Storm of Zehir Review

[420]

Gamespot posted a review of Storm of Zehir.

Check this out:

Instead of tackling the usual earth-shattering events of a Dungeons & Dragons game, here you take on the duties of a mop-up crew coming in after the party's over. The King of Shadows has already wreaked his havoc, and you're just some poor schlub out to try to make a buck by ensuring that merchants can once more ply their trade. The quests reflect this mundane storyline. You run a lot of lame errands to kill specific monsters and recover lost or stolen merchandise, and you clean out a bunch of formulaic dungeons, caves, graveyards, and the like. Most locales are fairly small, so they seem more like minor obstacles that can be raced through in a few minutes than the huge strongholds and lairs typical of RPGs. Trading feels more like a minor irritant than a worthwhile feature. Generally, you acquire the game's three goods--ore, lumber, and skins--in one place and then sell them at a profit somewhere else. Transactions are handled on simple menu screens when you enter a town, so you don't do anything more than hit a few buttons to add money to your coffers. And the concluding reveal and battle come up so suddenly and are so anticlimactic that you won't believe they're the ending of the game until you've exited to the desktop.

Ouch. And not even a mention of the overland map which is all Obsidian would talk about.

-420

[Mo]

Obsidian conceded Gamespot's point already.  They admit the story-line isn't groundbreaking, it's even in Introduction area of the game manual.  This expansion is more about open-endedness and new gameplay features (which Gamespot left out).

MoTB was all about story and that expansion did it very well, with deep NPCs and epic storyline.  SoZ went in a different direction and I appreciate it for what it is.  Obviously the best of both worlds would be nice, so hopefully they take MoTB+SoZ and use the best of each and develop NWN3.

[Elessar Telrunya]

It pisses me off when game companies decide to neglect the storyline of a game to expand game mechanics.  It's the same thing that Arenanet did when they put own GW: Factions...

[Soul Sojourner]

It pisses me off when game companies decide to neglect the storyline of a game to expand game mechanics.  It's the same thing that Arenanet did when they put own GW: Factions...

That's because you're a fish. *blub* *blub*

While I appreciate a good storyline, one can find some of those via modules done by fellow players. The content is more important to me when it comes to NWN. This is because I know I will receive various stories of great quality from imaginative builders, and they will have vast content at their disposal to bring me an excellent quest with excellent cream filling. I also love customization to an obsessive extent and as a builder and a player am over-obsessively thorough. (such as descriptions for everything, even things you cannot read the description for... or checking every walkable piece or terrain for any possible thing that might be there in addition to filling the map, even if the parts of the map I'm trying to fill are irrelevant and useless.)
Content. Plain and simple.

[420]

I agree that with a game building title like NWN content is more important in some ways than a campaign storyline but I have a couple problems with how Obsidian handled NWN2.

1. Lack of content: Obsidian released all of 2 dragons (red and black) iin the first game and 2 more (blue and bronze) in the first expansion. By this point in it's product life Bioware had released for free rats, gnolls, kobolds, malar panther and a host of other content through patches. (This was in addition to the initial exhaustive list of creatures in NWN, including all standard dragons.)

2. Obsidian has now packaged a "content" release as a full expansion. Fucking give us the fucking content for the fucking game we already fucking paid for and give us an expansion with a fucking storyline. At least the NWN expansions are on par with the best community mods but Obsidian's commercial products can't even compete with the NWN community talent at this point.

Unlike Bioware, Obsidian doesn't give a fuck about the games they make or the people that play them.

-420

[Mercy]

I have to agree almost whole-heartedly with 420. Can you imagine what the nwn community could have made for nwn 2. I mean, if we had the money and the power to make the game instead of some company that had nothing to do with the original... The game would have been the game to end all games. I still like the game, it is just not what it could have been. Thank god we can still create custom content...

[Mo]

There are some annoying bugs in SoZ that have community fixes out:

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=659129&forum=128

Easily to install those, right to the override dir.

[Elessar Telrunya]

So the community can come up with fixes, but not the game devs themselves? That's encouraging...

[Anheg]

From all the reviews I read, this expansion isnt worth buying, not to mention actually patching.

One thing that pisses me off is that I went out to buy Mask of the Betrayer today and places dont have it. Its only NWN 2 Gold (Original and Mask) for $40 and SoZ for $30. Im not rebuying the original game to get the exp., fuck them.

[Mo]

From all the reviews I read, this expansion isnt worth buying, not to mention actually patching.

One thing that pisses me off is that I went out to buy Mask of the Betrayer today and places dont have it. Its only NWN 2 Gold (Original and Mask) for $40 and SoZ for $30. Im not rebuying the original game to get the exp., fuck them.

