18 réponses à ce sujet

[cipher86]

overall the game is okay.  starts off slow, picks up a bit, then gets slow for a while.  doesn't seem to be very personal.  the glitches with quests/companions that break plot orders really sucks for immersion (i started khelgar's quest after the trial, but i could still tell him we needed to fetch the waterdeep emissary - grobnar spoke about the construct and took parts for it well before i actually got the keep, let alone the construct).  the battle with the three shadow reavers was a huge pain in the butt, getting those scrolls to work vs. one was enough of a chore... and the dialogue before the final battle (with your companions) was pretty amazing.  final sequence was a huge letdown, but it also makes it seem like they intended for it to be a cliffhanger to leave it open for MotB.  would've preferred more dialogue with the King of Shadows though - I learned a lot about him prior to the meeting, and after a brief parley we're into the fight?  what if i could've learned his original name or something?  that would've been cool...

also, the game was really friggin easy, crafting seemed pretty much useless, and even on the highest difficulty setting i could auto-pilot most encounters.  this isn't really due to behind-the-scenes numbers, but encounter design.  seems like DnD for dummies, which, while nice for the first few hours, the game really should've demanded more strategic intelligence as the player got deeper into the world... but maybe they didn't have time for that.  after all, they had to create the framework first, and it's at least better than the NWN OC (imo).  i also think bg2 is far superior to bg1, and it's probably for similar reasons.

all in all it was fun, but i remember why i had a hard time going back after playing MotB - i'm one hour into the expansion now and already remembering what made it so much better (though i'm dreading the spirit eat mechanic, i remember it feeling so clunky).

[cipher86]

something i don't get about the evil ending. it says that neverwinter prospered after the war with the king of shadows, but .. it's the evil ending. the shadow sweeps the land, and we see shadow reavers enter neverwinter keep earlier in the game so we know that they would've wanted to take that over too... so... what? just a bug in the slideshow?

Modifié par cipher86, 10 juillet 2012 - 05:07 .

[Dann-J]

The King of Shadows was only interested in protecting Illefarn, so the shadows stop spreading at the former Illefarn borders in that version of the ending. Crossroad Keep was within the former territory, but apparently Neverwinter wasn't.

 (about 6 minutes in)

That doesn't explain why there were vampires in Neverwinter though. Perhaps Garius sub-contracted out the KoS's forces for his own purposes (quite literally 'moonlighting' when you have vampires in tow).

[cipher86]

yeah i guess the best explanation is that garius was looking to do a power-grab, he didn't want to be just another minion.

i remember when i was in jerro's haven, i found that ancient book (the one with all the gibberish in it) and the one demon said one of the spells would come in handy later. i never had to use the book, aside from the one time to rescue his pet (had to play the guessing game, it was all gibberish to me). what was he referring to?

the reason for bishop's betrayal seemed a bit out of character. he got tired of being bound to duncan and serving the knight-captain (even though i never treated him like a subservient in my game, he basically had free reign to do what he wanted), so he switched to be garius' pawn instead? i know at the end he says he isn't a pawn and you make him realize he is, but him being unaware of it seemed like a stretch. i thought he was the kind of guy who was basically dead man walking, serve no one, would walk right into the jaws of death and not even care because he was dead inside already.  it would've made more sense to see bishop do something suicidal during the final hours (instead of betrayal, unless the PC treated him poorly which i didn't) but i guess that's just how i feel.

Modifié par cipher86, 10 juillet 2012 - 02:45 .

[Seagloom]

Bishop's entire plot arc feels more thematically consistent if you play a female Kalach-Cha. Particularly if she has high influence with him. Bishop's arc suffers with a male protagonist due to Obsidian's writers copy pasting everything except for the added bits it needs to make sense. If there is one area where the OC suffers most, it is missing content undermining its overarching plot. Sand potentially betraying the party to kill Qara and Casavir always talking about Old Owl Well are probably the best examples of it.

All in all, I largely agree with your assessment of the campaign. It has its moments. I probably enjoyed it more than you seem to, in fact. Sadly there is a whole lot of sludge to wade through before getting to the good parts; and some parts never quite make sense within the story as presented.

