NWN - Finished SP. What now?

[Molman]

Well I just finished the single player modules for NWN (As a Lvl 19 Ranger). I'm curious what everyone else is doing with this game after finishing the SP component. Is anyone making modules, are there any already made worth playing?, and whos lan-ing or playing online?

On a side note I was alittle dissappointed with the game towards the end, it became alittle too easy and the story stayed too linear. Basically I found chapter 4 to be rather weak and the sub-quests got less interesting as the game progressed. That aside I still loved the game for what it is and recommend it to anyone who enjoys CRPG's.

[iNeLuKi]

No modules worth playing atm, even the official ones are crap. There are some awesome ones in the pipeline. And an official addon coming out in a few months.

I'm making a module atm, worked on a few little ones to get the hang of it. Its got about 4-5 hours of playtime atm and should be around 15-18 when I'm done.

Go to irc.enterthegame.com #nwnbuilders for the aus NWN mod builders channel. Lots of ppl in there making mods hakpaks etc. Also #ausnwn on the same server has some more nwn modders.

[Silence]

I've just started chap 3 and am at level 19, but I think I'm gonna stop playing, cause fer some reason the game is not picking up subquests when I accept them. Even if I go retrieve Yvette's baby, there is no dialog option to give it to her. Same thing with the Ring for Erb. And I've patched it to 1.21, so frutrating, to say the least.

[Molman]

Originally posted by Silence
I've just started chap 3 and am at level 19, but I think I'm gonna stop playing, cause fer some reason the game is not picking up subquests when I accept them. Even if I go retrieve Yvette's baby, there is no dialog option to give it to her. Same thing with the Ring for Erb. And I've patched it to 1.21, so frutrating, to say the least.

bummer, I must admit I never really encountered any bugs like that. The only one that got me was the Zoo Quest in Chapter 1 where I used empathy to lead animals instead of just talking to them. I personally found patches after v1.19 unstable for me in the SP game (refer to patch thread). Anyhow I hope you get it sorted.

I think I may have a stab at making my own module too, I kind of thought it would be a wait and see affair until some decent modules appear. What will be good will be later down the track when lots of custom models, scripts, tilesets etc are available leading to faster module development. I personally am hanging out for some decent dragonlance modules, those old ones really reminded me of draconians.

[Silence]

Whoops level 15 I mean

I might restart the game as a monk. I love the fighting animations in this game.

[GarethB]

The NWN developer, Bioware, is hosting a download site for player made modules. http://nwn.bioware.com/downloads/modules.html
I'm not sure if you need to be registered on the Bioware site to get to this page, but registration is free.

I haven't looked at these modules myself, but I'd expect a mix of single player and DM-ed multiplayer modules. At the moment Bioware say they have over 650 seperate modules available for download. I also can't comment on the quality. I'd expect that the majority will be mediocre/average with only a small proportion of them really good.

I've been kicking around the idea of developing a series of modules that follow on one fom the other, with each module aimed at a particular experience range (1st module for experience levels 1-4, 2nd module for expeience levels 4-8, etc). The singleplayer story that shipped with the game gave away far too much experience and treasure.

I have some questions if people would be kind enough to reply.

Would people prefer a scripted storyline like the BG and NWN storylines, or something less structured where players aren't forced to follow a particular plot path? Unstructured is much harder to do well. Scripted storylines are easier to develop.

Would people prefer modules optimised for particular character classes or something more generic that is equally suited to any class? In some ways, optimised modules could be more challenging when played with a class they are not optimised for, but which class should they be optimised for in the first place?

This isn't something I can knock together in a few days or even a couple of weeks, but if people are interested, I'll see what I can cook up.

