Neverwinter Nights (RPG)

Vizendel

Skeletron
Neverwinter Nights is a twelve year old game that is absolutely stellar if you love roleplaying.
This is not the terrible MMO, it is the absolutely amazing single and multiplayer RPG. I will be frank in saying that the original campaign for Neverwinter Nights is lucklustre and relatively boring, however both Shadows of Undrentide and the Hordes of the Underdark expansions later released are gorgeous in design and story.

Only within the last four years have I delved into the multiplayer aspect of this game and I was in all honesty surprised to learn that not only does this game's multiplayer survives, it is thriving. I felt like sharing this treasure with all of you as I hold this game very dear to my heart.
It is not the most impressive visually, but is easily changed to look incredible, and it is easily one of the greatest roleplaying platforms of the last twenty years. (Because everything else is absolutely terrible.)

I won't bore you with further text, here are some screenshots I've taken from various online servers and a few from the Hordes of the Underdark campaign.

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If these images excite or touch you in ways you should tell an adult about, it is available on GoG.com for 10 dollars, but can often be found on sale for less.

The two greatest roleplaying servers (In my opinion) on this wonderful game are:
The City of Arabel, heavily set in Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms and takes place primarily around Arabel, the Caravan City, in the country of Cormyr.
Escape from Uncertainty, Revelations. This one is also set in the Forgotten Realms but has made its own lore and history that has been heavily influenced by player actions, as much as I'd love to post the history of both, but I'm no scholar and you're better off clicking the link and going to their respective websites.
City of Arabel (CoA) has been going for near on 11 years now.
Escape from Uncertainty (EfU) is made by players from the first server, and has been around nine years.

Both are fantastic servers for roleplaying on.

Roleplaying however is not the only thing you can do on this game, should you be more inclined on heavy hack-and-slash and simply crushing your enemies, other servers exist.
Sinfar, an 18+ action/roleplaying-optional server that is more focused on running about mindlessly destroying things, it also does not forbid cyber-sex. I personally don't play on this one but to each their own and I don't judge.

There are innumerable other servers that exist but many require HakPaks (Basically, mods, except you HAVE to download them to play.)

Now, this game is very difficult to play for some people when they first try it, and may not be for everyone, due to the sheer complexity of the mechanics behind it.
I suppose it has a learning curve like Dwarf Fortress, once you learn how to do everything you're golden and all you've really got to do is remember it.

I'm really not doing this justice but I figured I might as well get some interested people on board with it.
Both Escape from Uncertainty and City of Arabel have internet relay chats (IRC's) located on the Darkmyst server.
They are #EfU and #CoA respectively.

Now, here is a link for how to get the game started up should you buy it.
Click.

I may have missed things, but oh well, this thread is also now officially a Neverwinter Nights discussion thread.
 
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I played it back then, and, being someone who sees multiplayer as eye candy, didn't see much value to the game. The expansions were somewhat better, but I still wasn't impressed enough to give them more than one run.

I'll give it props for not doing what its sequel was, though. Seeing the relative success of the far more simplistic (and fun) gameplay of Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, NWN 2 tried to be a mash-up of DS and its own prequel. It didn't work. It ended up being "The Little Trainwreck Who Couldn't."

Edit: However, they're both better than other incursions into "tabletop mechanics ported to a computer." Gotta give them both points for that. It has been proven that they could have been much worse. They could be Dragon Age.
 
Time to cast Resurrect on this old thread. :)

NWN1 would now be 14 years old, but I've recently begun playing it again after interest took hold of me. I previously only had the OC for NWN1 and the OC + SoZ for NWN2. Since then, I've purchased the full sets on GOG and intend to play all the expansion packs I missed!

When playing NWN1, it's clear that graphics, engines and controls have come a long way in the last decade. The OC for NWN1 is also a bit uninspired. Nonetheless, something still draws me to it. Unfortunately for an RPG, most things are merely cosmetic. You can have alignment shifted good/evil, but there isn't a good, neutral or evil path. The story is very much railroaded. There are also no lawful / chaotic alignment shifts, so keep that in mind if you need a particular alignment for planned classes.
If I had one complaint about the OC, it's that every second chest, barrel, crate and door is locked and trapped. It practically mandates playing as an Elf (for Keen Senses) and taking levels in either Rogue (for Open Lock / Disarm) or arcane/divine magic that knows Knock and Find Traps. It's rather frustrating when a crate in the middle of nowhere is randomly locked and trapped, yet provides a paltry reward of 17gp.
Paladins / Clerics are gamebreakers in the OC due to being nearly as good as Fighter, but with divine magic and extra bonus. Sure, you'll lose a few points on strength or constitution, but you can make up the difference with an accessory or spells.

I haven't played SoU or HotU yet, but they're next on my list after I finish a playthrough of the OC. :)

Anyone wanting to play NWN1: I'd strongly recommend The Amethyst Dragon's collection of colourised icons, especially the World of Aenea GUI. It recolours all of the beige and bland icons into something colourful. Makes NWN1 feel like a whole new game, and more modern.

-------

NWN2 is a nice upgrade, but can come as a bit of a surprise to anyone suddenly switching from 1 to 2. The OC for NWN2 is clichéd, but fun to play through. Except the ending. Oh boy... the ending of the OC.
The good (and canonical) ending can be summed up as: Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. That really pissed me off. I'm a hero of Neverwinter, I built up a Keep to protect the surrounding lands, I held off an undead invasion and I killed an ancient magical being. Rather than being able to continue imagining myself as a great hero performing heroic deeds, manning my keep, defending the innocent, protecting the poor and making babies with [insert preferred NPC] every night, I was killed by some rocks?!
Boo! Never kill the PC in a RPG!
MotB retconned most of this, but it's still a crap ending. The Evil ending is better, but strangely still manages to be a cop-out.
Still, the OC has some fun and varied parts, but they might be hit or miss for most people. The trial and Keep management provide breaks from adventuring for something different. There is also a bit more variety in how you can play as good/evil, but it is still railroaded.

