NWN Mission Packs

After finishing the excellent Eschalon Book 1 I now thirst for RPGs. I deliverately avoided them for a couple of years but now my addicition has resurfaced!

I've reinstalled Neverwinter Nights again in order to play the Shadows on Undrentide expansion. It's pretty good but I still find it annoying how little control you get over your henchman (like you can give him stuff to carry and new weapons/armout etc). I actually enjoyed Eschalon Book 1 more.

Anyway, wondering if it's worth me seeking out the other NWN mission pack: Hordes of the Underdark although it see to get worse reviews...

Also the game now has an option for "premium modules" what are these then? Any good?

As for NWN2, people said it wasn't as good right? Why not?

I've still got a Baldurs Gate 2 mission pack to play, but I'll have to get the original game out the attic to reinstall it first!

I might check out how Exhult is doing and give Ultima VII - Part 1 a blast (played part 2 years ago) as that's a classic game.

How long did it take you to finish Eschalon?

Ultima VII was awesome, and its expansions. A real shame U8 & 9 (while great games anyway) lost the whole 'party' management aspect that really made the other (top-down) ultima games that went before rock so much.

Craig: 20+ hours quite a while. It was well worth the money although I wish my character could walk faster.

D4NM4N: You bet, one of the best games ever. I did enjoy 8 though, but not as much. 9 was OK too but not as good as the others.

It's alright. It starts off ok, but it gets bogged down in mindless hack and slash through hordes of opponents after 10-15 hours and begins to get very boring and repetitive. The graphics aren't special either.

The Witcher and Mass Effect are the only two great RPG's I've played recently, although both are absolutely brilliant. However, the Witcher is still new so it won't be cheap yet, and Mass Effect is XBox360 only, AFAIK.

I hate to say it, but if you want to play an MMORPG, World of WarCraft really is a very good game.

I played it up until I could not play anymore without getting into huge organized groups to delve into dungeons. As soon as I reached that part I quit. But, it really is good for a few months of gaming even if you want to solo most of the time.

Anyway, I have NWN 2 and I really didn't play it that long. I don't know why. It was good, but there was just something about it that kept putting me off. And I loved NWN 1, I played all of the expansions, lots of player built content, I even made my own module.

I also am in search of a good RPG, but the problem for me is that I have played and enjoyed MMORPGs and it is hard for me to play a single player RPG now, because of the sandbox like play (which NWN does NOT have), and the whole idea of a lot of the characters being real people. It makes for fun times.

But, I also have not been able to find another good MMORPG. I am hoping the Conan one coming is going to be good.

I guess if NWN2 is going cheap I should pick it up. I don't have a 360 so Mass Effect is out for now. Witcher could be cool, but I still haven't even played Oblivion! Also I've avoided MMORPG as I know they'll mess up my life for good :-)

I played NWN2 to completion earlier this year and found it to be rather bland. Not a bad game, but not a good game either. And performance was surprisingly crappy on my decently specced system.

The Witcher, which utilizes a modified NWN2 engine, is a far more interesting game - if you can put up with the loading screens. The content is more 'adult' than most RPGs, which is good, in my opinion.

I've just started playing Mass Effect and must say I'm impressed. Bioware have created an interesting new setting and kept their excellent production values. But I'm not impressed with the interface, which I still haven't mastered after about ten hours of play. They should have stuck with the Knights of the Old Republic interface, and kept a turned-based combat system, in my opinion.

I liked NWN2, you have better control over your Allies than in one. And I dont think it got "Bogged Down" to Hash and Slash.

Duuude if you havn't finished Baldurs Gate 2 : Throne of Bhaal you really should put off new games. It's not like the expansion pack for BG1, it adds chapters, it finishes the story. It's great. Still kicks NWNs butt if you ask me...


Hmm, Hordes gives you more control over your henchmen. Still not as much as I would have liked. Also if you want a taste of the premium modules, get the Kingmaker expansion pack - it has the first three premium modules in one bundle. I havn't played it, but I hear good things. Mostly from Bioware.

I'm going up to the attic to get Throne of Bhall! OK Kingmaker, will look into it. thx

I liked NWN2, must confess to prefering the online ism experience to the game thang. Stoppe playing a little while ago due to patches being a bit hit and miss from the online communities.

I thought it ran okay, even on my under spec machine.

I too had NWN1 and shadows of undrentide, speny many an hour there....

Greets...

