Age Of Decadence Online, or: how an indie game turned into a cash cow
This is a review filled with developer quotes by the very popular gaming magaine Gamefaps, followed by an interview about the original, offline version of Age of Decadence which will, even though Iron Tower focused on creating an immersive MMO, be released as a special edition.
Age of Decadence. Does this name ring a bell? Yes, it's the wonderful little game that turned from turd to blockbuster. At first, it was supposed to be some turnbased harcore RPG with shitty graphics, based on some great RPG hits of the 90's or something, like Fallout. But yeah, everyone knows Fallout was made by Bethesda in 2008 so it was just a load of bullshit. But it got better. They updated the graphics engine and decided to go online, and from the remains of a shitty retro-crap game grew a massive multiplayer online hit that could throw WoW off the genre throne.
But while the focus of the game turned from singleplayer to multiplayer, the developer team still tried to keep some of the core mechanics, wanting to please both the fans of the original concept and the fans of the new, more modern concept.
"The combat system of Age of Decadence Online is one of our greatest achievements.", says Vince D. Weller, lead designer of AoD Online. "While we wanted to keep the turn-based nature of the game, we couldn't do a direct turn-based mode in an online game. This is why we decided to merge turn-based with real-time to create a very innovative and intuitive combat system that will please fans of turn-based tactical combat as well as people who like more action."
And indeed, their combat system is fresh, unique and simply amazing. Just like in turn-based RPGs your character has a couple of action points, and "there are still turns going on in the background", says Mr Weller. "You see, the system isn't completely real time: there are turns, but everyone is taking his or her turn at the same time, without having to wait for the enemy to finish theirs."
The system Mr Weller describes there basically works like real time - you click the left mouse button, and your character attacks. You click the right mouse button, and he blocks. It's quite similar to games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, with the only difference that every action you take will consume action points. Once you've run out of action points, a new turn will start and you will regain all your action points. This is what makes this system so unique - it plays like real time, but everyone is actually taking turns, with all turns taking place at the same time. You can spend a whole hour in one single turn of combat, if you don't click the attack button very often. But while you stay in your first turn of combat, the enemy might already be spending his 6th turn frantically hacking his sword at you. It's this seamless integration of turn-based mechanics into real time action which makes this game so mindblowingly awesome.
As this screenshot shows, some of the game's features have been problematic, but they were all fixed to the satisfaction of the players
The game still had some problems in its beta-phase, though. Many beta testers complained about one very innovative, but arguably also very annoying, feature: fake magic items. Items which are sold to the player by NPCs for a lot of money - which aren't really magical. Some NPCs in the game will try to sell you fake items, but if your character believes that the item is magical, it will appear as a normal magical item, except that it will do nothing if you equip it. This led to people buying expensive magical rings which promised increased stats, but when they equipped the rings, nothing changed. Some people believed it to be a bug, so Iron Tower Studio found a very clever way to make the feature less annoying: "Because some people complained about it, we devised a very interesting workaround based on the motto 'faith can move mountains'. As long as your character believes that the item is magical, you will still recieve the stat bonus, even if the item is fake. This way we can keep our very innovative feature without making it tedious for the player.", says Vince.
With all these really innovative never-seen-before features, Age of Decadence Online is promising to become a massive blockbuster, maybe even able to outsell World of Warcraft. "The development of the game was very difficult since we always tried to keep the hardcore RPG crowd in mind, whom we originally planned to make the game for. When we decided to make an MMORPG, many people were disappointed, but as you can see we never forgot about them. We implemented all the hardcore features they wanted and slightly modified them in order to make them more accessible, without losing any of their hardcoreness.", says Mr Weller about the game. And indeed, while the game feels very modern and innovative, people who like turn-based combat and complex game mechanics will feel right at home because of the great combat mode.
While AoD Online is a title we're really looking forward to, there's also another game by Iron Tower Studios that is soon going to be released. It's the original singleplayer Age of Decadence, which plays exactly as AoD Online except that it's single player and has a story. Now we're going to have a little interview with Vince D. Weller about the game and how the vision of it changed during its development.
Gamefaps: Mr Weller, the single player version of AoD Online is going to be released soon. As I have read, it is going to be like the original hardcore RPG version, complete with fully turnbased combat and extensive dialogue, but there have been some changes to it. Could you explain the changes made to the game since the original idea?
