Neverwinter Nights 1&2 - Online Realms

MassivelyOP looks at the persistant worlds of Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2.

When GameSpy Technology went offline on May 31st, 2014, dozens of EA games that relied on the platform for multiplayer functionality lost their online components. Because of this, Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 found that several of their persistent player-made and -run worlds were in danger. For over a decade, players had poured creative energies and roleplaying enthusiasm into these micro-MMOs.

Fortunately, players swung into action to work around the shutdown, keeping their worlds alive and detached from GameSpy's umbilical cord. I saw this event as a wake-up call for people like yours truly who are acquainted primarily with BioWare and Obsidian's single-player offerings and are ignorant of the larger Neverwinter Nights community out there. Let's take a look at this engrossing online realms and how it came to be.

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Not a bad read but I never bother to play any online game worlds. As my interest lies with the massive amount of offline mods that don't require you to log on to play.

I saw this event as a wake-up call for people like yours truly who are acquainted primarily with BioWare and Obsidian’s single-player offerings and are ignorant of the larger Neverwinter Nights community out there. Let’s take a look at this engrossing online realms and how it came to be.

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Translation : "Say NO to offline singleplayer games !"

The closing of Gamespy was the last nail in the coffin of NWN, afer Bioware's closing of the 2m+ members of the original Bioware forums (the social forums were largely useless ).

Nevertheless, a small revival thanks to NWN:EE is just that: small.

What we really need is a proper NWN3

Also, I'd appreciate if people not bother dumping on the online community for NWN. You like single player - fine. What about those of us who loved building PW's?

The SP community gained a lot big time from the online community. We were driving force behind most of the content for it - including the NWNX and the ability to connect databases to it.

I haven't tried any PWs myself, but a few of them have contributed to the available mods for SP games, so I appreciate that.

I'm playing World of Greyhawk right now. I think it's fantastic and am enjoying it more than the single player aspects of NWN.

Hastar said:

I'm playing World of Greyhawk right now. I think it's fantastic and am enjoying it more than the single player aspects of NWN.

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Same for me at the moment. I fluctuate between offline and online, usually with huge gaps with no NWN at all. I hadn't played online since GameSpy died. Offline is for story, online is more action as there's no pause and no reloading. PW's often have enhanced rule or RP systems so skills can be far more important, eg being good a sneaking
or building traps or having UMD can really make a difference whereas modules can be a little hit and miss with what they might cater for. I know that on WoG for example your alignment dictates the type of breath weapon attack you get if you're a Dragon Disciple, just like the various dragons colours match certain alignments. I've been visiting WoG on and off since some time around 2010 I think. I solo and don't really do RP, WoG's not strict RP server anyway. Sadly they lost the character vault a little while back - think there was a fire. NWN:EE has been a bit a shot in the arm and there seem to be quite a few very well established PW's available. I think both flavours of play can be enjoyed equally, no reason to get clannish about it, I like that I can do either as an option depending on what I feel like.