Neverwinter nights 1 & 2 question

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

I am interested in buying Neverwinter nights 2 because obsidian. From my experience with crpg's I would say there combat is unengaging and boring. I find hard to getting into the first fallout due to the gameplay. But obsidian the are responsible for kotor 2(with the unofficial patch) and fallout new vegas(almost 900 hours play time) which are in my favorite games.

Spoiler

I beat the witcher and it has boringly simple combat, story pacing problems, and a really slow start but it gets better later if you have the patience to get that far. Yeah it's defiantly very flawed gem.

Kotor 2 has piss easy gameplay and the visuals show there age but kreia be one of the best written character in I seen in game and the story is pretty good. the starting area is boring once you gone through it already and the mysteriousness is gone. It's just something that must tolerated during repeat playthoughs.

I beat planescape torment which has excellent writing and boring gameplay with a slow start.

I beat dragon age: origins because the writing fairly good and roleplayabitly was enough for me to slog through the slow parts of the game and the combat that I found boring.

you can probably see I have a high tolerance serious flaws in a game when the writing interesting enough and well written if read things in the spoiler.

Since obsidian is involved I sure the game's story fairly well written enough to be at least decent if not better. I hear Mask of the Betrayer has some excellent writing and it's very interesting. At bear minim I am going to have to play that when I get NWN 2.


would I need to play Neverwinter nights 1 first or does it not matter and I can jump into Neverwinter nights 2 without any confusion? Is the writing in the first Neverwinter nights interesting and well written enough to overlook potentially boring crpg gameplay?

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

NWN1 has fuck all to do with 2 story wise.

Also I found the gameplay in 1 far better than 2. 2 felt pretty clunky and sluggish to me. The overall story in NWN I liked a lot more than 2 and the two expansions had much more interesting settings, although the writing and characters weren't as good as they were in 2.

I should perhaps add that NWN is the only 3rd person RPG I've ever really liked. NWN2 is ok but the things I didn't like did put me off. I couldn't stand Baldur's gate, Dragon Age, KOTOR etc. I'm guessing it's partly down to party mechanics. Trying to micro manage your party's chronic stupidity in combat just grates on me.

 

[The Madman]

Of those you've played, the Neverwinter Nights games play most similarly to the Kotor games or Planescape: Torment, only more complex and diverse as rather than a set of homebrew rules both NWN 1 and 2 use the 3.5 DnD campaign setting rules in terms of gameplay. The main difference between NWN1 and 2's gameplay meanwhile is that in 1 you can only directly control one character, yours, and everything else is AI controlled companions. NWN2 takes a more traditional approach ala, Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment by giving you a full party to control in full.

As for story and content, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 have no connections between them. Of the games the original NWN has by far the worst singleplayer campaign. It's boring and heavily padded with only one character worth mentioning: Aribeth, aka the elf on all the cover art and stuff. Otherwise it's completely forgettable and not worth playing. Here, I'll tell you everything you need to know about the story now: Aribeth's husband is killed because reasons, she goes evil, then you kill her to get to the super badguy who I honestly can't even remember a thing about. BAM. Now you don't need to play the original campaign, you can thank me later.

Shadows of Undrentide is alright. Similar to NWN1's campaign but a bit better done. It had one character worth mention named Deekin, but that's about it. Also a skip I'd say. Finally Hordes of the Underdark is by far the best official singleplayer campaign for NWN1. It's got a more interesting setting, some memorable characters, and a badass soundtrack. Worth trying out for sure. Technically in Hordes you're playing as the same character from Undrentide, but you don't need to have played either that or the original campaign to enjoy Hordes of the Underdark. Aribeth and Deekin both make appearances, but that's about the only connection between the stories.

For NWN2 the original campaign is alright. It's got its high points and memorable moments as well as a few interesting characters, but suffers from being heavily padded. Way too much filler content that just takes up time without really accomplishing anything. And then finally it's also got a pretty miserable ending that just feels disappointing. Ultimately it's worth playing through once for those high moments, but if you're like me you'll never bother playing it again.

Now Mask of the Betrayer however, NWN2's first expansion, is beyond a doubt the high point for the entire franchise in terms of singleplayer content. If you're looking for the traditional Obsidian style rpg experience ala Kotor 2 and Kreia, this is what you're looking for. An extremely interesting story that does to the Forgotten Realms setting what Obsidian did with Star Wars in Kotor 2, some great characters, fantastic soundtrack, and even a neat visual style different from that of NWN2's base campaign.

Mask of the Betrayer is fantastic and definitely worth playing. The story *does* tie into that of the original NWN2 campaign, but only loosely so if you were to read a walkthrough of the OC in an attempt to skip straight to the high point, that should be enough. The setting, characters, and just about everything else are all different with only a few cameo appearances made from the OC's cast.

