Neverwinter Nights 2 (May Contain Spoilers!! - Please Use Tags)

[Jae Onasi]

That may be one of the funniest things I've ever read

Not so much with the ornery. To quote Dane Cook, he's a "silly, silly bitch". Almost foppish, as it were.

You know, I have a good friend who'd fit that description admirably. Should be fun when I get to that point. He even has a full Henry VIII costume--no joke.

[stoffe]

That's kind of you to offer. Sounds like a lot of work though and I'd hate to put you through that when I can find something inferior but readily available elsewhere.

 

All right, but if you can't find a decent summary of the story lines elsewhere just ask.

 

 

Damn it! That's [keep specops 6 and 7] going to drive me nuts now. I don't suppose you've already scripted a fix???

 

The IsSpecialMissionAvailable() function inside 21_inc_crossroad.nss (in the 2100_Crossroad_Keep_A2.mod module) needs to be modified, add a break; at the end of case 6 and 7 like the other cases have. Then you have to recompile 21_c_missions.nss with this changed include file.

 

Further you'll have to edit 21_kana.DLG where the missions are accepted (Under "How may I be of service Captain?" ---> "What special mission is available?") so that the parameter to the action script 21_a_accept_mis is set to 6 (mission 6) and 7 (mission 7), and the parameter to the action script 21_a_deploy are 106 (mission 6) and 107 (mission 7) respectively. They were both left at 5 and 105, which are the values for mission 5).

 

That should make the missions trigger and be started properly. Don't know if there are other bugs involved with them since the Atari/Obsidian QA teams hardly can have tested those missions.

 

 

No, you would have noticed it. They made a point to make sure that you didn't miss it

 

Oh well, that's too bad. But I suppose it doesn't matter if it was a holy avenger since I didn't play as a paladin and were just about to get the Silver Sword anyway.

 

 

I find it hilarious that you were able to prematurely close the quest, knowing what a hard time most people have closing it during normal gameplay.

 

Heh, odd quest if you can only finish it if you can't actually do it. At least I got some XP for my troubles when chatting with the priest again.

 

 

Well, there are final battles and then there are final battles. Without spoiling too much, let me just say you should go prepared for anything and everything. I feel they did a good job of breaking the mold in many regards.

 

Long rant about the ending, don't read unless you've finished the game:

 

 

Finally got to the end now. The "destroy the bridges" mission was yet another textbook example of "Let's auto-cluster the player party and allies tightly in an indefensible spot in a cutscene so we can easily surround them, never mind that the player had already positioned their archers in the rear protected by warriors and just sent one invisible scout ahead to see what was going on". Even trying to think ahead and use tactics in this game is pointless.

 

The keep siege was overall OK but a bit annoying since your troops didn't seem particularily keen on following orders and just rushed off on their own getting their asses handed to them by the hordes of undead. Burned through a whole stack of Healing kits just to keep my troops alive. And then comes Black Garius who obviously hasn't read the manual and as such didn't know you only can cast one quickened spell per round and not like, say, two million spells per round. And I'd like to know why Ammon couldn't recite his name to him while the rest of the party was dealing with his little Nightwalker. Seemed like an excellent opportunity, he was standing there the the background, hostile, so why not get down to business? Apparently that was too tactical for the game and we couldn't allow that, could we? Oh well, at least we won a crushing victory anyway it seems, judging by what Kana said afterwards.

 

The final Illefarn structure (from the "landing pad" and onward) was insanely annoying, like it was designed as a showcase to blatantly demonstrate every AI and Pathfinding problem the game has, with party members running laps around the whole area trying to reach an enemy half a meter in front of you and doing all sorts of stupid things. The battle with the three Shadow Reavers was also more annoying than fun since it seems only the Gith or Ammon can recite the True Names one at a time, not both simultaneously to different Reavers, and it seems like they stopped reading 50% of the time when I switched to control other characters. Sheer AI brilliance. At least you could keep the Reavers more or less permanently on their ass with improved knockdown so it wasn't really a dangerous fight, just really, really drawn out and annoying since it took ages to get the Gith or Ammon to start telling them names correctly.

 

Oh, and taking away the only party rogue at the start of an area shock-full of traps and locked doors was also a stroke of brilliance by the designers if they wanted to maximize the annoyance potential of the area.

 

I also have to wonder what the point of all the tons of lootable corpses in that area is, since you can't sell the loot anyway since the game is over before you get out of the place, and most of it was too low-quality to be of any use for a level 20 party. Lots of unlootable containers elsewhere in the game, but seems like everything was lootable in that area.

 

The lead-up to the final showdown was fairly OK... It seems my character was right in her dislike and distrust of Bishop from the start, and I can't say I was very surprised that Qara turned on us since she always was intoxicated by her own perceived power and never cared much about anything else. Must have been a surprise to her highness that she died during the first combat round getting a Destruction spell in her face.

 

As for the KOSH himself... Didn't seem to have any special tricks or flashy abilities other than the negative energy-dealing aura, just a big, hulking melee grunt, aside from using the statues to produce mini-Viceroys-of-Shadow in large quantities and using the portal to heal itself. Took a while to wear him down though.

 

And as for the epilogue... have to agree with you it sounded more like some american game programmer than an epic storyteller narrating it. And the ending itself was anticlimax, as I should have suspected. Whee, they won, now let's kill everyone anyway! Great. Good thing Obsidian didn't write the script for Return of the Jedi, otherwise Luke and the Millennium Falcon wouldn't have made it off the Death Star before it exploded and the shield generator complex on Endor's moon would have collapsed on top of Han, Leia and their task force as they blew it up. Cue ending credits.

 

I really hope Obsidian has an Epic expansion pack planned that continues the story from there, maybe shoving the party into the Plane of Shadow (NWN tradition after all) or dumping them in the Astral Plane rather than crushing them beneath a pile of rubble. I still had that portal tome in my inventory, after all. Now that I have a kickass unique sword I want some more opportunity to use it, and a satisfying final ending this time please. If they intend to leave it like this I'm starting to see a disturbing Obsidian trend from TSL where they make good games but cheat people of a decent ending.

