I thought that neverwinter nights shadows of undrentide wasnt very great. The whole beginning it was screaming for me to go solo and after chapter 1 Xanos died and Dorna was useless compared to my character. On top of that, the game was so linear you really couldnt go somewhere else and I am guessing that the other Neverwinter game catalog is like that.
This could have been a great game if-

-You could control at least 3 characters who are under your full control. (There were times they still didnt listen)

-It wasnt so freakishly hard. This could have been prevented with random encounters.

-This was an infinity engine game. This would have made most of the bugs less severe. The game crashed a record of 30 times in total. While Infinity engine wasnt perfect, the engine of neverwinter is so flawed its not playable in its current form.

I stopped playing when I got to Undrentide chapter 2. I didnt want to see how lame the main fight was going to be so I left the character I made. It seems like the only game systems that implemented D and D rules of 3rd edition successfully were Icewind Dale 2 and Kotor 1 and 2. And because kotor wasnt a d and d game, thats pretty bad.

That's an unusual amount of crashing. My experience has been the opposite, that NWN1 is the most stable of the D&D games.

I will agree that companions/cohorts/henchmen are the weakest point of the NWN series. The selection is meager, the personalities are mostly bland, and in the case of SoU they're mostly borderline incompetent due to horrifically bad multi-classing decisions. Coming from the IE games, which featured richly detailed companions and great controls, you have to wonder "what happened?"

Personally, I blame the difficulty on the poor companions. The game pretty much presumes the main character will be carrying the party in combat, so if you can't the difficulty becomes (as you put it) freakishly hard.

The general linearity of SoU is a criticism I'd agree with. Chapter 1 was alright, but after that it was a tightly-orchestrated railroad. It doesn't even have the excuse of being from the "full voice-over" era where every minor NPC is expected to have sound assets (which, in turn, means tight budgetary constraints).

I loved the game, but the three campaigns are the weakest part of the whole thing, although HotU is pretty damned solid. Yeah, the lack of companions under your full control is a bit of a shocker after playing the IE games, but in HotU you can at least have 2 companions in your party (and they're more intelligently built than the ones in SoU).

You can mod it though to improve it a lot. TonyK's henchmen and battle AI makes your companions (as well as your opponents) act a lot more intelligently, and OldMansBeard's mod that allows you to create and manage your own party makes the game a lot closer to the IE experience.

As for the 3.x rules, the game actually does a good job with the rule set overall. It's the AI and campaign design that has the most flaws, IMO.

But this game shines in community made modules and in multiplayer. This is easily the game I've invested the most hours into of all the games I've ever played.

NWN2 allows you more party control, much closer to the IE experience.

I would have gone further in the game, but honestly if you even knew some of the trickery I had to use against the gray salad, then you'd wish you never played it. I had to kill the red slaads by themselves and then lure the ant people to attack the Gray slaad. From there I backstabbed him and got lucky the ant guy matriarch was dead.

Basically, the point I learned about real time party games is this-the only ones worth playing through are Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 and Planescape. Other than that, the rest are just crap. Real time combat doesn't work and is too unpredictable. If this was turn based like fallout 1 and 2, my character would not have run into these problems.

Real time combat is just too unpredictable. Since when is a character who puts all his points in strength having trouble hitting an enemy. If it takes more than 2 swings to hit an enemy, the game is doing something wrong. The turn based d and d games are more like this. The real time ones have better visuals but thats about it.

The games crash on start 1 out of 5 times and when changing music as well. On top of this, computers in the past wouldn't run it without major problems.




The last boss is probably impossible. The undead mummy guy is a classless hebrew but the funny thing is that I had to save in the middle of the fight. I would load a save where the enemy missed 3 attacks and my character hit a few times. If that wasn't there the game would be physically impossible because if you miss a few attacks the enemy hits a few times your fucked.

That undead fight if you don't save vs. fear you run away for like 5 rounds (Also not in the original baldurs gate, ice wind dale and ps T).

Heurodis being a medusa, she is probably the kike of the ages and you won't even be able to face her. She will make you turn to stone, or run in fear. What a jew!

Neverwinter Nights is one long catalogue of 'what were they thinking!'

The camera... oh, that camera!
Fugly, unnatural looking NPCs.
Only 1 henchman -- battles too easy, even then.
Utterly broken AI.
The camera... oh, that camera!
Crap fonts.
The camera... oh, that camera!
Why are summons SO big with such a crappy pathfinding/AI implementation? Amazing stupidity!
Crappy, broken automap.
The camera... oh, that camera!

... the list goes on, but I'm going to stop there as I do actually like the game. Odd? Yes, I think so too.

The game was alright with what I played it. I prefer Knights of the Chalice and planning out every move. Neverwinter Nights is basically Divine Divinity that tries to play being a group game. None of the characters in Shadows of Undrentide were useful so the game takes the idea that the module is a solo game. Once I figured this out in the interlude I dropped the game fast for something else.
I only play games with a party mindset. Neverwinters 1 from what I played is a solo game with all its sequels and modules following in suit. Try Knights of the Chalice, Temple of Elemental Evil, Eye of the Beholder on Gameboy advance. Those games are fun adaptions!

But how do they make the game impossible for jew heurodis? Once this thought ocurred to me, I realized that NO ONE can beat the game. If she sees you you get turned to stone plus she is a lich. I probably should have never read about her as I found that no one has beaten the game yet.

