The Neverwinter Nights Community Site was a website hosted by BioWare to support the Neverwinter Nights community. Everyone who plays the game, develops content, asks questions or raises concerns is part of the Neverwinter Nights community. The site was started in 2001 in anticipation of the game's release, and remained up until the summer of 2011, when it was temporarily shut down in response to a hacker attack. The temporary shut down is still (as of 2017) in effect, and attempts to navigate to the site's address (nwn.bioware.com) are redirected to the company's general site (www.bioware.com).
The Neverwinter Nights Community Site (unofficial) was created to replace the closed down BioWare site.
BioWare decided that the diverse nature of the elements that were included in the shipped version of Neverwinter Nights needed an extensive network of support, open dialogue with experts, and a central place for users to gather and discuss their individual plans for playing the Neverwinter Nights official campaign, use of the Aurora Toolset, and use of the Dungeon Master client components. To this end, they had the official Neverwinter Nights Community Site created in-house at BioWare and supported by a team of experts.
The plan for the Neverwinter Nights Community Site was to feature, in addition to patches for the shipped game, specific areas aimed at the different users of Neverwinter Nights – for the player, for the Dungeon Master, and for the builders. Initial features of the Community Site included discussion forums for users to gather and discuss specific issues, specific "how to" documents on the use of the Toolset and Dungeon Master client, module creation tutorials and examples for download, user created content (walkthroughs, modules, player's guides, and so on) available for download, as well as listings for guilds, persistent worlds, fan sites, and RPG gaming sites. The site also featured new material on a weekly basis (called "BioWare Wednesdays") which could take the form of designer interviews, news, major announcements, events listings, and new Neverwinter Nights official content such as new monsters, items, textures and so on created at BioWare.
Registration with the Neverwinter Nights Community Site was an option to get the most out of the site. However, the essential files to fix bugs do not require registration to be downloaded. (Other files – not essential for playing the game – do require registration.) The benefits of registration include the ability to submit content (either modules or informational documents initially), to post in the forums, and to contribute to polls.
Specific areas[]
For players, the site includes a walkthrough for chapter 1 of the original campaign, hints for making use of the Neverwinter Nights interface, game play tips, and a beginner's player character creation guide. Also welcomed is new content created by users to contribute to the player's resources. For example, after the release of the Hordes of the Underdark expansion, a section was added that details several player character builds that take advantage of the higher level cap.
For Dungeon Masters, there is a "Tips for beginning Dungeon Masters" page on the difficulties and rewards of electing to be a Dungeon Master. Also, there is a "how-to" on the DM client that is shipped with the game to allow one to jump in and start Dungeon Mastering with friends. As with players, users contributed documents on their own ideas about squeezing all the power of the Dungeon Master client to make their game the best they can be.
For builders of modifications and modules, there is a "how-to" on using the very powerful Toolset that ships with the game. This will show how easy and flexible the Toolset is for the absolute beginner. There is also advice on how to make a module and what crucial things must be included when one creates an adventure using the Toolset. Users contributed their own ideas on using the Toolset and tips and tricks for creating great adventures for players.