 

 

 

 

Re: Reforging

 

 

Yep, song portal it is. Yes, the area does deal continuous negative energy, but I was recommeding it for the dragon fight. I don't know if Energy Immunity with help you in West Harbor. Haven't tried using it there. Your cleric(s) should have it. Also, Elanee is likely to have it as well. IIRC, it's a level 6 or 7 spell.

 

If the Gith gets knocked out in battle (which she most likely will), you can run far enough away from where she drops and convince the Reaver to follow you, she will wake up and you can then use the True Name scroll.

 

 

 

Energy immunity didn't help against negative energy, but the "Undeath's Enternal Foe" level 9 cleric spell apparently did, so I managed to keep the party from being drained or damaged anyway using that one.

 

I used Ammon Jerro to tell the Reaver names instead, for some reason he seems to be better at surviving and avoiding taking damage than the Gith, bringing along both gives more options should one of them die and I'm out of resurrects. I just kept the Reaver on its ass with Knockdown during the recitation so it wasn't able to aid its Shadow and Elemental allies much.

 

 

 

 

I was just wondering because the playability of this game seems to be running out really quick for me... I'm not sure why. Maybe because it doesn't have as many side quests in it as the first NWN game does. Maybe because it forces you to one conclusion at the end of the game (no good guy/bad guy ending)

 

As far as I can tell there are two endings, one "good" (well...) and one "idiotic evil" ending that depends on the alignment of your character and the choices you make during the final showdown.

 

As for replayability it's mostly the ending that ruins it for me. At least until I hear if they plan an expansion pack to continue the story where it left off.

[Pavlos]

Phew, I haven't checked on this thread in a while and my eyes may well be bleeding - so don't blame me if this has been said before (please don't...).

 

Obsidian has released a beta version of 1.03. As always with a beta, back up your saves .

 

Many people (but not all) have been reporting improvements in performance ranging from the small to the huge. There are also various fixes. The only issue I have with it is that the blasted thing is taking 3 hours to download on a 4Gb/s connection. Either all of the mirrors have hosted this on a server that only allows minuscule download speeds, or there are thousands clambering to download at the same time (perhaps a mixture of the two?)

[stoffe]

Phew, I haven't checked on this thread in a while and my eyes may well be bleeding - so don't blame me if this has been said before (please don't...).

 

Seeing as the release version of the game is already hideously bug-ridden I think I will give Obsidian's beta versions a wide berth. Hopefully the release version won't be far away and will be a bit more optimized in download size. I'll probably have to reinstall the game anyway when it is released since the Toolset apparently doesn't see fit to ask the user before it auto-saves changes to an open campaign module, so the auto-updater will most likely fail.

 

Good to see that they are working to improve things though. As long as they don't just abandon the game in its half-finished state it's a lot easier to forgive the sorry state of the unpatched game and toolset on the DVD.

 

(And I believe the beta patch has been mentioned earlier )

[Pavlos]

(And I believe the beta patch has been mentioned earlier )

 

*Grumble, gibber, moan*.

[Achilles]

All right, but if you can't find a decent summary of the story lines elsewhere just ask.

I'm afraid that I might have to after all. All I've been able to find is game reviews, no summaries. Wikipedia only covers the first part of chapter one (retrieving the reagents necessary for the Wailing Death cure)

 

If the offer still stands, I'd love to hear your summaries.

 

<snip> Mission fixes </snip>

Thank you!

 

Long rant about the ending <snip>

Yep, saw that coming . Obsidian has gone on record to say that they can't go on record re: epic expansions, etc. link

[Jae Onasi]

I just met up with Grobnar (this is what happens when you have 2 people fight over the computer for play time. Slows you way down. ).

I about fell out of my chair laughing at the initial meeting. I'm going to have to load a save right before that to hear it again.

The spring loaded shield and codpiece....

 

[Achilles]

^^^^

 

Same thing happened to me. Grobnar gets a lot of bashing, but he is by far one of the funniest characters in the game. More hilarity to come!

[Lantzen]

Like i said earlier, the evil ending is way better then the good one IMO

[Astrotoy7]

^^^^

 

Same thing happened to me. Grobnar gets a lot of bashing, but he is by far one of the funniest characters in the game. More hilarity to come!

 

oh Lordy NO! I hate anyone who talks too much, even if they are just pixels and soundfiles..... Im trying my best to avoid picking him in any party

 

mtfbwya

[stoffe]

I'm afraid that I might have to after all. All I've been able to find is game reviews, no summaries. Wikipedia only covers the first part of chapter one (retrieving the reagents necessary for the Wailing Death cure)

If the offer still stands, I'd love to hear your summaries.

 

Warning: This turned out to be rather long, I have a hard time writing short and to the point.

 

This is more or less from memory and it was a while since I last played the game, so there may be some inaccuracies and things I remember incorrectly, but the overall picture should be correct. I will not mention any side quests other than the main plot (there are quite a few sidequests, some that tie into the main plot in one way or another):

 

Neverwinter Nights - Interlude/Tutorial

A mysterious and deadly plague called the Wailing Death ravages the City of Neverwinter. Normal clerical spells are useless to cure it and desperation and unrest rises in the city as the plague spreads and claims more and more victims. The city has been placed under a quarantine and nobody is allowed to enter or leave it to keep the plague from spreading. Lord Nasher is uncharacteristically absent during the crisis and some speculates he has gotten the plague himself.

 

In his absence Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande, a paladin of Tyr and Lord Nasher's right hand woman has been tasked with producing the cure and restoring order to the city, aided by Fenthick, (a priest of Tyr and her lover and soon-to-be-husband) and Desther, a recently arrived high-priest of Helm. Aribeth sends out a call for would-be adventurers and heroes to train at the Neverwinter Academy and come to the aid of the city in its hour of need. Many respond to the call, and your PC is one such person who is enlisted at the academy.

