Sword Coast Legends: State of the Game 10/30

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Sword Coast Legends: State of the Game
by Dan Tudge
Director for Sword Coast Legends & President at n-Space

This is Dan Tudge, Director for Sword Coast Legends, President at n-Space, and stalwart party member, here with our first post-launch State of the Game.

Sword Coast Legends launched last week on PC, Mac, and Linux. We've worked closely with Wizards of the Coast to bring this Dungeons & Dragons experience to you. The D&D team has been involved the whole way, and we know they share our excitement about the many adventures that will be had as a result of Sword Coast Legends. Together, we set out to deliver a compelling, fresh RPG with an epic storyline, co-op gameplay, and even some extra twists on dungeon crawls with a real-time DM mode. The end result is something we're extremely proud of -- something we all believe fits nicely into the diverse catalog of D&D titles spread across different genres, be they MMO, action RPG, conventional CRPG, or even arcade hack 'n' slash.

However, early user impressions for Sword Coast Legends have been polarizing. While many players love it, it is clear that for many, Sword Coast Legends did not meet their expectations. For those who have expressed disappointment in the game, I have just one thing to say: "We hear you." We are a very small, independent development team, and we would not have made it this far without you. We thank you for your continued support. In D&D, the party is everything, and you are the best party to have, by far.

As much and as long as we've labored to launch SCL, this is really just step one, a foundation for an even greater experience we have always intended to improve and expand. Our goal has always been to put Sword Coast Legends into the hands of would-be adventurers and to work with them to improve that experience. We have an aggressive list of content and updates planned for the near-term... one that will be delivered to you at no additional charge, starting TODAY!


Halloween Update: "The Pumpkin Patch": October 30th


New "Liars' Night" themed area and placeables in the spirit of Halloween
Cemetery DM location with over 35 new placeable objects and new player gear
Screen nudge with mouse (toggled option)
Players will now be able to move the camera by nudging the edges of the screen. The WASD keys and the middle mouse button will still work the way
they currently do.
Auto-heal at Adventurer's Camp
When entering the adventurer's camp, the party will heal any damage previously taken.
DM collect quests will display "x of x found" on the HUD
Hotkey added to re-center camera on player
Doubled the max length for DM quest conversation text
Added the option to lock your cursor to the window
Bug fixes


Community Pack 1: Week of November 9th

Companion-Specific Skill Trees Unlocked for Players
Existing unique companion skill trees will become available to players
Nature Set
New outdoor area cleared and ready for customization with over 150 new placeable nature objects for DMs.
Ability Respec
Characters wishing to forget their prior training will be able to do so. All character points will be refunded, allowing players to change builds or
reselect their characters' abilities.
Player Stash
Players will be able to store additional items within their own personal stash.
Skill Rolls
Players will be able to use ability rolls that take their character's bonuses into account. For instance, characters will be able to specifically make a
"Strength" roll and have their Strength modifier automatically added to the roll.
Increased Number of Available Monster Abilities
Custom creatures will have additional monster abilities available to them.
Bug fixes and additional community feedback items as time allows


Community Pack 2: Week of November 30th

Address concerns with ninja looting in multi-player games
New Playable Sub-race: Drow Elves (including access to Darkness and Faerie Fire abilities)
DM-placeable visual effects (fire, smoke, etc.)
Revisions and improvements to the rules for death, party wipe, and stabilize, including new options for players that want more challenge
Village area and village-related placeable objects for DMs to use in their modules
Ability to give ambient text to NPCs on select
Ability for DMs to change the randomized interiors of every tile
Lock/unlock locations on all quest states (give/update/complete)
Bug fixes and additional community feedback items as time allows


Community Pack 3: December

Official introduction of mod support, including
Tile based level editor
Branching dialog editor
Adjustable game systems, ex: round timer, loot tables, etc.
Community facing development of these features to begin immediately
Option to disable monster level scaling in DM campaigns
Bug fixes and additional community feedback items as time allows


Rage of Demons: Coming Soon

Return to the Underdark in this all-new adventure taking place as part of D&D's "Rage of Demons" storyline, featuring the legendary outcast drow Drizzt Do'Urden and some of the deadliest enemies ever to terrify Faerûn.

New Rage of Demons tile sets and placeable objects
New playable race: Tieflings
New creatures available for DMs
New Playable class based on community input
Allow player-created characters as companions in story mode
Enable players to control their characters' movement with the WASD keys
Bug fixes and additional community feedback items as time allows

We intend to continue this effort into the new year, but not just with content and free DLC. We have been collecting your feedback and incorporating it with our own plans. The resulting changes and additions will be published [HERE]later this week and we welcome all feedback on this living document.

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks (and the endless gratitude of our entire development team) to everyone from our community and Design Council for their amazing support ever since Sword Coast Legends was first announced. With over 82 years of total playtime logged from previous Head Start access weekends and last week's launch, Sword Coast Legends players have adventured extensively. That's a lot of dungeons explored, content created, bosses downed, loot gained, and campaigns run. In this sense, Sword Coast Legends is a game that belongs to its players as much as its developers. We'd love to hear your thoughts so we can work together to make Sword Coast Legends even better. Share your feedback on the forums and drop us a review if you've been playing. We are hard at work on developing new content, addressing bugs, improving the overall experience, and providing players with more robust Dungeon Master tools.

