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Could have been so much more

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: August 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Let me preface by saying that I followed NWN's development almost from the moment it was announced. I waited with great anticipation for its release and paid full price for it the day it came out. I was ready to overlook some minor flaws because I had seen the game and read the hype and I just knew it was right up my alley.

I want to give this game more than 3 stars, I really do, and I don't want anyone to get the impression that this is not a fantastic feat of programming, because it absolutely is, but there are disappointments that must be addressed.

First of all, the game is skewed toward melee classes. I played a monk with a cleric henchman and had no need for a magic user. The appeal of D&D and other RPGs is the fact that different skills are needed and that they enhance one another. In NWN, at least in the included campaign, fighters and healers will do the job. Magic-users are superfluous.

Second, money and treasure are far too easy to acquire. Upon completing the single player game, my monk had several hundred thousand gold pieces and was selling nice enchanted weapons and armor because he couldn't hold them and already had the top of the line. This kills the incentive to continue in a big way.

Third, your character maxes out at level 20. If you play the single player game all the way through, you will get to level 20, period. It is too easy to get there and once you do get there, what next? Why keep playing that character online or elsewhere? Another incentive killer.

Fourth, the pre-release press promised everything the 3rd ed rules had. In anticipation, I purchased the Monster Manual. Well, most of the monsters aren't in the game (not just the single player, but the toolset as well), including some very popular opponents, and there's no way to create your own monsters, so unless BioWare plans to release a monster library, you're stuck with just a few of the monsters. Examples of missing monsters include Kobolds, Gelatinous Cubes, Owlbears, and Manticores, just to name a few.

Fifth, the toolset is very easy if you just want to place monsters and treasure, but if you want to add some complex puzzles, you will have to learn C++ (or a close facsimile). Don't expect to fire it up and whip out a creative module. It will take some time, and be prepared for all of your locations to be rectangular grids.

Having said all this, NWN is a good game, but it is not the ultimate CRPG. I would recommend it for all CRPG fans, but you may want to let the price drop a tad. In the meantime, I'm crossing my fingers for a FREE monster expansion.

"Toolset" is easy to use, and incredibly powerful.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 22 / 34
Date: March 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

No one has yet really encompassed how incredible the toolset really is. I have seen a video of one of the developers designing a map and then playing it. It was awe-inspiring. At first it seemed exactly like Starcraft's map editor, he simply clicked on a tile type and started dragging around his cursor on the map, creating rooms. He then made one room into an island over lava, the editor automatically created the island effect when he circled lava around it, and then he placed a load of creatures in almost EXACTLY the same way as with starcraft. He then, without changing modes or rendering, zoomed in and panned up, so as to look at his dungeon in a first person view. My jaw dropped, and then it dropped lower. He double clicked on a creature and loaded up its AI script - C++, and started to change how it would react to different players. Then he went to another option, a much more simple to use and user friendy program, and edited the dialogue that the creature would use in different situations! The whole dungeon took about 10 minutes to create.

He then saved and loaded up NWN, and went straight into his dungeon. It took him about 30 minutes to finish playing it.

My somewhat long-winded point is this, with 10 minutes of programming, he had 30 minutes of quite enjoyable playing time. What can a person do with a few days? Especially when, unlike with starcraft, multiple maps can be stacked easily and efficiently in their intuitive "module" design, each new map being about 32x32 tiles big (or smaller if chosen, and it should be noted that the 30 minute dungeon was 10x16 and did not come close to using up all of its space).

For the toolset alone, I cannot WAIT to get NWN.

Worth the wait

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 18
Date: July 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Neverwinter Nights is, overall, fantastic in just the single-player game. The additions of the toolset, the multiplayer capability, and the chance to play with or be a DM make it well worth the money. Once we start seeing some of the creative efforts of our fellow NWN module-makers, we may find that this is a game that keeps us entertained for years.

The single-player game is addictive, fun, and at times annoying. Some good points?

* There is an incredible amount of flexibility when creating characters. It's possible to make a wise but unintelligent, blue-skinned, red-haired Half-Orc Cleric who has purple and green tattoos and who can disable traps and pick pockets. If you're unsatisfied with some of your early skills, you can add new ones as you advance in level. This is the only game of this type that I have played where I didn't end up deleting my first character and making a new one because my first character was too flawed to be any fun. I played through to the end with my very first character.

