Neverwinter Nights And Morrowind
Marik_Steele
To rule in hell... Join Date: 2002-11-20 Member: 9466Members
To rule in hell... Join Date: 2002-11-20 Member: 9466Members
<div class="IPBDescription">have I missed something? RPGs?</div> A good friend of mine just convinced me to put down a good $30 of my money to buy Neverwinter Nights (despite the fact that the Gold Edition is likely to get released anytime soon) so that we could play co-op. He's been through singleplayer once, and convinced me to make the purchase based on the mod community, co-op (a feature that <i>should</i> be in many games today), and how closely it follows the D&D ruleset. I was hesitant (heck, I waited this long hoping the price would go down further) but finally bought it.
That night we played through co-op up to just past the first of four creatures that the woman leading the Academy tells you to look for (I'm fully aware of names, but this avoids any spoilers; anyone who's played the demo learns this much). My friend more or less took me by the hand to speed through some of the more maze-like areas, and I honestly haven't had the time to catch 100% of the dialogue and sidequests I'm used to exploring through in other RPGs.
Now to Morrowind, a game I borrowed earlier from the same friend after he beat it and sang its praises. I haven't tried Bloodmoon, but Morrowind with Tribunal just seemed too much like an MMORPG to me. A highly addicting expansive world, too many great plugins for my own good, but NPCs in towns are more like automatons than people. Talk to one and you've probably seen the dialogue options for them all.
[edit]Just to let you know how far I got through it: I last remember being in a city with a huge mushroom building in the middle of a wasteland. I had the Boots of Blinding speed, actually usable with my Breton resistance to magic, and a type of armor I think was called "Dark Brotherhood" and made me look like Sam Fischer. Super cool, but I worry if the plugins I got resulted in the game getting messed up; assassins are getting sent after me without me knowing what I did, their armor statistics are higher than Admantium, and this one creature called a "niche hound" or something now moves at a bazillion miles an hour and can kill me in 1 hit.[/edit]
Every review I've read for both games says they're great RPGs, but I'm honestly thinking of taking up my friend's "insurance" offer and selling him my copy of NWN. They both seem to work on the mentality I see in the Diablo series and many console RPGs: go do this sidequest to get the +1 sword, go do this sidequest to get the +2 sword, ignore whether or not the sidequests have any bearing on the game world or main quest, repeat. The best example of this I found in NWN is when my friend and I were in this docks area at night, we went into a random building he picked out for no reason apparent to me, he told me "get ready to fight a big spider," and suddenly we opened a door into a huge room with a spider far too difficult for my level 3 or 4 wizard. All it left me thinking was "Why? Who told us to do this? How did it get here? Does it matter? Is my friend speeding me through the game so fast I can't appreciate it?"
Every RPG I've been introduced to lately just reminds me of how amazing the Fallout series is. Every sidequest I can think of had some bearing on the game world, if not the main quest. Heck, in Fallout 2 I remember thinking "Why am I doing the equivalent of hack-n-slash through this set of mine caverns? Isn't this what I don't want to be doing in a real RPG?" By the time I was finished, I discovered that I'd just affected <i>four cities</i> by affecting commerce between them -- even something I thought was thrown in as an afterthought turned out to have a greater bearing on the game world than the average mindless sidequest from many other games.
Enough yapping. I'm just wondering if I should sell my friend NWN or give it another shot. Might as well also ask you guys if it'll be worth buying Knights of the Old Republic (just answer my question of whether it's Morrowind In Space or a real RPG) and Temple of Elemental Evil (once Atari stops counting their profits and makes an official patch)
That night we played through co-op up to just past the first of four creatures that the woman leading the Academy tells you to look for (I'm fully aware of names, but this avoids any spoilers; anyone who's played the demo learns this much). My friend more or less took me by the hand to speed through some of the more maze-like areas, and I honestly haven't had the time to catch 100% of the dialogue and sidequests I'm used to exploring through in other RPGs.
Now to Morrowind, a game I borrowed earlier from the same friend after he beat it and sang its praises. I haven't tried Bloodmoon, but Morrowind with Tribunal just seemed too much like an MMORPG to me. A highly addicting expansive world, too many great plugins for my own good, but NPCs in towns are more like automatons than people. Talk to one and you've probably seen the dialogue options for them all.
