I have NWN Diamond ed and am seriously thinking about getting NWN2 but want some info before committing. Is NWN:EE superior to NWN2? Is NWN:EE worth getting if I have Diamons ed?

Everyone will have their own opinion. I asked the same question about whether the EE was worth getting. I just went ahead and did it, since it wasn't that expensive. There's no visual difference with EE and Diamond, no better game mechanics. For the most part though, you're not getting anything extra. Some PWs might benefit from it in the future.

For NWN2... well it's a new game. You get 3 new campaigns, plus whatever mods you can download that are just for NWN2.

The biggest difference in gameplay between the two is that NWN2 uses the 3.5 ruleset and allows for control of more than just your character with a henchman. You can have 4 controllable characters in your party, or let the AI do it's suicide attacks.

As far as storlines go. The OC wasn't that bad to me, though there were a few portions of the game where it just seemed like they made particular maps large just to make the game take longer. The first expansion is supposed to be your character from the OC, and goes to epic levels. The next expansion allows you to create a party of up to 4 characters and has nothing to do with the other 2 campaigns.

I'd say pickup the 2nd one.

NWN2 (bad camera, terrible group AI, bad scripts, ...) was already inferior to NWN1, so take NWN:EE

If you don't have NWN2, then you should get it. NWN EE has very little changes in comparison to original and it's not worth the price, unless your planning to play online. NWN2 is more similar to Baldur's Gate series than the first one and it includes a masterpiece campaign Mask of the Batrayer. If you like the classic Infinity Engine games, you'll like NWN2 a lot more than NWN1 despite some flaws like camera management. That's ridiculous. The guy never played NWN2, has NWN Diamond and you're suggesting him to buy almost the same game once again instead of a sequel? Almost every aspect of NWN2 is better than NWN1 (storytelling, NPCs, dialogues, graphics, items etc.). Ok, I agree with the camera thing, but who uses group AI in a game like this? You pause the game and give orders to every character. This is how it's supposed to be played. I understand that you may not like team RPG's, but that doesn't make this kind of games inferior.

Just get NWN2, that's all.

Better story (especially the Mask of the Betrayer expansion), better interaction between NPCs. It's almost as good as NWN: Diamond Edition.

If you are wondering what's down the road for NWN:EE, you can check out this "road map" from Beamdog.
https://trello.com/b/K0C0i8wF/neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition

If you want to play it now and be done with it, NW2 might be the better choice. But if you're expecting to return and want the product to last, NWN:EE might be your thing since it seems to have more going for it. Also, NWN:EE has online multiplayer.

On the other hand, NW2 will also last a long time with all the campaigns included. From what I've heard, Mask of Betrayer is supposed to be excellent.

I had summarized my view 3 years ago here.


In shortest: Definitely buy NWN2.

In short: NWN 1 and 2 are highly different games and the play style is very different. Only thing they have common is the D&D 3 ruleset (which is even different since NWN2 uses 3.5 while NWN uses 3.0) So whether either of them is superior is based on preference rather than quality.

In NWN1, Bioware tried to mimic Diablo 2's success. It is a single hero with henchman. Random loot. More action oriented. Weird huge inventory. Graphics are mostly ugly. It is a solid game nonetheless.

NWN2, which is made by Obsidian, brought back the party based concept just like Baldur's Gate. No random loot. Graphics are alot more beautiful. ALL (including the OC) campaigns are very fun to play. LOTS OF BUGS.

NWN1:EE. I see no reason to get that unless you are interested in playing multiplayer which I heard they made some enhancements. I never had any problems with playing MP with the NWN:Diamond. There is some 4K screen thing...

Yes, if you like bugs and badly designed features, chose NWN2.

I've encountered almost no bugs on my playthrough with all available patches guys (and this is the version that's on GOG). I'm talking about all of the official campaigns. I have a feeling that you exaggerate a little. Or was I so lucky?

NWN2 has a bad camera, but NWN:EE is made by a company with a reputation for editing classic games to insert SJW content. I also didn't really like the NWN2 story or soundtrack as much, but to each his own.

I'd just play The Witcher series instead of either at this point I think.

It's been a while since I played it, but I recall the kingdom management part of OC had a bunch of things that did not work properly. Camera is goofy - always bumping into walls and ceilings, etc.. Pathfinding is sometimes problematic. Until you master (and find) the various controls it is tricky to get your party to do a good job in melee.

Not that I'm complaining. I think NWN2 is great! One of my favorites. Nothing I listed above is a deal-breaker, as far as I am concerned.

I play GOG version too. I describe BUG as something the coders were not able to foresee that the players would do. So, if you played the game logically, you shouldn't have much issue. The problem happens when you go out of the way and try something crazy.

However, since NWN2 has a serious amount of bugs like the load problem where extra spells are lost, I believe you just did not care about those small issues or did not notice them at all. For example this one I wrote on my review. Still, as alcaray said, I loved NWN2 and it is a great game, made with love despite its terrible design and coding.

I'm not sure you can call the camera or pathfinding issues a bug. These are rather gameplay flaws. Anyway, I agree with those. Problematic things, but you can get used to them.

Yeah, I've noticed the problem with additional spells. But it was the same in NWN Diamond, when I played it a few weeks ago. I don't know if this was fixed in the EE version. It's less disturbing there, because you control only one character.

It will be baked into the code. A status flag will be, by default, off (meaning the spells have been cast) when loading a game. A permanent world would alleviate this. You see a similar mechanic, say, when you edit a Baldur's Gate savegame in Dalekeeper; the characters all have maximum hitpoints when the game is loaded, since the status was lost (an assumption in Dalekeeper).
If there is no provision for the status of these supplemental spells/spell-like abilities to be monitored (i.e., kept in a register) in the engine, then they will be spent by default, it seems.

That is the crux of it. If you already have NWN:DE, it makes a lot more sense to spend money on NWN2, which gives you a whole new game, instead of small tweaks (largely irrelevant while playing) on what you already have. If you have NWN:DE, I would only recommend NWN:EE at this time, if you have problems running NWN:DE.