it's was just too late.
• Voice acting - OMG the NWN2 OC has some of the worst VO I've ever heard in a game.  Load up the OC and take a listen to your stupid elf step-father deliver his first line of the game and tell me you don't want to rip your own ears off in disgust.  Lastri in SoZ is another example.  Who green lit that VO performance?  Have they been fired yet?  'Cuz if not, I'll write the pink slip myself.  Bad bad bad bad suck suck suck!  Did anyone listen to the VO of the Witcher?  Hire those guys.  So much better!

Alright, there ya go...NWN2 as a game is passable, but what is it for?  Building.  Playing as a SP game?  Not so much.

Modifié par MokahTGS, 06 février 2012 - 06:39 .

[M. Rieder]

I can still clearly remember old cRPG's like Tunnels of Doom (Ti-99), The goldbox games, and even some of the early 3-d ones like dungeon hak. Compared to these, NWN2 is like virtual reality, so I really find no fault with the game engine. I'm just happy that we have things that look like monsters and not just littel 8-bit blockly sprites bonking across a dull gray battlefield.

I think my "low points" with NWN2 are things that will probably be fixed in time. I would like more variety of creatures. This has already been worked on a great deal and there will doubtless continue to be more as the excellent modelers in the community continue their work.

I agree with the walkmesh comment. It is a bit of a nightmare, and I wish it were possible to superimpose multiple walkmeshes on top of each other to exploit the 3rd dimension more fully in game development.


NWN2 has many upsides, the greatest of which is it's malleability. It can be made into anything you want, depending on how much time you have. It is a visually appealing way to tell stories and relax in an imaginative environment.

I guess my other complaint is that I wish there were more of us!

Oh, yeah, I wish someone would release a fully patched stand-alone (read no internet connection required) version on a hard medium.

[The Fred]

Iveforgotmypassword wrote...
The president dissatisfied with his domain what chance is there for the poor peasants ?

Peasants do what they're told.

nicethugbert wrote...
Disatisfaction with gaming has been building up...

How so? In what context? Clarification please!

[Quixal]

Iveforgotmypassword wrote...
The president dissatisfied with his domain what chance is there for the poor peasants ?

Somewhere, Rob is shedding a single tear.

Edit: I find myself wondering where McGnome landed on leaving Obsidian.

Modifié par Quixal, 06 février 2012 - 09:30 .

[PJ156]

I am a little on sided on this since I came from dungeon sige to NWN and never really picked up another RPG again with the exception of the Baldurs gate/Icewind dale series. I don't own dragon age nor skyrim, I have not played other RPG genres thus from my focused perspective:

Lows

Writing conversations in toolset without a spell checker.
Poor primary crafting from the developers (though, say what you like about the story in Soz, I think the quality of material within it is much better than its preceeding modules).
Not knowing where I put my MoTB disc.

Highs

You lot (mostly)
Just about everything else.

I have no real terms of reference but I like the flow of the combat and the way the game plays, okay so it's a bit cranky at times and does not always do quite what you hope it will, but there the game and I have something in common.

PJ

Modifié par PJ156, 06 février 2012 - 10:45 .

[Shaun the Crazy One]

So... basically, I agree with everything Taurus said (and Shallina).  It was the animation and voice acting that fell short for me the most.

So... cons:
-The voice acting is poor.  It simply isn't up to par with most Bio ware games.  If was even half as good as DAO or Mass Effect then maybe we wouldn't have noticed that the dialog is also sub par.  It bugs me because Bio Ware games normally have phenomenal writing and voice acting NWN2 (the OC in particular) are just so far below their standards.

-There is a lack of animation.  In NWN1 characters in combat would duck, weave, side step, block with their weapon or shield, and attack in several different ways.  In this way NWN2 is huge step backwards.  Given NWN2 does have a spectacular collection of creature models, but the lack of animation and effects takes alot the visual appeal out of combat.  Still this in sharp contrast to DAO which had spectacular combat animations and spell effects, but a very poor selection of creatures.

-Last issue, this program is a pig. It uses far more system resources than it needs to. Just plain old poor optimization.

and the good stuff:
-Spectacular selection of creatures (as mentioned)

-Good interpretation of the D&D 3.5 rules into a digital environment, which leaves lots of room for customization in character creation.

-Well made toolset, and I'm saying that even after I was spoiled by the Warcraft 3 editor. The toolset allows for an incredible level of customization and is what made this game so lasting.

Modifié par Shaun the Crazy One, 06 février 2012 - 10:48 .

[Kaldor Silverwand]

I found the OC barely playable because I really prefer creating my own party rather than being forced to use the ones others created. Everyone popping back to life after every battle was also high on my hate list. I want death to matter some. I want the choice of losing the xp gained in battle by reloading from a save or trudging 50 miles with the dead body to a temple and selling half my equipment to afford the resurrection. I also wanted the choice of how to level up my companions since they were forced on me anyway. It was just too controlling for me. With my own humble enhancements I find it playable. I found SoZ to be a vast improvement in many regards.