 

Meanwhile the Archmage Khelben in Neverwinter's ally Waterdeep figures out that the plague is arcane in nature and devises a ritual that should be able to cure it and sends it and 4 rare magical creatures to Neverwinter that are needed to complete the ritual: a Cockatrice, an Intellect Devourer, a Dryad and a Yuan-Ti.

 

Thus begins the game with a "tutorial" section where you undertake the final trials of your training at Neverwinter Academy in your chosen class before graduation. All trials done, you attend your (and your "classmates'" graduation presided over by Lady Aribeth herself. Unsurprisingly the graduation ceremony is cut short when the academy falls under attack from mysterious assailants. You, your classmates and Aribeth manage to defeat the attackers in the ceremony chamber.

 

Aribeth reveals to you that the Waterdhavian creatures needed for the ritual to produce a cure recently had arrived in the city and were held at the Academy for safekeeping. She sends you to check on the creatures and make sure they are safe. Unfortunately the rest of the academy has been less successful at repelling the attackers, so you have to fight your way there. Fortunately you get your own meat shield along with you, a fellow student training as a fighter (to demonstrate the Henchman system in the game). Long story short you fight your way through the academy to the stables only to find the creatures missing, but Fenthick and Desther present. They inform you the assailants have released the creatures before they could stop them, who have fled into the city from the commotion at the academy.

 

 

Neverwinter Nights - Act 1

You survived your trial by fire at the Academy and report to the Hall of Justice (the temple of Tyr) in the city core to be assigned your duties by Lady Aribeth. Since you handled yourself so well at the Academy she tasks you with working with Fenthick and Desther in finding and recovering the four Waterdhavian creatures so the ritual to cure the Wailing Death may proceed. Conveniently the four creatures have been spotted in several districts of the city rather than stick together, so she asks you to investigate the Peninsula district, the Docks district, the Blacklake District and the Beggar's Nest.

 

Chatting up Fenthick and Desther you soon become aware than Fenthick is young and naive but well-meaning and greatly values the advice and experience of Desther to the point of being his puppet. Desther on the other hand is dismissive, old and grumpy (Master Vrook would be considered charismatic by comparison). Well, Desther is a Helmite and they are supposed to be all-duty, and he obviously thinks a neophyte adventurer like yourself won't be able to make a difference and is just a waste of their time. Not much help from them aside from vague clues. Off to save the city on your own, then.

 

You can visit the districts in any order you wish since you need to visit them all eventually. Overall the city suffers through a dark time with many people ill with the plague and those not yet infected feeling trapped in the quarantined city and just waiting for their turn to become infected. The City Watch is strained to its limits, law and order had deteriorated in many areas of the city and pyres with the bodies of those killed by the plague burn in the streets. Throughout the city Desther's priests of Helm try to tend to the suffering, granting blessings that are said to hold off the plague at least temporarily.

 

You can enlist the aid of a "henchman" at a local tavern that will accompany you and help you out on your mission. They are AI controlled NPCs that follow you around and help you out like party members, but you have no direct control over them other than voicechat commands. There are six to choose from, but you can only bring along one at a time:

Sharwyn, human bard

Linu, elven cleric of Sehanine Moonbow

Tommi, halfling rogue

Daelan, half-orc barbarian

Boddyknock, gnome sorcerer

Grimgnaw, dwarven monk

 

They have their own personal stories and quests you can talk to them about, but that's not really tied to the main plot. Anyway, the main plot:

 

Peninsula district

Also known as the Prison District. As soon as you arrive you notice the city watch huddling behind barricades at the district entrance. Apparently there has been a prison break and all the prisoners are now roaming about tearing up the district, cracking skulls first and asking questions later. Guess who's going to have to do something about it? Things can never be easy, can they? As you go about laying down the law you eventually learn that the Head Gaoler has gone mad and was the one who released all the prisoners.

 

After finding and beating the leader of the escaped prisoners you learn from him that the Head Gaoler has been infested by some large parasitic creature that apparently controls him and keeps a contingent of prison guards as thralls via mind control. Our missing Intellect Devourer at work, perhaps? Off to face him and save the poor guards, which of course leads to a battle against the Devourer. Luckily Aribeth didn't need the creature alive, just its brain.

 

 

Docks district

Arriving at the docks you once more find Neverwinter's finest huddling behind barricades at the district entrance. The unrest caused by the plague has stretched the City Watch thin and the docks are overrun by thugs, muggers and cutthroats. But the recent dramatic increase in robbery, muggings and crime on the docks has to have another explanation as well. You soon learn that every two-bit thug is trying to accumulate as much wealth as they can in anticipation of an auction to be held by the Bloodsailors pirate band where an apparent cure for the Wailing Death will be sold. Sounds like another of the missing creatures.

 

So, off to gather a bloodsailor disguise and other things needed to infiltrate the tavern where Vengaul Bloodsail (the pirate captain) will hold the auction. Said and done you find that there's a coup d'etat underway in the pirate gang. Apparently Vengaul Bloodsail is an old rival of Lord Nasher and was attempting to use the captured creature to humiliate him after which he'd return the creature, while his second in command, Callik, is more interested in selling the thing for loads of gold. He is now attempting to wrestle control of the Bloodsailors from his old captain to that end. After chasing the two through the aqueducts beneath the docks you confront them and recover some feathers from the Cockatrice (there are a few ways to handle the confrontation depending on alignment etc). Hopefully those feathers will be enough for Aribeth.

 

Beggar's Nest

Arriving in the Beggar's Nest, the slums district of Neverwinter, you find... drumroll please... the City Watch huddling behind barricades at the district entrance. Apparently the whole district is overrun by the walking dead, large numbers of zombies and skeletons from the nearby graveyard district roam the streets. After some investigating and talking to various people you learn that someone named Gulnan is behind the undead infestation, and that she's made her lair in the crypts beneath the graveyard. After fighting your way through the crypts you encounter the necromancer Gulnan and discover that she's a Yuan-Ti, one of the missing Waterdhavian creatures. She's not in the mood to come peacefully, so you fight her and bring her heart back to Aribeth.

