35 replies to this topic

[Lord Ernie]

SPOILERS





I'd actually figured Shandra as the main male romance until she bought it at the end of chapter two, She was given the most consecutive screentime, made it clear she cared for the PC several times, and while perhaps hinting of Mary Sue did have the most expressed personality of them all... mainly because of that screentime. After she died, I figured there wasn't any romance in the game at all, right up until Elanee launched herself at me at the end of the game; a second playthrough revealed there were some clues as to her being romanceable, but she was overcome by Shandra's screen presence.

Which is why I write off Shandra as one big thing: storyline tool, rather than character. She's the one thing that gives Ammon Jerro some debt besides his 'evil upon evil, sacrifice the few to save the many' attitude (does Neutral Evil strike anyone else as a poor alignment for that attitude?).

No, the biggest disappointment for me came from Grobnar. I like gnomes (platonically), but I like my gnomes to be unique, and Grobnar has so many BG2 Jan elements that it started to put me off after a while. I mean, they might as well have named him Grobnar Jansen instead of Grobnar Gnomehands and be done with it.

Edited by Lord Ernie, 10 May 2007 - 06:29 AM.

[MorningGlory]

SPOILERS





....
Which is why I write off Shandra as one big thing: storyline tool, rather than character. She's the one thing that gives Ammon Jerro some debt besides his 'evil upon evil, sacrifice the few to save the many' attitude (does Neutral Evil strike anyone else as a poor alignment for that attitude?).

I tend to agree. (After all, you can't really dump plot items in any of the NWN games, if I recall.) And the *cough* benefit of having her as a required party addition maybe was a trade-off. You got an extra fighter, and the story got its excuse for bringing in AJ. Just mo, but it could have been done more effectively (and simply) by adjusting AJ's alignment, and a few other more innovative bits of storytelling. As it was, they spent more time developing a 'plot device' that turned off a lot of players, instead of applying those creative resources to better developing in-party members. Otherwise, we coulda/shoulda had something more of a romance rather than a few innuendoes and a hasty one-night stand. That wasn't a romance -- it was a few alluded-to hours of desperation that was too little, too late.

[MorningGlory]

Well, for me she is not even the extra fighter. I was happily playing with 6-people party, when she was chained to me, and maintaining a 7-people party is actually very difficult without the good old auto-pause thing. Half of your characters start to lag behind etc. I had to kick Elanee out because of that... plot device. I have to say that she really hurt my enjoyement of the game, as in I was playing merrily, and now I am not that eager, because I know I'll have to have her till the end of Chapter 2 (I'm in the middle).

Couldn't they have let you leave her in the Flagon and force her on you once you actually meet Ammon Jerro?

SPOILERS

I can't see any reason why they didn't/couldn't give us that option. Sure, it's a fairly tight, linear story -- but there wasn't really any good excuse for them to force her on us. We should have been given the choice of her company -- just as we were with several of the others. I suppose that is why I don't totally understand why they handled her the way they did.

I admire you for braving a 6-person party! I could barely keep a four-person party corralled and focused -- the original AI problems, from what I understand. I spent more time and energy making sure someone wasn't left dawdling at an area entrance, and ended up feeling more like a babysitter than a PC. Maybe subsequent patches fixed some of those problems.

[Lord Ernie]

They did, actually. The last patch added a community-created AI to the thing that upped things a little, as well as a (first attempt of) a multi-select feature for directing all your members at the same time. Also, Tony K, famous in the NWN community for his NWN1 AI project, has just released the first version of his AI system for NWN2, updating the AI for both monsters and NPC's. I haven't tested it yet, but it's a pretty safe bet that it's good.

BTW, I've never had problems with Party AI myself, since I want to control absolutely everything manually - I tend to pause a lot.

[Kellen]

I must revise my vote for Neeshka. I'm really liking her this run through. Good thing too, cause she's the only thief...

And Sneak Attack ROCKS!!!

[Bardess]

For me:

Elanee - IMO very unconvincing voice acting; her model is one of the prettiest and yet *so* creepy!

Neeshka - because she is a squirming tiefling thief, a bad copy of PsT Annah and she acts like she's the only one! ("...he's the *second* best thief in Neverwinter..." No, you b*tch, he's the *third*! I am a thief, too!)

Casavir - he's just a weird old man with not much to say but "let me drag you to bed". It says he's in his mid thirties, but he sounds older to me. A human PC is 18 by default. What does that tell us of his paladinhood and holyness, eh?

Edited by Vixen, 24 May 2007 - 05:23 AM.

[videot]

I could not stand Grobnar. As pointed out by a previous poster, he was too much of a Jan Jansen-wannabe, except that Jan was truly amusing and well written. Grobnar bores the protagonist to sleep at their first encounter, and that sets the tone for his performance perfectly.

I also hate Lord Nasher with a passion. A more self-sufficient, stuck-up bastard of a dimwitted ass has not been seen in RPG-dom. at least not in a position of power. I truly wish I could have (as I played a thief) snuck into his chambers while he lay wounded at my keep and planted a dagger in each of his eye sockets. I know these are strong words, but chosen to give some amount of understanding for my dislike of the character. He. Really. Needs. To. Go.

[princesspurpleblob]

Casavir: I CAN'T STAND HIM!

Elanee: A horrible stalker god-mother type of person.... she freaks me out

I forgot her name but that githzerai female cleric.. all she ever says is "know that.... know that..." shut up already.

Apart from them, grobnar and shandra almost got my vote.. but thankfully shandra died quick enough and because bishop was making fun of grobnar all the time, I figured the party require someone as dumb and annoying as grobnar... so those two don't get my vote

[Lysan Lurraxol]

TBH I found the entire cast of NWN2 to be bland and 2D.

