I stuck with the OC for a long time, and kept hoping and hoping it would get better. The problem was that the gameplay itself wasn't fun enough to make up for the lackluster story and characters. All I was really doing while trying to stick it out through the main campaign was making myself sick of playing the game.

The re-hashed and re-used level designs. The bland art and textures. The feeling that I was playing in a polygon world. The slow, clunky combat. The poor AI.

None of the game's flaws are bad enough that I would stop playing (and I didn't, I invested many hours into it). But it was bad enough that when I finally got word that the expansions were actually good, I was already too bored to care.

I even bought a bunch of extra campaigns from Bioware, and never played them because I still had such a bad taste in my mouth from the OC. And the ones that came with the Diamond Edition, no matter how good they would eventually get, are still just Neverwinter Nights. I load them up, and say, "Ughghhhh, this game. <CLICK>" and leave the room.

It's not fair to the expansions, but my disdain for the original campaign is so great that I will probably never be able to give them a fair shake.

LOL, this is enjoyable to read. It was my experience as well. I kept making myself come back to it, because there was such an enthusiastic community and because I had paid for it.

Three years after my first attempt to play the OC, I have finally gotten the "bad taste" out and I am enjoying one of the expansions (Hordes of the Underdark). Incidentally, "Bastard of Kosigan Episode 1" was very enjoyable as well.

I have played OC through twice. Once in solo, and 2nd time multiplayer with my wife. I actually
liked OC better than HoTu. But SoU is best of them.

Hotu was somehow too high-level stuff and there was some annoying stuff.

We have played thru quite a lot modules from nwvault. There is lots of great stuff. Dreamcatcher and Shadowlords campaings were both great.

I'm not sure if this makes sense for anyone, but the way I've been looking at NWN modules and the reuse of the same rooms, items, terrain, enemies, as more like analogous to theatre than movies.

You sort of expect the same props to bounce in all the time, sometimes more creatively used and sometimes less. But all the time it's like "oh, now we're at an inn, oh lol they have a skeleton in the corner as a souvenir".

Helps with the suspension of disbelief, and you'll need quite a lot of that with the game.

Just started NWN for the 1st time 2 days ago. I guess will try n finish OC. To more appreciate the other better expansions n mods....

Well, it took me a month to notice your comment, but I think your theatre analogy is spot on. NWN isn't a very pretty game to look at graphically, but it can be awesome if you're ready to appreciate the creativity that people put into their modules. It requires you to use your imagination and suspend your disbelief against all odds, just like you would have to do in the theatre. Oh, it's the same bland stage again, ok, they changed the décor just a bit, don't we know these actors from last week? And still, you will enjoy the play if it's well-written and interestingly staged and chances are you're going to immerse yourself in the story and characters and forget about the cheap décor.

I used the OC to play with different character builds before I came up with a favourite that I could develop in SoU/HotU. As an game I found it very repetitive, seemed that every chapter was about doing something 4 times, and unless you can get invested in Aribeth there's little to offer.

SoU/HotU as you might already be aware, are a separate story from the OC. I thought SoU started strong, but dragged on towards the end. HotU on the other hand was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. That said you'll want to know how to make a decent character before you start those two. They are less forgiving than the OC, and it would likely be unpleasant to end up with someone you couldn't finish with.

Sorry for the thread necro, but I thought that was better than making a new one...

I've played through Chapter 2 of the OC right now. In general, there are some moments that are very fun. The plot is sort of interesting, although a little bit predictable. With a little more creativity they could have had better fakeouts for the plot twists at the end of each chapter.

For me, the biggest thing that drags the OC down is a combination of these factors:

a) Overly ambitious number of levels per dungeon with repetitive design elements - when you enter a new cave or sewer or underground complex it's 3-5 levels usually of cookie-cutter layouts that you've seen a few times before.

b) Scads of treasure chests and locked crates in said dungeons, some of which contain really useful items, but most of which contain junk. When you get a new item that's really good, it motivates you to keep unlocking all those chests. But the good stuff is way to few and far between. And even when you do find good stuff, a fair amount of it may be unusable or impractical for your given character.

c) Huge numbers of low-level trash mobs. Near the end of Chapter 2 I was a 12-13 level Wizard who was still fighting orcs, bugbears, and ogres. Yes they were beefed up versions, but at 3xp a pop, obviously they weren't really any kind of challenge. It just takes time to slog through them.

