You’re better off upgrading a Dell than most any other manufacturer’s systems. HP is the worst. You should be fine.
Thanks Murph. Any recommends on decent websites for newbies/nontechies on how to go about this?
I get the same stuttering sound/choppy video problems. Mine seem pretty random with my TNT2 card. However I do have an old VIA on-board soundcard to go along with my AMD 800mhz, 256MB RAM, WindowsME system. I am sure something simply needs more tweaking in there.
The opening movie went fine and then I got stuttering on the intro story. I installed latest 4-in-1 drivers and it was all fine. I played a bit and it started up in-game. I’ll play for a while w/o a problem and then boom it acts up again. I am missing sumpthin’.
Great game though. A lot of little touches which I can remember none of specifically now that I am at work, of course.
I personally like being able to focus on one character. Not so much damn inventory management.
I’m enjoying the game, especially due to the 3rd edition D&D rules, which are much, much, much better than the 2nd, and integrate well with the game’s design. I find the interface beautiful, and love the great variety of gameplay possibilites. I believe that NWN is a remarkable accomplishment in game design.
That being said, and in the spririt of the thread’s subject heading, how about some real letdowns:
Character portraits. Matter of taste, but I hate 'em. Same guy who did the BG amd IWD games; accomplished artwork, but they’re too specific for game purposes, and hence, a detraction when used on multiple NPCs. I know I can make my own, and I will, but I would have preferred something more in keeping with the nice “generic” look that otherwise permeates the game.
Overall coarseness. Everything feels really open and expansive, due to the inherent size of the toolkit paintbrushes. This is great when painting with broad strokes, and probably necessary when trying to include so many tilesets, but the lack of fine control is disppointing. It’s impossible, for instance, to create something like a convincing city alleyway or narrow underground tunnel; the narrowest corridor can hold six characters abreast. You can place individual items, but as far as I can tell, they can’t be stacked at all (for instance, you can’t set a dagger on a tabletop).
Toolkit complexity. The ease of use of the toolkit has been drastically overstated (hence my disappointment). While it is easy enough to create a simple hack-and-slash module, implementing much more than this requires at least a basic grasp of C. I bought the (extremely helpful) “Official Worldbuilder Guide,” and am now trying to get a handle on the scripting language in order to make an interesting module. The scripting tools are indeed incredibly robust, but to really understand them I would need to take a programming class. I was hoping for something a little more end-user, layperson-friendly, since this was such a highly-touted aspect of the game.
All the usual game-bashing/game-loving caveats apply to the above.
I agree, with BG2 I didn’t feel like I really had one character, I had to manage the whole party and I kind of missed having the focus on my “own” character. The hirelings in NWN seems pretty balanced between having enough personality to feel like part of the party but not to where you have to micromanage their resources, attacks, etc. I laughed the first time I heard Tomi’s post-death speech! (Although I wasn’t laughing so hard after about the 3rd time I respawned and heard it…)
NWN has beautiful graphics! FWIW, I also have the same stuttering video/audio problems on the cutscenes as everyone else. Seems strange since the game itself runs very well on my appx. 1-year outdated computer (1GhZ Athlon, 512MB RAM, Radeon 7200, SB Audigy.)
Place the item on the ground next to the table, then hold down the Alt key and move it under the table. The item should “pop” up on top of the table (or anything else that you move it over).
The toolset has a learning curve, granted, but I think this is about as easy as it gets. Complex behaviors require complex scripting. Of course you could always say “screw the scripting” and juggle things manually as a DM. That’s what I plan to do for some of the more complicated behaviors I have planned. It’s just easier that way.
But I am trying to learn the scripting language, too. There are actually plenty of scripts already; what we need is a comprehensive encyclopedia describing what each one does.
Okay, got NWN yesterday after trading in a bunch of games I’ll never play again; got enough credit to get the $54.95 NWN and the Strat Guide (the Game strat guide, not the World Builder strat guide), and only had to pay $15.
Love the implementation of the 3rd Edition rules. Yanked my 3rd Edition books off the shelf for reference…
Graphics… mixed results… I’m still not a big fan of 3D RPG’s ala Dungeon Siege and NWN… it really feels like you lose a lot of gorgeous 2D detail for relatively blocky graphics. And I’ve got a P3 850, a Gig of RAM, and a GeForceTi 4400 card, so I’m playing with max detail at 800x600 and the damn thing kinda stutters when I move my character around. Like I’ll click the mouse; the game will pause for a fraction of a second, and then my character will warp forward a few steps. It’s like the game is spending so much time calculating the path.
Pathfinding is kinda attrocious; I find my companions will get stuck, but then warp back to the party. In some cases, they don’t warp back, which means I have to go back the way I came and collect them again.
Only been playing for a couple hours though, just entered the Peninsula district. My companions are overly aggressive though; I’m playing a Druid and I’m having to keep up with my Wolf and my NPC party member because they keep running ahead and getting into battles, but as soon as they take out one bad guy, they see another in the distance and take off again. That’s annoying, because my party is getting seperated too easily.
