Neverwinter Nights 2

Chris Avellone(Fallout 2, Planescape) worked on much of the dialogue & story tools of the game.

Or a monkey.

the same team are making a server for NWN on release, should be pretty special.

The screenshots for this game are fucking gorgeous.

i was disappointed to see that they removed the z-axis pretty early in development. which basically makes it NWN with fancy graphics.

FINE BY ME!

AND I GOT PAID TODAY

DANG - BUYBUYBUY.
think there's any chance of an ILG runthrough of the Campaign? timezones will probably scupper any attempt, but it's worth a shot, no?

The fact that the Fallout 2 guys worked on this give it promise. Hopefully they were able to finish this one.

the gamefaqs board is already 34 pages long.

from the IGN first look:

Playing Neverwinter Nights 2 is more akin to playing Baldur's Gate II or Planescape: Torment than the original Neverwinter Nights

After how much fun the Pet Shop mod was in Oblivion, I now always want a sidekick dog to go adventuring with.

see also: What animal would you pick as your familiar?

ARGH

LIKE I SAID, SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE I WENT

Please, name another obvious game retailer because it never would have occurred to me to hit all of them.

I'm currently playing a halfling Ranger/Rogue, level 5. I totally OWNED the Harvest Cup tournament in the intro/tutorial, and I've just arrived at the city of Neverwinter. Looking forward to trying co-op mode with my brother, but i'll be a little disappointed if it means i have to drop one of the AI characters; they're very likeable, and i'm enjoying the character conflict between them.

Anyone who was considering getting this, don't wait another moment if you enjoyed the first game.

I fucking hate patients, they make my acid reflux act up.

I just built a new system two months ago (Conroe 6400, 2 gigs of DDR2, 7900 GT 256) and this is the first game to make it chug at all. I mean, I've got everything maxed out but it takes a hit in crowded outdoor areas and with some spell effects. Even so I'm really enjoying this game, maybe not as much as BG2 (so far at least) but as much as Torment or the Icewind Dale games or KOTOR.

ERGO, HATEHATEHATEHATEHATE (until I get it)

That might be English; I could give a shit.

It's good for D&D. The NPC party members talk amongst themselves in certain situautions, similar to KOTOR. The druid character is a believable enough D&D druid (this is important for me, because i am a 3rd Edition Nerd), the rogue girl and the dwarf get the funny lines. Nice interactions all round. They're likebale enough from my POV, so i guess the writers/actors have done a good job.

s1ocki, unofficial list of supported and non-supported cards:

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=506899&forum=109

Okay, have been playing this. I'm kinda surprised at how much the game has your standard KOTOR engine.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0808396/

and some of the voice actresses are just so adorable.

Gregg Martin ... Lord Nasher
Greg Martin ... Lord Nasher (voice)
Greg Martin ... Lord Nasher

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/6132/a44cffed8ec399cbb515998cc4.th.jpg

yup, the industry's come pretty far towards acknowledging its true fan base.

and i like the strategic placement of the seashell there.

at any rate, the exp.pack is coming out in a few months, featuring denasi, your standard half-people/half-element characters. Look for plenty of air/water chicks.

I still can't tell how to select a familiar. My first attempt got me a wolf, but what if i want a dog or cat or lemur?

I'm enjoying some of the narrative & character arcs. The bit about the trial and the violent, drunken dwarf's arc into learning more is great. One day, one of these modules will have the D&D analog for Kwai Chang Caine.

HAve any of you other drunks been fooling around with this?

When you choose a wizard class, you get to pick a familiar, who gives you a stat bump.

I chose a pig, who i have dubbed "SuperTalkyBacon", since he boosts your diplomacy.

Other things i hate(the startard RPG/FF7 rule): death & resurrection are intrinsic parts of the game, and can happen after every encounter...until the plot demands that one of your characters gets iced.

Then all the magic in the world, animating the undead, planar travel/bouncing around planescape, talking with ghosts, etc, can't do shit.

i sed this a long time ago:

anyone far enough into this to get to the politics & leadership stuff mentioned in some of those interviews? I'd really like to know how that goes and if it's at all interesting.

well? what's that stuff like?

also i'd like to repeat that nwn1 was one of the ugliest and boringest things ever.

The politics & leadership stuff is a lot like KOTOR2("influence"), which makes sense since its the same gamedev bunch. The story & dialogue is good, and I really enjoyed two set-pieces, the trial scene and the drunken, violent dwarf going thru a character arc and beginning to learn.

I haven't had any effect like influence changing another character's alignment or anything, but it helps with finding out their backstory and some plot points along the way. I'm completely conditioned to love the BG2/Fallout/Black Isle style of narrative & dialogue, and am always disappointed when enough emphasis isn't put on the talky bits of the game.

In fact, once i get done with my first playthru, i'll think i'll restart with a guy and cheat to max out all the INT/WIS/CHR/dialogue skills, just to unlock the most narrative I can. Planescape: Torment ultimately relied on how much wisdom your guy had, but I haven't found such a single attribute-heavy feature here. Helps to boost up the diplomacy skill, tho.

Playing this again now it has had the shit patched out of it and actually works properly. Didn't finish it last time round due to crashes, scripts not firing rendering game unfinishable etc.

<3 Neeshka so much.

I wonder how well it would play now with extra patches and new graphics card. Hmm.

I asked myself that question about a week ago and subsequently found that the answer was "rather well, actually".

Still <3 Neeshka. It's the voice. Plus her voice actress happens to be v. hot.

wonder if this will work on my macbook pro...

Sometimes I wonder if publicizing your hot voice actresses is cheating or not.

zuh?

Wow, I'm having trouble with this now.

