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So, on Friday I picked up the latest expansion to Neverwinter Nights 2, Storm of Zehir.
It's quite a bit different in play style than NWN2 or MotB. Instead of taking place in select locations where travel is ignored, this expansion takes place mostly outside the confines of the cities and towns. A whole new mode has been added called the Overland Map. You walk across Faerun from location to location, and different terrains have different movement rates, different random encounter types, and it matters which member of your party you have selected as the leader (when I've got the party out in the overland map, the ranger is selected, and yeah, it makes a huge difference, I checked). But wait, there's more: you create your whole party. No more picking up NPCs as you go along (you can add one NPC to your party, and there are multiple NPCs to choose from as you wander the world), but your core party members are PCs. Your party size is one to six (plus an NPC if you choose one along the way). The first PC added to the roster is the single fixed point. You can add and remove the other PCs as you play, but the first PC is the party focus and is permanent. Like MotB before it, SoZ brings even more engine optimizations so the whole thing runs much smoother and is less resource intense.
The big thing with SoZ is trade. You establish trading posts in, and set up caravans between, the cities and towns in the background. While you wander the countryside moving along the main plot and doing side quests, your merchant caravans run making money for you. They are not autonomous. Your caravans come under attack on the roads and need maintenance. Care and feeding of the trade network is minimal so far, so it's not annoying, but it's one of those things that may become so if it starts to eat any real time.
So far, I'm having fun exploring the northern reaches of the Sword coast.
It's quite a bit different in play style than NWN2 or MotB. Instead of taking place in select locations where travel is ignored, this expansion takes place mostly outside the confines of the cities and towns. A whole new mode has been added called the Overland Map. You walk across Faerun from location to location, and different terrains have different movement rates, different random encounter types, and it matters which member of your party you have selected as the leader (when I've got the party out in the overland map, the ranger is selected, and yeah, it makes a huge difference, I checked). But wait, there's more: you create your whole party. No more picking up NPCs as you go along (you can add one NPC to your party, and there are multiple NPCs to choose from as you wander the world), but your core party members are PCs. Your party size is one to six (plus an NPC if you choose one along the way). The first PC added to the roster is the single fixed point. You can add and remove the other PCs as you play, but the first PC is the party focus and is permanent. Like MotB before it, SoZ brings even more engine optimizations so the whole thing runs much smoother and is less resource intense.
The big thing with SoZ is trade. You establish trading posts in, and set up caravans between, the cities and towns in the background. While you wander the countryside moving along the main plot and doing side quests, your merchant caravans run making money for you. They are not autonomous. Your caravans come under attack on the roads and need maintenance. Care and feeding of the trade network is minimal so far, so it's not annoying, but it's one of those things that may become so if it starts to eat any real time.
So far, I'm having fun exploring the northern reaches of the Sword coast.