Hope you have a pretty beefed up party from BG2 cuz ToB is haaard. Mostly at the end =] I had to cheat to beat the last battle.

In terms of sandbox single player PC 3D RPG's coming up, guess they would be;

Fallout3
GTA4 (if you could call it an RPG)
Spore(?)

Any others that are worth checking out?

Just ordered hordes of the underdark for £5 off ebay.

Yeah I finished BG2 so I'll just use that party.

MadJack: Thanks. To be honest, right now I'm more into "classic" sword&sorcery RPG.

Yesterday i downloaded Gothic 3 demo and today i tested Eschalon.
Amazing, Gothic 3 has lost the battle xD

"Black Eyes 4: Drakensang" (if thats how its called in english) could be interesting.
They said they want to make it quiet classic, with a little focus on board games.
But they pumped >2 mill in that game...realy hope its not a reason for them to blow it.

sounds like Dragon Song to me or something?

http://www.drakensang.com/

The trailer looks tasty. And it's another rpg from a european dev - which is good as I don't think the americans can really do a realistic, gritty medieval world - don't have the cultural heritage.

No one has the cultural heritage for Wizards and goblins, Madjack - that's not realistic or gritty, it's fiction. Except for the great British Orc invasion of 1608, which is, of course, a matter of historical fact.

If I wanted to know about the realism and grit of medieval times, I wouldn't look to Tolkien-style epic fantasy, because, y'know, that stuff tends to be unrealistic and relatively fluffy.

Take away the magic and monsters and these games typically simulate a generic european medieval world.

What I'm saying is that I suspect that if a game designer/level artist is actually living in a country that has medieval architecture and echoes from that age still living in its culture, then that's going to inform and influence the artist's approach. I think you can see that in the Witcher for example.

(aND Don't make me bring up Kevin Costner!)

@MadJack, yep that's a tasty lookingame, the sounds quite impressive too.

I've just tried NWN2 again onlnie with the dexnia 1016 build and I can heartily recommend playing it.... NWN2 has been out a while now and despite my ssytem being under spec for running it, it runs it nonetheless -
and not at minimum settings.

It's handy I got it playing online again just in time for the christmas hols (;-)

On a (slightly) different thread, they've been advertising RE4 on the telly, I'm really going to have to try and get past the village......

heres me in NWN:-

Looks like you're in one of those plastic spheres people like to ride in as they roll down a hillside (although why anyone would think that's fun is beyond me).

yeah it does, I must confess if I was to try one of those for real, It'd have to be a gradient of like 1 in a 1000, if that wasn't 'steep' enuf to get the ball rollin then I'd maybe be outlandish and try 1 in 993....

People must throw up in those things ever so often - even perhaps right at the start(?) and I'd pay to see that ;-)

On a different note, downloaded the Gothic2 demo last night just to see if there was anything worth playing - but it was just too primitive after Gothic3, Oblivion and The Witcher. Those games have really spoiled me in terms of 3d RPG's.

First time I saw one of those spheres was on Armout of God with Jackie Chan in it, it was CRAZY!

BP: Can't believe you haven't got past the village yet, you are missing SOOO much. That game is a 10/10 game.

I'm enjoying Shadows of Undrentide quite a lot actually. Lack of henchman control is annoying but other stuff is cool.

Well there are several reasons. For starters party AI is stupid. Your mages/sorcerers/clerics will nuke at least half of your potential future loot by using that beefed up Delayed Blast Fireball you were saving for special occasions, on a single nearly dead (and immune to fire damage) Monster, in the process killing all your melee fighters. Also having discovered that Fire Giants are immune to fire will not prevent the AI from using fire based spells on said creatures in subsequent encounters, requiring any spell casters to have only a crippling selection of spells, or to be micromanaged beyond frustration. I guess it's too much to ask of a character with a superhuman intelligence and mastery of eldritch forces, to figure out that monsters already engulfed in flames or constructed entirely of magma, probably aren't going to be too distraught by any fireballs you chose to fling their way.

Your main character NEEDS to be either a dual class Fighter/Rogue or a Cleric (and probably human as well), for reasons that may be considered spoilers, although by the time you get this far you won't really care about any spoilers, because you'll be playing simply to finish it, rather than because it's enjoyable. Lots of (side) quests can be broken, although you'll still be lugging around potential quest items forever, and your journal is likely to be filled with quests you've managed to cut yourself off from completing (but somehow not failed, despite the person who gave it to you, is now buried under a mountain).

