Neverwinter Nights (1991) | Dungeons & Dragons | Musings of an Idiot #24

[@DVX_BELLORVM]

That line about a "past that grows more distant by the day" hit hard. I absolutely loved playing the original NWN on AOL and I really miss the community that grew up around the game. The unofficial guilds were amazing. Children of the Seldarine forever!

[@WilliamSRD]

Phenomenal coverage!

[@fandraxx]

Thank you! Love your vids!

[@codingwithculp]

I was there in 1991 and it was the main reason I joined AOL. As someone who had been playing D&D since 1979 and a huge computer geek, I loved the game. But the cost.....wow. The first time I got my AOL bill and it was a few hundred dollars I was floored. For me, NWN going free to play was a financial relief. I do have to admit I had more than one account closed due to the bill. In 1992 I joined the Army and me an a few buddies would be up until late night playing NWN. We still talk about it to this day. Looking back now, the game really was about the people you played it with. The world is largely empty as you brought up, no real quests or real story lines etc. it was about fighting through to get to the next area.

[@nekuu1912]

Loved your vid, and also really appreciate the effort put in making it. Came here from Reddit. Really don't understand why such bad low vibes on there, instead of appreciation of your work. Thanks!

[@fandraxx]

Thanks for watching! I've got no problem with the discourse over there, though I do find it quite comical that apparently this game, having all the hallmarks of an MMO, isn't an MMO. The obsession over definitions can get a bit silly sometimes.

[@koaasst]

all i remember is camping the dracolich with strangers as people popped in and out of line

[@mr.horseshoe2301]

Such a fancy looking game. I cut my teeth on MUDs.

[@ashwinnmyburgh9364]

Criminally underrated video this one. Awesome job man, earned a sub.

[@deathmetalpotato]

7:29 incredible flashbacks, wow. I knew Handler1, I was a member of Crusaders of the Realms (CoR), mostly when the guild master was Panzermagi. There were 12 or so guilds, from lawful (like CoR and SoL Soldiers of Light) to evil (like ITB and Temple of Lloth). There was one guild everyone hated equally called WARR because they were known hackers (giving birth to terms like “warez” and “h4xx0rs”). I knew Dwyvym as well, I had a dwarf character in Clan Axepeak (a dwarf guild). As it says, this was more of a role-playing guild. We all wrote endless posts of fantasy stories, and honed our accents/language (“Aye, ah’ll be have’n nae o’yer cryin’ on me torst to Undermountain!”). And everyone knew ITB Skorp, he was notorious in the “itty bitties” (as the good guilds called them) evil guild. Most of the good & evil guilds were all about PvP, and you didn’t stand a chance in PvP unless you were a half-elf CLaM (cleric and mage dual class) which were grossly overpowered above any other race/class combo. As you can see, AOL NWN was a very tight community, in-game and in message boards. It’s the first time I ever heard the term “flame war” or “flaming” when arguments would break out. The game had a max capacity (I can’t remember how big… maybe 50 players at a time) but because players were paying AOL fees per hour it wasn’t a problem, until AOL went unlimited. The NWN loading screen was an image of the city gates, and you would repeatedly have to “bang the gates” to get in, ie. keep clicking on it until you could enter the game because someone left. When AOL’s Steve Case announced they were getting rid of NWN everyone was devastated more than you can imagine. “The gates were closing for good.” During the final hours we all stayed in-game until we were kicked out by the shutdown.

[@deathmetalpotato]

I believe the copy you’re using isn’t a dev copy but an AOL employee / game moderator copy. All game moderators had “NW” in front of their name, the way yours says NW Knight. The head moderator / boss was NW Snowie, and under her was NW Ember. The mods secretly had characters too (my CoR guild leader Panzermagi was also NW Drake, for example, but this wasn’t public knowledge). Mods were volunteer employees of AOL who enforced AOL’s Terms of Service and could boot (suspend) accounts for violations. They also had the power to access all items in the game including rare and powerful ones, which they did to characters who won contests and events. When NWN shut down, NWs Snowie and Ember created Nyrthellan’s Woods, a D&D campaign using 2nd edition rules played in AOL chat rooms, where players could type /roll to roll dice (like /roll 1d20, /roll 3d6, etc.) I was brought onboard as NW Orion. It became extremely popular, with 7 or 8 NWs running games as dungeon masters in multiple chat rooms simultaneously, for parties of 5 or more characters, while still able to enforce AOL’s ToS. All games were under the umbrella of the same campaign and storyline, which also played out in message boards, and we kept detailed records of player sheets, mailing them updated ones after games with things like xp and items. Chat rooms were full of people just watching the games too, because parties filled up quick and not everyone could play. I ran my storyline for a long time, and brought it to a conclusion when real life took me away. In my final game I took in around a dozen players and the room was packed, I was so nervous but it was a thrill. We had a real-life meetup in Seattle around 1998 or 99 (I believe NWN players had done the same once a year). Ember, Snowie, Bamboom, Panzer, QuikMagic, NiniQwkStr, MyNmeHere, and names I’m too old to remember, I hope you’ve all had Safe Travels, you’re doing well and your adventures were nothing less than magical. You and I will always be back then. * * * * * * * ~NW Orion

