NeverWinter Nights 2 Review

• Game feels old.
• I feel like I'm always on an errand, and never on a mission. By now, after the Eye-gouger's lair, it feels like a chore.
• Managing inventory slots and item stacks, even with a lesser bag of holding. Usually to avoid encumbrance.
  • Ok, I know strength's not that important to a bard, but it's hard to loot the world without becoming very slow.
• Post-mission sequence feels like this:
  • Return to sign-post NPC(s) to retrieve XP.
  • Move encumbered party to a merchant to sell off least-expensive loot in backpack, scrolls, until encumbrance goes away and only top loot left.
  • Go to the Inn and leave again to move class-specific loot to other characters currently not in party.
  • Flip between NWN2 and OpenOffice item crafting spreadsheet from the internet community to figure out what I can make with loot.
  • Run to merchants to buy missing spell effects or components.
  • Return to Inn and craft some items for current party.
• While dragging and dropping items into equipment slots, there is no feedback on effects that don't stack until equip is complete.
  • Trial-and-error equipping reading console output.
• My high-charisma dialog tree doesn't feel useful.
• Eye-gouger's lair quest becomes first quest where I have to leave back to the world map to progress
  • Dropped thief for paladin character pickup, and stalled out in 2nd level of dungeon due to locked door. I thought I could bash doors.
  • Had to go back to NW docks to reform party, pick up thief. Chose to sweep entire map again to pick up chests I couldn't bash, other unclaimed treasure.
• Graphics engine doesn't seem particularly modern or new. Users complain. Maybe not optimized enough.
• Controls and camera not particularly improved, AFAICT.
• Game is strictly Windoze based (no linux love, one of the main reasons I got the game back when I was a desktop linux user).
• Drops not customized to party. Probably don't need to give party with a bard with high lore any lore potions, for example.
• Character viewport spinner isn't free or constrained mouse camera, but a left/right set of rotate buttons, fixed camera angle increments. Boo.
• Audio clips for casting spells sound the same as last game.
• Ini file setting for disabling intro movies doesn't seem to work. Could be user error tho.
  • Definately user error. Instead of CamelCase-all-one-wording the option, use spaces. Works fine.
• Importance of prestige classes and crafting not made clearly at game's beginning.
• Influence levels with characters likewise.
  • The whole Khelgar Vision Quest doesn't make much sense once he's like level 8/9, since probably being a monk from the start would be much better. Seems like a cheap way to explore the influence system.
    • Ok, it turns out success turns him into a monk of the same number of levels. Cool. I thought I was going to have to play a split fighter/monk late in the game.
• Crafting system is cool, and most cool magic items seem to come from crafting as opposed to from drops/plot items.
  • This is only WRT chapter 1, which I am still in.
• Books you find are full of cool wisdom, but you have to manually copy the info down somewhere. Whenever you find a book, the book's pages and info should auto populate your in-game palm-pilot.
  • Basically, each time I found a book, I ended up selling it if it had gold value (ie, not a quest item) but writing out its notes into my notepad. Sigh.
  • These were typically crafting recipies.
• Crafting difficult to juggle with one's inventory. Seems like user should be able to select a recipe for an item and see what bits are missing quickly, auto-fill nearby benches, etc.
• Plot's no Planescape Torment, but what is, really? Probably the Planescape guys are all busy at BioWare or somewhere else.
• Debug cheats easy to use, and useful.
  • For example, the Bonegnasher explosive crate puzzle, which is unfortunately so poorly designed that the thread on how to complete it is stickied in the forums, if you play it safe and just take the stable globes, and don't want to walk the fuck back to the crate.
• Interesting community gripes about no linux server, very little support for persistent worlds. Not that I play in any.
• Approaching the end of chapter 2
  • I enjoyed the transition to the keep
  • Dislike the fact that I found all that ore and don't remember where it was, and have know way of knowing if I got credit for it besides xp.
  • Hitting level 15 but only prestige class opening up is red-dragon desciple, and that was like back at level 5. Blame self for bad char build.
    • On the upside, probably able to pick up harper next level.
  • Dislike the Jerro approach puzzles, and the lack of story filling out pre-arrival to the 5th statue.
    • Like, why not find that last person instead?
    • What happened to my step father?
    • Why beat around the bush regarding history of area?
  • Unsure if I still need to keep gith lady around, since my preferred party doesn't include her.
  • Feeling keen pressure to cheat WRT equipment and cash: shovelling cash at the keep doesn't fix it as quickly as desired, and best craft items still missing gems.

Probably the original game and toolset are going to outlive this one; there's more content out, and the differences aren't that big. The biggest difference I can see is that the toolkit for this one looks slicker in the UI skin. Is it still possible to make models with blender?