Game News Age of Decadence Demo Released

[Marquess Cornwallis]

To comment a bit on the game itself: it's a really interesting and enjoyable combination of text adventure and RPG with easily the highest replayability factor I have ever seen in either genre.There is however one fundamental contradiction (it's kind of hard to call it a flaw): from what I've seen so far, the pretty looking 3D game world has absolutely zero justification for being there in the first place. I can't help but feel that with a King of Dragon Pass style 2D interface for the text adventures/dialogues/character development/inventory/travelling (etc.) and a 2D/3D Heroes of Might and Magic/Gorky 17 style grid for combat, the concept would actually work better. With that kind of setup, I don't see anybody complaining about teleporting, staged combat situations, camera controls, or static, non-interactive environment (can't open chests/use skills on objects/talk to people...). The way it is now, even though game is in fact complete and functional, it makes the impression of having a lot of stuff missing and/or strangely designed, just because of the way it is presented.

 

[zeitgeist]

I can't help but feel that with a King of Dragon Pass style 2D interface for the text adventures/dialogues/character development/inventory/travelling (etc.) and a 2D/3D Heroes of Might and Magic/Gorky 17 style grid for combat, the concept would actually work better

This is absolutely correct.

edit: To elaborate briefly, an option to (since it likely can't be changed into a proper RPG at this point) salvage the game could be to replace the entirety of the 3D world with illustrations in the style of character portraits, and leave the 3D for the combat (which would obviously have to be greatly expanded upon, and with full party control, or you might as well remove that too). Add decent dialogues, and a reasonable amount of CYOA/dialogue options instead of the current paltry 2-3 choice selection, and things might start looking up.

 

[Marsal]

To comment a bit on the game itself: it's a really interesting and enjoyable combination of text adventure and RPG with easily the highest replayability factor I have ever seen in either genre.There is however one fundamental contradiction (it's kind of hard to call it a flaw): from what I've seen so far, the pretty looking 3D game world has absolutely zero justification for being there in the first place. I can't help but feel that with a King of Dragon Pass style 2D interface for the text adventures/dialogues/character development/inventory/travelling (etc.) and a 2D/3D Heroes of Might and Magic/Gorky 17 style grid for combat, the concept would actually work better. With that kind of setup, I don't see anybody complaining about teleporting, staged combat situations, camera controls, or static, non-interactive environment (can't open chests/use skills on objects/talk to people...). The way it is now, even though game is in fact complete and functional, it makes the impression of having a lot of stuff missing and/or strangely designed, just because of the way it is presented.

There are things AOD does really well, but it feels like someone stripped all of the "real gameplay" and replaced it with text adventure minigames. While offering skill use and replayability, those minigames are just too disconnected from the game world and often get you killed by choosing the wrong option, with little to no feedback or remedy. Prime example, sneaking into the Palace with an assassin. I won't spoil it, but while offering lots of possibilities, it's just not that engaging picking "[sneak]Try to sneak by the guard, while his back is turned" or "[critical strike]Kill him while he isn't looking" and actually performing the actions in the game world. It's feels just like persuasion minigame from Oblivion. If it were as Cornwallis wrote in his post, at least there would be no expectations of an interactive world to meet. As it is, it's really jarring that you can't manipulate any objects or do anything outside text minigames (can you even pick locks?).

There really should be degrees of success/failure if you want to make AOD anything but a reload-fest. Threatening an influential person in his seat of power and getting quickly hacked to pieces is fine. Failing the climb check with 8(?) dexterity and getting instantly killed is just gay not conductive to enjoyable gameplay. Only if you attempt something really stupid or at odds with your skills should you be punished with (instant) death. IN B4 LRN TO PL4Y N00B!

 

[Excidium]

There really should be degrees of success/failure if you want to make AOD anything but a reload-fest. Threatening an influential person in his seat of power and getting quickly hacked to pieces is fine. Failing the climb check with 8(?) dexterity and getting instantly killed is just gay not conductive to enjoyable gameplay. Only if you attempt something really stupid or at odds with your skills should you be punished with (instant) death. IN B4 LRN TO PL4Y N00B!