This is really early in the game but SPOILERS etc

I'm in Neverwinter, currently trying to protect the Watch's Infromant from a hundred million Thugs that are in his house intent on killing him. When i say Him, I mean me and my party.
I'm really grinding through it, saving before each battle because it's really touch & go - I keep getting surrounded by about half a dozen guys, and they all have rogue levels and two weapon fighting, which basically means my party is subject to about 10 Sneak Attacks a round.
It's FUCKING HARD.

My party is currently:
G-Kit (Tiefling Fighter/Cleric)
Neeshka (Tiefling Rogue/Sack of Cute)
Qara (Human Sorcerer)
Kelgar (Dwarf Fighter)

It's just really difficult to engage all the opponents at once, even with two frontline fighters, so everybody invariably gets Sneak Attacked from one flank or another, and people be taking like 25 damage a pop from each one.
Qara can spam fireballs, but because these guys are rogues they all have Improved Evasion, so if they save, they take no damage rather than half, so it's pretty hit and miss.

I'm sure I could own this fight if they weren't all Rogues.

I'm also pretty sure Neeshka is the weakest link in my party, but can't bring myself to leave her behind.

Plz 2 help?

do you have this yet? http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Soothing_Light

what kind of system you all running on?

You all got me excited about this, so now I've got it. Never played it because I never played NW1, but I'm guessing that won't make much difference (will it?) Loved BG1+2, loved KOTOR 1+2, so should've tried the NWs before now really. Anyway, haven't installed or anything yet. But yep, looking forward to it lots.

hey baby, long time no seeeeeeee

Phil! That's true. And why??

2005
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/31/59696121_345afdda75.jpg

2008!
http://web.mac.com/philtwo/iWeb/Site/Library%206_files/kanye_sm.jpg

:)

ive been slumming it lately, i know....

and wooo boy, i need some teeth whiteners!!!!!

I hadn't really thought about it but Kanye and Crest Whitestrips are def two things I really hadn't expected to come up on this thread when I clicked on it.

g-kit do you have Stoneskin? That spell + methodical progress + constant healing was the only way I could beat that challenge. I remember having trouble with that battle and reading somewhere that you can use your familiar as bait to set ambushes for the thugs. Never tried it but maybe worth a shot?

No soothing light, no stoneskin. I must be a fucking idiot! Why did I not choose stoneskin for Qara's other lvl3 slot? Because I am a fucking idiot.
I guess I'll just have to grind through it, encounter by encounter, and choose stoneskin as soon as Qara levels up.
I REALLY can't believe I forgot stoneskin.

JimD, going on the Bioware resume you posted up there, I reckon you'll love this game.

phil-two, i'm on a A64 3700, 2gb ram and an nvidia 7900gtx.
This game is pretty resource hungry, considering how it looks, so most video options are cranked down, but it runs nice & smooth.

I remember an optional quest involving goth kids in some crypt that has a nice little surprise to it which caught me very off guard and lacking in recent saves. All you can do at that point is micromanage everything and save each time something goes "right" during the fight.

got it - all i had to do was hold them in a doorway so they couldn't flank me. DUH.

http://img.skitch.com/20080709-b3ap33w4refa4f7egecpfayy4.jpg

: ) btw what is going on in this photo phil? did you just bump into him?

haha, something like that. well, it was paris fashion week and leaving the issey miyake show. kanye from his front row seat and me from my last row seat. i asked if i could get a photo with him, he said no, but then i said i was from chicago and he said OK... but then when i stood there, all the papparazzi and various photographers started snapping us so it ended up on the wire services as "Kanye West and Friend". hahah

then we went to his penthouse suite to play star control 2

how clicks per second he manage?

huh?

apols; rubbish joke referring to star control 2 junkies' ability to do 4 clicks per second when playing : /

ok i just bought it.. hope it works on my computer

awesome. let us know how you find it.

anybody got a foolproof way of making lots of gold really quickly? all the items in the stores are way out of my price range...

ugh the camera controls are beeyatch...

also wtf how can i rightclick with my macbook pro... i cant bash anything open :(

oh figured it out

but my macbookpro 2hz, 2gig ram not so much able to handle this game. gets reaaaaaaaaly choppy

Played a couple of hours, got through the tutorial but not much else (character creation took about 45 minutes, of course. I've decided to play a monk, just cos it's a completely new class to me). I'm having similar camera issues, it's a bit clunky. Have everything turned up to full and my PC can sort of handle it, but I think it'll be happier if I ease off a bit in the settings, so I'll have to do some tweaking. Moving house this week though, so not actually likely to get around to that for ages.

next expansion bit is coming out soon, i think. I never really played the 1st one.

Expansions are good for new content (my gnome rogue/wizard had the cutest wolfskin hat with ears and everything) but the game itself is a bit of a slug because it's all epic level shit. Which basically means you have to play a caster, spend ages casting a million buffs to survive any fight, and even then it basically comes down to a magic slinging match. Epic level shit is lacking in fun.

I think the camera is fine - if you're fully up to date, there are a lot of camera modes and options. I just stick with using the middle button for camera control and have the camera follow my character. It takes a while to fine tune the camera speed, but once you're done, you're done.

Ok, how do I split up my party? If, for instance, I want to put Neeshka in stealth mode and have her check out a room before everyone else piles in? Don't seem to be able to figure it out, or to find it in the manual, and I'm sure it was possible in Baldur's Gate...

Ah wait...I've found the "AI off" button.

there's also a "wait here" command if you right click on whatever character you're using.

nice to see you have Neeshka in your party.

New Expansion Pack!

I'm gonna play it tonight.

The hype:In BG2 fashion, you get to create the whole party, it's "open-ended", new "overland map", no more instant transitions, improved performance.

The tripe: No Neeshka.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n0vmCqv5yo

LUTE HERO

incidentally, i still have <3 for Neeshka