 

 

Blacklake district

Blacklake is the district where the nobility make their home in Neverwinter. With the plague and growing unrest in the rest of the city they have barricaded off the Blacklake district from the rest of the city, hoping to escape its ravages. A nomansland full of plague-crazed people and ruthless thugs have formed between the City Core and Blacklake, and you'll have to fight your way through it. There you are again attacked by a bunch of assassins who appear related to the ones attacking the Academy, and you find a note on one of their bodies indicating they are working with a traitor within the city who seeks to thwart Neverwinter's efforts to cure the plague. You bring the note to Fenthick and Desther, who merely shrug it off as being too vague to do anything about right now, when the plague is their main concern.

 

Back to Blacklake, since you work for Lady Aribeth they let you in through the blockade. Unlike the rest of the city Blacklake appears peaceful with no traces of the unrest and plague, but the peace can be deceiving. You soon learn of tensions concerning a powerful sorcerer/noble, Meldanen, who is hoarding food at his warehouse away from those who need it, which potentially might be leading to starvation in the quarantined city. Another noblewoman, Formosa, is trying to do something about it. Furthermore one of the City Watch in the Blacklake, has gone missing lately.

 

After some snooping around you infiltrate Meldanen's estate and there you find not only the missing Watchman (who had apparently seen too much), but also the last of the missing Waterdhavian creatures, the Dryad. Unlike the others the Dryad is still alive and not looking for a fight, but she's held captive by Meldanen who she has charmed. You confront Meldanen to have the dryad released, and can either choose to kill him (which Formosa wanted you to do) and bring the key to the food warehouse to Formosa, or turn tables and kill Formosa for Meldanen in return for the Dryad's release. Either way you can bring the Dryad with you back to Aribeth.

 

 

The Ritual and Cure

You've managed to bring back all the parts needed for the Ritual, which is to take place in Lord Nasher's throne room within Castle Never. You are invited by Aribeth to attend and be thanked for your services by Lord Nasher personally. Others present are Lord Nasher, Lady Aribeth, Fenthick, Desther and half a dozen clerics/wizards to perform the ritual.

 

After you mingle a bit the ritual commences and after some flashy visuals the cure is produced. Easy. Too easy? Of course. Desther snatches the cure and escapes through a teleportation portal while his "helmites" attacks everyone else and a fight breaks out in the throne room. Fenthick, confused by the backstabbing of his advisor, follows him through the portal, Lord Nasher is too sick with the plague to provide any aid and Aribeth is occupied trying to prevent the portal Desther escaped through from closing, so you'll have to defend everyone else and kill Desther's helmites.

 

All said and done, Lord Nasher orders you to pursue Desther through the portal and recover the cure and bring the traitor to justice. You do so, and end up outside Helm's Hold, a stronghold sacred to the followers of Helm. You soon learn that Desther and his "helmites" attacked and took the fort some time ago and then assumed the roles of followers from Helm and infiltrated Neverwinter under that guise. Outside you run across an odd sending that delivers a cryptic message and gives some hints about what's been going on, but most of it is just foreshadowing of things to come.

 

Inside the fort you see that Desther has summoned an army of undead to protect himself, as well as a demon to keep the guardian of Helm's Hold supressed. You banish the demon back to the Abyss, allowing the guardian to return and help you dispatch the undead. You encounter Fenthick, whose fragile psyche couldn't handle all the backstabbing going on and has broken down mentally. He reveals to you what little he has learned after following Desther through the portal: That the "Helmites" were actually the ones spreading the wailing death through their "blessings" in the first place, and that Desther is part of some cult, the "Cult of the Eye", responsible for attacking the Academy and all the troubles in Neverwinter as of late. And Fenthick has been his unknowing patsy through it all.

 

Well, off to confront Desther. He'll hardly give up without a fight, so it looks like you'll have to pry the cure from his cold, dead hands. After a boss fight against him and scores of undead he surrenders and gives you the cure, and you return it along with him and Fenthick back to Neverwinter.

 

 

Neverwinter Nights - Narration interlude

Neverwinter is cured of the plague, but it has cost the city dearly with many of its citizens dead and the city thrown into chaos. The rabble demands bloody vengeance upon those responsible and Nasher, like the populist he is, gives in and grants it to them. Desther is burned alive and Fenthick is hanged despite not being in on the plot for gullibly shielding Desther that long. The angry mobs want revenge, and Fenthick was easy to blame.

 

The search now turns towards those ultimately responsible for the troubles, the cult Desther was a member of, but not the leader of. Lady Aribeth and Lord Nasher's spymaster, Aarin Gend, set up shop in Port Llast from where to lead the investigations. You and your henchmen follow to finish what was started.

 

 

 

Neverwinter Nights - Act 2 Part 1 - Port Llast

Aribeth and Gend now task you with finding clues about the cult. They have some leads pointing to cult activities in the areas surrounding Port Llast: Caves north of the city, along the Southern road towards Neverwinter, in the Neverwinter Wood and in the village of Charwood. Again you are free to investigate those areas in the order you choose, and again there are loads of side-quests I will not mention here.

 

 

Caves

After an eventful wilderness trek you come upon the caves, only to find them populated by rather aggressive ogres. After exploring the caves you find the Ogre chief under the influence of one of the cultists. After dispatching them you find some evidence indicating that someone named Maugrim is the leader of the cult, and that Luskan might be involved somehow.

 

 

Neverwinter Wood

At the outskirts you encounter a circle of druids reporting that something is wrong with the wood. The creatures dwelling within have become violent, attacking everyone, even the duids. They suspect that something is wrong with the Spirit of the Wood, a powerful natural spirit that is tied to Neverwinter Wood but dwells in its own demiplane.

 

After exploring the wood you piece together the ritual required to enter the Spirit's demiplane through a pool of water in the center of the forrest. You do so, and within the realm of the spirit you discover that the Spirit has been poisoned by one of the cultists who still wanders around within the Spirit's realm, quite mad, forcing you to put him out of his misery.

