Saturday, February 24, 2007

my two cents, pennies or whatever about neverwinter nights-a very unofficial walkthrough

ok, right now i have unofically finished the game. why unoficialy? well, there is still some bad guy to kill and didn't manage to do so even though i tried several times. damn it. but aside for that i pretty much covered the entire game so i get the general idea and i guess i'm entitled to state my opinion. keep in mind that this is not supposed to be an 100% accurate walkthrough altough i'll do my best not to skip anything important. i have my own way of playing this game and anyone else is free to play it however he or she (yes, chicks play nwn too)desires. so here it is, my two cents (eurocents, that is) about nwn:

i like killing. don't freak out. i like it during games :p. so my first choice for a class character was a dwarf fighter. i was pretty lousy at the game back then so dain picior de fier (dain iron foot) as i affectionately dubbed him managed to suffer totaly unheroic death on the dock's district streets. scratch this try. next i played the expansion shadows of the undrentide. again fighter. this time an elf called ereinion gil'galad (can you tell i like tolkien? :p) finished chapter one but in the second one got stuck at some mummy dude and aborted this one too. third time is the charm, right? wrong. enter turin turambar. another fighter (wow, i had a real one track mind) but this time half elf (probably chose so because you can't cross elves with dwarves :)))))) )played a little with this character but i got influenced (and i mean this in a good way) to change my option.
enter deni. she has an afinity for the rogue character, one that i now share :). ok, so i had to make a rogue. oh yeah, letâs not forget about the bard attempt. forgot his name. anyway, i wanted to play the bard because i got the impresion he is a very versatile character plus he has the red dragon disciple prestige class which i thought is pretty cool. tried to play hordes of the underdark but the game malfuntioned probably because of all the fancy effects from the first battle in the game which comes pretty fast.
ok, back to the main story. i had failed at the expansions so i wanted to play the original game with a new character and continue with it throug out the rest of the game modules. got my mind set on rogue. it says there that halflings make excellent rogues because of their racial features and bonuses. good, tom bombadil the rogue halfling was born. and pretty soon died. you see, rogues have this skill calld pick pocket. you basicaly rob people without them knowing. or at least you try. well, i tried it on a dude from the temple of tyr. the thing is that if you get caught the character turns hostile. i got caught and the guy at the recall portal started attacking me. i ran out hoping that he cannot pass in and out of buildings. i was wrong. they can't chase you out of a speciffic area but have no trouble chasing you inside buildings as i discovered yet again with an invincible golem while i was playng today (yes, an invincible golem. you had to kill two guys to turn off the golem). so i got caught and killed
it's amazing i still wanted to play this game after this failure streak :p. but i persevered. another rogue was born. ran out of ideas for a name. deni said : kender kryn. kenders are a race from the planet kryn. this stuff is related to the forgotten realms stories with dungeons and dragons. kenders are some sort of thieves although they take offence at being called that. after several names generated by the game i settled for kender kryn. and now this name is famous throughout the northern lands of faerun :D.
off the proper playing/walkthrough stuff. first here some links to stuff made by other people. some chick played the game and gave her two cents (i'm guessing hers are american ones :p ) you can find it here . personaly i don't agree with this chicks style. neither does deni. she is obsessed with getting "good points". ok, i'm not evil but you can only get 100 good and some deeds that she thinks are bad have absolutely no effect on the good/bad score, but still she refused to do them. anybody can play however their heart dictates but it can and probably will your gaming performance. refusing quests due to a holier than thou attitude leads to low levels as you advance and trust me, at the end evey little bit counts. plus you may miss out on some great items and, why not, a lot of fun playing the game. i'm not evil but i'm selfish. grab everything. stick your nose everywhere? so what if you get burnt? that's why they invented the magical quicksave button. she always gave back the reward money. thus, she won the title of benefactor. ok, she played a ranger. i am a rogue. giving back had earned money would more likely make me worthy of the title "wimp", "loser", "jackass" and so on :p. hmm..now that i read on to refresh my memory i see that she can't remember names. almost all the names that apear there are wrong. so if you want to have a good laugh play the game first and read her walkthrough after that. you'll see what i mean. now let's get serios. this is a good walkthrough that has helped me in my times of need. it is impartial. it simply explains what you have to do. click on this.
i pretty much dropped the idea of writing even a partial walkthrough because this post is huge already and i don't have the patience required for such a task.( seeing how this post has a very restrictive topic and knowing that some people tend to avoid long stuff anyone other than deni who reads the entire thing is deservant of respect)

ok, if you don't want certain surprises ruined you should quit reading right about now becasue i'm going to get into some details

