D&D in video games

Hi everyone that is a fan of d&d.So i was thinking today,i have played so many RPG games and traditional d&d pen and paper.I believe that the gamer community really likes d&d video games.This is explained by the success of several games in the area like NWN or Baldurs Gate ,and of course Circle of Eight .To the point now...

I was playing a relaxing game of Heroes 3(old school stuff ),with my friend and this came to my mind:The ultimate d&d adaptation in a video game would be a game like Heroes 3.Just that instead of a hero with army you would just have a party of 5.And instead of a city to build, the cities would be preset and you just visit.As for the battle,EXACTLY like Heroes 3.Every time you would have an encounter,screen changes to combat screen with the appropriate obstacles and squares representing the 5foot steps.Right clicking on the party member would give a radiant menu of course,or when this member's turn is he would get an interface to the bottom with his spells and abilities( like so many games ),which interface you could change anytime in the game.And the best thing in Heroes 3,was that you could create your own maps in the easiest way imaginable.

So if a game like that could be done,with d&d rules and stuff,with people being able to make new modules in one day work...the ultimate d&d video game for me.Let me know what you think if you ever played Heroes 3 .

 

You ever play Tower of Doom or Shadow Over Mystara?

If you want an upright video game D&D game, that will do you fine right there. I still play both on my MacMAME emulator from time to time.

I seem to remember a Baldur's Gate game on PS2 that wasn't too shabby either...

 

The games you mentioned are cool but they lack the turn based combat of Heroes 3 and Temple of Elemental Evil.What i want is a combination of these two with better graphics.Put the epic levels and prestige classes of NWN in and you are done .

 

Are you aware that there is a mod for NWN2 that turns it into a turn based game, completely redoing the combat system.

The author put a lot of time and effort into it and it might just be worth a look see.

And yes, I still play Heroes 3, got the whole pack of heroes games from GoG as a bundle deal.

EDIT: I remember having to install a better sound card when Baldur's Gate first came out so I could take advantage of the EAX the game offered.

Oh Interplay ... how I miss that dev, made games for gamers by gamers!

 

I eagerly await the BG 1 & 2 remakes coming out this summer. PC, MAC and iPad...I use an Android tablet personally (did you know there's an infinity engine emu for android that actually runs BG2 etc. ?)

Shame they're not releasing BG Enchanced edition for Android, but I want to play it so much I MIGHT even just buy a cheap used 1st gen iPad from ebay to play it on.

 

I didnt know this for NWN 2,i actually quited this game after the tutorial because the battle was pissing me off.Now that you said this(thank you very much ) i might give it another try .And yes,Baldurs Gate enhanced edition can be epic beyond proportion !

 

Did you know that NWN2 plays just like Baldur's Gate?

Hit the space bar to pause and give your companions orders and they will follow them.

I'm sure it rather obvious to some that I have a soft spot for NWN2, being that I've been part of team that has released quite a few adventures, (some even made the Hall of Fame) for the game.

Each companion has it's own behavior settings and you can even tell that companion to do nothing, (puppet mode) if you want.

It's a great game and there are soooooooo many excellent adventures to be had that are player made and quite a few are of pretty high quality.

Here's a link to the Hall of Fame entries. CLICK HERE FOR COOL ADVENTURES

 

I loved NWN2!!! which games were you a co-author of on that forum sirchet, may i ask??

Very rich character construction, especially if you add Kaedrin's mods for TONS of options in Prestige and even base classes...

 

Well, some of like to think NWN2 is STILL a good game.

I was part of the team for NHiN, Trinity, Pool of Radiance Remastered, A Hunt Through the Dark Remastered and Lolthanchwi. Of course these are the ones that made Hall of Fame status.

I was fortunate enough to work with some really talented folks.

It would be great if you guys got a chance to check a few of these out.

Trinity is my most recent favorite.

