Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

Okay played for about 10 mins at work and this is pretty fucking impressive good job guys! I join the chorus wanting a larger font, pretty hard to read at 1920x1080. Other than that this seems to be win.

 

Just an FYI: Pay attention to your dialogue in the editing stage. There were a few pretty unnecessary errors I've seen already and I've only had time to experiment for about 20 mins or so. I've seen Feng say "off" when it should have been "of" and a few other instances like that. Otherwise, first impressions:

* camera is a bit wonky and tough to get used to, but no big deal. I like how much control of it I have.
* absolutely love that I can zoom out as far as I can (NWN2 style, very cool).
* incredibly impressed with the overall style I've seen so far. I know you guys take a lot of shit (for fucks sake we've been growing grey hairs, you guys) but I feel like you've really delivered.
* faces are great, dialogue a bit awkward at times. I think you need to find an English/Lit major for an editor.


Sorry, I've barely had any time to sink my teeth into this yet. I really love what I've seen so far...and I really feel like I can feel the love put into this. Looking very, very forward to spending more time and will give as much constructive feedback as my dumb brain will allow.

 

I noticed the file for the combat music is just called "combat". When I asked in the past about combat music I was told there were 7 themes. Are the other 5 (I am hoping "To Die With A Sword" is in the final version) just named things like "combat2.ogg"? Is this a demo thing?

Got to say, "Combat" isn't nearly as good as "To Die With A Sword".


Also: Any way to "Beat" the demo quicker than Loremaster (max persuade and lore) going to the mine and doing the task "right"?

 

No you are the 'idiot' to use your term. You didn't get the death screen at the start from the guard? It's virtually a direct quote. Also the head of the Merchant guild throws around profanities like a street hood.

Oh and even if it's inspired by more than Roman setting what about it? I've known about AOD when you were still fapping to the first 'RPG' you ever played: Mass Effect, so don't you dare patronise me by explaining the setting. It's not inspired by the Bronx I would have thought. I don't see Gandalf ripping into the Balrog with a cry "Better not pull that shit!" in LOTR so why should a mix of classical age/fantasy be full of such things either? All I said here was that there are anachronisms in the speech that are jarring and out of place in an otherwise consistent and detailed setting as AoD.

Wait a moment:

Aha, I didn't realise you were from the new generation, right 'bra'? Better get back to kickin' and' hangin' with gang and yo' gettoblaster...foo.

Word of advice newfag: before you vomit in rage to compensate for your blue balls, try to comprehend what someone writes first before throwing random abuse.

 

I find, that the game is much harder playing as a warrior character. I was able to breeze right through the demo putting all the right diplomatic skills to good use, even got a "Manipulator" reputation by the time the demo stalled.

Playing as a mercenary is very tough at the beginning and the game almost forces you to be a coward and play it safe and choose your battles or you can get killed very easily. The Mass( Effect Fans)es are in for a little treat once this game gets out there heh heh. Love it when mass market setups and cliches for games get trampled all over.

 

Played around for an hour or so, had about 8 characters killed. There's some work to be done but it's pretty damn good. Impressions when I've been able to get a bit further into it.

 

That's massive incline in RPG design. No more running back and forth a hundred times. Besides often times, there is still an option to do it manually as far as I could see.

To be honest, I think VD deserves some flak about that. The Roman "inspiration" is way too visually dominant. Even the main menu shows a figure that's for all intents and purposes practically indistinguishable from an imperial Roman soldier.

And the naming of some of the equipment is rather unfortunate. Lorica Hamata or Segmentata, these names are modern inventions, educated guesses at best because we don't know what they really called these pieces and many others back then. That plus using Latin terms and names enforces the impression that this is more than just "inspired" by the "fall" of Romans.

So if anyone mistakes this for a game with actual historical Romans in an alternate timeline, I think he or she's completely justified.

 

I would have liked a real Roman setting without fantasy stuff, but what can one do? I'm not too pedantic about the use of made up modern terminology as I doubt that creatures in the Forgotten Realms would name their weapons and armor after their medieval counterparts either.

Had I not known about the fantasy bits I would indeed have been fooled about the game being about Romans though.

 

Arcanum - Victorian era steampunk with fantasy elements
AoD - Post Roman pre-dark ages period with fantasy elements

I think touching up different eras that aren't medieval standard with standard fantasy elements is a good thing, because it's stretching cliche boundaries at reasonable pace.

