Sword Coast Legends

[HEEGZ]

So, SCL is an interesting beast. It in no way will replace NWN as a gaming medium. I am going to attempt to find roleplayers to play with in it, but it is essentially a hack n slash style of game like Diablo, but without the addictive loot hoarding gameplay. One of the main draws is the create your own campaign toolsets. It is very limited, and designed to quickly generate randomized maps and simple quests that the DM can run primarily using VOIP.

The main cries from the SCL community are more text/quest/dialog support and manual placement of tiles for maps a la NWN1. The game gets pretty regularly updated, for example: They posted last week that they had add in a chat function /say so that your PCs can talk in character and the chat bubble shows over their head. I commented on the forums that they should include an abbreviated command /s for the /say command and it was in the build the very next day for the big public preview weekend. A minor thing, but it shows they are implementing stuff from the community pretty quickly, and the core mechanics for roleplaying are there.

The big downer for me is that the game barely runs on the absolute minimum settings on my laptop.

Anyways, I still feel the game is worth checking out. It is pretty fun, has some drawbacks on the toolset and game mechanics side of thing (unless you like spell cooldown timers), but is worth checking out if you are on the fence. I wouldn't suggest the versions that cost more than $35 though, but you have a week left to pre-order and get the first DLC for free.

[Mick]

Yeah. Not impressed thus far.

[Audark]

Nothing about it appeals to me, it's an interesting concept but not for me.

[Zelknolf]

A chat interface is a bare minimum for RP, at least. If we do get a bunch of ALFAns who do that, we might benefit from forums or whatnot.

[HEEGZ]

Yeah, I made it a point to roleplay in the chat bar. Only one other person bothered. I think it was partly people wanting to race through the adventures to playtest the player made modules. With four roleplayers using the chat interface it should be pretty fun.

[Duck One]

Good:

Graphics
How quickly a DM can throw together a module
Stable
The DM interface is intuitive

Different:
Not strictly D&D rules (hit points much higher, combat more lengthy, chained progression from trees)

Bad:
Net code is buggy (game moves at pace of slowest player)
Not a lot of options in class, monsters, placeables, etc (although it is very early)
No DM tools for modifying PC's....not even XP cookies


My quick read: this is a really good tool for a small group that wants to game together without having to be in the same room. The building process is much easier than NWN, and people can play D&D from across the globe without a lot of coding and expertise needed. However it is very limited in its versatility (a compromise necessary to make the learning curve easier for DM's). I am intrigued enough to check back in a bit to see the full release and what other enhancements come.

[HEEGZ]

Yeah, compared to NWN it is inferior. It does random dungeon crawls for 4 people with a DM pretty well, but that's about it. The main thing going for it, for me, is that I can roleplay in it, and that it supports D&D campaigns. There is not much variety yet, and finding roleplayers may prove the most difficult thing for me. The gameplay to me is lame. I hate cooldown timers, it feels more like an MMORPG, without the MM bit... I wish they would have tried to recreate 5e mechanics closely, as I think they would translate well to a videogame. Bleh. Too late for that one, but would be nice to find alternative roleplay platforms for when there is nothing going on here.

[Rick7475]

So hey guys, the only way I could be to ALFA is for something better than NWN2. I have an idea that might have been brought up before (in fact it as with other NWN2 PW years ago). Character imports and exports. This is basically a community of RPGers. Anyway, if you have a character from NWN2 perhaps you can export it to Sword Coast Legends for some adventures and then when done import it back to NWN2 PW. Not sure if this would work, but it would require conversions back and forth to the different systems, so more complex characters may be difficult, but archetype characters wouldn`t be too much of a problem. Anyway it is a thought to incorporate a game like SCL or Shards where ALFA is a host for characters, players, and DM's with multiple game systems. Because lets face it, NWN2 is getting old and there is no ONE system to replace it. So you can have your character, meet up with others, and have DM sessions in a persistent world but spread over multiple game systems.

So to elaborate more. You have a wizard named Joe. He is an elf. Has a list of spells. He is level 3. Lives in Waterdeep. He wants to go on a quest / adventure, etc. He is in the virtual world of Faerun. So grab an ALFA DM, pick a game like SCL. Do some pregame RPG stuff via chat to get the adventure going with 3 others. Run the adventure on SCL in a city setting or dungeon that will be in Waterdeep, using the names of famous landmarks and businesses. Convert from version 3 to 5e. Have the adventure. Go back to NWN2 convert back to version 3 with all the new goodies.

Of course there would need to be an oversight committee for character imports and exports.

I know I would come back and the entire Daggerdord DM team, because we still actively play Dnd every week. Also SCL will be on consoles, and many people are moving there.

My heretical thoughts.

Black Templars rule.

[Adanu]

I'm fairly sure there are some who would enjoy it, myself not being among them.

[ImStrokerAce]

Im sure after folks played on SCL for a while they'd be quite happy to come back to either NWN title The transfer concept is an interesting one though...

[Zelknolf]

Feh. Doubleposters.

As I note in the brainstorming forum copy of this identical post, this isn't a terribly plausible idea. Deciding how to resolve these conflicts is a monumental task, and then actually implementing that resolution would be orders of magnitude more complex, doubled at the end if we want it to go in both directions. ALFA has gone with clean vaults and new breaks from FR canon on platform transitions for this reason in the past, and it would likely be the case with platform transitions if/when they happen in the future.

[maxcell]

Also feeling, meh, on SCL I have played every headstart weekend so far. It still doesn't do it for me. But hey, that's just me.

[Dorn]

I'm starting to think shards online may be the future for PWs of the type we like around here.

[Zelknolf]

Shards has been a year in development, building on top of a well-established engine with a team of a dozen people, and is still pre-alpha.

It's probably not going to make it. It'll be fantastic if it does, but this has all of the trappings of the first failed project a new studio that doesn't know how to ship software yet.

[HEEGZ]

Shards has been a year in development, building on top of a well-established engine with a team of a dozen people, and is still pre-alpha.

It's probably not going to make it. It'll be fantastic if it does, but this has all of the trappings of the first failed project a new studio that doesn't know how to ship software yet.

Yeah I've been worried about this for the entire summer. Shards is a half a year behind schedule, and by next summer probably a full year behind. Trying to be optimistic.

SCL has been underwhelming, and I've quit playing the headstart weekends because it is almost unplayable on my gaming system. Will try it again when it is fully released. Was going to play yesterday but I ended going shopping instead.