A few early impressions of the game. It's a lot prettier than the original, with more detail and a more "realistic" look to the world. No more layered hills, intead you get proper contours. The character models are more detailed and look better when you zoom in, and you can also zoom out further than you could with NWN1, giving you a wider view. The voice acting is pretty good and seems to be comprehensive with most NPCs having all their lines voiced.
Character creation was a little different to NWN1 but went smoothly enough. At first gameplay felt slightly off, but after an hour or so it felt more natural. There were a few odd things, sometimes my character would attack an enemy in melee who for some reason would rush off to the other end of a fight, and my character promptly followed them provoking a series of attacks of opportunity
I also don't recommend archery, as even if hang back to shoot enemy characters will rush you, and your own allies seem quite willing to let them. That may change when I actually get another NPC in my party, but in the open it wasn't possible.The toolset is probably what I'm interested in more. I had a look at that, and it's improved on the one in the original game. Areas maps are going to be more work. That's mostly due to the difference between the original's layered hills and the contour mapping in this one. There aren't yet as many prefabs as NWN1 had, but there is a lot of scope for creating things built in to the toolset. I'd reckon the most useful tool will be the plugins, and there's already one in existence which allows import of contour maps.
I can already see more options in the scripts than before.That's just my first impressions. I'll try to write a proper review at some point when I've played more of it.
EDIT: An update containing 82.7mb worth of patch is already out
Mostly because they've included the DM Client, or at least a beta of it. There don't seem to be many bug-fixes involved.
Edited by Bluenose, 03 November 2006 - 01:51 AM.
