The problem I have with the OC is that, while you could go do the main quest immediately, you are expected to go off in a completely different direction to do another quest through some boring areas just because you need the exp.

Compounding that is the problem I have with the whole game that I thought NWN2 fixed well: the annoyingness of the quickbar. Rearranging the quickbar is annoying because you have to remove each icon then reassign it, not to mention that the circle menu is just hard to cast spells from. The quickcast menu in NWN2 is my personal favorite addition to the game.

I actually liked the OC of NWN. I played it with a half-elven bard who was terribly built because I used the Recommended button for the first few levels. Still had a blast though, even if my build suffered because of my early choices.

I get kind of hung up on the OC, still haven't beat it after owning NWN1 for quite a few years now. Parts of it are very good, and parts just feel tedious. I basically stopped playing during the whole Words of Power part. Just kept running around feeling bored on a quest that I should technically like cause it's my style of quest (the trial sidequest).

Regarding it's sequel, I really like NWN2's OC AFTER you get to chapter 2. The prologue and chapter 1 are rather tedious for me but the game just really picks itself up during chapter 2. NWN1 I think I'm on chapter 3 or 4 and I still feel like I enjoyed chapter 1's story more than what I'm doing now.

Don't buy NWN (or NWN2 for that matter) for the SP.

Buy it for the endless multi-player it gives you.

Not everybody like multi-player. I play single-player for the most part. There's tons of great single player modules that are created by the community.

Exactly.

I've never played NWN multiplayer, and don't intend to.

I have however spent upwards of 100 hours on the OC and various modules.

I'm in the same boat as both of you. The closest I'll ever come to multiplayer is playing the campaigns co-op. Aside from that I have no interest in the multiplayer and would much rather have really good single player modules to keep me busy.

Sounds like some of you are limiting you options. There are a lot of servers out there. Just because it is a Server does not mean that you have to play it as a multi player game. When I first started playing on one server, I was over 30th level before I got over my shiness and talked to someone. I have made some good friends from the servers since that time since that time. Where there are some servers out there that may force a multi-Player type of play, This is by no means all of them.

Sorry for the rant, I just noticed that tis is way off topic for the original post.

I just don't like people. Hell, I tend to only play multiplayer games alone with bots.

The main problem I have with getting into multi is getting all the mods needed for each server, though I do plan to get into it soon, I just haven't wanted to put in the time up until now.

Actually my awrd to most boring game Bioware ever created would go to the oh so much a sacred cow "Baldur's Gate" :P Most people consider BG to be 'perfectly balanced/blended, whatever. I found it overly ambitious and therefore not excelling at any one aspect. It didn't hurt that just about every character in that game made me grind my teeth in irritatrion.

I love NWN and the OC is a lot of fun to me. I loved Torment as well and Icewind Dale 1&2. KOTOR etc. What I think sets all these apart is that they knew what they wanted to be and were that. For example Icewind Dale was an action RPG, no question. Torment much to BG fan's protestation far and away is the best "roleplaying" experience available from Bioware, and that includesd Dragon Age and Mass Effect, they don't approach Torment. Neverwinter Nights is what it is: a toolset to create adventure's for a single player interface.

Notice I didn't say "single player." The key here is that the toolset sets up a world to be explored and all things in it. You as a player go out and explore this created world. You can do that alone, with AI henchman, with familiars, etc. Or you can find other players and do it together. Depending on your preferences you can essentially do just about anything here. But the game itself is essentially a world/plotline creator that offers you the interface to play however YOU want to. The rest is up to you. I love this ability to do whatever I wish while still having an interesting narrative to follow. But that's just me, it may be why I don't like a lot of the Japanese RPG games as well. If I ever have to watch more than 4 10 minute long cutscenes in the first hour or I have my character control usurped and ewatch them do something particularly stupid in midgame to 'advance the plot"' I generally turn the game off and never return. If I wanted to watch an anime I have Wicked City, if I wanted to watch people do stupid things to get themselves killed I have horror films available.

I'm just finishing HotU and everything I said in the first post remains true. These three are among the very best RPGs I have ever played. Not a dull moment as a single player. I love 2D rendered graphics, but the so called blocky 3D graphics in NWN are gorgeous if you play the game in high resolution. I'm not talking about realism, but sheer beauty of colors and settings. And the camera is just perfect, much better than in Dragon Age. I want to play as many modules as I can. Talk about an underrated game. And I hope NWN 2 won't let me down. Thanks for all your comments.

What did you think of the first chapter of SoU?

Better than the first chapter of the OC, which is the only relatively weak chapter of all three games, IMHO.

Hope so as well. I liked it a lot, but... how they managed to move from NWN1 camera system to NWN2 system boggles the mind! A steep steep curve to accepting the many changes made to a near perfect system that was NWN. But give it a chance anyway. I learned to live with it, even if I never learned to love it like the first one.