There is a patch for the patcher. Install that, then run the autopatcher, and that will update you to v. 1.18. I got it at Fileplanet, but I suspect you can find it elsewhere, and there is a separate patch for the game if you don’t/can’t use the autoupdate.
Cool. Thanks for the tip, i’ll check it out!
This seems to be the place…
Ok. I’m disappointed in the NWN singleplayer. Not in the storyline… Bioware excells, as always, at using AD&D (I’m oldschool) monsters well and creating interesting quests and situations. NICE use of an Intellect Devourer, for example. I like the graphics engine fine and find it baffling that people are complaining. I’m ambivalent about the Stone of Recall, it’s too Diablo for me and given the amount of conversation this isn’t a Diablo style game. The combat is cool to watch, at first, then just gets a bit annoying. Long and drawn out at times. But mainly I’m ho-hum about the gameplay.
Why? I’m playing a Paladin and my henchman is that Priest chick, a good team if a bit too heavy on the healing. Why can’t I hire more than one Henchman? I have the money… I want a party.
That’s what’s missing. The old squabbling “Do my quest now!” BG party. I miss Minsc, I miss my evil mage arguing with that stupid Priest. I miss Viconia. I miss managing them RTS style. I’m not having as much fun with this control one player thing. The upshot is I’m really looking forward to Icewind Dale 2 now.
I know, if I had friends to play with online I’d like it better. Right?
Terrific game, don’t get me wrong, just venting on some mild disappointment here.
Oh, one more thing, is the double bladed weapons a D&D 3E thing or is it a Bioware thing? Because it’s fucking silly. A double bladed axe wouldn’t work well as a weapon at all. An axe requires heft, like a sledge hammer, grab a sledge hammer and imagine another head on it. Try to weild it like that. Wouldn’t work. Neither would a double bladed sword. Darth Maul aside, and he used his as a lite-weight double bladed staff (a Japanese weapon, and one that’s only good against NON ARMORED OPPONENTS).
I know D&D isn’t real but there’s a reason Europe never made double bladed axes and swords, the weilder would die quickly.
EDIT CAVEAT: I’m only done with the first quest here. I did the Penninsula District. So I’m knee-jerk judging at the moment. Thought I better add that now…
So Bub is disappointed with Neverwinter Nights because:
a) he can’t play it with a party like Baldur’s Gate, and
b) double-bladed weapons are “unrealistic”.
Gotcha.
Personally, I’m disappointed because a) I can’t lead an army like they do in Myth and b) it’s unrealistic that characters don’t belch after swigging a potion. Can’t Bioware get anything right?
-TomI guess developers will never win. You see posts complaining of the stagnation in gaming. The same old FPS…the same old RTS. Then when a dev trys something new what do you get? “Why isn’t it like Baldur’s Gate…why can’t I do it like BG…”
The double bladed weapons are a 3ed creation. I agree that it’s silly. There’s a double headed pick-axe or something in the core rule book. If you look at it, when you swing the weapon, the spike of one end will go right through your own forearm.
Jason, of course devs will never win! Jeez! But setting aside the fact that in every way except the lack of a party the NWN single player plays exactly like Baldur’s Gate, what exactly does THE SINGLE PLAYER GAME do that’s revolutionary? Sure, you can use new content and all that, that’s very cool and revolutionary, but other than that, in single player terms NWN is pretty much exactly like playing BG only here you can’t have a party.
In that regard, and only that regard, what did they do here that’s “new”? They made it more like Diablo and Dungeon Siege? Is that new? Hey, I’m all for devs trying to do something “new” but I’m playing what amounts to the sequel to BG2. Why can’t I miss some things I liked about BG2?
That said, let me repeat that I admire the new stuff. The tools, the multiplayer, the creation, etc., I’m only judging the single player here. And only complaining mildly.
And the double bladed weapons are unrealistic, yes. But what I actually said was that they were “fucking silly”. I’m happy to hear Bioware didn’t invent them (because they’re fucking silly) and grant that if they’re part of 3E, Bioware had to use them or some rabid D&D fans would jet up to Canada.