* The NWN story is often both truly inspired and visually impressive. I've rarely seen anything in any game that compares to the lovely but dark and foreboding Neverwinter Wood, where light slants through the forest and tiny golden motes of sunlight flicker and dance. Here you find that the Spirit of the Wood has been poisoned, causing the forest creatures to ruthlessly attack any who dare enter. Your choice is to kill or heal the Spirit, but to do so, you must first commit suicide. Here also you will find Charwood, a town where an unspeakable crime has taken place, causing it to become trapped in time. In order to discover the nature of the crime and help return the town to the normal timestream, you must enter a haunted castle, interrogate two brothers and then judge between them. A little searching may reveal that there is more to their story than first meets the eye. You will also find yourself exploring ancient ruins for lost tomes of knowledge and artifacts of unusual power, battling and aiding dragons, and gazing into a mysterious snow globe.

* The quests are many and varied. You can explore and talk to all the NPCs if you want to, picking up as many side quests as you'd like, or ignore that aspect of the game and stick to the main quest exclusively. There are often different ways to solve individual quests. You may be asked to rid the countryside of a troublesome bandit, but in order to collect your reward, you must return with his head. When you finally find him, he begs for his life. Do you forgive his past crimes and let him go, ignoring your reward, do you kill him anyway and collect, or do you find some other solution?

* The number of weapons, armor, clothing, jewelry, scrolls, gems, magical items, and books is amazing. It's sometimes hard to decide which pair of boots you'd prefer to wear.

Some of the bad?

* Oh, those annoying henchmen! The addition of a henchman is supposed to make the game easier, but in some ways, it makes it more difficult. The henchmen will do as they're told - for about 5 seconds. After that, they're again heedlessly rushing into danger while you're still trying to figure out where they've run off to. You may spend more time trying to protect your henchman than vice versa.

* The writing is cliched or childish in some spots. The main storyline involves an NPC who is first presented as strong, intelligent, caring leader. An unexpected plot twist leaves the NPC devastated, and the subsequent descent into evil seemed forced, out of character, and silly.

* The ending was rather disappointing, merely hinting at expansion packs yet to come. I felt like I'd just finished reading the first installment of a trilogy without knowing that it was a trilogy when I bought it.

NWN = Faster more efficient D&D

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 44 / 86
Date: October 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Although this game is still not released it is already revolutionizing modern gameplay. Neverwinter Nights combines real-time game play, very customizable and fully rendered graphics, and all the customization capability of Dungeons and Dragons. Users will be able to use the exact same tools that Bioware used to make their campain to make their own. You will be able to create weapons with customizable
- blades
- guards
- pommels
The Armor Customization lets you change all the following pieces individually from a huge library of models.
- Base
- Neck
- Torso
- Pelvis
- Right Shoulder
- Left Shoulder
- Right Bicep
- Left Bicep
- Right Forearm
- Left Forearm
- Right Hand
- Left Hand
- Thighs
- Shins
- Feet

Beyond this when making your own modules you can place "encounters" instead of painting down enemies. Encounters calculate the power of a party and add monsters of the appropriate difficulty based on your requirements. THus, no matter whose playing the encounter will have teh same difficulty.

This game will be amazing.

ARGH! Where's the love? Where's the party?Oh, the humanity.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 18 / 27
Date: March 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has fine graphics, and an awesome dungeon builder. That said, it is best bought only if you plan on playing online. Playing with one other Player Character(PC) I got bored after I made it out of chapter 1. Having only 1 traveling companion if you choose not to play online sucks. There's no party drama, which I had come to appreciate and want from Black Isles Entertainment, the way you read a good novel and wait for the next one from an author. After BGII, everyone was crazy for that sort of interaction. If you read reviews, you'll see people would watch family memebers play instead of tv. There's tons of fan fiction devoted to Baldur's Gate. The plot and the chracters were unforgettable, always taking a twist for the unexpected, and made people laugh, cry, and learn philosophy. Neverwinter is totally predictable, and does not have the depth of BG or
Planescape: Torment. What is up with this! Come on, I know you guys have good writers.

