After having completed NWN and all of its expansions, I am now trying NWN2. I am playing as a Druid and I wanted to collect my experience here as I keep playing the game. This will be like a journal that I will edit that anyone can see. EDIT: I finished the game and most probably concluded the list.

Positive (upsides)

1. Summoning an animal companion or/and other summons doesnt decrease experience. I tested this 3 times by killing the enemies without summons and then load and kill same monsters with animal companion and summons summoned. I received same amount of experience.

2. Much better graphics and environments than NWN1.

3. Nice cut-scenes and character speeches so far. (cut scenes may become buggy. See Negative 16).

4. Bags of Holding can now hold 142 items instead of much smaller bags in NWN1.

5. Items now take 1 place regardless of their size just like it was in Baldur's Gate. This makes the item management much simpler.

6. Quickcast menu. When you press F you get a menu where you can cast your memorized spells. You dont have to move each spell to quickbar like you had to in NWN1.

7. You can scroll spells, descriptions and chat with mouse wheel. This wasnt the case in NWN1

8. You can carry quickbar items. This was very painful in NWN1 where you had to right click and select the spell again just to move it for example from 3 to 4.

9. Most chests are not random. In NWN1 you could open a chess and get 5 gold. Load and you could get a +3 item. And that randomness ruined the game for me.

10. Shops appraise checks are not random. In NWN1 I had to load a few times to get the better prices. I didnt like it that you can sell something for 100 gold and then load and sell the same item for 200 gold. That means, if you increase your appraise skill (by leveling it up or using an item that gives you appraise or intelligent bonus), you can actually get worse prices because the system rolls again.

Negatives (downsides)

1. Quick save key is F12 and there is no way of changing this.

2. Long loading times. NWN1 loading times were around 2 or 3 seconds but NWN2 loading times can take 1 minute. This becomes annoying when I want to see other results of conversations. ( It can take up to 2 minutes at first load). (EDIT. Closer to end game, saving times also increased becoming close to 20 seconds).

3. You cant change your animal companion at level ups like NWN1. And there doesnt seem to be an easy way of doing this except using an external program and editing save files.

4. Bugs. Very annoying bugs. I am only level 4 yet but already came across 4 game breaking bugs like Khorgan not speaking to you after fight or The final fight in the village not starting. I had to load an earlier game and re-try. EDIT: I didnt witness any other "gamebreaking" bugs for the rest of the game. There were some like Construct dropping his natural weapon into inventory (thus giving him 1-3 dmg instead of 1-20 and removing any other feat bonusses) or some of your bags in your inventory randomly dropping while you travel.

5. Enemies are too fast and close the gap quickly not giving you enough chance for range attacks. In NWN1 or BG I loved playing as archer in lower levels where you have low hit points but I couldnt make it work in NWN2.

6. [url=http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Call_Lightning ]Call of Lightning [/url](Level 3 Druid and Cleric Spell) now can not be cast far away despite what it says in description. You can only cast it on yourself.

7. Conversations can sometimes skip to the next sentence before the person finishes speaking.

8. Fights can be confusing when there are too many enemies. With all those effects you cant see what is going on.

9. Companions can wander aimlessly in the middle of a fight. How many times I had to pause and make Khorgan come back. He literally passed between enemies and kept going.

10. So far very linear gameplay. Mostly there is only one place you can go and when you actually go there the path is linear. This can be considered positive too since it makes the gameplay very easy. Almost no "side-quests".

11. There is a pause in every action you take. It is not like 2 or 3 seconds but you feel it. Maybe my laptop cant handle the game properly.

12. Shops can run out of ammunition. Good thing the shop at "Old Owl Well" had infinite arrows so i bought like 2 thousand arrows and bullets. EDIT: This was only case in the beginning.

13. The party order changes every time you load the game. You will always be at top but other members icons on the right line up randomly and there is no way of changing this. I found this annoying since you get used to one order and next time when you are buffing it gets complicated especially since barkskin makes portraits unrecognizable. EDIT: This was problem for me because I cheated and used 7 companions at a time (8 including me).