[edit]Just to let you know how far I got through it: I last remember being in a city with a huge mushroom building in the middle of a wasteland. I had the Boots of Blinding speed, actually usable with my Breton resistance to magic, and a type of armor I think was called "Dark Brotherhood" and made me look like Sam Fischer. Super cool, but I worry if the plugins I got resulted in the game getting messed up; assassins are getting sent after me without me knowing what I did, their armor statistics are higher than Admantium, and this one creature called a "niche hound" or something now moves at a bazillion miles an hour and can kill me in 1 hit.[/edit]
Every review I've read for both games says they're great RPGs, but I'm honestly thinking of taking up my friend's "insurance" offer and selling him my copy of NWN. They both seem to work on the mentality I see in the Diablo series and many console RPGs: go do this sidequest to get the +1 sword, go do this sidequest to get the +2 sword, ignore whether or not the sidequests have any bearing on the game world or main quest, repeat. The best example of this I found in NWN is when my friend and I were in this docks area at night, we went into a random building he picked out for no reason apparent to me, he told me "get ready to fight a big spider," and suddenly we opened a door into a huge room with a spider far too difficult for my level 3 or 4 wizard. All it left me thinking was "Why? Who told us to do this? How did it get here? Does it matter? Is my friend speeding me through the game so fast I can't appreciate it?"
Every RPG I've been introduced to lately just reminds me of how amazing the Fallout series is. Every sidequest I can think of had some bearing on the game world, if not the main quest. Heck, in Fallout 2 I remember thinking "Why am I doing the equivalent of hack-n-slash through this set of mine caverns? Isn't this what I don't want to be doing in a real RPG?" By the time I was finished, I discovered that I'd just affected <i>four cities</i> by affecting commerce between them -- even something I thought was thrown in as an afterthought turned out to have a greater bearing on the game world than the average mindless sidequest from many other games.
Enough yapping. I'm just wondering if I should sell my friend NWN or give it another shot. Might as well also ask you guys if it'll be worth buying Knights of the Old Republic (just answer my question of whether it's Morrowind In Space or a real RPG) and Temple of Elemental Evil (once Atari stops counting their profits and makes an official patch)
Comments
If you want a good co-op game go download Sven Coop <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
They should have taken some liberties in making it interesting to play, but still able to connect with DND players.
Fallout
Fallout 2
System Shock 2
and i liked BG... and BG2 but throne of baal... nah never liked epic levels :/
I started out as a thief, but i've gradually worked my way up to being an extremely tough fighter / thief, virtually none of this was gained by doing quests or sub-quests. This is me, on my own, setting out into the big bad world of Vvardenfell with nothing but gold on my mind. The thing is, a lot of the missions are the same, sadly. They're either escort person here, kill person here or kill multiple people here. Which is a shame, as i said i started out as a thief, but the main quest demanded that i became a fully competant fighter, sneaking around just isn't feasable.
I have spent so much time playing Morrowind it's disgusting. In the end i made myself some <a href='http://www.btinternet.com/~diesirae/charfront.jpg' target='_blank'>custom</a> <a href='http://www.btinternet.com/~diesirae/charrear.jpg' target='_blank'>armour</a> and weapon purely because i wasn't happy with making my character look how i wanted with Morrowind's standard armour.
But you're right, Morrowind is more of a MMORPG, but it's that freedom i couldn't live without. I've played Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1,2 and tactics and while the story's are in depth, i just felt entirely trapped within a linear story. Morrowind allows you to go anywhere and do anything, the only thing that holds you back is not your standardised level, but your actual skills which you can train as you like.
I must admit, however, that i've not yet tried Neverwinter Nights, but to be honest, it doesn't seem to appeal to me much, after Morrowind, for me, i seem to have a high standard for what an RPG must be.
but the campaign just blows.
if you want an instant good time, fallouts are just THE best.
what i do for fun is: i cite the metal gear solid 2 grip gauge's ability to gain levels a STAT, thereby justifying calling the whole thing an RPG, and then bam, it beats the pants offa any of those pos's lol
i seriously gotta admit... mgs2 was about as fun as nwn + morrowind + dungeon siege + baldur's gate games etc, all combined.