 

I was playing Neverwinter Nights for the first time in my life recently and I was LOVING it! The ONLY reason that I stopped playing the game was because it kept crashing while my characters were in the 4 districts surrounding the City Core (I would see weird graphical anomolies that looked like missing textures in some parts of those 4 maps). I had the game patched with the last official patch (version 1.69). Has anybody else had stability problems with this game when in those 4 maps?

I am playing Neverwinter Nights 2 for the first time in my life at the moment. I have been experiencing some random crashes with the game but I have learned how to minimize the chance of getting crashes during combats involving lots of characters and lots of spellcasting. I have the game patched with the last official patch (version 1.23 (2009)). I am COMPLETELY addicted to the game!

The game's negative qualities:
1. The game is unstable (it crashes randomly).
2. The game has cutscenes (a lot of them and some especially LONG cutscenes!).
3. The A.I. of the characters in your party is pathetic (your characters will always use Power Attack which causes them to miss a lot, and they will always provoke attacks of opportunity by running past opponents, and they will break away from melee engagements against tough melee opponents in order to run down a weak enemy archer that was the least threat in the combat.
4. The random crashes and the awkward NPC control and the clumsy combat game mechanics make one favour using melee specialist NPCs rather than using spellcasters or sneak-attacking rogues.
5. It isn't a sandbox game where you are free to explore the entire gameworld right from the start and change the gameworld how you would like to. You are stuck doing linear maps and completing linear quests that open up the next map or the next stage of the story.
6. Only your PC's Appraise skill is used. It's SO stupid that your NPCs' Appraise skills have no effect in the game whatsoever!
7. In the OC (original campaign), you can only have 3 NPCs in your party at a time, and you can't choose from all of the recruitable NPCs right at the start of the game - you are spoon fed one recruitable NPC at a time, so that you can only recruit some of the recruitable NPCs relatively late in the original campaign.

The game's positive qualities:
1. The game has the most beautiful graphics that I have ever seen in a computer game (maybe rivalled by Two Worlds)! My half-orc wearing full plate armour looks f*ing amazing! The characters and gameworld and spell effects all look stunningly beautiful!
2. The game has the best recruitable NPCs that I have ever encountered in a computer game! The recruitable NPCs in the OC (original campaign) have genuine personalities that come to life and are developed as the superb story unfolds (and some of those recruitable NPCs even have their own quests that they want you to help them with)! I am very fond of the NPCs Neeshka (she is adorable) and Elanee, and Khelgar Ironfist is an awesomely powerful NPC to have in one's party. I used to think that Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 had the best recruitable NPCs in a computer game EVER (until I started playing Neverwinter Nights 2).
3. The game has superb prestige classes and playable races and feats.
4. The game has an alignment system whereby your PC's alignment changes during the game based on your PC's actions.
5. The game has a system whereby NPCs in your party change their loyalty ratings toward your PC based on your PC's actions during the game.
6. The game has by FAR the best crafting system that I have ever experienced! You can choose which material to craft items out of (which imbues their own unique properties to the crafted item).
7. The OC (original campaign) has a gripping plot.

sirchet, thank you for linking the Hall of Fame modules for NWN2. I will definitely play them all once I have finished the campaigns that came with the game and the 2 expansions.

 

@ sirchet LOL Yeah i still LOVE NWN2 it's just been quite a while since i booted up a game. Which i plan to, eventually as i have the game and the expansions individually, but i repurchased the NWN Atari "Greatest Hits" collection recently as it is supposed to be optimized to work with Win 7 OS and i finally have a Quad-core AMD processor computer with a graphics card that should make any lag i suffered on a Vista 2 core laptop hopefully disappear. For an 'older' game from 2006 or so NWN2 had some really high graphical requirements. I have booted up NWN and it runs superbly. it was very cool that one could finally have access to the Premium modules for that game, as well, for i have seen them posted in a few forums because of the long-running flap between Bioware and Atari not really resolving.... for "free". I think they should have been included on the dvd from Atari, but probably because of the ongoing lawsuit they were not. ?? Previously i had the "Diamond Collection" but that did not include "Wyrm Crown of Cormyr" or the "Infinite Dungeons", or the Pirate themed one. But now they are playable again!

