What do you think of MotB

[lurchman]

Alright folks, time for a new poll at the Theives Guild. And since Mask of the Betrayer has been out for a while, and I'm sure, most of you have had a chance to try it. I thought I'd see what your opinions are. Feel free to cast your vote and leave your comments.

Do you think?

[BuddhaBubba]

:::Warning, possible spoilers:::

This expansion totally reminds me of BG:2 because you start with some levels up already. I think BioWare did an awesome job creating an epic adventure with a totally new twist. Especially with the spirit eating system where you have this race against time, while your party can be super powerful, if you don't manage them just right you'll run out of spells / potions / spirit points and fail

They also fixed the camera system in my opinion, improving it greatly (I stick with the strategy mode myself). I've only encountered two bugs so far, one being an infinite loop in a certain scene, and another being that the "Buy/Sell Confirmation" checkbox does not stay unchecked when I load a previous save.

Maybe I should have went with the Totally Awesome because I also like the setting of the game too. It's probably because I'm sick of the city of Neverwinter and relish the opportunity to explore new lands.

Btw, I played the game so much this past Saturday that it was still going on in my head when I closed my eyes at night!

[GleefulNihilism]

[Spoiler-ific!]

Romance felt forced, some fights were tougher then I thought they should have been, I hated that the "Load-Bearing End Boss, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies" ending of the OC still mostly stuck, some spells didn't make the expansion that I wanted to see, and I thought there should have been at least 1 possible ending where the wall comes down.

The fights complaint I'll probably drop in the future because I was playing a Paladin. While Paladin's are awesome RP wise I've always felt they were pretty weak mechanics wise.

As for the "rocks fall everyone dies" ending, I did like who actually did survive. I was definitely pulling for Neeshka- I personally thought she should have been a romance option so her survival earned a little cheer.

I was also hoping for some teleportation of time-manipulation spells beyond "Haste" but I'm not holding it against the game. I just wanted to see the glorius return of Time-Stop.

Overall I liked it a lot.

[kgambit]

Well, I've loved it so far. No bugs, no dropped scripts, and game performance is greatly improved - although some of that may be the extra gig of ram I just added. :D

My pally is having no problem whatsoever. Not even with alignment issues and I'm enjoying the challenge with the spirit eater curse.

AI is hugely improved.

The combats are tough, but imo it just takes some time getting used to the various talents that the companions bring and coordinating them. Gann's weaken spirit feat is a GREAT help against Fey creatures for example.

And the dialog is VASTLY improved. Kaelyn's dialog alone is worth the price of the game - okay not quite, but it's a vast improvement.

As for Time Stop? Good riddance!! Talk about the ultimate munchkin spell! Haven't missed it one bit.

[Liso]

Well.... wowies lots of opinions so far

Okay with out typing up a book here.

Reasons for Greatness
1) The story is great.
2) companions have much more depth and interesting ongoing dialog.
3) the quest also have more depth to them.

Reasons for mediocrity

1) some battles are way over powering
2) ending was well... I just don't think endings can make everyone happy. But I would have liked to walk the path it set for my ending anyway. Actually talk to the foster father, talk to Kelgar etc.
3) forced romance. and it was kind if lame. I must say though "womens perspective" Gann of Dreams is pretty smooth. :p

And for the down side
1) my game crashes from time to time.
2) quest some times have to be redone due to it not playing out all the way during cutsceens
3) THE GOSH DANG FOLLOW BUG!!!!
4) And if Gann is your love interest. Why for godz sake does he leave you once the compain is over? If you do not have the highest influence with him and get say Sophia in the final battle. Gann stays with you. If you get him due to higher influence. He leaves u after all is said and done "screwy"

ok that is imo of course. I liked it enough to play it more than once :D :D


Liso

[GleefulNihilism]

I liked Time-Stop. Mostly because I'm a physics geek that never actually got a character capable of casting it, but I liked it.

I agree, I wanted to talk to Khelgar, Neeshka, Deaghun, etc instead of standard voice-over telling me about them.

And Gann only stays with female characters if he's has the 2nd highest influence, not the first? Good to know.

[kgambit]

I had a couple of characters capable of casting Time Stop. The charm wore off after a while. I much prefered the contingency spells. THOSE were great and not nearly so overpowering as time stop. :D And that's coming from a guy with a post graduate degree in Physics. :D

[Fletchman1313]

I think it's awesome!

I think I'll buy it after I finish the OC...

[sirchet]

I thoroughly enjoyed the expansion, especially the narrator. Next I think I'll try the evil path, mwaa ha ha!

Any feed back on playing the "dark side"?