All by themselves, these individual things wouldn't be that bad. However, put together they can make going to a new town and getting new quests feel almost like signing up for a chore you'd really rather not do.

Despite all that, I'm not going to give up on it. Character building with the 3E DnD rules is still a lot of fun, and even though the plot has been a bit predictable, it's got enough there to keep me moving forward to the end. There is also the occasional combat that truly is interesting and difficult.

The OC isn't awful... it's just not great. A dedicated RPG enthusiast can find enjoyment in it, I think.

This thread pops up every once in a while. Not much to say beyond "No". NWN is the best cRPG of all time, but the OC? It's just awful.

I reviewed it at length for new buyers, but the short of it is the story is terrible. There is no progression of the plot; You are sent off to "save the city" when your character is so weak he is barely qualified to patrol the walls.

It get's better over time, but it never gets good.

NWN's OC sucks. Start with SoU and just pretend the OC never happened.

This feels smoother if you're playing multiplayer with a group of 3-5 friends. The larger group can make much more rapid progress through these kinds of areas, so they don't feel quite as drawn out. The original campaign is very low-treasure. Sure, the treasure chests are quite common, but most of the treasure is mundane. One small suggestion: if you choose the "weapon focus" feat, that weapon type becomes heavily weighted by the RNG for random treasure.

SoU and HotU are significantly better in this department. Do keep in mind that the OC was designed to support multiplayer. When you start splitting XP four-ways, you'll end up with a larger number of weaker characters. Level 13 is actually quite excessive if you're still in the first half of chapter 2.

That said, I do agree that the game tried to hold out with the "humanoid menagerie" a little longer than it should have. You'll still be seeing ogres, giants, and "elite" orcs well into chapter 3. Definitely a solid approach. I don't think it's that bad, but it's definitely not for everyone.

Now the thread is alive again, mayhap I add a link to a bunch of good modules thread.

The OC is pretty good IMO, the tedious and overly long dungeons are a symptom of a "a good RPG needs to be 50+ hours long" thinking.
So the OC is what it is, 10 hrs of good gameplay, 10 hrs of inventory management and 10 hrs of padding, or something like that.

The official expansions are better, but the real deal is the community modules.
Grab them quick before NWN Vault dies again, permanently.

Oh, good!
:)

Thanks for the link to some well-designed, user made NeverWinter Nights modules!

I thought it was me who felt so underwhelmed by the original campaign in NeverWinter Nights that I put the game away for years for other games with a faster pace.

:)

Nonetheless, I still appreciate it for what it is. Now, I'm ready to explore what this game is really all about.

If you are serious about learning what NWN is all about you need to get some friends in on the act. NWN is all about multi-player. You might also want to see what you can do about setting up a session using the DM client. There is no role playing experience anywhere that can touch a well-DMed NWN session except, arguably, tabletop pnp. And if you can get 2-8 people playing LAN it's just plain magic.

Oh, I agree.

:)

I used to play video games with friends on my own LAN many, many years ago.
Unfortunately, that time has passed and people move on. I never play on-line games with strangers so I have to rely on single-player games to keep me occupied.

The problem I experienced with NeverWinter Nights was almost identical to what everyone else wrote in this thread but what i'm going to do is trudge through the original campaign before I take on the expansion and proceed with the user-created modules to see if there is any difference in gameplay.

So far, I'm progressing fairly well in the original campaign. I guess, over the years that lowering my expectations helped me tolerate the game immensely.

:)

Almost happy to see many others feel underwhelmed by it. Got to chapter one, walked around talking to people for 2 real-life hours, got nowhere, went into a district and quickly got bored. Think I need to put it away for a while, as I just can't go through more pointless combat after another after playing Icewind Dale and then getting fed up of hack n slash in Icewind Dale 2. I see there are piles of mods around, but perhaps I need a break from these types of games right now.