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.
If you’re into D&D, pick up NWN:EE during a sale some time and try out the persistent worlds that have been human-made, with love, care, and lots of custom cool scripting for decades now.
I DM’d a campaign for four years on NWN until I got burnt out, and it’s low key one of the coolest D&D experiences one can find on the web. Every persistent world is different, so try a few and see if there’s one that fits your tastes as a player.
I recently reinstalled nwn enhanced to see if I would enjoy it so many years later. The answer is no. DND 3rd is a bad system and nwn is slow and clunky. So much time is spent just watching animations. No tactical decisions. Just watch animations as it rolls dice.
It doesn’t help that the original campaign is bad.
Maybe it’s better in multiplayer, which admittedly is the main topic here. But the single player was so bad I can’t imagine wanting more.
Yeah, the original campaign is pretty weak, but both Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark are good, epecially the latter.
The single player is bad and hasn’t aged well, but the persistent worlds are 100% a different and massively (no pun intended) improved experience.
That’s especially true if you’re doing a scheduled campaign run by a human. When I was running my campaign, the players’ actions could actually have a permanent effect on the game world, and if they discovered a hidden area, the builders would work with me to construct it and put it in the game permanently.
Multiplayer is a whole different, improved experience.
I feel like if I was playing a scheduled game, I’d rather just play a tabletop RPG than be tied down to this game engine. But I guess the scale is different here and that might be interesting.
I did recently start a tabletop game, though with a system I like a thousand times more than DND.
That’s okay.
Not everyone feels the way you do, and being able to find a game online is nice.
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