New Real Time With Pause Dungeons & Dragons RPG - SWORD COAST LEGENDS

[archangel979]

Still no info about the mechanics and character creation/development. That same link implies mechanics are only kind of D&D.

[Tigranes]

Yep. The longer they go not telling us about the basic systems, the less interested I am. 

[GreyFox]

Why is this ****ty little company making a D&D game....this should be given to Bioware/Obsidian or hell even Beamdog would be better than some N:DS developer who does **** like hanna montana games...wtf...lol....such fail by WOTC/HASBRO.

 

LOL

 

I was like "wow cool" at first now it's just lulz...cooldowns and stuff too...such a waste.

Edited March 1, 2015 by GreyFox

[Darkpriest]

<double>

Edited March 2, 2015 by Darkpriest

[Darkpriest]

Most likely its about the money and revenue sharing. Bio has its own milk cows and obs just got a new own homemafe ip on their hands.

 

Usually when you dont know what is it about, it is about the money.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Excerpt from a recent Yahoo-games interview:

"GamesBeat: Why has it taken so long for us to have a party-based D&D game for the PC? The last real one was in 2008.

Nathan Stewart: The obvious answer is because it took Dan Tudge this long to pitch an awesome game to me. I could blame it on him.

The fact of the matter is that for a long time, we had our video game publishing rights in a long-term agreement with Atari. Its publishing strategy for D&D games didn’t match my strategy exactly, but I’ve only been on the brand for three years. They brought me in at Wizards to run D&D, primarily because of my video game experience in the past. Right before I came on, they had ended their agreement, their relationship with Atari and said, we want to take the rights back. We want to manage this. We want to make the great D&D games we know our fans want. We don’t think that having someone else control our rights is the right way to do it.

We didn’t think Atari was doing the best job, so we were able to end that.

I say that all nice and fuzzy because I wasn’t in the middle of it, but the fact of the matter is there was litigation over the deal. This wasn’t the best ending of a relationship. But we got the rights back because we care about what the consumer experience is. What that means is that you have to be selective. You have to be picky about finding the right company, the right people at that company, the right concept. All those things have to marry together to bring this to fruition.

I hope this is OK to say, Dan — I don’t think this is crazy — but Dan can confirm that when they showed us the project and they were talking about this, Dan was just kind of coming on board with N-Space. I talked to him and said, look, I love this. I think this is awesome. But you’re a big part of it, Dan. I need to know that you’re not just jumping on or partially here. If I’m signing up for this, I’m signing up the full team. It has to be you as part of the equation. He said, yeah, that’s what we’re doing.

Dan Tudge: I agree wholeheartedly. There’s a lot to be said for these ideas brewing for quite a long time. Really, the timing was right for both parties to come together. What we really wanted to make was Sword Coast Legends. What Wizards really wanted to return to came into alignment a couple of years ago. To Nathan’s point, my answer was clear. This is a title that’s very dear to my heart. I definitely want to be part of it all the way through.

GamesBeat: Does this mean that Wizards of the Coast is a video game publisher now?

Stewart: Actually, Wizards of the Coast has been an official video game publisher for years — see our Duels of the Planeswalker and Magic Online games.

A couple years ago, we also became the official publisher on all the digital D&D games Atari was previously publishing. As the brand steward and owner of the D&D [intellectual property], Wizards of the Coast is the licenser for Sword Coast Legends. However, we very excitedly treat Sword Coast Legends as one of our own games and embrace N-Space as part of our family. N-Space approached us about bringing this game to market more than two years ago, and we’ve worked closely ever since, but N-Space and Digital Extremes are handling all of the development and publishing efforts. WotC’s focus is on telling the entire D&D fan base great stories in the Forgotten Realms and finding the best partners to deliver those stories to fans."

 

In short, Wizards want to have full control themselves, since Atari made a mess of it all (especially with Daggerdale, haha), and hired a smallish team to do a digital basic set, as it were, just to see if it works out. I have been following N-Space pretty closely as of late, and the guys on board are huge fans of D&D, some having played even from 1st ed and onwards, and I am happy to report that I share many of their visions of how D&D should be, ideally. It remains to be seen if they have translated this into a good computer game, however.

[Larkaloke]

I'm interested enough to keep an eye on it, but only very cautiously optimistic at this stage -- with a dash of pessimism ready at any moment.

 

I did, in fact, like both Neverwinter Nights and Temple of Elemental Evil as well as Dragon age: Origins (albeit none of those so much as, say, Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment), so if turns out being like one of those I'll probably go for it. I'm not wild about 5E, but it's far, far better than 4E -- I wouldn't touch any CRPG made with 4E -- but if they're changing a bunch of the mechanics, that might not matter. Talk of cooldowns makes me suspicious. It always does. DA:O has thus far been the only game which I could stand the combat of that had cooldowns, but at that it had serious issues and the cooldowns were one of them.

 

In the end, so long as it has a decent amount of story and roleplaying freedom and actual full character creation, I'll probably get it. There are few enough CRPGs that come along and look at all promising to me. I'd rather be choosier, but the pickings are still too lean. If the DM client is good, that'll redeem a lot of potential flaws as well; 1-4 players is, for me, actually probably more than I'll play with anyhow, so that's not a problem for me.

