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Topic: what is the preferred game? NWN I or II? (Read 114 times) |
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EGD Eric
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Last On: 04/22/09
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Hi, my name is Eric, and I used to use this site a lot years ago to find/play in Dmed games. It was a lot of fun. I was wondering what the preferred game for multiplayer Dmed campaigns was nowadays: NWN1 or 2? I notice some of the games still use 1, and I saw some posts a while back when NWN 2 came out saying that the multiplayer wasn't as good in 2, so I'm curious if this is still true (or ever was) or what...
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Katarina Dragonstar
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My PW is still NWN1, for many of the reasons that Vanya said. However, NWN2 has come a long way in the past two years. Custom content is still being produced for NWN1 and some pretty impressive stuff has been released.
Bottom line: There's something for everybody.
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EGD Eric
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So, other than visuals, NWN II isn't really an improvement over the original? And its harder to build modules for it?
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karvon
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There are some additional skills and feats implemented in NWN2 and some new races and classes players can chose from I think. One big difference is the user interface(UI) is completely customizable and many have created quite useful tweaks for folks to use in this respect.
The toolkit is a double-edged sword, frankly. It's far more versatile and powerful than NWN1's, allowing for a lot greater variety in what the creator can portray. However, that comes at the cost of a much steeper learning curve with using it and a lot more time required to build an area. Many builders rely on prefabs submitted by others to the vault to cut down on the time needed to put together a mod. While I'm no fan of NWN2, the final effects you can create with it are undeniably stunning. If you have the time, skill and inclination, you can really create some masterpieces with it.
Karvon
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Monk Gently
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Heh, yes. I took a gander at the NWN2 toolset recently and it nearly sent me into a coma. Easy to use it is not, at least not for this layman.
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| « Last Edit: on: Apr 23, 2009, 2:37AM » |
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vanya mia
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It's correct that NWN2 can look gorgeous. I've built and run a mod in it myself, and was impressed with how you could get the "feel" of a place over. For a PW that's great, as people use the areas over and over again, but oddly enough for a campaign module I find that incredibly frustrating as you can spend hours on an area the PCs go through in a few minutes and never see again. I changed the way I organised the campaign for the one I've designed and run in it, just to get around that!
Build time is a restricting factor for the way you run a campaign. No problem for a PW which changes less often, but I like to change my module and work elements in depending on PC actions and direction. This tends to mean that I build on a more or less weekly basis and usually for two campaigns. The build time makes that practically impossible and just the 12 weeks running the module I did were a nightmare to find time to build in.
But the biggest bugbear with NWN2 remains the constant downloads. Again, fine for a PW that would probably only change every so often, and has the ability to host Worldgate or it's equivalent, not so for campaign modules. So you're also asking players to DL a huge amount of data weekly. Not so good for those who have size limits.
On top of the foibles of the DM client, this is just too much bother for me. So yes, I still use NWN1. 
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Urk
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I have to throw my 2 cents into NWN1, especially for MP. Personally I don't even want Aasimar or Tieflings to be avasilable as PC races and the extra skills and feats really don't make up for the comparative lack of community content.
Making CC for NWN2 is much harder and more expensive to produce, so there's a LOT less of it. This is deal-breaker from my perspective.
And then there's mounts. Having a trusty steed more than trumps having a few extra skills/feats. I LOVE MOUNTS.
NWN2 requires a broadband connection for MP play. This cuts the player pool almost in half. Another technical issue I have with the game is that the video card requirements are too high. The graphics are better than NWN, but not so much that it justifies NWN2's over-the top system requirements, and again... these requirements cut into the pool of available players.
I love the NWN2 toolset. It's fun to use and in many ways it's even easier to use than the old one, but realistically it's too time consuming for my style of Campaign play. Literally every detail needs to be manually painted and while the results are amazing it's altogether too much work to crank out even a quick mod every week or two.
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Moss Troll
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The debates over NWN1 vs. NWN2 are almost legendary, and you can find many of them. Hands down it's NWN1 for me. NWN2 is still very much a disappointment to me.
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| « Last Edit: on: Apr 23, 2009, 11:47PM » |
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Venture
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You do need some sort of hosting solution for the files if you use NWN2, to make it workable. If you're running the show and don't have the ability to host files for download, stick with NWN. If you have hosting that you can access at will, the downloads aren't bad if you have broadband (which you need for NWN2, and which has about a 60% penetration in the U.S.).
I've been running a campaign for 2 years, and use WorldGate, which can incrementally download only the changed portions of a file. We usually have a big (30-100 MB) download every couple of months, and then very small ones (10 seconds or less on my cable connection) every few weeks.
Oh, and the official autoupdater is coming with the next patch, which will put WorldGate-like funtionality right into the game and toolset.
If you are going to use this site to find players/DMs, then NWN is the way to go by leaps and bounds, as NWN2 campaigns are scarce here. If you're OK with looking for players in the official forums or over at the Vault, there are a number of players there who haven't found their way here, or did and didn't stick around.
Everybody else pretty much hit the nail on the head. I miss the speed of building in NWN and the larger NWC community around it. I love how immersive NWN2 areas can be, and just how customizable it is. The DMFI tools in NWN2 are amazing, as tools in NWN2 can have their own UI.
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| « Last Edit: on: Apr 24, 2009, 1:14PM » |
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Mulu
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on Apr 23, 2009, 1:51 AM, EGD Eric wrote:| So, other than visuals, NWN II isn't really an improvement over the original? And its harder to build modules for it? |
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NWN2 uses the 3.5 ruleset, which IMO is a significant improvement over NWN1, especially for bards and rangers. The interface is more powerful and customizable even in player client. In many ways NWN2 improved on NWN1, but some of the improvements turned out to be a detraction for some folk, myself included. More power = more requirements and a sharper learning curve. If you've got the rig and you're willing to invest the time and energy into it, NWN2 has the potential for greater rewards. NWN1 provides a good game with much less effort. The list goes on, of course, but basically you have two valid platforms to choose from, and both get used here.
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