Technical: what we found
The original AOL host is gone, so the revival's server was built from the game itself and from what players and archives remember. This page says, in general terms, what works, what we had to write ourselves, and what we do not have. If you played the original and something here is missing or different, please tell us.
Report something missing or wrong → Tell us what
you saw, where in the game, and roughly when. Screenshots, newsletters and notes are welcome.
Key
| WORKING | Seen working with real players. |
| UNTESTED | Should work, but we have not seen it in play yet. |
| RE-CREATED | Something the AOL host supplied that was lost. We wrote a replacement. |
| ADDED | New. It was not in the original game. |
| MISSING | Something the game expects or hints at that we do not do, or do not know. |
What works
The game's world (maps, monsters, pictures, scripts) lives on the player's own PC. The host's job was to be the referee, and that is the job the revival does.
| What | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Signing in | WORKING | Accounts with passwords and up to four characters each. |
| Saving your character | WORKING | Characters are kept on the server and survive a dropped call. |
| A shared world | WORKING | Players see each other, walk between areas and talk. Doors and fights in each area are shared and kept between sessions. |
| Parties | WORKING | Following another player, looking at their character, giving gold and items. |
| Battles together | WORKING | Joining a fight, taking turns, loot, and a death in the party. |
| Lord Nasher's audience | RE-CREATED | See below. |
| Game master tools | WORKING | The game's own game-master menu, for keepers only. |
| Spells and effects in group battles | UNTESTED | Should work, but not yet tried with several players. If one misbehaves, tell us which spell and what happened. |
Re-created: what the AOL host supplied and was lost
| What | Status | What we did |
|---|---|---|
| Lord Nasher's briefing | RE-CREATED | Nasher tells you what needs doing in the realms. That text came from AOL and was never in the game itself; no copy has been found. We wrote briefings from what survives: the official area guide, the News of the Realm newsletters and player accounts from 1995-96, and the beginners' guides. As on AOL, Nasher gives everyone the same current quest when the keepers set one; otherwise it is the realm campaign's (below), or, with that switched off, the Wharves for newcomers, as in 1995. The rewards for items you bring back are the game's own. |
| The realm campaign | RE-CREATED | Our own addition. On AOL the staff changed the current quest by hand; here the players move it on together. Every battle won in the quest's place counts, by anyone (for a story quest: enough heroes who reach its turning point). When the realm has done enough, a herald tells everyone in the game and Nasher asks for aid in the next place, in the order of his briefings. The keepers can switch it off. |
| Lord Nasher's bounty | RE-CREATED | Our own addition. One place a week; whoever wins the most battles there takes the bounty, and the Hall of Fame keeps the winners. The weekly News of the Realm announces it. |
| Nasher's extras | RE-CREATED | Our own addition, not part of the original game. After the current quest he thanks you for any area you have mastered (every named fight and story stage in it) and tells you where your own story leads next. The keepers can switch the extras off. |
| Story progress | RE-CREATED | The game tells the host when you finish a story stage or a set battle. We remember it for each character, with the areas you have visited and who was first to master each area: the start of the revival's feats, which will show in the Hall and on the Realm page. |
| The game clock | RE-CREATED | The game takes its date and time from the host. Game days pass faster than real ones, and areas reset their doors and fights as the days change. We supply the clock. |
| Accounts and sign-in | RE-CREATED | On AOL you were already signed in before the game started. We wrote our own sign-in, which works over a modem on a phone line, a WiFi modem or a terminal. |
Added: not in the original
- ADDED The Adventurers' Hall, a lobby shown after sign-in: who is online, letters between players, the Wayward Blade tavern chat, message boards, guilds, a Hall of Fame, the News of the Realm and help pages.
- ADDED Guild chat that follows you into the game. What a guild says in its chat room reaches its members who are out adventuring, and they can answer from the game. In the tavern a member can speak to the guild alone. Each member can switch it off.
- ADDED The Realm status page: whether the realm is open, who is online, the Hall of Fame, the guilds and the latest news, refreshed every half minute.
- ADDED Play in the browser: a DOS PC in the page that dials the realm. It is offline for now.
- ADDED Connection programs for the player's PC, to connect, sign in, play and return to the Hall, and to change settings.
- ADDED A safer sign-in. Our connection program never sends your password when you sign in: it proves it knows the password by answering a one-time challenge from the realm. It works on the original hardware, a few seconds of sums on a 486.
- ADDED Keepers' tools for running the realm.
Missing or unknown
This is the list to check against your memory of the original.
| What | Status | What we know |
|---|---|---|
| Updating the game over the connection | MISSING | The game has messages such as "Disk # has been upgraded. Press Enter." and "ESC=upgrade". AOL could send updated game files to players while they were connected. We do not. |
| Closed areas and crowding | MISSING | The game contains the messages "Sorry. Temporarily closed.", "Cannot advance. Room too crowded." and "Sorry. You must leave the game." They look like decisions the host made. We do not use them, and do not know when AOL did. |
| Other messages from the host | MISSING | The game can receive several kinds of message from the host that we never send, perhaps operator notices. Nothing breaks without them, but they were presumably used. |
| Trading gold and items in town | WORKING | The old newsletters say players met at "the vaults" in Neverwinter to trade. Giving gold and items to another player in your party works, in town and outside a battle (tried on 7 October). We do not know exactly how the vaults themselves took part. If you traded there, tell us how it looked. |
| Nasher's exact words | MISSING | Never found. If you remember what he told you, or have a screenshot, that would be a treasure. |
| The wider AOL service | MISSING | Staff-run events, the weekly News of the Realm newsletters, the guild and event pages of the day. The newsletters survive in a public archive: see the Archive page. We do not run any of this yet. |
Sources and thanks
- The game itself.
- The BladeKeep NWN preservation archive: screenshots, area material and over a hundred News of the Realm newsletters from 1993-97.
- Nerdly Pleasures: Neverwinter Nights: The Original's Workings.
- The scanned manuals at MOCAGH, including the Adventurer's Journal.
- The CRPG Addict on Neverwinter Nights (1991).
- The people who made the game: Stormfront Studios, SSI and America Online.