Zardnaar
Legend
With the focus on the D&D brand and the near universal panning on Sword Coast Legends on review sites I have decided to share the following thoughts on how they can make a decent D&D game. My memories of decent D&D games date from the early 90's with games such as Eye of the Beholder I and II along with my friends who were playing Baldurs Gate and Torment ( I lacked a PC back then).
Other RPGs that were popular were things like FInal Fantasy VII. IN New Zealand the Sega Megadrive (Genesis) was way more popular than the Super Nintendo and some of us were playing games such as Phantasy Star II,III, IV and the Shining Force Series. Shining Force was a Japanese type tactical RPG that is similar I suppose to the more modern Fire Emblem Games. I thought Shining Force was heavily influenced by D&D despite being a JRPG and it had prestige classes by another name several years before they turned up in 3.0.
I did not get around to playing Neverwinter Nights either but I liked Knights of the Old Republic which was based on the d20 version of the Star Wars RPG.
Now in recent years the price of developing a AAA+ title has ballooned with 200 million dollars being thrown around for somehting like Grand Theft Auto V. I suspect that eventually the price of developing games like that will plateau out since they are not really selling more copies than games such as Super Mario Brothers or Tetris managed to sell in the 80's and 90's. The Pathfinder MMO also seems to have collapsed recently. Game development is not cheap as a general rule. The D&D brand name is not strong enough to move units of a bad game and it lacks the impact of established franchises such as Star Wars, Mass Effect, Mario, Zelda etc. It would seem WoTC wants a hit game but with a shoe string budget.
However is is not imposable or even hard to have a hit game using minimal resources. Several established franchises had humble beginnings and Star Wars a New Hope was cheap to make on a budget of around 7 million dollars in 1977. OD&D also had a very small budget initially. Generally you need someone who is passionate about what they want to do though (Lucas/Gygax).
My theory is they need to start small. Focus on making a quality game that is somewhat faithful to what it is based on, in this case the 5E rules. And by somewhat faithful I mean along the lines of Eye of the Beholder and AD&D or Knights of the Old Republic and the d20 RPG game it used. Not everything will make the translation and you may not be able to cram in every spell, class, race etc. Make a good game 1st, sequels can come later. Basically do not make a generic or outright bad fantasy RPG game and slap the D&D label on it.
In recent years there have also been some hit games made on budgets smaller than the failed Pathfinder MMO and likely smaller than the SCL budget.
Sins of a Solar Empire. From 2008 this game is fun to play, has good reviews and apparently had a budget of less than 1 million dollars which is a bargain in video game development terms. Its an RTS but is an example of a cheap game.
Pillars of Eternity. A spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate and Torment. Raised 4 million dollars on Kickstarter based on the reputation of the people developing it (Obsidian Entertainment). Obsidian Entertainment also made Knights of the Old Republic II which was not as good as the original and was rushed out the door but it is still regarded as a good RPG generally. Pillars of Eternity was also published by Paradox Interactive.
Who Is Paradox Interactive?
PI is a Swedish game studio with humble beginnings. I am a huge fan of their games and was introduced to Hearts of Iron 2 (a WW3 grand strategy game) back in 2009. They have also recently bought the rights to the World of Darkness RPG line. They have a fanatical fanbase (similar to Paizo) and are very friendly to modders and have actually had their fans publish some of the mods to their games. In 2012 they released Crusader Kings II (CKII)a grand strategy game starting from 1066 AD and in 2013 they released Europa Unversalis IV (EUIV). EUIV is my other current addiction and it has been cutting into my D&D time while CKII has a popular Game of Thrones mod where you get to play as the royal houses of Westeros set during Robert Baratheons revolt.
CKII has sold 1.1 million units and over 2.5 million expansions sold and 5 million DLCs (according to wikipedia). Forum scuttlebutt on the had it developed on a budget of around 1 million dollars.
EUIV by June 2014 (less than a year after release) had 700 000 registered users on steam and it used the same engine as CKII.
True these games are for a different genre but CKII in particular seems it could be adapted for a D&Desque type game as it has RPG elements to it. All four games here have rave reviews (generally 8.5-9+ on review sites) and all were developed for cheap. They may not be selling 5 million+ copies like Halo/Mass Effect/CoD etc but they also cost a fraction of the price to develop. They also have loyal and rabid fanbases and positive word of mouth for the most part.