That’s not really the point, though. The multiplayer part of the game is very revolutionary, and the single player game is the way it is (single-character) because of the multiplayer game. The game is designed to be played like a tabletop game, with a party of other players. Each player controls one character. You can also play the game solo, but still only with one character. Adding a player-controlled party dynamic to the solo portion of the game would be like designing a whole new game. I can’t really fault BioWare for not doing that.
I agree the double-bladed weapons are silly, but maybe they serve as a sort of barometer. If someone is using one, then they are probably a min/maxer or some other style of player I don’t like, so I know not to play with them.
How do you get any leverage with those double-bladed swords, anyway? Even leather armor would be too much for them.
“Adding a player-controlled party dynamic to the solo portion of the game would be like designing a whole new game. I can’t really fault BioWare for not doing that.”
If it’s built to handle multiple players played by multiple humans beings, right? And they added the ability to have one henchman in single player. So, why can’t I have two henchmen? Or three? Or five? How would that be like designing a whole new game?
I’m genuinely curious Ben. I know you’re knee deep in the scripting and module creation, and I’m also aware I’m at the very beginning of the single player game, so I bet you have a clearer perspective than I do right now.
One of the things I was looking forward to with NWN wasn’t playing online with friends or even the DM client. I can rarely get friends together to do anything online, and most of my friends don’t have broadband or aren’t gamers. What I was looking forward to was basically a D&D construction set. A way to get all kinds of new single player content for a game system I like. Since, thus far, I’m not so thrilled playing by myself I’m disappointed to see that dream die.
(Oh FYI, at E3 I had a conversation with Dr. Ray, he told me you could fall in love with your henchmen. So, if you liked that aspect of BG2, pick a henchman accordingly.)
The Japanese are famous for these kinds of weapons actually. They’re pretty much the only culture that developed them and used them. Mainly double spears or a spear with a hook or chain at the end. Useless against armor unless you’re stabbing. In a stab you’d have enough leverage, but again, a double bladed sword the way they did the artwork is much more dangerous to the weilder than his foe. How can choke up on it for the thrust?
Darth Maul’s weapon would work because the cutting power of a Lightsaber, presumably, doesn’t require leverage or power. So you could use that Quarter Staff style, which Ray Park did, and use it effectively.
Bub wrote: But setting aside the fact that in every way except the lack of a party the NWN single player plays exactly like Baldur’s Gate
Jesus, Bub, you’ve got to be kidding. Have you even played Neverwinter Nights? Aside from the enormous difference 3E makes, have you completely missed the impact of the new engine and gameplay mechanics?
Ben wrote: Adding a player-controlled party dynamic to the solo portion of the game would be like designing a whole new game.
Yep, and it’s already been done. It was called Dungeon Siege.
This sort of criticism really bugs me, when a player second guesses the developer and takes a game to task for not being more like what the player wanted rather than the developer set out to create. Bub, I hope you don’t plan on harping on any of this stuff in an official, uhh, “review”.
Besides, if you’re so hot under the collar for a party game, play a wizard with a familiar, hire a henchman, and summon a creature. Sheesh, if four characters isn’t a party, I don’t know what is.
Personally, I prefer the focus of a single character. And I couldn’t care less whether double-bladed weapons are realistic. I suppose next you’re going to tell me there’s no such thing as an elf, the world isn’t built from blocks no bigger than 32x32 tiles, and respawning isn’t a realistic portrayal of what happens when you die.
-Tom
“Personally, I prefer the focus of a single character.”
I do too. One inventory to manage, one character to nurture and level and focus on – I prefer this to juggling an entire party.
Tom Chick: “Have you even played Neverwinter Nights? …Bub, I hope you don’t plan on harping on any of this stuff in an official, uhh, “review”.” :roll:
You’re stooping lower than a halfling’s ass here Tom.
Let me clarify. I don’t really want to control an entire party like Baldur’s Gate. I mean, I understand that NWN was designed to not work in the same way as an RTS game does (and the BG series does). I accept that you’d need a whole new game and engine to bring it back to BG.
