Decent single player mods?

cjdevito · Post by **cjdevito** » Wed Aug 28, 2002 10:48 am

After shelving NWN a few months back after what I considered the extremely disappointing single player game, I figure now enough time has passed to start looking for decent user made mods. There any good single player mods out there yet?

smass · Post by **smass** » Wed Aug 28, 2002 1:00 pm

The ravenloft mod is not bad. Many of the mods show some promise - the Penultima series is fairly well done. Check out the ratings on neverwintervault - they are a good indicator of overall quality - but none of them have bowled me over yet...

Nagroth · Post by **Nagroth** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 12:38 am

I agree with smass, I like the Ravenloft mod as well, nice atmosphere and good unique items for undead slaying.
It´s quite easy to get lost, though, because that castle is so damn big. Right now, my lvl 11 paladin is running through the castle hoping to find Strahd.
I wonder though why there are so many mods out there that deal with some kind of undead threat. Aren´t there any other foes to vanquish ? And why are there hardly any mods for beginning characters ?

Rav · Post by **Rav** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 2:50 am

The entire penultima campaign is HILARIOUS. Of course, this might not be your cup of tea.

Rav

Jodmos · Post by **Jodmos** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 3:21 pm

There are some good mods out there, I recoment checking nwnvault, they have lots of mods and reviewing them.

What bugs me is that most of that mods are for characters of lvl 1 - 10. I developed a character with backround, rpged him up to 20 and cant play with him because there are no mods for high lvl chars.
I have my selfmade equipment, no uber items, more rpg like, so I dont want new shiny Items, nor Exp.
I just want to solve quests and some nice battles for the fun of it.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 10:57 pm

Originally posted by Jodmos
<snip>
What bugs me is that most of that mods are for characters of lvl 1 - 10. I developed a character with backround, rpged him up to 20 and cant play with him because there are no mods for high lvl chars.<snip>
I just want to solve quests and some nice battles for the fun of it.

Battlewise it is easier to make interesting battels for the lower-level chars. then the almighty level 20ish.
A couple of dragons everytime or Iron Golems or other high level monsters will get dull in the long run.

Yuusuke · Post by **Yuusuke** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 11:06 pm

I thought I was the only one that was disappointed by NWN.

Pentiultima is pretty nice, but I concur with others when I say that most mods are adequate at best. The problem I see with mods is Aurora's complete dependence on tile sets. If you've been through the SP game, you've seen just about everything there is to see in terms of location.

Everything, EVERYTHING is square or rectangular. Every room is square or rectangular. Every town is either sqaure or rectangular. Combine that with a VERY limited environment tile set = snooze city.

Playing NWN just makes me realize and appreciate what a great game BG2 was.

Jodmos · Post by **Jodmos** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 5:53 am

@ Xandax

You dont need Iron golems and dragons galore to make a hard battle for high level chars.
If any creature like a lousy orc shaman would use their spells and abilities in an intelligent way that would be enough.
Dragons played by a good DM are nearly unkillable even for a high lvl party.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 6:07 am

Originally posted by Yuusuke
Everything, EVERYTHING is square or rectangular. Every room is square or rectangular. Every town is either sqaure or rectangular. Combine that with a VERY limited environment tile set = snooze city.

I am in agreement, it would be nice if we could mix and match a little, however surely if it is limited in that way then it means one has to create more interesting characters and have good conversations and quests.

I agree with Jodmos, it is quite possible to create low level characters and make them really impressive, give them lots of proficiencies and spells and customise them with good armour. It actually makes more sense RP wise, who else gets tired of killing dragons with 3 chops

Wraithus Dire · Post by **Wraithus Dire** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 11:48 am

The thing that killed my interest in the Toolset was coming across the stark horrifying truth that I couldn't make an empty room.

Sounds stupid?

Maybe. But think of this: If I can't place immovables (i.e. chairs, tables, idle crap that comes with the tileset), then I can't build a truely unique environment.
What do I do if I want a desolate bar to actually look desolate and sparse? All I really wanted was 1 long table and a row of archers behind it.

Someone (I forget who, but whomever you are, you made a great point) said that the traps and encounters in NwN were more like an annoying fly . The encounters and traps in BG2 were a raging pack of starving lions - meant to kill you and your party dead like dinner. The room structures and environments were built to surprise the party and then kill them. I recall the example was in the red dragon's keep - walking into a room and getting hit by archers on both sides and then having to find a secret door to let you into the room where the archers were.

