Sword Coast Legend Dev N-Space; R.I.P.

Enworld breaks the story here. Digital Extremes is the publisher, so this doesn't do much for fans of Sword Coast Legends other than to notify you that it is unlikely that the game's going to see future development or patches....and per the announcement the studio did manage to get the console edition of the game out before expiring. I'll wait until I see some reviews of the console edition; my suspicion is that, based on how the game plays, it might actually be more fun on console than it was on PC (but only marginally). If it gets rave reviews on the Xbone or Ps4 versions (mmmm Magic 8-Ball is suspect) I may look at it again.

D&D just can't get a break in the digital gaming sphere.....will we never see another D&D title to rival Neverwinter Nights in scope and quality? One can hope.

SCL could have benefited from better character models...

2015 Gaming Year in Review Part III: The More Things Change...

This was an interesting year for some of the most venerable role playing game publishers out there as they were handed over to the winds of fate, changing hands in ownership rather unexpectedly.

HIGH: Chaosium returns to classic form

Chaosium was returned to Petersen and Stafford early this year, which seemed like a fascinating turn of events, especially after it was revealed how close the company was to folding as a result of the debt it accrued due to the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Kickstarter (or rather, the lack of money to afford fulfillment). Most of the year was spent paring down Chaosium's focus, making it leaner and tighter, all while focusing on fulfillment. Late in the game Runequest became a major focus as well, as BRP fell to the wayside and the company at least on the surface seems to be repurposing itself to old fans of Runequest 2 and those tolerant fans hanging on patiently for CoC 7.

LOW: Chaosium's return to classic form fragments the BRP crowd

The downside of all this is that all of the established licensed products and support are now a thing of the past. The Design Mechanism's Runequest won't be the "official Runequest" which seems odd to all the people who've come to identify Pete and Loz as the life-bringers of the setting. A generic edition will no longer be a thing as Glorantha returns to the fore, much to the delight of the Gloranthaphiles but also to the detriment of the fans of the system but not the setting.

2016 will definitely be the year we see how this all affects the niche corner of gamer fans who love their BRP gaming.

HIGH: Paradox Entertainment Buys White Wolf

Paradox, a computer game company known for non-AAA budget games that usually are pretty good, bought White Wolf, saving it from a slow death at the hands of CCP, the copany behind EVE Online. Suddenly it looks like we'll have a new 4th edition Vampire: The Masquerade, continued support for the Old World of Darkness (now just plain old World of Darkness), Onyx Studios support for Chronicles of Darkness (what used to be the "New" WoD), and promises of a computer game, possibly an RPG.

Onyx had done a great job reviving and keeping World of Darkness alive, but only if you knew where to look. This new direction from Paradox is a good sign.

HIGH: Design Mechanism does get to continue supporting its own system

On the plus side, Chaosium is fine with Pete and Loz continuing to provide support for the system formerly known as Runequest 6. Fans of the system got a taste of how versatile it can be in the Luther Arkwright expansion, and now maybe in 2016 for many of us we won't need to stress too much about Chaosium's future because Design Mechanism has a perfectly viable Glorantha-free alternative out there.

Predictions: if Chaosium stays solvent, meets its Kickstarter obligations, and produces a great edition of Runequest that everyone can get behind then they will see some smooth sailing by close of year. If too many of these goals are not met then the future will look grim. Meanwhile I predict White Wolf will have a lot going on and will at last get exposure on a retail level again, possibly growing its fanbase, and it will hopefully do well under Paradox. Meanwhile I expect Pete and Loz to produce at least 2-3 high quality books powered by the Design Mechanism House Engine before Chaosium gets Runequest 4 out.

Next: OSR!

Friday Blaaagh: on the long dark month, kickstarters, Sword Coast Yawns and other stuff

As October rolls to a close I can only say thank goodness....ever since I moved to the more demanding/more rewarding position of my current company I have found October a brutal challenge, as this is a "major activity" month for me. It's one of the reasons I haven't done an October Movie Month for a few years now, unfortunately. Things don't really calm down at my job for a while....but October is the worst month for me, so the subsequently horrible November and December still don't look as bad by comparison (my staff might disagree).