If it wasn't for the murder trial, Tavorick's estate, Crossroad Keep, and a few scattered dialogues throughout, I couldn't bring myself to play through it again. Game has waaay too much filler content where all you do is hack through hapless mooks.

[GFallen01]

all in all it was fun, but i remember why i had a hard time going back after playing MotB - i'm one hour into the expansion now and already remembering what made it so much better (though i'm dreading the spirit eat mechanic, i remember it feeling so clunky).

I don't see why everyone is so fond about MotB. To me, it was a giant, uninspiring slaughterfest, with okay-ish storytelling (except the very beginning and very ending, which were really good IMO) and companions too hollow for my PC to bond with. The worst was Kaelyn probably, and Gann to a lesser extent than the others. I also found the influence system to be plain absurd, I could gain huge chunks of influence in a matter of minutes. As a positive, I found the atmosphere pretty nice in general. 

Still, the only thing that kept me motivated to finish it was PIA. No matter all the inconsistencies in the OC, at least I could bond with the story and characters there. Maybe the German translation for MotB was just bad, I don't know. 

Anyway, if you know how you can pretty much ignore the spirit eater stuff:

http://db.gamefaqs.c...2_reference.txt

# How to manage spirit energy

To reduce the speed that your spirit energy drains at, keep your craving low. Travelling between locations is considered resting but uses less spirit energy and your rest will not be interupted. After travelling summon elementals and then use suppress. Travel back and forth doing this until you have reduced craving to zero. Then try and only use Devour Spirit or Devour Soul once a day, using Eternal Rest does not increase craving.

For more tips:

http://www.thieves-g...dex.php?pid=388

Modifié par GFallen01, 10 juillet 2012 - 10:44 .

[Dann-J]

I prefered MotB to the OC. All of the NWN2 campaigns are slaughterfests - it's the nature of the genre. It really only comes down to what *type* of slaughterfest you prefer.

I was glad to see the back of the five-second squat resting system. Plus MotB was much more evil-friendly. Although the constant mask metaphors wore thin after a while.

I did enjoy the optional sidequests of the OC though. Having a ticking clock in MotB pretty much prevented you from deviating much from the central storyline.

[Seagloom]

Indeed. I would go so far to say every D&D based game is a slaughterfest with the notable exception of Planescape: Torment. Killing scores of enemies is an unavoidable requirement. As well, the OC was jam packed with filler maps. Old Owl Well, the Blacklake crypts, Fihelis's mansion, Aldanon's mansion, ect didn't need to be as long as they were. Only a few areas such as Ammon Jerro's Haven were paced well.

Much as I adored some OC characters such as Khelgar and the Jerros, most of them were unimaginative fantasy cliches. Khelgar only escaped that status since he grows over the course of the game. Other than the Jerros and Bishop, none of them felt particularly inspired.

With the exception of One of Many, MotB's cast was more nuanced in comparison. Different strokes for different folks though.

Modifié par Seagloom, 10 juillet 2012 - 11:43 .

[kamal_]

Seagloom wrote...

Indeed. I would go so far to say every D&D based game is a slaughterfest with the notable exception of Planescape: Torment. Killing scores of enemies is an unavoidable requirement.

Well, yeah. If you only play the official stuff and not the community stuff...

[Seagloom]

Based on GFallen01 comparing two official campaigns, it made the most sense to use official campaigns as a baseline.

[cipher86]

once i beat motb i'm going to look for the quality community made modules.  i haven't played any before (only did oc/motb/westgate in full, soz was kinda meh for me).

[GFallen01]

once i beat motb i'm going to look for the quality community made modules. i haven't played any before (only did oc/motb/westgate in full, soz was kinda meh for me).

Excellent idea. One tip: don't trust the vault rating system too much. You can have truly excellent campaigns with a 7.00 score and mediocre ones with a 9.50. I would more look at things like Vault Reviews and the AME

[Snowdog65]

Rather than start a new thread:

 

I just finished the OC for the second time. It has been so many years, that I had forgotten just how awful the ending is (strike final blow: slideshow).

 

The ending is atrociously bad. It really looks like they ran out of time/money, and just stopped, and had an intern read voice-overs on slides. I don't think it even bothered exporting your character, and you aren't given an opportunity to do so either. So you have to export before the end. The content of the ending is awful as well, but I wouldn't want to "spoil" it for anyone who has yet to experience the displeasure.

