Rajaah's CRPG Blog

Caliane

Caliane

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been too long. I wouldn't be really able to judge them fairly. I definately liked, shadows of undrentide, and hordes of the underdark. I also liked NWN's base campaign with Aribeth though.. its not beloved by most these days. I don't think i played any of the "premium modules". really not sure on that. lots of custom player ones. I think I looked up and found some hosting sites still active, earlier in the thread. don't really remember which ones were the best.

Nwn2's camera controls I remember being hell even back THEN. not sure if any EE helps with that.
nwn2's expac Mask of the Betrayer is known as being one of the best all time crpg stories. storm of zehir is less well recieved, but has a neat merchant guild minigame thing going on in it.
 
Kajiimagi

Kajiimagi

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I picked up NWN EE on Steam sale , think this is the 3-4 time I have bought this game. I'm useless on the DLC as well. I played them all (when the game was 'new) but none stand out. I will add to Caliane Caliane 's comment though. Mask of the Betrayer was awesome, and very moving despite the janky 3d engine.
I plan to play NWN again 'soon'. I just built a new 7800x3d / 7900 XTX machine and I keep just playing FF7 Rebirth on the PS5. LOL something is wrong with me.
 
Gavinmad

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Caliane said:
been too long. I wouldn't be really able to judge them fairly. I definately liked, shadows of undrentide, and hordes of the underdark. I also liked NWN's base campaign with Aribeth though.. its not beloved by most these days. I don't think i played any of the "premium modules". really not sure on that. lots of custom player ones. I think I looked up and found some hosting sites still active, earlier in the thread. don't really remember which ones were the best.

Nwn2's camera controls I remember being hell even back THEN. not sure if any EE helps with that.
nwn2's expac Mask of the Betrayer is known as being one of the best all time crpg stories. storm of zehir is less well recieved, but has a neat merchant guild minigame thing going on in it.
Click to expand...
Hordes of the Underdark is great and playing HotU after having played the base campaign makes a certain party member in HotU a much more meaningful thing, even if HotU is meant to be a sequel to Undrentide and not the base campaign.
 
Kharzette

Kharzette

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I played all of those with friends. Shadows of undrentide had alot of multiplayer bugs, so we didn't enjoy it. The others were a decent time. I think the most fun we had was a premium module called Pirates of the sword coast I think? I think it was like 10 bucks. It did some gnarly stuff with the nwn engine.
 
Rajaah

Rajaah

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Sounds like I should play Hordes of the Underdark after NWN1 and Mask of the Betrayer after NWN2 and just kinda not worry about anything else. That's if I stick with NWN and don't jump ship for a different CRPG.

Howlongtobeat has NWN listed as like 55 hours and HotU at another 20, with NWN2 at around 35 hours plus 15 for Mask. Which is a little more reasonable, but both are way too long. Not too keen on spending that much time with this antiquated engine.

I'm thinking if I beeline right to the OP build I'm working on (Scimitar Weapon Master with Barbarian rage) I'll be able to crush most of the content. Then if I just mainline the main quest and no sidequests, maybe I can get NWN1 done in like half the listed time. The beginning seems to be by far the hardest / most time-consuming part because before your build gets going you're very outgunned by the mobs at times.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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Gavinmad said:
Hordes of the Underdark is great and playing HotU after having played the base campaign makes a certain party member in HotU a much more meaningful thing, even if HotU is meant to be a sequel to Undrentide and not the base campaign.
Click to expand...
thats a good point, and I think possibly why I remember NWN base campaign more fondly. checking a walkthrough, I am blending hordes of the underdark into nwn's base campaign into one story in my head I think.

If you had asked me how the base campaign ended, I would have said, with you know who attacking the city. which... is actually waterdeep, not neverwinter, and part of HotU.
 
Burns

Burns

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Rajaah said:
Sounds like I should play Hordes of the Underdark after NWN1 and Mask of the Betrayer after NWN2 and just kinda not worry about anything else. That's if I stick with NWN and don't jump ship for a different CRPG.

Howlongtobeat has NWN listed as like 55 hours and HotU at another 20, with NWN2 at around 35 hours plus 15 for Mask. Which is a little more reasonable, but both are way too long. Not too keen on spending that much time with this antiquated engine.

