Howdy :) Old school player

I've just recently gotten back into NWN since beamdog put the EE version up, online connectivity much better.

NWN had aggravated me a bit when Bio-junk crapped out on everyone , Pws and players just dissapeared , or lurked in what I consider the MMOs and ERp servers of old version of NWN.

I came from the era of THACO , my "introduction" to role-playing games, was Pen and paper 1rst edition ADnD.
Partially the "red-box set" of "basic" as well. I was in my late high-school years, when my family moved to BFE arkansas , from St.Petersburg FL ... so you can imagine , my cultural "shock".
I was always into things like Sci-Fi, Fantasy themes, loved art ... wasn't much of a reader at the time.

That year , our Gymnasium was being renovated, so we basically had a "free-class" , supposed to "study" ... I sat at an assigned table with two other guys. I was new, and they didn't talk to me, so I just sat there and would draw.

Day after day, I listened to these two guys, go on about elves, fireballs, magic missiles, treasures , magic ... watched them roll these funny looking dice a lot. I occasionally noticed a book , the artwork I wanted a better look at, but was feeling out-of-sorts to ask to see one.

One day, after a few months, one of the guys was sick and didn't show up that day. The Other guy looked bored and miserable, so I said ... can I show you what I've been drawing?
He nodded and said, "sure".

I piled up papers , and he went through them , at first kinda quick, with an expression of " lets get this over with" on his face. He slowed down, looking over the drawings in more detail as he went through. He asked me, " are you drawing our characters? From our game? This is some of what my character has been doing while adventuring, see thats the evil priest right there, he fell ... and over here, thats the fairy whom beset the dragon on him ..."

and from there ... I was finally introduced and invited into the DnD small circle , and finally a first hand look at the books and artwork.

It got me to reading. Rulebooks, lore, novels ... I absorbed it all I could. Classics like the War of the Lance, test of the Twins, Chronicals, Icewind dale, Dark Elf trilogy, almost any Forgotten Realms book I could find or buy.

So, yeah was hooked on it. Over time, the original group disbanded , going off to collage .... separate states.
There were three of us left, out of twelve still around. All our "DMs" had gone, and the other two asked me to give it a shot.
It wasn't long, it's all I would do was DM from there on out.

Players came, joined in, and left ... a revolving door of activity across time. During Collage, I had another group I played with, where I could just play characters, not Dm.
Afterwards ... it was basically me, and one other left from the original group. Finding it hard to get players over to game regularly.
Then 3rd edition came out ... and RUINED everything.
Hahaha ... while the content was "cool" , new art work, new ways of handling proficiencies and class abilities ( feats and skills) ... both me and my buddy, still loved and enjoyed our 1rst and 2nd edition content, rules, home-brew realms ... , but players stopped coming to game. Others didn't want to play anything but 3rd Ed.

So, thats when I joined up with some players playing Shadowrun , found another of our Original group playing there too.
Somewhere in that era ... I picked up another Fasa made RPG, called " Earthdawn" which was an awesomely detailed and lore based fantasy RPG for Pen and Paper.
I, and the other two core group guys, played it .. I GM'd the game, cause I was the only one whom absorbed all the information and rules.

But same issue ... first off all other players were "into 3e DnD" which rumors of 3.5 were out then. Earthdawn was practically non-heard of even in RPG circles ... so we weren't getting players to come play.
Just us. It was ok, but lacking variety.

Years go by like this.
Right before I joined the Army , I broke down and purchased a full set of 3 edition DnD rule books. My other two core group guys, refused to play it still. Others came to play then, but I was missing my friends from the original group , and I was about to deploy , and the fact schedules of adulthood, kept what group we did have ... sporadic and "light" on participation ...

I was fully in the army not long after, not a lot of time through basic or AIT to do any gaming. While at the PX one day, I bought a videogame magazine , to have something to read when I was stuck on Base Sundays , in a "hurry up and wait" situation ....
Thats when I seen Neverwinter Nights advertized and reviewed. It was 3E based, that part I didn't care much for ... but my eyes sparkled when I read :
" A toolset is provided, so users can custom create thier own modules, or worlds even if they wish, and run them in real time, and either play as a character, or run everything from a Dm client. "

What I seen, not said directly was ... " NWN will REPLACE the need for players to travel to your house or gaming location , replace need for dice rolling , all the paper, miniatures, and books ... "
basically in a nut shell ... it was a way to Role-play , with-out everyone phycially needing to be in the same location.

I pre-orderd the game, from base the next week, ha dit sent to my mom's house until I got back on leave.

..............
However, my "die hard" players back home ... either did not have a computer , or they simply refused to buy the game. Even my best friend whom I begged to get NWN so we could play, wouldn't because it was 3E based. Still harboring that "grudge" of losing our 2nd edition mastery.

From there, once I got out o fthe military , back home ... it was trying what PWs came out. Some I liked, some I did not.
Such was the way of it , up until Bioware scrapped the game due to age ... and we all know what happened from there.

I eventually "gav eup the ghost" tired of what PWs I played on, being empty and going solo in realms/worlds designed to challenge parties of players. I left NWN for about two years, playing DayZ and Arma2 dayz mods instead.
I held off on getting EE , until a friend whom played NWN told me it brought back ease of access online ...
However, since that news he shared, he has dissipated from NWN as well.

Now I am back, I ... kinda see the same issue as before.
Most servers are empty, only a few have a population ( and most of those I can't stand for one reason or another. )

I had hoped, it' d bring in new players, more players. some of the good empty PWs , getting players ... instead of everyone flocking to Arelith ... of such I am banned from due to a override/illegal character thing , because I was playing on another server long ago, that used custom 2da overrides, and forgot I had em on when re-making a character in arelith. Not that arelith impressed me much , it's only just had players to interact with and RP with ...

I found a GREAT PW, that is more like PnP RPG in the NWN creation ... it simply lacks players. Thats all it needs.

so thats me ... I go by BenevolentDevil on NWN:EE.