D&D 5E How badly did Sword Coast Legends damage the brand?

[Mirtek]

I also don't get all the hatred from people who already received their refund.

I bought it, was disappointed, got a refund and now i have better things to do than proclaim how bad it was at every opportunity.

I will even buy it again once i can get a bug fixed GotY edition including all DLC for <20€ in a year or two.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't even really know what Sword Coast Legends is, so no damage here.

 

[Uchawi]

In this instance even bad press is good press as the game has more exposure. Whether they fix the game to be at least functional in regards to the experience they advertised is the most important. But it may have negative consequences for those that have already bought into it and are disappointed. It is no different that the comments you read on SCAG.

 

[gyor]

The last good game for D&D was Neverwinter Nights 2, it had its flaws, but its always been my favourite D&D game along with Planescape Torment and followed by the baldur's gate games (of which a new one is going to be released, Baldur's Gate that is).

Still my ideal would be a simple 5e mod for Neverwinter 2.

 

[Jester David]

anyone want to tell me what happened or what went wrong? I hadn't heard any complaints

I go into it a lot more in my review if the game: http://www.5mwd.com/archives/3120

Basically, everyone thought it was going to follow the D&D 5e ruleset or be very much like the tabletop game. The impression from all the hype was that it was going to follow in the footsteps of Baldur's Gate and, more specifically, Neverwinter Nights, with a focus on DM storytelling and custom modules.
Instead, it's a generic RPG with some D&D names.
So, of course, all the people who expected something else felt lied to and got super upset.

Meanwhile, the DM tools were pretty sad. We knew that dungeons were going to be random only but there were other problems. There was no ability to add quest text or NPC dialogue, and customization was limited.
And the game itself has problems. It's prone to crashing and overheating video cards. The controls can be awkward. There are glitches galore.

 

[Grimstaff]

The people that play D&D all nerd rage over expectations that were never promised.

First, nice disqualification attempt with "nerd rage". That never gets old. :/

Secondly, links to the game developers' explicit promises to create a game faithful to the 5E rule set have been posted in these discussions like 20 times now. Are you just deliberately ignoring them?

 

[Jessica]

I went in to SCL with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. It is fun in that the same game can alternate between abnegation and challenge. I have some problems with the game, but it exceeded my expectations and it's the RPG I choose to play over both D:OS and PoE(which are both kinda overhyped imo). It's a fun and neat casual RPG as long as you don't expect it to be on the same level as the more powerhouse old school classics. In that way it's kinda like the 5e of CRPGs.

 

[I'm A Banana]

THIS JUST IN: D&D Branded Product Is Not Very Good

Look, the movies aren't very good, the novels are generally not very good (Salvatore phoned it in long ago), the video games have not been very good for quite some time.

That's not really harming the brand, though it's probably not HELPING.

It's not like there's not untapped potential here - there has been for a while. For some reason, though, the team just can't promise quality. That's been true for a while, SCL just doesn't change that.

I look forward to the game that does.

 

[Jester David]

SteamChart gives a clue:
http://steamcharts.com/app/325600
No more than 5k people playing in a 24-hour span. Someone playing with the Steam API also pegs the number of keys "sold" as 50k. But that includes people who bought the campaign version, which includes 5 keys.
So not that great.

To quote myself and go off on a tangent...
Looking at SteamCharts you can see a steady decline of players. So SCL isn't even holding it's audience through its campaign. But it was maintaining that stream of 1000 people. And you can see smaller increases in play on the weekend. But what I find most interesting is the drop between earlier in the week and later (not counting the Steam maintenance drop), where the game loses 2-300 players. Right around when Fallout was released. You can see the impact Fallout 4 had on the game.
That's fascinating.

 

[darjr]

It is probably one of the big reasons they rushed to release. I know it was late but I think it still wasn't ready or what they wanted.