Anyway, Morrowind is huge and beautiful. The game is really the closest you get to a "true" RPG, where living your character is the main goal of the game. This is the only game I've ever played where you actually can 'beat' the game the way YOU want. And it's the first game that made me want to get inside when it rained. Those storms ... you really feel wet when walking outside in them.
The earlier Elder Scrolls games (Arena and Daggerfall) were huge with much freedom, but with no detail. Morrowind has the detail and still the freedom.
The story (or rather, stories) in Morrowind are rather clever, actually. For example, researching the history of the Dwemer were pretty exciting; you really had to read books, solve several quests and work to get into the story -- it felt like an accomplishment.
I got the original Morrowind, along with Tribunal and Bloodmoon, but no extra plugins. And I would not advice it -- most of those plugins (my brother tried several of them, and hated it) spoil the game.
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Fallout 1 & 2? GREAT games -- excellent stories, and wonderfull/horrible setting. They are two of my favorite games.
However, there are two other games that should be mentioned: Ultima Underworld I & II. Those two games rock. Old, but they are still playable.
System Shock is another great one (though System Shock 2 was a little disappointing).
Don't get me wrong; NWN is better than diablo but so was Dungeon Siege. They're great until the novelties they have wear off and you realise that once again you're playing a clicking number game =s
I also got a bit bored after I managed to make my little, dual-weilding, halfing rogue permanently hasted with some monk armour after which she was super-mega-invincible (the 'blocks stupendous amounts of slash damage' belt helped too considering 3/4 of the attacks in the game seem to be slash =3 )
You just know there's something wrong when you're getting 6 backstab attacks that you can spread across multiple enemies before they can even turn around ^^;
Fallout 1&2 are the business though it's a shame they can't really do multiplayer because of all the turn-based stuff and whatnot =/
Don't forget if you patch up System Shock 2 it has coop in it <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
That's kinda the point. It's a Massively Singleplayer Offline Role Playing Game <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> A highly addicting expansive world, too many great plugins for my own good, but NPCs in towns are more like automatons than people. Talk to one and you've probably seen the dialogue options for them all.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True. There are various plugins around which are attempting to rectify this problem by writing unique dialogue for many NPCs.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I worry if the plugins I got resulted in the game getting messed up; assassins are getting sent after me without me knowing what I did...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's perfectly normal. That's a result of Tribunal, and is the start of the storyline. The first time you kill one gives you a journal entry telling you to go talk to a guard, who tells you to talk to someone in Ebonheart, who gives you the name of a mage in the main Ebonheart castle who will teleport you to Mournhold to investigate the source of the assassins.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->...their armor statistics are higher than Admantium...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How do you know? You obtained Adamantium and Dark Brotherhood armour and compared the numbers? That doesn't actually mean anything - the numbers that show up are NOT the base armour base armour values: they're the armour class <i>after</i> taking your skills into consideration. DB armour is light, adamantium is medium; if light armour is one of your major skills and medium armour is one of your misc skills you'll get much higher AC from DB armour.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->... and this one creature called a "niche hound" or something now moves at a bazillion miles an hour and can kill me in 1 hit.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That would be a Nix hound (are you sure it's not a Kagouti? Those things make short work of low level characters). Anyway, it could be a number of things.
1: Are you sure it's not just extremely fast relative to your own character? New characters which do not pick "speed" as one of their favourite attirbutes and do not have Athletics as a major skill tend to move quite slowly.
2: The game's difficulty setting might be set too high. This setting is <i>not</i> a "realism" setting, it's a difficulty setting (ie, enemies do more damage to you and your attacks do less damage to them). This might account for why it's doing so much damage to you.
3: It might have been blighted. Blighted creatures are about three times stronger than their ordinary counterparts.
4: Yes, it might be a plugin. I can't think of any plugins off the top of my head that make average monsters tougher, though, so I doubt it.
ANYWAY to the point whhere would i get plugins for morrowind? Can you give me an address?