So, I don’t mind playing one character. Managing one inventory, etc., But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a party. Meaning: I wonder why I can’t hire more than one henchman, because, Bioware always excelled in making vivid characters who would bicker, fight, and more. It seperated their games from the Diablos of the world. It added a lot to the single player game and helped simulate D&D in a single player way. NWN is missing it completely and I think that’s bad because D&D isn’t a solo-game. So if you’re going to simulate D&D it helps to simulate the “party” as much as possible. There’s no reason why you can’t achieve that within the NWN engine. If you’d played more of the BG series, you might miss it too.
“Yep, and it’s already been done. It was called Dungeon Siege.”
No, DS was missing this too. To it’s detriment in my opinion. 6-8 bland characters are actually more boring than 1.
The other thing is that I wonder if the single henchman deal is hard coded. Can’t I make a module that would involve multiple henchmen per player? I’d love to make one where you have to escort a old married couple, perpetually complaining about video games. Can you assign scripts to Henchmen?
If not, that, imo, limits the single player potential a bit.
No, I tried it. The JoinAsHenchman function (or whatever it’s called–I don’t have my list in front of me currently) only works on one henchman at a time. If you already have one, it returns false and nothing happens.
I imagine they did this, again, for multiplayer reasons. In the solo game, it doesn’t matter much if you have five henchmen walking around with you. In the multiplayer game you have all the human players (and their henchmen) too, though, and there has to be a logical limit on how many characer portraits you can cram on the right hand side of the screen… ;)
I agree with Bub that it would have been nice to have more henchmen, but since the henchman script itself is so trivially easy to use, I assume that there is a good reason why they don’t allow it. It doesn’t make me like the game any less, though. Yeah, it’s not like Baldur’s Gate, and BG does some things better. But NWN also does a bunch of stuff that BG doesn’t, and all things considered, I rather like the stuff on the NWN side of the equation…
Yeah, it occured to me how crazy it would be in multi. I just expected it in single player.
Me neither. ;)
Just this thread is called “The Official NWN Letdown Thread” that (and the fucking silly double bladed weapons) are my only official letdowns.
have you completely missed the impact of the new engine
Do you mean the 3d graphics engine? What’s the impact of that? Since the game is still viewed from an elevated 3rd person perspective and takes place on more or less an Infinity Engine style 2-d plane, the new 3d engine just means I have to manually move the camera around a lot. If that’s the impact you mean, then I’m right there with you. Except I’m not convinced that it’s impactful in a good way. Even though I can make them spin in circles, the environments just don’t look as detailed as those in bg/bg2/IWD. If you’re going to sacrifice graphical quality and variety for 3d-ness, the 3d should at least impact gameplay in some small way.
That’s my only complaint, though, other than this next one: I wish you could still move your little elf guy by clicking on the mini-map.
As a wizard with a familiar, summoned creature, and henchman, I’m very glad they didn’t make this a party-oriented game. As it is, I have a hard enough time getting around in this mob of four (hello, pathfinding, anyone home?). And I’m sure glad they’re not hard-coded characters bickering at each other. Sure, it was cute in Baldur’s Gate and it added a lot of flavor. But that’s obviously not part of the NWN design.
You guys sound like this fellow: “I want the ability to ‘zoom in’ to my character’s head and see the world from a first person perspective,” he complains.
Sheesh, I’d love for the game to come to my house, cook me dinner, and read me a bedtime story. C’mon Bioware! Slackers!
If we’re going to pick nits (eww!), I have to say I’m disappointed at how little of the toolset’s power is displayed in the single player campaign. Rather than this one big campaign, I would have rather seen more smaller modules that showed off the engine’s different capabilities (e.g. Contest of Champions). But I’m sure they’ll be rolling out any day now. Right, Denny? Jason? :)
-TomTomChick: “You guys sound like this fellow: “I want the ability to ‘zoom in’ to my character’s head and see the world from a first person perspective,” he complains.”
Funny, Mark Asher had exactly the same complaint about Sid Meier’s Sim Golf.
Erik, Tom’s right. Now that I think about it, the 3D engine has had a tremendous impact on me. I have to play in a lower resolution because it doesn’t like my ATI card. (And I agree about the mini-map… but you can’t do that in Diablo either.)
If you really don’t like the isometric view, go with the follow cam. I’m actually under the impression that the game looks even better from that view… depends, though… get to the rural areas so you can see some grass… I love that stuff.