Never Winter Nights

Oops. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Here's my assessment: don't buy it! It's a piece of crap!

Only kidding. Actually I'm still playing it and enjoying it.

The single player campaign is a bit "Baldur's Gate" in that you feel like you're going through the motions and couldn't fail if you tried, but still enjoyable within those limits.

Combat is actually quite good, which surprised me. It's a real time + pause and your allies (henchmen, sumoned creatures) fight for themselves. This all makes it low overhead, so it doesn't get boring very quickly. Also on the plus side, the combat is fun to watch. Zoom right in and watch them take swings, parry, dodge, cast spells, etc.

The interaction system includes elements where you can persuade people and use insight (from intelligence). This features has not been used well in the single player camapaign, but bodes well for modules created by other people.

The graphics are 3d. This means essentially two things:

• overall quality can't even be compared to hand drawn 2d, being so much blockier and less detailed.
• There is much more animation and customisation. For instance, cast barkskin actually makes your avatar look like he's covered in bark; during a fight you duck swings or side step them for a successful dodge; your actuall weapon appears in your hand while you're using it, as does your shield; your clothing/armour style affects the way your avatar appears; my druid can shapeshift into many different shapes, each one looking VERY cool.

Some people have criticised the game for missing some detail, like gloves, boots and cloaks not being shown. It's a fair point, but there IS a lot of 3D usage to impress you. Plus, you get easy camera control. I tend to play with one hand on the mouse, the other on the camera controls. This lets me look around a room or zoom in and out constantly. Once you've gotten used to it, it is a much more fluid and natural way to play.

The character system is 3e D&D. I liked it, particularly when comparedt o previous D&D games. The impact of the class system has been toned down. Now you get skills and feats that you can pick as you go and there are fewer restrictions on multi-classing (giving you access to most feats and skills). This means characters are much mroe diverse and interesting.

Your party is now much smaller. You are only allowed one henchmen plus (depending on character feats) a few summoned creatures. It's a bit disappointing in some ways, but the pace of the game is much faster, and the focus is much more on your own character, rather than the party. The henchman is generally just there to prop up any vast gaps in your skills. For instance, I have a rogue because I have no lock opening or trap removal skills, and the maniac who created the single player campaign went on a locking/trapping spree during creation. I actually don't like the who rogue aspect of D&D. I think traps and locks are getting tired, and I wish they'd ditch them.

As I have said, some characters get more allies than others. There is a lot of discussion on the NWM boards about this making the ones who get more overpowered. It's a valid point. The fights are a lot easier if you have a team of people, kind of like in Arcanum. Also like Arcanum, the balancing attempt relies on XP sharing and I'm not sure it works.

Some aspects of henchmen aren't done very well: you can't get them to take items from you, so equipment you find cannot help them; and they mysteriously get crappy magic items as they level up, which is just nonsensical enough to intrude on the atmosphere.

The game comes with two other major elements outside the single player campaign. The toolkit is THE BOLLACKS (that's very good, btw). Diligent games creators can do a hell of a lot with it. Some people will undoubtedly improve on Bioware's own offering and create modules with better plots and characters. The DM client allows online games to have a human DM, bringing the game much more into the realms of PnP play style.

All in all, I'd say you may not like the single player campaign, but the game system itself is very good. The key elements of character development and game-play have been done well enough to make even the badly wirtten single player campaign an enjoyable experience and offer huge potential for player-made modules.

 

i tried. i failed. baldur's gate kicked my white little tushy all over the room...

 

See, the problem with an average single player game and a great toolkit is that it relies on other people have the time, patience and skill to develop a good module. Which very rarely happens. Which is why I prefer a great single player game out of the box, and not having to rely on someone else, hence why I dig singleplayer games and couldn't give a shit about multiplayer for the most part.

 

Well, I dunno. I think about Heroes II, and the web page I used to hit up for maps, and it makes me wonder whether the really good stuff doesn't come from the players. Don't forget it is aimed at PnP people, who would have spent ages crafting there paper-based modules anyhow.

I went multi for the first time last night. Apart from the jiggery pokery necessary to get crappy gamespy working without having to shut down my firewall, it was very cool.

There are TONS of online modules already. Admittedly, some of these will turn out to be poo, but others might be good.

Then there are all the single-player modules for download.

To me, it seems like D&D just came alive again.

 

I need to hit my friend up for Neverwinter Nights, and see if it deserves the hype surrounding it. I've never played a D&D game in any form, so maybe I should give it a shot...

 

Damn! WarCraft3 is having the same problem NWN had, I guess it is time for me to get a Pentium 4 and a new motherboard, I have been in Las Vegas for the past 10 days so I never had time to get a new mother board and such, once I get the new mother board I am going to reformat my computer.