you start of as a cadet at neverwinter academy. you are there to help against the wailing death, some misterious uncurable disease that ravages neverwinter. lady aribeth the big kahuna under the biggest kahuna lord nasher thinks highly of you bla bla. there is this cocky priest named desther and aribeth's lover fenthick who is always at desthers hand. from the very beginning desther annoyed me and i started smelling a rat. i was right. at one point it was really obvious but i guess the game creators allowed it to be obvious because, in the end, you have no control over this aspect. it is important you hire a henchman because the game is muuuch more dificult without one. i got the barbarian because he is a real animal in combat :D. i am a rogue so tomi, the first henchman you encounter is useless to me. the monk has his advantages but in my opinion he dies faster than the barbarian. the cleric, the bard and the wizard are not made for combat so the barbarian is in my opinion the best thing a rogue could wish for at his side. socialise with your henchman and he or she will tel you a story which results in a quest. do the quest and you get cool stuff and xp. every henchman has a story so talk with all of them. they will tell you the story only after you level up but at the end of the game because you already leveled up several times the others will spil it all if you bug them :D.i noticed that the game creators have designed a certain order in which to solve the quests. they sometimes give hints on this when all the characters you encounter insist that you talk to someone or go to a certain place. at one point the game got confused. if you went to see lord nasher you couldnât because he was gravely ill with the plague. however aribeth tells you that lord nasher is strawling through the halls of casle never singing songs written by the bards in honour of your great deeds. if i remeber this corectly the order in which you should "solve" the districts is : peninsula, docks, beggars nest, blacklake. on the streets you encounter priests of helm. they offer to give you the blessing of helm. i opted to be polite and accepted their blessing whenever i encountered one. strange thing about that. the blessing is practicaly useless as it has absolutely no effect be it good or evil however, there is a certain aspect that intrigued me. the blessings were in the form of a red aura. excuse me, but blessings are green, yellow or white. only curses are red. yup..neverwinter is full of rats. red rats led by mister d himself. at the moonstone mask you get to enjoy the company of the oposite sex. this is not a gay friendly brothel because the dude refuses to speak with men and the chicks ignore women. if you play a female character you wonât get tamoraâs quest. tough luck. not so tough considering that you only get 3 good points for doing it. or you can get 200gp if you decide to strike a deal with some asshole.
at the shining knight be sure to ask the guy about his special wares. you will discover the forge which you will find very useful. the rule of ask everyone everything is a good one to follow throughout the game. you wont get any answers if you don't ask questions. one more thing about the forge: characters who have no use for heavy armor should not ruin a light armor to create the whitebone armor. i thought it would be something cool. it was, but it was totally useless for a rogue. luckily i had another suit of armor for me as a spare so i sold the crafted one.
you find the cure, save the day bla bla. because YOU are the one who basicaly did everything you get the privilege to see all the hotshots of neverwinter create the cure for the plague. nasher is a stuck up. aribeth is her usual annoying self. desther still doesnât like you and thinks he is pretty important (never actualy tried to kill him, but i am curios to try it). fenthick is enthusiastic. maybe he has a date with aribeth afterwards. the chick is quite a chatterbox but if she resumes only to screaming my name in the throws of passion then i can understand fenthick's enthusiasm :p. the rat exposes himself and after they create the cure mister d runs off with it laughing like an idiot. fenthick follows him like a dog still thinking that desther is not a traitor (this game is sooo obvious). once again it's up to you to save the day because they can't spare soldiers bla bla. te really crapy part is that aribeth doesn't heal you anymore when you return injured from battle so you have to rest. you follow desther to helms hold. in the dungeons you'll find a litle boy. he is pretty nervous. you have the choice to propose a business deal to him to calm his nerves. don't be afraid to use it. you wont be taking advantage of an innocent child. he is in fact a merchant and has pretty good stuff too. keep in mind to be in tip top condition when you go after desther because the stone of recall is useless once you get in and he is not very esily defeated. again i stress that you search every corner of the keep because you may scrue up some quests. there is an evil demon there. that quest can only be properly solved if you find two books, not just the one the demon tells you about.
desther doesn't die by your hand. he surrenders and after that you can't kill him. he is burned alive and fenthick is hanged to satisfy the bloodthirst of the enraged citizens.
desther wasnât the bigshot in this thing. he didnât even know how and why the plague starte. there is a strange cult that did all this. these guys worship the old ones. so you go to port llast to hunt the cultists. chapter two is pretty big. you'll be hunting cultists, theyâll be hunting you. there are also werewolves, orcs, trolls and stuff. you get to play judge and decide what to do with the souls of some unfortunate fools. apparently i didnât get all the facts in that case because i didnât think to summon a demon to hear his story. iâm guessing there were experience points for that and that is what i feel sorry for. i also let an escaped convict lose loos and got 5 evil points for that. it's not the evil points i'm sour about because i made up for those but if i had killed that guy i would have received experience points. so form then on i killed almost everything i had the chance, of course if they were evil.
the cultists are in luskan, big surprise. the rival of neverwinter and a city renowned for itâs evil inhabitants. before you enter luskan make sure you fished al the other quests because once you enter you can't exit. this is where they lost their inspiration. okay, this is a depraved town so you will find a brothel and in there you find quests just like in neverwinter. another guy wants you to find four levers to make his potion machine work just like eltoora wants five tomes to get acces to the spell creating device. notice a pattern? you finish off the cultists in luskan but maugrim escapes. once again there is a rat. lady aribeth betrays neverwinter and joins maugrim to taake vengeance for the execution of fenthick.
off to beorunna's well to search for some ancient artifacts called the words of power. once again you will take part in a trial but not as judge. i had to read the walkthrough to finish this quest the right way. hope you get it from the first tryy deni. let me know when you get there. this is an interesting cvhapter. it has woods which i dislike but it offers great rewards which i like. you get to find out the netire story behind the plague, the old ones and maugrims cult. you even travel in time :D. this is a hard chapter. the old ones are not easy to confront, not to mention that you have to face drasgons too. man, dragons are extremely hard to kill. some uthgard chieftain will give you a spear for reward. i sod it becuase i didnât use it and i got a pretty good price for it. well...i was wrong. normaly the items needed by a henchman are worth nothing. wel, the spear i sold was the key to my henc,ans quest and i had to bzy it for over three times the price i got for it.
chapter four takes place in neverwinter. the city is besieged by a huge luskan army led by the former paladin of tyr now blackgurad lady aribeth of tyllmarinde. the city core is as you remeber it from the first chapter except the fire projectiles that rain from the sky. not too many quests but you get good xp for them. you will face some nasty demon guardian, then aribeth, then maugrim and then itâs off to kill the old ones. easier said than done. i got to the last big kill but it wasnât easy. i had to fight two dragons at once...it was really hard. and now it seems i canât finish the last task. the thing is that just like in desthers case iâm stuck with a useless recall stone so i have to do with whatever equipment and potions i have on me. iâm thinking of restarting chapter four so i can be more prepared for the final challenge. wish me luck
ok, that pretty much it. a very short history of the game. i intentionaly left out big chunks becuase i already gave you links to walkthoughs and because i donât want to spoil the fun of the game.
now for some words of wisdom.
at the beginnig you get to see that a rogue is a realy fun character to play because you get to manipulate poele with words and almost every lock or trap will fall before you. as you advnce through the game your henchman will smash doors and chests much faster than you can pick them open.
there are some traps that just donât want to be disabled. they are deadly traps. in this case i trigger them. dalean almost always dies but i benefit from the savong throws and have a decent chance to be only partialy injured or not hurt at all. don't forget to save before that.
actualy,saving is very important. be sure to save before every decision you make. and keep some spare saves just in case you want to return to a certain part of the game. trust me, you cannot play this game once.
there are creature in cetain areas that deliver deadly blows. they kill you with just one shot. sometimes i escaped thanks to my reflex save but if i get hit again i surely die. this sucks. if you don't save before then you are fucked.
once again i tell you that is important to search every inch of the map and when you talk to someone you must cover all the angles. you never know what ou may find out.

