The World of Avlis

It got a good score but if you read the review you would think it would be much lower. He seems to have based it on the longevity of the product because of the toolset. Overall the review scares me a bit. It speaks negatively about some issues that I was hoping would be cleaned up from NWN. Here's the link:

http://worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=38314

I played a friends copy of the multiplayer beta, and at the time really hoped they'd fix the following:
- horrible camera control system, much worse than NWN1 and not even comparable to most modern RPGs or MMOs. Most of fanboys on the bioware site seem to gloss over this, but for multiplayer, its going to be a gamebreaker. PVP is going to be a joke with the system they had in the beta, and current feedback indicates they haven't fixed it. Its ok'ish in single player, as you can pause it...
- combat animations - you just stand there waiting for your turn.
- awful performance for the graphics you get. The end result does not seem to justify the system specs you need.
Most of this is fixable in patches I hope, except possibly the awful controls. If they don't fix the controls I won't buy it, its that bad..other than that, there were lots of cool things to like.

I'm really disappointed that the NWN2 OC got a 'meh'. Obsidian is basically Black Isle alumni [Fallout, Fallout2, Torment]. They should have had the talent to come up with a superb story. Especially since they screwed over the Custom Content community (Granny).

As for the rest of the review, I can't say I'm all that surprised. Everything I've read about the engine completely reinforced my opinion that it was cosmetic surgery when they so desperately needed to improve the VM. It's 2006, multithreading and true 3D are required.

Obs and Atari had better be praying that the community cranks out some stellar mods otherwise they're sunk.

From memory the possible camera angles in NWN1 were real crappy to start off with as well. Camera haks soon started appearing that allowed you to unlock the camera and move it where you wanted it too, not long after Bioware added there own version into one of the updates. Hopefully the same will happen here.

Fire Monkey wrote:From memory the possible camera angles in NWN1 were real crappy to start off with as well. Camera haks soon started appearing that allowed you to unlock the camera and move it where you wanted it too, not long after Bioware added there own version into one of the updates. Hopefully the same will happen here.

The game has a rotating 3d camera included John is talking about taking the gameplay to the z plane which will allow things such as true 3d levitation and flight.

Fire Monkey wrote:From memory the possible camera angles in NWN1 were real crappy to start off with as well. Camera haks soon started appearing that allowed you to unlock the camera and move it where you wanted it too, not long after Bioware added there own version into one of the updates. Hopefully the same will happen here.

Yah pretty much everyone downloaded those unlock camera haks when they became available.

This I find more worrysome

All this seems to kick up the system requirements for no benefit whatsoever. My PC will happily run Oblivion at nearly maximum settings, but 10FPS is the best I can eke out here, though I can't begin to see why.

Now he doesn't say what his PC is but Oblivion is well known to be the beast of the games right now from most benchmarks I've seen. If he has a computer that is capable of running that flat out and is struggling with NWN2, its going to be a showstopper for many folks.

I should know more in 24-48hrs

Grizpin wrote:

Fire Monkey wrote:From memory the possible camera angles in NWN1 were real crappy to start off with as well. Camera haks soon started appearing that allowed you to unlock the camera and move it where you wanted it too, not long after Bioware added there own version into one of the updates. Hopefully the same will happen here.

The game has a rotating 3d camera included John is talking about taking the gameplay to the z plane which will allow things such as true 3d levitation and flight.

I was replying to Arandil not PJ

It wasn't the angle of the camera that was the problem. You can tweak that as much as you like. In theory the control methods are fine. In practice the camera jumps around horribly, meaning you have to pause to reposition the camera almost all the time. As you run along, it skips about all over the place in chase mode. In single player this is just annoying, in multiplayer it will be a showstopper for many people. And its not something a third party hak can fix. I spent hours trying to find a control/camera angle method that worked and I couldn't. I really want to like NWN2, but this single issue alone would stop me buying it. It ran like a dog on on my machine, which runs oblivion at 1400 res on medium settings with no probs.

Fire Monkey wrote: I was replying to Arandil not PJ

oh, my bad

Arandil wrote:In practice the camera jumps around horribly, meaning you have to pause to reposition the camera almost all the time. As you run along, it skips about all over the place in chase mode.

Apparently that is one of the things addressed in the 1.01 patch.

Another lukewarm impression:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/742/742913p1.html

Arandil wrote: It ran like a dog on on my machine, which runs oblivion at 1400 res on medium settings with no probs.

Yikes!

What sort of rig are you running?

Asking as I'm about to upgrade so that I can play NWN2 and want to make sure that I don't go too low....

Tesh wrote:

Arandil wrote: It ran like a dog on on my machine, which runs oblivion at 1400 res on medium settings with no probs.

Yikes!

What sort of rig are you running?

Asking as I'm about to upgrade so that I can play NWN2 and want to make sure that I don't go too low....

Yeah, I'd be interested in knowing too.
I just upgraded my rig in August ....

Ditto.

