Looking for a comparison of Neverwinter Nights 1 vs 2, including modules etc.

I am thinking of either playing Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2 in a few weeks. However, I will only have time to play one of them, including the best expansions and modules. Are there any good analyses of the difference between the games, or which game is better (including modules)?

Edit: I have heard that the original campaigns for both games are not very good, so I will probably skip to the expansion packs.

I have not seen any point-to-point comparison. I know that NWN 2 was buggy upon initial release, although I think they patched it. The original NWN campaign isn’t terrible, but I also don’t like the first expansions. Hordes of the Underdark is a much better game. I don’t like the earlier “premium modules” although the later ones were pretty good and there were some excellent fan-made modules for NWN. Considering you can get pretty much everything for $30, I’d probably play Hordes of the Underdark, see if you can get some of the fan-made material for post HotU, and skip most everything else.

Yeah both original campaigns aren’t anything to write home to. Probably the best expansions are Hordes of the Underdark for NWN1 and Mask of the betrayer for NWN 2 (although I also enjoyed NWN2’s storm of zehir a lot). Mask of the Betrayer features a story that rivals Plane Scape Torment’s, IMHO.

NWN has an ungodly amount of mods available for it. I haven’t tried anything in many years though, so I can’t really say what’s good now a days. I’d go to the nwvault and check for mods there. Last time I checked NWN 2 had fewer mods, but many are of high quality as well.

Yeah, that’s just amazing, and one fo the reasons why I love PC gaming.

The modding and player community is apparently still going!

I also wanted to add that NWN 2 has aged a bit better. It still features a clunky UI, and crappy animations, but when playing from an isometric point of view, it can definitely give out an “HD” Baldur’s Gate vibe thanks to fairly detailed textures and decent lighting.

NWN 1 wasn’t very good looking in 2002, and now… it’s pretty much the main thing that’s kept me from replaying it again. Can’t get past the aging graphics/animations/UI.

Are there no good UI or graphics mods? Morrowind, for example, has plenty of mods that can make it look quite decent even now.

To me, the chief difference was that NWN2 had a vastly improved interface. It has or or less all the same features as NWN1, but so much less time consuming and awkward. It’s not perfect, but given how much stuff there is to use, see, and do, it works.

The plot jumps a bit, here and there, but it also has a far stronger narrative overall and a lot more to do. The NWN1 graphics definitely aren’t the best, either, but I further note that you can’t see a damn thing. The action is zoomed practically up your character’s nostils, so you can only look about ten feet in front.

Thank you all for the replies.

I am looking for a DnD 3.X based game for the combat, and also a CRPG game with a really good story. Thus, I think I’ll play Neverwinter Nights 2: MoTB first, then either the Temple of Elemental Evil or Planescape: Torment.

In other news, gog.com is really good.

Torment isn’t 3.anything, but it’s freakishly awesome. There’s about three full-length novel’s worth of text, and it’s damn enjoyable.

Temple of Elemental Evil is, frankly, crap. It’s not totally worthless, but the whole damn game is more of a pain than it’s worth. Troika made every n3wb error possible.

That’s unfortunate. I was intrigued due to its apparently very faithful adaptation of the pen and paper D&D rules, but the reviews for it are mostly lukewarm.

Get the circle of eight mod for TOEE.

Fixes the problems and adds entirely new locations to explore.

Played it last year and it was great.