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I purchased and started playing Never Winter Nights last night, after having only paid peripheral attention to the hype and build-up to its release. I haven’t gotten very far, but my experience has been very good so far.

The first hurdle I had to cross came in the form of my wife, who greeted my unexpected purchase with one of those “Oh, I suppose you won’t be helping get the kids to bed tonight, are you?” sort of stares. She softened considerably once I loaded the game and invited her to help with the character creation. The wide variety of appearances, portraits, and voice sets were very appealing to her. I let her design a character of her dreams, from clothing choice, haircut, tattoos, and accent. For example, she quickly narrowed down the portraits to the two she thought were best looking, and then opted for the one that most resembled a hero from one of her romance novels rather than the one that looked like a guy from one of her old soap operas. (Her choice is my new avatar)

I really know nothing about Third Edition Rules, and all the Skills and Feats had me a little worried. I was also sad to see the demise of kits. However, the character generation and level-up screens are very intuitive, and all have a handy-dandy “Recommended” button that makes skill point or stat assignments for you. I can see that I will have to play a bit to learn the system, but at least I don’t have to learn the system first before being able to play my Druid.

Character creation does offer to assign skills for you along named parameters (such as Grey Druid), which replicates the kit idea to a certain extent. However, since all characters are so completely modifiable, there is almost no reason to have classes at all. But I do like my Panther animal companion! Its fun to pet him and throw sticks for him…

The 3-D interface isn’t quite what I expected, given my roots in Baldur’s Gate. Its really much more like Tomb Raider, only without the jumping, back flips, and climbing. My character also lacks certain attributes that the character in Tomb Raider had… (though I notice that Aribeth has at least a couple of Ms. Croft’s more prominent features….)

After being used to the richly-detailed graphics in the isometric view of BG, I’m finding the graphics of NWN to be very ‘modular’. That is, here is a wall, here is a floor, here is a standard box… don’t get me wrong, the textures are very detailed, but everything has a sort of standardized feel about it. Not like the amorphous caves of BG. Of course, I haven’t progressed very far yet, and the designers may have intentionally kept the Prelude very simple to keep from confusing us poor newbies.

Battle is interesting, especially for a 3rd edition initiate like me. What the heck is an ‘attack of opportunity’? My druid has some very impressive moves with his spear, and the animation is wonderful.

I really like the transparent windows for the inventory screens - they will be very good in non-pause-ible modules. Changing the camera view will take some getting used to. I have to keep doing 360° rotates in every room to make sure there isn’t a chest I’ve overlooked. I have to use two hands at all times, keeping me from my usual slumped-back-in-my-chair-with-one-hand-on-the-mouse posture I perfected for BG.

All in all, I have enjoyed my brief taste of the game, though I can see where multi-player may be really where the true joy comes in. If I end up having problems due to my slow modem connection, I will probably end up re-playing the BG and IWD games again, once I've played the single-player NWN through a few dozen times.

and then opted for the one that most resembled a hero from one of her romance novels...

Oh, your wife too, eh?

It's disgusting. I'm a writer, but what does my wife read? That softporn garbage in which each book is the clone of the one before.

My mage character years ago in Gemstone III got a lot of help during his formative years from a much "older" magess, who gave him items, ran a younger character out with him to fight, etc. Really did a lot for the guy. I found out only in passing sometime later that she was played by Johanna Lindsey--who's my wife's favorite romance novel writer. It was the only time in her married life that I've actually awakened her for any reason. I told her about whom my "benefactor" had been. She laughed herself sick, and went back to sleep. Disgusting.

So, you're playing a druid? I've been thinking of a druid, or maybe a barbarian or warrior/druid multiclass. How are the spell effects?

my usual slumped-back-in-my-chair-with-one-hand-on-the-mouse posture I perfected for BG.


i always play bg and iwd like that. my mum has a go at me for it though. ("it's bad for your back")

LOL@fable!

Yeah, try as I might to get my dear wife to read something that I have also read (I love discussing books and movies with people, but since my college days are long gone, I don't have a close bunch of like-minded friends with whom to do it), she always ends up reading another romance. She gets part way through a Terry Prachett, only to find that she has to concentrate too much. What she really likes about the romances is that she can get through them in basically one or two sittings. She reads them for the escape, for the time to just turn off her mind. I have to respect that, since TV and computer games often play that role for me.

At least she always tends to favor Scottish-based or Knights-in-Shining-Armor type romances, and has some understanding of my love for fantasy RPGs. She will still give me the occasional dirty look when she would rather I be putting the baby to sleep instead of playing....

So far, at low level, the Druid's spells are pretty basic. There are a few spells that I need to research a bit more before I understand their usefulness (such as Resistance, which gives a +1 to all savings throws for a short duration - how useful is this from a roleplaying point of view if I don't always know that an encounter might go better with better savings throws?) The visual effects are quite nice, though. It must have been tough to program those in 3-D. I'm looking forward to more powerful spells in the future. The Druid's fighting ability seems very good against the very low-level monsters I've encountered thus far. As I said, I'm impressed with his technique with a spear. I wish I didn't have to work during the days, or else I could have played longer last night and would have more information.

I have been considering taking a level or two in Rogue (or use some points in those skills, if possible), just because it will probably help out when trying to avoid traps. But that's the power gamer in me, and I'm really trying to do more role playing. Already, I've made a mistake or two that I would like to go back and do over, now that I know what certain events will lead to. But I won't. Not this time through. Since the game is focused on only one player rather than a party, I hope to really try to live the character (rather than being schizophrenic by living six characters like in IWD).

So, would a druid, dedicated to nature and his deity, ever have a need for a level or two in Rogue? I don't know. I'll have to think on it. One little aspect of being a druid that I just thought of - - - On character creation, you get to name your deity – only you type in the name rather than chose from a list. I doubt this will have any bearing on game play, but the deity’s name might crop up in future conversations. *sigh* Wouldn’t it have been great, though, if your deity of choice had some bearing on the plot?

I am glad my girlfriend is moving abroad from September till newyear . Just kidding....but it might come in handy

Great tip on "wife management", I'll have to give that a try.