For my fellow NWN nerds...
 

I happen to notice quite a few planeeters mentioning NWN on some of the different gaming threads.

So, what's your favorite single player mod?

I just finished the Blackguard trilogy and have to say it was one of my all time favorites. I also love the Paladin series by Richard Burton - Twilight, Midnight, and hopefully some day he'll publish Dawn. Those two series stand out to me as being far better than anything else I've tried, including the official campaigns (HOU, SOU, NWN). At some point I'll probably try the professional expansions but haven't gotten around to it yet. Multiplayer just isn't my bag - I can't participate regularly enough and need to be able to just save off my game and then pick up where I left off a week or two later.

I haven't played any of the Mods.

Do you prefer NWN over the BG series?

I always thought NWN was too much hack-n-slash, and not enough plot/substance.

Dude, NOT True!!

NWN takes RPG to a totally new level (cliche, yes but true in this case for real!)

The AI is super sweet, and the story turns on everything you do. Not to mention the hundreds, if not thousands of quality mods created by other users. I bought the game when it came out (01 if I remember correctly) and I played until 2004. Pretty much every day too. I also owned shadows of undrentide. Man, when I get another computer I am starting all over with the original mod. It is not hack and slash unless you play it that way.

I wish I could remember the name of the one, shadow something. Hell, let me go back to my NWN account online and look. The Druid series was cool and...geez too many!

If you like Sotrylines, A Harpers Tale is good, we'll have to chat about this more. I am leaving work now...later!

Doh!

It just occured to me. I was thinking of Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter.

Yea, never played NWN.

If you like RPGs you should really give it a try. You can pick up the gold or whatever edition relatively cheaply now. That would be their 3 main storylines/campaigns. The reason you'd really want all 3 is that in addition to being an RPG, NWN is really a developers toolkit for building RPGs. As you can see on this site IGN NWN Modules there are over 600 publicly released modules or campaigns availble for download. Most of the best modules require you to have all 3 of the purchaseable campaigns because they added more classes, spells, etc. with those. The perfect balance if you ask me between giving something the community can build from for free and still making tons of cash.

What the community has done to expand the main game is simply amazing. Plus, several people host 'persistent world' servers so you can have a MMORPG for free with the client. The most ambitious one I'd ever heard of has over 1500 publicly hosted servers all with custom content in an attempt to create the entire world of Greyhawk online. With the online play, you can pick what kind of server you want - role playing or hack -n- slash etc.

IN THAT CASE:

I concure with our fellow gamer. I had played Icewind Dale when it first came out and found it to be a nice "time passer" until Baldur's Gate II came out, at first. THEN, I began to really take to it. I enjoyed the complexity of the storyline, they really put alot into a small world. then part II came out and now it's grown into something special. Baldur's Gate I and II were better, IMO than Icewind Dale but Icewind Dale still rocks.

i have NWN sitting around the house ... still have picked it up to play it yet.


need to


quick suggestion for a character... things to look out for etc?

It's probably easiest to play as a tank - i.e. a fighter or some derivative there of. You really have to explore every side quest and oppotunity for gaining more experience, otherwise you'll advance in the game without being as high of a level and the end fights will be pretty difficult.

At least that's my memory of it, I haven't played the main campaign in years. I honestly think some of the free community based modules are much better than the campaign the game comes with.

I agree with KC Jones: fighter = success in the original campaign in my opinion as well. There are plenty of good henchmen choices to pick up the magic/healing slack. there's this one little dude henchmen, talks with an english (or something) accent. He's a hell of a good thief to have around. Man I have got to get a new computer to play it on!!

I always play mages for some reason. I have this obsessive compulsive thing about adding all the spells to me spellbook in order, which isn't always easy. Anyway, I've never had any trouble at all with any campaign or mods. I did enjoy playing as a paladin through the Twilight/Midnight series, however.

I haven't played NWN in a long time, though. Probably over a year by now. I'm deep into Morrowind at the moment, after spending some time getting reacquainted with Sacred and Dungeon Siege. Quality CRPGs seem kind of slim right now, because so many came out at once, weren't spaced out too well. A few sequals approaching, however, Dungeon Siege 2 and the 4th Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

looked on the net and it seems the the expansion pack Shadows of Undrentide adds alot of nice new classes.

i guess the original NWN just has the basic mage/sorc/fighter etc.

i kinda wanted to play a Arcane Archer ... but i guess that's only in SOU. :(

Yeah, prestige classes. I don't remember the specifics, but you don't actually start as those classes, you have to reach a certain level in a basic class and/or certain statistics before you can begin using those. I liked Shadows of Undrentide, fwiw, although I liked Hordes of the Underdark a bit more. Thought that expansion was the best of them all.

I remember buying NWN gold to get the original campaign and SoU, and then buying HotU. You could probably get all 3 of them now for the price of the original game (or less), in a goty or gold pack. I recently purchased Morrowind and it's 2 expansions in a goty pack for something like $29. I'd be surprised if atari/bioware/whoever doesn't offer a similar NWN deal.

how does NWN compare to the Baldur Gate series?