Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir Hits Stores

With all the games that came out last week, this release may have escaped notice but it's worth pointing out: Storm of Zehir, the second expansion to Neverwinter Nights 2, shipped to stores earlier this week and is available in stores now.

[JonahFalcon]

And felt burned by the first Neverwinter Nights, so I didn't get NWN2.

Maybe I'll pick up NWN2 and the expansions, but I still hate the editor, which is the reason I bought the first one.

[Tony P]

I felt pretty let down with both games. I had high expectations coming from the last of the isometric greats like Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale.

NWN was just so lacklustre on so many fronts, NWN2 was better, but buggy enough to kill the entire experience for me. While I enjoyed my time there, gamebreaking bugs eventually forced me out. Obsidian supports the game adequately (I believe I had to download about a gig of patches before my first play) so maybe some of my gripes have been solved.

Still, I've heard some good things about Zehir although not enough to warrant a re-installation of this brassy creature.

[harv711]

IMO nothing will ever top BGII, it was just a great game that you get completely immersed in. And when I first got NWN, I too was let down, until I tried the multi-player part of the game. You could find many great servers that were like any MMO to play on for free. You could find servers that literally took pages out Ultima Online with complex item crafting systems and storage systems. You could find servers based on anything from Ravenloft to Dragonlance or there was even one based on DC comics(although it was quite bizarre to say the least).

The first campaign in the original NWN quite frankly sucked. Big Time. It was mindless, but both expansions got a lot better. And as far as playing, you could download limitless *FREE* modules, and some were quite good.

As for the Editor, the original NWN editor is great. At first it took a lot to learn, and since I didn't know any programming language(really helps if you know C++) it took quite some time for me to be able to make scripts for myself, but after a while I was basically able to make anything I could imagine come to life.

I bought NWN2 and both expansions, although I have not had a lot of time with the new expansion, Obsidian is actually Black Isle, so a lot of the campaign will remind you of BGII. But IMO the original NWN editor is a lot easier(and in my mind better) than the NWN2 editor, so if you didn't like the editor for the original NWN, my advice would be to skip on this, or at least wait till they have NWN2 platinum and for about $20 in a couple of years.

Bioware has stated that Dragonage is suppose to be the spiritual successor to BGII, but is not based in the Dungeons and Dragons Universe(because they were getting sick of the limitations being put on them by Wizards of the Coasts, and sick of paying royalties).

Hope this helps you both out. :)

[Bolts]

I'm glad they made Dragon Age, 'cause the D&D combat system need to go away. The rules were made for a pen and paper game that nobody play anymore yet Wizards of the Coasts keep on treating the license like it's golden.

[EvilCackle]

Been playing Zehir. It's pretty decent so far. I'm not crazy about creating my own party (a la Icewind Dale) though because memorable NPC's was the strength of some of the previous D&D PC RPG's like Mask of the Betrayer and Planescape Torment.