Welcome to 'The Esoteric Beat', the news report that provides new and unusual ways to think about games and culture. This week's column looks at Neverwinter twice remixed.

Scholastic Neverwinter

University of Minnesota's Ami Berger reports on a project to use Bioware's Fantasy RPG Neverwinter Nights in the classrooms of the UMN's New Media department. It seems that the heads of the department had realised, from surveying research provided by numerous sources, that today's students are pretty good at multi-tasking, as videogamers are. Berger asks:

"But how does that ability to multitask impact a student's ability to learn? That question was the genesis of the 'Neverwinter Nights' project."

Berger quotes department lead Professor Kathleen Hansen, who wanted to know how their students could be made to learn by using game-style environments:

"We wanted to develop an educational game that would allow us to do some experimental work on the efficacy of computer simulations as education tools. We had several questions: do students learn more or less through this method of information delivery than through other, more traditional methods of information delivery? And we wanted to know how - or if - a computer simulation would enhance, detract from, or otherwise affect learning."

So, how would games affect learning? Using the NWN modding toolset, the researchers created a 'newsroom' version of NWN, where students could investigate a story in an open-ended manner. The researchers have access to a log of what resources the students accessed, including the materials from the in-game library. Along with the student's notes, the logs made by the game can tell the researchers how their subjects went about formulating the 1000 word news story that is the final goal of the "game."

Professor Hansen elucidates:

"We know that students today are used to interactivity and that they don't like to sit still in lecture classrooms being 'fed' information. What we don't know is if educational gaming is going to be an effective method of enhancing conceptual mastery of subject matter or complex processes. Journalism education is a great place to test some of these ideas, since journalism students are asked to master both practical and conceptual skills in their courses. Game simulations can offer a realistic world in which to 'practice' those practical and conceptual skills without risk."

As more of this kind of material is gathered it could become clearer as to how games actually function as funnels of information. There's so much we don't yet know about how games work that holding them up as paragons of interactivity, multi-tasking and educational potential is still a risky business. But with so many people becoming uncomfortable with tradition models of education, could the likes of Hansen actually be inventing a new medium to supplement and patch up holes in the traditional pen and paper model of teaching? I hope so, although if I catch my kids playing videogames when they should be doing their trigonometry there's going to be trouble.

Neverwinter Massive

A rather less scholarly use of the Neverwinter Nights' modding tools is the esoterically impressive Layonara Online. It's a free-to-play quasi-MMO created using the NWN toolset, and based on a pen and paper world created by a chap know, mysteriously, as 'Leanthar'.

As the team explains in their website introduction, the world the team has created using NWN is no less impressive than many contemporary MMOs:

"Layonara is a huge world of 1200+ game areas spread across three game world servers although there are six servers in total that are used to operate Layonara. Each game world server represents one or two continents and islands and there are several ways to travel between them. When you set out into the world there are persistent storage chests and a world-wide banking system that provides safe storage of your items and gold as you travel the lands. There are also bind stones which can be found in temples and larger cities that an adventurer can bind his/her soul to which he/she will be returned should your character die."

But there's something else which makes Layonara interesting, and that's the way in which it has been put together so that GMs can direct affect content within the world. Being volunteers and NWN enthusiasts, the Layonara GMs regularly make custom dungeons and extra content for the players to interact with and explore. They are able to create dungeons for certain players, for certain reasons, or in playing out smaller parts of the overall arc of the Layonara world.

I can't help thinking that this is exactly the way that MMOs were supposed to be. They're such a pale shadow of actual dice 'n' root beer 'role-playing', simply because they are without the on-the-fly input from the all-encompassing GM. There are hints of his creativity creeping into the games world (such as with City of Villains' lairs) but I can't help thinking that the fantasy MMO that works out how to properly utilise its players' natural urges towards creative fantasizing and world building will be the one that wins the MMO war.

[Jim Rossignol is a freelance journalist based in the UK – his game journalism has appeared in PC Gamer UK, Edge and The London Times.]