Kickstarters

So for this month I tried backing three Kickstarters. Tome of Beasts is looking strong with more than six times it's Kickstarter goal and the amazing talent at Kobold Press behind it.  The Dungeon Crawl Classics 4th printing looks cool but I admit part of me wonders if there's as much point to backing it as I felt initially....is the cool alternative cover art work the extra money when XMas is closing and I need to plan to buy a ton of loot for my kid (who has a Birthday on the 25th of November, too)? Will I ever actually get to play DCC? It seems like such a great game, but it is fundamentally dependent on my ability to focus my GM style on its requirements, while finding a group of players who are intrigued at what it brings to the table.

Maybe just enjoying the collection and reading of DCC will be enough in the end.

And finally there's the Borderlands Provinces Kickstarter from Frog God. On the one hand I am keen to support any 5E development they want to aim for. On the other hand, it's having some trouble hitting the goal, and in wondering why I realized that their many updates on the Kickstarter have been less exciting than I might have hoped. Not "less exciting" in an objective way, but rather that they made me realize I probably won't use this setting. I love the modules Frog God makes, but I have never been interested in Lost Lands as anything other than a world sufficiently generic and portable as to make it easy to run the scenarios in the setting in my own worlds. It's hard to tell from this project, even with all the updates, if it will have much "ease of conversion" to mine for ideas. I may end up backing out.....we shall see. What I'd really like them to do is another monster book or two and more Book of Quests tomes.

Sword Coast Legends

Sword Coast Legends arrived on PC earlier this month and while it was fun for a little while I really lost momentum....there's just none of the actual "D&D feel" you'd want in a game that purported to be a direct successor to the best of the previous era of D&D gaming. They made a crucial error by trying to simplify the character design system and streamline it to be more action RPG friendly in feel....almost every competing game on the market in the same general niche has more to offer and a abetter overall experience as well, which is in many ways even worse; people who like SCL are likely enjoying it because they haven't played other, better games like literally everything else out there, unfortunately are more forgiving than a guy like me with too many choices of entertainment (and too little time). For SCL to work for me they needed to make this a turn-based tactical RPG, like Divinity: Original Sin, or study what Pillars of Eternity did. Or better yet, WotC needs to license the brand out to a real game development studio, one which knows how to make a really good RPG. As it stands, SCL is better than Daggerdale, but still falls way short of every other CRPG based on D&D out there.

I'd ranted a bit earlier this week about my inability to focus on isometric RPGs. That is certainly a thing, but it really doesn't help if the RPG isn't ultimately interesting enough. I want to see SCL's story.....but I just don't want to suffer through the tired, simple gameplay to get there. I think the only isometric RPG that is holding my attention right now will remain Pillars of Eternity (and Shadowrun on my Nexus 7).


Either way, if you like SCL then don't let my lack of enthusiasm affect you! Remember, I'm the guy who can't get enough of Halo 5, so my tastes in the world of video gaming run far afield these days of what SCL offers, anyway.

Sword Coast Legends - First Impressions

I only had time to play my copy for about an hour last night, but I was surprised to discover that it's rather compelling. For those of you wondering about it, or reading various comments online and trying to discern just what the game is about, here's a relatively neutral take on the initial experience so far, with more depth to come (since it turns out I really enjoyed that first hour):

Is it D&D 5E? Sort of, but not really. It's got the trappings....I'd call it "70% in feel" in that you buy attributes the same way, pick a background, race, one of six classes (cleric, wizard, fighter, rogue, paladin and ranger) and then you pick from a series of progression charts on abilities. The abilities are where it moves away from D&D 5E...they tend to be named after actual 5E abilities but do things geared toward the game environment, rather than a simulation of 5E like Baldur's Gate was for 2E andNeverwinter Nights 1 and 2 were for 3E. Why this approach? It's because....

SCL is an action/RPG/tactical hybrid. The game incorporates a pause button, like the older RPGs it follows, and plays like it has some DIabloesque DNA. Not a huge amount....but somewhere in there. You can create a character and at least at the low level march around smacking stuff on timed attacks almost like you were in any old classic ARPG (action RPG).

What Modes of Play Are there? There's campaign mode, story mode and dungeon crawl mode. I played the main story for a while and was pleased to see it had good voice acting, and a story which compelled me to keep going, although time prevented me from getting very far last night. Likewise, I tried out a bit of the dungeon crawl and was pleased to see it's kind of like a fun mix of random dungeon delving. While playing I had random players join the game. Not sure if there's a way to do dungeon crawls solo, though.

