Since cRPGs are ALL about interactions, why would anyone want to slow them down by adding a camera? The ability to rotate and zoom a viewport adds nothing to cRPG experiences cams are hindrances. 3D uglifies everything and slows down gameplay and even the simplest interactions. As I said in cRPG Definition, the employment of 3D graphics in cRPGs was, is and always will be a mistake.Instead, NWN2 employs 3D "portraits" (literal snap-shots of the in-game model) that show what headgear we are wearing. See NWN1 companions for examples of painted portraits. NWN2 does not feature painted portraits.We are in FRW to level and equip our character, not watch cutscenes. I mean, even FRW Character Creator has this stupid cinematic dialogue. But NWN2 often employs 3D cinematic cutscene dialogue, which is glitchy, jarring and slows down interactions. In NWN2, the zoom-in dialogue was thankfully left out and the dialogue window can be dragged to the center of the viewport.And games should never take control of the player's cam settings, EVER. NOT off to the side or tucked away in a corner. When in dialogue mode, the conversation must dominate the viewport, be center-stage. Sorry, but dialogue windows should be central to viewports (as in the Infinity Engine). In NWN1, whenever we talk with NPCs the cam zooms in close to them and the dialogue is displayed in a fixed-size unmoveable window stuck at the top-left of our display. The dialogue systems in NWN1 and NWN2 are quite poor.There are two ways to get NWN1-style secret doors in NWN2: clumsy workarounds or custom placeables and scripts. NWN2 does not natively support secret doors.So that means we have to mouse-over all the NPCs just to find the one we need to talk to. But when we highlight interactables in NWN2 (Z key), NO name appears over NPCs. When we highlight interactable objects in NWN1 (Tab key), floaty text appears over NPCs that IDs them by name. The small map in NWN2 is too small and the big map is too big. NWN2 has TWO auto-maps, both of which suck.That said, this part comes down to: upgrade your PC, get an SSD etc. NWN2 does not suffer as severely from this issue because NWN2 seems to call up data more efficiently. Aside from simply being annoying, it's a dead giveaway that something is around the corner (immersion-breaking). What happens is, as we explore areas the framerate drops to spawn a mob that we can't yet see. Spawn stutter is immersion-breaking in NWN1.This was mostly fixed in NWN2, but NWN2 seems not to have proper spacing between combat units (it just seems kludgy to me). When our character runs into a placeable, other NPC or monster, they just awkwardly bounce-stop before getting into the dance of death. As on the Infinity Engine, Aurora and Electron pathing routines can be glitchy. The worst part is: our character can get stuck on placeables or tileset geometry.
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