 

Fortunately for you that all villains keep a journal of their thoughts, and this cultist was no exception. You find his journal and discover where he had hidden the antidote for the poison he inflicted the spirit with. The spirit doesn't know if you are friend or foe though and lashes out at you as you approach it and you have to fight it into submission before you can make it see reason and cure it. The cultist's journal once again implicated Maugrim and Luskan. More evidence to bring to Aribeth and Gend.

 

 

Charwood

As you arrive in the village of Charwood you soon realize that something is wrong. The town is shrouded in an endless night and the villagers seem to wander around confused and dazed, unable to remember much of what has transpired there, like time stands still on that night in the village. You find another cultist there among them who appears to have gone insane. After luring some info out of him he attacks and you kill him, recovering yet another journal implicating Maugrim and Luskan's involvement with the "Cult of the Eye".

 

As you explore the village you enter the Castle, where run into a guardian placed there by the god Lathander. It tells that Lathander has lifted Charwood outside of the weave of time until someone comes along who can stand in judgement over the two brothers who live in the castle, Quint and Karlat, who are involved in a terrible crime. That would be you. You explore the castle and find that Quint is insane and Karlat has become a lich, and that all the children of Charwood has been slaughtered. Through some poking around you learn that Quint (a bard) had invited all the children of the village to the castle for storytelling, and that Karlat (a wizard) had been deceived by the demon Belial that he must slaughter all the children in order to achieve lichdom. So you bring these testimonies back to the guardian spirit and (in my goody-twoshoes case) decide that both Quint and Karlat are innocent and Belial is guilty, and that you will bring Karlat's phylactery with you from Charwood, thus returning it to it's proper place in time. (Meaning all the people are given their final rest and the village becomes a ruin.)

 

Southern Road

You learn that some powerful cultist is out hunting for adventurers who are investigating the cult activities, who have already killed several other adventurers working for Aribeth and Gend. You run into him eventually, fight him and kill him, and uncover more evidence of Luskan's involvement with the "Cult of the Eye" and it's apparent leader, Maugrim.

 

 

 

Neverwinter Nights - Act 2 Part 2- Luskan

With all the evidence pointing towards a Luskan involvement with Neverwinter's troubles Aribeth and Gend decides to move the investigation there. They manage to get you and themselves into the city and set up a new base in the Temple of Tyr within Luskan. When you get there Aribeth had disappeared without a trace. She had been moody ever since Fenthick, her lover, was hanged for his involvement with Desther, and now Aarin Gend fears she's done something rash on her own to track down the cult. But the cult has to stay your primary concern.

 

The evidence indicates that the cult leader, Maugrim, resides within the Hosttower of the Arcane, the home of the Arcane Brotherhood, the true but inofficial rulers of Luskan. Thus you need to gain entry into the Hosttower to look for Maugrim. Easier said than done, the Arcane Brotherhood values their privacy and only those given permission by one of the High Captains of Luskan, the official rulers of the city (but puppets of the Brotherhood) may enter the tower. Gend has forged papers that allows you to pose as an ambassador from one of Luskan's allies, but you'll still need permission from one of the captains to enter the tower.

 

Worse, intrigue and power struggle seems to grip Luskan. All of the High Captains except Kurth and Baram have either been driven from the city or killed, and there is an all-out civil war between the followers of Kurth and Baram, the latter who appears to have been infected with lychantrophy and has in turned infected his followers, making the whole lot of them wererats. So you'll have to find your way to one of the high captains and "convince" him to give you entry into the Hosttower of the Arcane. Which indidentally requires you to bump off the rival of your chosen captain, Baram or Kurth. Or you can just kill them both and claim the Hosttower warding tokens off their bodies.

 

Anyway, once you get the token in your chosen way you enter the Hosttower of the Arcane under the guise of an ambassador. Inside you discover that Luskan isn't the only ones fond if in-fighting, it appears there is a coup going on in the Hosttower as well. Apparently Maugrim, along with a large number of cult-indoctrinated followers, have taken control and ousted the old leader of the Arcane Brotherhood, the Lich Archmage Arklem, who he now holds imprisoned at the top of the tower.

 

Exploiting the power struggle and doing a fair deal of fighting you make your way to the top, where you get Arklem to open the way to Maugrim's sanctum to allow you to dispose of him. Arriving at the top of the tower however you encounter Maugrim along with a group of what appears to be lizardmen, whose leader, Morag, is speaking to him through some form of sending. Present is also Lady Aribeth, who out of grief and anger of Fenthick's fate has fallen from Tyr's faith and is just being named a Blackguard in Morag's service.

 

Before you can intervene Maugrim and Aribeth teleports away and Morag orders her minions to kill you. After you kill them instead you explore Maugrim's lair and find his journal (no villain is complete without a journal outlining their plans). There you learn that the "Cult of the Eye" is looking for four ancient artifacts from the time of the Creator Races called the Words of Power. Apparently Maugrim and his cult seeks to use these artifacts to bring back one of these ancient creator races to life. A number of these ancient beings are apparently held in suspended animation somewhere deep beneath what is now Neverwinter to prevent them from going extinct along with the rest of their race due to the climate changes that wiped out their civilization long ago. And apparently Morag is their rather powerful leader, who was held in stasis along with the rest of her people but have awakened enough to project her power beyond their magical prison to empower Maugrim and his followers, cause the Wailing Death and project sendings of herself to communicate with them.

 

Lots of revelation to bring back to Gend, which closes Chapter 2.

 

 

Neverwinter Nights - Act 3 - The Words of Power

Lord Nasher isn't too keen on having Morag and her people return, so he's ordered you and Aarin Gend to find the Words of Power before the cult does. They have been able to pinpoint a number of likely locations in the lands near Beorunna's Well, a Lords Alliance military camp in preparation for the upcoming war with Luskan with Maugrim and Aribeth at their lead.

 

Again the order you get the words is up to you. There are plenty of sidequests (many involving helping the war effort against Luskan) and there is more to getting each word, but I'll just give a very general outline otherwise this will turn into a novel.

