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Decline Sword Coast Legends Pre-Release Thread

Weasel
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Irenaeus II

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Already bought this shit. Just to support 5ed yay

5e is the best selling PhB in DnD history.

I agree.

It doesn't need support.

I think it needs support, it seems to be relegated to the background by whoever owns D&D now.

Looking back, buying this game doesn't seem like it will do much to support it.

Relegated to the background????????????????

Is this because they're releasing fewer books? Spamming content doesn't work. It fucked 3rd/4th edition, both of which saw insane initial sales. 5e is trying the "two books a year" approach. They've locked the MMO into being all about the storyline that DnD is doing(elemental evil atm) and they have a minis publishing deal, and sword coast legends, so on. 5E is doing well, if this game sells then we'll see a spike in 5E cheaply made videogames.

And then it'll be a console game made by bioware where you can meet and fuck drizzt in the ass.

Yeah, I guess you are right. I've been listening to that retarded Pathfinder fan (lol) Night Goat too much.
 

Night Goat

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I wouldn't call myself a Pathfinder fan, as I've said before it's hilariously bad in a lot of ways. I play both Pathfinder and 5e, each of which has flaws but is at least a playable game.

Spamming content is bad, but there needs to be a middle ground between spamming content and WotC's current policy of not producing any new content at all. Yes, there are the two adventure paths a year, but those are outsourced to third parties and are of no value to anyone but those DMs who don't want to make their own campaigns. D&D needs campaign settings, new monsters, new character options. If it doesn't get those, its days are numbered. And that may be Hasbro's intention - my theory is that the suits think D&D will compete with MTG, which makes them a lot more money than D&D ever could, and so they're just going to let it die. They want to have a current edition of D&D on the shelves for PR reasons, but they don't want people to actually play it.

Also, to clarify: 5e's phb is not the best selling phb of all time. It's the best selling on Amazon. Which really wasn't a big deal in 2000 or 2003. And there the 5e books are being sold for $20 less than anywhere else in order to artificially drive up the sales ranking, fucking over local game stores in the process.
 
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I'm doing it here.

medium700_2010090184349_302.jpg
 

Caconym

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And that may be Hasbro's intention - my theory is that the suits think D&D will compete with MTG, which makes them a lot more money than D&D ever could
That's exactly the reason why they would never even consider D&D competing with/threatening MtG sales. They're not new in this, MtG was always a mammoth next to D&D's Eohippus, sales-wise, even - though maybe less extremely - in the 3-3.5 boom era.
 

eremita

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Well, that girl sure was excited... Not sure if cute or annoying. Also, he likes Ranger class the most!:yeah: Best game evah, savior of RPGs!

Anyway, why can't any of these interviewers ask a one simple fucking question: Is it like Aurora Toolset?
 

LeStryfe79

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Too bad Ranger is the worst class in 5ed by far and it's not even close. The spell list barely salvages it. Barely.
 

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Puff piece: http://www.destructoid.com/sword-coast-legends-dungeon-master-surpassed-my-expectations-294474.phtml

Sword Coast Legends' Dungeon Master surpassed my expectations

I was supposed to Dungeon Master a session of Dungeons & Dragons tonight, but that post-E3 fatigue comes in hard. So why not tell you about my hands-on session with n-Space's Sword Coast Legends, a new asymmetrical co-op RPG based on the fifth edition of D&D? That's right, soak in some of these geek juices. We're about to get nerdy in here.

CRPGs have had a resurgence as of late: Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, andWasteland 2 have been giving old-school PC gamers something to smile about. And while I'm an awful dirty bag of trashwater because I haven't had time to try those out extensively, I can tell that they don't scratch the itch that a pen and paper RPG can. If a few kinks are worked out, Sword Coast Legends might be able to do just that.

breaker-620x.jpg


Four other journalists and I jumped into Wizards of the Coast's last appointment on the final day of E3, and we quickly established that we had much more than a passing familiarity with tabletop gaming. The small room had a computer for each of us, with one additional unit available for senior producer Tim Schwalk to take on the role of DM. Each monitor was flanked by d20s and pre-painted minifigs, and I immediately felt at home. I chose to play as Jarhild Stoneforge, a female dwarf fighter.

Schwalk had probably done this demo 492 times at this point, but instead of seeming tired and frustrated, he saw an opportunity to make our adventure particularly bizarre. He showed us how ridiculously intuitive the creation system is before we actually started playing. He first chose an empty, pre-generated town. Since he wanted us to do a quest, he chose to create a questgiver with just a couple of clicks. Though we were skipping through in the interest of time, he showed us that you could customize their backstory, race, clothing, and appearance. Then he went through a menu, deciding how the quest would be triggered.

