SoZ Review from Thieves-Guild.net

[luna]

Kind of interesting to read if you are going to get SoZ.

www.thieves-guild.net/index.php?pid=277

[sen]

Attention, half knowledge ranting ahead:

Sadly, the whole fuss about "Creating your own 4 party members", seems to confirm my first thoughts when I heard about it: They are getting lazy about creating some unique and deep party characters/dialogues, leave everything to the player and sell the whole thing as a wondrous and innovative feature. Bah.

But despite my rantings, it may become a decent overall addition for the game and (hopefully) the pw. The new classes/feats/spells sure sound interesting enough, and I am positive there are a lot of new additions for the toolset which haven´t even been mentioned yet.

Yay for new crafting ;D
Yay for new stuff ;D
Yay for... overland map?

Well, I didn´t get how that one works, but I´m sure it´s great


Edit: Maybe anyone who already got the expansion could post an own short review? Always good to have a second opinion. Besides, they could explain that overland map stuff to me ;D

[davidb]

Overland map is an incredibly innovative feature that no one has ever implemented before.

Unless of course you look at your shelf and see a copy of Pool of Radiance, another of Darklands, and hiding in the corner a copy of FF7. And I am not looking hard, really.

[thegnomeherder]

Nov 18, 2008 14:58:08 GMT -5 sen said:

Sadly, the whole fuss about "Creating your own 4 party members", seems to confirm my first thoughts when I heard about it: They are getting lazy about creating some unique and deep party characters/dialogues, leave everything to the player and sell the whole thing as a wondrous and innovative feature. Bah.

I hate hate HATE the party members from the So far NWN2 series, they are soooooooo generic and stereotypical!! Also their as about as deep as a kiddie pool.

I miss the old days of games like Ice Wind Dale and Baldur's gate where you could make a party of your own 6 people instead of a bunch of worthless mindless stereotypical retards lol

[luna]

Nov 18, 2008 14:58:08 GMT -5 sen said:

Edit: Maybe anyone who already got the expansion could post an own short review? Always good to have a second opinion. Besides, they could explain that overland map stuff to me ;D

I think it has been delayed until the 20th as far as I can tell. It was supposed to be out today though.
All the web sites for stores around my area say the 20th now.

[whenwizardswar]

Its out, I'm playing it right now.

Let me say this, 9/10.

The storyline, at first seemed totally seperate being on the other sides of the contintent, and I dont want to give to much away but you do visit some of the areas from the OC.

The mechanics are vastly improved, the over head travel is ingenious, if aittle dull sometimes. The acting, the voiceing, the conversation scripts are absoultly top notch and the tradeing system is mouth watering.

There are alot of the famous NPCS from the OC, even some ancestors/descendents/children of npcs as well, add that to the fact that they have several easter egg npcs (Quarrel ring a bell anyone?) its just phenomoinal.

As many people know, Volo the famous side kick of Elminster plays a prominet role and there are several lengthy, (and epically well created) conversations with him, its to die for.

There are many many new feats, and three new class's. The Swashbucker (which is what my party leader is) is a dex fighters dream. I also have a cleric/Doom guide of kelemvor who can be described simple as a Nuclear Weapon, against undead.

I havent tried the Hellfire warlock but the abilities seem pretty potent and nifty.

I havent tried the Gray Orc or Yuan-ti blood subraces yet, when i make my evil party i will. The combat systems are phenomial, theres many new feats, from general feats/combat feats/backgrounds and hertigage feats.

Alot of people will be glad to know that Bioware removed the Epithet feat requirements from the NeverWinter Nine, and Shadow Thief of Amn class's, so you will be able to choose those PrC's on other words and not just in the main story.

The music is SUPREME, you will never fall asleep playing this game.

Also a big plus and I mean a BIG plus are the vast amounts of new creatures, I nearly cried when I encounterd my first group of..thats right Will'o'wisps.

And for all those who are wondering, for those of you who ahvent played it yet.















Yes there are dinosaurs, LOTS of them. I havent seen anything bigger then raptors and Deinucyes (SP?) but I'm sure there are more, and Rangers and druids can even have one as an animal companion.

9/10 for me.

The swashbuckler has some phenominal abilites that gain in power up until level 30 it looks like, the only down side, and its a big one in my eyes, is they dont have access to weapon specialization feats.

The other thing thats a down is something about the overhead map. The encounter dialog isnt as indepth as the roleplay-npc interface is, but I understand they didnt want to focus to much on it. There are many ruins you can discover that, while you dont enter them, you get a blurb "After exploreing the ruins you gain some insight into the Illfarn history" +x XP.