 

Still no info about the mechanics and character creation/development. That same link implies mechanics are only kind of D&D.

Yeah... I'm not forming any sort of definite opinion, even preliminarily, until I see something about at least character creation and basic mechanics. The teaser and screenshots look good at a glance (I clearly didn't take sufficient time to analyse the trailer, since I missed basically everything people have pointed out already), but of course they will. That's their point.

 

Eh, regardless, I'm at least glad that more people are trying to go for isometric RPGs again.

[ShadySands]

I finally pulled the trigger on this

 

I hope it turns out good

[IndiraLightfoot]

News tidbits:

 

First, GDC-article, by Steve Burke:

"What is Sword Coast Legends?

Sword Coast Legends is a party-based role-playing game that uses the 5th Edition D&D ruleset, licensed by Wizards of the Coast, and takes place within the Forgotten Realms universe. Gamers may be indirectly familiar with Forgotten Realms via R. A. Salvatore, the prolific fantasy author who worked on Kingdoms of Amalur. As the name would indicate, our time as players will be spent along the very well-developed Sword Coast, the home to Amn, Baldur's Gate, and other well-known fantasy locations.

The game, developed by n-Space, puts players in control of a party of four adventurers, focusing on story-driven gameplay and tactical combat. Combat can be thought of as vaguely similar to Bioware titles, namely in that it uses pausing and single action queuing for more strategic gameplay.

Introducing the Dungeon Master

DM mode is unique. Sword Coast Legends' DM mode allows a Dungeon Master -- the role assumed by a tabletop RPG's organizer and overseer -- to build the player's experience by way of direct "hand of god" interaction with the world. For those unfamiliar with tabletop RPGs, we feel it's important to point-out that the DM (or GM) is not competing against the player; rather, it is the DM's job to fascilitate a fun, intriguing adventure by carefully building campaigns (stories) and encounters.

In Sword Coast Legends, the DM uses her "threat level" to place monsters, lock doors, set traps, or otherwise manipulate the dungeon. Threat is effectively the currency for the DM, and can only be regained by building a rewarding scenario for the player. If the DM is responsible for a "TPK" (Total Party Kill) as a result of an unrealistically challenging encounter, the DM will actually lose threat level as a reminder of her role. Bringing parties to the brink of death -- without wiping the party -- is rewarded with more threat.

Tabletop players know that DMs often "fudge" die rolls to ensure a party isn't over- or underwhelmed with combat and encoutners. To this end, Sword Coast Legends grants DMs the ability to promote and demote monsters, dynamically remove or add monsters from play, and directly assist or hinder the player's party in combat. The DM can also conceal doorways to create secret treasure rooms, awarding parties that actively search, or plan ambushes at the height of tension.

The DM is represented as a wisp on the screen, so whenever the DM is near, the player knows that the wisp represents the cursor location.

Campaign Mode

Although not much could be discussed at the meeting, Sword Coast Legends will feature a "campaign mode" that allows DMs to author, map, plan, and execute a custom D&D campaign in-game. We don't have any details beyond this at the moment, but it's a critical item of note. As in the video interview above, we were told that campaigns can extend effectively forever, as in the tabletop game.

Impressions

Sword Coast Legends is among the most promising video game releases we've seen for the RPG space in recent years. The game is a true return-to-roots for D&D cRPG fans and, if delivered properly, offers a unique gameplay mechanic that greatly extends longevity of the title.

The graphics and aesthetics are befitting of a D&D RPG and, while not employing thrilling visual effects technology, are appropriate and not overbearing. For a game like this, we much prefer the clean, unified aesthetic with simpler graphics technology to a game that over-invests in visuals.

Gameplay looked natural and enjoyable for the player controlling the party, with pause-and-play combat advancing as one would expect for a title like this.

Forgotten Realms' Sword Coast is a living setting with significant fantasy depth, affording Sword Coast Legends effectively endless avenues for exploration of story. We're genuinely excited about Sword Coast Legends and greatly look forward to its development.

Bear in mind, as always, that this was a press demo and the game is still under full development."

 

And from a Twitter account:

SCL has posted something nice on their Twitter account:



"This looks like the game's main menu. Pretty nice if you ask me .

Also apparently they're getting ready to speak to the press. Next train stop - hypestation.

EDIT: So SCL has responded to my tweet with: "It may in fact be the #GDC2015 demo menu.. it's animated BTW and looks gorgeous."

Animated - confirmed
Gorgeous - confirmed
Demo during GDC - confirmed :3"

 

*Drool*

[archangel979]

Still waiting for real info. Too much PR talk so far and very little real info.

[Stun]

 

Uses per day is quite very different from cooldowns... come on, I don't need to write a paragraph on that, right?

 

Right, but five uses per day is five charges followed by a day long cooldown, is it not?

 

No, it's not.

 

Unlike the vile cooldown mechanic you're trying to equate it to:

 

-5 per day means you have a choice with that ability. You can spam it 5 times in five consecutive rounds, or you can spread it out through the day. The choice is actually yours.