Vince: Of course. You see, while the game had almost everything hardcore RPG fans could desire, it was not enough for us. We wanted it to have literally everything. This is why we decided to add some more features to the game and release it as Age of Decadence: EXTREME Edition.
While it had a lot of choices before, we thought something was lacking. There weren't enough opportunities for collar-grabbing and being a total badass, so we added more EXTREME dialogue options. Now you can grab every NPC by the collar, or, in case the NPC isn't wearing a shirt (as is the case with many of the naked women in the game), directly by the throat. One great example is when you're having a conversation with Claudius and have to decide if you want to fight for or against him:
EXTREME OPTION 1: Fuck you, motherfucker, I'm going to fucking kill you!
EXTREME OPTION 2: Fuck them, motherfucker, I'm going to help you kill your fucking enemies, fuck yeah!
As you can see, this example perfectly illustrates the improvements we made in the EXTREME Edition. The game is a lot darker, grittier and more mature now.
Gamefaps: You also radically changed the equipment system to make the game a lot more dark, gritty and mature. Could you explain the changes?
Vince: Well, generally, we improved the armor of the female characters to be more realistic. We replaced full plate mail with chainmail bikinis, boots with armored toe rings, chest armor with steel nipple guards, greaves with studded leather g-strings and helmets with armored tiaras. This gives the female characters a whole new outfit, which is a lot more realistic and mature than it was before.
Gamefaps: How did you get the idea to create an RPG set in a post-apocalyptic Roman-inspired world, anways?
Vince: Well, to us, roleplaying is running around in Legionary Armor, killing things.
Gamefaps: Some people accused you of dumbing down the game, making it more accessible to the masses and abandoning your hardcore fans for the money. Is there any truth to that?
Vince: No, we did not dumb the game down at all. And we didn't do anything for the money. We decided to make an MMORPG because we believe that this is the genre of the future, where the profits... I mean, the best gameplay lies. We decided to release a single player version for our hardcore fans because we like them, not because we want to make more money from the additional sales. We also decided to add DLC not because of the money, but because we want to give the best upgrades to our fans for little money.
We also listened to our fans whenever they had any complaints. We had a lot of people saying that our game needs more bloom, and we included more bloom. Everything for the fans!
Gamefaps: Speaking of DLC, how will it work?
Vince: Well, generally the DLCs will be adding new content to Age of Decadence EXTREME Edition. We did not have enough time to finish the game because we focused on developing the MMO, so you will have to download the ending by DLC. In the original, you will be able to progress up to the last dungeon, where you will stand in front of a locked door. Downloading the DLC will allow you to open it, fight the final boss and see the ending.
Furthermore, we will release many useful tweaks like "Stop making the game crash every 5 fucking minutes", "Improve the horribly broken combat balance" and "Make those buggy quests actually completable" for as low a pice as 10$.
If you buy the Collector's Edition of the game, which is about 30 dollars more expensive than the regular version, you will recieve a special coupon that gives you a discount of 1% to every DLC you download, making those useful DLCs even cheaper than they already are!
Gamefaps: Now, one last question: why did you decide to make the game into a more modern, streamlined RPG instead of the oldschool title you originally had in mind?
Vince: Well, as we saw how popular games like Oblivion, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are, and especially how much copies they sell, we decided that there is a lot more fame and profit to be had in creating such a game. Of course, we didn't do any of it for the money, but for the fans, who will truly be grateful that we decided to make a modern RPG with up-to-date gameplay mechanics.
Gamefaps: What did you tell to the people who were disappointed that you changed your original vision?
Vince: Well, basically, this isn't your grandpa's RPG anymore. This is the future, and it is good. At first I was against progress, too, and wanted to make games in the style of the 90's, but then I saw how much more profi... fun there is to be had with modern games, so I changed my mind and really hope that I could also change the minds of all the other people who think that RPGs aren't as good as they used to be anymore.
Gamefaps: Well, thanks for the interview, Mr Weller! We'll all be looking forward to your awesome gritty dark mature extreme collargrabbing action multiplayer online RPG!
Iron Tower Studio; Putting the RAPE back into RPG.
Wrong tab.
