Online graphics in the late 1980s were severely restricted by the need to support modem data transfer rates as slow as 300 bits per second (bit/s).

In 1989 the Beyond Software team started working with SSI on Dungeons & Dragons games using the Gold Box engine that had debuted with Pool of Radiance in 1988.

In a series of meetings in San Francisco and Las Vegas with AOL's Steve Case and Kathi McHugh, TSR's Jim Ward and SSI's Chuck Kroegel, Daglow and programmer Cathryn Mataga convinced the other three partners that the project was indeed possible.

[5] According to GameSpy "with hundreds of loyal players all adventuring in the same city between 1991 and 1997 when AOL pulled the plug, politics, guilds, and alliances quickly formed a social community that was far more important than the actual game".

[6] In 2008 Neverwinter Nights was honored (along with EverQuest and World of Warcraft) at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form of MMORPG games.

[8] NWN gained incidental media attention from AOL tech and marketing staff by appearing in the Don't Copy That Floppy campaign by the Software Publishers Association.

In 1998, development work began on a fanmade clone of Neverwinter Nights called Forgotten World,[9] which opened for play in 2003.