What can I say

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 19
Date: July 31, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have always wanted to get completly addicted to a game. I've seen my friends do it, talk about people they know on-line, make webpages, just go all out. Never been able to do that... till now. If you are a fan of RPG's, then you must have this game. I grew up with D&D and other role-playing games (took me years to convince my grandmother that I was NOT going to go on a killing spree because I played dungeons and dragons), and this is what it is all about. Granted, there are things you can do in the PnP (pen and paper) that you can't here, but it would be impossible to duplicate the human imagination onto the computer.

To tell the truth, the single player only gets about 3 stars. I enjoyed it, beat it in about a weeks time. Alot of plot twists and all. Also, I should confess, I did almost give up on the game when I first tryed multiplayer. Finding a random game is a mess on gamespy. Fortanly I found a web-site that matches real players up with games. I now run a weekly game that I built myself with the toolset, and play in a couple. Everyone roleplays, everyone stays in character. Nobody worries about what level their character is, just because the people I play with are more worried about the story being told to them. Yes, I have played everquest and diablo 2, and if the most important thing to you is making sure your character is a high level, then more power to you. This is a game about story.. but you have to find the right people (my e-mail should be up there, I will tell you the site to go to if you are a serious role-player).

Also, I have to mention the toolset. I have NO knowlage of the scripting, I do not have the world builders guild, but I had to start running the module that I made twice a week because of how many people wanted to play it and couldn't because my regular game was full. It takes a couple of hours of playing around, doing a search or two on the bioware forums if you need a qustion answered (or knowing someone who did it already), but after that, I can make a new dungeon with monsters and a plot to why the players would ever want to go there in about 20 minutes.

To end.. just get this game if you are a true role-playing game fan.

A game for some but not for others...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: January 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

There are so many reviews that have been posted that all of the major plusses and minuses have been addressed. The one thing I am writing to emphasize is that your enjoyment of this game will depend on two things: 1) do you love pen and paper roleplaying and 2) do you intend to play NWN online?

Think of NWN as pen and paper role playing taken to the next level. The engine itself is a facilitator to bring a diverse group of gamers together from around the world for a game session. If you would never play a pen and paper game session in the first place, forget about NWN because it will be nothing special to you. If the idea of seeing what technology can do to good old fashion pen and paper role-playing is appealing -- check out NWN.

Likewise, if you are planning to play this game as a single-player RPG then skip it -- there are better single-player RPGs out there. Where the game really shines is when you play it online with other players or to play other MODs that fans have developed. If you are looking for the next Diablo, Baldur's Gate or Icewindale, NWN is not it.

That said, I love pen and paper role play and I play NWN online and I love this game.

Some very nice aspects to the game, but overall, a let down.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 24
Date: September 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'm gonna go over this review step by step, critiquing sound and graphics, gameplay, D&D implementation, single-player storyline, the toolset, and multiplayer play. Then at the end, I'll try and sum it all up.

1. Sound and Graphics.

This game is absolutely tremendous from this aspect. Basically we have here a game with a *minimum* resolution of 800x600, and w/ all the fancy effects and graphics turned off, it still looks amazing. Albeit, this makes it run a bit sluggish, even on high-end computers, but that's to be expected. Overall you have amazing environment sounds, the sound of clanging swords in combat, different phrases being uttered during magic spells, and a great deal of voice sets to choose from, to top that. As far as graphics go, you have some very crisp locales, and some extremely impressive lighting effects as well. Every character moves realistically in combat, moving and parrying almost as a real person might. In the aesthetic area, the game deserves a 5 all the way.

2. Gameplay.

Overall, the gameplay was a let down. And a fairly big one. In the beginning, it's fun to combat in the 3D world (and generally it stays that way), and the controls, the quick-slot menus, etc. is all very nice. But then you get hit with other things. After character creation, when you level up, you get to increase various skills (which i thought were pretty badly lacking, and if I'm not mistaken there were under 20), and feats (which are fairly plentiful, but so many of them were actually not implemented, and some quite uselessly in the game, I didn't feel there was much at all going on). And as we all know, gameplay is the most important thing in a game, and because of the fact I beleive the game deserves a 2 in this aspect, really takes a toll on its overall score.