[@90sallthewaybaby]

Very interesting video, its nice to find classics ive never heard of and being explained in great detail.

[@fandraxx]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@colmortimer1066]

This made me want to revisit the Gold Box games, if anything. I am not an MMO fan, but it is nice to see how classic RPGs that I do love, so heavily inspired the first MMO's

[@d-rock6830]

With the Gold Box games being available for purchase both on Steam and GOG as well as the existence of Gold Box Companion - it's a great time to (re-)experience these games.

[@fandraxx]

Heartily second the recommendation of the Gold Box Companion - breathes new life into the Gold Box classics!

[@rchassereau2]

Recommended viewing from William SRD, good video! Looking forward to more from your channel, love all things Gold Box related.

[@fandraxx]

Thank you and welcome aboard!

[@Mockthenerd]

Awesome dive. Enjoyed the video, new sub! Both amazing and horrific that both NwN games are only a decade a part. Scary how fast technology develops.

[@fandraxx]

Right?? The fact that we had stuff like Ultima Online before NWN even shut down was a testament to how fast things were moving!

[@firebride3114]

Thanks for this video, really brought me back. I used to play MECH VITAE and would wrack up 100s of dollars a month in AOL bills.. I miss it, but I don't at the same time LOL

[@zalito657]

I was playing forgotten worlds back in the day, and just couple of months ago I saw it online again Gold Box games are amazing, and F.W. with the online capabilities its a dream that AOL cannot fulfill enough :D

[@TheVerinen2]

Daddy Fandraxx blessed us again

[@charlesdebarber2997]

My first MMORPG (Graphical MUD then)! I've been teased that I killed it as it closed 6 months after I began to play. It's so different from later MMORPGs as the number of roleplayers was significantly higher... In EQ and WoW they were always a tiny minority, but NWN players were pretty dedicated. I moved on to Dark Sun Online (DSO) and a few months into playing that TEN announced it was ending the game! I must have been a harbinger of a dying game. NWN felt so large and epic at the time... I only felt that way when later playing EQ when MMORPGs went to 3D.

[@fandraxx]

In hindsight, it's crazy how some of these older games seemed so big. They're tiny in comparison to the norm of today, but at the time they were so unlike anything else around.

[@wiiseeyou]

It's a true... Forgotten Realms! **Badum tish**

[@marcmorrell2532]

“…Exorbitantly expensive…” Yes, this game was the reason I carried a balance on my credit card for the first time. And yet AOL dropped us like a hot potato. :/

[@thejackbull210]

Thanks as always for another fine video. Would love if they were a bit longer, but I know KZbin algorithm is a b*tch to work with.

[@fandraxx]

I don't have an issue with longer videos, suffice that there's actually enough to talk about. Unfortunately, my experience has been that a lot of longer video-essay-style videos often just repeat the same points in slightly different ways or contexts to pad the length. I don't have much interest in doing that.

[@DustinDustin00]

Now cover The Shadow of Yserbius!

[@yukishkabura688]

This should have more views! But for real though, who the fuck can afford a 20 bucks per hour video game???

[@deathmetalpotato]

our parents 😢

[@brianllllll]

The people who play Star Citizen lol

[@chasesommer]

Is there any way to play this?

[@davidbanan.]

$20/hour! God Damn

[@MirandaStreeter]

"1991's Neverwinter Nights was the first online role-playing game to feature graphics" Did the graphical MUDs before it somehow not count? Kingdom of Drakkar and stuff. Heck, if you venture outside of fantasy, didn't Habitat predate this by like six years?