guess this is it. hope it made some sense. maybe i made some people curios about the game. i stil have a lot of playing to do. i'm thinking of trying an evil alligned character just to see what happens. maybe iâll blog about that someday.

Monday, February 12, 2007

anniversary of an uninteresting event

well..i don't think it's been a year. i mean it happened maybe 10 months or something ago... it's just that the feelings seem to come over me again. the bad feelings. the emptiness. depression. insanity. thought i was wiser. maybe i am. maybe i'm just dramatising this the way i always do, making a big deal out of something that isn't really that bad. i don't know anymore. there is light and then comes darkness. the same old reasons. the same old issues deep inside of me. feelings of emptines, frustration. i'm not a good person. not now i'm not. i'm selfish, petty.i still know right from wrong, but right now my right comes first despite any wrong done to others. sorry if i snap. i can't be compasionate at a time like this. not when something that i fear seems to show it's ugly head again. what does this babble mean?
let me tell you a totaly dull story about a boring person, namely me.
about a year ago i was happy. about a year ago it was snowing or something like that. i remember a certain walk in the park with a certain person. it was snowing. it was so beautiful. she was so beatiful. i was so stupid. cold black days were actualy good. then reality set in. i was dreaming and the dream was about to come to a very abrupt end. it's really a mess and i can't remember it all..but sadness is related to the warm days. so maybe you can understand why i'm not totally happy with this curent streak of warm sunny days. they remind me of everything. i'm not that insane,, i'm not flipping my lid just because the weather reminds of that. i'm stupid and i repeat mistakes..or, i don't know..it isn't clear. it never is. the same person..am i still dreaming? will this turn into a nightmare again? no..because now i know how it was before and i will not let it happen again.
to add to the old, here comes the new. and this new stuff is shocking to me. i'm sick and tired of feeling like the sky just fell on me. there has to be some easier way to take in news like that. another girl...
well...this goes to prove i am really stupid..i don't know. i'm here. she is very far away. there is absolutely no real thing connecting us. now it seems there will never be one.
once again i'm bitter, jealous of others happines.. sadness, anger..the aknowledgement of my own selfishness.
once again i'm confused and afraid. i see that there are some things that i just can't control. i play with fire and i can't control the extent of the burns..and it burns..

p.s.: anniversary of an uninteresting event is a song by deftones

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

is it love?

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you're told that you're loved.

You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was arrogant, acting like the dictator of your life.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.