This is truly just the beginning. We hear your concerns, wishes, and desires loud and clear, and we are already working on them and hope you stay with us to continue the adventure.

Sincerely,

Dan Tudge
Director, Sword Coast Legends
President, n-Space

[LolsLikeMuttley]

This is good news. Thank you

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Originally posted by LolsLikeMuttley:

This is good news. Thank you :divine:

You're very welcome. We're very excited to start unleashing all this new content!

[toroks]

Great news! :)
Thank you. Branched dialogue, tile by tile and option to turn off level scaling of monsters will help a lot!

[willsama974]

Can't wait community pack 3

[CalUKGR]

+10 *Faith Renewed*

[Gruuvie]

Great work! You've still got me hooked. Thanks for adressing people's concerns! I will continue making modules, with the upcoming content in mind!
*Bard BaRd BarD BArd BARD* My vote for the class release with Rage of Demons is Bard. I could write you an essay as to why I think that, but that would go on for ages. Just know, that I vote Bard... Very much...Bard. Thank you for Tieflings by the way!
Bard.

[Heinz234]

You guys just ruined my life.
I won't have a life....
I am gonna get everything I hoped for and more and it is coming much sooner than I dared to hope for.
I am speechless and barely able to type.
Well done nSpace, thank you very very much!

[Darkbane]

Knew this would happen. Some folk suffer from short term memory loss, but when NWN came out, it was very much as "limited" as everyone seems to complain about SCL. It became a great game, a legend, due to continued support, many patches, and it's community. I predict the same for SCL, keep up the good work ;).

P.S: NWN main campaign was boring as heck, SCL beats it in SPADES! Cheers!

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Originally posted by Heinz234 (Redunzgofasta):

You guys just ruined my life.
I won't have a life....
I am gonna get everything I hoped for and more and it is coming much sooner than I dared to hope for.
I am speechless and barely able to type.
Well done nSpace, thank you very very much!

haha.. Thanks! We're happy to do so :)

[bazutti]

Originally posted by Darkbane:

but when NWN came out, it was very much as "limited" as everyone seems to complain about SCL. It became a great game, a legend, due to continued support, many patches, and it's community.

For me, this just won't happen with the current leveling/skill system in SCL. It's not D&D. Sure it uses the same terms as D&D, but it's a different system. I really wish they would have just stuck to the 5e rules because when I played the game felt like some mediocre fantasy game with a D&D sticker on it. From all reviews and articles, I thought I was getting an updated NWN. So, my expectations were let down as soon as I loaded the game.

[Karsus]

So can we use party members' skills/attributes to solve the quests in the future?

[Em-squared]

Originally posted by Darkbane:

Some folk suffer from short term memory loss, but when NWN came out, it was very much as "limited" as everyone seems to complain about SCL. It became a great game, a legend, due to continued support, many patches, and it's community.

Yeah, well, actually, with NWN we were able to code advanced features -requiring some programmation skills, and Aurora was less friendly at the first glance, I agree- and patches were all free except big expansions.

I'm glad, SCL will have support, however I have one question : Do all these patches adding tiles and monsters will be free of charge or will we have a game reflecting Wizards of the Coast marketing policy : lots of charged additionnal content and simple cut-off when no profit ?

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Originally posted by Gruuvie:

Great work! You've still got me hooked. Thanks for adressing people's concerns! I will continue making modules, with the upcoming content in mind!
*Bard BaRd BarD BArd BARD* My vote for the class release with Rage of Demons is Bard. I could write you an essay as to why I think that, but that would go on for ages. Just know, that I vote Bard... Very much...Bard. Thank you for Tieflings by the way!
Bard.

Very welcome! You're not the first person to ask for bards! My favorite bard story is a 4th edition Warforged Bard that used an electric guitar... It was pretty incredible.

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Originally posted by Darkbane:

Knew this would happen. Some folk suffer from short term memory loss, but when NWN came out, it was very much as "limited" as everyone seems to complain about SCL. It became a great game, a legend, due to continued support, many patches, and it's community. I predict the same for SCL, keep up the good work ;).

P.S: NWN main campaign was boring as heck, SCL beats it in SPADES! Cheers!

Thank you! We always intended the launch of SCL to just be the beginning of our adventure and we're excited to keep adding more content over time.

Also, I'm very glad to hear you enjoyed the story.

[Linq79]

I had high hopes for SCL, my benchmark was NWN2 being the base game plus its huge modded level.

I was let down on my initial playing of SCL by various factors (ie simple things such as 'why when things like one of the most popular mods for every game is bright and varied hair colour mods - are all the hair colours so dull?').

And until I read this post I was unsure whether there was going to be a future with modding support as, without doubt, that was key to NWN2.

Regardless, today I did decide to get back to SCL and after playing it again today after finishing it I read this post I'm glad I did.

I look forward to the future of SCL.