[NWN] No, seriously, what the hell is this?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I have verified this with a few people now -- one fucking character per person? What the hell is going on here?

Longtime followers of Robb Sherwin, Ice Cream Jonsey and/or the "Jolt Country" conglomerate are probably painfully aware that he is seriously into games with a squad based tactical feel to them. While others perhaps engage in such things as "having relationships," "starting families" or "opening the door to the outside when the doorbell rings" at the ripe, old age of twenty-eight, I get mine in the following two ways:

1) By moving a bunch of Jonsey-created pixelated blobs around the screen that engage in melee and missile-based combat with either aliens, ants or orcs.

2) Lighting cigarettes and attempting to burn my flesh with them in order to symbolically burn the more flaming parts of that new New Found Glory video out of mine. Kee-rist, guys. America wants to love you; try to make it easier for them.

It's that first part that I'd like to discuss in detail here, especially as it pertains to Neverwinter Nights, the recent release by Bioware.


But before I can do that -- what the fuck is the word "Atari" doing being slathered around the NWN intro? As an esteemed and valued member of the Atari community, I'd like to say in no uncertain terms did any fucking Atari game ever have graphics that looked anything like those in Neverwinter Nights. I know that the name has been passed around like the slightly tubby cheerleader at the post-game party for a UAB game for the last ten years and I'm sure that the crack marketing squad at Infogrames realize that anyone who even remotely recognizes the word these days is either a hardcore gamer and thus wholly immune to their backwards "branding" attempts or else pushing forty and worried more about their second mortgage payment than impulsively buying a computer game. But still.

Anyway, Neverwinter Nights follows the fine line of D&D games thrust upon the gaming community in recent years. These games are:

o Baldur's Gate. A great game, but you can never go back to it after playing one of the later games because the characters all walk like molasses doing an impression of playing "Thief" up a hill

o Planescape: Torment. A game that is on virtually everybody's top 50 list. A game that apparently transcends the genre and approaches, for a little bit, that elusive tag of "art." Of course, I don't know for certain because I'm mentally retarded and didn't buy this game when it came out and in fact have yet to play it to this day. What the hell is wrong with me?

o Icewind Dale. Hey, it's cold out, the shit has hit the fan and it's up to you to kick the living crap out of every other single moving pixel on the map. Individually and in concert. This is "Diablo" for people who don't the Koreans and it's a gem. (The game, I mean, not disliking Koreans.)

o Baldur's Gate II: The Shadows of Amn. Actually, I can't remember if it's "Shadow" or "Shadows" even though, due to two annual hard drive crashes, I've played the first few chapters of this game approximately three dozen times. It has one of the worst names in the history of computer gaming (can... feel... acne... rising... just... typing... it... uhhhnn!) but it's also one of the best games, period, ever made.

o Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. Didn't play it because, as someone who buys Ephedra rather than the games he knows he will like, I support a network of terror (at least, as soon as they ban Ephedra I will) and not quality and positively-reviewed expansion packs.

o Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Do you have any idea how much balls -- how much frigging NADS -- it takes to release a game with the word "throne" in it? The negative reviews involving the angry reviewer inserting his own "I took a shit on the Throne of Bhaal and out came this game" practically write themselves. Except that they didn't because this is one of the finest expansion packs in the history of... well, right, expansion packs.


I should note that in all of those games except for Torment you're able to develop a party of six wholly custom-tailored characters and go to work. This is cool -- this is *essential* -- because there are a dozen different "classes" (read: professions) in D&D and you're of course going to want to play a few of them. Sure, there are some sheep who go through in "single player" mode and fill out their parties by using a bunch of hirelings and NPCs, but this is probably also due in part to the fact that the NPCs / characters that the devs make can "say" more.

Only the thing is... (and this is my Text Adventure Mode fully active, aware, flashing the fourth directive as "classified" on the screen for about fifteen seconds and thinking back to when Red from "That 70s Show" put a bullet in my brain) the content there isn't that good. Not to knock Bioware or Black Isle or anyone, but their dialogue is substandard and not worth the tradeoff you get when you put the game in multiplayer mode, create six characters, assign them all to yourself and then play the game that way. More, everything I've read on NWN indicates that playing the thing through from the start with a NEW and DIFFERENT character than the one you originally chose doesn't exactly equal mega replay value. I haven't played through NWN for more than a few seconds, but I can totally understand this -- exploration is really great in a D&D game, but having to do it a second time (and I did, at least, in BG2 due to the aforementioned crashes and due to the fact that I had advanced in single player mode before hooking up with my friends in multiplay) really starts to grate.