SoZ is a fun little playthough that shouldn't be taken too seriously. But the overworld encounters are too frequent. You practically need a druid and rogue in the party. The druid for avoiding encounters and a rogue for all the tasty bonuses to diplomacy, spot and listen. Being able to handcraft a party of 4 is obviously a huge help with this, but you can also customise your group into something very varied!
 
That's a pretty big freebie, even by GOG's standards.

And just to clarify, GOG's free stuff is permanent. You can continue playing it after the giveaway period has ended. It will remain in your collection for re-downloading and reinstallation at a later date. And it includes all the usual GOG stuff: unlimited installs, DRM free, no online activation, etc.

It's a no-brainer to make an account and snap it up. :)

On another note though, that GOG makes these things free or steeply discounts them is starting to aggravate me. Why pay $20 for something when there's a chance it'll just be $2 or free next week? Bleh. Flash sales destroying the industry and all that.
 
just got this. i've never played D&D(although it sounds fun), so it's a little confusing for me, but not bad. it reminds me of the first two EA harry potter PC games in both graphics and music.
 
I recently finished NWN1: Shadows of Undrentide (SoU)...
In the OC, a young person joins a school to learn how to become an adventurer. The school is attacked by goblins. He or she must then find the four missing cure ingredients while uncovering the woman behind it all.
In SoU, a young person joins a school to learn how to become an adventurer. The school is attacked by kobolds. He or she must then find the four missing magical artefacts while uncovering the woman behind it all.

SoU is fairly uninspired and emotionless compared to the OC. You're not doing things because you want to; you're doing them because you have to. In the OC, you want to save the city of Neverwinter. You want to find the cure ingredients, you want to find the origins of the cult and you want to defend the city. There's no emotion or attachment like that in SoU. You find the artefacts and trek across the desert because you were told to. You're stuck in Undrentide due to events occurring in a cutscene.

SoU suffers from balance issues. The OC had hordes of weak enemies (zombies, criminals, plague affected) to build up some levels and experience early on. SoU doesn't have these. I'm ashamed to admit my character was killed by a pack of rats more than once. You need to complete the early fetch quests to acquire the experience and/or gold so your character has a chance. Even after that, you're still going to run into elite enemies more often than is reasonable. Item upgrades are few and far between.

SoU is not all bad though. The OC has more interesting and varied areas to explore, but SoU does things better and feels a bit more fleshed out. SoU tries many new things. Especially with its items, traps and challenges. There are also the little things that makes SoU stand out (in the first chapter at least). E.g. You can heal the wounded for some experience or sell the artefacts instead of returning them. The Interlude lacks this level of refinement. Chapter 2 has just THREE entities to talk to, none of them of a humanoid race. But Chapter 2 does retain the well-designed areas and challenges.

SoU is fun enough, but it lacks the variety and impact of the OC. Now onto HotU, which I have heard good things about...
 
That's HotU completed! I like how HotU was more personal than OC/SoU. When you're fighting for yourself, you invest more in the game. There's also more choice in how you approach your quests and events, but the result is usually still the same.

Chapter 1 should have been longer. Everyone says how Undermountain is a massive dungeon with traps and treasures, but it's not as large as implied. The devs did some creative things with their limited space. Chapter 2 is where things shine. It has just the right amount of balance: combat, diplomacy and mysteries. It's a shame they didn't expand the Underdark more and add more side areas, but what is there is fully fleshed out. Chapter 3's cold damage noise had me hitting the Mute button. It nicely wrapped things up. I like a good happy ending!

Some spoilers follow!
As a male character, you have the choice of romancing Aribeth and/or Nathyrra. The Knower of Names can tell you your true love and will be one of: Aribeth, Nathyrra, an unrelated person (Cassanduris) or no-one at all. If your romance values are higher with Aribeth or Nathyrra, you have a good chance of her being named. If you have no romance or they're the same, you'll get a 50/50 chance of Cassanduris or no-one.

I was pretty annoyed when the Knower of Names kept saying it wasn't Nathyrra, since I had actively romanced her. But since I was nice to Aribeth too, the game figured I don't deserve anyone. It really broke the immersion. Anyway, I looked on the Internets to find scripts to fix this, but couldn't find any. So I got them myself, and here they are if anyone else wants to change their relationships! (Now all I need to do is get this post high in Google's rankings. :))

When you are at the Ice Prison and have placed the catapult, save your game. Bring up the console by typing ` or ~, before each command. Enter the following:
To make Nathyrra your True Love:
Code:
DebugMode 1
dm_setmodulevarint iAribethRomance 0
dm_setmodulevarint iNathyrraRomance 2
DebugMode 0

To make Aribeth your True Love:
Code:
DebugMode 1
dm_setmodulevarint iAribethRomance 1
dm_setmodulevarint iNathyrraRomance 0
DebugMode 0

Then free the Knower of Names and request the name of your True Love. There's still a small element of randomness, hence the saving. You might need to reload and try a second time. I assume there's similar commands for other romances but I have personally not tried them. Supposedly there's a way to make them both love you (complete with suggestive dialog), but I don't know what this is. If they both love you, the Knower of Names will tell you Cassanduris or no-one is your true love.
 
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