And finally the last expansion for the NWN series is Storms of Zehir, which is entirely different from anything that came before it. Less narrative driven, it plays more like a classic PC rpg ala Ultima or Might & Magic as opposed to what you're probably used to getting from Bioware and Obsidian. Some people like it, some hated it, I found it rather meh.

Then there's also like a billion player made campaigns out there for the series, some of which are genuinely amazing, but that's a whole other post if you want info on that as well.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

I'm probably a little biased, but I'd recommend skipping the first one, especially if you're interested in the Obsidian experience, since the first one was entirely developed by Bioware.

Personally I couldn't get into the 1st Neverwinter Nights, the story just didn't really do it for me, and I hated how the characters were kind of... bland and more like henchmen instead of part of your party.

 

[sXeth]

They're both on the D&D system, which is somewhat cludgy at its best when translated into real time CRPGs.

NWN2 has the better "official campaign"s, hands down. NWN1 has the drastically broader and more long lived mod community, both in terms of offline content and online groups/servers (Gamespy doesn't work anymore, but you can hunt them down through matchmaking forums and by looking for NWN Persistent Worlds).

 

[Alarien]

Let me make this *really* simple:

1) if you have not bought and played Planescape: Torment, do that now. Go to gog.com. Buy it. Play it. It's the best thing Obsidian did. (Check Obsidian's history, most of them started out with another well known dev named Black Isle, who worked very much with Bioware on the Baldur's Gate games).

2) Buy and play NWN2 and the expansion: Mask of the somecraporother. They are both pretty excellent examples of Black Isle/Obsidian getting developer control and a budget, which they did not have with KOTOR2 or Alpha Protocol, sadly.

3) Get NWN1 and play Hordes of the Underdark. It isn't Obsidian, but it's one of Bioware's absolute best RPGS. They sorta dropped the ball with NWN and another dev made Shadows of Undrentide... but man did they ever redeem the NWN title with that one.

 

[Trinab]

I agree with the opinions that you can skip NWN1. However if you do wish to play it, play the first and second expansions. They work well together, and it makes for a decent narrative.

NWN2's main campaign is a long, tongue-in-cheek campaign that has enjoyable moments, and some terrible moments. NPCs are for the most part underdeveloped, but the combat and magic system, as well as the basic plot is enjoyable enough I suppose.

Also as stated before, NWN2's first expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, is so miles above everything else I already mentioned, it's unreal. It feels like an adult's RPG, compared to NWN2's default campaign, which felt more in tuned with a teenager's expectations. Mask of the Betrayer is still one of my top highlights of the 2000's in gaming. I was blown away at how awesome it is.

I'd say do the NWN2 original campaign and first expansion. The reason to do the original is mainly to enjoy the contrast of it and the expansion, and to give it a good completed narrative arc.

 

[Nymi]

Neverwinter Nights 1 was amazing for one reason only. The online servers that people poured hundreds of hours into creating and DMing. Some of my most enjoyable gaming and roleplaying ever was on an NWN server. Sadly, the community has dwindled now since the game is old. I didn't find any of the single player stuff particularly good. Honestly, I can't remember what the hell happened in any of the campaigns. NWN 2 is much the same, though I never bought any expansions for it.

 

[veloper]

Story fluff aside, NWN 2 is simply the better game, because you get full control over a party of heroes, unlike Bioware's NWN, where you just control one PC on a RTS-interface and have one henchman (or 2 henchmen in the 2nd expansion) with a terrible AI making just about every possible mistake around enemies and traps.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I liked the first NWN's SP campaign. It may have been padded but I liked the padding. It felt like an awesome adventure, seeing locales and gaining massive amounts of power as a pure Sorcerer and going back in time and etc. I also really don't like managing parties at all (I'm not your babysitter, Dragon Age/KOTOR.) so NWN1 really helped me there as well. The expansions were good too. Really liked the atmosphere of Shadows of Undrentide but overall it was kinda meh to me. Hordes of the Underdark as well though. Equal to the campaign in the main NWN story IMO.

I never played NWN2 at all though so I can't give an opinion on that.

 

[Alistair_Darkheart]

When it comes to NWN . . . NWN2 was a major let down in terms of game play, though mask of the betrayer was at least interesting enough to put up with the clunky controls.

If you're purchasing NWN1 I'd suggest playing the second expansion, it was by far the best of the single player experience.

If you'd like to play online with other people, I'd suggest using the following site and selecting NWN1 rather then NWN2 there are a couple of other sites out there that list the various servers still running along side their IP address' but I can't be bothered hunting them all down.
http://www.nwnlist.com

Alot of the online servers require the Community expansion pack (which adds a large deal of extra models, textures and various other things) or various Hak packs which introduce custom models for a server to make use of, so keep such in mind if you lean towards online play.

As for online rp servers the following three would likely be the largest and better communities still around.

Ravenloft's Prisoner of the Mist - is a pretty serious rp server with a good friendly community.
Amia - well I've always seen such as a pretty casual rp community.
Arelith - And Arelith I've heard good things about but could never get into myself.

