Neverwinter Nights was published by Bioware but the current version Neverwinter Nights II is an Obsidian product. The game now has had two expansion packs released, ‘Mask of the Betrayer’ during 2007 and in November 2008 ‘Storm of Zehir’. Overall this is a very engaging and addictive game with a fascinating storyline.

The rule set is based on Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 so that players create a character race from the following list; Dwarf, Elf, Human, Halfling, Planetouched, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc and within each of these there a sub-races such as Drow a kind of dark elf. After choosing a race players then elect what class or classes their character will be such as Bard, Barbarian, Wizard, Sorcerer, Rogue and so on. As the play the game and gain higher levels ‘Prestige’ classes become available such as Eldritch Knight, Pale Master or Weapon Master. The classes determine what skills and abilities you character can develop but also what strengths and weaknesses physically. A wizard for example will not be able to suffer much physical injury or ‘hit points’ before death, whereas a fighter is much more resilient. On the other hand a fighter will not resist spells cast on him as easily as a mage. Skills available include learning spells, how to craft and make magic items, picking locks or pockets, survival and tracking in the wilderness.

Having made your character you start the game and set off exploring the game world, killing monsters, completing quests and gathering items and treasure – all the time gaining experience and getting new and more powerful skills and spells. The adventure story that comes with the game is a pick a path type adventure where you meet characters that can be interacted with but depending on your characters morals an attitudes you may have a different outcome to another player. This adventure game can be played multi-player on a network, in which case you and your friends form a party and travel together to complete the story as a team.

The game can also be used to join free MMORPG worlds. There is a large community of creators who make persistent worlds using the tool-set which are online 24 hours a day. Some of these emphasize play style which is action based and others require a commitment to role playing and staying in character. One of the longest standing, popular and largest of these is Forgotten Realms, but other beautifully constructed worlds are Shores of Haldun and Return of Middle Earth II. There are many others too which make great choices as role playing PC games.

World of Warcraft was created by Blizzard Games and is the fourth game in the “Warcraft” series.  The series started with the original Warcraft which was a real time strategy game (RTS) – not a role playing game. Warcraft II and Warcraft III followed and both exhibited the RTS style of play – typically top down, resource and army management types of play. It was World of Warcraft that broke the mold and took blizzard fully into the RPG game world. Although Diablo I and II are also produced by Blizzard, and can be classed as RPG, they are not what purists would consider a full immersive RPG as the options for  character development are somewhat limited by comparison.

Although World Of Warcrawft is PC based it is important to note that the game requires an internet connection to be played and that the environment is not based on the users PC but in teh perpetual world controlled by the server. In this way the game developers can create new regions in the virtual perpetual world, putting in new challenges for role players to overcome and new treaures and bounty for the gamers to find. For many players the World Of Warcraft has become an addictive  second life – some even claiming it is preferable to the real world!

A key part of any roleplaying game is “Leveling” you character but this can be difficult and extremely time consuming. Obviously for many this is all part of the fun but for those who want fast track their progress a MMORPG Leveling Guide can help.