NWN Campaigns - Dungeons and Dragons Online Roleplaying Using Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2

As I mentioned in another post, when I originally got this domain, my plan was to eventually put up a site that was pretty simple - keep a simple master list of multiplayer NWN and NWN2 campaigns that are held at NWC or elsewhere, with links back to the campaign's home at NWC. I think that this would augment NWC and drive traffic to it, rather than fragment the community. I don't think NWC has such a list, aside from searching through the forums.

Once I get a backup scheduling system in place here for when NWC is down, I plan to take a crack at setting up some sort of system whereby anyone running a campaign can input his or her campaign info. If possible, I'd like to see if I could set it up so that entries are automatically deleted if the user doesn't click on a button every few weeks to affirm that the campaign is still active (a warning email would be sent). This would keep the list fairly accurate and fresh.

That's the master plan at least. Whether I can actually pull it off remains to be seen.

Here is what I envision a user being able to input, if I can figure out a way to do it:
- Campaign name
- Are there openings in the campaign? How many?
- Link to game page signup/application at NWC
- Name of campaign organizer
- organizer contact info
- Link to campaign forum at NWC (or elsewhere)
- Link to campaign website, if any
- Link to organizer's NWC profile
- Dates and times of campaign sessions
- Campaign setting
- Campaign description


Please chip in with any thoughts on two things:

(1) Additional info that should be gathered for each campaign on the list

(2) Other functions this site could serve to help multiplayer community and drive traffic to NWC (such as more news items, which has already been suggested).

With respect to #2, please keep in mind that we don't want to fragment the multiplayer community by duplicating anything that NWC does. Our segment of the community is pretty small at this point, so the last thing I want to do is create something that will get some people going one place, and other people to another place. I think we need everyone to stay in one place.

Thanks for any suggestions! (And again, my usual disclaimer - I'm a hack, so I can't promise I can implement any suggestions, or even my own ideas! But I'll sure have fun trying.)

i have always felt that the guild functionality at NWC was next to useless. since it has no forum function for the guild itself, its just a over glorified buddy list, IMO. so... a new and improved guild function w/ forums, calender, etc would be great.

I'm a bit dense, so can you define 'guild'? I think I know what you mean, but I want to make sure. NWC does have the ability to set up a campaign forum, but I think by guild you mean a group that may or may not play in a campaign together? Just a group that is organized sort of like a clan? Like an MMO guild, but they might not play on the same server?

yeah... kinda like that. Fleetstreet would be a good example of a guild. a loosely affiliated group of DMs that all ran thier own stuff and therefore would have different campaign forums.

TBH i'm not sure if there is really even a need for it. at this stage, it's prolly more important to get the scheduling stuff in line and the front end (home page) working. worry about the rest of it later.

cause... i think a lot of the extra functionality that NWC offers is kinda moot at this point. guilds, playing groups, etc. sure they are there, but they don't really do anything. and NWC functions just fine w/o it.

anyway... i think what you got planned right now is most excellent. just go in that direction.

Must say I think that this site is coming along fantastically in terms of facilities to help players to hook to campaigns. The thing that make the NWC site stand out still is how management of games by the organiser links into a record of events. The ability to set up, invite into and apply directly for a game plus the retention of a record of play and ratings by those concerned. A complex functionality I know, but it is what keeps me going back to NWC. Congratulations for what you've got so far, though. Sterling work!

Thanks for the suggestion and the nice words, Vanya Mia. Although I want to avoid duplicating what NWC does (so as not to fragment the community), I have been thinking about allowing people who run campaigns to set up a "campaign home" part of the site. I just need to figure out what functionality that would entail. So long as NWC still has scheduling, I would hope people would use that, though. I have toyed with the thought of some campaign permutation of that though, for people who don't want to go through the formality of scheduling their games each week since the same people will be playing. When you have a campaign, you might not want to schedule a game with all the details week in and week out. You might just need a headcount. I'm not sure what form that would take though.

I can see that, we just have to hope the site keeps going!

On another note, is there anyway to set the forums up so you can edit your own posts more than once? Even if there's a time limit on it such as the Bioware forums. I find myself staring at grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in my own posts and grinding my teeth as I can't correct them.

Vanya Mia wrote:On another note, is there anyway to set the forums up so you can edit your own posts more than once? Even if there's a time limit on it such as the Bioware forums. I find myself staring at grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in my own posts and grinding my teeth as I can't correct them.

I'm not sure if the site has a limit on the number of edits. It does have a time limit on edits, which I just upped from 3 minutes to 10 minutes. Hopefully the editing limit was caused by that setting (maybe it measures the limit from the time of the first post), and it will be fixed.

What I've been working on this past weekend, on a test site, is sort of a "campaign page" functionality. Basically, it is set up so someone can set up a campaign home on the site. They will then have their own campaign page, which they can set as open, application only, or invite someone to join. The idea is that your campaign would have its own little corner of the site for news items, event scheduling, forum posts, calendar, etc. There would also be a directory which would list all of the campaigns that have set up pages (but a campaign organizer could choose not to have her campaign listed if she so desired).

The campaign organizer can post news items on their page, much like news items show up on the front page here (and control if only they can do so, or other members can, too). They can also schedule events which are only open to members of the campaign, and see a campaign calendar. Finally, if I transition these forums to the site engine's built in forum, they could have forums directly accessible from the campaign page.

I imagine this could be used for persistent worlds, too, although most of them have their own sites, I think.

It is up and running on the test site, but buggy, so it will take a while longer.