[RedMan]

Me and my mates are only up to Chapter 1, just starting to go into the BlackLake district and we'll be doing some side quests this saturday night.
Basically we all play Saturday night, normally 3-5 of us.
The game is great that way and all of us are amazingly happy enough that we aren't playing SP.
After the first game it was a bit tempting for those with more time to play SP, but none of them wanted to go beyond where we were currently upto in our Saturday games.
Pretty much we think we'll only get to finish it by the time an expansion comes out, then I suppose we'll keep going.

Quite alot of fun standing back casting spells while fighters chop down people and stand there emoting laughter or 'THATS! the way do DO IT!'
We use Rojer Wilco as well.
Funny part was I was just checking out the Beggars nest area for the wizard lab. Halfling thief was coming in to catch up to me (him and the fighter had recently been ambushed)

converstation sort of went like this.

'Oops, might need a bit of help here guys' (had hit an encounter)
'Um, bit of help here guys'
'SH*T! HELP! I'm dead I'm dead Im Dead'
me - 'Where are you' (Wasn't back in the party yet so couldn't see im)
'Im in trouble'
me -'Head for the temple'
'Im comin, Im almost dead, help, im almost dead'
me - 'Cant see you'
'Im HERE IM HERE'
me- 'Still can't see you'

Then my summoned Dire Wolf started to run off and I followed his direction. 3 rather large guys were running in my direction, then I noticed this little guy with 'NEAR DEATH' in nice red letters above his head runing ahead of them. So funny. They weren't that hard to take out with my Dire Wolf in front. Eventually the thief stopped running then took a rest.
I suppose against me is one fighter walking up a corridor, my Wizard happily following, 'chink chink chink', about 20 spikes raise from the ground impaling and killing my wizard.
'Hey! how come you didn't set that off'
'Oh, must've been walking down the other side of the corridor'
*grumble curse hit respawn button *

Stuff like above is making this game enjoyable. BGII sucked big time MP cause we all knew what to do, in this game we don't.
I suggest you wait till a big module comes out, then get a group of others and play it without playing ahead separately. Its ALOT of fun
As for modules, just give players directions between points. If I ever got time I wanted to do the following
Force players to give up weapons/armour at one point. Place in their places hand binds (as gloves) and gags (as amulates) that cannot be removed. Figure out some questy thing in prison to get em off.
From there they can decide to head back and get armour, or find new stuff and continue.
From A to D, make the choice of either B or C, B being a valley, that as soon as they rest they are attacked by wolves, CONTINUOUSLY, the other a road with frequant patrols.
Still linear, the game still has a goal (most important), but there is freedom in choice.

[Geo]

I finished the SP campaign last week and Ive been playing the following modules:

The Penultima series - very good, good humour good quests and an overall campaign arc that is very interesting.

Spires of Ravenloft - Great atmosphere and excellent puzzles.

Sex and the Single Adventuress - very funny, excellent quests and role playing.

Got a few others too, but they are the ones that stand out.

Just go to http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/modulesTop2.shtml and try some out.

[Molman]

Originally posted by Geo
I finished the SP campaign last week and Ive been playing the following modules:

The Penultima series - very good, good humour good quests and an overall campaign arc that is very interesting.

Spires of Ravenloft - Great atmosphere and excellent puzzles.

Sex and the Single Adventuress - very funny, excellent quests and role playing.

Got a few others too, but they are the ones that stand out.

Just go to http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/modulesTop2.shtml and try some out.

yeh, I'll have to give them a whirl. Can't wait till some more custom gfx get made for the game, seeing the same tilesets used kills the atmosphere for me abit. I mean the first time I went into the forest with the light beams coming through the trees I was like cool. After chapter 2 most of the tilesets/models had been used. I'd really love to see some elven buildings, maybe a tree city, and a beach would be cool too.

[mavric41]

A great place for modules, portraits and bascially anything NWN is the Never Winter Vault as someone had already mentioned.