3. D&D Implementation.

The D&D Implementation here was pretty bad, and severely lacking IMO. First of all, 3rd Ed. is just pretty bad in general, compared to 2nd Ed., and the worst part is that so little was actually implemented into the game. only a fraction of the feats, skills, and spells were implemented, and the DM function is not nearly as rich as it would be in a D&D game, rather then the DM actually taking much action, the modules just unfold themselves in the storyline. More importantly, only the basic classes were available, absolutely no prestige classes. This made me pretty disappointed, as I was looking forward to playing a Psion, a Gatecrasher, etc. Now, you might think this is a lot to ask, but in fact, the toolset features no ability to add classes either, making it even more disappointing, as I would have been content to just add them myself.

4. Storyline.

The story line is actually quite well written. I won't reveal any of it, but suffice it to say, it was extremely original, rich, and character development was pretty good. The dialogue and voice-acting was top notch, and overall, I was quite happy to play through the game, just to discover the storyline completely. It deserves a 4 or 5 in this category.

5. The Toolset.

The toolset for the game is actually acceptable. I won't go into too much detail here, but overall it had some features that were nice, everything you might expect from building an environment from scratch, and also the ability to edit some creatures, items, and graphics in general. However, as I mentioned above, being that there was no option to edit races, or add prestige classes for that matter, the toolset was more just for your average modder, than a creative DM. I'd give the toolset a 2 or 3, being that it's not bad, but very, very mediocre.

6. The Multiplayer Game.

The multiplayer game in NWN is alright. It can be fun to go on a LAN and play together, but generally, it lacks all the richness of a pen and paper game, and there is little to be gained from a multiplayer game. Overall, the choice to have one was nice, but I don't think it is anything all that spectacular, a 3.

Overall, the game was a let down, as I said. I'd say, buy it if the idea appeals to you, but don't expect to be on the edge of your seat, after playing for a couple hours.

An ambitious experiment in PC gaming but a failure

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: August 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Neverwinter Nights is really not a computer game in the traditional sense. It's more of an electronic version of the pen and paper role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. If you are an avid D&D player who can't get your group together at your own house, you now have the internet to do it. While this is fine for pen and paper D&D groupies, the rest of us are left out in the cold.

Basically, Neverwinter Nights is set up in the hopes that a community will help it grow. The game comes with a sample campaign to play but it also comes with a complete editor that lets anyone design their own D&D adventures. Either with the official campaign included in box or some of the community made mods (there are already 500+ available online), you can play Neverwinter Nights by yourself or online with a group of players. To further enhance the pen and paper D&D experience, there is even a dungeon master client in the game. If you don't know what a dungeon master is I can already tell you you're purchasing the wrong game. Basically, a DM watches over the mod and controls the adventure to hopefully provide a better game for the players. Sort of like an invisible referee.

This all sounds great when reading it on the back of the box but I'm not sure it really works. For one thing, while the editor has a lot of capabilities, every map has that same square-look to it to fit in the D&D grid system. Nothing looks natural and after playing a few mods you've seen everything the game has to offer and it all starts to repeat itself. Also, for a game that relies on the community to invent new adventures, the editor is more difficult than it should be. If you don't know programming basics, you're going to have a difficult time with the editor as every simple action has to be scripted which is basically simple C+ programming. To accomodate this new system and catch up with its competitors, Neverwinter Nights also has a new 3-D system that reminds me of hack and slash games like Diablo more than the company's previous classic release Baldur's Gate I and II. In fact, the official campaign included in the game is NOTHING compared to the Baldur's Gate games and I would recommend that you not buy this game if the official campaign is the only thing you will play. The included campaign is boring, linear and not that creative, it's more of a sample for the editor rather than an epic adventure.

If you plan on only playing online, be careful if you only have a 56K modem. You'll never be able to host more than 3 players on your computer without lag. Also, you'll have a difficult time joining the large servers with 20+ players if your connection is slow. Neverwinter Nights comes with an ingame browser that divides online games by category. You can join the action channel, the roleplaying channel, etc. Most of these games are called persistent worlds and are basically smaller versions of Everquest. While they can be for awhile because of their small size and limited equipment, quests, etc., they never provide much fun. The best way to play the game is to get together with a group of friends and meet on a weekly basis just like you would the pen and paper D&D. While you can find people to play with through online fan sites, you'll have a much better time with this game if you already know people that own it and are willing to play the same mod with you at scheduled times.

