Dragon's eye aggravation

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I thought Fell Woods was bad in terms of unnecessary aggravation, but it does not hold a candle to Dragon's Eye quests.

(spoilers below)

First, I do not understand why do you have to help this guy Nheero. He's there on some stupid quest, (transforming himself in a lizard, indeed), and you have to be his errand boy. I tried to ignore him, but I got stuck on level three, so I trekked back to see if he has any information. He sends me to run all over the place (return the sword to the dead guy, go get the mandrake root, which of course is right near the alchemy lab, but you have to make a detour through level 1 first to get it, then go to lev 2 to get his potion, go back to lev 1, blech), then you think he'd tell you something, but no, check with him in 4 hours. Go waste some more time on level 3, then you get the weakened potion, so you can finally lower the bridge to Thorasskus' room. I assumed that from now on it would be straightforward, but no. I asked him to research the purple things, and he is too busy to talk to me. I ask him again to research Thorraskus, (of course more trips to level 2 first), he's not making any progress.

Now I am getting completely frustrated. There is a panel and a door I cannot open, and I have no idea what I should do. So I look on a walkthrough, and find out I am supposed to tranform the wyern claws into wyern poison potion, and drop that into the water fountains. What the heck? I wonder who came up with this great idea, and if anybody can actually figure this out by himself, not using a cheat sheet. Anyhow, one more trip to lev 2, then back to lev 3. visit again all the map (which I know by heart by now), hope Nheero is ready (of course, reading the walkthrough clued me to the fact that Thorasskus is not quite what he seems, but oh well). Of course Nheero is still busy; I go to sleep, but he's still not finished. Decide to give up and talk to Thorasskus with my paladin; that exposes him, starts the fight, I kick his butt, he casts Sanctuary and takes off. I take care of his minions, then look for him, but he's nowhere to be found. More treks through the map. Finally, I find him and kill him off. I am so relieved to be done with this map, that I forget to check his corpse for loot.

So, I guess my question is: does he carry anything to make worthwile going back for it? I am one level below, in the magma room. I guess I could turn back (see if Nheero finished his research ), but if it's just for some trinkets...

 

Dragon's Eye level 3 has got to be the most aggravating part of the game. I had the same problem with Thorasskus vanishing, and it took me a long time to figure out what had happened, and an even longer time to actually find him and kill him (would have taken much longer without some help from the BoM)

To answer your question, Thorasskus doesn't carry anything essential on his body. The items he does have are:
Bracers of Defense +4
Ring of Protection +3
Ring of Freedom of Movement
Nothing that you shouldn't already have found by now (though an extra Ring of Freedom is always nice)

There is one important item you should have found in the treasury room, the Medallion of Lost Followers. This is the key to getting the Holy Avenger, so make sure you've got that if you have a Paladin in your party.

 

Dragons eye utterly suck. I wonder if there is anybody who likes the area.

But the magma chambers...the area is soo creative. Tedious, yes, but creative and unique, I love the place. Really fun to play for me, especially the first time I was shocked and fascinated. Minor spoiler: Do you like Back to the Future movies? Then you will love the area. Fun place!

That is, if you don't encoutner a nasty nasty bug (in all likelihood) which will imprison you forever there. Take care, save often and use very seperate saves in every step to avoid being stuck!

If only game designers had spent more time on bug-clearing and simplfying quests, rather than converting everything to spiffy 3e. Bleah, I say.

 

Silverstar, I've said it many times. If BIS had not had to the do the 3e conversion, they could have spent a lot more time on improved plot, etc. The 3e conversion, while very entertaining for many of us, must have used up a lot of BIS' production time and effort that may have been better spent on other things.

 

Well, it turned out to be a moot point, since I cannot pass on that derelict bridge anyhow. I had only one rope with me, and apparently that's not enough to fix it. So I cannot go back to the entrance from Dragon's Eye.

The only option at this point is to reload from the start of the level, which I might do anyhow, since I lost a party member in the fight with the beholder, and it looks like there is no place I can rest on this map. So my priest cannot memorize raise dead, so I am out of luck.

Also, I should say this part of the story is pretty confusing. I read the journal entries several times, and they don't make a lot of sense. Jasper is an ambassador for somebody, but is not clear from who (I mean, is he with the Yuan-ti, or with the efreeti). And if he's an ambassador, why is he not in the embassy? And what's the role of the beholder, anyhow? His comments are pretty cryptic, too. Plus, it seemed to me that the only way to advance the story was to attack the beholder, which doesn't seem quite right.

 

The plot wouldn't have changed at all if they hadn't done the 3e conversions. The game would just have been finished earlier, the company would have made more profit and the gamers would have gotten a less balanced game.
All games using the infinity engine (BG,BG2,IWD,IWD2) are lacking solid work, even patched each game has dozens of errors, some of them so obvious that you get the impression they were made on purpose. IWD2 was just as finished as the other games when it was released.
I wouldn't accuse the 3e rules if the game doesn't please you, accuse the gaming community for praising the prequels to the heavens and letting Bioware get away with loads of obvious errors.
Why should they waste resources for solid work if it worked without before ?

I don't think the IWD2 plot is bad, the forest labyrinth and a part of Dragon's Eye are the only aggravation parts.
Running around searching for unmarked locations in Baldur's Gate took me far more annoying time.

 

Kmonster, I never was all that bothered by the Fell Wood. of course, I have to admit that I've always loved having a ranger in my party, and after a little bit of getting lost, I had a little epiphany that maybe all that "wilderness lore" skill my ranger had might be useful.

 

Dragon's Eye is fun till there are enemies to slaughter...because frankly IWD2 is just a hack'n'slash game...when the monsters stop..the game becomes a drag!!

 

I´d said too many times before( to my self and all my friends) that I hate a game that does not care about the people( supossedly a game is to please the gamers). Too many times you get your fingers arround an amazing game, or good story, or decent gameplay,or flashing effects,or real like figths( or at least this is wanna make us to believe)and ALSO lacks in so many aspects(usually one or more of the list above)
You feel that the game´s designers don´t put all the love on it,at least neither the pasion i put when I played a product made on the run, a pre-cooked, ready-to-sell game that everybody´s love and a must-have , first-necessity RPG(Ah, also a classic, so we can make a second or a third part)
Anyway, it´s still a great game, so why am I bothering you?

 

That's right, it is a great game. You can't please everyone.

 

The problem is two things:
1) Time
2) Budget

As with ALL computer software (not just games), those overpaid-golf-playing managers say "We want this and you have x time and y amount of cash". Is it any wonder that very few pieces of software are NOT riddled with problems? It is generally because these managers have trouble turning on a computer, let alone having in-depth knowledge of the complications of programming!
(Cynics View!)

I would have to disagree with crucis, though, because the 3e rules is what sets it apart from most other simliar games - otherwise it would be "just another" BIS game.

Rather silly of me - my party has no thief. These levels are riddled with traps that I cannot disarm - this is one annoying thing. It is my own fault though.
But the most annoying thing I found was the prisoner/wizard who turns invisible. The first time I encountered him, he killed Nheero - which caused the "An important NPC has been killed - you must reload!" type message. Neither Dispel Magic nor See Invisibilty spells worked for me. Thankfully, those area effect spells made the job easy...