If you want more information about N-Space’s Dungeons & Dragons RPG Sword Coast Legends, you might want to read this interview round-up we have prepared for you. Before doing so, though, I’ll point your attention to this recent community Q&A on the game’s official forums, where the developers reply to a number of questions that had been asked on the boards. A lot of the answers fall under the “no comment” umbrella but there are still some interesting breadcrumbs on the game’s mechanics and the overall vision for the game:
Will there be micro-transactions, or content locked behind a price tag? I can understand the concern around micro-transactions and assure you that SCL is a fully featured RPG that is not (locked behind micro-transactions.) Much like the table-top, we do plan on continuing to create adventures for both DMs and players long after launch. We have a lot of stories to tell, characters to meet and places to visit, but we cannot create them all before launch. We are going to keep creating content as long as you keep playing!
How long is the single player campaign? While we’re not talking about the campaign in detail right now but I can tell you this: It’s not going to be short! A great RPG isn’t something you finish over a weekend and SCL certainly won’t be finished in a weekend either.
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Can you explain more about how DM mode works and the DM toolset? The DM can fully customize the player experience, significantly altering an adventure by changing encounters, placing traps, spawning monsters, creating quest NPCs, generating secret areas, locking doors – all in real-time. There are also offline campaign tools that enable DMs to build campaigns for their players – more about that later.
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Will there be Romances in the game? A hallmark of a great RPGs is the meaningful companions you meet along the way and how they react the choices you make in your story. These companions become your (friends), ones you remember long after playing the game – characters like Minsc and Jaheira from the Baldur’s Gate series or Alistair and Morrigan from Dragon Age: Origins. In SCL we’re creating companions that stand tall within that legacy. Will you be able to romance them? You’ll have to wait and see. J
PC Gamer chatted with N-Space president Dan Tudge on the game’s adaptation of the 5th edition of the D&D ruleset:
While there are specific things that need changing for Sword Coast Legends, Tudge thinks the new ruleset lends itself well to adaptation. “There’s things that just don’t translate from a six second round on the table top to a real time practical RPG, he says. “We’ve had to make some adaptations, but I think that’s one thing that’s really great about the fifth edition rules. They are almost more about the spirit of D&D, and the spirit of playing a great adventure with your friends. So it’s actually been a very good rule set to adapt.”
According to Tudge, the benefit of fifth edition is that players have more to do in combat. “It’s been balanced in a way where you do a lot more hitting … The fights don’t end any quicker or any worse, but it’s balanced in such a way that everybody still gets to have a lot more fun, because they’re hitting more and wizards and casters are doing a lot more hitting. They’re not limited to one or two things per encounter. And I think that’s made it way more enjoyable for groups to play.”
PC Games N has an article-style interview/preview:
(For so many years in game development, it’s really been about chasing the blockbuster,) said n-Space president Dan Tudge. (We fell victim to it at BioWare post-Neverwinter Nights.)
It’s odd to consider a ginormous budget a restriction. But the distractions of large-scale production sometimes led Tudge and the Dragon Age team to (lose sight of the prize) – allowing all-consuming considerations like cinematic design to overshadow central systems like combat.
(I think that consumers have proven by voting with their wallets that not everyone wants to play a hundred-million-dollar blockbuster, though we certainly all enjoy them,) said Tudge. (There’s a place for really creative story-driven RPGs that do things like remain isometric, do things like party-based-tactical combat with pause-and-play.)
Rather than next-gen Baldur’s Gate, n-Space are shooting for next-stage. Where would the series have gone, had it not been interrupted by the rise of 3D and multi-platform development?
(The core experience of Dragon Age: Origins was very familiar [to Baldur’s Gate players],) said Tudge. (But I think what we’ve done here is really a true evolution. We’re not focusing on creating a copy.)
MMORPG.com: How does Sword Coast Legends compare to Neverwinter Nights, as many will likely draw comparisons?
Tudge: Right now a lot of people are talking about how Sword Coast Legends feels reminiscent of Neverwinter Nights (NWN); it’s a comparison that is definitely warranted. SCL is a classic Forgotten Realms adventure on the Sword Coast. It features tactical pause and play combat with an isometric camera in real-time 3D environments (vs. pre-rendered backgrounds). However, it’s the inclusion of DM mode where comparisons to NWN are probably the strongest. Despite both having DM capability, players will find the DM experience in SCL quite different from NWN, finding instead a system that enables DMs to quickly jump in and immediately start playing in real-time. All told, our inspiration has come from many sources, from a lifetime of playing D&D on the tabletop and to the legacy of so many great RPGs such as Dragon Age: Origins and the Baldur’s Gate series inspiration that will enviably invoke comparisons the more of SCL we show to the world.
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MMORPG.com: What have you done developing this game to make it feel like fifth edition as opposed to 3.5, 4.0, or the open 20 systems?
Stewart: As Wizards of the Coast was developing the latest edition we very specifically wanted to take emphasis off the rules and focus on the feel of the game. As part of the playtest and creation of the new edition we looked back at all previous editions and made sure we had clear ideas and descriptions for the most important elements. An example is magic, more specifically let’s focus on the fireball spell. It isn’t important that the Fireball spell does 8d6 damage or has 150 range in all our games, but is instead important that in each instance it is a mid-level spell that explodes and causes a wider range of damage. In other words, for our partners it’s critical they capture the feel of the latest edition of rules, but not necessarily the specific mechanics.
And also a more recent audio interview on YouTube, with which we conclude our round-up:
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