That's the way to go but the amount of work necessary to implement degrees of success and failure in a meaningful way would be insane, specially considering how much C&C this game has.

 

[Trash]

Must say that the game really isn't what I expected as I was hoping for something akin to fallout and what I got was a mix between an rpg and a fighting fantasy book. Amazed that in this day and age someone actually managed to bring some real originality, innovation and freshness to the genre. Loving it. Fix the bugs, improve the fonts and do a little extra work on interface and take my money. Oh, and add some roaming non-interactive npc's with a few lines of banter to bring some extra life to the town.

 

[belated]

Anywhere I can find out why my STR har been reduced from 8 to a red 7? Only carrying 32/140 so I'm assuming it isn't a weight issue. Nor is it reversible by removing armour/stuff, like skills reduced by shield/helmet are.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Successful critical strikes do stat damage. Nothing a healer can't fix.

 

[Sitra Achara]

Having a blast with a combat-shy thief. Congrats!

 

[Vault Dweller]

There are things AOD does really well, but it feels like someone stripped all of the "real gameplay" and replaced it with text adventure minigames. While offering skill use and replayability, those minigames are just too disconnected from the game world and often get you killed by choosing the wrong option, with little to no feedback or remedy. Prime example, sneaking into the Palace with an assassin. I won't spoil it, but while offering lots of possibilities, it's just not that engaging picking "[sneak]Try to sneak by the guard, while his back is turned" or "[critical strike]Kill him while he isn't looking" and actually performing the actions in the game world.

Well, that's the thing. Usually, performing the actions in the gameworld is the shittiest minigame of all.

Say, you want to sneak. You click on the sneak button, turn 'shadowy', and try to go past guards. If your sneaking is high enough, you simply watch your character walking until he reaches his destination. It's not really sneaking.

Before someone mentions Thief, there is a difference - in terms of what's possible - between an RPG and a dedicated sneaking game.

Quick question - why no skill synergies for non-combat stuff? Why doesn't increasing Persuade also improve Trading, for instance, or Sneaking improve Stealing? Is it a balance consideration?

The way I see it, combat is a single way of getting past an obstacle, so it makes sense to enable back up and secondary weapons - less effective than your primary skill but still of use. Non-combat skills are different ways of getting past obstacles, so we didn't think that synergies were necessary there.

 

[villain of the story]

To comment a bit on the game itself: it's a really interesting and enjoyable combination of text adventure and RPG with easily the highest replayability factor I have ever seen in either genre.There is however one fundamental contradiction (it's kind of hard to call it a flaw): from what I've seen so far, the pretty looking 3D game world has absolutely zero justification for being there in the first place. I can't help but feel that with a King of Dragon Pass style 2D interface for the text adventures/dialogues/character development/inventory/travelling (etc.) and a 2D/3D Heroes of Might and Magic/Gorky 17 style grid for combat, the concept would actually work better. With that kind of setup, I don't see anybody complaining about teleporting, staged combat situations, camera controls, or static, non-interactive environment (can't open chests/use skills on objects/talk to people...). The way it is now, even though game is in fact complete and functional, it makes the impression of having a lot of stuff missing and/or strangely designed, just because of the way it is presented.

There are things AOD does really well, but it feels like someone stripped all of the "real gameplay" and replaced it with text adventure minigames. While offering skill use and replayability, those minigames are just too disconnected from the game world and often get you killed by choosing the wrong option, with little to no feedback or remedy. Prime example, sneaking into the Palace with an assassin. I won't spoil it, but while offering lots of possibilities, it's just not that engaging picking "[sneak]Try to sneak by the guard, while his back is turned" or "[critical strike]Kill him while he isn't looking" and actually performing the actions in the game world. It's feels just like persuasion minigame from Oblivion. If it were as Cornwallis wrote in his post, at least there would be no expectations of an interactive world to meet. As it is, it's really jarring that you can't manipulate any objects or do anything outside text minigames (can you even pick locks?).