ANYWAY to the point whhere would i get plugins for morrowind? Can you give me an address? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I basically went to <a href='http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind' target='_blank'>http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind</a> and whatever other Morrowind plugin sites I could search for on google, then proceeded to download plugins that I thought would be primarily cosmetic only (higher poly face models, hair, etc.) Then I started seeing high-rated mods for things like banking, then I found the Giants plugin and the Dragons for Giants plug-in-to-the-plug-in, and load times/savegame reliability just went downhill from there. If I ever start again, I'll take the advice of all of those plugin readmes and install them <i>before</i> starting a new game instead of midway when I see a new one or update to one I have.
[edit]SoulSkorpion: Thanks for those answers, that cleared my doubts about the assassins. You're probably right about the armor statistics seeming skewed because of my skills; I think I chose light armor as one of my major/minor skills (the 1st time I played through I chose unarmored because it would fit my character better, but when I thought about how "practicing" to skill boost would mean purposely putting my armor-naked self in danger, I quickly decided against it). The Nix Hound I'm talking about is keeping me from walking within a large radius of one of Balmora's entrances, and appeared after I installed a plugin that supposedly balanced skill raising and allowed skills >100. That's probably what's made it tougher.[/edit]
So I take it we've agreed that NWN's singleplayer/co-op campaign is a bit uninspired for the $30? The official site hints at a fairly large mod community, any particular user-made modules/campaigns for NWN I should try before selling it off?
It would sound like your brother decided to download the cheating plugins, to be honest. Many of Morrowind's plug-ins only enhance the game, several add new trades and new monetary systems (Like the banking system mentioned above). Also you can get new quests you only need to do if you decide to do them, as with any other quest.
It's just when it comes to armour and weapon plugins, you've just got to learn to not be greedy. While there are good plugins for armour and such, like the Adamantium armour, there are people out there who decide to make a new item which maxes all your stats. You've just got to read what the plug-in does and make a conscious decision yourself as to whether it's balanced or not.
Like my plugin i mentioned before, it's all perfectly balanced down to weights, prices and enchatements, same with my Bloodstone Daikatana.
I find that if you download honest enhancement plugins they can't spoil the game, but if you download "The Ring Of Kill The World 30 Times +2" which is so disgustingly unbalanced, you get what you deserve.
Also, Marik, there's a plugin loader out there for Morrowind (Sorry, i really can't remember the name) which speeds up loading times and also tests them for compatability errors and such. It's a great little tool.
Anyway -- I lied when I said I do not use plugins. I use all the official ones.
<b>Bank</b>
Adds a bank to a few of the major cities. You can deposit money, withdraw, take out a loan, and\or buy a house. The really nice thing about this mod is that it adds a quite a few habitable houses around the place.
<b>Stock market</b>
Kinda goes with the bank. Allows you to buy and sell shares in the three Great Houses. Values fluctuate, occasionally one will go bust.
<b>Assassin's Armoury</b>
Adds a whole pile of new weapons to the game such as sickles, scythes, arm blades, glass katanas and wakizashis, sais (those three-pronged daggers Raphael the Ninja Turtle uses) and gold weaponry. In addition, it adds a bunch of "shield" versions of various weapons so that you can have two ebony war axes, or two steel katanas, or two glass wakizashis (you can't attack with the offhand one, unfortunately - only block with it).
<b>Private Mobile Base</b> (for high-end characters only)
I say "for high-end characters only" because nobody else will be able to afford it. It's a flying mansion. The list of features is incredible, it's really well-made, and it's by no means overpowering (if you want a house with alchemy labs, several bedrooms, massive storage areas, training simulations, and the ability to fly it to several of the major cities of Morrowind you'd better be prepared to pay cold hard cash for it, and a LOT).
<b>Twin Lamps</b>
Fleshes out the Twin Lamps faction, an anti-slavery society that already exists in the world of Morrowind but doesn't come into the game much.
All of these can be found at <a href='http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/mods/mods_sql.asp' target='_blank'>The Morrowind Summit</a>. While you're there, download my Diablo II weapons and items plugin <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->.
The Diablo, Diablo 2 and Dungeon Siege "RPGs" are more hack and slash than actual roleplaying.