Sword Coast Legends


Video Games


A D&D 5E based computer RPG. 3rd person isometric. Single player and multiplayer. Up to 4 players in coop and a DM :) Sounds promising. The developers are Digital Extremes and N Space. DE does good work, N Space I'm not as familiar with.


They've done a lot of mobile games, so not much to judge on.

I'm interested that the lead director of DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS (who jumped ship in protest at the direction of DA2) and someone who worked on BioWare during the heyday of their classic era is at the helm for this game. That should be promising. Combat looks solid, graphics look pretty good since I'm guessing this isn't a high-budget project (the projected budget price backs that up) and it looks like a modern BALDUR'S GATE. Clearly inspired by recent KS successes like DIVINITY: ORIGINAL SIN and PILLARS OF ETERNITY.

I wouldn't expect too much from the game, it looks like it was made under a limited timescale and budget, but I'll certainly check it out. A new, proper, PC-only D&D game set in the Forgotten Realms and with some reasonable talent behind it shouldn't be sniffed at. I'm actually impressed they managed to restrain themselves from calling it BALDUR'S GATE 3 just to get more sales in.


10 minutes of gameplay footage.

This looks okay. Not brilliant and the voice acting needs to be better, but pretty decent gameplay.


Looks nice. I want.

Dwarf should be speaking faster, though. Sounds like doing the accent was too demanding on the voice actor.


I like what I see of what is, after all, an unfinished game. It's looking good. The next footage with the DM is going to be interesting.

Sovereign Court

spells on cooldowns.

blech.

Just once cant someone make a faithful product?


I am interested, very interested.

Thanks!


Quadstriker wrote:

spells on cooldowns.

blech.

Just once cant someone make a faithful product?

They did. It was called "Temple of Elemental Evil". Probably the most faithful representation of the D&D rules since the SSI days. It was also a buggy mess that required a bunch of fan fixes to make playable. (I actually helped with said fixes for awhile.) It was a lot of fun when it worked, though.

Sovereign Court

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Kalshane wrote:
Quadstriker wrote:

spells on cooldowns.

blech.

Just once cant someone make a faithful product?

They did. It was called "Temple of Elemental Evil". Probably the most faithful representation of the D&D rules since the SSI days. It was also a buggy mess that required a bunch of fan fixes to make playable. (I actually helped with said fixes for awhile.) It was a lot of fun when it worked, though.

If you're part of the Co8 team, thanks. TOEE with that is great fun.

But... It's been what a dozen years? I wish someone would really give it an honest try again.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

Well, it's not an actual D&D game, but TSI is working on Seven Dragon Saga, with their own IP and game system. They're made up primarily of veterans from SSI who worked on the Gold Box line as well as other RPGs. What they have so far looks great, even if they just cancelled their Kickstarter to re-tool it. The $40 reward level included not only the cRPG but a PDF of the pen n paper RPG they're developing that the cRPG uses for a ruleset. It looks like it will be a fantastic game once it's out.


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If we go with not strictly RPGs...Freelancer is AWESOME.


Quadstriker wrote:
Kalshane wrote:
Quadstriker wrote:

spells on cooldowns.

blech.

Just once cant someone make a faithful product?

They did. It was called "Temple of Elemental Evil". Probably the most faithful representation of the D&D rules since the SSI days. It was also a buggy mess that required a bunch of fan fixes to make playable. (I actually helped with said fixes for awhile.) It was a lot of fun when it worked, though.

If you're part of the Co8 team, thanks. TOEE with that is great fun.

But... It's been what a dozen years? I wish someone would really give it an honest try again.

I was. I haven't actively worked with them in 7 years or so (having a family kills your free time for stuff like that.) I do know some of them are still working on making the game better. I actually don't have any real coding skills, but I was the resident "rules lawyer" and went through the database that housed all the creature and equipment stats and fixed them. Apparently even Troika wasn't sure how their engine worked, as two different creatures that should have had identical stats in a particular skill or whatever often had wildly different values.

I agree it would be nice if we could get another D&D game that was actually D&D, rather than a hybrid system of some kind. (I loved that in ToEE you could actually bring up the window with the dice rolls. Not only was it fun for playing the game, but it made fixing all those goofy values a lot easier.)


Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2 was the closest to real D&D 3.5e I have ever played. It was almost dead on with a few minor changes to skills, spells, or PrCs. You could also see your rolls in that if you wished. But then I never played ToEE so I can't really compare.