But I spend far more of my time in the toolset than playing. Being able to build things I am interested in and helping others to do the same is very rewarding to me. As a Mac owner I wish it wasn't a Windows only program and I wish there was decent documentation for its many features, but I can tolerate those things. (Actually I've been trying to run the Toolset in a Wineskin wrapper and I am getting closer to a working version. I already have the OC, MotB, and SoZ fully patched running nicely on my Mac in a wrapper.)

I am really enjoying planning out my epic campaign and making it fit within the lore and legends of Faerun, although the building itself is slow going, partly because I know what the toolset is capable of and I want to do the best I can with it. What I produce reflects my limitations more than the limitations of the tool.

I'm fairly certain that if I joined the multi-player NWN2 community I would probably like it, but I haven't yet made that social leap.

I play very few computer games and no FPS games, so most of the time I really don't know what people are talking about when they discuss anything newer than NWN2. I don't have the time to do more and I enjoy participating in this community. There are a few rough edges but lots of good ideas and lots of people that try great things. I'm honored to be a part of it.

Regards

[Dann-J]

Shallina wrote...

Optimisation, the game runs poorly.

Graphics cards are catching up with NWN2's demands. Plus there were some improvements to performance with the expansions.

Unfortunately some of us with recent Nvidia cards have to put up with strange surface normal issues in outdoor areas (unless you turn off normal mapping altogether). However I can get quite good frame rates with all graphics settings on high, which allows me to see those ugly texture problems in the best possible way.

[Alupinu]

DannJ wrote...

Unfortunately some of us with recent Nvidia cards have to put up with strange surface normal issues in outdoor areas (unless you turn off normal mapping altogether). However I can get quite good frame rates with all graphics settings on high, which allows me to see those ugly texture problems in the best possible way.

I think I’m having the same issues, where only the outdoor, ground, base texture shows up and all the other textures just blink or not show up at all. This is driving me crazy and I’m hoping somebody will have a solution.
BTW, this only happens in play and not in the toolset.
Just built my new rig about two months ago with duel “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti”.

[NWN DM]

Nothing wrong with taking a bit of a break and waiting for the itch to return.

If it does; great.

If it doesn't; undoubtedly something else will come along for a hobby.

[-Semper-]

along with new vegas it's the only game i keep on my hdd for modding. the toolset is amazing and i like to create stuff i enjoy. i am a long time lurker and abandoned nwn2 back before motb was shipped only to pick it up two years ago, after realizing that da:o ain't what i'm looking for.

hopefully i will release a module some day. till now i started and dropped lots of 'em

goods:
- character customization
- ruleset integration
- toolset!
- motb and soz with all their features!
- the community and their stunning work!

bads:
- that josh dropped his black hound module
- no real turn based combat system like in toee
- till now no animation importer to easily improve the animations
- custom skies without day/night cycle
- hardcoded engine limitations

Shaun the Crazy One wrote...

It bugs me because Bio Ware
games normally have phenomenal writing and voice acting NWN2 (the OC in
particular) are just so far below their standards.

it's made by obsidian

Modifié par -Semper-, 07 février 2012 - 07:21 .

[The Fred]

NWN DM wrote...
Nothing wrong with taking a bit of a break and waiting for the itch to return.

Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at atm.

-Semper- wrote...
- no real turn based combat system like in toee

Check the Vault, there was one being worked on.

PJ156 wrote...
Writing conversations in toolset without a spell checker.

Try writing convos for BG...
Or, just learn to spell. :innocent:

[-Semper-]

The Fred wrote...

Check the Vault, there was one being worked on.

i already know about this but it simply ain't the same like a real turn based fighting system with a fitting ui. in this respect troika's toee is miles ahead. rescripting of the engine feels kinda clunky and wrong.

Modifié par -Semper-, 07 février 2012 - 12:15 .

[kamal_]

-Semper- wrote...
bads:
- no real turn based combat system like in toee
- custom skies without day/night cycle

Some of what you're saying is bad we don't have, we actually do have.

There's three different turn based systems I've seen. In fact one's being tested as a minigame on a PW right now. I saw the video two days ago. One of these is on the vault already http://nwvault.ign.c...h.Detail&id=417

We have custom skies without day/night cycles. In fact I released 23 different ones as a pack. http://nwvault.ign.c...l.Detail&id=434 There's also a flat black for underground exteriors.

[nicethugbert]

I'm still taking in what you guys have said, many good points. I'm still struggling to pin point how I manage to enjoy thses games to some degree, trying to sort out the good from the bad. I guess I expect that it is possible to make a completely enjoyable NWN2 module. I'm just not sure what to suggest, yet

Back to work.