[Lord Grengis]

Originally posted by GarethB
Would people prefer modules optimised for particular character classes or something more generic that is equally suited to any class? In some ways, optimised modules could be more challenging when played with a class they are not optimised for, but which class should they be optimised for in the first place?

i was originally thinking off stuff like this. imo a bit of both would be good - i.e. it pisses me off to find or hear m8s talking about an awesome quest however it's only available to gnome barbarians! (well u get the idea!)

for generic modules - this is where the dm would jump in and totally turn around the game.

what could happen is the module could be based on one character being a "chosen one" type thing - ideally, the weakest or whatever would make a good story. dm could then modify the game as it went along.

unfortunately, this can only be done by dialogue as the game does not support real-time item editing/creation. for example, lets say u wanted to cause a rift in the party as part of the story line. u, the dm, could spawn a journal next to the corpse of the slain vampire tying him in the over zealous paladin. the party then expels the paladin and he/she leaves/flees dishonoured.

the dm could then progess the story as need be - keeping tabs on both groups and crossing their paths at various points in time. this is what i was expecting from the DM portion of NWN. indeed - the current system is what Henry Blake would term - "a real belly drop."

the only way the above situation could be done successfully with journals and wot not it for it to be created prior to the game which sacrifices the spontanaity of the DM's abilities.

in conclusion, i have to say that atm, a good NWN multiplayer game will be determined by the skill of the module maker - not the dm. its a big task for the builder and doesn't lend for much playability. the DM features MUST be improved.

<apologises for going off topic >

[Molman]

Originally posted by Lord Grengis


<apologises for going off topic >

None needed, and I agree. Allot of the spontaneous pleasures of P'n'P RP are going to be hard for DM's to emulate in NWN, mainly due to as you mentioned the need to pre-prepare most outcomes (whish is hard to always have the forsight for) - and whilst subtle changes in plot etc . . shouldn't be too bad, without a modules accommodating for it, total changes in direction are going to be very hard if not impossible. I know many P'n'P sessions where the origional plot was totally warped in directions I as GM (DM) could never have forseen. Basically you go with the flow, and it is what makes things interesting.

Anyhow, anyone taken a serious stab at making a module, perhaps some team effort could be arranged?

[Reaper]

When finished, just do what I do.

Play again with a different character.

I orginally finished with a paladin, now I'm playing through as Artemis Entreri. One extreme to the other. Got all his stats right here. Obviously my in play character isn't as powerful as you can't get all the full stats that he has in the 3rd ed rules, but it's close enough.

It's fun to murder those snobs that have the gall to complain about you trespassing into their homes. I've currently got him to level 9 (5 rogue, 1 ranger, 3 fighter), just about to take on helm's hold. I did the 5 rogue so he could get sneak attack damage of 3d6 like he does. Normally he should be a level 4 rogue in there.

As for modules, I'd love to create some, I just CBF doing it. And I've got one helluva an epic one in mind too.

With the planned expansion from bioware, I hope they implement epic ruleset.

I've just started chap 3 and am at level 19, but I think I'm gonna stop playing, cause fer some reason the game is not picking up subquests when I accept them. Even if I go retrieve Yvette's baby, there is no dialog option to give it to her. Same thing with the Ring for Erb. And I've patched it to 1.21, so frutrating, to say the least.

I've seen this problem on the NWN forum. Their fix is when you first enter luskan, to teleport straight to the temple first and talk to Aarin Gend before doing anything else.

[Iceman]

I wonder how you can only be level 19 at the end. I hit level 20 roughly at the end of chapter 2.. 10 Ranger / 10 Wizard .. I believe the exp requirements are the same. Perhaps you didnt do *every single quest* and kill *every single monster* quite the way I did though

Someone told me bioware are famous for releasing level unlocking patches for their games. Any word on a level 20+unlock patch yet?

[reax]

No level unlocking patch yet. Hit the XP cap just into Chapter 3, must have missed a quest or two. 14 Monk 6 Rogue. Pain as the higher the monk gets the better his armour class, although I do have all the poison immunties now, which rocks.