Sword Coast Legends developer n-space has closed up shop

That was quick... they did their money grab then disappeared. Probably because something they claimed would be basically Neverwinter Nights 3 became more like something that was made with Basic D&D rules. At least that was the impression I got from my short time with the game. I had high hopes for it, but then no one liked most of their decisions.

Pretty sad.

Edit: read the post, I'd never heard of n-Space until this game, 21 years? what else did they make?


Last edited by slaapliedje on 3 Apr 2016 at 2:41 pm UTC

:(

Sad, really sad. I bought Sword Coast Legends on day 1 due to its day 1 Linux support. I liked the game - it wasn't the most optimized Linux port, but it also never crashed on me. I thought it was a pretty good action RPG, not the best that ever was, but definitely still fun to play through - I had no regrets paying full price for it.

I'm one of the few people that liked Sword Coast Legends, so I'm quite sad to hear this. Sadly, studios closing is something that happens constantly in the video game industry (likely almost every industry).

That was quick... they did their money grab then disappeared.

I think if they'd actually grabbed their money they wouldn't be going bankrupt. The game didn't sell very well but from what I saw of it on the free weekend it wouldn't have been cheap to develop, plus I assume the license would have cost something.

Dumbest thing they did was requiring online registration to play offline during a free weekend. I wonder how anyone's going to play now if the registration servers are all set to disappear?

but then no one liked most of their decisions.

Pretty sad.

Closer to the truth was it was about a 50/50 mix, about half of their player base was fine with the streamlined action RPG gameplay mechanics. But the jeremiads from the 50% that didn't like it were intense and amply posted, for sure.

That was quick... they did their money grab then disappeared. Probably because something they claimed would be basically Neverwinter Nights 3 became more like something that was made with Basic D&D rules. At least that was the impression I got from my short time with the game. I had high hopes for it, but then no one liked most of their decisions.

Pretty sad.

Edit: read the post, I'd never heard of n-Space until this game, 21 years? what else did they make?

They have a long list of games, more then what some known studios have, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Space#History

Awwwrr :( I wish the best of luck to everyone there

Only real way to succeed is perhaps via what Obisidian do and actually listen to what the PC playerbase wants and it wasn't a streamlined action RPG (I suspect a lot of those 50% who were happy would also be happy with a more traditional in depth RPG).

You are probably right. For my part, I was surprised the reverse of that didn't hold true. Which is me, I totally love the more detailed and in-depth RPGs too. But I was OK with a streamlined version - mainly because it was well done, it had a good flow to the combat and had a real inventory system/item economy. (I don't like it when they streamline inventory completely out - that's too much streamlining.)

I especially thought SCL made a good fit in this current games market, with a resurgence in "old-school" RPGs making a come-back in a big big way, there was room for it. It's not like we're starving for modern takes on "old school" RPGs anymore, Internet crowd funding has revived that genre 110%.

I really think what killed it was the "Oh my god, NWN 3!!" and then it was more of a mix. I only had time to play a bit of the random dungeon generator before the campaign was released, and everything I'd read said the campaign was pretty poor, but then when no one started making modules for it, it's when I couldn't hop on board. I was real close to buying copies for my friends to play too, but didn't.

Wait, they did Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2? Why oh why did they never release that for the PC? The first one was awesome. Most of the games I see listed there are console ports done by other teams?

Anyhow, I always find it rather sad when a D&D licensed game bombs, remember how successful some of the others were, even going back as far as the original SSI Gold Box ones?

Only real way to succeed is perhaps via what Obisidian do and actually listen to what the PC playerbase wants and it wasn't a streamlined action RPG (I suspect a lot of those 50% who were happy would also be happy with a more traditional in depth RPG).

Ironically, I enjoyed my time with the Sword Coast Legends campaign while I grew to hate Pillars of Eternity, largely because of how incredibly tedious that game was. I know I'm very much in the minority, though.

Only real way to succeed is perhaps via what Obisidian do and actually listen to what the PC playerbase wants and it wasn't a streamlined action RPG (I suspect a lot of those 50% who were happy would also be happy with a more traditional in depth RPG).

Ironically, I enjoyed my time with the Sword Coast Legends campaign while I grew to hate Pillars of Eternity, largely because of how incredibly tedious that game was. I know I'm very much in the minority, though.