[M. Rieder]

nicethugbert wrote...
I guess I expect that it is possible to make a completely enjoyable NWN2 module. I'm just not sure what to suggest, yet

You can't please everyone.  The best you can hope for is to please a majority of people.  Even the best, most accalimed mods aren't enjoyed by all.

[-Semper-]

M. Rieder wrote...

You can't please everyone.  The best you can hope for is to please a majority of people.

you're doing this just for fun without earning a single cent. your modding work shouldn't please anyone but yourself!
if you don't like something then change it and if you're happy with what you're doing then keep doing it. it's as simple as that

[casadechrisso]

I already wrote a few blog entries about that topic in the past, but always happy to sum it up again....

None of this has much to do with the OC though... I played the OC just once and it didn't impress me, but I bought the game almost exclusively for the toolset and multiplayer. The OC was mostly horrible because it was buggy and looked bad, storywise it was... okay. MotB (which I played for a few hours) added a lot of atmosphere and a much better soundtrack, which marked the point where I was actually starting to like NWN2 a bit, but I didn't complete it. SoZ for me was mainly an expansion that added more building ressources and varity, I never even felt like playing it, but like what it added to the toolset.

The good:

• Multiplayer and persistant worlds - the main reason I stuck to NWN1 and NWN2 for so long, there is no alternative anywhere. If you want to create your own little world/MMO/roleplay sandbox, you can stop looking, there's nothing else (and I'd happily switch to DA/Fallout/Skyrim if it had the same capabilities).
• Moddability. Seriously, this game is as moddable if not more as the Bethesda games, you can even do more with it (modules anyone?). Just takes someone to do it. With enough time and effort, you can do incredible things with NWN2.
• Modding scene/community. I love NWN's community because they do more mature modding - not as in adult stuff, quite the opposite. People here are very serious and make a lot of story-driven or story-enhancing stuff, and the toolset is mainly used to create immersive modules, stories, all that... while if you look at Bethesda etc, you mainly find eye-candy, models, items, things that make the campaign more prettier, but don't really add anything to the story side. While I love eye candy and wish more new models and stuff would come up for NWN2 again, I'd never look for an immersive story mod on the Skyrimnexus. I can get 4k high-res textures there, but rarely a new storyline.

The bad:

• Early release and buggyness drove a lot of people away and some of the most talented people of the NWN community never made the switch. I personally hated NWN2 myself in the early days and had to be forced to give it another try, but at least I did - many people did not. It has improved a lot over the years and has become a great foundation, but what is clearly missing is a lot of the community members who gave up too soon.
• Related to 1, many talented people, especially modellers, seem to switch to always the newest game way too early. There have been a lot of promising models and custom content makers who I wished had sticked with NWN2 a little longer because their stuff was improving the game so greatly. But then a Fallout/Skyrim comes out and away they are, leaving half-finished things... it's quite sad, and I think this also has some kind of domino-effect in the community. One goes, the rest follows. The dying community is one of the biggest issues I have with NWN2 today, something that brings down my own ability to continue working on my stuff too. I still believe there's no alternative to this game for the stuff I want to do, and NWN2 still has a lot of life in it. I just wish more people would see the same.
• I still hate some of the engine limitations like no Z-axis and walkmesh limitations. One can creatively work around this, but it certainly limits things.
• sometimes horrible animations.
• Some of the small but horribly annoying stuff never got patched, like say... having to turn on darkvision or bring up your spell windows again everytime after an area transition in MP... the horribly clinky, still beta DM client with it's unmovable windows.
• Performance issues. NWN2 is still one of the most demanding games I own, the Crysis of the RPG genre, but not because it looks so awesome, but because the engine is so badly optimized. How high shadow quality and water options still can bring down my FPS that much in the year 2012 escapes me...
• Mac version. I don't play on OS X, but followed the Mac discussions of the game and this was probably the most horrible example of Mac gaming ever... no patches, no expansions, no multiplayer, ... this is where I wish NWN2 had been a Bioware game, because even if NWN1 was originally ported over by a 3rd party company too, Bioware still kept bringing out patches etc. to keep all the different platforms together. Obsidian though didn't follow the mac development at all, and Aspyr made it the worst experience ever. I still own a Mac and NWN2 was probably the game that made me give up Mac gaming completely, I never bought a Mac game again and sticked exclusively to the PC since then. Even though Obsidian wasn't directly responsible there, I think they could've done something, like Bioware did before with NWN1. It'stheir baby after all.

Modifié par casadechrisso, 08 février 2012 - 09:01 .

[The Fred]

casadechrisso wrote...
Mac version.

The real reason I don't have a Mac. Whenever I argue with someone about Macs, I eventually think "Well, OK, I guess Macs aren't all that bad... oh wait you can't run the NWN2 Toolset on them. Nevermind."