Specifically with NWN, I’m not really a fan of D&D mechanics. I’m not sure why, but they just don’t do much for me. They didn’t in Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment or NWN, though I valiantly tried to taste the magic.

WoW may just be a streamlined (or dumbed down, whatever) riff on D&D core mechanics, but for whatever reason, I enjoy playing it more than any “true” D&D product. …perhaps I’ll have to analyze that and make it a post sometime.

@Melf: I am aware of NWN and curious if you posted that to say “look, that is already available if you want that gameplay” or say “Hey, go check this out because it is awesome”.

Regardless, I don’t want to be a DM or have to create my own campaigns. I like the land of Azeroth (and it’s counterparts), I like the way the game looks, and plays (for the most part), I just don’t like paying a sub fee for a disguised MMO. WoW would play much better as a NWN style game, without having to create the content. I would gladly pay a monthly fee to have that content updated by Blizzard but have my own little persistent server to enhance the WoW experience.

“Neverwinter Nights allows you to create your own worlds. This revolutionary game will come with all the tools needed to construct your own unique lands of adventure. The Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset allows even novice users to construct everything from a quiet, misty forest or a dripping cavern of foul evil, to a king’s court. All the monsters, items, set pieces and settings are there for world builders to use. But do not stop there; construct traps, encounters, custom monsters and magic items to make your adventure unique.

But the Neverwinter experience is not just for one person- adventure with all your friends. Neverwinter Nights can be played online with up to 64 friends, all sharing in the adventure. You can organize and run your own adventures through the role of the Dungeon Master and control all the monsters, creatures and characters your friends meet as they journey on their quest. A powerful piece of software that is included with Neverwinter Nights, the DM Client, allows nearly unlimited control for running your own adventures for your friends.”

I might almost go for this sort of low-population friends and family server, if the costs were no higher than $5/month, since I can concede that if I want to play multiplayer, I want to do so with friends. Even so, I’d want to keep my soloing offline and just pay for the time I’m playing with friends. I’m not opposed in any way to paying for server and customer service maintenance. I just don’t see the sub model cost matching what I’d really be getting out of it.

Most of the time, I’m just soloing my time away, but I’d almost actually be happy as a farmer for a private server. Let me wander around, killing mobs and gathering herbs and skins, and I’ll be a happy little Hunter/Druid. Heck, if they added the “icanhaz?” sort of bidding mechanism for auction requests (so I could fill an order, rather than gather and hope it sells), I might just be in geek paradise.

Of course, if it’s just a single guild, such gathering orders may not even need the AH interface. Just put up a notice or something in the Guild Hall (oh, right, we don’t have those…) and I can walk in, see that the guild needs 100 Briarthorn or whatever, and just go play in the wild and do my part in what time I have. If we need money, I go kill high return baddies. All in peace and quiet, free of ninjas and brain dead Barrens Chat refugees.

Mmm… a man can dream, right?