One thing you might want to try for the stuttering sound is turning the audio slider down a notch in the control panel.
As for the game itself it is nice. I actually had a friend buy it yesterday and loan in to me for the night because he had something else to do! The graphics are sweet, the gameplay is similar to BG other than having a single character, and I like the right click interface. The portraits are god awful, I never liked them. They look like real people who are dressed up to go to the ren-fair or something. Too realisitc is a bad thing in a fantasy game.
– Xaroc
Thanks for the “Alt” tip, Ben – that should help a lot. Re: scripting, my rig/connection isn’t fit to host a live game, so if I want to design a module for people to play, I have to be able to do everything I want to with scripts. Alas.
Completely agree on both of these points. Even on the “stay close” setting, henchmen will charge across the map as soon as they see a hostile. Maybe “guard me” is the way to go?
Thaaaaaaaat’s the problem. Something did get on my nerves about them and now that we get too see approx. the same portraits for the 3rd time or so it is getting pretty tired.
overly-agressive sidekicks: This was more of a problem in a couple areas than in most others. The prison riots was some of the worst. But you can always use the radial menu on thir portrait and say “follow” and they’ll come back. Set them to “guard me” and they’ll run off a lot less.
scripting and the toolset: Grabbing the World Builder’s Guide and starting with that as a basis of making an adventure is going to maybe give you the wrong idea. It goes into a lot of scripting detail, which is great, but it’s not totally needed. Between wizards and already-made scripts, you can easily do branching conversations and plot points and “say this if they have done that” type of things.
Yes, the toolset does have a lot of complexity, mostly in the interface. It needs good documentation, more tooltips, and some basic tutorials/guides online. But it’s not as complex as the WBG would have you believe. They show you how to do by hand a lot of things you won’t necessarily need to.
Qt3 server: anyone got the rig/bandwidth to set up a server and leave it running? With a password, of course? Or maybe just run it at set times? (8pm to 8am or whatever) I think it’s a great idea. We could vote in here about which modules it should run, and when.
I don’t want to play Chapter 1 with my level 13 Fighter/rogue (7/6). :wink:
NWN’s portraits are all new, but it has to be the same artist. I’m not a big fan of that “realism” style either, but then I much prefer Frazetta’s brushstrokes to Boris’ models any day. Icewind Dale used a different artist BTW, those portraits were grittier, I liked those.
That said Soule delivers once again on the musical front!
These portraits were done by several different artists–some that worked on the BG series, and others that didn’t… My likes and dislikes vary by artist, really… There are a few portraits I really like… but a fair number that I hate. Most of the elven ones are cool, I think.
I think Dwarves and especially Gnomes got the shaft +1. Can’t find a decent pic of either.
I need to fiddle with module creation and the DM client a little - then I’ll be ready to say thumbs up/down. However, given how much of my C64 time was spent on the “Adventure Construction Kit” I’m sure I’ll find it worth the time.
True, but MY GOD, if you’re making a 60+ hour RPG, you’ve just GOT to make it a stipulation that there will be 3 or 4 different combat music tracks. The one combat track in there got really old hours and hours ago, and I’m not near the end yet.
Heh, Jason, I’m glad you mentioned that. One of the (many) things I dug about Wizardry 8 was that it had three different combat music tracks. The more dangerous the combat, the more intense the music.
Oh yeah the guy who did Wizardry 8 music also did the music for BG2 and Sacrifice. Kevin Manthei i think. Yeah he does great combat music… actually thats one part where I think Jeremy Soule lacks. Sorta.
etc
I finally got back into the game after completely screwing up my system. I tried to update my sound drivers, and like the luddite I am I basically just fucked everything up for 2 days. I couldn’t even open windows for awhile. But I’m back to square one now, and just played a bit more. I took my half-orc ranger into the zombie part of town. I really like how the NPCs don’t like me for being half orcish.
However, the game still stutters too much. I’m taking Dave Long’s, Brad Grenz’s, and Ben Sones’ advice and buying a new video card. Its gonna be a nightmare trying to plug it in, but what the hell. If anyone reads this this morning, I would appreciate any recommends. I’m looking at the GTS-V card and the Radeon 8500LE cards based on Brad’s recommend from the first page. I have a Dell with a TNT2 card right now.
How much are you budgeting for the video card? I’d recommend spending up a little bit since the card can be plugged into any new system you buy at a later date. I’d avoid ATI, particularly since there are Catalyst video driver issues with the Radeon and NWN right now. What a surprise! Not!
The GeForce 4 Ti 4200 starts at ~$150. This is my recommended card for you. Huge bang for the buck, and should remain competitive speed and feature wise for about 2 years.
If that’s over your budget, the GeForce 3 Ti 200 starts at ~$100.
I wouldn’t dip lower than that, because you won’t be buying a card you would want to use in the future.
I always recommend http://www.newegg.com for new hardware purchases. Shop by category “video card”, then pick the video chipset you’re interested.
I have discovered the map’s usefulness…
Cleans a monitor - NO STREAKS