You have a wide selection of party members to chose from, but will find yourself relying on only a handful (as opposed to the expansion "Mask of the betrayer" were you get a handful of party members that all suck, and you'll have to rely entirely on yourself - hope you rolled a Fighter).

The plot falls through completely towards the end (but again, at this point you've stopped caring) and the ending itself is laughably poor, to the point you wish you'd quit much sooner than you did.

Well that's unfortunate, as most of the games mentioned so far are really more of a "High Fantasy" kind of thing.

If somewhat romanticized.

GTA4 is not going to be released for the PC. The last RPG I've played on the PC that didn't suck (at least not until the very end) was "Jade Empire". But I'm going to try and see if I can't get some "The Witcher" time in between Christmas and New Years Eve.

That whole NWN2 AI thing sounds pretty bad. In fact my current henchman in the NWN:SoU Expansion has fireballed me in the back a few times because I'm a fighter who naturally gets in there. No warning, just a fireball up the arse - thanks AI! I'm kinda glad when he runs out of spells and carry on without resting so he can't recharge.

There goes that pedant again. You wanna fix it to the floor and perhaps use it to power your TV or something.

snigger...

Well, I must confess I haven't played the quests for too long, I rate NWN2 for it's online playability. The graphics are a large step forward from NWN1, and the control mechanism is good. I've just recently taken up archery (in real life...), my limited amount of gameplay time means my arcane archer is progessing slowly - went arcane archer in NWN1, can't wait to see the visuals assocaited with AA in NWN2 when you loose of some exploding ammo!



Yep, I'm still a fan of NWN2, although it's looking like I'll have to dig out RE4 and get past that village over christmas.

received Hordes today. Will install right after the other one is finished unless I get BG2 from the attic first...

Just re installed NWN1 + SoU on my wifes laptop and my main computer (yep, I have 2 separate copies of the game). Never really played the quest much, mostly on line gameplay.

The latest patch for (1.68) allows for easy LAN gaming, so me and thw wife can quest away to our hearts content.

As for NWN2, the patch system has been upgraded somewhat, and is quite smooth now.

I've nearly finished SoU it's cool at then end of the Iterlude when you get ... oho spoiler ;-)

Also got HoU pack ready and waiting to play after. My son is really enjoying playing this with me too.

yep, my son's fair enjoying playing it with me as well. After going back to NWN1, I'm almost inclined to think that the control interface is better than NWN2, it's maybe just I'm more accustomed to NWN1 interface from the aeon of online playing in the past.

I found the lack of rotate player keys to be a hassle. You can rotate the camera but not the player! Only move fowards/back and strafe, you have to use the mouse to change direction. Also the camera movement keys are the arrow keys, so I had my left hand there and my right on the mouse which made me all lop-sided. Luckily I've got a special gaming mini-keyboard thing (Nostromo) now which I can place on the far let which has the WASD keys and also arrow keys controlled by a little Nintendo style 4-way pad. This is loads better.

hmm, nostromo sounds cool, me and my son have just been seen off by rumgut (big giant who has kidnapped becka for his wife), looks like I've gotta get some rum. NWN1 SoU is cool.... still very playable. I've started trying to do the original NWN quest with my wife - we were up to gone 1 this morning battling away... (;-)

I spoke to rumgut's wife and she told me she'd feed him a big meal and I could sneak in when he was asleep. However, I kept waking him up so then I challenged him to a drinking game and I didn't need to go and buy any runm... The key is in some rubble near where he sleeps.

So are you saying you can play NWN Coop with someone? And you both have proper characters? If so I'd LOVE to play this with Helen. Only problem is she has a Vista laptop and we totally failed to get the laptop and PC linked for playing Icewind Dale II even though it is networked in Windows fine...

yep, you can co-op on a LAN, very easy to do with XP Home to XP Home computers & patch 1.68 of NWN1. If you search on the forums people had issues with setting up LAN games, but as long as you have 2 copies of NWN I can say it networks fine, XP to XP at any rate. Me and my son have just finished another sessions on SoU (;-)

Started getting adventurous last night and attempted to make my server available on Gamespy so that my brother in scotland could play, gave up - haven't really dug that deep attempting to solve that issue.

Oh good point, I only have one copy, oh well. Also it's home to Vista which is what may cause a problem...

yeah, microsoft are cheeky monkeys that way.