Buy the digital download, that's what I did.  I'm enjoying the game.  Right now I'm running around the Sword Coast building up the merchant company.  The non linear game play makes it fun for me to just sit down kill some monster and find some dungeon to explore.  Wish the dungeon were a bit bigger, so far most of them are only a few rooms large.  I also like that you can really customize your party in terms of classes, many classes to chose from.

[Mercy]

Yeah. I really enjoy SoZ tbh. I really like how it is played now. I am much more immersed in the game because of the merchant company aspect and what not. It's just a fun game.

[Soul Sojourner]

From all the reviews I read, this expansion isnt worth buying, not to mention actually patching.

One thing that pisses me off is that I went out to buy Mask of the Betrayer today and places dont have it. Its only NWN 2 Gold (Original and Mask) for $40 and SoZ for $30. Im not rebuying the original game to get the exp., fuck them.

Good for me, bad for you! Ahaha!

[420]

From all the reviews I read, this expansion isnt worth buying, not to mention actually patching.

One thing that pisses me off is that I went out to buy Mask of the Betrayer today and places dont have it. Its only NWN 2 Gold (Original and Mask) for $40 and SoZ for $30. Im not rebuying the original game to get the exp., fuck them.

You can get MotB for $19.99 at Amazon.

That's where I got my copy when I realized Best Buy only had Gold.

-420

[Soul Sojourner]

You can get MotB for $19.99 at Amazon.

That's where I got my copy when I realized Best Buy only had Gold.

-420

I buy all my shit off of Newegg. Cause it kicks the most ass.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=Neverwinter+Nights+2

[420]

I buy all my shit off of Newegg. Cause it kicks the most ass.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=Neverwinter+Nights+2

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of Betrayer Expansion Pack PC Game ATARI - Retail

    * ESRB Rating: T - Teen
    * Genre: RPG
    * Model #: 742725275591
    * Item #: N82E16832198041
    * Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy

   

    * Free Shipping
    * Your Price:$26.99

Damn! They want nearly $30 for it. I wouldn't give Obsidian the satisfaction of paying that much for MotB.

-420

[Soul Sojourner]

It's actually close to the same price if you account for the free shipping. On top of that, you know it's new, and you're getting it through Newegg, so that's as good as a gaurantee that everything will be taken care of in a very flawless manner. I hate buying anything through Ebay or Amazon... I've waited weeks to months for shipping before, as well as been ripped off. By people with 95%+ positive ratings with tens of thousands of feedback.

I swear by Newegg simply because they've never steered me wrong, and on the rare occasion something came fucked up, they paid the shipping cost to send it back to them, and then shipped a new product back to me through overnight shipping. I'll always pay an extra couple of dollars for that. Even though I usually save money with Newegg... lol. So yeah, I have a tendency to promote them.

[Mo]

Newegg owns

[420]

It's actually close to the same price if you account for the free shipping. On top of that, you know it's new, and you're getting it through Newegg, so that's as good as a gaurantee that everything will be taken care of in a very flawless manner.

Never had a problem with new items from Amazon but I have had problems when trying to get used items through them. The problem main problem is that used items are done through a 3rd party bypassing Amazon completely. Newegg is cool and I liked them back when they were EggHead but with free shipping MotB is still $7 cheaper, brand new, from Amazon.

-420

[Soul Sojourner]

Never had a problem with new items from Amazon but I have had problems when trying to get used items through them. The problem main problem is that used items are done through a 3rd party bypassing Amazon completely. Newegg is cool and I liked them back when they were EggHead but with free shipping MotB is still $7 cheaper, brand new, from Amazon.

-420

Only if you buy something else.  You have to spend at least  $25 worth.

I do admit I liked Newegg better in the past when they used Fed Ex more and they had all of those awesome shipping deals all the time. They still rock though.

I'm still a little pissed shipping prices in general refuse to drop... gas prices went down, so what's the excuse?

Ah, anyway I'm getting off topic pretty hardcore. I agree with 420 on the subject, it's best just to get it online. I'm not sure if you're in a situation like I am, but I live a decent distance away from any larger city, and generally it costs me a lot more to go to a larger town or city to buy games, pay full price for them, and pay for the gas to drive there. Usually I can get a game at least a couple of bucks cheaper than full price even with the shipping cost included, and I don't have to take the time or waste gas. lol.

[Mo]

The digital download is $19.99 you don't pay shipping plus you don't need to wait for it to ship.

[Soul Sojourner]

The digital download is $19.99 you don't pay shipping plus you don't need to wait for it to ship.

lol, I'd never pay for that. Ever. If I'm going to download something, it's going to be free, otherwise I prefer a hard copy shipping or no.

I desire to obtain the game and expansions soon, but it might not be right away. Christmas is coming, I got gifts to buy, plus I'm short on cash right now. Just missed two days of work and I already have a lack of hours besides. They closed up yesterday and my car wouldn't move today. Personal spending will have to wait!