Maybe, but I also don't understand the love for PoE - it was a save-fest. If you walked into certain fights without having using a campfire before hand (in order to have your full arsenal of spells/abilities available), it was pretty much game over. That made gameplay and general adventuring tedious since you could only buy campfires back at your base (that I knew of). So much potential wasted by a tedious mechanic.

I started playing Pillars of Eternity, got to some underground temple and haven't played it since.... I have too many stinking games to play! Also, been playing Divine Divinity Original Sin with my brother, besides needing to start over for the enhanced edition sort of bumming us out, we are getting back into swing with it. Kind of hard playing multiple RPGs with thick story at the same time, since you start mixing up plot points... it's like reading Game of Thrones all over again...

I remember liking Geist on GameCube.

That was quick... they did their money grab then disappeared. Probably because something they claimed would be basically Neverwinter Nights 3 became more like something that was made with Basic D&D rules. At least that was the impression I got from my short time with the game. I had high hopes for it, but then no one liked most of their decisions.

I don't think it was a cash-grab as much as it was that they made a game that wasn't deep enough to appeal to RPG fans and not action-y enough to appeal to Diablo fans. Basically, they made a game that nobody really wanted. That's the kind of thing that puts developers out of business.

Only real way to succeed is perhaps via what Obisidian do and actually listen to what the PC playerbase wants and it wasn't a streamlined action RPG (I suspect a lot of those 50% who were happy would also be happy with a more traditional in depth RPG).

Ironically, I enjoyed my time with the Sword Coast Legends campaign while I grew to hate Pillars of Eternity, largely because of how incredibly tedious that game was. I know I'm very much in the minority, though.

Maybe, but I also don't understand the love for PoE - it was a save-fest. If you walked into certain fights without having using a campfire before hand (in order to have your full arsenal of spells/abilities available), it was pretty much game over. That made gameplay and general adventuring tedious since you could only buy campfires back at your base (that I knew of). So much potential wasted by a tedious mechanic.

That's why they added "Story Time" mode which is intended for players who want an adventure without being constantly beaten over the head with difficult combat.

That's why they added "Story Time" mode which is intended for players who want an adventure without being constantly beaten over the head with difficult combat.

It's not that the combat in Pillars was difficult, it's that there was so bloody much of it. The only battles in Pillars I had any trouble with (I played on hard difficulty) were against spirits, since you couldn't build a meat shield wall to protect your back line squishies since spirits would just teleport right through it and murder your casters. Also, the final boss battle, which was an insane difficulty spike compared to everything that came before it. I played it at launch when that game had no companion AI, zero. So every battle became a micromanage fest where I paused the game every 2 seconds to issue commands to every party member. That coupled with the sheer amount of combat got super tedious. It didn't help that I found the story boring. The writing style was great, but the actual story was dull as dishwater IMHO, so there was nothing driving me to keep going.

On the other hand, I found the companion AI in SCL to be quite capable, so I only had to pause to issue commands once every blue moon. It made the combat flow better and quicker and didn't wear me out like in Pillars, which is something I greatly appreciated. I guess I just don't have the patience to constantly micromanage any more.

Anyway, I'm actually going to play through the SCL campaign again at some point before Rage of Demons comes out.


Last edited by Keyrock on 3 Apr 2016 at 9:14 pm UTC

Did they make any statement regarding removing their stupid activation garbage before someone switches off the lights over there? I bought the game a while ago, just didn't get to play it yet. But I still want to....

. I played it at launch when that game had no companion AI, zero. So every battle became a micromanage fest where I paused the game every 2 seconds to issue commands to every party member.

This has long been fixed by the way. I found PoE very exciting then progressively dull (story-wise), but now I'm getting back into it via the White March, which is really quite good. All in all it's a really great game, but I'm starting to see the similarily in the main game vs the DLC that I saw in NWN and NWN2 - that the base game has a long and tedious story arc that you lose interest in and can't be bothered following, but the smaller stories and DLC are much more polished.

I was very much looking forward to SCL, but I hate diablo style click fests, they bore the hell out of me as there's rarely much strategy, and SCL seems to have fallen to this. NWN and Dragon Age: Origins had some fantastic realtime pausable 3D combat on the other hand. PoE has some very interesting and original Spells, the Priest and Druid classes in particular, that make combat really fun, but you need to play on a hard difficulty, otherwise you end up relying on the camping mechanic too much and it's far too easy.

Sucks to see them go because I really liked Geist when I played it on the Gamecube. However, SCL was a mediocre WRPG that was inferior to a game that came out a few months earlier (Pillars of Eternity).