14. Range attack is a little confusing. As it seems ALL range weapons add Strength bonus to damage. So basically there is no difference between a composite bow and a normal bow, atleast according to character page, although normally Composite bow should add STR damage while normal bow does not. Another problem is the definition of +1 (or +x) range weapons. In their description it says "This weapon has damage and attack bonus" but only attack bonus applies. You wont notice a damage bonus.

15. I learned that The LOAD function is generally bugged because of the system how it works. Because of this, extra spells you gain from gloves, rings or amulets wont work first time you load. You need to rest and replenish them. I am experiencing this for Qara, Sand and Elanee. Also, Grobnar's inspirations wont work first time you load even if they seem like working. You need to select an other inspiration and switch back to make it work again.

16. Cutscenes can become weird when all you can see is a tree or side of a building or an other person's back. You may not understand who is talking because it doesnt state who is talking even on subtitles. This may be annoying for some people.

17. When a situation needs to check one of your skills, only your main character's skills are taken into consideration. Forexample you recieve a box. You "search" it and see it is trapped. I give it to Neeska hoping she can disarm it. Right? Wrong! Whenever talk menu appears the game assumes my main character is doing the talking and hence the box explodes. I know this was also the case in NWN1 but NWN2 is supposed to be a party game.

18. Speaking of Traps, you dont automatically roll 20 at disable trap checks anymore like you did in NWN1 even if you are out of combat. Some people may find this more realistic (or closer to real D&D 3,5 rules) but I found it annoying.

You should identify those game breaking bugs so the community can fix them.

The spell description for Call Lightning does not say you cast it on enemies, it says:
All enemies within the area of effect take 1d6 points of electrical damage per caster level, to a maximum of 10d6.

You are correct about the far/personal range, the wiki page is correct.

My opinion on your "upsides":

2. Technically, yes. But I prefer the animations, models and overall look of NWN.

3. I generally dislike cutscenes in my RPGs, especially just for basic dialogue. NWN2 cutscenes are ugly and clunky, imo.

5. I love the different-sized icons in NWN. They are beautifully drawn, too. It makes it easier for me to find items in the inventory.

^--- this is me too.

I want to like NWN2, but I just hate it.

I can't ever tell what's going on. Between the ridiculous camera, the glaring glowy effects, and the frantic combat, it all just sort of blurs for me. I can have my character just stay put and the AI just does a bunch of fighting and then the battle is over.

I suppose I should play as a bard the next time I try. Then when I just stand there, I can at least give my team a bonus.

It depends on my mood, I guess. My five-part recounting of MotB was abandoned because I just got sick and tired of Electron's kludginess (the OP didn't really touch on what I consider "real" NWN2 downsides, but whatevs).

I've played MotB through a few times, plus SoZ and several mods. Looking back, I'm not sure how I managed to tolerate it... but these days, when I have time to burn, NWN is my go-to.

I agree with you. Regarding the graphics, I think NWN2 had nicer-looking environments, but I don't like the character models, and you have to spend a lot of time looking at them because of the zoomed-in letterbox dialogue system. Another advantage NWN1 has is that armor and robes consist of a bunch of separate pieces that can be changed and recolored independently, which lets you customize your look a lot more than NWN2's one-piece armors. Plus, I just don't like the way most of the clothes, weapons, and armor look in NWN2, and I don't have the modeling skills to change them myself. And I haven't even really explored visual mods for NWN1, so for all I know, there are plenty of mods out there to make the graphics look better. Even if there aren't, NWN1's graphics still have a certain charm to them.

I don't like the new dialogue system either. The letterboxed format is uncomfortable and awkward, and I hate not being able to disable subtitles for dialogue that's fully voiced. Another problem with it becomes apparent when you play modules with no voice acting: the dialogue will still advance automatically. There have been many occasions where I accidentally skipped the next line of dialogue because I finished reading right before the game was about to advance it. Other times, lines with very few words go by before I can read them. It's actually stressful to try to figure out whether or not I can safely click to advance. NWN1 let you move the dialogue along at your own pace most of the time.

