I never bought Neverwinter Nights despite being a big Bioware fan as I'd always got the impression that it was more of a toolset for other gamers to make games and not a proper RPG. Is that true?

Is there a decent story, characters, and world to explore for single-player gamers here? How does it compare to other Bioware games?

I am pleased to inform you that Neverwinter Nights contains a full RPG. It simply also has a very good toolset.

The gameplay is top-notch. The problem is that the single-player campaign really isn't very interesting or inspired, and can be monotonous if you're not a huge fan of constant dungeon crawling. The game really opens up with multiplayer and custom campaigns, though, which are well worth the asking price.

The Original Campaign isn't a bad game, but the two expansion packs really are good single player games. Plus there is a *ton* of fan made modules for this game. Look for the threads on "NWN MODULES" In this forum to find 'em. IT is a very good single player package and I highly recommend it. I doubt there are many games that will give you more bang for your buck then NWN does. Especially at 10 bucks...

So yah. There is a good Single Player game in there... A few good ones, in fact :)

I'm just going to have to say that the Original campaign in just plain bad. The main story is linear as hell, which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't so damn boring. The game really is more of a tool set, but those tools have been used by the community to make some stuff significantly better than the OC.

Bioware may have abandoned the PC with this game, but they also made themselves significantly less essential to CRPG fans in the process.

Also, from what I hear the HotU expansion is really good, but I've never played it.

If you are worried that you won't get a decent single player experience without a good OC, don't be. There are tons of great single player modules.

The official campaign may be a little bland, but the incredible amount of high quality communiy made modules more than makes up for it.

NWN is th only game that is permanently installed on my computer, and I've spent hundreds of hours playing custom single player modules.

Ah, now this was exactly what I was worried about. Still, it's good to hear that the community has made a load of even better campaigns.

Some people liked the OC, some didn't, but this shouldn't keep you from trying NWN, just look at this:

http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/AdvSearch.php?cluster=modules&Results=999999&HallOfFame=1&LevelAll=Yes&PlayerAll=Yes&Single_Multiplayer=Single+Player&Screenshots=No&LevelAll=Yes&LevelMin=01&LevelMax=40&PlayerAll=Yes&PlayerMin=01&PlayerMax=64&SubmittedFrom=28-JAN-2002&SubmittedTo=29-OCT-2010&UpdatedFrom=28-JAN-2002&UpdatedTo=29-OCT-2010&sort=Name&dir=ASC]Single Player Modules

Please don't be misleaded by the term 'User-Made'; many of these modules are truly professional works. You can have endless hours of (awesome) gaming without even touching the included campaigns.

EDIT: Sorry but I can't for the life of me properly edit the link. It works though.

I enjoyed the OC a bit but never really gave anything else a shot >_> If I had more time then I would go right and try some campaigns.

Personally I liked the original campaign. Sure the quest was a bit dull in places and it had a fairly linear structure but then so many games do, "go to map x, kill enemy y, retrieve item z" is present in virtually every RPG ever made. Sometime you can bypass or negotiate with enemy y but you can never trust the bastards, they're just waiting for you to let your guard down before stabbing you in the back leaving you to die as you shout "Y, god Y???"

Sorry, went off on a tangent there, the original campaign is not the best I've ever played but its a solid adventure game with some decent characters (if you take the trouble to get to know them, especially aribeth & linu) and some nice levels. The expansions are substantially better and its worth buying this package just to play them

I always find it funny and a little sad that the terms professional and amateur are interpreted the way they are so often. Professional just means that it's a profession. A job. Amateur literally means, 'out of love'.

I never encountered anything that interesting. Generally it's just hack and slash through hundreds of mindless suicidal foes. Then every once in a while you encounter an enemy that's an actual challenge. At least in the first act. In the second act, after a cutscene that implies you suddenly ceased to exist throughout it's duration, you do get a couple enemies you can negotiate with but they don't betray you. Unless you're male, then one of them does, and that's not so much negotiation as it is just stupid.

There's a quest with a bunch of criminals you're supposed to hunt down and kill (they don't want them apprehended, just executed on the spot) and bring back the ears of as proof. A female can negotiate with each of them and convince them to give you their ear in exchange for their life. A male can do he same, except with the female halfing in this group. For some stupid reason your option to ask for the ear to spare her is replaced with an option to accept an offer of sex which just turns out to be a trick (duh) where you are forced to fight her to the death while naked. You can of course just let her go, but that results in the quest simply sitting in your log for the rest of the act with no way to remove it short of going back to where she was hiding and killing her. And that was just one single side quest.

I don't know, maybe there was something actually interesting in the game in act 3 but I gave up.

When I started playing the original campaign but didn't get far. The 3-d toolset graphics were ugly compared to the beautifully drawn older bioware games and gameplay was boring. It felt like an action game where you can't choose anything and success depends only on rolls.

As has been stated, the OC is overlong and a bit meh. Shadows of Undrentide is pretty decent, though I didn't really appreciate it the first time I tried it.

Hordes of the Underdark, on the other hand, is one of the finest campaigns that Bioware has yet produced, and there are some terrific (full-length) user-made campaigns out there that are just as good or better. Ten dollars for Hordes and the community content is a great deal.

I've never touched the multiplayer aspect of the game, but I don't regret buying NWN for a second.

lolwut

Bioware abandoned the PC by supporting NWN with patches for five years after its release?

I smell some Baldur's Gate bitterness here... p

People go into a little more detail in this discussion over here: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/neverwinter_nights_diamond/still_many_online_mp_games The thread started out just as the title said, but kind of turned in to a "Bioware doesn't make PC games any more." thing.

Ah well....