But, yes, apparently you can control one character at a time in NWN and if you want to use more it's HENCHMEN time. Look I have no problem with henchmen, and I have certainly used a few in the D&D games I've played but:

o You can't decide on their class
o You can't decide what they look like
o They advance at a rate less than or equal than your "main" dude's
o They probably -- and this is a guess -- won't shut the fuck about the stuff that is going on in the game. I mean, sure, it was great when Jahierra started complementing Imoen or whoever on their gorgeous red locks in the middle of a filthy sewer, but the only difference between the average built-in BG character than that fucker who said "Heya!" all the time is that the average BG character spreads out their limited number of lines more.

So, I'm stunned. Oh, also, and the time I spend writing these kind of things directly translates into having less friends, so it's unlikely that I'm going to get six people together to play a single game, much less SOLVE THE GAME THAT WAY.

Not to get melodramatic, but this may be one of the worst decisions ever made in the whole of computer gaming. I'm just floored that they decided to do things that way. Plus, nobody else seems to give a good goddamn. Forget locating the outrage -- where the hell is a workaround to this?

[Billy Mays]

What the hell is going on here?

I fear this topic has not been properly addressed in the 14 years since you posted it, so I decided to do my best to try and rectify that.

2) Lighting cigarettes and attempting to burn my flesh with them in order to symbolically burn the more flaming parts of that new New Found Glory video out of mine. Kee-rist, guys. America wants to love you; try to make it easier for them.

I have no idea what the hell any of this means, but I fully support your right to do it as long as it does not jeopardize the heath or well being of others.

what the fuck is the word "Atari" doing being slathered around the NWN intro?

They owned the rights.

o Baldur's Gate. A great game, but you can never go back to it after playing one of the later games because the characters all walk like molasses doing an impression of playing "Thief" up a hill

Your claim that you can not go back to enjoy Baldur's Gate after having an exposure to more modern games is categorically untrue. I went back to play through the series within the last year, and had more fun playing it than I did many modern titles.

Also, I feel the need to point out the irony of Robb Sherwin, a budding superstar of the IF community even back in 2002, making light of a game's value based on modern gaming expectations.

o Planescape: Torment. A game that is on virtually everybody's top 50 list. A game that apparently transcends the genre and approaches, for a little bit, that elusive tag of "art." Of course, I don't know for certain because I'm mentally retarded and didn't buy this game when it came out and in fact have yet to play it to this day. What the hell is wrong with me?

Nobody played Planescape: Torment when it first came out. This is because it got rushed due to staffing and financial problems occurring within the company, and was released with a large number of game crashing bugs, and other problems. Since then, a loyal following of fans have released patches that fixed all of the bugs. as well as mods that make it playable on modern PCs with modern graphics cards. I also recently replayed it, and consider it to have the best writing that I have ever encountered in a computer role playing game (yeah, Ultima VII is legendary on every level, but its writing is childish compared to Torment). HIGHLY RECOMENDED!!!!!

https://www.gog.com/news/mod_spotlight_ ... mods_guide

o Icewind Dale. Hey, it's cold out, the shit has hit the fan and it's up to you to kick the living crap out of every other single moving pixel on the map. Individually and in concert. This is "Diablo" for people who don't the Koreans and it's a gem. (The game, I mean, not disliking Koreans.)

The Icewind Dale series is a turd on tracks that got jammed into the market on the heels of Baldur's Gates's success. The writing is mediocre, and the gameplay is shit (every encounter is a "you just got surrounded somehow in an ambush, and your back rank of casters just collapsed as a result, so instead: keep haste and mirror image on everyone at all time, and since combat is a giant cluster fuck, no use for fireballs, just send your stone skinned and hasted mages into the fight with their daggers"). That being said, it is still somehow better than most other RPGs not listed here, and should be played.

o Baldur's Gate II: The Shadows of Amn. Actually, I can't remember if it's "Shadow" or "Shadows" even though, due to two annual hard drive crashes, I've played the first few chapters of this game approximately three dozen times. It has one of the worst names in the history of computer gaming (can... feel... acne... rising... just... typing... it... uhhhnn!) but it's also one of the best games, period, ever made.