 

Doesn't work on my computer it shows a mouse pointer on a black screen and that's it.

EDIT: disabling Comodo Antivirus fixed it

 

Alright, started as an assassin with 39 dagger and 10 DEX, died in the very first fight, though I nearly killed him. Got through on the fifth try, not that bad, then several characters followed who didn't last very long in general. I've now fiddled around for a few hours and tried a few characters, though never 'finishing' the demo.

Generally, a very fun, quite polished game that has its own style and delivers on the kind of experience it promised. Still clearly needs some touching up, though.

Writing and Quest Design
The writing in general seems fine. Nothing silly, nothing stupid. Occasional grammar errors or awkwardness but not enough to break the mood. I haven't seen anything that's really impressed me or made me laugh, but it does its job well, and there is plenty of flavour text that is really important for the gameworld.

The quest design is generally interesting, makes sense in the world, has multiple choices that are not obvious, and at least at the start, seems to have a design where different characters and different factions often show different sides of the same event or mission, which is great. I don't know if it's *more* reactive than RPGs we know and love, but it certainly seems to do a good job of all this in the confines of the demo.

Several people, in the beta and now, have raised the question of whether it's a good thing to cut out the 'fluff' of walking around and fade in/out straight to action. It's pretty surprising, and jarring, when you start; I tried assassin, mercenary and praetor, and in every case it's a lot of read, click continue, fade, teleport. Sure, it cuts down on the 'pointless' exercise of walking to the next building or opening a door and going in to talk to someone, but actually, that 'filler' can be a positive thing when used in moderation. I don't see why the game has to zip me through from an audience with Antidas then Linos instead of letting me walk there and take detours. If I wanted to do it quick I'd use fast travel and it would hardly take any more time than now, and if I wanted to I'd do it the slower way, still not waste that much time due to the compact town design, and feel like it's actually a world and not a flow-chart. Now, I expect this is related to the idea that there is no filler combat, the typical thing inserted in such walkways. I don't think the 'teleporting' should be eliminated, but right now it is too much, at least at the start - it does feel like there's a little less of it later on. But the set piece combat design, which is good in itself, means that you're never really experiencing that sense of approaching a new/hostile area, scouting things out.

Character, Combat and Gameplay
Doesn't seem overly difficult, but then I toiled through the combat demo so know what is what. I think the opening fight could be a tad easier, as in the long run making that hard is not really doing anything for the hardcore players, and it can just frustrate newcomers who haven't had a chance to learn the system yet. It's not a question of stupidity, it's a question of not yet knowing what each weapon does, etc. In general, though, I thought the battles weren't that difficult, and work well.

Hard to say too much about the character development system in the demo, and I haven't finished yet.But every skill seems to have a reason to be there. The one downside perhaps is that often you end up hoarding a few skill points to use to solve the next text adventure quest - e.g. in the

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

mining outpost

one I don't know how many multiple solutions there are, but it all seems to come down to do you have enough points in this or that skill. Not a 'problem' per se, but we'll see how it all pans out.

Graphics, Sound, Interface
Looks somewhat like a mix of early 2000s first person 3D RPGs (say, in interiors) and late 2000s advanced lighting, grass, textures, etc. elsewhere - fine, works for me. The portraits are excellent, but we knew that already. Music is forgettable but doesn't seem to get in your way so much. The interface is generally pretty good. I'm not a fan of the fluorescent solid colours used in battle grids and such, especially in combination with the stone and brick feel of the rest, but the opacity on the grid can be turned down. What interface is there works well; would be better if there was a bit more of it, e.g. a button to highlight interactibles or in-world tooltips.

Small Suggestions and Fixes

• As others have said, an alt/tab button to highlight everything you can interact, short tooltips on characters when you hover would help. Also, something to replace that terrible, terrible neon green blob when you click to move.
• The Take All button in looting should automatically close the window, too. Or have an option for it.
• The minimap really needs a here-i-am.

Bugs
Playing on 1200x600 Windowed, 32bit Windows 7, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570.