[Epirote]

I belong to the 30% of people that have voted so far, and yes, I believe the game is awesome and simply the best. As for going evil, can't help you much there, the last evil character I played was back in HotU, a female Rogue, Shadowdancer, Assassin, who later commanded Mephistopheles and pretty much ruled the Sword Coast. :rolleyes:

One thing you have to decide as soon as you are ready to battle Okku is whether to keep him or devour him and also generally whether you want to give in to your hunger and become a Devourer, or whether you want to supress it. Personally, I think, since you are going to be evil, you should devour Okku and get One of Many. :santa:

[rengetsu08]

i vote with the majority's vote, however I'm still playing it, because i have to start again the original campaign for I've lost my last saved and character when my windows crash so i have to reinstall windows also the nwn2 and other games :D ,

the reason for my vote as a great game but have some issue is because of this:

goodness:
1. npc's are good to interact with, it has depth in dialogs and interaction
2. great new features, especially new batch of spells
3. the new spell sound effects and other sound effects really make a punch
4. new feats and bugged fixes
5. okku the bear god, is a awesome companion
6. new feature race and new character heads and other stuff
7. some quest and side-quest are fun to do

ungoodness:
1. sometime the dubbing seems odd, especially with some companion like the wizard of thay

what i hate about motb:
1. there is only one thing that i really hate about motb, it's spirit-eater feature. it's really odd why the developer add this feature to the game, is it to make the game interesting or not??? but for me i guess it's not, because it's like your a walking bomb and when you are enjoying your self and forget about that hunger, it will really ruin your game play, also the timer is kinda fast for a nwn world game time, imagine 30 seconds in real time and in motb its atleast 2 percent of ur hunger, why did they not make it at least 1 percent :D :D :o

[btcentral]

I loved MotB - I've only recently gotten it as i've been rather busy in the last few months!

I'll be playing it again, just as soon as I get a chance :)

[DegenerateSoulDM]

Hmm... there should be a vote option for "Didn't play it, just wanted the new content for the Toolset". That would have fit me to a tee. In fact, I haven't played more than a small bit of the OC except that I wanted to see what the terrains looked like and get a feel for what I should be expecting from the toolset in the way of quality design.

I suppose I should take time and play through them both, but I would just get further behind in building for our PW.

Kudos on the fine job you guys are doing here though. Especially the items lists for the new content. Very nice.

[kgambit]

That's an option we hadn't considered actually. ;)

Thanks for the kind words on the item list. :D We just updated it and we're putting version w of the downloadable list up shortly.

Why don't you post a link and some details on your PW in the PW Thread? A number of our members have been shopping around for a PW to call home. :D

[Bazuttu]

It was actually quite a good campaign, I enjoyed it. I am also pleasantly surprised to see that NWN2 has MANY fewer client and source bugs as it did before. No code breaks, hastily-implemented software, lack-luster updates in the GFX department. I have yet to see if the netcode has been patched but I will assume that it had been before the release. Everything seems to have gotten a good reworking and I am glad to see Obsidian put so much work into it.

I hope to play this online, I see the community content hasn't increased as I thought it would, but hey ya can't ask for everything... If anybody knows a good place to play PC party campaign or a good PVP server, please PM me :).

[arathalion]

i must say, i found the time to play a bit and im really likeing it. i rather liked the bussness with the hags.

[Sicar Eneco]

I liked it a lot, though the setting itself doesn't exactly please me completly. It was good to see something else than that freaking Sword Coast, though.

Not sure what to think of the hunger thing. I like that the curse actually felt like a curse and got you somewhat concerned about not dying from it. Still, I don't feel that an extra bar and some negative stats were an excellent choice.

Still, I'm nitpicking. Overall a very good game, with awesome choices/consequenses.

Hell, even the RPG Codex (http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=159) loved it. And believe me when I say that that's an amazing achievement.

[Epirote]

I still think, it is simply the best. :santa: Despite the fact that I hate MotB and, yes, I hate the spirit meter. I believe it was a poor decision by Obsidian and the somehow forced parrallel meanining, read metaphor, that well, it's kind of like drugs and the message is: "Kid's don't do it, 'cause it will kill you." is just horrible IMHO. :rolleyes: :santa:

May be I am overreacting or overinterpreting here, but that's how I feel. I love the OC, although after my first play through with patch 1.06, my first gut feeling was: "What a crappy game! I'll shelve it and leave there to gather dust. " :santa:

Well, by now I have played it more than 20 times I think, so may be MotB will grow with me in time, though I kind of doubt it, since my heart will always belong to the OC, been like that since Baldur's Gate. :rolleyes: :santa:

[arathalion]

May be I am overreacting or over interpreting here
iawtc

its a fairly standard plot arch to have something that makes you powerful that also kills you slowly.

lotr did it and i could probably fine another few (not of the top of my head though)

my only real problem with motb is the descrepences between what your character knows and what you know. its assumed that your character knows a base amount, though over the course of the game you can discover all kinds of things, but the character, no matter how directly they are told, doesnt take any notice. this got annoying in a couple of places, especialy that play. cause im busy i hadnt played the game in something like a month, i start playing, walk into the play and am told i have to speak a line. the correct one wasnt there, I knew what it was, my character didnt.

think they could have done a bit better with that. i mean, especialy since for the most part of the game, im sure a lot of people where carrying around that bloody manuscript.

[Epirote]

The way I see it, your character suffers from amnesia when he wakes up in the burrows, which is also pretty cliche to me. Still I am an NWN2 afficionado and I am hooked to the game. :santa: