Neverwinter Nights 2 Analysis

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Neverwinter Nights 2 Analysis

8 December 2006

This is not a review of Neverwinter Nights 2, and isn't intended for people deciding whether or not they wish to purchase the game. Instead, it is an analysis of some of NWN2's design. For my other analysis, see:

Warning: There are some game spoilers below. Don't read any further if you haven't already player NWN2 and still plan to play it.

Important design elements

NWN2 has two design elements that really stand out:

Cheesy cut-scenes - While cut scenes are standard for all games, NWN2 uses a low-cost cut-scene engine that produces cheesy-looking cut-scenes. However, the low cost-of-production enabled the content designers to include a large number of cut scenes and associated branching narratives (aka: Choose Your Own Adventure books).
Personal NPCs - NWN2 does an excellent job implementing personal NPCs.

Cheesy cut-scenes

Cut scenes are standard fare in all games except Tetris. They are incredibly useful for fleshing out characters and producing sympathetic goals in players.

Most games have a dedicated team that produces high-quality eye-candy-laden cut scenes that cost an awful lot of money. Consequently, they don't include many cut scenes, and they certainly don't include the cut scenes in branching narratives because half of the (very expensive) cut scenes would never be seen by players depending upon which branch they choose.

Neverwinter Nights 2 took a different approach: They include a toolkit for cut scenes as part of their engine. This toolkit isn't very powerful, and it doesn't appear that there was a specialised NWN2 cut-scene team, so the cut scenes are very cheesy looking. However, what it lost in eye candy is gained in power.

Because NWN2 cut scenes are so cheap and easy to produce, NWN2 includes heaps of cut scenes, using them to not only create sympathetic goals, like all cut scenes do, but to create new gameplay.

The new gameplay is possible because the cut scenes are so cheap they're disposable, and ultimately mixed in with branching narratives (in the form of dialogue trees). Traditional (expensive) cut scenes aren't used with branching narratives because that would mean that players wouldn't see half of the expensively-produced animations. (I'll provide some examples of NWN2's cut scenes later.)

To top it off, NWN2's cheesy cut-scenes are dynamic! That means they're customised depending upon which party members (personal NPCs) are tagging along with the player. A traditional cut scene can't compete against that.

Personal NPCs

Awhile back, I wrote up an article about personal NPCs. One of my inspirations was Baldur's Gate, a direct ancestor of Neverwinter Nights 2. Baldur's Gate used personal NPCs as party members.

NWN2 takes the idea of personal NPCs a few steps further than Baldur's Gate:

Party members (personal NPCs) each have their own quests that act as side-quests to the main plot of overthrowing the evil overlord. Such extra quests are not just extra content, but they are used to flesh out the party member's personality and create a character arc. For example: The hot-headed dwarf wants to become a level-headed monk. The thief wants to out-thieve her rival.
Party members argue with one another in cut scenes. This is not only entertaining and reminiscent of real Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, but it adds to the characters' personalities.
Party member interject comments when the player is talking to various NPCs. Interjections are used to provide warnings and information to the player, as well as emphasise the party member's personality.

This is so effective that I found myself forgoing some NPCs (such as the whingeing ranger) in favour of others (the battle-eager dwarf).
Party members react to the player's actions, as well as the player's responses to other NPCs and party members. See below.

Unfortunately, NWN2 party members:

Have lots of personality in the cut scenes, but lose all their personality during gameplay. Ideally, party members would bicker and banter during combat, refuse to do certain actions, or request others. For example: The thief party member could be the first one to loot the treasure chests, causing other NPCs to complain. Or the druid NPC might refuse to fight animal enemies.
Don't always have a voice. Sometimes party members will talk in a cut scene and actually speak. Other times they merely spew out a line of silent text.

Both of these problems emphasise that there are two halves to NWN2, the cut scenes and their branching narrative, and the "kill lots of monsters" game.

The tightrope game

Whenever the player gets into a conversation with a NPC, players are provided a handful of responses, many of which are different ways of saying the same thing. One response might be polite, another bold, and a third intimidating.

Many games provide a variety of choices so that players think they have a choice, but in reality, all the choices end up in exactly the same place with exactly the same consequences. This is a no-no, as I pointed out in Choices 3. It's equivalent to asking a player to chose between two doors, each of which leads to the same room.

NWN2's conversation-tree choices actually have different effects:

As is typical in all games, some conversation-tree choices are ways for players to avoid lengthy backstory if they're not interested in it.
Some of the choices lead to different outcomes in the encounter, such as whether or not combat breaks out.
Choices can affect the NPC's opinion of the player, which has ramifications in "The trial" and "The castle".
What a player says or does to a NPC can affect the opinion of one of the player's party members. For example: Some party members will like the player character better if the player comes across as bold and brash, while other party members prefer more diplomatic responses. In some cases, how much a party member likes a player's character affects how much help they provide in other parts of the game (or so I've read).

Feedback is important. Party members let the players know how they feel by interjecting comments, like "That was a nasty thing to say."
Choices affect the player's alignment. In turn, this affects what class the player can be.

When combined together, all the conversation-tree dialogue choices create a "tightrope game". Every time a player is asked to choose, they must weigh up all the outcomes of the choice.

The trial

Half way through the game, the player is put on trial using a lengthy series of cutscenes. The trial is a nice invention because:

It is a refreshingly-different sub-game... as opposed to the normal monster bashing.
It illustrates the personalities of personal NPCs.
It is used to make the player dislike some of the conniving enemy NPCs.
It takes advantage of the player's own skill, as well as non-combat character skills like "diplomacy".
The player's actions and words from "the tightrope game" actually have an impact on the trial. If the player was mean to certain NPCs or personal NPCs, they'll have a harder time when those NPCs are called to the witness stand.

Unfortunately, NWN2 designers messed up the fundamental design of the trial in two important ways:

The player doesn't know that the trial is going to happen and that his actions are going to be judged. Without such knowledge, the designers are effectively asking the player to chose between two identical doors, which as I wrote in Choices 3, is bad design. This problem is somewhat mitigated by that fact that dialogue choices also have more immediate effects on NPCs and personal NPCs.
If the player wins the trial, the enemy lawyer asks for trial by combat. And although I haven't verified this, if the player loses the trial, the player's lawyer asks for trial by combat... Which means that the trial doesn't affect the outcome of the game and is equivalent to two doors leading to the same room, another design flaw.

The castle

Later in the game, the player is given control over an old castle, another refreshingly-different sub-game. It is the player's responsibility to:

Recruit NPC armourers, weaponsmiths, merchants, etc. How the player treated NPCs (and personal NPCs) affects recruiting (or so I've read).
Decide what parts of the castle get fixed and in what order.
Decide how many troops to hire and how well to train them.

I haven't played the castle sub-game to completion, but I can already see a flaw:

There isn't much feedback. For example, players are asked whether they want to put money into lots of poorly trained troops or well-trained troops. Unfortunately, there's no way for a player to know if they've made the right decision until the final battle, and then it's too late. This could be remedied by including a number of smaller skirmishes ahead of the main battle; this might be the case since I haven't played all the way through, but reviewers only mention the one battle.

The importance of cheesy cut-scenes and personal NPCs

In my opinion, if NWN2 didn't have the cheesy cut-scenes and personal NPCs, it would be a much weaker game, so weak that I would have stopped playing after only a few hours. Oddly enough, many reviewers didn't seem to notice either of these design decisions; perhaps they didn't consciously recognize them, or perhaps they found the traditional "kill lots of monsters" game to be adequate.

Also in my opinion, if NWN2 had cut out 75% of the "kill lots of monsters" content, it would have been a better game. Not only would the length have been shorter (NWN2 is too long), but I've killed way too many orcs in previous games for it to be fun any more, including Neverwinter Nights 1, and Baldur's Gate, and World of Warcraft, and Everquest II, and Oblivion, and Fable, and Might and Magic, and Dungeon Siege, and.... and going back 25 years to Wizardry I and Ultima I.