Playtest: Neverwinter Nights

When I first started playing Neverwinter Nights, I was immediately engrossed in the character creation process. Due to the vast range of portraits, classes, skills, spells, voicesets (the voice talents did an amazing job) and several pets to choose from if you chose to be a ranger, druid, wizard, or sorcerer), I took several hours just trying to decide what I wanted to play as. Character creation can be tedious, but it's pretty fun, especially when you come to the part where you choose your character's physical appearance such as head models and skin color.

And then finally, I begun playing the Prelude chapter.

After the cutscene, I found myself wondering how and what I was supposed to do. Luckily, the Prelude was also a step-by-step tutorial, and got me familiar to the controls and interface after a short period of time. I admired the simplicity of NWN's radial menu system, which at this point in the game, had very few buttons relating to my character's abilities and skills, and were very well organised. (Up till now, I have never seen an RPG game whose interface was as neat as NWN's) Since I was playing as a sorcerer, I had chosen to have a Faerie Dragon as my familiar/pet. I summoned it, had a chat with it (dialog with familiars are quite limited), played with it, petted it, fed it (although they didn't need feeding) and possessed it. Possessing my pet faerie dragon was pretty fun, the ability forces me to leave my character immobile and vulnerable while I fly around biting random academy students and flying off to cause more mischief. Good times.

The Prelude has step-by-step tutorials for Interface Usage, Shopping, Journal Checking, Melee Combat, Ranged Combat, Creature Examining, Spellcasting, Theft, Vandalism, Healing, Party Leadership, and Leveling Up. All which makes learning to play easy, even for those like me who've never played RPG games before.

After finishing the Prelude, I was redirected to Chapter 1, which took place in Neverwinter's city core. The number of quests kept piling up on me by the hour, but the Journal system kept track of my available quests and could organise them according to name, priority, and date commenced. Pending and incomplete quests appear in the Quests tab, and once a quest is complete, it'll disappear from the Quests tab and a summary of it will appear in the Completed Quests tab. There's a third tab called Notes where you can write anything you want. Unlike the other two tabs, your notes will not be erased even if you finished the game, which is great especially when you want to remember general rules and tips useful in any game.

Because the areas in travelled through were pretty large, I had to make use of the Map system to prevent from getting lost. When I explore unknown territory, the map will mostly appear as a translucent box, with a small portion uncovered around my current location. The more I walked into unknown territory, the more parts of the map I uncovered. And if I found/bought an actual map for a certain area, it will completely uncover the entire area, allowing me to better plan my routes.

Left Panel: Character Sheet displays tactical information about me.
Center Panel: Journal shows my completed quests.

Right Panel: Spellbook shows which spells I know as a Cleric.

Bottom Left Panel: Chat log records any conversations I've had or overheard and displays battle analysis during combat.
Bottom Right Panel: Compass displays the direction I'm facing, and tells the date and game time.

Throughout the game, I'd find and pick up lots of things, from salvaged weapons to books and loads of other random stuff. All items come in different sizes and it's important to pack them together without leaving too many gaps. Otherwise, you're wasting valuable space. If there isn't enough space after thoroughly packing everything, containers can be purchased to increase space. However, containers are rare pickups.

There's also a crafting system for weapons, armor, and traps. In order to craft something successfully, the character must have a good score (perhaps about 30) in his 'Crafts' related skills, and he must have enough gold and the necessary materials on hand to craft. For example, if I wanted to make myself a longbow, first I'd need to acquire raw materials such as plank of Elm wood and a leather hide, and refine them into a Elmwood bow shaft and leather string respectively, and combine the items together to make a longbow. In truth, I haven't made much use of the crafting system, since I do all my crafting on the Toolset. I do, however, craft wands out of large bones and imbue them with my magic, and sell them for a good price. It's one of the easiest ways for spellcasters to make money.