As I mentioned in Thas' thread below I recently dug into the library section on Neverwinter Nights and started researching my local records of the time. We had long lost the downloadable version of the Island Pillar module but I did have it locally.

However, it is not quite as simple as installing NWN and loading the module. The right expansions have to be installed and upgraded to the latest version and other hak files need to be installed. However I was able to dig up my old NWN Platinum install disks and after some research I was able to get the game up and running and load our module.

For those who weren't around then, the Island Pillar was a NWN module that I started and evolved from 2002 to 2006 and made it live through the NWN servers for others to visit. Some NWN players who were inspired by it joined EF and ended up DMing it (Yvgeniy and Alucard amongst them). I consider it sort of a "love letter" to the Eternal Flame and even the Burning Heart. In it I implemented the Keep and Library from UO in a pseudo-Britannia like land that simulates the areas they were found in. Mentioned are such familiar places from UO as the Library and Keep itself as well as the Beach and the Pass. From that point on it evolved in its own way and became very different from the UO lands.

While going through it I was reminded of just how much content I put into it. There are several quest lines that you can go through and lots of places to explore. As it was pretty well managed by Yvgeniy and others it ended up being pretty successful and I was inspired to put in lots of content over the period it was up. Unfortunately a lot of the places require you to have a fairly advanced character (to make it challenging for the high end) so you might have to level a character in the main campaigns a little before you can do the more difficult tasks and eventually level in the module itself.

On another note I was looking through Steam and found "Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition" available until March 23 on their Spring sale for $5.99 . I grabbed it as I was coincidentally getting into this. It works much better than my Platinum version with my 4k resolutions I'm running now. I could get the Platinum version running but some of the intro screens were misplaced and sized strangely. The software just couldn't handle todays common resolutions (although you can go to the lower resolutions but Windows likes to mess up your window sizes when you do that). But the Enhanced Edition was very well written to scale the interface and fonts to whatever level is comfortable even in 4k.

Also EE has improved graphics. They added a see through hole in case walls or other obstructions were in between your character and the camera. Overall I'm glad I bought that. Also applying the special upgrades is much easier on EE than it was with the Platinum edition. I have the steps to take for a walkthrough of setting up either version and might post it in the library if anyone is interested.

In any case... still fiddling with NWN. I'm planning on running through the main game campaigns since I never really did them when the game came out. But I'm glad I got the Island Pillar up and running again. There are some screenshots now in the Library from back then and it is really pretty much the same now even with the improved graphics of EE.

So if you never really got into NWN and thought you might try it out, the Enhanced Edition is really nice and you might want to grab it on Steam before the price goes back up to $20 on March 23 (or put it on your wishlist in case it goes on sale again).

As for what I might do in the future... I might get the module up for download somewhere on the site. Or possibly even put up a server to make it public (probably not as it would really require active DMs to prevent griefers and such). Still thinking. :) Whatever the case I want to make sure the work that was done on this doesn't get lost.

Hubert