One of the basic tenets behind the development of Neverwinter Nights was recreating sitting around a table with friends and playing Dungeons and Dragons. That special social element was missing in computer games until NWN was released. The hard work of many D&D fans has created a community that has surpassed even BioWare's original vision of what NWN's impact would be. One of the most impressive venues for recreating that table-top atmosphere comes through the amazing NWConnections site, where players, DMs, novices and veterans get together to schedule games, learn more about roleplaying or DMing and, most importantly, start new friendships.

At first glance NWConnections may be a bit daunting to new people and so the idea of a guide began. We spoke with Gruush who was part of a team of authors who created a complete guide to NWConnections and all the possibilities for the serious gamer it has to offer.

Where can I find the NWConnections Guide?

For new players of Neverwinter Nights, who are you Gruush, and what is Neverwinter Connections?

Gruush: "NWC", as we call it, is a Neverwinter Nights matchmaking and scheduling service. It's a great place to coordinate your games and meet other players. The site has a lot of neat functionality - a player/DM review system that lets you give feedback on the other people you game with, a game scheduling system, forums, an IRC chat room, and more. The site really helps players find other players whose styles are similar to their own.

I grew up with 2nd Edition AD&D. I got away from role-playing for many years, and then picked it up when Neverwinter Nights came out. I played NWN heavily for a while, got away from it, and recently have become somewhat involved again. Most of the online gaming I've done has been through Neverwinter Connections.

You have recently released a guide to explain pretty much everything about how your site works. What can you tell us about this new guide?

Gruush: NWC is run by a wonderful guy and programmer whose NWC nick is "Rizzen." Some time back, Neverwinter Connections implemented a "mentoring program" that paired new site members with an experienced site member to help orient new members and help them understand the NWC functionality. The site has been so popular, though, that the ratio of new members to available mentors quickly grew untenable. On the NWC forums, a group of site members began discussing a guide that would answer most of the questions that new site members ask, since mentors were struggling with answering the same questions over and over again. That's where this guide came from.

A while back, I had written "The Role-player's Guide to Multiplayer Neverwinter Nights." I really enjoyed that experience, so when the new member guide discussion started up, I offered to lend a hand.

Why did you feel this sort of guide was needed?

Gruush: New members of Neverwinter Connections usually need some time to understand the functionality of the site. How do I get into a game? How do the reviews work? There's enough there that it can be a little overwhelming. Along the way, we realized that a lot of new site members had never, in fact, played multiplayer NWN at all. So, we decided to include some information about that experience as well. We had a great community of experienced site members constantly answering the same questions. The guide is a way to get new members all the information they need as soon as they join the site.

In what capacity did you serve to help the guide get finished? Did you have any help in this?

Gruush: The guide was written by the following people (these are NWC nicks): J'Dai Voisin, Keenam, StarStuff, Festivus, and Gruush. We all wrote and edited the content together. I had received positive feedback about the format of the Role-player's Guide, so I compiled and edited the information into a similar Adobe PDF document. We decided to go with PDF initially so that the guide would be easy to print and available cross-platform. We plan on converting it to HTML as well.

What are some highlights of the new guide?

• A description of how multiplayer NWN differs from single player games
• A description of most of Neverwinter Connection's functionality
• Information on how to find "good" games, by which I mean the kind of games that YOU like
• Description of some of the more technical aspects that are ultimately required to get into a multiplayer game - hakpaks, server vs. local vault, custom portraits, etc.
• How to host a game
• A list of resources (web sites, other reference documents, etc.) for players, DMs, and builders

Where do you see Neverwinter connections heading in the next 6 months?

Gruush: NWC is really a place for people to meet and schedule games. For my part, I just enjoy seeing new players finding and scheduling great games through NWC. If Neverwinter Connections continues to gain members, more and more people will have the opportunity of sharing great gaming experiences together. That's a good thing, in my mind. Come check us out!