Damnit, I want an empty room.

The very first room I tried to create was the staging grounds to pick up a new henchman. I wanted a small woodland temple that had been the scene of a slaughter and subsequent looting.
Instead, I get a fully freaken furnished temple in marble. Fine, let's try a city tileset - oops, now my woodland temple is the center of a bustling bloody city.

My point is simply this: If you do not allow me to place objects, you severely limit the atmosphere of the room

Isn't atmosphere what Pen & Paper D&D is all about? When you get tried of killing entire gene pools of orcs, isn't atmosphere what keeps the party going?

Perhaps I've missed the point. The MODS are nice, but they all... feel the same. And that, imho, is a bloody shame. Someone put a lot of work into those Penultima(sp?) series.

Thanks and goodnight

WD

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 12:13 pm

Originally posted by Wraithus Dire
Perhaps I've missed the point. The MODS are nice, but they all... feel the same. And that, imho, is a bloody shame.

I agree,
The toolset takes to much work out of your hands. It's just to easy.

It places trees everywhere when you are makeing a forest, but I can't seem to be able to place the trees where I want them.
The toolset is very much "made for everyone", even an complete pc newbie can make a map. That way you get a lott of the same.

I'd wan't a toolset you'd have to learn to work with. Like for instance the Half life editor I worked with.
It's hard, but the result is so much better.

I'd like to build things up from the bottom. Items like chairs are ok, but let me build my own map and buildings etc.

Yuusuke · Post by **Yuusuke** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 1:19 pm

I'd wan't a toolset you'd have to learn to work with. Like for instance the Half life editor I worked with.
It's hard, but the result is so much better.

I agree with you but I also see it from Bioware's perspective. With HL and UT, they had very detailed toolsets that allowed you to microbuild your maps, but those toolsets were meant to build mostly small enclosed maps, not entire campaigns as it is with NWN.

NWN, if it thrives, it will have to thrive on the MP, and the only way to ensure that the MP thrives is by making sure there are alot of player-made mods of adequate quality. If every mod had to be build polygon by polygon, you wouldn't have alot of mods out there. What you'd end up with is either:

a) An average SP experience with very few quality MP mods, or...
b) An average SP experience with alot of really poor MP mods.

Bioware tried to balance it out by having a toolset that allow more players to jump into the mod scene more easily. They tried to let the builders focus more on the plot aspect, not the artistic aspect of the mods. Which is good...I suppose, but I'm not blind to the fact that the mods look boring and "rubber-stamped".

I would say everyone should hit the Bioware forums, they have a sticky which encourages feedback on how to improve the toolset. So far, there have been droves of people asking for more tile sets, which should help the situation. I personally asked for more monsters.

Sure if you expand the monster tree on the toolset it seems like a very long and extensive list, but honestly, most of those things are just color swaps with an extra horn here and an extra antenna there. More exotic mosters will definitely help keep the mods fresh.

Seriously, how many skeletons, goblins, and drows do I have to wade through before I get to see a grell or a treant?

Sirius_Sam · Post by **Sirius_Sam** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 4:32 pm

Hi CJ

I've been away from the boards for awhile myself, but I have been playing NWN MP mode quite a bit. There are a few really good SP mods out tho, but I'll only offer my opinion on one:

Shade: A Thief Adventure (I liked the story, the concept and the low-level items). It's a lot like playing Garrett again, in a different setting and it reminded me a lot of the Lankhmar world (Fritz Lieber's, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Newhon) in scope.

Grab it (and some other stuff...YMMV with some of these) here *nod to Jodmos*:

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/moduleslist2.shtml

S_S

EDIT: Oops...sorry. Link is fixed to show all the mods now.

Nagroth · Post by **Nagroth** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 12:22 am

Played through the Spires of Ravenloft Module recently and really enjoyed it. Nice atmosphere, unique items that fit to the setting (at least for my Paladin, a Rogue would be disappointed, I guess)
One suggestion though for this thread : if you recommend a good mod, pls provide a link where to download it.
The Ravenloft mod can be downloaded pretty much everywhere, I got it from http://nwn.bioware.com/downloads/modules.html