The developers went bankrupt 11 months ago. With the studio gone there can't be any news, now can it? Sword Coast Legends is just like Kingdoms of Amalur: freezed forever in time 'as is'. Without ever having the fortune of receiving updates or support.
I don't think the game sucks. It isn't perfect, but it tried its best to be a successor to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights, very few people don't respect that, unfortunately, they judge a book by its cover. Anyway, having this game on Steam, the most recent news is that a year ago on June 1st, a few fixes had been made.
Fixed clients being unable to purchase items from vendors in some cases Player will properly return to Mantol-Derith if they skip the credits Mac and Linux users should now have the proper build version, allowing them to play with PC players and also fixes many issues such as black screen from vendors Fixed players getting stuck in the sewers under the Cutlass Fixed companion cantrips not showing any visual effects (Note: still broken in RoD content)
And the Rage of Demons DLC which has Drizzt in it is available too. No word about a bard class, sorry.
So Sword Coast Legends is like Diablo, but Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights is not? Even with Diablo's isometric view and Baldur's Gate-esque gameplay style and leveling up system? Amusing. Someone is not familiar with the similarities between Diablo and BG/IWD/NWN. The only difference is the dungeons are not randomly generated in BG, IWD, NWN and SCL. The truth is, the original Diablo came first before Baldur's Gate in 1996. So technically, Blizzard pioneered the isometric gameplay, BioWare perfected it.
We already got NWN and Baldur's Gate. I think what you really want is NWN 3 and BG3. I understand you're pissed off, but chill out. My motto is if you don't get what you want, there's no use crying over spilled milk, very little will change if people act like spoiled kids, be more reasonable and rational. We might get NWN 3 and BG3 in the near future, or we might not. If we never do get them, that is no excuse to condemn new D&D FR games that try to follow in BG, IWD and NWN's footsteps.
So basically what you are saing is that any game that uses an isometric pespective is the same?
That makes about as much sense as saying that NWN2 was the same game as Tomb Raider because the both used 3rd person chase cam.
But SCL wasn't even isometric. It used a top down 3d forced perspective viewpoint.
Which was fine, if they had tried to actually use D&D rules for gameplay. That's the main difference between BG and Diablo/SCL: one uses D&D rules and the other uses something completly unlke D&D.
If you like ARPGs, there are plenty of much better games in that genre than SCL (or Diablo III). I can recomend Grim Dawn for example.
Diablo was just gear and stat balancing, while bg needs none of that in order to progress to the end and gives so much more. The only things that they have in common is the viewpoint and the fantasy theme. The minor quests that diablo gives are not worth mentioning. Diablo is not really an rpg...
Also the notion that bg copied from diablo seems farfetched since they were in development at the same time. If they did copy then bg would have felt much closer to Diablo than it does...
The problem with Sword Coast Legends is 3-fold. #1 it promised a 5th Edition experience and did nothing of the sort, instead opting for skill trees. #2 said skill trees are some of the worst and most bland I've ever seen and #3 it's one of the worst optimized games in recent memory.
Moreover, it had to compete with two games released in the same time-frame that were both about 100 times better, which were Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity, both of which made Sword Coast Legends look amateurish by comparison.
Diablo and Baldur's Gate relate to each other more than NWN 2 does to Tomb Raider. Baldur's Gate was inspired by Diablo. By saying Sword Coast Legends relates to Diablo, Baldur's Gate relates to Diablo when you compare the gameplay mechanics, that means no matter how you twist it, Sword Coast Legends is related to Baldur's Gate Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights and Diablo 1, 2 and 3, all of their gameplay mechanics are familiar. As for Divinity: Original Sin, it came out on Windows in June 2014 the only game in that was released in the same year as Sword Coast Legends was Pillars Of Eternity. I admit Divinity and Pillars of Eternity are better in terms of positive reviews, I even own Pillars of Eternity on Steam with Sword Coast Legends, I like both of those games. I don't let reviews influence me on whether I should play a certain game or not. If that's how you guys are, then there's nothing wrong with that.
Well, I personally disagree that Diablo was any influence on Baldur's Gate whatsoever. You don't need to be a genius to think of using an isometric viewpoint without having to copy someone else, and there where other isometric games before Diablo. And technically, Baldur's Gate does it in a completely different way than Diablo anyway.