It was "Shadows". If you consider BG 1 and BG 2 with all of their expansions to be 1 game, since the story lines all connect, decisions from one game affecting outcomes through the rest of the story out to the second game, and characters transfering over, then the "one" massive Baldur's Gate game is easily the best game in the history of cRPGs.

o Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. Didn't play it because, as someone who buys Ephedra rather than the games he knows he will like, I support a network of terror (at least, as soon as they ban Ephedra I will) and not quality and positively-reviewed expansion packs.

Also shit, also better than most RPGs.

o Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Do you have any idea how much balls -- how much frigging NADS -- it takes to release a game with the word "throne" in it? The negative reviews involving the angry reviewer inserting his own "I took a shit on the Throne of Bhaal and out came this game" practically write themselves. Except that they didn't because this is one of the finest expansion packs in the history of... well, right, expansion packs.

No balls required to name a game of this reverence with "Throne" in the title. Anybody making the association between BG2 and a toilette is probably a urophiliac , and should never be taken seriously under any circumstances.

I should note that in all of those games except for Torment you're able to develop a party of six wholly custom-tailored characters and go to work. This is cool -- this is *essential* -- because there are a dozen different "classes" (read: professions)

This is because in Planescape: Torment, even the party members (that are not even the main character) have more backstory to them, than most RPGs have in story all together. They needed to be of a specific race, gender, class, etc to accommodate for this. You do not start off travelling together because...well it is complicated, and I don't want to spoil anything. Let me just say that goddam this is the best thing I have ever read in a video game.

As a paper and pencil veteran of more systems than I care count right now, the important thing is that you "role" play your characters, not that you "roll" play them.

Not to knock Bioware or Black Isle or anyone, but their dialogue is substandard and not worth the tradeoff you get when you put the game in multiplayer mode, create six characters, assign them all to yourself and then play the game that way. More, everything I've read on NWN indicates that playing the thing through from the start with a NEW and DIFFERENT character than the one you originally chose doesn't exactly equal mega replay value. I haven't played through NWN for more than a few seconds, but I can totally understand this -- exploration is really great in a D&D game, but having to do it a second time (and I did, at least, in BG2 due to the aforementioned crashes and due to the fact that I had advanced in single player mode before hooking up with my friends in multiplay) really starts to grate.

While I tend to prefer squad based tactics in my RPGs, I find that there is still a tremendous amount of value in the "one ultimate badass conquers evil" scenario seen here, as well as other modern games such as Skyrim. You should also stick with this one because many people consider it to be the greatest cRPG every made. I myself rank it among the top 3. It is a great game, with a great mechanic, and the storyline really starts to flourish as you progress. Highly recommended that you play the entire NWN series.

There has since been a devoted community of mod and patch makers that have made all of these games 100% playable on modern machines. They have respectable web sites.

https://neverwintervault.org/


*Update: Neverwinter Nights 2 is also an excellent game, however falls apart a little towards the end which prevents it from ever being on a respectable top 5 list.

Look I have no problem with henchmen, and I have certainly used a few in the D&D games I've played but:

o You can't decide on their class

You can pick the henchman that has the class you are looking for in order to complement your main player. Also, some playing characters have the ability to summon familiars that can perform various class based functions.

o They advance at a rate less than or equal than your "main" dude's

This is a useful feature since you are the one controlling them. It is never at a rate where you ever have to wait for somebody to catch up. Also, you can equip them with boots of speed, or caste haste, or give them general behavior orders, or any number of other ways to adjust how quickly they move. You can even fine tune them within game so that they move considerably faster than your main character, this is particularly helpful when you are playing a caster, and want a tank as your henchman.

o They probably -- and this is a guess -- won't shut the fuck about the stuff that is going on in the game.

Henchman tend to banter less than regular party members.

BG character than that fucker who said "Heya!" all the time.

That character you are referring to is in fact Imoen, one of the most beloved female protagonists in all of video game history. I don't know what kind of cold hearted monster you were in 2002 to have written such blasphemy, but I am glad that it appears you have since grown a heart.