I am sitting at about the minimum system requirements and I don't really want to upgrade (much) at this time.

Arandil wrote:- combat animations - you just stand there waiting for your turn.

Given how much people have whined about HotU's running animations, I see this being a HUGE problem for some people. Hell, I liked the HotU animations, and the clips I've seen of NWN2 still leave me gagging!

I just spent a lot of money buying a new AGP Graphics card to make my existing PC meet the specs. From these reviews, it sounds as if I wasted the money.

Well, at least it runs Sims2:Pets well.

I ran the beta on a dell xps 2 laptop, with a GF6800 Ultra card and 2 gb of ram, so not a top of the line rig, but it copes pretty well with Oblivion, and at least with Oblivion, you can see why you need a top end rig. Once I'd lowered all the settings on NWN2 to get it to run, it didn't look that much better than NWN1. A few things grated..like not being able to run though puddles in the swamp area..., or jump or climb over very small fences, but thats just me being used to more modern rpgs. There were plenty of nice things about it..but the control system ruined the whole thing for me as I was looking at it as a multiplayer game, and trying not to pause it ( which proved pretty much impossible as combat is very fast and the camera confuses the hell out of you ). Maybe I'm just being picky, but since NWN1 I've played plenty of rpgs with better controls. I'll get it if they fix that issue properly, even after the first patch people are saying the camera sucks.
Sorry to be so negative, I was REALLY looking forward to this game.

Here's another brief review at Game Informer:

http://www.gameinformer.com/NR/exeres/6 ... E785EC.htm

I think the game will be good. Just not revolutionary as we were all hoping. Based on what I've read, it's NWN with a new skin. I just hope it runs well enough on my pc and laptop to be worth the purchase.

PlasmaJohn wrote:I'm really disappointed that the NWN2 OC got a 'meh'. Obsidian is basically Black Isle alumni [Fallout, Fallout2, Torment]. They should have had the talent to come up with a superb story. Especially since they screwed over the Custom Content community (Granny).

Not to mention the PW community. As much as we heard they were focusing on the single player experience at the expense of features that would aid the creation of custom content and persistent worlds, they should have had a SP game worthy of a better review than a "this is a demo of what can be done with the toolset."

I'm still excited to see what NWN2 can bring to the table, but I have a sinking feeling that, by and large, it's just a graphics and rules update. Not to say it won't be an improvement upon NWN1, or that it won't provide new/better options... just that it won't be a huge breakthrough like it coulda woulda shoulda been.

Arandil wrote:I ran the beta on a dell xps 2 laptop, with a GF6800 Ultra card and 2 gb of ram, so not a top of the line rig, but it copes pretty well with Oblivion, and at least with Oblivion, you can see why you need a top end rig. Once I'd lowered all the settings on NWN2 to get it to run, it didn't look that much better than NWN1. A few things grated..like not being able to run though puddles in the swamp area..., or jump or climb over very small fences, but thats just me being used to more modern rpgs. There were plenty of nice things about it..but the control system ruined the whole thing for me as I was looking at it as a multiplayer game, and trying not to pause it ( which proved pretty much impossible as combat is very fast and the camera confuses the hell out of you ). Maybe I'm just being picky, but since NWN1 I've played plenty of rpgs with better controls. I'll get it if they fix that issue properly, even after the first patch people are saying the camera sucks.
Sorry to be so negative, I was REALLY looking forward to this game.

Ive never used the auto camera. Always stuck to controling it 100% myself. It works fine when Im actually paying attention, not trying to watch TV, etc. Sometimes I flip around to far and dont notice... then run in the wrong direction. *cough*

Anyways, is the problem with the automated camera? Or are the controls even for the manual camera choppy and inconsistant?

Hard to say...I just couldn't find a camera/control system that worked for me without pausing and re-adjusting all the time. Which for me personally is a gamebreaker, but may not be for others.

I can live with some of the clunky controls of the first one but I hope they at least put an auto walk feature in!!!! RP'ing while you walk in NWN is like trying to drink a beverage while running in real life.

So, he didn't like the cameras, the graphics, the NPC dialouge, the controls or the battle system but it got a 9 out of 10. wtf?

Sorry. It looks sad.

It runs quite smoothly on my system with high detail textures and only gets a little chunky if I crank it up to 1900x1200.

* shrugs * That's on my laptop. 3.2GHz P4-M, 1GB RAM, 256MB video.

- Aloro

Manuel the White wrote:So, he didn't like the cameras, the graphics, the NPC dialouge, the controls or the battle system but it got a 9 out of 10. wtf?

Sorry. It looks sad.

That's what I thought Manuel. I won't pass judgement until I see it for myself though. I've been reading some of the player reviews over at gamespot and they are raving about it. *shrug*

Thats good news Aloro....I only ran the multiplayer beta after all..but the beta version was only out 3 weeks or so before it went gold, so I wasn't hopeful the release would be much better. How are you finding the controls?