• The weird tooltips / buttons in char screen bug happens on 1280x720 windowed. Switched to 1333x768 (i think, the next up 16:9 ratio) and all was well. Not to mention the fonts actually got bigger and better!
• The known bug that after several deaths to the first enemy, you just keep dying immediately after the first convo. This actually seems to happen later in the game too.
• In the opening assassin fight, if I knock the opponent down on the far corner with the vase, even though I have 95% chance I missed 5 times in a row. Either bad luck, or some kind of bug.
• The AOD cursor seems to change into normal cursor in some places like death screens, main menu and character menu.
• One crash with Visual C++ runtime error, after lots of playing and reloads.

 

Can't say anything about the gameplay yet, first impression is mostly interface problems. It may grow on you.

Observations:
>The text windows should be resizable, it's too small, and too wide at the same time. It also would be better with a solid/opaque background. The journal for example has that and is much better to read.
When a game with a lot of text becomes a strain for the eyes I will give up after some time.
>Icons and text in trade screen etc should not overlap, icons should be resized to 80% so that they don't overlap with the text.
>Also trade screen: When I read 15g I think its a weight specification (metric system), I guess most Europeans will know what I mean.
>When I move the mouse pointer over someone or something I would like to see information (name)
>Left click to interact, right click to move, I find this counter intuitive.

Bad:
>3D camera sucks as in any other game.
>Hardly any item interaction (?)

Good:
>writing
>very detailed world, looks nice
>menu backgrounds etc are really nice

 

Wow, this is brilliant. I'm really conflicted about spending any great length on time on this demo though. I kinda don't want to spoil myself from the full experience once the full release goes around. I guess this is one of those first worlds problems I've been hearing so much about. Well I guess I know that this is a day one purchase, I had more fun in 30 minutes of this than I've had in any RPG released the last five years.

 

I created a Thread in the Age of Decadence Subforum where we can gather all things we would like to see improved: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-we-would-like-to-see-improved-in-here.70546/

Someone should open a Thread for Bugs in there as well. I think it will be easier to overview our concerns if we were to bundle our opinions and bug finds there. Instead of just posting all different kind of things within the two or three general AoD Threads that have popped up.

 

Anyone else get a weird bug after mining outpost (killed everyone, left smelter on) with Mitiades quest? Went to the house where the 2 thugs were waiting but after combat, got teleported back to Dellar, got the rewards from completing the mine outpost mission again. Went back to the market, clicked Mitiades which took me back to the house, took the bait, meet the noble and guards, killed them, post combat, got teleported back to Dellar a third time for another reward for finishing the mine outpost.

 

Combat without the powergamed stats from the combat demo is a whole another story, I feel like i'm fighting with plastic weapons.

 

Indeed. Roman swearing was way more focused on wierd sexual deformities, genitalea and acts than that. Anyway, awesome to see the demo out. Looking forward to give it a try.

 

I like how playing the hero from the start, killing people just for lulz or acting out of character gets you killed. You actually tend to evaluate your chances and play more conservatively and within your 'role' more. There is no need to pick a fight with the guard as the assassin but you have that option, and it usually ends with you dying. As a guard, you are probably unprepared for the assassin and besides, the person you are protecting is dead already and you weren't his buddy, so why would you play the noble hero? Yet we have that option for the foolish.

Great stuff.



As for the camera, I wish it would center on your character when you press the middle mouse button. This alone would save a shitload of problems of having to move the camera constantly to follow your character rather than rotating around some space while your character is off in a corner somewhere. Sure you have that button, but would be nice to have a toggle in options to use the MMB in other ways.

There's also a fair bit of clipping with grass poking through walls. All stuff that will be fixed I guess, but just sayin...

Shit brown palette is shit. Don't know what else you could do though with this engine to stop everything looking the same. A minor thing.

Heh, I just disappeared into the tower at the Barracks. I could click on it then my assassin disappeared into it never to be seen again. I could still rotate around the tower though.

 

Here are my impressions:

The program can't start because X3DAudio1_6.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

Unable to load game library: C:\jeux\AoD Public Beta\AoD.dll. Please make sure it exists and that the latest DirectX is installed.

 

Yes. Originally, he was marked to die as I thought that nobody would be able to save him, but some testers did and I had to write extra dialogues with him. So, it's hard but possible.

 

Which one of origins are for Imperial Guard? Which one is the best if you want to rebuild Roman Empire? Are those preroled characters any good? Also font is small for such heavy text game and I play at 1280*1024.

 

Mercenary works best, but you'd have to go there and ask to join them.

They get the job done, but I usually move a few points around.

We'll try to fix the font problem asap. Didn't realize that most people use such high resolutions.