I'm gonna start of with some vital links:

Old Biowares page for Neverwinter Nights
http://www.bioware.com/games/legacy
The official page for the game has been scuffed under Biowares "legacy" games and provides very little information.

Bioware Social
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/subindex/153
This is the current official forum for NWN.

Unofficial page for Neverwinter Nights
http://www.neverwinternights.info
It has been made by the community and provides a lot more information than the official legacy one.

CEP
http://nwvault.ign.com/?dir=cep/downloads
CEP stands for Community Expansion Pack and is one of the most popular add-ons to the game. Some of the online servers have this as a required download.

As of writing there is said to be a 2.4 version out.

The CEP is a little bulky though. Make sure that you need it for that server you want to play on, otherwise you can skip it.

Personally I prefer the project Q hak-pak but it is unfortunately not as widely used yet.


NOW ABOUT PLAYING ONLINE/MULTIPLAYER

There are many different types of online servers. The most popular types are probably the "roleplay" servers and the "action" ones. They differ a little bit but mostly in the way that most roleplay servers like you to stay somewhat In-Character when creating and playing your character.

The most important thing is to understand that every server functions differently and you should probably read up on their forum how they would like you to play at their server and what restrictions there are.

However...do not read theese rules with fear. I am assuming that most server staffs nowdays have a grown up approach and as long as you don't spam or are being disrespectful to others you should be perfectly alright.

If you are interested to play at roleplay servers you could read this document that actually describes a little how to play. Personally I think that this document too much describes theese are "rules". Instead I recomend you to read it with an open mind and then to do the type and degree of roleplaying that you want yourself.

Gruush roleplayers guide to Neverwinter Nights
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Other.Detail&id=501


MORE ABOUT ONLINE/MULTIPLAYER

What servers should I play at?

Well...this is really your choice ofcourse. You could just fire up the game, choose what type of server you want, sort all the servers on amount of players and then join the one with the most players.

Note though...that just because some servers have a lot more players than others do not mean that they are the best ones. Naturally a server should at least have a couple of players on (otherwise it would be boring I agree).

Action servers are usually easier to levelup on and gather loot and the rules on staying in-character do not exist. Also they probably have less restrictions about building your character.

I have put together a list of my favourite servers here
http://www.xfire.com/clans/superfly2000/
(That is also my gathering/community of NWN1 players on X-Fire.)

They are mostly roleplay servers as that is what I play on mostly. I do think that well known action server is called Higher ground...if that is your interest.


MULTIPLAYER CAMPAIGNS

One quite popular way of playing the game that I might have neglected so far is the "closed server" MP campaigns. It basically means getting together with a fixed party of players and playing together at the same time one or more times (ongoing/recurring campaign).

One benefit with this way of playing is that the story has greater freedom to progress as you can make drastical changes to the world and so on as the campaign progresses. There are also many NWN modules especially catering to this style of play and the original campaign, with some exceptions, is playable in this way.

There are ofcourse many methods to get together. IRC chat, messengers like Xfire or Skype but one site that is more or less dedicated to this exact type of multiplayer is the matchmaking site Neverwinterconnections: http://www.neverwinterconnections.com/


CD-KEY

The CD-key is what the game uses to identify the game owner on the internet. From what I understand you only get a generic CD-Key when downloading the game from GOG so to actually play online you must follow their instructions on the troubleshooting FAQ for NWN to recieve a real CD-key:

http://www.gog.com/en/support/neverwinter_nights_diamond_edition/online_play_in_neverwinter_nights_diamond


WHAT IS X-FIRE?

X-Fire is a stand-alone communicator software that I use for chatting with and seeing on what servers my friends are playing. X-Fire can do a lot more as well.

A description of what you can do with X-Fire
http://www.xfire.com/cms/xf_help

Download X-Fire here
http://www.xfire.com/download

X-Fire is by no means a must have for playing NWN online but I full-heartedly recomend it. By now there are 300 members of this community...which is ofcourse a mere fraction of the total community...but we are growing.

I would even offer my services, in the cases I have enough time, to personally guide you through how to get your game setup, how to join and play on roleplay servers.


= = = = = = = =

I uploaded a video to Youtube about this release from GOG and about playing on an example persistent world server called "Cormanthor".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoTuMCXUkhY

I have a problem with the xfire thing. I even tried to get xfire to manually detect my gog version of nwn and it still doesn't launch the game.

Ahh...you are probably the one that messages me on Xfire right?

I read here that you even tried manual detection.

I was thinking....you are starting the game with the same exe file that you choose for manual detection right?

If you have windows Vista or 7 maybe you are using a non-standard exe to start the game and hence the problems?

Still...Xfire should recognize the game.

You should bring this question to the Xfire forums also and hope for the best.

Feel free to send me a link when you created a topic there, so that I can follow and/or help.

sorry...and yeah the only thing that xfire lets me do "manually" is the nwnmain.exe file. thats it. and that doesn't let it work. I'll try the forums then.

here's my question to the forums:

http://www.xfire.com/forums/182686/topic/2609963/

Hmm...odd...the nwmain.exe is not the default start-file....even though it does work for starting the game....and it is even the recomended start-file for Win Vista/7 users. So you can't point to nwn.exe?

Anyway...it will be interesting to follow the thread on Xfire.

Another thing...as I didn't install the GOG version myself....how is it installed? I am guessing it is not a "regular" install actually.

It is just placing of files right. It doesn't start up a regular installer window right?

Technically that would mean that the game is not really "installed"...at least not as the windows system would view it....as it probably wants some registry entries to acknowldge the game.

If that is the situation one can only hope that either GOG or Xfire makes changes to make this work. More probable is however that nothing is done and then we have to face the sad truth that Xfire might not have full functionality with the GOG-version of NWN....until it is fixed.

it does have a regular install window: you pick where to put it and all that, its just that they modified the shortcut on your desktop. it's completely different, here's a pic of it:

http://uppix.net/f/6/7/e30be2ffdd87f049c1b4aa534b7cb.jpg

I'm not sure if that helps, but it's obvious to me that gog did something different to the game in order to get it to work better for new users. My guess is only because I used to (and still do) own the original NWN Diamond Edition on disc, and I've never seen a shortcut like that before.

To be accurate, Xfire is not something you need to play NWN in a MP environment.

oh I'm aware...I would just like to use it is all :)

Can we get a sticky for this?

Just to note that when playing online you will get a msg that the master server authentication is down. DON'T worry about it *smiling* , you can still play.

have fun :)

Hi I clicked on Xfire download button and it said page not found.
How do I Download Xfire now?

As far as I know, this is the most convenient list (takes a while to load all the way).

http://www.nwnlist.com/

Download "Gameranger". This worked for me when nothing else did. If nothing else works, like for me, give this a shot. It's simple and easy to use, all you have to do is make an account (Free) and startup your lobby. Anybody you choose can join and when you and all your friends are ready, you just click "Start game" at the bottom of your lobby screen. Hope this helps

A bit of thread necromancy here I see :-P

Yeah Xfire hasnt worked for years. Its completely gone.

Ryanara thanks for the information!


Shameless self promotion....I finally managed to get my ol' favourite PW server hosted again. You are all welcome to play there:
http://genesisnwn.weebly.com/