Newerwinter Nights is coming, the land is in turmoil, RPG:ers all over save their food money to buy this new game.

So, what I'd like to know, as a person who never has played anything on the web (except MUDs), how do you do it, with whom you do it, where you do it, etc. And also, if you're sick of hack 'n slash, where you could play a remotely intelligent scenario. If it's not too much trouble, could you also explain what this ALFA/AORTA thing I see so much here is about?
Thanks for your patience.

For starters, you could surf over to http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/NWN/index.htm and read everything you can find there. That should answer about 90% of your questions. ;)

Well if you liked MUDs then you will love NWN. I player more MUSHs and MUSEs because I did like all the hack & Slash myself. EverQuest is like a MUD with graphics while NWN will be a MUSH with graphics. But where do you play? Well there are a lot of answers to that question. I presume that Interplay will setup an offical world for players, if this will be free is yet to be talked about. In addition you can play the single player modules on your own or of course play with your friends or on some created server world.

What is ALFA?

ALFA is that server world. http://www.alandfaraway.net is building a NWN world based on FR. This world will be free and open by application only. See the website for application details.

What is AORTA?

Check out the guild page here at SP under games/NWN/AORTA. The Acient Order of Reasonably Trustworthy Adventures is a guild for ALFA made up of many people from this site. Our leader is Erran otherwise know as Thomas the Bard.

If you have any questions about the guild or ALFA I'd be happy to answer them. I hope this helps.

Edit - The link is now fixed. :o I guess everyone's brain falls asleep from time to time.

[This message has been edited by Voltric (edited July 13, 2001).]

Hey Voltric...your link is to some chemical engineering site. I'll presume this is an accident and not some kind of front. :P

He probably meant to say: www.alandfaraway.net (http://www.alandfaraway.net)

I always forget this site has more than meets the eye... ;)

Well, now the only question is where to play, as I've never done that on the web before.

And we can forget ALFA, the 'our servers require at least a cable connection' part on their site kinda hurt the eye of a 56k modem user :p

No, no, no, unless you want to be a DM, you don't have to worry about that; you won't be a server, you'll be a client as a player...

Absolutely right BtA, as the DM's have to be able to accomodate up to 64 real time players their machines have to be an order of magnitude 'beefier' than the players.

Whoa, less than half are accepted... Well, I'd better come up with a good application, then :p

Um, for the uninitiated, what are MUSHes and MUSEs?

hey guys, look , im the "IDIOT OF THE WEEK" and no one's gonna steal it from me, NO ONE!
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Mr. Idiot of the Week: Please don't make things worse for yourself by spamming nonsense in unrelated threads...

This will surely set a record for the person abe to garner the most heat with the moderators in the least amount of time. Hey, at least keep those idiot spams to the post in which you garnered your new title.

Ironbeard, to answer your question, a MUD is a Mulit User Dungeon. MUDs were more hack and slash power gamer creation back in the day of text based online play. Something like EQ of today. A MUSE is a Multi User Simulated Environment. It as also a text based online game but focused more on role-playing and less on stats and power gaming. Like what we hope NWN will be. The MUSE required a 'DM' to create plots and encounters other wise the played interacter with each other and created their own action. The nice thing about MUSEs was that XP was awarded by fellow player for role-playing not for fighter or quests. They rocked, but add graphics and a real interface will be even better.

Don't let the appearance (colored text) fool you, they are really fun :)

And Drizzt, I'm sure everyone can see why you got that title...

Voltric, I'll only add that what YOU hope NWN turns out to be. Okay, not just you, I happen to agree, but there are plenty of people that are hoping that NWN lets them re-create their friday night pizza and hack-and-slash gaming sessions. If NWN does everything it's promised, it should be able to accomadate both.

Cullain of Moray

I think he meant playing NWN on ALFA.

Magnus