The Ultimate Neverwinter Nights Fan Guide: NWN Forever!

Neverwinter Nights (or NWN), is a groundbreaking computer role playing game produced in 2002 by Bioware. Complete with a full-fledged story mode game, a tileset to create your own levels, characters & items, and a comprehensive MMORPG feature where you can build and host your persistent online world - NWN quickly became the best thing that Dungeons & Dragons fans have seen since the likes of Baldur's Gate II (which many - including myself - believe to be the greatest RPG ever made). NWN runs on the Dungeons & Dragons third edition rule set, under the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

In 2003, its first expansion pack, Shadows of Undrentide (also known as SoU) was released, introducing a wealth of new prestige classes, tilesets, objects and monsters - as well as a continuation of the storyline. Nearly half a year later, another expansion: Hordes of the Underdark (HotU) improved the game by leaps and bounds, with a character level cap of 40, epic class feats, abilities and spells, objects, monsters and many more creations to use for the toolset and online play. HotU was a particularly important improvement for the game because of this. It also appealed to the huge fan base of Underdark fanatics.

The series concluded with its final set of premium modules, known as Kingmaker. The Kingmaker pack included Kingmaker, Shadowguard and Witch's Wake, which added to the single player game's progression. This was followed up with Pirates of the Sword Coast, adding sea-faring themed additions to the game. The expansion pack Wyvern Crown of Cormyr added another prestige class (Knight of the Purple Rose) and various other additions, including horses, wearable flowing capes, and a new weapon - the lance.

The real point of purchase that intrigued PC gamers during NWN's very first shelf presence was its ability to become somewhat of an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game). With the help of GameSpy server support and NWN's built-in Aurora Toolset, players could quickly and easily create their own online experience, capable of hosting up to 75 players at one time. Those who dabbled with NWN's own programming script (or simply copied and pasted snippets from the hundreds of fan sites out there) were able to breathe a great deal of life into their own worlds, from fully functional NPCs and town life, to monster spawns and custom equipment.

A typical online experience with NWN works much like this: you'll click "Multiplayer" from the game's main menu. From there, you log in to GameSpy's NWN panel, and are presented with a massive list of NWN servers currently online. Choose one, and join it. You'll then be prompted to begin your lengthy but addictive character creation process. When complete, you're taken right into the server and are playing live with other people. You can then return at any point to load up your previously created character, of whom has all his/her possessions and statistics since your last visit.

While there are many servers for many different kinds of playing styles, there certainly are many traditional, old-school RPG servers with strict codes of honor and respect -- where PK's and troublemakers are dealt with accordingly. Some player worlds are so intricate that they have included advanced scripting, items, character development options and many other innovative things that may not be seen elsewhere. Many of the more "serious" servers are operated 24/7. All are hosted from the owner's home computer.

Just when things couldn't get better, a band of NWN fans came together and created a community-made expansion pack for NWN that added more of, well, everything -- the reception was so good, that even Bioware themselves featured it prominently on their official website.

To this day, the Community Expansion Pack (CEP) is being updated and used by thousands of NWN fans and server owners. Adding a multitude of things way too lengthy to list here, you'll get everything from new character heads, tails and wings, wardrobes, weapons and parts, placeables and aesthetics, tons of new D&D compliant monsters and so much more. Download the CEP here!

In late September 2008, an official announcement was made about yet another community-managed Neverwinter Nights patch, dubbed "Project Q," or "Project Quality." This revolutionary patch will be a complete graphical upgrade for Neverwinter Nights, updating that "early 2000's" look and feel of the game, adding more content, and most importantly: making all of the content available through instant upgrade, thanks to an rsync system.

To top it off, the entire implementation is being developed to not interfere with gameplay or performance in any way! Project Q has been under development for several months now, and all further developments will be posted on their official site. Learn more about it on the Project Q forums, or on this introductory post on the official Bioware forum.

There's bad news if you have a Vista system: NWN simply won't patch, nor will it run: Vista will refuse to install it due to incompatibility. There's good news though - it is possible to get it working again. First, try this critical rebuild patch for NWN HOTU. Still stuck? Read this forum post about running NWN with Windows Vista.