10.19.07
Mask of the Betrayer
I want to talk about Mask of the Betrayer, the first expansion to Neverwinter Nights 2.
I finished it a few days ago, and it went straight to my top 3 of best game stories of all time. In fact it beats both Deus Ex and KOTOR1 and 2 on that count, making it a strong contender for Torment’s long-held first place. MotB has it all: Companions that you care about, a clear and strong structure, memorable location upon jaw-dropping setpiece upon memorable location, intellectually stimulating philosophical and existential questions (no, really!), and probably most importantly, plenty of freedom of choice.
First: Companions. In NWN2, they really missed the mark on that count. There was one companion for each available character class (except Barbarian, but there were 2 fighters instead), meaning 11 different companions, and for that reason, most of them were shallow and uninteresting (exceptions include Shandra and Ammon). In MotB there are 5 companions, two of them mutually exclusive(!!), and all of them deeply tied to the storyline. The romance options are interesting personalities this time! Most impressive of all, you can alledgedly play the whole game without taking any of the companions along.
The locations are another contributing factor to making MotB a great game. During the storyline you do one fantastic thing after the other and visit unique and exciting places. This is far removed from NWN2’s standard fantasy countryside and woodlands. I was especially pleased to visit the Shadow Plane, an almost exact copy of the material world, in which everything is colourless and slightly twisted. I once planned an NWN module which would feature this plane prominently, but that turned into The Bitter Taste of Blood instead.
Not only do you visit places that are so epic they could very well make you cry blood, you get to do things that are outstandingly epic in nature. Things that involve plane-travelling. In this, and several other aspects, MotB resembles Planescape: Torment to a great degree. It’s not about saving the world, it’s about figuring out how to solve a significant problem that has befallen you, and possibly changing the planes in the process.
Finally, MotB is probably the first game ever that I have disagreed ideologically with. I can’t really go into a lot of detail here without throwing around some significant spoilers, but MotB’s story deals with some very expansive philosophical questions about faith and religion and the relationship between mortals and their gods. I have come to accept the morale of MotB only because there exists no doubt in the game’s setting (Forgotten Realms) that the gods exist, but if one were to transplant this story into our world, where (let’s face it) no conclusive evidence exists that gods are real, it would take on a completely different spin, and I hope the morale would be something other than “You can’t change the world.”
You’d think disagreeing with the ideology of a game would be a bad thing, but the mere fact that there is a philosophical ideology here to disagree with is something I deeply respect. In most games the ideology is not actively discussed in the story, but just something deeper, more fundamental, hidden beneath the action like in Gears of War with its ridiculously masculine protagonists. In Mask of the Betrayer it’s right up there in the story and the dialogue, being debated by you and the characters in the world, and your reactions to those questions change the story slightly.
Mask of the Betrayer has a lot of different endings because it uses a denouement sequence told by a narrator with slides. Of course this is sort of a primitive way to handle it, but on the other hand it allows them to really account for anything you’ve done throughout the game. There are 3 main endings, each influenced by how you’ve dealt with your companions, how you’re aligned morally, how you deal with your romantic interest, and possibly other things that I’ve failed to notice or discover.
My only objection to MotB is a small one: An entire ending was closed to me because I missed a hotspot where I could click. This would be a major point of critique if not for the fact that this ending is basically an optimal happy-ever-after ending, the availability of which would have eradicated the amazing existential dilemma of choosing between the two other endings. The two main endings of MotB are like the four endings of Invisible War: Neither of them is entirely happy, there is always a drawback. Introducing a third ending where everything is sunshine and lollipops would render that completely irrelevant. It could be considered a “reward” for those who are especially explorative, but frankly I’m happy I missed it - I just wish it weren’t there to begin with, so I didn’t feel as cheated as I do. Does that make sense? I guess it doesn’t - I feel cheated for missing something that would’ve removed a large part of what made the game’s ending as enjoyable as I found it. But I guess it pertains to the way I play: I want to experience everything that I possibly can in any given playthrough of a game.
Mask of the Betrayer has an outstanding story that concludes the storyline of Neverwinter Nights 2 on a far better note than even the best parts of NWN2 could muster, but it still suffers from its annoying dependence on Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t mind D&D as such, I just think it’s terrible for computer games - we don’t need levels or character classes, the computer can handle all the complications. In spite of the slightly uninteresting D&D combat, however, all the other qualities of the game make it a clear recommendation from me.
EER said,
October 19, 2007 at 18:06
Like my teacher always said: “You cannot prove the absence of bugs, only their existence”.
Jonas said,
October 19, 2007 at 19:51
Meaning… what?