Next, we got to see an abandoned mountain cabin. Schwalk realized it wasn't as atmospheric as he wanted, so he dragged a time slider as we watched the shadows cascade in quick whorl, chasing a disappearing sun. A few more keys were pressed and a lightning storm began raging. Zooming into the cabin, he quickly placed loot and furniture around the room, finishing up by leaving a corpse with an impossible amount of bloodstains around him. It was by this point that I was becoming seriously impressed by how easy DMing looked. Sure, Schwalk was familiar with the system by now, but despite the large number of drop-down menus, sliders, and toggles, the process was easy to follow.

2nd%20Breaker-620x.jpg


After he had established the ease of creation, he dropped us into a dungeon and we began our short adventure. We were to fight cultists, demons, and ultimately a Spider Queen (no, it wasn't Lolth!). Schwalk placed all sorts of weird stuff throughout the catacombs, like circus tents filled with spider eggs, unarmed villagers who would sprint up to our merry band of adventurers to punch us, and a bunch of traps. The combat is based on fifth edition, so abilities are easy to understand and numbers are relatively small. This goes a long way in making Sword Coast Legends seem less intimidating for new players.

Following behind our scouting rogue, we slowly cleaved our way through various creatures. Occasionally, a glowing ball of light would silently float by. We were told that it was a representation of the DM, letting us know he was nearby, perhaps plotting something nefarious. On the fly, he was placing new enemies, sometimes letting their AI handle themselves, other times inhabiting them directly. He also decided to give the boss just about every spell in the game just for laughs.

It was heartening to see that he had limitless power; there was no resource bar or cooldown keeping him from doing whatever he had in mind. Beautifully, this represents a Dungeon Master's power perfectly (that's a sentence no one should say aloud). Does the DM have the power to be a relentless dick? Yup. Could he perhaps make it way too simple? Sure! But that's exactly how it should be. D&D isn't about the DM beating the players, it's about him or her making the game as fun as possible for them at all times. The less barriers to that, the better.

breaker%203-620x.jpg


I glanced over at Schwalk's screen (now played by another journalist, trying out the role), not to cheat, but to see how it worked in a bit more detail. He was placing little miniatures which would instantly become monsters when they were ready to fight. Once in a while he would choose to set ambush triggers on chests or doors, and could make his own group or choose a pre-set one. He could also set the difficulty of each mob, in case the dungeon crawl was too easy/hard.

We all knew our character classes well, but were still nearly destroyed by the boss we fought. The Spider was flanked by two Onis that kept summoning storm clouds over us, doing continuous damage and obscuring our vision. When we finally cleansed the room of evil, the demo ended and everyone was grinning. One journalist even walked over to the monitor on the wall and repeatedly swiped his credit card against it, loudly proclaiming "it's not working! I need it! Let me take it home!" I felt largely the same, though I do have a couple of large concerns.

As of now, the combat is sluggish. My fighter seemed to be carving her way out of a giant flan each time she swung her sword, and there wasn't much heft to connected strikes. There's a slight delay between your click and the ability actually happening, and I hope skirmishes feel punchier upon release. Though role-playing isn't just about the battles, and Sword Coast Legends lets you focus on the story by writing your own content and dialogue, there's no getting around the fact that conquering a dungeon and/or dragon needs to feel satisfying.

final-620x.jpg


I'm also worried about how expensive Sword Coast Legends is going to be. Since you need a $39.99 copy for each of the five players to have a full group, there's already a high barrier to entry. But the developers kept talking about tilesets, creatures, and abilities from the upcoming Rage of Demons module for the pen and paper game. I'm sure that'll cost extra, but how much? Will all five players have to have it to be able to play together? Will there be packs for already-existing modules like Prince of the Apocalypse? While it's great that n-Space plans on keeping their game relevant, my wallet already weeps.

If these turn out to be non-issues, I'm definitely going to replace a couple of my normalD&D sessions with this digital form. I am in love with the idea of Sword Coast Legends, and I hope n-Space can pull this off.
 

prodigydancer

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Well, that girl sure was excited...
Not surprising at all, as she's from mmorpg.com. Mind you, compared with most MMOs, SCL totally looks like "best game evah, savior of RPGs."

P.S. Dan Tudge apparently has 50 points in fast talk. I can't follow him but his speech sounds very persuasive and reassuring. :d1p:
 
Last edited:
Weasel
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Why do so many tards like this guy insist on name-dropping games like WL2, DOS and PoE, comment on their quality, only to later admit they've barely played them? Seems to be a common thing, like at attempt to burnish some gaming cred which only makes them look like idiots.