After trying this game for a month, frankly, I feel cheated. I bought the game because it promised gamers that even if they didn't want to play online or use the editor they could play the official campaign included in the game by themselves and have just as much fun as they did with the company's other epic releases Baldur's Gate I and II. That's a misleading claim because the new mechanics of Neverwinter Nights and the boring campaign included are pitiful attempts to live up to the company's previous PC D&D games. This game is really only for people that want to enjoy an electronic pen and paper version of D&D, the rest of us should move on to Icewind Dale II or Morrowind or hope that another company manages to design a great singleplayer RPG as fantastic as the Baldur's Gate series.

Surprisingly mediocre single-player campaign

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: January 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This review is based solely on my experience with the single-player campaign of Neverwinter Nights. Thus, I can't comment on the on-line capacity of the game. I bought this game thinking that it was the successor of Bioware's excellent Baldur's Gate series, which are among my all-time favorite video games. In a few ways it does improve upon these earlier masterpieces, but in many more ways it proved to be an inferior gaming experience. Unless you have the time and patience to explore this game's on-line side, don't bother getting it. There are many better computer roleplaying games out there (e.g., Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, Diablo 2, etc.).

Gameplay: This is a D&D-style fantasy adventure that Bioware has made a reputation for presenting well. You create a character at the beginning and build him/her up with experience points during a 70-80 hour main quest. The basic idea is similar to other such games, but the implementation here is unexciting. First, this is a single-character game in which you don't have a party. You can hire a mercenary, but for the most part you are on your own. It makes for a rather uninteresting experience, since your hired hand does not have much of a personality and specializes primarily in poor pathfinding and suicidal behavior while in combat. Unlike great games by Bioware such as Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic, you virtually have no control over your mercenary, who is often a liability.

Another problem with the game is its structure. It is largely comprised of dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl. A few of the dungeons are well done and memorable, and the game does pack in an awful lot of monsters. But the experience is rather claustrophobic insofar as your adventures are boxed into four chapters in which you simply explore a town, its countryside, and underground areas. Unlike Baldur's Gate, you can't revisit towns that were in previous chapters, and there is really no reason to since they are rather generic in feel.

The story itself is not a bad one, but is full of cliches and rather predictable. You can take the noble good-guy route or be an outright villain, but the main story will unfold in the same way. The main deficiency with the single-player campaign is the almost utter lack of connection that you feel with your character and the other NPCs you'll encounter. There is none of the banter, bickering, and cameraderie that made the characters so memorable in Baldur's Gate. Here, your mercenary has no stories to tell and even main characters like Aribeth and Aarin Gend are just there to push the story alone.

Perhaps even more distressing is how unstable this game was on my computer. I had the 1.23 patch and it crashed to desktop about every 30 minutes. The current patch (1.65) is available at Bioware's website, but it's 66MB! If you have a dial-up internet connection like me, you know what that means (hours of waiting to download). It's really a shame that Bioware has fallen into the pattern of other developers and has begun releasing games that still have technical issues (I had similar crash problems with Knights of the Old Republic, but the Baldur's Gate games were models of stability). I hope that they avoid this with Neverwinter Nights 2.

Graphics: The game looks good, but not great. Graphics are largely an evolutionary improvement over Baldur's Gate. There are a few interesting changes, such as more combat moves, spell effects, and so forth. You can zoom the camera in close to the action, but things get blocky looking. Those who do use the Aurora toolset that comes with the game should have a lot to choose from, though this game is not the best looking RPG available.

Sounds: The music was good and set the atmosphere. Voice acting was hit-and-miss, with the whiny main character, Aribeth, being the worst offender. Overall, the sounds in the game served their purpose, but didn't rescue the otherwise mediocre plot or excuse the lack of real character development.

Replay/value: Since I don't play games on-line or have an interest in downloading mods by others, Neverwinter Nights had a short shelf-life for me. Due to the ho-hum story, bland characters, and crashing, I won't be rushing out to buy Neverwinter Nights 2. If you like dungeon crawling for dungeon crawling's sake and haven't played some truly extraordinary games like Morrowind or Baldur's Gate, then this game might be worth a try (be sure to get the latest patch). Otherwise, skip this one, since it doesn't begin to measure up to the high standards previously set by Bioware.

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