Oh, also, and the time I spend writing these kind of things directly translates into having less friends, so it's unlikely that I'm going to get six people together to play a single game, much less SOLVE THE GAME THAT WAY.

PM me if you want to play sometimes.

Not to get melodramatic, but this may be one of the worst decisions ever made in the whole of computer gaming.

I will forgive this statement since it came out years before Star Wars: The Old Republic, or World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor.

I still think you were way out of line by saying this 14 years ago. Neverwinter Nights is a fantastic game!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

What the hell is going on here?

I fear this topic has not been properly addressed in the 14 years since you posted it, so I decided to do my best to try and rectify that.

Good find, Billy. I re-read my own work and I can't believe I ever had the time to post something that long. Whew!

o Baldur's Gate. A great game, but you can never go back to it after playing one of the later games because the characters all walk like molasses doing an impression of playing "Thief" up a hill

Your claim that you can not go back to enjoy Baldur's Gate after having an exposure to more modern games is categorically untrue. I went back to play through the series within the last year, and had more fun playing it than I did many modern titles.

Also, I feel the need to point out the irony of Robb Sherwin, a budding superstar of the IF community even back in 2002, making light of a game's value based on modern gaming expectations.

It's the walking around part in the original Baldur's Gate game that doesn't hold up. Especially after playing BG2, where everyone walks faster.

The text game equivalent would be if someone wrote games in 15th Century English, I suppose, and now 21st Century readers were trying to play. Once you've seen a style updated for the better, you can't really go back.

Also, if you played any of the BG games on GoG.com or Steam, I had heard that they.................................made the walking speed faster for BG.

[Billy Mays]

It's the walking around part in the original Baldur's Gate game that doesn't hold up. Especially after playing BG2, where everyone walks faster.

It's a little frustrating, but it is still the best rpg (BG1-BG2) ever created. Saying that you can't go back to it because of one flaw is like saying you can't go back to that super model because you don't like her cooking. You just learn to live with it because you know you are hitting way above your weight class at the end of the day.

The text game equivalent would be if someone wrote games in 15th Century English, I suppose, and now 21st Century readers were trying to play. Once you've seen a style updated for the better, you can't really go back.

I think a better analogy here would be like going from Infocom to a post player's bill of rights game. You really appreciate all of the player consideration that modern authors put into their games, but you would never complain about how unplayable AMFV (game picked at random from Infocom library) is by today's standards.

Also, if you played any of the BG games on GoG.com or Steam, I had heard that they.................................made the walking speed faster for BG.

I purchased and played all of the games when they first came out. I then repurchased them as two separate collections about five years ago where all that was done was a copy and past of the games onto pretty cds by whoever owned the rights to them at the time. They still had all of the original bugs, I downloaded all of the patches that I mentioned (just to fix the bugs, and to be able to play on modern PCs, not anything that altered the original games in anyway). I then played back through all of them about a year and a half ago. They are great, BG1 toons move slow as shit, this didn't bother me that much.

_______________

Also, to address your original post:

In NWN you create such a total badass that you really only use the henchman for hauling your shit around.

When you said advancement of henchman I though you were talking about speed. If you were talking about level advancement, from fasting to slowest: rogue-fighter-cleric-wizard is the generic formula for level advancement. Splits and multis either dump xp into whatever they are building up, or it is divided equally among all classes respectively. It doesn't matter if it is your main character, party members, henchmen, whatever, they all go off of the same xp tables.

[RealNC]

I think the Enhanced Edition of BG1 (released 2013) does indeed have faster movement.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Thank you, Nikos. You have gained a level.

What do you wish to do next?

[RealNC]

Nah, take the level back again. The EE does not have faster movement.

[Level 1 For Too Long]

Thank you, Nikos. You have gained a level.

I see levels come pretty cheap around here as long as you know the right people...

[Billy Mays]

Hey Jonsey: I've been nice to Paul, I believe at least a couple of the things I posted had some value to them, and I am pretty sure I quadrupled traffic to this board just by all of the feds that followed me in...Is there anyway you can grant me some permanent levels that can't be taken away? Thank you.

[Tdarcos]

Is there anyway you can grant me some permanent levels that can't be taken away? Thank you.