 

Throughout these quests you'll come into contact with another Creator Race lizard called Haedraline who is trying to aid you in finding the Words. She explains she and others like her have been bound by the Words of Power and kept alive all these years to look after the leadership who was held in stasis as their civilization collapsed. Now she isn't particularly keen on seeing Morag return, and is helping you to prevent it from happening.

 

First Word

The first Word of Power is held in the hoard of the Ancient Red Dragon Klauth. To get it you'll have to fight your way up the Giant-infested mountains where Klauth makes his lair. Then you'll either have to kill Klauth at the request of the gold dragon Gorgotha and loot the Word off his hoard, or bring Gorgotha's eggs (which she isn't going to surrender without a fight) to Klauth and he'll give you the Word in return.

 

Second Word

The second Word can be found inside a magical snowglobe (which you acquire through a fairly long quest) that actually is a small demiplane in itself. Within this demiplane a clan of dwarves and a group of Dryads are locked in an eternal struggle, fighting a never ending war for reasons none of them know, and every time one of them is killed they are immediately resurrected back at their respective camp. In the center of the demiplane inside a cave you encounter a White Dragon who with some coaxing you can get to reveal that he has one of the Words of power and has used it to create the snowglobe demiplane. The Dryads and Dwarves were brought there as servant slaves, but allied together in the past, creating a powerful artifact and used it attempting to overthrow their master (the Dragon). They only narrowly failed, so in order to prevent it from happening again he used to Word to twist their minds into irrationally hating each other so they wouldn't band together again.

 

You manage to get some sense into the blood lusted Dryads and Dwarves and repair the artifact and use it to defeat the White Dragon and then claim his Word of Power, ending the snowglobe world and freeing the dwarves and dryads.

 

Third Word

The Third Word is found inside a vault in ancient Creator Race Ruins. To reach them however you must use a time crystal to travel 10 000 years into the past when the Creator Race was still alive and kicking, during the time when the now ruined complex was being created. There you can learn how to access the vault and weaken its guardians (and tangle with the Creator Race lizards who consider other races to be little more than slaves). Then you return to the present with your time crystal, access the vault and claim the Word of Power.

 

Fourth Word

Haedraline informs you that apparently this Word has already been claimed by Maugrim himself, and worse, Aarin Gend informs you that Aribeth has lead the Luskan army against Neverwinter which is now under siege. You must hurry back to the city to aid in its defense and prevent Maugrim from using his Word to free Morag and her goons.

 

 

Neverwinter Nights - Act 4 - War

As you make it back to the city the walls have been breached and the streets are filled with Luskan soldiers and War Golems who the Lords Alliance soldiers desperately try to fight back. Aribeths intimate knowledge of the city's defenses put the defenders in an impossible situation.

 

You must now find and deal with Aribeth to weaken the Luskan war effort and locate Maugrim and claim the forth Word of Power from him before it's too late. You battle through the Luskan lines until you reach Aribeth's sanctum and confront her. After some heavy fighting against her mixed with talks you either have the ability turn her from her Dark path if you have high enough Diplomacy and make her surrender herself to Lord Nasher, or you'll have to kill her. (This part is fairly similar to your confrontation with Bastila on the StarForge in KotOR.)

 

Next on is Maugrim, who's not much of a talker. After exchanging some brief taunts you fight him, kill him and loot the final Word of Power from him, which you bring back to Haedraline in Castle Never. Using the Words of Power she sends you inside the Source Stone deep beneath Castle Never, which is where Morag and her goons are now awakening. There you finally confront Morag in person and kill her, putting a stop to her plans once and for all. With their leaders killed or captured and Morag's influence no longer empowering them and weakening the Neverwinter defenders the Luskans flee in disarray and the city is saved.

 

Thus ends Neverwinter Nights. I'll write the story of Shadows of Undrentide tomorrow, this turned out to be much longer than I anticipated already

[Jae Onasi]

oh Lordy NO! I hate anyone who talks too much, even if they are just pixels and soundfiles..... Im trying my best to avoid picking him in any party

 

mtfbwya

He's not a bad little party member--doesn't talk quite as much as in the beginning.

[stoffe]

He's not a bad little party member--doesn't talk quite as much as in the beginning.

 

But there are better ones, and it's hard enough to squeeze those into the party as it is when you only have 3 slots to choose from most of the time. The few party slots and difficulty in switching people in and out of the group does give a few of the party members less active time than the others, and hard to find decent equipment (boots, belts and headgear in particular) for all of them.

 

Over all Grobnar does remind me a little of Jan Jansen in Baldurs Gate II, another eccentric and motormouthed party member gnome who likes telling stories.

[Jae Onasi]

But there are better ones, and it's hard enough to squeeze those into the party as it is when you only have 3 slots to choose from most of the time.

Oh, Qara's got Elanee and him beat in the spell-casting department for sure, but it's fun to see what they all have to say.

Usually by the time I need to pick up a different party member, I'm ready to go sell something at Sand's place anyway, so it's worked out OK.

[Achilles]

*reads Stoffe -mkb-'s summary* Good lord woman, don't kill yourself.

 

Thank you though. It wasn't hard to play connect the dots with the multiple "war with Luskan" references, but now I have a better understanding of what transpired. You're the best!

[Q]

To everyone who has played this game:

 

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why?

[Jae Onasi]

I'm only in the early parts of the game and I give it a big thumbs-up so far--I've actually died a couple times and had to go back to a previous save, but I honestly didn't really mind too much.

There are a couple piddly little things that bug me (like the door on Sand's shop making you have to hit the W key to get all the way out) and the anatomically incorrect way that the ladies in particular run annoys me a tiny bit (@stoffe--it's weird because they're running bow-legged and the knees don't bend a whole lot when they're jogging. The feet are landing badly supinated--they're actually landing on the lateral (outer) _sides_ of the feet instead of the heels. Of course, I have no clue how to fix it ). I also wish I could buy/sell things more than 1 at a time.