Neeshka - tedious, how many times have had spunky thief character now? Awful Voice acting. Not funny.

Khelgar- Dwarfy McDwarfington. Not a shred character beyond BEER!!! FIGHT!!! in him. Also, not funny.

Elanee - Might have been interesting had she had any discernable personality. She didn't and got relegated to the sidelines.

Qara - I liked her, her personality as just BURN IT!, but she kept me entertained.

Bishop- Boring and angsty. I loathe brooding romantic heroes. Will have to try Domi's romance though.

Shandra. - Die in a fire. Awful Mary Sue, stole all the screentime, undroppable, so glad when *SPOILER* she bit it *Spoiler*

Grobnar - HATE. Hate gnomes and other cutesy races anyway. Packed full of cliches and dreadful not funny "humour"

Casavir - He was interesting, rather like Keldorn, until he turned into Sid James, drooling over my poor PC

Zhaeve - She should have been interesting, rather motherly, but had no screentime and faded from view.

Ammon - Started out fascinating, but the Mary Sue got to him, and instead we had hours of angst.

I did not enjoy NWN2 much.

[berelinde]

So, I got NWN2, and I've been playing it a bit, and I'm starting to get the hang of the whole 3D thing, though I had to lock the camera in top-down mode and disable all scrolling.

My party at present is a male human cleric PC (big surprise), Khelgar, Neeshka, Elanee, and Qara. Yeah, I know about party size limits, but there's this great console command... anyway, I don't plan to play this game 7000 times, so I wanted to see as much party interaction as possible.

Khelgar is the greatest. I seriously love Khelgar. If I had chosen a female dwarven PC, she'd be so into him it wouldn't be funny. He's funny, he's useful, and above all, he doesn't get on my PC's nerves. I'd like a Khelgar for BG2. He's the greatest.

And that's where that stops. Everyone else irritates him a bit (or a lot).

Neeshka is the best of the women, though my PC agrees with little that she says. He's more of a good natured, mostly law-abiding brawler than a thief. She reminds me at times of Imoen, but without the charm.

Elanee isn't the worst, but she's pushy, and at times, my PC finds her patronizing. She isn't quite as bad as Jaheira, but the similarities are more than superficial. My PC is willing to put up with her, though, and even try to keep her happy, if she'll put out at some point. I think he may have killed the romance, though. When the party got to the spot where they rescued the lost boys, Elanee commented that the PC would make a good father. Khelgar had a bit to say on the subject, and my PC's sentiments pretty much echoed his, but I don't think Elanee liked hearing that he'd worry about children if the need ever arose. But the PC response options were definitely not satisfactory there. One of the responses was insulting, so that was out, and my PC didn't feel that "Hey, sugar, wanna breed?" was the most suave pick-up line of all time. Haven't had anything remotely romantic since, and I don't know how to check to see if the romance is still active.

Qara... ick. Gods, I hate Qara. Two scoops of emo sauced with arrogance and a sprinkling of entitlement. She is everything I hate in an NPC. She's cheerfully getting the boot as soon as any other mage presents himself. Sand wasn't too bad. He's sarcastic, which I generally don't like, and I've always hated that damn elven superiority attitude, but he's funny sometimes. Qara is never funny, just whiny.

I'm not looking forward to being saddled with Shandra. Our first meeting did not go well, and my PC is generally hoping that he'll never have to talk to her again. All he did was express regret that her barn burned down, and she went blotto on him. Sorry, girl, but looking around while talking to someone is something most people master at an early age. If you can't manage it, then don't blame somebody else for your own shortcomings. Also, here's a hint for the socially inept: when someone says "Sorry something bad happened," the accepted response is "It wasn't your fault." If you're feeling particularly exasperated, you can add a resigned sigh. Casting accusations at innocent bystanders is not endearing. My PC was trying to be nice, and doesn't deserve the abuse you heaped on him. If he had really been responsible for it, he would have burned down your house.

[Orthodoxia]

I'd say Qara but because she was not required as a plot device I ignored her for the most part.

Now Bishop takes the very special place in my list of hate. I've haven't hated a computer character this much ever since Anomen. I will not say that Bishop is not a well made character, he's the kind of character made for hate and abhorrence. And he has way too many fangirls for the reasons I simply cannot comprehend.

Most of other characters were mildly uninteresting but none of them (apart from these two) would fall into category "disliked". I mean, Grobnar was more accepting (accepting, not interesting) than Bishop & Qara.

Edited by Orthodoxia, 31 May 2008 - 10:23 PM.

[Anaximander]

I didn't especially care for any of the joinable NPC's in this game. In fact, this was one of the few RPG's in which I found myself clicking through NPC dialogue as quickly as possible. I relied mostly on the quest journal to figure out what I had to do next. Honestly, Orthodoxia, I don't know how you find the patience to sit through it all for your fanfic.

If I had to pick a least favorite, the title would go to the Gith girl that joins the party. Her obnoxious habit of beginning every sentence with the word "Know" was more than I could take. I often found myself yelling "Shut up!" at my monitor every time she spoke, much to my roommate's chagrin.

[Jarley]

Let's see...there were quite a few I would've loved to kill.

Bishop - yes. I couldn't stand him at all.
Zhjaeve - Boredom hello. If I could've ditched her, I would've.
Casavir - Old Owl Well says it all.
Qara - Just simply didn't like her.
Neeshka - She was kind of on the border, it was her voice that made me dislike her.
Elanee - Just because you're a druid doesn't mean you have to be boring.

I think that's it...rest of the characters I more or less liked.

[berelinde]

It won't be long before Casavir will talk about something besides Old Owl Well.