Most of the Infinity Engine games were pretty darn faithful incarnations of the 2E rules, aside from Planescape (which was awesome for separate reasons).


Aranna wrote:

Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2 was the closest to real D&D 3.5e I have ever played. It was almost dead on with a few minor changes to skills, spells, or PrCs. You could also see your rolls in that if you wished. But then I never played ToEE so I can't really compare.

NWN bothered me with splitting up single feats into multiples that made them less useful (like Power Attack) and adding skills like "Parry" and "Discipline" that taxed already low-skill classes like Fighters and Paladins.


Parry and discipline may tax fighters... but it gives them options they don't have in the main game; parry is an interesting defensive fighting style, and discipline gives you a new way to resist trick maneuvers like trip and disarm. So I wouldn't say that was a bad thing.

Power attack bothered me a little at first too but it makes sense in a video game to keep combat moving by assigning a static number to power attack rather than allow them to halt combat every round to choose a number.


Aranna wrote:

Parry and discipline may tax fighters... but it gives them options they don't have in the main game; parry is an interesting defensive fighting style, and discipline gives you a new way to resist trick maneuvers like trip and disarm. So I wouldn't say that was a bad thing.

Power attack bothered me a little at first too but it makes sense in a video game to keep combat moving by assigning a static number to power attack rather than allow them to halt combat every round to choose a number.

Good or bad, they're also somewhat big changes from the rules of the game, which moves it away from being a completely faithful adaptation of the rules.


Release date: 8 September, which is pleasingly soon.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My friends and I preordered this. I'm wondering if I can run an AP or module with the provided tools.


Werthead wrote:
Release date: 8 September, which is pleasingly soon.

Even better, it will release for Windows, Mac and Linux. Plus later this year it will come out for PS4 and Xbox One. And the pc platforms will allow crossplay between them online. Between this and FF XV I finally have enough reason to buy a PS4 by the end of the year. :)


Saw a demo of the dm tools and options on youtube today.

It seems like you can do a lot with it. Not sure how this is going to turn out, (They have monetized all the little props and monsters dm's use?) or how open it will be for modders (as opposed to using their tools to do things).

But it just seems to me this is the way Tabletop gaming will go.

Particularly with a mechanics heavy game like Pathfinder.

Anyway I'm looking forward to this. Not sure this is going to be a megahit, though it could be.

But this sort of thing is coming in my opinion.

Scarab Sages

Ok, I failed my will save and preordered...now I need to convince myself that a D&D CRPG is a save bet because Pool of Radiance 2001 and Daggerdale never happened :-/


40 minutes of SWORD COAST LEGENDS. Looking decent so far.


Quadstriker wrote:

spells on cooldowns.

blech.

I have to agree with that. I thought this was going to be 5e's Neverwinter Nights/Baldur's Gate, but if the spells and abilities have cooldowns other than 6 seconds and "until your rested" once everything is spent, I don't think this is actually true to DnD rules.

Scarab Sages

For those thinking about buying the game:
I have been trying the Headstart Access (no campaign yet, limited other recources) and for now I am pretty dissappointed.
- A very limited skill/ability set for characters that includes spells (and not many of them) and seems entirely combat oriented
- It looks far worse on screen than it appeared in the videos, especially animations and lighting.(highest quality level, vsync activated, good overall performance) Still, if the gameplay was good, that would be no problem.
- Controls feel unresponsive and clunky, pathfinding AI is atrocious

For single players this might be outweighted by a good storymode, but as of now, I am not holding my breath. for GM/player multiplayer mode it might work, but at the same time the controls might make it an unpleasent experience, I have not yet tried that.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I've given the game a go over this weekend. Playing around with the GM tools. They aren't as powerful as I hoped they would be, but good enough for cricket.

The game could use an NPC library, as all the actors in the story have to be crafted yourself.

I still haven't run a game in GM mode, still building a module, to see how it all works.


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feytharn wrote:

For those thinking about buying the game:

I have been trying the Headstart Access (no campaign yet, limited other recources) and for now I am pretty dissappointed.
- A very limited skill/ability set for characters that includes spells (and not many of them) and seems entirely combat oriented
- It looks far worse on screen than it appeared in the videos, especially animations and lighting.(highest quality level, vsync activated, good overall performance) Still, if the gameplay was good, that would be no problem.
- Controls feel unresponsive and clunky, pathfinding AI is atrocious

For single players this might be outweighted by a good storymode, but as of now, I am not holding my breath. for GM/player multiplayer mode it might work, but at the same time the controls might make it an unpleasent experience, I have not yet tried that.