I also agree on the inventory. I'm generally not a fan of grid inventories, but NWN1's inventory worked well and like you said, it made it easy to tell what things were. NWN2's tiny icons make it hard to identify things at a glance, especially at higher resolutions. More needless stress for a game that's supposed to be fun.

I agree with Tallima as well that NWN2 can get way too chaotic and jumbled to keep track of what's going on, and the gaudy spell effects don't help matters.

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned is the sound. NWN1 has some great sounds for weapon impacts that feel, well, impactful. Weapon impacts in NWN2 are pretty much silent. And here's a very specific complaint about NWN2's sound: for some reason, Evard's Black Tentacles is MUCH louder than all the other spells, to the point that I tried to avoid using it just to avoid having to turn the volume down, then back up again once the spell wears off.

Some other problems with NWN2:

Often I'll try to drag something to the quickbar at the bottom, and it simply won't work. This almost always happens when I try to put something in the first three slots. Even dragging it to one of the other slots and then moving it over sideways doesn't work.

When you cast an AoE spell, the cursor tends to "snap" to the nearest enemy, which can make it harder to aim. NWN1 didn't do this; you could aim freely, which is important for AoE spells (especially with friendly fire turned on).

The only advantages I think NWN2 has are full party control and the quickcast menu. If those two things were ever modded into NWN1, I'd never even consider playing NWN2.

If I want full party control I just play ToEE, Jagged Alliance 2 or the Infinity Engine games. Their engines seem better suited to squad based tactics than the Electron kludge, where your guys can't move in formation and they sometimes run on the spot, get stuck on objects, run to a place and just reappear back where they started etc.

I think there are advantages to controlling one character rather than a "multi-headed monster": a potential for sharper role-playing focus. It's a pity the companion AI is so weak, but you don't have to bring them along, at least in the modules I enjoy most. I like soloing with Rogue builds, especially!

The NWN2 UI and toolset is more powerful and flexible, at the cost of not being as EZ-2-use.

I added a few more negatives.

I concluded the list. Generally I enjoyed the game.

It should be specified at the beginning that many of these ups and downs (not just the original poster's, but some responses) are specific to the original campaign, and some of them are design decisions of that campaign that are handled differently in others (especially things like linear gameplay or shops with limited inventory), or are a simple matter of builder choice, and not things that are built into the game itself or its toolset.

Some of the complaints mentioned here are not present in later campaigns or in user-created modules. For instance, while in the OC all dialogue and skill use was restricted to the main character instead of better-suited companions, this is fixed in SoZ and in all later modules that take advantage of it.

The cinematic dialogue, which is pointless for unvoiced conversations, is a simple checkbox on the dialogue file, with the other two options being a NWN1-style dialogue box (but not as limited as NWN1's dialogue, since this one can be made bigger and easier to read if you like) and a full-party dialogue box where you can choose any of your party members to speak at any point. No automatic advance to the next line, no forced pauses, and no guesswork on the timing -- just go at your own pace. That's a matter of builder choice, not a limitation of the game. And since it comes with a toolset, you can override those choices if you want.

Even when using cinematic dialogue, the occasional character being obscured by scenery is not an inherent design flaw, but the fault of the builder's lazy design work for that scene, leaving the dialogue camera on random settings instead of specifying camera angles or even placing explicit cameras to frame the characters properly.

Other complaints, like too-flashy spell effects, can be remedied easily with mods. I wouldn't play NWN1 or NWN2 without mods.

Barkskin making character portraits unrecognisable -- why not change the portraits to artistic ones instead of the default 3D model screenshot? Just put some portraits in your portrait folder, open the character sheet and double-click on the portrait and pick one.

If someone doesn't like AI companions being so effective at combat that the player doesn't need to do anything, I'd suggest trying puppet mode, or going into their character pages and using the extensive options for modifying each companion's behaviour to your liking.

Any complaints about the UI, such as inventory icons being small at high resolutions, can be fixed with mods, since the entire UI is XML and fully moddable, not just skinnable like NWN1. You can make the inventory icons whatever size you want, and don't even need to provide larger icons for it -- just tell the XML to display them bigger.