I agree with all this. I can't help wondering if years spent on 3D assets weren't incredibly wasteful and ultimately a redundant gimmick with respect to the different design scope of the game.

But at least he got it out so perhaps it will be easier to expand on the system in place in future, whether by him or others.

 

[Kalin]

I have been playing it the whole day, it is an amazing game. I feel as if some of my faith in humanity has been restored.

Some general comments:

Dialogue window: I like how it is at the top, it is a fresh change from other computer role-playing games. Unfortunately, with a lot of text the window does seem a bit small, so if it could be expanded with a drop-down function ala Planescape: Torment, that would be swell. Additionally, it would be great if selected dialogue options would show up in the actual dialogue field, so that the player can backtrack and consider what he or she actually said. Sounds lazy, I know, but sometimes you end up getting distracted while playing and forget which option you selected way back.

Character creation screen: I am not sure if it is just me, but several buttons are difficult to click (you really have to pixel-hunt), most notably the button for increasing intelligence. Hovering my mouse over skills, factions and abilities always produce the wrong descriptions. Similarly, the in-game character screen is problematic as well. Descriptions are consistently jumbled and reputations are displayed incorrectly.

World map: A very minor concern, but it is slightly disorienting that the map is not centered on the character's location. Instead of being centered on Teron, it is focused on the top left part of the map.

Info section: There is no "back" button, so in order to backtrack I have to skip through all the tutorial pages and then open the info section again. A bit cumbersome, but not a serious problem, of course.

In addition to some other minor bugs and typos that have already been mentioned, I noticed that, while playing as a mercenary, the innkeeper suddenly becomes labelled as a doctor.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Any devs reading this thread?

Got some constructive criticim, but i cant be arsed writing it if it's not heard.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Any devs reading this thread?

The dev's post is just three posts above yours.

 

[CappenVarra]

All right, I finished the demo with a Loremaster, a Merchant, a Grifter and a Thief, going for different options and playing around (saving the combat chars for later, and hybrid chars - the hardest ones to play as I can see - for last). So far it's a lovely adventure game No, seriously, at first I was distracted by camera mechanics and "teleportation", but the more I play it, the more I like it. It's quite... unusual, to say the least. Since my minor gripes from yesterday all turned out to be non-issues after a few hours, I'll keep my mouth shut about niggles until I get a few more days of playtime, and can make informed comments...

(but I'll say, keyboard shortcuts are great things and shouldn't be hard to implement - e.g. Escape on the Map screen, Enter on the Save Game screen after typing in a save game name, Enter when moving stacks of objects...)

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Can't hire an assassin to kill the rival loremaster. :railroad:

 

[Elhoim]

Character creation screen: I am not sure if it is just me, but several buttons are difficult to click (you really have to pixel-hunt), most notably the button for increasing intelligence. Hovering my mouse over skills, factions and abilities always produce the wrong descriptions. Similarly, the in-game character screen is problematic as well. Descriptions are consistently jumbled and reputations are displayed incorrectly.

Increase your resolution to 1024x768, there is a problem with the screen at 600h resolutions that will be fixed in the next update.

In addition to some other minor bugs and typos that have already been mentioned, I noticed that, while playing as a mercenary, the innkeeper suddenly becomes labelled as a doctor.

Is the model different and in another room?

 

[Tigranes]

There are things AOD does really well, but it feels like someone stripped all of the "real gameplay" and replaced it with text adventure minigames. While offering skill use and replayability, those minigames are just too disconnected from the game world and often get you killed by choosing the wrong option, with little to no feedback or remedy. Prime example, sneaking into the Palace with an assassin. I won't spoil it, but while offering lots of possibilities, it's just not that engaging picking "[sneak]Try to sneak by the guard, while his back is turned" or "[critical strike]Kill him while he isn't looking" and actually performing the actions in the game world.

Well, that's the thing. Usually, performing the actions in the gameworld is the shittiest minigame of all.

Say, you want to sneak. You click on the sneak button, turn 'shadowy', and try to go past guards. If your sneaking is high enough, you simply watch your character walking until he reaches his destination. It's not really sneaking.

