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Fantastic game! Completely addictive and absorbing!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 18
Date: July 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game was just released a couple weeks ago - so all the reviews prior to that time should be ignored completely. This game is based on the latest (3rd edition) Dungeons & Dragons gameplay rules. For those of you that do not know what that means - I'll try to explain. D&D rules are ingenious. It is a turn-based game that uses dice (actually a computer is asked to generate a random number between 1 and 12 to simulate a 12-sided dice roll) to decide (among other things) the amount of damage your weapon (or the spell that just hit you) - has done. Your character's level, special skills, and equipment properties - are all input into a "calculation" for the events that take place in the game. The graphics are beautiful. The gameplay is in 3rd-person which means there is a "camera" following your character. You must control the camera using the keyboard arrows while your chartacter's motions are controlled using your mouse. Candidly, I still prefer the Diablo 2-type 3rd-person view that simply always keeps your character centered and cannot be manipulated - but that's just me. Character development is something that the Never Winter Nights developers spent a great deal of time on. A 'fighter' class can also develop spellcasting abilities and vice versa. And I am WAY oversimplifying it! You can even choose to create an entirely new class from scratch with skills borrowed from several classes. The interface to the game is revolutionary. The developers devised a wonderfully intuitive mouse-driven, multiple-choice, visual interface. It takes about a day to get used to the interface because, trust me, you've never seen anything like it. The computer controlled characters called Non-Player-Characters (or simply NPC's) have well written back-stories (that usually contain side quests) and it requires patience and coaxing to get them to trust you enough with their quest. Your can hire an unique NPC from each class that will follow you along on any mission and faithfully serve by your command. This is EXTREMELY cool, because each class has certain weaknesses when solo'ing. I like solo'ing Fighters but I enjoy having a Rogue tag along to pick locks for me. But, those of you that wish to solo a spellcaster will enjoy hiring an NPC Fighter for those times when there are just too darn many bad guys. I strongly suggest that you also purchase the official strategy guide by Versus Book. However, be careful - there are two strategy guides. One strategy guide is for use by those serious gamers that want to build there own Never Winter Nights dungeons so that they can be the dungeon master and host their friends. The normal game strategy guide has the following ISBN 1-931886-03-2.

I hope this has a big future in it

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: June 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've been designing AD&D games using the old -Unlimited Adventures- system from SSI for about 9 years now. This game continues to have devotees despite being released in 1993. I hope this game can bring that creative experience forward into the future with a new and more powerful engine.

The supplied adventure is not that great: it starts off with a McGuffin hunt cliché, and a typical plot where the mighty heroes of the Realms put the burden of saving the city on a level one character. Most of the tough fights so far can be cheesed through with the help of the powerful artifact you are handed off the bat. But hopefully, the defects of the supplied campaign will be remedied by hundreds of players with their own ideas about what makes a good story.

The editor is the real soul of the game. It can be accessed two ways: by a series of wizards that allow you to do rudimentary things with it, and which translates your conversations into a C-based scripting language. Or, for more advanced users, the C-style language can be programmed directly. This is cryptic like any other C style code, and will require a fair amount of dedication to master. Complete documentation as to its powers and functions is not even supplied with the separately purchased World Builder's Guide. Fortunately, the code underlying the supplied campaign is there for you to read.

If this takes off, if a community of creative people add new settings for dungeons, new monster skins, and similar expansions; and more importantly, if they achieve the skills needed to actually use the provided tools, this has great potential. But more thorough and comprehensive documentation will be needed before the creative power of the tools provided is easily available.