The single player RPG aspect of this game will be judged against both the old school Infinity engine games and the newer Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, and Shadowrun games, so if it doesn't hold up to those in gameplay and story, I expect it to get thrashed in reviews. We shall see.

Scarab Sages

As I already got the game, I will not be held from buying by comparative bashing - I enjoy a wide range of games and I mostly take them by their own merits - but I must say that, to look beyond the flaws that I experienced in headstar access, story and game/mission design would need to be pretty compelling.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

Gambit wrote:
feytharn wrote:

For those thinking about buying the game:

I have been trying the Headstart Access (no campaign yet, limited other recources) and for now I am pretty dissappointed.
- A very limited skill/ability set for characters that includes spells (and not many of them) and seems entirely combat oriented
- It looks far worse on screen than it appeared in the videos, especially animations and lighting.(highest quality level, vsync activated, good overall performance) Still, if the gameplay was good, that would be no problem.
- Controls feel unresponsive and clunky, pathfinding AI is atrocious

For single players this might be outweighted by a good storymode, but as of now, I am not holding my breath. for GM/player multiplayer mode it might work, but at the same time the controls might make it an unpleasent experience, I have not yet tried that.

The single player RPG aspect of this game will be judged against both the old school Infinity engine games and the newer Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, and Shadowrun games, so if it doesn't hold up to those in gameplay and story, I expect it to get thrashed in reviews. We shall see.

And even older games like the gold box ones, and the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Scarab Sages

Release date just got pushed to October 20th, that might be good news.

Silver Crusade

For anyone looking for a game where you can build your own adventures, don't bother! The tools are very limited. You can't even add a dialog to a creature. You can give him a quest with a "Get quest" line a line that comes up when you talk to them if the quest is not completed. And one when the "quest" is completed. OK for simple quests but absolutely worthless for building any type of story. Until they add more options, it isn't worth it. Take a pass.

Scarab Sages

The campaign, too me, seems uninspired and lackluster for now, the controls are bad, character animation, portraits and graphics overall look bland and the game does ]i]not[/i] have the boon of using D&D rules.
Right now I would say that at this pricepoint you have much better choices.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

In terms of quality, does the campaign at least approach the Neverwinter Nights original campaign? That's pretty much the bare minimum in terms of quality that will still leave me satisfied.

Scarab Sages

For now, I would say no, but I have heard it picks up somewhere past the 2-4hour mark...so I will hold back my verdict for now. It has grown better already, and I would say: if they fix the most glaring problems with pathfinding and controls, it might be worth picking up the game during a sale (again: I am only talking about single player!). Even then, most comparable games (Drakensang, Serpent in the Staglands, Pillars of Etenity, the original Infinity games) are better value for money.

Silver Crusade

Charlie Brooks wrote:
In terms of quality, does the campaign at least approach the Neverwinter Nights original campaign? That's pretty much the bare minimum in terms of quality that will still leave me satisfied.

The Campaign is really forgettable. A lot of fetch quests that really don't make a lot of sense. A lot of enemies that really don't offer anything unique. This may be a 5th thing, but at 3rd I'm finding random vampire and vamp spawns and vamp spawn necromancers that are all very much the same thing and have nothing interesting about them, except one does slashing and one does psychic... I would expect my first vampire fight to be memorable, that he would be some NPC that had some story. Nope, they are just the next mob in line to be killed. My abilities are very bland. A does piercing, B does psychic (even though I'm a ranger... its a spirit wolf?!?) C does piercing in a small radius. I started with a quarterstaff cause I thought it would be cool (even if they all look like wizard staffs). and quickly had to change to a sword because the staff could not keep up with the damage it needed to do.

The story is so bland and forgettable that I have no interest in it, and I usually play on easy so I can pay attention to the story for games like this. I keep upping the difficulty cause otherwise I'd be bored to the point of not playing. Most dialogs are "I lost my (insert item here)" or "MY brother/son/second cousin is missing". There is no life to the interactions at all. It feels like a Beta version of the 2002 NWN game when they were testing the quest mechanic. No story, no good tools, crappy DM mode. It really is just terrible.
I am soo disappointed. It's like expecting a matchbox car and getting an all yellow, no detail plastic car with the the wheel/axle combo thing that popped off if you tried to play with them on the rug.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Oh my, that's a shame. I guess I'll have to wait for the new Baldur's Gate expansion to get my fix of good single-player D&D video games in.

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