Smike said,
October 19, 2007 at 20:48
You see? EER should not have to explain this. You should be able to read that and extrapolate and understand what he means. At least now I know it’s not just me.
fox said,
October 19, 2007 at 21:38
God damned, it means EER’s teacher was Mr. Miyagi!
Jonas said,
October 19, 2007 at 23:02
Great, I thought I was getting a mentor, but actually I was getting a sensei.
Smike said,
October 20, 2007 at 01:11
WAX ON!
EER said,
October 20, 2007 at 11:50
I think it should be enough if I say I was referring to the sixth paragraph. Also, I hadn’t read the entire thing when I commented
I have now. I like D&D actually, well at least the way it worked in Baldurs gate. I don’t do anything with scrapbooks offline or anything.
Jonas said,
October 20, 2007 at 12:58
Well D&D is a sensitive subject for me, because many of the games made with the ruleset are among my all-time favourites (especially Torment that I can’t help but bring up in any discussion, but also Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 plus their various expansion packs, and of course KOTOR1 and 2 although they use a special SW-variant of D&D).
I think the best way to make RPG’s for a computer is to use a more open and less clearly structured system like TES, Diablo, Deus Ex, or Dark Messiah of M&M. In TES, your skills are upgraded when you use them enough, which makes a lot more sense than improving your reading by killing a bunch of orcs in D&D, and Dark Messiah or Deus Ex don’t even use levels, they just give you skillpoints that you can use to upgrade the skills you want - which may not exactly be realistc (yay I found a hidden room, now I’m better at… using medkits?) but it gives you a lot of freedom to create exactly the type of character you want within the boundaries of the game.
You don’t have to choose “I’m a barbarian, so I can’t use magic at all.”
D&D is designed to be simple enough that it can be handled by people with dice and to be flexible for house rules. Computer games don’t need to be handled by people, it just needs to be clear what sort of consequences it will have to the game if you upgrade a certain skill, and all the behind-the-scenes stuff can be left to the computer.
Iain said,
October 29, 2007 at 18:48
I have a problem with MOTB. The fact that it’s got the worst 3D engine, GUI and camera I’ve ever been subjected to in an AD&D game. Plus the fact that getting it to *not* crash every five minutes, despite having a well-maintained PC that’s easily double the recommended spec appears to be beyond the realms of earthly possibility.
The story may be great - but unfortunately it’s trapped in one of the ugliest and buggiest RPGs released in the last five years. I mean, seriously - if you’re going to incorporate the Plane of Shadow as a major locale in your game, you better have a 3D engine and camera that allows you to be able to distinguish characters when they get in melee. But no, the monochrome effects render everyone pretty much indistinguishable once they get in melee range, meaning lots of random clicking on enemy NPCs to find the one you want to be targeting first - and then the game crashes when you switch characters…
Obsidian, leave 3D engine development to people WHO KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING, please. It was bad enough that they had to rush the ending to KotOR 2 (Mordenkainen’s Flying Lightsabers! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?) but actually taking a great game (the original NWN) and rendering it practically unplayable is just taking the piss really. Give me a game that WORKS. Then I will worry about the story.
Jonas said,
October 29, 2007 at 19:53
Eep, okay. Well I’m sorry to hear you’ve had so many problems with it, the game ran like a charm for me. Everything was noticeably improved from NWN2 tech-wise - the game ran better and the camera controls were given a huge overhaul that (once I’d spent a bit of time tweaking the new camera options) solved all the issues I had with them in the original game. And I never had a crash or even encountered a bug in MotB (although I’ve heard there were a few in the initial release).
Actually I was discussing MotB with a friend from the NWN-community, and he commented on how wonderful it was that Obsidian had finally managed to produce a game that was complete in every way.
Obviously this doesn’t help you, since you’ve had the problems that you’ve had regardless of whether or not the rest of us have had those problems, but I just thought you should know that the issues you’re experiencing aren’t universal. In short, I guess I was defending my fondness for the game
I’ll stop now.
dan said,
May 28, 2008 at 09:34
I don’t think the game really harbors a particular ideological perpective itself, but rather presents a problem with all kinds of ways for you, the protagonist, to interpret and navigate it.
Taking it to the real world obviously makes no sense, because, as you say, this world assumes a very different sort of existence. But that’s what great fantasy and science fiction does; they give you an intriguing and bizarre premise upon which they build a world, where choices have to be made, and novel implications are generated.
Speaking as an atheist, I found that this story still resonated in a way similar to many of the great religious epics found in many cultures, and in that way found it very satisfying and not overtly or annoyingly didactic.
Jonas said,
May 28, 2008 at 13:13
Well it’s all in the interpretation I guess, but I was left with a distinct feeling that the moral of the story was “don’t bother changing the world”, which is kinda bleak no matter how you look at it.