A few interesting details in the write-up but the stuff about DM's having unlimited power directly contradicts what NS said earlier about using the "threat mechanic" to inhibit the DM's powers/
 

prodigydancer

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Occasionally, a glowing ball of light would silently float by. We were told that it was a representation of the DM, letting us know he was nearby, perhaps plotting something nefarious.
/facepalm

the stuff about DM's having unlimited power directly contradicts what NS said earlier about using the "threat mechanic" to inhibit the DM's powers/
Perhaps DM threat will be optional or only used in open games.
 
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All quality issues aside, I think these guys have missed their monetisation window by about 5 years.

They're wisely going after 'NWN-era' Bioware's market, and that gives them some leeway. If the BG2 fans were forced down the cinematic action adventure path, the NWN fans didn't even get that. NWN wasnt just PC centric in terms of tech - the whole concept was from the PC-specific idea of LAN parties and online play made to feel like LAN parties writ large (see counterstrike for the FPS gold standard). They aren't in direct competition with P:E, WL2, etc and nobody expects a multiplayer NWN successor to be turn based. Nevertheless, it will still hurt them to not be able to rely on pulling the old school single player crowd that they'd have counted on in the planning phase.

But the biggest issue is that this whole model comes from an era where you could make such great profit from the box launch that it made sense to support the game for years after release, like with Starcraft, CS and, well, NWN. How is it going to be possible for a small studio, in the age where you need to start charging for glorified patches and every bit of content that follows just to make your initial release make pay dirt (in no small part because that's how the industry adapted to piracy, by shifting as much of the monetisation as possible away from the initial software purchase), to give the kind of support needed to make this type of game work?
 

prodigydancer

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nobody expects a multiplayer NWN successor to be turn based
Here you're horribly wrong. I typically prefer RTwP over TB but if there's a kind of video games that could really benefit from TB combat it's NWN-like non-massive multi-player RPGs. Adjustable challenge (due to the presence of a DM) makes TB a perfect fit because it's possible (in theory) to create interesting and complex chess-like setups that will require players and the DM to think carefully before every move. With RT combat it's, unfortunately, a wasted opportunity.
 

Renevent

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I agree with that assessment based off of the video's I've seen...the combat doesn't look great. It looks sluggish, delayed, there isn't a lot of reaction/impact to strikes, and overall just looks kinda sloppy. Basically like older MMO combat...

Not all of it was bad, though, spell effects look very nice and even have some pretty cool looking physics like the fireball blowing up the crates.
 
Weasel
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Thought this might interest someone:

Sword Coast Legends ‏@SwordCoast

We'll be blabbing about it all week, but this Thursday at 3:00 pm EST on http://www.twitch.tv/SwordCoastLegends -- We'll be showing off our #E3 press demo!

Itz coming :M

Come join us for an extended look at our E3 2015 Press Demo on Twitch.tv/SwordCoastLegends Thursday July 2nd at 3:00 PM EST !

Viewers will get a chance to see campaign creation and dungeon master tools revealed for the first time and will have a chance to win some exclusive Sword Coast Legends swag.

smimOOk.jpg


Join n-Space President and Sword Coast Legends Game Director Dan Tudge as he and the development team provide fans with an extended look at the press-only demo from E3 2015 featuring first ever public reveals of campaign creation, dungeon master tools and much more!

Tune in as an adventure is created and modified in real-time and watch as four players work together to try and overcome the challenges of the Spider Caves and the monstrous Demon Web Terror.

Also, the team will give away some exclusive swag in celebration of a successful E3 2015!
 

ArchAngel

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This was a interesting stream. The campaign building tools look more interesting than the gameplay but I am still angry at them for charging extra for tilesets and monsters that campaign builders can use to prolong the life of their game and bring them more sales. It is counter intuitive and I don't want to support them financially. I will probably pirate the game at release or real release (when major bug fix patches are done) to play the singleplayer campaign and buy the GotY edition in Steam Sale edition later to make my campaign if I read positive experiences in that part from fools (people) that buy the game at start and go into it right away.
 

Veelq

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Campaign development tool looks interesting. I dont know what to think about the fact that DM can spawn stuff just under players, so they can be suprised. Its kinda lame but at the same time helps DM against that type of players that are caucious all the time, to the point its not fun for others.

I wonder if that part where you can write text for quests, dialogues etc, is enough to create climat in a game, or it will be just dry, cliche text, biowarian at best.
 

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