Is the game worth buying without the DLCs?

[Crimson King]

If the DLCs are worth buying, which of them should i buy?

[Tesseract]

Yes, it's worth getting without any DLC. It comes with two expansions, and you'll find a huge amount of good player-created content for free on the Neverwinter Vault (some of which has been transferred to Steam Workshop).

Most of the DLC is extra adventures, which are at least mostly also worth buying. I haven't played the Tyrants of the Moonsea or Dark Dreams of Furiae yet, but the rest of the premium modules are quite good. The other DLCs are the soundtracks, which are self-explanatory, and Heroes of Neverwinter, which is just a portrait pack, so not terribly exciting unless you happen to see the perfect portrait for your character in there.

[Smakit]

I'll mirror what Tesseract said in that the main game is absolutely fine without the DLCs. They are all separate things not really connected or anything. There is a lot of hours to put in even without the many free modules you can download, so plenty to do not to mention the different classes you can play to mix things up.

What was mentioned is also true about the DLC. Just check info about them here or on the net to see if they sound interesting to you. I will mention that the odd-one of the modules is the Infinite Dungeons. On sale it is really cheap, but it does feel way different than any of the other story modules.

It is more or less a sort of randomized dungeon akin to Diablo or something, but stuck in the clunkiness of NWN. Not much plot, a lot of random items, and pretty repetitive as far as rooms and areas go. It is a blast for some people, so not to say stay way - just know that it is very much different from the other DLC that have plot/story and the like vs a handful of generic npcs / randomlized loot / areas.

[OttersR'Us]

I purchased them without realizing that the premium modules are encrypted and can't be played with modded workshop content like the PRC, so I requested a refund without playing. Can't comment to the actual quality, but at this time, I consider that restriction a dealbreaker. I already owned and played NWN Diamond vanilla and modded alike, and I'd prefer not to go back to the vanilla-only.
Obviously would not apply if you're not using applicable workshop content.

[daedus.wolfe]

I remember putting hours into this game and playing on one of the 32 player servers. It is just fine without the DLCs. If there are any good servers left to play on, it's a great experience. Solo campaign is fun as well. I don't know how the premium DLCs work with it anymore. The only one I've played is Wyvern Crown and that is only because I was part of DLA at the time of development. But you don't need the premium DLCs to enjoy the game. There is a lot of great content on Neverwinter Vault. As to horse issues. I believe the horse paks from the Neverwinter Vault should be fairly stable as I believe Deva Winblood was maintaining that for a while after release. They may not work with the premium modules but it works with everything else.

[Tesseract]

Originally posted by Battery Low:

I purchased them without realizing that the premium modules are encrypted and can't be played with modded workshop content like the PRC, so I requested a refund without playing. Can't comment to the actual quality, but at this time, I consider that restriction a dealbreaker.

The EE versions of the Premium Modules are no longer encrypted. The latest patch added all the script sources even.

[DrLoboto]

I think my personal favorite of the DLCs would be Darkness Over Daggerford, followed maybe by Pirates of the Sword Coast? Tyrants of the Moonsea is decent, it makes use of some cool new custom content, tilesets and models, but it also has a couple of flaws. The others are okay-ish. (The portrait DLC I find completely uninteresting, unless you want to donate some money to the devs/artists, because you can easily create your own portraits from just about any picture you like.)

That being said, IMO none of the DLCs and neither the three official campaigns are as good as many of the free community created adventures that can you can download for free, once you have the main game, so the DLCs are absolutely not required to have fun with NWN, they are just a small sample of what can be done with the toolset, and you can get equally good and better campaigns for free. The only advantage the DLCs have over community-created content is original soundtracks and voice-overs for a couple of lines (not all). Even without them NWN can last you for years. And if you don't want to spend money on the enhanced versions, Darkness Over Daggerford and Tyrants of the Moonsea are also available in older versions for free.

[AxeMan]

Can you continue playing the new DLCs with your existing characters or you play them with a new character?

And is there a sequence for the DLCs? Which one should I play first?

[DrLoboto]

Originally posted by AxeMan:

Can you continue playing the new DLCs with your existing characters or you play them with a new character?

And is there a sequence for the DLCs? Which one should I play first?

All of them are completely independent of each other and you usually have to create new characters for them, unless you happen to have one in the required (often rather low) level range, but they're not planned to continue the story of other DLC's characters. Play order is up to you.

I think Infinite Dungeons can be played with any character level between 5 and 40, so that one could be continued with your character, I guess.

Tyrants of the Moonsea was originally the third part of a trilogy, the other two parts being the free AL1: Siege of Shadowdale and AL2: Crimson Tides of Tethyr. However, I imported my character from AL2 into the Tyrants DLC with all acquired items and it removed most of the challenge from the game since the character and equipment felt pretty overpowered. That's one of the flaws I mentioned above about the Tyrants DLC, it's quite Monty Haul, and the balance felt pretty off to me. (All parts of the trilogy have self-contained stories, so you don't need to have played AL1 and AL2 in order to understand Tyrants, but there are some recurring opponents/themes.)

[pfroddam]

To be honest, if you have access to diamond, or other earlier versions, you are better not spending the money. Enhanced is not graphically enhanced in any signifficant way, is buggy as hell, and the better workshop content often becomes unplayable...either not showing in modules list, or not loading, in days to weeks at times.

Use old version, download mods from the current vault...much better idea...working well for me. ;)

[trahuar]

Yes. OC and HotU. Then on to the free user modules.

Originally posted by AxeMan:

Can you continue playing the new DLCs with your existing characters or you play them with a new character?

In the game at any time you can save your character and then choose this character in a new module.

[OttersR'Us]

Originally posted by Tesseract:

Originally posted by Battery Low:

I purchased them without realizing that the premium modules are encrypted and can't be played with modded workshop content like the PRC, so I requested a refund without playing. Can't comment to the actual quality, but at this time, I consider that restriction a dealbreaker.

The EE versions of the Premium Modules are no longer encrypted. The latest patch added all the script sources even.

That's interesting. Assumed threads from 7 months back would be recent enough for current info, but apparently not. Still not able to actually load in the modded content at this time. I'll keep an eye on it then!

[Yawb]

Alot of people are saying its fairly buggy, what kind of bugs can i expect? I have the diamond edition on gog but i kind of like the idea of achievements on steam, plus if i was to ever play mp campaign with someone i don't have to setup game ranger or something else.

[DrLoboto]

Originally posted by Yawb:

Alot of people are saying its fairly buggy, what kind of bugs can i expect?

Personally, I've played through a couple of premium modules and community modules with the EE, and the only bugs I've noticed compared to Diamond is that very occasionally, transitions didn't work like they were supposed to. This issue has allegedly been fixed by one the patches by now, but when I played Wyvern Crown of Cormyr with the newest version, I ran into it again. And sometimes placeables that are supposed to be interacted with (like scrolls stuck into crypt alcoves or so) were inaccessible, but I don't know whether that was due to the EE or the original module already; no idea if there's something in the EE that can slightly displace them.

EDIT: Oh, wait, I forgot the worst, about crashes being able to erase your quicksave file, lol. It happens very seldom, but it does happen, and when it does, it really sucks.

While the above doesn't so sound good, for the major part of my time spent with the EE, everything worked just as it did in Diamond though.

[razor]

Seems no need for this version at all lol based on these comments

[DrLoboto]

Originally posted by razor247:

Seems no need for this version at all lol based on these comments

If you have NWN Diamond already, you only need this one to be able to play on online worlds who moved to the EE, or new single player modules created with it (which are few and far between, but include three of the DLCs).