Persistent World?

Gamer asks, is a truely persistent world even possible?

It seems to me this game is designed for small groups to go through adventures and that what I plan to use it for. Everyone keeps talking as if this is a persistent world like EQ. I know some people talk of running these worlds but I am not sure if you will see many. First, even a real high end machine will be capable 64 players they guess. That is a high number but not for a persistant world. I also dont see many people dedicating a machine in thier home to run a small persistant world, you would not be able to use it for anything but a server and it would need its own dedicated internet. connection.
In order to run a persistant world you would need to set up a server, which costs quite alot of money and who will spend all that just to let others play in thier world. I am not a lawyer but I would assume you cant charge anyone to play, after all, you dont own the rights to the game. All this said, I do believe we will see a few, where there is a will there is a way. I really see this as a game where the community trades modules, and gets together to play adventures in smaller groups. I cant wait to see what people design and look forward to deigning many, many modules myself.

There’s a lot of territory between “persistent world and “persistent world” 😉 if on one end you are talking about it as merely a game server that stays up and running 24/7 and on the other you are talking about a server(s) that are running a full blown game in the vein of the current MMORPGs.

Yes, you can have persistent servers/worlds.

No, you wont be able to run a system like UO, EQ, AC, et al, straight out of the box. Many features needed for “real” worlds like dynamic economies or trade skills will have to be user constructed.

So, NWN *primary* design functions are not geared toward those types of projects, though they are doing what they can to accommodate them.

So, you can do it, but it’s going to take extra effort by those running them to make them work. I believe many will succeed personally.

In their own words-

Quotes(Trent Oster, Producer, then Rob Bartel, Co-Lead Designer):

Coloured name guy here. The focus or our design is not on *Massively Multiplayer* persistent worlds. Our early design was focused on playing the game as you would pen and paper D&D, a group adventuring cooperatively on a pre-written story. Later in the project we defined another area we wanted to support which was the smaller scale online persistent world. With a little extra planning, we were able to extend the framework to support persistent adventuring worlds. So the answer is YES. You can run persistent worlds. Our focus on the game is still very heavy on the pen and paper play model but we are fully supporting persistent servers.

:AND:

You’re right in saying that NWN is being built and designed towards a more intimate focus than that typically provided by the large-scale persistent worlds. But you’re also right in thinking that NWN is capable of them and will be providing the technology to make them possible. It’s been one of those rather happy coincidences and, when all is said and done, it may very well end up being the thing that NWN gets remembered for, who’s to say…

In some ways, it reminds me a lot of the original NWN on AOL – none of the designers ever intended it to have player-vs-player capacity but, one day, someone found a loophole and word spread and guilds formed and an entire community built itself around this glorious accident.

I believe that creating a rich persistent world through Neverwinter is going to be extremely possible. It will take a lot of work and a lot of dedication, of course, but that’s tied more to it being a rich persistent world than it is to being Neverwinter. In comparison to MUDs or UOX emulations, a portal-based NWN world will probably require more cooperation within your development team due to the fact that you’ll be running it off of multiple inter-connected servers. This modularity is also a strength, however, in that it allows for a lot of flexibility and theoretically infinite expandability.

So if you’re lone-wolfing it or have a very small team with a very small amount of resources at your disposal, UOX or some form of text-based MUD might suit your needs a little better. Otherwise, I think Neverwinter ought to suit you fine.

As with anything, though, do your research. Wait until the game comes out, then get some feeback from those who’ve had a chance to work with it. Compare and contrast with what you know of other persistent world development tools are out there. Play on some other NWN persistent worlds and get a feel for what the system is capable of. Do some smaller scale mockups first before you jump in with both feet.

If you like what you see, that’s when you should start thinking a little harder about pouring your money into the “perfect” hardware, the best possible connection, or whatever else you feel is important to the world you want to create.

:End Quotes

Cord Grimwinder