 

However, I like the story so far, the characters are fun, the visual effects for the spells are really cool (either that or I'm easily entertained), some of the weapons are fun, the PC/NPC and NPC/NPC banter can be very amusing, and the quests are interesting to me. All that seriously outweighs the problem areas that they'll hopefully fix soon anyway. Plus, I think you can catch it on sale it places like Best Buy.com and other online/brick&mortar retailers.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

To everyone who has played this game:

 

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why?

I give it a "meh". It has potential, and there'll likely be an expansion pack or two, and Obsidian has been fixing bugs since it's release. The story is okay, but the ending leaves something to be desired. The graphics were disappointing, and not worth the amount of lag. However, this game gives me another excuse to don my robe and wizard hat.

[stoffe]

To everyone who has played this game:

 

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why?

 

The first two acts: Thumbs up, good mix of quests and areas without losing sight of the main quest.

 

The third act: Most of it good, though some bad, annoying (AI and pathfinding glitches, plot-NPC munchkinism, overt railroading etc) and partially unfinished.

 

The ending: Every single thumb humanity can bring to bear down, unless the story will be continued in an expansion, so I'll reserve judgment on that for later.

[stoffe]

the anatomically incorrect way that the ladies in particular run annoys me a tiny bit (@stoffe--it's weird because they're running bow-legged and the knees don't bend a whole lot when they're jogging. The feet are landing badly supinated--they're actually landing on the lateral (outer) _sides_ of the feet instead of the heels. Of course, I have no clue how to fix it ). I also wish I could buy/sell things more than 1 at a time.

 

Yes, many of the female animations are rather annoying. They stand like they are hunched over in the "computer geek sitting in front of computer" pose with the head and throat stuck forwards (something that the cloaks makes look even worse in many cases). The running animations look weird, but they are at least bearable. The walking animations however are the poorest I have seen in any game. They walk like they are robots and it looks very unnatural. Try holding down the Walk key and move around a bit if you haven't already and you'll see. At least the spellcasting animations are a clear improvement from NWN1, in my opinion.

 

 

the visual effects for the spells are really cool (either that or I'm easily entertained), some of the weapons are fun,

 

I agree the spell effects over all look pretty good, though some of the weapon damage and onhit effects are a bit too unsubtle for my taste, drowning the target in a huge flash of light so you can't see what you are fighting. But that's a pretty minor thing.

 

As for weapons that's a bit mixed. Some look plain and NWNW1-esque (but I suppose that's natural, not every weapon in the world can be a masterpiece), while others look very pretty, in particular in areas with certain lighting where the light reflects on different details on the weapon. And the Silver Sword (the one in the opening movie where Ammon Jerro fights the shadow) is very nice both to use and look at. Just too bad you get it so late. How am I going to start a new game without it?

[Astrotoy7]

heya! for those of you with *decent* nvidia graphics cards.... download the newest nVidia 93.71 drivers

 

I have a high end graphics card and the differences I noticed were astounding(shadows, reflections etc all looked *superb*) Apart from the hair lookin a bit weird on *some* characters, I dont get people complaining about the graphics Really, is Oblivion a better game because you see trees 5 miles away in teh background...

 

RPGS are all about:

1. Storyline

2. Storyline

3. Storyline

 

Compared to NWN1 though, the spell sounds and effects are awesome... The way a drow casts the globe of darkness is exactly how one would imagine it after reading about it for so many years

 

 

fun fun fun Ive named this drow Drizzt so its impossible not to be a lawful good ranger. I cant wait to make a chaotic evil drow and go through it with her(of course female drow are supremely evil)

 

mtfbwya

[Achilles]

To everyone who has played this game:

 

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why?

 

Playing good: Definite thumbs up. Story is one of the best I've seen (IMHO). A lot of people don't care for the end but I thought it was consistent with the theme of the story:

 

 

sacrifice

 

 

People that like their RPGs with a

happy ending

aren't going to like it very much. *cough*stoffe -mkb-*cough*

 

Playing evil: Can't speak much to the story as I'm still in Chapter 1, so I can't tell how much changes later. Thus far, I have to say that playing good is much more consistent and gratifying. Kudos to Obsidian for trying to make evil options more subtle and less thuggish, but they lose points for consistency (damn near nice one second and bloodthirsty monster the next...and I'm referring to the dialog choices).

 

Technicals: People that complain about the graphics must either be playing on older cards, have the options turned down, or play in the top-down view only. Granted the hair/faces are nothing to write home about (in most cases. A few characters have exceptional textures), but the environments, clothing, armor, etc are some of the best I've seen. Much of the game looks comparable to the screen shots I've seen for Oblivion.

 

The AI is buggy and it seems to be the most buggy during important fights.

 

And of course, the game suffers from its fair share of buggy side quests, dialog inconsistencies, etc.

 

Hopefully, most of the technical problems will be resolved with patches. Even if they are not, hopefully most players will be willing to look past the bugs and be able to enjoy the story nonetheless.

 

heya! for those of you with *decent* nvidia graphics cards.... download the newest nVidia 93.71 drivers

 

I have a high end graphics card and the differences I noticed were astounding(shadows, reflections etc all looked *superb*) Apart from the hair lookin a bit weird on *some* characters, I dont get people complaining about the graphics The spell sounds and effects are awesome... The way a drow casts the globe of darkness is exactly how one would imagine it afterr reading about it for so many years

 

mtfbwya

Ha! I had to upgrade just to get out of Daeghun's house. Assuming that it's the drivers that make my game look so pretty, I'll second the rest of your post

 

<snip> and the anatomically incorrect way that the ladies in particular run annoys me a tiny bit (@stoffe--it's weird because they're running bow-legged and the knees don't bend a whole lot when they're jogging. The feet are landing badly supinated--they're actually landing on the lateral (outer) _sides_ of the feet instead of the heels. Of course, I have no clue how to fix it ). I also wish I could buy/sell things more than 1 at a time.

Damn you! Chalk this up in the "never noticed it until someone said something, now it's ALL you notice" category *sigh*. As for the buying/selling, this is supposed to be addressed in 1.03 (beta patch was released Wednesday. I'm holding out for the official release).