-5 per day means you actually NEED to rest. With a cooldown system you don't.

-5 per day means you're not basing your tactics on a ticking clock. With a cooldown system you are

 

Anyway, there's something that's rubbing me wrong about this game. I just watched the trailer and I can't help but feel that I'm being conned. It doesn't just look like Neverwinter nights 2 with DA:O's combat. It *IS* Neverwinter Nights 2 with DA:O's combat. They friggin stole the art assets from NWN2. Look at the UI. Look at the Area art. It's the same.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Stun

[archangel979]

No, it looks better than NWN2.

 

And cooldown combat might turn out OK if they don't go overboard with it. We already know they are "adapting 5e rules", we can hope that the end result turns out D&D like no matter if it has cooldowns or not.

I still hope cooldowns are only used to represent rounds, but until they talk about the rest system we will not know.

[Stun]

x

Edited March 4, 2015 by Stun

[213374U]

I still hope cooldowns are only used to represent rounds, but until they talk about the rest system we will not know.

That's a "global cooldown" and is different from what is usually meant by cooldown-based gameplay. GCD prevents you from doing anything other than moving for a fixed amount of time after using an ability. It's applied across the board and its length isn't dependent on the ability that triggered it. It's a common feature in games where ability spam may be an issue, even if it's disguised as unclippable animations. Even the old IE games had similar mechanics, even though there was no visual or UI cue and after doing his thing the character would just stand idly waiting for the "round" to be over. On the other hand specific ability CDs encourage searching for an optimal rotation of abilities or ability deployment priority system which hurts the tactical element by reducing the number of viable alternatives. The game then is more about how well you can execute the rotation -and with a pause feature, that's trivial- and less about adjusting to fluid combat situations, i.e. tactics and decision-making.

 

I don't mean to sound condescending, but they really are fundamentally different things.

 

edit: ability =/= skill

Edited March 4, 2015 by 213374U

[archangel979]

Yes and I am not talking about that. As a real time game based on 5e, it is better to have ability based cooldowns even if they plan to follow D&D 5e closely since in 5e some abilities can be used once per round, some more often, some per short rest, and some only per day.

 

But like Stun, I expect them to just assign different cooldowns to different abilities. I am hoping not but we have seen a screenshot with two abilities in cooldown (unless that was the duration timer).

I would not mind if at will, once per round and per short rest abilities used cooldowns but per day abilities asked you to find a place to rest.

 

Having both short and long rest in a computer game would just break the flow of combat. The other solution would be like PoE and have per encounter abilities instead of some on cooldown and have to deal with inside and outside of combat states for those and others.

I would rather have cooldowns so those abilities/spells can be used at any time.

 

I am most afraid they are going to abandon Vancian magic completely and base it all on cooldowns which would be terrible. Vancian magic is one of the trademarks of D&D, even with a fairly large group of people not liking it. Most other systems use mana or spell points systems and those that don't like a more strategic Vancian system have other options for their gaming.

Edited March 4, 2015 by archangel979

[500MetricTonnes]

I'm playing NWN2 right now, and one thing I like is how bright and colourful the world is. Perhaps it's a bit "cartoonish," but I vastly prefer this look over the "dark and gritty" trend that's infected the fantasy genre.

 

Compare this:

 

 

To this:

 

 

It's the same dull, washed-out, low-contrast look, that I absolutey hated in DA:O and DA2. Attention graphical artists: take your "gritty realism" and stuff it!

Edited March 5, 2015 by 500MetricTonnes

[ManifestedISO]

I'm not seeing the dark or the grit, just incredibly hardy trees growing from rock in a development build not meant for final consumption. 

[Stun]

The camera is also zoomed in a lot more in the NWN2 pic (which makes a huge difference). And the rest of the game is Hardly as bright as Harvest-Day West harbor anyway. Wait till you go to the swamps.... Or Neverwinter City

Edited March 5, 2015 by Stun

[ShadySands]

Yeah, I don't get most of the hate this is getting

 

Edited March 5, 2015 by ShadySands

[ManifestedISO]

[IndiraLightfoot]

New screenie from GDC:

How about a wizard and with surprisingly high hps to beat (not that I care. I wouldn't miss out on this game for the world):

[IndiraLightfoot]

And here's a cosy pic, with horses, NPC grooming one of them, and just a nice atmosphere:

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

Here you see the game lobby, there's even a DM slot!

Nice character models.

[Vaeliorin]

Yeah, I don't get most of the hate this is getting

 

I think it's largely because we're finally getting another D&D game, but it doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with D&D mechanically. Seems similar to Neverwinter, in that it's a veneer of D&D over non-D&D mechanics (seriously, 267 HP wizard?)

 

Also, that whole "DM's need to earn threat to perform actions in the game, and everyone can see the DM cursor as a wisp!" thing seems really, really off to me.

[archangel979]

267 hp lvl 6 wizards and 3300 hp lvl 6 bosses

 

I guess I will stick to PoE, WL2 GotE and new SRR and then wait for TToN.