But I don't hate SCL. It isn't a BAD game (apart from the appalling optimisation that prevents it running at all on older graphics cards, but NWN2 had similar issues). It's just a bad dungeons and dragons game. It was marketed as a dungeons and dragons game, so if someone wants to play a dungeons and dragons game, and they read in a review that it is nothing like dungeons and dragons (100% fact, not opinion) then it is quite reasonable for them not to buy it.
If you scrubbed off the D&D 5th edition label (or have never played D&D in the first place), you are left with a fairly generic ARPG with slightly below average gameplay and character customisation trees, and slightly above average story, sidequests and characters.
But Grim Dawn is still much better.
I would love to see the SCL story remade in the NWN2 engine. That would be a good game. I actually like the SCL plot and characters (apart from the Tiax rip-off) better than the NWN2 OC plot and characters.
I wonder how difficult it would be to convert NWN2 to 5th edition rules?
It's not just the isometric view of Diablo that makes it similar to BG and IWD, it's also the gameplay mechanics, movements and interactions done mostly by mouse and not the keyboard, learning spells, interacting with certain NPCs, and leveling up your attribute points when you gain enough EXP, etc. The only difference is that in Diablo, you have to watch the endurance of your helmet carefully because if it takes too much damage, it will break, leaving your main character's head more vulnerable to taking more damage from enemy NPCs than when you had your helmet.
Comments
Fixed clients being unable to purchase items from vendors in some cases
Player will properly return to Mantol-Derith if they skip the credits
Mac and Linux users should now have the proper build version, allowing them to play with PC players and also fixes many issues such as black screen from vendors
Fixed players getting stuck in the sewers under the Cutlass
Fixed companion cantrips not showing any visual effects (Note: still broken in RoD content)
And the Rage of Demons DLC which has Drizzt in it is available too. No word about a bard class, sorry.
That's why they went bankrupt.
We already got NWN and Baldur's Gate. I think what you really want is NWN 3 and BG3. I understand you're pissed off, but chill out. My motto is if you don't get what you want, there's no use crying over spilled milk, very little will change if people act like spoiled kids, be more reasonable and rational. We might get NWN 3 and BG3 in the near future, or we might not. If we never do get them, that is no excuse to condemn new D&D FR games that try to follow in BG, IWD and NWN's footsteps.
That makes about as much sense as saying that NWN2 was the same game as Tomb Raider because the both used 3rd person chase cam.
But SCL wasn't even isometric. It used a top down 3d forced perspective viewpoint.
Which was fine, if they had tried to actually use D&D rules for gameplay. That's the main difference between BG and Diablo/SCL: one uses D&D rules and the other uses something completly unlke D&D.
If you like ARPGs, there are plenty of much better games in that genre than SCL (or Diablo III). I can recomend Grim Dawn for example.
Also the notion that bg copied from diablo seems farfetched since they were in development at the same time. If they did copy then bg would have felt much closer to Diablo than it does...
Diablo is descended from arcade games like Gauntlet.
Them both using an isometric viewpoint is little more than coincidence.
Moreover, it had to compete with two games released in the same time-frame that were both about 100 times better, which were Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity, both of which made Sword Coast Legends look amateurish by comparison.
But I don't hate SCL. It isn't a BAD game (apart from the appalling optimisation that prevents it running at all on older graphics cards, but NWN2 had similar issues). It's just a bad dungeons and dragons game. It was marketed as a dungeons and dragons game, so if someone wants to play a dungeons and dragons game, and they read in a review that it is nothing like dungeons and dragons (100% fact, not opinion) then it is quite reasonable for them not to buy it.
If you scrubbed off the D&D 5th edition label (or have never played D&D in the first place), you are left with a fairly generic ARPG with slightly below average gameplay and character customisation trees, and slightly above average story, sidequests and characters.
But Grim Dawn is still much better.
I would love to see the SCL story remade in the NWN2 engine. That would be a good game. I actually like the SCL plot and characters (apart from the Tiax rip-off) better than the NWN2 OC plot and characters.
I wonder how difficult it would be to convert NWN2 to 5th edition rules?