I hope this basic information helps out somewhat.

 

[asinann]

Obsidian back during the NWN 2 days was known for only one thing: screwing up Bioware franchises.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Both were good games, including expansions, though I tend to go back to NWN2 more. In fact, I still have the same NWN2 install (I believe) from around release, that's survived being moved to new computers multiple times. While I miss some of the prestige classes from 1 (particularly shifter notable for its absence), NWN2 does give me the Warlock to play, a class I didn't think I'd love as much as I do, particularly in the late teens.

What Obsidian did with NWN2, and in a similar way with KotOR2 and FNV, is introduce relationships with the players companions. Depending on how you talk to them, treat them and genuinely based on story decisions you make, you will gain and lose affection which will have an impact at some point (it can differ between characters, but the endgame in particular springs to mind). If you thought Varric in DA2 was good, Khelgar Ironfist is similarly brilliant. Neeshka and the Druid are cool too. Jury's out on Qara, Sand and the Paladin dude. Bishop is just an arse and I can't talk about anyone else for spoiler reasons.

Anyway, you'll have fun with both in different ways. NWN lets you take a character from 1 thru to Godlike at 40, revisit the Underdark and more. There's also an Easter Egg or two in NWN2 which will be appreciated more having played the first one. NWN2 I think is a little better and more refined in many ways, though I did miss the ability wheel. You'll enjoy it whatever you do and MotB is great also because you get to level close to 30. You also get more races to choose from than 1, more base classes and there are some player mods (Kaedran's PRC pack for one) which add more. I personally love Warlock, with the Warlock Buddy add on which makes Hideous Blow automatic and a melee warlock not just viable, but thoroughly enjoyable. Get CHA to 18 or 20, then pump everything else into dex. A race with natural spell resistance, plus the warlocks class feats make them remarkably resilient.

 

[Quadocky]

I gotta level with ya, both NWN 1 and 2 were pretty much only good for one thing: Online Multiplayer. (The first one specifically as it basically the closest you could get to a true D&D experience while playing Online in a 3D game)

The Single Player campaign, while endearing, does not even come close to being of the quality of something like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2.

If I am talking about the single player in the first place I would note that NWN2 has a much more coherent Narrative with more interesting character interactions. How you treat your party members actually matters. (as with lots of Obsidian games)

NWN1 on the other hand is more focused on the overall plot and how you progress within it. The interactions with the characters feel superficial but there are quite a few 'secrets' one could say that would allow you to garner better equipment (at least this is true in the Original Campaign)

Now for the most frustrating things:

NWN2's interface and animations are just god awful (the graphics also, on some level, can be noted as either too dense or too sparse all at once). Along with terrible camera control and a insidious interface that would be better welcome in some incoherent 3D Modeling program.

NWN1 feels much better and the animations are even by today's standards pretty sweet!(Parry Animations most specifically, not many game have them) but the single player campaign is not really worth your time unless you REALLY are dying to play a D&D based RPG.

My overall assessment though is to completely avoid these two games all together for the single player. ONLY buy them if you know you wanna play D&D online and roleplay. That is pretty much the only reason why anyone should buy em nowadays.

 

[ThriKreen]

would I need to play Neverwinter nights 1 first or does it not matter and I can jump into Neverwinter nights 2 without any confusion? Is the writing in the first Neverwinter nights interesting and well written enough to overlook potentially boring crpg gameplay?

Former NWN dev here.

It's best to think of NWN1's main campaigns as examples for what you could do with the toolset. The game was developed as an online coop with buddies and a DM, replicate the tabletop RPG experience, and include a toolset to let you author your own adventures.

The two expansions and premium modules (sadly, no longer purchasable AFAIK), are more focused on an actual adventure, but they tend to be disjointed and not related to each other.

If you want a single-player adventure, you're probably better off with NWN2.

If you want a good multiplayer RPG where the party can talk to the Big Bad (controlled by the DM), as opposed to just jumping into combat, and have one party member playing an airheaded cleric (me) who mistakes the Big Bad as anemic because of his pale complexion and desire for blood and casts a high level Heal spell on him, thereby making him go up in flames from dat positive energy, well... that's NWN1.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

The main problem with Neverwinter Nights 2 is that it is very large in terms of content and they had great trouble pulling it all together at the last minute. Consistency and quality control is not the best. Although it has some good parts you have to deal with some poor pacing, especially at the start, and some areas that just look like a ton of the same enemies in a huge boring map.

Mask of the Betrayer on the other hand is probably the closest Obsidian have come to making a good Black Isle type RPG and it has much stronger direction and quality. But you are expected to get through the main campaign before playing this.

Storm of Zehir was a more experimental module that tried to bring different table top mechanics where you had a party rather than hero + hangers on and had some hints of mount and blade influence. But they didn't go with that added to all they did before so it could seem like a lot was missing.