NWN2 is superior to NWN in many ways, though NWN has some charming aspects that also play a bit differently, sometimes as an advantage. I have played several of the community modules for both, but the only one you worked on was "Pool of Radiance Remastered" which was excellent until i encountered unfortunately a game-breaking bug where a monster that was supposed to drop a key upon being slain did not, and i was unable to leave the room. i am sure that was fixed a long time ago, and i would love to play through it again. I played the "remake" of the original GOLDbox game (which i have never played, did not have a computer back then unfortunately) on the old NES, and it was nostalgia heaven to play the game with such a graphical and engine upgrade!

Defending Sokol Keep was MUCH harder!!! it was a very valiant battle.

@ Gazra Yeah man, i really dig the characters in the main game. There is a "cheat" you can enable in-game that alters the code to allow you to take a larger party with you, than the restricted 2-4 characters ... check GameFAQs for it. Some characters have different responses, etc. to in-game events, which you miss out on or would need to replay several times with different groups/ multiple playthroughs to see. However you can enable that and take whomever you want. Obviously it might be game breaking at some points of the game to take everyone with you, but hey i looked at it like i was embarking with my own Fellowship, LOTR style You can always choose to leave people behind if you want, i thought it dumb to have a an artificial limitation on party composition. Your mileage may vary! Enjoy!! NWN2 is a great game.

I will definitely look into playing those modules you mentioned. thanks!!!!

EDIT: i also played Night Howls in Nestlehaven back in the day - very cool, though i only invested a few hours in it. Really liked how it started... Neat to be a 9th lvl "experienced" adventurer called back into action, and have it actually feel that way.

 

Yeah, it does start rather slow ... and some of the early "boss" type battles are wildly uneven in difficulty levels. The creature resembling a anthropomorphic 'brain' that leaps from host to host as you try to chase it without killing the victims is quite ridiculous. also, walking around the city hearing the same 3-4 voices wailing about the sickness gets a bit old fast LOL.

Yeah, i think that Orc was in the Prison district... IIRC

It feels EXPANSIVE in size as a city ... but kind of dead. Yeah it's in the middle of a massive plague, but you have to walk huge distances among many random and mostly empty buildings, searching pots and barrels for mostly junk. LOL

But it grows on you as you progress, eventually. I guess the long slow crawl was as intended? But i hear you Gaear :thumbsup:

 

I haven't played the NWN original campaign since the first expansion came out. For that matter, I haven't played ANY Bioware campaign since I discovered Neverwinter Vault. The fan-made mods are so much more fun, admittedly some are not very good and/or poorly constructed, but the good ones put the commercial releases to shame.



Kinda like Co8 compared to vanilla ToEE (God how I wish Ted had finished KotB...)

 

The latest full length adventure we released is "Trinity" and it shows how much we have learned since Night Howls in Nestlehaven.

I must say though, when everyone else was releasing "practice mods and "This is a test of the tool-set" we released NHiN with it's complicated dialogs and little known has a completely different experience for evil players. I know, because I spent quite a bit of time making many of the homes accessible if you had the right skills. Some of the homes you could actually sneak in, rob the place AND put the residents out of their misery. :evilgrin:

There is a spot where you can also catch a man who is cheating on his wife and you decide what to tell her and another place where a guy will pay you to kill his wife, which you can, or you can cut a deal with her, (for some pretty good loot) and turn him in to the constable.

I am currently working on a complete re-due of NHiN with a great deal of voice over work, but it has taken me forever and it might be forever before I am done. :twitch:

Oh, and about the crashes ... is you graphics driver updated? And is your override folder empty?

NWN2 after it's last patch has become a rather stable game, PM me if you keep getting crashes.