okay, the game is tragic performance hog. The camera is all kinds of stupid. Both of these issues will supposedly be addressed in the 1.02 patch in the coming weeks -- supposedly.
now that I'm *finally* past the prologue bits and well into Neverwinter (the city), the game has REALLY picked up and feels like a real sequel to BG2. My party consists of a surly bar-brawling dwarf who wants to become a monk to improve is tavern fisticuff skills; an annoying tiefling (read: half-demon for those of you with lives) thief with a completely absent sense of personal morality; and a pyromaniac princess. The dwarf (Kheldan) and the sorceress (Qara) will find any excuse to bitch, and the dialogue bwteen them is actuallky *gasp* funny. There's a lot of the interparty charm that made BG2 so fun to follow, now, and plenty of pretty decent-grade D&D geek writing (note: pure amusing pulp).
I like the incorporation of your "origin feat" into dialogue and the plot. My background choice was "farmer" which nets me a lot of flak in the city; and I got even more crap after I joined the city watch. "figures a farmer would also be a pig" my thief informed me. My own party treats me like a bumpkin half the time. There's a LOT of branching dialogue penned for this game, and especially so for the various background and factional choices. The plot has a lot of branch points as well -- entire swaths of quests open up depending on who you ally with and who approves/disapproves of you. I'm a lawful neutral cleric and I've been pretty good about holding to that ethos -- beating up folks just for breaking the law and sticking my uptight ass into other folks' business. As a result, the game treats me accordingly -- nobody thinks I'm nice; they just know I'm a total ass for the rules. My thief has left me once for narcing, but after I took a bribe she decided she give the party another shot.
Really, there's a really good D&D game lurking under all the performance issues, homely art direction, and broken camera/AI. This game will be a classic when it gets a few serious patches under its belt.