Fuck levels, I want the ability to edit posts! At least for corrective purposes! Too often I typed something wrong that even after I checked it I missed it that only when I see it full screen that I notice it.

Anyway, what do levels mean, anyway?

[RetroRomper]

I'm honestly glad someone else (in a haphazard fashion) pointed out that NWN felt lazy and more akin to say, Icewind Dale (or the last Pools of Radiance) as a dungeon romper instead of an actual RPG. Which on the whole was shocking when I initially played it: where were the actual characters? One generic character per play through? Two subtle allusions to the BG saga in the whole damn thing? No actual "I care about all of this!" writing or coherency throughout?

After finishing the game and its expansions, it really struck home that Bioware couldn't give that aforementioned glow to its own characters again, instead implying that they took a tommy gun to their writing room.

So though no one cares, I give NWN 0/10 stars.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Is there anyway you can grant me some permanent levels that can't be taken away? Thank you.

Fuck levels, I want the ability to edit posts! At least for corrective purposes! Too often I typed something wrong that even after I checked it I missed it that only when I see it full screen that I notice it.

Anyway, what do levels mean, anyway?

The last time I gave everyone the ability to edit posts, everyone promised not to delete posts. And then people started deleting their posts.

Never again!!!

[Billy Mays]

The last time I gave everyone the ability to edit posts, everyone promised not to delete posts. And then people started deleting their posts.

Never again!!!

I'm not asking to be a moderator or have any sort of editing powers, I am merely asking you to assign me some arbitrary numbers that I can use to hold over peoples' heads like people hold sardines over Tdarcos' head at the North Pole exhibit.

But if you don't want to do even that, whatever, it's your board.

[Billy Mays]

I'm honestly glad someone else (in a haphazard fashion) pointed out that NWN felt lazy and more akin to say, Icewind Dale (or the last Pools of Radiance) as a dungeon romper instead of an actual RPG. Which on the whole was shocking when I initially played it: where were the actual characters? One generic character per play through? Two subtle allusions to the BG saga in the whole damn thing? No actual "I care about all of this!" writing or coherency throughout?

After finishing the game and its expansions, it really struck home that Bioware couldn't give that aforementioned glow to its own characters again, instead implying that they took a tommy gun to their writing room.

So though no one cares, I give NWN 0/10 stars.

This entire review is patently false at every level, and should be ignored.

[RetroRomper]

Are you arguing that Never Winter had an outpouring of warm, loving characterization ala the BG series? Are we playing the same game?

[Billy Mays]

Are you arguing that Never Winter had an outpouring of warm, loving characterization ala the BG series? Are we playing the same game?

No, my original response to ICJ clearly states that I believe the BG series to be the greatest video game of all time. I am merely stating that NWN is still a great game.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I never played the NWN games, so I am not sure if Billy is talking about my "review," which doesn't exist.

This thread did convince me to get them when there's a gog.com sale, so there's that.

[Rare Amiibos Scalper]

I never played the NWN games, so I am not sure if Billy is talking about my "review," which doesn't exist.

This thread did convince me to get them when there's a gog.com sale, so there's that.

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Fighter_28/_b ... isciple_10



http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Power_Builds

[Rare Amiibos Scalper]

I never played the NWN games, so I am not sure if Billy is talking about my "review," which doesn't exist.

This thread did convince me to get them when there's a gog.com sale, so there's that.

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Fighter_28/_b ... isciple_10

This was similar to my last build in NWN, it is crazy over powered, the only major difference is that I took my 10 levels in Red Dragon Disciple as soon as I could (starting at level 8 or something, I can't remember) to unlock complete immunity to fire, paralysis, and sleep, draconic strength and constitution, draconic armor skin, and the ability to breath fire like a dragon. The bard I am pretty sure I only took 1 level in (whatever was the minimum to unlock the red dragon disciple prestiege class). So basically you end up with a half dragon fighter that immune to almost everything in the game, breathes fire, and has a strength over 40

[Rare Amiibos Scalper]

In the first NWN, I pretty much ran with the cleric henchwoman for most of the game, until the expansions when you get the option of Deacon the friendly good kobold bard because he is funny and by this time (actually a lot sooner) nothing in the game has the slightest chance in hell of killing you.

The second link is for NWN2 power builds if you are interested.