Herding Cats in Neverwinter

My apologies to cat lovers out there, but cats are still independent and difficult to control creatures.

The first thing I found upon loading up Neverwinter Nights 2 was that the camera control was finnicky. Very finnicky. To turn my character, I had to move the mouse to the edge of the screen. And when my mouse hit the edge of the screen, the entire camera swung around wildly. Oops -- I've overshot. Swing mouse to the other side, whoa, overshoot again.

Searching in the video options, I found the 'camera turn speed' and 'mouse turn speed', so I pushed them all the way down. It seemed to make a minute difference, but barely enough to notice. Ah well...I will get use to it. I hope.

I got used to it, it was a constantly annoying thing to work under. At any time, the camera will suddenly zoom in, because my character was in a certain alignment against the wall or pillar or even some barrels. I could never really focus on what I wanted to look at, and I could never see the entire 'picture' the way I'm used to in games such as Baldur's Gate or Fallout (1, 2).

This finnicky camera really exacerbated the subsequent real problem with NWN2. My NPC teammates are literally less-than-idiots. An idiot would at least listen to orders, but they won't.

Stand here, I order. Whoa, next moment the guy has run off to attack some random mob on the other side of the map and is dying or dead.

Attack this mob, I order. I switch to another character to issue orders and I find that the first guy had abandoned his fight and is charging off to attack a bunch of archers somewhere else. Meanwhile the badly wounded mobs he was supposed to be fighting are smacking his back. Especially bad if those mobs are thief types.

No, no, no, I scream. You got to finish off the badly wounded mobs first. Why do you keep attacking one mob, injuring it, then going off to attack another? Stop!

Nope, the NPCs give a token nod as I issue the command, then run off and do their own thing when I turn I head for even one moment.

Finally, we're down the the last few mobs. Almost done, then we can rest... whoa what!? The fighter has charged off to the opposite end of the map to engage a new spawn. I stare in disbelief as the new spawn make short work of the sole wounded fighter, then charge down on the rest of the team, still fighting the previous spawn.

Eh, time to reload the previous save game.

The alternative would be to disable the AI completely, but I don't fancy a micromanagement game. (Although it's like micromanagement already.)

So reload the previous save game.

Until there comes a time when it becomes, time to stop playing.