 

Even before the end it was a drag. This was my second and last play through of the OC. As bad as people claim the NWN1 campaign is, this was much less fun IMO.

[Tchos]

Agreed that the ending was horrible, though I personally enjoyed the whole thing until that slideshow with narration by Norman from Accounts.  Interestingly, they had actually recorded dialogue of the party members of that ending scene that suggested they were going to show what happened, rather than just say what happened afterward.  The dialogue files are still in the game, and there's a video on Youtube where someone arranged them in their proper order.

[unclejoe1917]

Rather than start a new thread:

 

I just finished the OC for the second time. It has been so many years, that I had forgotten just how awful the ending is (strike final blow: slideshow).

 

The ending is atrociously bad. It really looks like they ran out of time/money, and just stopped, and had an intern read voice-overs on slides. I don't think it even bothered exporting your character, and you aren't given an opportunity to do so either. So you have to export before the end. The content of the ending is awful as well, but I wouldn't want to "spoil" it for anyone who has yet to experience the displeasure.

 

Even before the end it was a drag. This was my second and last play through of the OC. As bad as people claim the NWN1 campaign is, this was much less fun IMO.

Yeah, i get that the OCs sort of have to be a bit spoon fed and whatever.  They have to move units to the casual fan masses.  They've got our cash regardless. That being said, god, there were so many little details which could have made this an incredible game for what it was if they had just paid attention to detail rather than waste programming time on sometimes excruciatingly endless levels of sword fodder.  I would happily trade whatever pittance of XP I get from slaying yet more orcs if they had simply used an actual voice over for Deekin.  How about seeing through three or four more romance options instead of writing in some useless cutaway in chapter two with some pixies or some such flying fey nonsense?  Hindsight is 20/20 I guess, but I will always enjoy something that is a little less epic with nice attention to detail.  

I have always enjoyed the NWN1 OC well enough and think it is much better than NWN2s. It's too bad because Neeshka and Qara's characters alone could have been enough to really swing it the other way. 

[Naeryna]

 

I have always enjoyed the NWN1 OC well enough and think it is much better than NWN2s.

 

Madness! Tyr will strike you at the spot!

[unclejoe1917]

Madness! Tyr will strike you at the spot!

There is certainly an element of sentiment involved. NWN1 was my first experience with the IWD/BG/NWN games. If NWN2 had less fluff and more polish, it would be way better.  

[unclejoe1917]

Rather than start a new thread:

 

I just finished the OC for the second time. It has been so many years, that I had forgotten just how awful the ending is (strike final blow: slideshow).

 

The ending is atrociously bad. It really looks like they ran out of time/money, and just stopped, and had an intern read voice-overs on slides. I don't think it even bothered exporting your character, and you aren't given an opportunity to do so either. So you have to export before the end. The content of the ending is awful as well, but I wouldn't want to "spoil" it for anyone who has yet to experience the displeasure.

 

Even before the end it was a drag. This was my second and last play through of the OC. As bad as people claim the NWN1 campaign is, this was much less fun IMO.

LOLOLOLOL!!!  I had forgotten how awful the ending is.  You're right.  "Hey Steve, you got a minute?  Can you duck into the mop closet real quick and read what I have scribbled down here into the tape recorder?"  That might be the laziest ending to anything I have ever seen in my life.  They don't even give you the gratification of seeing your character standing over the corpse of the KoS and patting your comrades on the back in victory.  All the time they spent building NPC influence into the game only matters with Neeshka and Qara/Sand and then they don't even bother to mention how any of that affected anything?  Then they actually stooped as low as to use the line, "That is a tale for another day"?  

[Dann-J]

I always thought the voiceover guy at the end sounded a bit like George Lucas.  Or at the very least, some guy who was really, really into his more influential works (possibly sourced from some sort of comic book convention).

 

I'd have preferred James Earl Jones myself. Even Tom Jones would have been an improvement.

 

Apparently the narrator at the end was Brian Mitsoda, one of the developers at Obsidian. I hope he didn't quit his day job to take up narration fulltime.