Age of Decadence November Update
Age of Decadence November Update
Game News - posted by Elwro on Mon 14 November 2011, 12:28:26
Tags: Iron Tower Studio; The Age of Decadence; Vince D. WellerVince of Iron Tower Studio offers the next monthly update on the development of Age of Decadence. The update is the following:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Long story short: we're still testing, we released build #6 a few days ago, working on the 7th. The beta test is going well. We've slowly increased the number of testers to 12 and got a lot of great feedback and suggestions. The game is getting better and more stable, but we're not *there* yet, unfortunately.
But then Vince continues with a lengthy post about game design, a topic I'm sure our enlightened readers will feel qualified to comment on. To get you started:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">When we started working on the game, there was a number of "traditional" elements I wanted to eliminate to, um, "streamline" the gameplay:
- mindless running across maps and locations. You know, the typical "fedex" quests or "now run all the way back and tell the questgiver that you finished the quest!" It adds nothing to gameplay and just wastes your time.
- mindless sidequests. You run around and talk to NPCs with silly problems.
(...)
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">
- mindless looting. "Hey, a barrel! I wonder what's inside. A magic sword?!! Wow! Hey, another barrel..."
So, we've eliminated all 3 and focused instead of developing interwoven questlines with different options and outcomes. The outcome? There is no need to explore the towns, 'cause there isn't much to do outside the faction quests. If you want to walk around looking for spontaneous stuff to do, you're in the wrong game.
In other words, only when we skipped the mindless stuff, did we realize what it was there for. Take Fallout 2, for example. Even though it was inferior to the first game (that's just, like, my opinion, man), it was a well-rounded game with a lot of content. Sure, some quests were silly but when mixed with the good stuff, they didn't seem to bug me that much.
The post continues with a description of what was added to the game in order to fllesh out the towns.
Thanks, LibertyRansom!
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Long story short: we're still testing, we released build #6 a few days ago, working on the 7th. The beta test is going well. We've slowly increased the number of testers to 12 and got a lot of great feedback and suggestions. The game is getting better and more stable, but we're not *there* yet, unfortunately.
But then Vince continues with a lengthy post about game design, a topic I'm sure our enlightened readers will feel qualified to comment on. To get you started:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">When we started working on the game, there was a number of "traditional" elements I wanted to eliminate to, um, "streamline" the gameplay:
- mindless running across maps and locations. You know, the typical "fedex" quests or "now run all the way back and tell the questgiver that you finished the quest!" It adds nothing to gameplay and just wastes your time.
- mindless sidequests. You run around and talk to NPCs with silly problems.
(...)
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">
- mindless looting. "Hey, a barrel! I wonder what's inside. A magic sword?!! Wow! Hey, another barrel..."
So, we've eliminated all 3 and focused instead of developing interwoven questlines with different options and outcomes. The outcome? There is no need to explore the towns, 'cause there isn't much to do outside the faction quests. If you want to walk around looking for spontaneous stuff to do, you're in the wrong game.
In other words, only when we skipped the mindless stuff, did we realize what it was there for. Take Fallout 2, for example. Even though it was inferior to the first game (that's just, like, my opinion, man), it was a well-rounded game with a lot of content. Sure, some quests were silly but when mixed with the good stuff, they didn't seem to bug me that much.
The post continues with a description of what was added to the game in order to fllesh out the towns.
Thanks, LibertyRansom!
