Neverwinter Nights Q&A, Part One

French website JeuxOnline has published a brief Q&A with BioWare’s Rob Bartel about the future of Neverwinter Nights, the company’s Live Team, and more. Here’s a bit to get you started:

Q: What do you think of the NWN community and of its evolution as time goes by ? Have you been surprised by any of the modules or custom content that’s been created?

A: Early in the design of NWN, we told ourselves to expect the unexpected from the community and that has certainly proven to be good advice. If you look on the Vault, not only are there some excellent Dungeons & Dragons adventures available for this game but the fans have also used it to create real-time strategy games, collectible card games, persistent worlds, and more. There are educational groups using it to explore the town of Colonial Williamsburg, develop neural net AI, or train employees about sexual harassment in the workplace.

In short, I’m endlessly surprised and amazed by the sheer variety and quality of what the community is able to produce. As NWN continues to mature, the talent of the community matures with it and there’s more and more professional-quality stuff available every day. It’s no coincidence that BioWare hires extensively from within the NWN mod community. So do many other companies, for that matter. We designed this game for flexibility and for longevity and I take great pride and joy in the community that has built up around it.