Which is fine and good, but personally I would have liked to see alittle more detail into the result descriptions.

All in all 9/10 a must buy and play. The content will boost our PW considerably but I already see many things that will need to discussed how to handle it for fear of overbalancei ssues.

[darksoul]

i'll give a shorter review. This is something most people would have a wet dream to. I was a bit amazed the way they put in the prestiege classes, as well as Swashbuckler, took them right from the books, with no modification. Swashbucklers are exactly how they are in DnD 3.5, so it makes me quite happy that they took it word for word. NWN2 is supposed to be a 3.5 DnD experience with some virual aspects, and they deliver.
The heritage feats make me very happy, though they did mod those slightly. But not too much. They added 2 feats, one for each kind of heritage, giving another spell. Normally, theres one heritage feat for both that give 3 spell like abilities. But que sera sera. Also wished they would have put in Celestial, and Dragonic heritage feats as well. Would have been nice. Either way, LOVED IT! So. .. . erm. . . .when we implimenting it?

[thegnomeherder]

Hopefully never I don't wanna see Half-Yaunti retards running around lol

[luna]

Has anyone tried enchanting weapons yet?

I got some weapon recipe's and it says there is only a gold cost associated with adding a weapon enchantment (say 1D6 Sonic Damage).

Really? Thats it? Just gold cost. No component cost?

I noticed wonderous item has components needed....

I'm still a day or two away from being high enough for crafting and getting the feats, so I can't try it myself yet.

[liege]

Well ive got SOZ and am playing it recently, very deep in DnD style play with the map movements but sadly....the party that does lack.... its all player instigated, though you can trade of each Party members Skills and feats, and build a truly "Overpowerd" team, (This is going to be a common complaint with this game i can imagin) IN terms of game playability, i like the story so far...typical slow start, and repetative piss easy spawns, but some how...it still stays...playable (I believe its the Defender NPC's that keep it alive as they wander around picking fights also, Gives it a sence of reality, and also the option to join in massive unprompted Brawls with spawns of god only knows what) I find i cant put it down.....and im also bobing my music to the EPIC music!!!!


On that note, Any idea when server is getting SoZ installed, it contains alot of fixes for various bugs, improved textures, and grafix/shadow enhancement, without compramising FPS (or generating lag to everyone else). And the toolset seems to have more flexability to it now, some nice new scripting abilities, and new armour skin's, as well as alot of Voice Interactive NPC scripts, they seem to have a very "Gneric" use to them, i can see this being of great use to the server (improveing gameplay and such) As for the DM abilities (havent explored to much of it yet,) They have some nice new spells to play with and some nice new spawns, other than that i didnt notice to much diff, (couple of sexy new spells for druids, and cleric's, have not had the chance to explore else where yet).

And basicaly what whenWizardswar Put above


Amber/Liege



[EDIT:] Level cap is still 30....BUUUULLLLSSSSHHHHHIIIIIIIITTT......
i wanted 40's again >.<

[deserk]

I also just got it and I have to say... its an amazingly fun, detailed and tough experience!

The Swashbuckler class is extremely cool, and its usually my last man standing when facing overwhelming danger. They are epic dodgers.

The Yuan-ti Purebloods look like how their supposed to look like I guess, altough theres something about the race that makes them look less appealing to me (maybe the dull skin colours)... though the Gray Orc's a whole other story, they look absolutely badass, they have really detailed texture and some of them have got some really awesome and savage face tattooes.

And as others have stated, the music is incredibly epic. A lot better than the music of NWN1/NWN2. My favourite music piece is the hills theme... its just so sinister and epic, it just cries of the Underdark to me! (btw dev guys, you should put in this music in the Underdark areas!).

There are a lot of interesting and unique characters to meet. The voice acting is also A LOT more superior than the OC, its a lot more serious and believeable. You'll be suprised at how much voice dialog theres in the campaign.

The only disappointing thing for me is, the lack of new content. Sure there's a couple of new fancy things (like the Firenewt, which looks really good), but theres a really small quantity of it compared to the other expansion pack. Many people wanted to see the Archmage, Shifter or a ranger-based PrC, which are three classes desperately needed in NWN2. A lot of people were disappointed when OBE officially stated that there were just going to be two new subraces which were completely different from what most people expected. Many were hoping to see the Wild Dwarf, Deep Imaskari and the Fey'ri.

But oh well, if its content you were hoping for, then SoZ might not deliever much, but if its a kickass campaign you were hoping for then it definitely delievers!