I would rather have a good game with nice graphics than a bad 3D type pile of poodu that looks nasty and they have to give away for free. Once you get that kernal of gamers you can always grow it in sequels and expansions later. WoTC seems to be trying to go for the cart before horse approach.
Other RPGs that were popular were things like FInal Fantasy VII. IN New Zealand the Sega Megadrive (Genesis) was way more popular than the Super Nintendo and some of us were playing games such as Phantasy Star II,III, IV and the Shining Force Series. Shining Force was a Japanese type tactical RPG that is similar I suppose to the more modern Fire Emblem Games. I thought Shining Force was heavily influenced by D&D despite being a JRPG and it had prestige classes by another name several years before they turned up in 3.0.
I did not get around to playing Neverwinter Nights either but I liked Knights of the Old Republic which was based on the d20 version of the Star Wars RPG.
Now in recent years the price of developing a AAA+ title has ballooned with 200 million dollars being thrown around for somehting like Grand Theft Auto V. I suspect that eventually the price of developing games like that will plateau out since they are not really selling more copies than games such as Super Mario Brothers or Tetris managed to sell in the 80's and 90's. The Pathfinder MMO also seems to have collapsed recently. Game development is not cheap as a general rule. The D&D brand name is not strong enough to move units of a bad game and it lacks the impact of established franchises such as Star Wars, Mass Effect, Mario, Zelda etc. It would seem WoTC wants a hit game but with a shoe string budget.
However is is not imposable or even hard to have a hit game using minimal resources. Several established franchises had humble beginnings and Star Wars a New Hope was cheap to make on a budget of around 7 million dollars in 1977. OD&D also had a very small budget initially. Generally you need someone who is passionate about what they want to do though (Lucas/Gygax).
My theory is they need to start small. Focus on making a quality game that is somewhat faithful to what it is based on, in this case the 5E rules. And by somewhat faithful I mean along the lines of Eye of the Beholder and AD&D or Knights of the Old Republic and the d20 RPG game it used. Not everything will make the translation and you may not be able to cram in every spell, class, race etc. Make a good game 1st, sequels can come later. Basically do not make a generic or outright bad fantasy RPG game and slap the D&D label on it.
In recent years there have also been some hit games made on budgets smaller than the failed Pathfinder MMO and likely smaller than the SCL budget.
Sins of a Solar Empire. From 2008 this game is fun to play, has good reviews and apparently had a budget of less than 1 million dollars which is a bargain in video game development terms. Its an RTS but is an example of a cheap game.
Pillars of Eternity. A spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate and Torment. Raised 4 million dollars on Kickstarter based on the reputation of the people developing it (Obsidian Entertainment). Obsidian Entertainment also made Knights of the Old Republic II which was not as good as the original and was rushed out the door but it is still regarded as a good RPG generally. Pillars of Eternity was also published by Paradox Interactive.
Who Is Paradox Interactive?
PI is a Swedish game studio with humble beginnings. I am a huge fan of their games and was introduced to Hearts of Iron 2 (a WW3 grand strategy game) back in 2009. They have also recently bought the rights to the World of Darkness RPG line. They have a fanatical fanbase (similar to Paizo) and are very friendly to modders and have actually had their fans publish some of the mods to their games. In 2012 they released Crusader Kings II (CKII)a grand strategy game starting from 1066 AD and in 2013 they released Europa Unversalis IV (EUIV). EUIV is my other current addiction and it has been cutting into my D&D time while CKII has a popular Game of Thrones mod where you get to play as the royal houses of Westeros set during Robert Baratheons revolt.
CKII has sold 1.1 million units and over 2.5 million expansions sold and 5 million DLCs (according to wikipedia). Forum scuttlebutt on the had it developed on a budget of around 1 million dollars.
EUIV by June 2014 (less than a year after release) had 700 000 registered users on steam and it used the same engine as CKII.
True these games are for a different genre but CKII in particular seems it could be adapted for a D&Desque type game as it has RPG elements to it. All four games here have rave reviews (generally 8.5-9+ on review sites) and all were developed for cheap. They may not be selling 5 million+ copies like Halo/Mass Effect/CoD etc but they also cost a fraction of the price to develop. They also have loyal and rabid fanbases and positive word of mouth for the most part.
I would rather have a good game with nice graphics than a bad 3D type pile of poodu that looks nasty and they have to give away for free. Once you get that kernal of gamers you can always grow it in sequels and expansions later. WoTC seems to be trying to go for the cart before horse approach.