I'm thinking if I beeline right to the OP build I'm working on (Scimitar Weapon Master with Barbarian rage) I'll be able to crush most of the content. Then if I just mainline the main quest and no sidequests, maybe I can get NWN1 done in like half the listed time. The beginning seems to be by far the hardest / most time-consuming part because before your build gets going you're very outgunned by the mobs at times.
Click to expand...
NWN1 has aged the worst out of any old game I have ever tried to replay. It's not like the stories are that connected, so there is no need to play NWN at all to jump into NWN2. Likewise, Mask of the Betrayer has some player character bonuses/carry over for doing the NWN2 campaign, but, from what I remember, it's set up to just jump into MotB. I also liked Storm of Zehir, but you can evaluate if you want to play it, when you get done with Mask.
 
Rajaah

Rajaah

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Burns said:
NWN1 has aged the worst out of any old game I have ever tried to replay. It's not like the stories are that connected, so there is no need to play NWN at all to jump into NWN2. Likewise, Mask of the Betrayer has some player character bonuses/carry over for doing the NWN2 campaign, but, from what I remember, it's set up to just jump into MotB. I also liked Storm of Zehir, but you can evaluate if you want to play it, when you get done with Mask.
Click to expand...

Yeah, NWN hasn't aged well (neither has KOTOR, which I believe runs off the same engine as NWN but I might be wrong).

It's very much something I'm checking out for the historical significance and because it's on my list. We'll see how it goes / if I stick with it.
 
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Shmoopy

Shmoopy

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Rajaah said:
You still playing IWD?

Another really good long-form video worth adding here that mostly focuses on CRPGs but also gets into the contribution of JRPGs a bit, or at least the late 80's early 90's ones that branched off of the CRPG genre. This video single-handedly got me pumped to do more CRPGs:


After this video, adding Disco Elysium, Wasteland 2, and Wasteland 3 to the list in the first post. Want to keep the list limited (considering how long it takes me to get to things) but I think those 3 are musts. How feasible is it to play Wasteland 1 at this point? Is there even a reason to play Wasteland 1? Some kind of remake would be great.
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Video is really well done.

About Wasteland 1 - it was remastered and included in the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter:

 
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Rajaah

Rajaah

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Kharzette said:
Both of those got Mark Morgan soundtracks too.
Click to expand...

Cool, I'm adding the Wasteland remaster to the list.

Things I'd like to get to near-term (as in, this year) are both NWNs, Fallout 2, Castle of the Winds, and Warcraft 3. Might also try to do both IWDs and Planescape, not sure though. A lot depends on how much time gets taken up by the NWNs. And whether EQ and Elden Ring end up cannibalizing my summer game time.

Speaking of, latest update:

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Finally got the NWN Player's Guide out. It's a great guide. The first major dungeon is totally Plane of Justice, like I said. I mean PoJ is like a direct homage to this place.

Screenshot_20240324_114339_PS App.jpg

Defeated the Gaoler and the Intellect Devourer. Whole dungeon was insanely long/repetitive and I'm wondering if the whole game will be like that. It does feel like a real D&D campaign though which is cool. Going with the rogue as the ally party member, even though he isn't the best or toughest at all, because it makes positioning way more important (tanking and flanking so he can backstab) and gives me more to do. He can post some real good damage numbers if used right.

Screenshot_20240324_114351_PS App.jpg

Chest in the room got me a Scimitar +1 which prolly would have been a big help for the boss.

It seems that Scythe Weapon Master posts bigger crit numbers but also misses a fair amount so you're more dependent on luck of the draw. Scimitar WM is lower damage but more accurate (or maybe critical hits fire more) so it levels out to better DPS. At least from what I've read. Kinda liking the scimitar/shield/leather ensemble, like a Druid. No spells yet. Going to lean really hard on the Scimitar spec and critical hits, with some healing as backup.

Next up is something called the Beggar's Nest. Not really doing any side quests or optional stuff.
 
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Rajaah

Rajaah

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Between the overlong dungeons, repetitive fights and visuals, and just general dullness of it, NWN fell off for me after that. It and NWN2 are both kind of "on the bubble" for me now, as in I might scratch them off the list entirely. They're sizable time commitments, and according to HLTB I could play Icewind Dale + Planescape Torment in the time NWN takes. However I did spend some time getting my character specced right to be a Scimitar Master and I might want to see that through at some point.

I'd like to get another thing checked off since it's been so long. After the show, strongly considering running Fallout 2, if I can fit it in over the next four weeks or so. Not sure how long it is. I've got some huge expectations for this one as I wasn't crazy about FO1 but like FO2's QOL and story. I'll take any insight on FO2 in terms of builds, what stats/perks to go for, etc etc. I usually completely ignore Small Arms and go for Energy Weapons and stuff like that which will be better later on, but in FO1 I think I went Small Arms and it ended up being the right call. IDK though, it was many pages ago.
 
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