Well, all I can say here is there are legions of fans of the game that would disagree with you on this point. Are you basing this on the combat log or on the visual? Don't make the mistake of the latter, since you'll see the character swing on-screen a number of times, but that doesn't mean you actually have an attack. As well, were you buffing your character? Potions and items help a lot in this game. I'm just finding it odd that you are reporting this kind of problem with a STR-based character that (I assume from your post) is built to concentrate on STR. I have to disagree with this statement. I played the game on an old Dell system, a system I built myself (Asus mobo with an AMD 3200+ processor), another self-built machine with a dual core Intel (E6750) and have it installed on my self-built Win7 64-bit rig (Intel i7 920 processor) and an array of video cards from a lowly nvidia FX5200 right up to a GTX 560ti (and one old Radeon card in the Dell machine). Although I can't claim the game never crashed, it certainly didn't very often. It was a damned rare event. That fear effect in NWN is completely ridiculous and one of the things you could add to Hickory's list of 'What were they thinking?' (although I disagree with the camera complaint - not sure what the issue is with that) But by that point you should have items and/or potions to protect against the fear effect.

I don't understand. Are you seriously suggesting that nobody has ever beaten SoU? Take a look on YouTube.

The combination of SR and resistances makes the Formians and Slaads pretty nasty. It's one of those fights that's either easy because you have the right tools for the job, or really hard because you don't. The math of how attack rolls work is unrelated to the real-time implementation. Without looking at your character it's difficult to say, but "Rogue" is a bit of a red flag. For some reason, the Rogue and Monk are the only classes that have neither spellcasting ability nor base attack bonus. As a result, they don't have the accuracy or sheer number of attacks of classes like the Fighter, but they also lack innate spellcasting abilities to compensate. They're not unplayable, but it's definitely a weaker class in combat without significant multi-classing. If you have the Necklace of Fireballs you find in the interlude, she's actually really easy. She's basically just a Sorcerer who has plot immunity until you blast her precious power sources (Necklace of Fireballs lets you do this almost instantly) at which points she drops like a lamb. Monsters can have class levels in 3rd edition. While NWN does frequently take liberty with monster stats, in principle a Mummy Cleric can be totally by-the-book in 3E.

And yes, he's a nasty fight. A high-level Cleric with all the abilities of a mummy on top of it is just plain hard. There's plenty of stuff in the IE game series that will insta-gib you if you don't have the right counter-measures. The exact effects differ from AD&D to 3E, but the principle is the same. Fear effects (which often have ludicrous DC's) are the worst offenders in NWN. There are lots of ways to become immune to fear, however, so once you know the right response it's not that big a deal. Stockpile on potions of clarity (immunity to a whole bunch of nasty status ailments, including fear) and chug one back in these kinds of encounters and you'll be fine.

Having given up before reaching the undead fight in question (to echo earlier sentiments, "oh dear god, the camera!" and add a dash of "oh dear god, the plot!"), I can verify that the real time combat style at play here definitely makes the outcome drastically different from a turn based system like Fallout, or for that matter, even the IE games (with which I have many a bugbear). Ok, sure, IE already produced results that never would happen in a PnP D&D/Fallout or even Wasteland system, but it at least the action wasn't nearly as chaotic as it was here.

To give an example, I rolled up some stats for a Rogue; she wasn't exactly the strongest thing ever, but I made sure to invest in traps and took weapon finesse. My plan was to scout ahead, and when the enemy found me, turn tail and run; upon following me, the enemy would find my henchman and I lying in wait at a doorway, blocking anyone from coming in and flanking us while we cut them down (maybe getting in a few attacks of opportunity on people who moved up to replace their fallen comrades), and if things started to go tits-up, we would retreat down the corridor I had laced with traps, repeating our schtick at the next doorway. Not exactly the most elegant plan, but I was going for more of a stealth-based character, and doing that requires pulling a few dirty tricks to make combat less awful.

Problem is, it would have definitely worked if the game went turn by turn (well, assuming I had more control over my henchmen), and it could have even worked under IE what with everyone standing still while they fought. In NWN 1, the PC and henchmen keeps dancing about with five foot steps, despite my best attempts. That might not sound like a problem, but when it results in one of the party moving forward through the doorway and getting flanked murdered, it definitely gets a bit grating. That's not even mentioning all the other ways that this can result in accidental flanking during combat.

The 'dance of death' is another one of those issues with NWN, no question. But your scenario in question re the Rogue tactics are pretty much attainable. I prefer Rogue-type characters and play them more than any other. The key here is knowing that the game AI is terrible, so you need to command your companion to stand their ground at the furthest point back. Draw the mob(s) with a sneak attack first strike, then flee back through your minefield. Once they reach you and your companion (heavily damaged if you laid a good trap field), command the companion to attack and get yourself in flanking position. It works like a charm. I've done it this way any number of times.

Let's be clear: it's nowhere near a perfect game. But many of the 'flaws' pointed out about it in this thread are, IMO, easily overcome by adjusting tactics.

But I think it boils down to what a person prefers. In the end, if you don't lean towards a preference to RTwP gameplay, you'll find all kinds of things to take issue with in the NWN games.

Î What he said.

The difficulty varies from near impossible to darn easy, all depending on your character build and how well you use the class abilities.
Non-warrior classes with medium base attack bonus just don't hit nearly as welll as fighter types, so they need some extra edge.

The most difficult fights, against well buffed sorcerers or lichs or other casters can be real damn hard. Or alternatively, if you can distract them with summons and blast from afar they can be a pushover. Or if you have knockdown feat, they're almost completely helpless against you: knockdown, slash when they're helpless, knockdown, slash again, repeat.

I want to say I am sorry for the remarks. They have nothing to do with the game whatsoever and only make me look more ridiculous. It's my own fault for not being able to get across the game but I only make it worse when I take my anger out on stupid stuff.
I am not used to games when I cant figure out what to do in a few tries but that doesnt mean that I should hate on stuff. Maybe the game is just not for me rather than hating on it. I hope you all will forgive me for my stupidly made remarks.

The game was incessantly crashing on you. That qualifies as a good reason to be frustrated in my books.