How are the graphics? This is an odd one. The scenery/background graphics are pretty nice, actually. The game's environments look good. The models however....well, the good news is that the models don't need a lot of resolution in an isometric title, but they are pretty ugly. Surprising level of customization, though.....but I didn't bother too much beyond hair style and colors as lipstick on a pig is still a pig. Not atrocious, though; nothing here is as terrifying as the average result of an Elder Scrolls: Oblivion character, for example.

Concerns? My big concern is that it's clear the game is going to hit us up with microtransactions soon, probably for extra races (such as tiefling and dragonborn which are in the game but not playable), new classes beyond the initial six, and if you want to get in to the dungeon mastering side it looks like it can get really expensive. It seems that the developers must have concluded that DMs are the "whales" of the D&D world and therefore are planning to monetize that side of the game heavily. I bought in at a nice discount through Green Man Gaming the basic game only; once I figure out the pricing structure for in-game purchases we'll see if it looks worth the effort. Other reports on the DM element of the package don't make it sound enticing; there's not enough customization to make it a viable utility for tabletop online gaming, for example....and the system's loose interpretation of 5E mechanics into a action/tactical hybrid mean that 5E fans won't get quite the same experience they'd like as playing at the table provides.

I'll play more and provide a progress report as I go along. Right now however if you could find the basic campaign for a nice discount I don't think you'd go wrong......but if it was a toss up between this and Pillars of Eternity I'd still suggest Pillars of Eternity first.

UPDATE: I have some follow-up here. Short version is the interest didn't sustain, largely because the action-rpg feel just got to me too much.

Sword Coast Legends Delayed....Again

Sword Coast Legends, for those of you not keeping score, is the new isometric CRPG being produced by n-Space. It's original release date was September 8th. Then it got pushed back to September 29th. Now it's being delayed again, this time until October 20th.

Wizards of the Coast just can't get a break anymore, can they?

The reason for the delay is time for more polish....which is a damned good reason, of course. But the fact that it's this close to release and still desperately needs polish is kind of concerning. I'm not one to advocate reading the PC Gamer forums, but a few posters on the news announcement over there have some interesting (and coherent) critiques of the closed beta on the game.

Let's just say that we should all downgrade our expectations from "The Next Neverwinter Nights" to maybe "hopefully better than Daggerdale."

Sword Coast Legends - what does $60 really get you?

I'm probably a bit late on commenting on this, but Sword Coast Legends does deserve some attention. On the surface it appears to be a isometric Baldur's Gate-style RPG with some utility that will give it a bit of the Neverwinter Nights cusotmization for running home games. The ad copy here and here strongly imply that you as DM will be laying out the tiles, monsters and other encounter bits for home-design scenarios.

This may sound cool, and if you're mostly coming at this from the tabletop end then it's worth pointing out that NWN's scenario design abilities weren't quite what one thinks of when you see Fantasy Grounds or other online tabletop utilities. NWN let you use a rather complex design tool to create CRPG adventures, which were more or less pre-programmed with a certain amount of DM intervention possible....but it wasn't a grand medium of free-form tabletop style gaming.... you were definitely still playing a CRPG, just with a player who could manipulate some of the story elements at times.

The other interesting element of Sword Coast Legends is the price. It looks like entry in the single player game only is a measly $35, which isn't bad. $60 seems to get you some functionality as a DM with one "Lost Mines" dungeon tile set. There are the obligatory deluxe special collectors editions aimed at the D&D whales out there, which I concede I am probably not one of; I only dedicate a functional chunk of my time to D&D, and don't buy every miniature game, board game and special super collector's edition PC game there is......but I guess they expect somebody will.

$60 seems fine for a "single player plus DM's kit" edition, right? But one tile set suggests that this will be a micro-transaction/DLC-based title. This trend is nothing new today....Project Spark and other titles give you a minimum level of functionality and then dump a cash shop full of minutiae on you to expand your game experience for the right price. It's a shame to see that this is likely the way Sword Coast Legends will go, since of course we can all still load up Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 on GOG games and (for a bit of aggravation and effort) get all the tile sets you could ever want for no extra cost. So while it looks like the base game will be $35 or $60....the truth is we have no idea how expensive it will be to get the "full game."

$60 used to be the "end point" for a game purchase....the cost point at which you owned the whole thing. But for the last several years now that's completely eroded away....$60 is now the "entry point" for most games, the bare minimum for playable access, beyond which more money must be given for the "rest of the game."

Oh well....at least it's not "free." That's the word that tells you you'll end up paying the most money for all the options....