Good game but could have been better

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: May 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Neverwinter Nights is almost a dream come true for all of us D&D players. You can create your own adventures or play other people's premade adventures either solo or with an adventuring party filled with players or NPC's.
My main complaint is the level limit. Twentieth level is the maximum you can reach. There was absolutely no reason for this limitation other than using it for future expansion sales. I understand that even the expansion has the same level limit, though! The reason I say there was no reason for it is because on the editor you can raise the monster's levels beyond that, so the game engine knows what to do if you're 23rd or 56th level. This game would have been SO MUCH BETTER if that limitation were not there. For people like myself, who have been playing this game for over 20 years, low level characters just aren't all that fun.
Despite this serious drawback, the game has an amazing array of spells, feats, skills, classes, races, magical items, and monsters included. The monsters are so customizeable that you can give them the stats of a completely different monster, in effect changing something like a lizard man into a kua toa (something I actually did in the editor. It worked quite well).
Another thing which could have added a lot to the game is enabling spellcasters to use hot keys (such as F1, etc) to cast favorite spells quickly instead of having to go through a series of mouse clicks during a real-time combat.
The editor is so flexible and user friendly that within a few days I was copying my old modules, such as Vault of the Drow and Against the Giants into it. They work great! I did find out that you are limited to about 150 creatures per level. Go higher than that and the monsters just stand there and let you pound on them.
So if you enjoy the low level game, break out the Doritos and have fun!

Versitility beyond measure

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: January 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The greatest attribute of this game is its versitility. The single player game is great fun, as well as the expansions. They all have various courses of action and intreaguing story-lines. The multiplayer implementation is dreamy for everyone but the hard-core RPG`er. The User-made modules allow for endless replay value.

Assets:
-Great character (personality) customization
-Plenty of user-made modules to keep you busy
-Graphics support that utilizes low-end and High-end graphics cards.
-3d sound.
-Exceedingly fun multi-player
-The Aurora Toolset for making unique items, areas, creatures, rules, just about anything.
-Great for power-gamers to RP'ers
-Large and versitile net-community
-Great expansions
-Linux support!

Downfalls:
-Only one native language (i.e. No dwarven or elven)
-No native mounts (i.e. No horses that you can ride)
-Copious amounts of modules can make it difficult to find ones you like
-Lots of content can only be accessed by owning the exansions

BTW. Unlock the camera by entering the command "unlockcamera 1" in the console which is accessed by the ~ button.

A Disaponting Game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: July 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game was extremly disaponting. I am a hard core baulder's gate and icewind dale fan. I was looking forward to neverwinter nights as the next leval of play. It is the most thorough game yet with more spelles and classes than ever before it is lacking somthing however. It feels like an action game. The plot is boring and uncomplex, it failed to hold me for even an hour compared to icewind dale witch I was able to play all day. Also the way it is set up, it just does not feel like an RPG it feels like a shooter. All the plot points involve killing somthing. All in all this was a disapointing game for a hard core RPG fan.

The next big thing.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 14
Date: June 30, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is most certainly the next big thing. It takes the best parts of many popular award winning games of the past 5 years and succesfully puts them into a package that takes gaming a step forward. I do not have all the recommended specs the game suggests and this game runs fluently for me. There are very minor problems that do not affect my enjoyment. I do not know a PC game that hasn't needed patches... and I don't think ever that so many people have played a new game at once. NWN deserves any records or awards it garners. For the first time a game is limited ONLY by the imaginations of the players and the gaming community... not the game or the developers. For that the adaptivness of NWN is amazing and mind boggling. And although the interface and toolsets are perfectly balanced to allow unlimited adaptations to gaming styles yet user friendly... it is still mind boggling. Everytime I play my mouth drops as I realize just how much depth this game has.

The single player module is fine... not a huge step forward from Diablo or Baldur's Gate or any others. Not less either. Equally as enjoyable. However (and you'll read the following in a hundred reviews) the DM Client and Aurora Toolset are what make NWN standout. It will take a couple months before we start seeing exactly what these two elements mean to gaming... and why NWN is the next big thing and will cause other MMPORGS and RPGS to stumble. THis game over the next few years will tirelessly grow and what a player entering it 3 years from now experiences will make what we experience now a shadow.

At some point in the future anyone who has enjoyed a role playing game will belong to the NWN Community. One suggestion: get through the first few hours of sceptacle experimenting.... and before saying "I wish this game did this" find out that its probably in the game already... just find the button. Over the past few days I have done this repeatedly as I discovered camera toggling, hotkeys, changing the keyboard. I have played them all... all the Bioware, Ultima Online (actually all the Ultimas), Everquest, Camelot, Might and MAgics, Wizardrys, Diablos. This game is a step forward, much more accomodating to the player and their imaginations... flat out better and deeper.