[Jae Onasi]

Kudos to Obsidian for trying to make evil options more subtle and less thuggish, but they lose points for consistency (damn near nice one second and bloodthirsty monster the next...and I'm referring to the dialog choices).

Heh, good. I'm not a big fan of DS in Kotor because beating the snot out of people 'just because' is a. not fun and b. kind of stupid if you might need to use them later. I prefer utter manipulation myself.

Technicals: People that complain about the graphics must either be playing on older cards, have the options turned down, or play in the top-down view only.

I finally got used to driving camera mode and use that unless I need to see where all the enemies are.

The AI is buggy and it seems to be the most buggy during important fights.

I manage my entire party pretty heavily and pick a lot of the spells and attacks. Probably one of the reasons why it's taking me so long to play, but I'm having fun and my characters don't die as often that way.

 

Damn you! Chalk this up in the "never noticed it until someone said something, now it's ALL you notice" category *sigh*.

The first time I saw Neeshka walking/running I thought 'What is wrong with her legs? She needs some serious orthopedic attention.' Then I noticed she was practically running on her ankles instead of her feet, decided the devs need a little more physiology knowledge, and decided 'Oh, well, maybe if I put a robe on her, it'll all be better....'

 

If I'd played the game a couple times, I'd be inclined to try out the beta version (since they have a way to revert back if it doesn't work), but I don't want to do that til I've tried it out the way it is currently.

Well, that'll be good to have an improved buy/sell feature. I hated buying holy water or cure light wounds 1 at a time when I wanted 20 of the things.

[stoffe]

Playing good: Definite thumbs up. Story is one of the best I've seen (IMHO). A lot of people don't care for the end but I thought it was consistent with the theme of the story: *********

People that like their RPGs with a ***** ****** aren't going to like it very much. *cough*stoffe -mkb-*cough*

 

I liked the game, but definitely not the ending. When I replay it I think I'll mod it so it just skips the ending narration and goes straight to the credits and I'll think up a better "what happens then" in my head instead. Not quite as annoying that way. If Obsidian announce they will make an expansion that continues the story where it ended all will be forgiven though (unless that expansion has a sad excuse for an ending as well).

 

 

Playing evil: Can't speak much to the story as I'm still in Chapter 1, so I can't tell how much changes later. Thus far, I have to say that playing good is much more consistent and gratifying.

 

I think I'll do another playthrough and play a bit more chaotic but still good character this time. Last time I turned out ultra-lawful without intending to do so. Started out Neutral Good but got forcibly converted to Lawful Good by the game shortly after arriving in Neverwinter City. Apparently the game didn't think I was very neutral in trying to help others in need. So I suppose trying to play as a warlock is out of the question since I'd be unable to advance in the class when no longer being chaotic really quick. Too bad.

 

By the way, are there any more Bags of Holding in the game than the one in the Captain's Bedroom in Crossroad Keep? I only found that one. And are there any decent headgear other than those +Int wizard headbands and the occasional helmet that grants +1 Concentration? Hardly found any headgear at all during my first playthrough. Boots, gauntlets and belts were also very few and far between, both at the shops I found and as loot.

 

 

Technicals: People that complain about the graphics must either be playing on older cards, have the options turned down, or play in the top-down view only.

 

I tried using the chase camera but felt it too limiting to see what was going on around me that way when you have more than once character to babysit. On the few solo-missions in the game the chase cam worked fairly well though. Traditional perspective view had to suffice, with lots of zooming in and out.

 

Granted the hair/faces are nothing to write home about (in most cases. A few characters have exceptional textures), but the environments, clothing, armor, etc are some of the best I've seen.

 

I found at least the choices of female player faces to be fairly unremarkable and look very similar to each other. All the Aasimar heads had almost the exact same facial structure with only slight variations in tattoos etc. Too bad you can't use the Succubus head as a player character appearance, if you remove the glowing eyes and change the skin/eye color a bit they look pretty decent and could pass for an elf or a half-elf.

[Astrotoy7]

Oblivion isn't a better game than NWN2, but it is a better-looking game overall. Story-wise NWN2 is vastly superior to Oblivion.

 

Quoted for emphasis

 

Though Ive never been a PnP player, as far as RPG games go, I remember playing text based RPGs on my ole commodore 64. Some of them were quite fun, merely because they had a good storyline.... Oblivions graphics are handy for one thing IMO, benchmarking

 

It's just a shame there isn't more opportunities to explore in NWN2, the areas are so small that you can barely avoid seeing all of it just by moving through them.

 

If NWN2 was so open ended I'd never play it. I simply dont have the time to run around like a monkey into every cave, wondering whats in there... between work, study and family committments Im glad I can get back on and get back on track reasonably quickly. There are always the xpacks, modules amd toolsets for those wanting more. Also, there is Dragon Age, due next year or so ??

 

Shouldn't Darkvision (or was it Ultravision, I can never tell them apart) allow you to see through the Darkness though? Seemed to me the Darkness just made it harder for me to see the enemies while the AI didn't seem to have much problem finding and attacking my characters when I cast it.

 

I dont have any problems. Check your gfx settings perhaps. Look at my screenie. Drizzt is a visible silhouette, and remains so when I cast this spell. This maybe affected depeding on what effects you have turned on etc ?? Maybe thats something someone can mod if its a prevalent problem though ??

 

Ranger... It's one of those classes I've never understood the charm of. They have a handful of low-level spells, but nothing too exciting or useful compared to druids. They are decent in a fight, but will get their asses handed to them by fighters and barbarians. They have some wilderness perks, but most of the game takes place indoors or in civilized areas. Perhaps it's just because I've never read any Drizzt novels.

 

Its hard not to call a character Drizzt and not have him be a ranger, under the Mielikki etc. I usually throw a few levels of ranger into most characters. This one also has a bit of cleric in him. Ive been playing the game on its normal difficult and only had a handful of sticky situations. If you are careful with party selection, defensive casting and have some good equipment, then I cant see being a ranger to be a disadvantage in any event.

 

I still hope that I get to choose a panther for my companion after a bit more levelling up.

 

mtfbwya