Obviously I gotta have an internet connection -- which, you know, duh.  But other than that, do I gotta pay someone?  How do I set it up?  What would I hafta dooooo?

NWN (and NWN2) is no conventional massive multiplayer game. It's more similar to first person shooters like Counterstrike or some smaller MUDS. So there's no big commercial server farm where you log on.

The multiplayer component was basically made to emulate tabletop games, i.e. someone creates an adventure/dungeon and a few people log on to his computer and play the game, while he is stalking around invisible, influencing the game a bit.

I'm not sure what the sweet spot of the servers is right now, especially with the second iteration of the game, but it's relatively small. So you'd get about 50 people in a "shared world" situation. There are servers for all kinds of environments, most often emulating an existing D&D world. So you can log on to some place where everyone is playing Drow, some place where you're suddenly in the Dalelands etc.

So you basically need the game and a "persistent world" to log on to. Neverwinter Connections would be a good place to start.

Before I pop on over to take a look - if I have a server and the game, could I host Doc in a game? Do I just give him access to my porn - I mean, uh, server?

Well, unless it's badly scripted NWN porn (which just _has_ to exist somewhere in these tubes)...

Someone has to start a server, all others trying to play with him have to log in. They just need the IP address of the server, select the correct module when starting and you're joined together. Usually that "module" is the special world the server is using, although you actually can play through the normal story with other players. Quite enjoyable...

I never really enjoyed the module building tools for NWN1. Not really that stable and the scripting language is nothing to write home about. Still, lots of people have made some impressive stuff with it. Maybe some therpgsite.com users could "get together" sometimes and play through some ancient AD&D module converted to NWN...

It was kinda what I was thinking - but first I need to get my hands on it to see how it would sit on my server, what kind of bandwidth is necessary, what kind of security, etc.

I mean, I trust you, but you know that Rotwang guy is shady as all get out.

Man, tha'ts a hard question to answer in a way.

There's SOOOO many different ways to play NWN multiplayer.

There's deathmatch type servers, that are just all out brawls between players.

There's servers that are basically single-player style modules thrown up as multiplayer, so you can log on and poke around.

There's "persistent world" servers, which are basically like a mini MMO.

These sorts of games you usually can find just by poking about the server list inside the game, and NWVault has some listings of PW servers out there as well, as a lot of them don't publish their servers directly to the ingame server list, to filter out potential problem users.  

And then there's DMed play, where one player hosts and essentialyl acts as the DM, and runs the palyers through an adventure much in the same way one might do on a real tabletop.

The last form is usually done privately, so if you're looking for games, you'll want to find a site like Neverwinter Connections, which is primarily a matchmaking service for private games.  

The biggest bump you're gonna run into playing over the internet is getting your router properly configured to allow NWN to send all the data it needs in and out.  There's a very informative FAQ on how to do this at the NWN site here: http://nwn.bioware.com/support/techfaq.html#03

The aforementioned Neverwinter Vault is also THE central site to find new modules to play about with, and they even have a special category for modules designed to be easy to run by a DM.

Thanks J. I'll take a look when I have more time this weekend.  My birthday is coming up and this is looking like it might be an interesting item on the wish list.

Mostly I just wanna try it out and not have to pay for anything extra.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Mostly I just wanna try it out and not have to pay for anything extra.

No extra fees for anything involved.

However, if you are gonna get the game, you want both the expansions as well, as the vast majority of servers and custom content all use them, plus they add a crap ton of cool stuff, plus singleplayer campaigns that are far better than the original.  

you can get them all together in one package if you pick up the Platinum or Diamond boxes (plus diamond comes with some of the premium modules normally sold online), but they do come on DVD, so if you don't have a DVD drive, you'll have to settle for nabbing Gold and a seperate copy of Hordes of the Underdark.

All told though, regardless of how you go about getting them, you should be able to get the whole lot for no more than $40 at the absolute max.

odd - I did a quick lookup on amazon and the NWN2 on DVD was something like $47...I'll have to see what that includes...

Quote from: James J Skachodd - I did a quick lookup on amazon and the NWN2 on DVD was something like $47...I'll have to see what that includes...

That would be the sequel, for whic there are as of yet no expansions.

I was thinking of the first NWN, and it's two expansions, Shadows of Undrentide, and hordes of the Underdark.

NWN2 is a very nice game, very pretty, and great fun in singleplayer, but the module editor is about a hundred times more difficult to use, and there's not really much of anything available in terms of custom modules or multiplayer servers yet, primarily because of the increased complexity.

They also haven't actually released a DM Client for it yet, which makes DMed play impossible.

Oh, no, no, I have Diamond, which is why I asked.

I should learn to be clearer. -er.

Clearererer.  Ruurrrrrr.  UUUUuUUUUUURRR...rrr..ur.

BEDTIME!

Ahhh...

Thanks, man! You just saved me from requesting the wrong thing on my Birthday/Fathers' Day Weekend of Gifts.

Now, on to the list of 3.5 books....

I got fairly proficient at making and running modules for my friends on-line. With some reading and some tinkering, you can make some pretty passable modules without doing any of the fancy scripting tricks, just using the pre-made placeable items and such. Otherwise, you'll have to learn some half-way decent programming skills. Good news is, for the Original NWN, there is a MASSIVE online presence, modules, help tools, etc. Plenty of persistent worlds to play on as well, last I checked (one of my favs was Crimson Sands for power-gaming). There are also lots of user-made modules you can download to play if the fancy strikes you. Fair warning - you'll have to download and install at LEAST the Community Expansion Pack 2.0 (CEP 2.0) for alot of the modules or persistent worlds. It REALLY adds tons of pre-made content and such from the vast NWN online community, gives a ton more toys to play with for module-makers, but once its used, the players need it to see all the new bells and whistles. I never got the newest CEP, due to getting tired of waiting for it and getting sucked into the WoW Vortex which destroyed all my free time and sapped my will.

My thing as a DM is that I use pre-scripted conversations and quests as much as possible and just "watch" and add difficulty if I see its needed. But there are some places where I had to actually do all the talking myself, so my modules aren't the best for one-person play.

For that matter, I've still got all my old modules - might be convinced to run one for folks if there's interest and the timing works out.

The biggest problem I have is finding good modules on the Vault.

The review and voting standards are utterly atrocious to the point of being meaningless.  The site even has an automated system in place for trolling for undeserved Hall of Fame votes.

It basically winds up a massive gamble because you can't count on anything, not votes, not HoF status, nor comments, to give you any idea how good a mod actually is, and a lot of them are crap.

There are good ones there, you just have to shovel through a lot of shit to find them.

Supposedly they're trying to change the standards for NWN2, but people aren't actually following the new standards, and jsut running about giving 10s to everything.