I know NWN2 received a lukewarm reception on this board plus it’s not out in America yet so this thread might die early but here’s hoping it won’t.
Anyway I just beat it and I have to say I’m very impressed. Big strides in storytelling and the ending is much more satisfying. The story itself is more gripping I was tired of the old ‘farm boy gets his home attacked and goes on an epic quest’ style beginning. This one is ‘you wake up with a hole ripped in your chest what you going to do about it?’ it was much more interesting. They found a good balance between giving the campaign an epic feel while still making it personal to you. Also there’s tons of mini endings depending on your actions through the campaign which is both nice and frustrating. Nice if you plan on replaying a dozen times kinda frustrating if you want to see them all but don’t want to start from scratch over and over. The voice acting is much more umm dramatic I guess I can tell they really took the criticism of the OC to heart (personally I found it a little annoying. The guy was trying a little too hard to have a deep creepy voice but hey better then the nasal drone of the last one right?). The whole setting seems much darker and grimmer in tone.
Few minor bugs I received a few crashes at the end of the game during the final fight and had a problem with a couple of rooms not loading right (I could see the doorways but not enter) which was fixed by exiting the game and going back in and reloading the save.
The seeing the doorways but can’t enter bug can be fixed by manually walking into the room (with WASD rather than mouse-ing). Puzzled me for a bit, too.
Anyway, I agree with you. Great expansion. A mite shorter than the OC, but that’s literally my only complaint (ok, I do have “one”, the souls quest took ages). The final choice is probably the only time in a game where i’ve actually had a difficult time picking. Epic Roguery is just too much fun… Sneak attack + six hits a round + new enchanting system = ludicrous damage.
I haven’t yet got what I assume is the “best” ending yet though (I only had two pieces of the mask at the end, no idea where any others would be, but with the harping on about “there must be another way” I assume I did miss something there). Never did find out what I was supposed to do with Kepob, too.
You were close there’s only three mask pieces. The one Bishop gives you, the one you get in the Wells area and the final you get by sleeping near an unusual stone close to where you prayed for a cure (or a way to destroy) the forest. If you do that you can heal the faceless man.
[spoiler]The one in the Wells area is the one I missed. What do I have to do for it?
Just as another question, how many former party members did you come across? I got Bishop (in the Wall as you say) and Amon Jerro, and Jerro and other people tell you who lived/died, but I never actually found anyone else.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]You bring Gann along to the wells area and drink from a pool which gives you a vision.
And that’s it for the former party members did you give Amon his soul back? He tells you the fates of a few of your former members. In the good ending where you marry your love interest it mentions Khelgar and Neeska attend your wedding (sp? on the names)[/spoiler]
Thanks again. I did give Amon his soul back, so I did get those bits; Casavir, Bishop, Qara or Sand, Grobnar and the Construct all get killed. Neeshka, Khelgar, Sand (possibly) and Amon all get out of it one way or another. Elanee wasn’t there (I suppose so that you could get the Safiya romance option more easily).
The first game was/is very nice. There are SO many really good weapons, it’s hard to pick what you want. I think that might actually be a criticism of it, actually.
I used a sorcerer, and when I had to fight hand-to-hand, I couldn’t get past that part in the game, so it has upset me and it sits, waiting for the expansion pack next to Medieval: Total War 2 and its expansion/Total Realism patch.
I’ve been thinking of getting NWN2, but I’ve been holding off hoping they’d finally get an expansion or two out and fix the bugs before I bought it. If they release a combined version, I might get it then.
What part did you have to fight hand to hand? The battle with Lorne? Or the attack on the Lord Nashar? In the former you can win by getting high influence with an NPC and having him fight Lorne in the latter it’s much harder for non-melee builds but with some running and careful spell casting it can be done. Worst comes to worst you can always drop the difficulty to ‘easy’ for just the part you were having problems with.
The latter. In the first, I had my dwarf do the fighting.
I don’t have a save spot before it, so I’m doomed to repeat it over and over. Otherwise, I’d augment things to give myself a chance with physical skillz.
I’m looking forward to the expansion but if Kelgor Ironfist isn’t in it I’ll be just a little sad. I’ll even miss Neeshka. I just played NWN 2 again over the summer except this time I chated and gave my Monk 20s in every stat to start out with.
I loved Neeshka and wished there had beena romance there. Apparently there originally was one planned, but it got cut due to time constraints. Sigh.
I liked NW2 a great deal, but it had the downsides of being fairly repetitive and also having a handful of bad bugs. One bug which affected me was game-breaking and rendered it impossible for me to continue, so I’ll never be able to finish. Eventually, I gave up trying to get around the crash; it just wasn’t possible. And they never fixed it.
BTW isn’t 90% of the creatures in the XPack immune to sneak attack damage? I knew I was frustrated that my build which had a ton of crit damage was constantly being told ‘Target is immune to critical hits’.
I went and rebuilt him for Fachions minor spoiler so I could use the one you get in Ice Troll Lodge with Spirit Ruin on it (if you didn’t read the description on it or get it it allows crit damage on undead and spirits). I wonder if there’s any way to enchant that on a regular weapon so I can use my Scythe build.
Yep, a good deal of them are. Problem solved by a feat (can’t remember which one) which means some un-sneak-attackable enemies are sneak-attackable/critable, plus a nice sword that opened elementals (I think? Not the lodge guy’s sword) up to them.
Well I just thought I’d give this a bump for the American release. I’m actually playing through it a second time to see the pure evil path with a rather nasty melee build. I went through the OC with this monster and nobody could touch him I can’t wait to destroy the xpack with it.