Before someone mentions Thief, there is a difference - in terms of what's possible - between an RPG and a dedicated sneaking game.

Quick question - why no skill synergies for non-combat stuff? Why doesn't increasing Persuade also improve Trading, for instance, or Sneaking improve Stealing? Is it a balance consideration?

The way I see it, combat is a single way of getting past an obstacle, so it makes sense to enable back up and secondary weapons - less effective than your primary skill but still of use. Non-combat skills are different ways of getting past obstacles, so we didn't think that synergies were necessary there.

That's still way more fun than clicking [Sneak] Sneak Past People, though.

I can immediately visualise the process because I can see it. I am clicking on stuff to do it myself, not having the game do it for me. There is tension because I don't know exactly when or how the sneak will fail. Sure, it's not 'real sneaking', we've all identified the problems with FO or IE game sneaking, but um, it still provides a lot of things AOD sneaking does not. So the King of the Dragon Pass mention is right - in the demo at least, you could dispense with the 3D gameworld altogether, and just have an old school 2D map of Teron with lots of different buttons for where to go and who to talk to. That's how little you actually do stuff in that gameworld. You're never initiating combat of your own accord (unless, I guess, you suddenly want to start stabbing the innkeeper), so you're never doing 'recon' outside of dialogue screens; you're not looting or stealing, etc.

In any case, this was a design policy that can't be changed now, and will be part of AOD's defining appeal/flaw/whatever. The game has dispensed with so much 'filler' that the game starts to feel like a Highlights Reel of RPGs (which is both good and bad). I'm still really enjoying it and think it's a great game, but I think whether it will feel that way for many players, or disappoint them because the game feels stripped and bare, depends on the number and quality of the little sidequests, encounters and oddities the game can throw at you. I think Teron has just enough at the moment - the sneaky Miltiades, the help-me-please setup, the preacher, the kebab stand, etc. In the absence of 'filler' those things are really critical to making AOD a real world, preventing me from just fast traveling between Palace and Plaza and whatnot, even if they themselves work like text adventure + combat set piece. I think for AOD they become really critical, so my practical suggestion/hope is that we see a lot of interesting encounters throughout the game like we already have in Teron.

 

[Nick]

Any devs reading this thread?

Got some constructive criticim, but i cant be arsed writing it if it's not heard.

We are. Collecting feedback and bug reports, so go ahead.

 

[Infinitron]

It's dawned on me that AoD is sort of like an experiment in excising as many spatial simulation elements as possible from an RPG (while still retaining a more-or-less traditional combat model).

 

[Kalin]

Increase your resolution to 1024x768, there is a problem with the screen at 600h resolutions that will be fixed in the next update.

I tried and it worked perfectly. Of course, I still switched back to 1280 x 720, since I can certainly live with the problem for now.

Is the model different and in another room?

It is the same model, I think, a rather obese, white-clad fellow with balding red hair. Stands behind the counter, too.

 

[FUDU]

I've got that bug too. My Inn Keeper is labeled doctor now also.

 

[Angelo85]

Perhaps business isn't running as it used to and the doctor had no other choice than to moonlight as barkeep to help pay the bills. But now that the hero arrived in town good old doc probably can focus on fulltime healing again soon enough :D

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I've found a glitch, on my monitor at least (2560 x 1440), the long text descriptions of the items in the inventory get cut off at the bottom.

 

[Suchy]

Also, I don't like the way the dialogue screen is right now, you have to zigzag your gaze to the upper and lower part of the screen the whole time while reading, it's kinda annoying. Make it more like fallout:

This!
For me it was really stressful for the eyes. I don't think that obscuring the view would be a problem, just center on character and pan down a bit to compensate the dialogue panel.

 

[Jaedar]

Think I ran into a missing or incomplete thing.

Spoiler

So there's these refugee things outside the city. I paid to let them in, and after I had done so and talked to the d00d in charge of the group, my word of honor was high enough that he let me in on a secret. Get the buried treasure in the overrun village: problem is I can't seem to find it on the world map?

Feels like I'm missing something obvious, but there it is.