Multiplayer Delight!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: June 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The last few reviews I've read have not done this game any justice. They didn't even mention that this is a "Free" online multiplayer game. No monthly charges, unlike so many other games out there. The multiplayer aspect is the best part. You can join the many guilds via the bioware webpage and schedule meets. There are thousands of user-created modules out there which detail every aspect of this game. There are player vs. player mods, capture the flag (or gold) type modes, team warfare, and of course traditional D&D modules. You can play as an individual in a multiplayer world, or join a party and encounter other parties, or basically whatever you want to do.

This game even includes a powerful, yet almost simple module building utility. There's loads of help on module building at the bioware website. I suggest you visit there to really get a feel for how much support this game has.

Now, for the technicals. I was running this game on an 800 MHz, 9700 ATI Radeon Video, 1/2 GB memory machine. It ran very well, even when I had it working as both a server and player! I did not notice too many AI movement problems. Occassionally I'd run too fast for my henchman, or there's be some sweet spots to take out a dragon from (some intentionally placed there). I didn't really have much of a problem with the Camera Views. I think those people who were having problems didn't quite set the graphics correctly. You can set up the game so that you see the tops of all the buildings all the time, and if this is on it may interfere with your view. Besides, as someone mentioned there's a camera "hak" which you can download and easily install and that fixes everything.

I've given this game 5 stars and I feel it deserves more. Much more. I've gone through the module that comes with the game and many other downloads. I've just purchased the Expansion pack and I'm looking forward to the many new monsters, spells, feat, and scenery that they've added. This is one of the best games I've ever owned in my 20 years of gaming experience. If only work was this much fun I'd be a multi-millionaire!

A quality Dungeon Siege Clone

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: June 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This review does not take into account the potential of the DM feature and the mod community. Instead I will focus on the immediate product.

Despite the impressive character generation, the whole game turned out to be a Dungeon Siege with AD&D rules. Whether in single or multi-play, you are essentially ushered from one battle to the next. While there are side quests, its plot path linearity is obvious. NPC interaction is mostly limited to providing you with another horde to dispatch.

Those preferring linear, action-packed dungeon romps would find this game highly enjoyable. More specifically, if you liked Dungeon Siege or Icewind Dale, this game is for you. Conversely, fans of Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment would find its lack of REAL adventuring and character interaction quite disconcerting. It does not help that the producers positioned this product as a successor to Baldur's Gate II.

The single-player gets tedious eventually. Multi-play, however, is far more enjoyable especially when you have like-minded friends to join the fray with a diverse cast of dungeon sweepers. There is plenty of fodder for LAN parties, especially when the mods appear.

Most gamers will be extremely happy with its polish, high production values and uncomplicated mechanics. For the rest of us RPG diehards, we will admit it is fun.... yet at the same time we feel insulted that it does not represent what a true CRPG is about.

Bugs and more Bugs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: July 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Bioware has already made 2 patches for this game. Yes it worked for my high end computer system but the graphics were choppy. Choppy enough to make the game more frustrating than fun. Besides game perfomance issues, there are also some in game bugs. Quests will become impossible to complete, unable to pick up items, friendly people attack and kill you without warning etc. You can read all about these nightmares at the publisher's website. Stay clear till they fix these. It was a good concept though.

Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: July 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Neverwinter nights is a great game. the single player is a bit bland, but where the fun factor kicks in is in multiplayer. If you like playing games like Everquest, Asherons Call, Ultima Online, then this game is the game for you. It beats those others hands down, and you can always create you're own fantasy world with the powerfull toolset. Jump online into the many player servers and enjoy a great rpg experiance with as much 2-60 players or more! Save yourself the money you're throwing away to the online MMORPGs out there and have fun with this. You need all the expansions to maximise you're playing experiance, so get HOTU and SOU, or buy the gold edition and Hordes of the Underdark (Hotu). I've been playing this game online solid for about a year and a half now, and it is still a great game for RPGers.

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