Today you would expect this to be a calculated attempt to bring more long-term, always-on, multiplayer-as-a-service to an RPG franchise that has mostly appealed to solo players. You might imagine it would be about selling cosmetics, a subscription, or a battle pass, or maybe you would think it was about nabbing appealing engagement numbers.
But it’s clear from playing it today that Neverwinter Nights wasn’t primarily made for those reasons. Instead, it came from a passion for tabletop role-playing and a desire to get closer to that in video game form than ever before.
Yes, the BioWare team noted in some interviews that they saw this as a trial run for exploring the idea of making a massively multiplayer game (MMO)—something that, in the year 2000, was seen by many as the hot new business opportunity in gaming, and which was in many ways the precursor to the games-as-a-service we see today. They then indicated they realized that an MMO was harder to make than they had assumed and abandoned that ambition well before Neverwinter Nights shipped.
I played on several NWN persistent worlds back in 2002 before settling on Avlis, and played there on and off for 10 years or so, eventually getting into DMing. Kids came along and I couldn’t play online games that couldn’t be paused for a while, and just a couple of months ago brushed off NWN (well, bought the EE version) and logged back in and was able to pick up my characters from back then. Having a blast and still discovering new areas, learning crafting, and interacting with the rest of the player community. Haven’t seen any game quite like it.