Game News The Age of Decadence Christmas Update

[Ismaul]

^ what he said.
Thinking is good (especially in a RPG). Make me think! Don't make me think for a second and then force me to spend half an hour in zombie mode just to get to the next good thinking bit. And then you have to travel back... It's like we don't have enough errands to run in our life that we need to waste even more time on them during our precious leisure time.

It's not about dumbing down, quite the opposite. It's about keeping the experience focussed on the brainy parts.

Yeah, but where's the line- fast travel? Quest compass? After all, a quest compass only really saves you time. What about an MMORPG-style journal? Saves you time reading your journal. Quest "?" markers? Saves you time talking to everyone.

You seem to enjoy the "exploration" part of RPGs, but I don't think running between points qualifies. Quest compass or not, there's no thinking involved when you're going "there". You press forward, move the mouse and fucking wait, with a little stumbling around with no compass. If you really want exploration done better, go play Outcast. The position of each character is mobile, and you can ask for directions, but all you get is clues, like where the guy you ask saw him last time. It's no longer running around, it's investigation, research. Thinking required.

I don't play MMOs, so I don't know a thing about their journals. But unless the journal is used as a narrative tool like in Torment, they're mostly there to refresh the player's memory since, unlike the character, he plays on and off. I usually prefer having all that content in-game instead. But sometimes introspection is hard to fit in otherwise.

Really, all those "shortcuts" aren't actually there to dumb down anything, but to compensate for the gap between the player's knowledge and what his character should know. The "?" on that quest dude, it's because there's not enough information reaching the player about how to find him. In daily life, if we're not already familiar with the guy, we usually are given more specific info, like "he's wearing a red shirt", "he has a crooked nose" or "he'll be standing next to the X store". But that often doesn't work in-game. The shortcuts used might not be good, but removing them does nothing to solve the problem. And actually solving them would require a lot of development resources invested in that area, which might not even be what the game is about.

Also, talking to everyone? No man ever does that. We talk to the people we have business with, or those that catch our interest. So defending the click-on-everything behavior really is bullshit (and is in no way intelligent or mentally challenging, just the new kind of pixel-hunting). The game should instead give you reasons to talk to certain characters. I don't want to talk to every filler dude just to get to the one I wanted to talk in the first place. I do agree though that the question mark isn't a simulationist or "immersive" solution.

 

[Infinitron]

Way to miss the point folks.

The problem with "no walking" isn't that there's no walking. It's what it implies about the game's design - that it's divided into clearly discernable discrete "chunks" of gameplay, as opposed to a more freeform, more granular approach.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Vault Dweller

What are you doing about the teleportation/screen-balckout thing?

Tell us why is this worry pointless.

 

[suejak]

So how do you explain the frequently voiced sentiment that AoD teleporting is "jarring"? It's one of the biggest complaints about the game.

I've played the AoD demo through 2 or 3 times and I still don't know my way around the town. I'm not even sure where I am in half the dialogues.

 

[Jasede]

I feel the same way.

 

[Commissar Draco]

For God Emperor sake teleporting is optional now and take you into the street not before your interlocutor since Second Beta, Besides What you wanna explore the town for anyway? It is not Skyrim or DA so you won't magic weapons and jewgold in trashbins. Only Thing I don't like it's 3-D graphics which while pretty (except bodies) and with good art style hog my Computer. 2D with ISO like in Geneforges, Avadon or Avernuns would cost less and get us game much earlier.

 

[Jasede]

I only tried the first beta. I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only one. We don't want more betas and demos. We want the game. We'll buy it even if we don't like it much anyway. Most of us buy most RPGs, excluding the latest Bioware/Bethesda releases.

We love RPGs and hope for a good one dies last. We'll die before it does.

 

[alkeides]

I only tried the first beta. I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only one. We don't want more betas and demos. We want the game. We'll buy it even if we don't like it much anyway. Most of us buy most RPGs, excluding the latest Bioware/Bethesda releases.

We love RPGs and hope for a good one dies last. We'll die before it does.

I agree mostly. Nice to hear that teleporting is optional, but I don't feel like playing more and more demos unless there is some huge change in the mechanics. I'd rather not be spoiled for the quest options because IMO it would get boring to replay it for Nth time upon the final release.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Bitching forever is Codex culture; it's fine.

I thought that the Codex culture was 'criticism based on arguments', not bitching for the sake of bitching, but what do I know?

I played the demo a few months back and I didn't really like it ... That said, I'm not going to sit here and bitch about it and act like I have a personal dilemma with VD.

Yeah, but where's the line- fast travel? Quest compass? After all, a quest compass only really saves you time. What about an MMORPG-style journal? Saves you time reading your journal. Quest "?" markers? Saves you time talking to everyone.

See what I mean?

I see that you're lumping together different features pretending that they are all the same. Quest compass isn't about saving time, it's about either making sure that you don't miss content or helping you find something that you should be able to find on your own. AoD style teleporting is about saving you time running back and forth between NPCs, which is essential, considering the focus on replayability.

Etc.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Anyway, I'll be happy if you guys actually focus on getting the game out. I don't want more demos, or combat betas, or demo-demo-beta-3. I understand the previous steps were necessary and helpful (and enjoyable for us) but now it's time to give birth.

We are focusing on the game, but as you noted the previous steps were necessary and helpful. There are still a couple of issues we'd like to fix and updating the demo is the best and easiest way to test the changes. Naturally, we don't expect everyone to replay the demo over and over again, but many people do (still finding new content and new ways to solve quests, which does prove that teleporting doesn't do the thinking for you).

So if a quest giver tells you to talk to someone specific and your character actually knows where they are, then going and talking to them involves zero thought. In that case, teleporting/quest compasses save mental effort without replacing any thinking.

Pretty much.

Here is an example: the crystal ball quest in Arcanum. Delores asks you to find her a crystal ball and sends you to Madam Toussaude (i.e. you don't need to figure out where to get one). You go to MT, she asks you to choose sides, based on your answer, she either attacks you, in which case the quest is over and you need to go back, or gives you the ball and sends you back. You give Delores a ball, she dies, you go back to MT a second time to get your reward. A lot of running back and forth, not a lot of thinking.

The Witcher was even worse, requiring you to run back and forth between different districts (loading time, navigating, etc). We don't have any teleporting outside the towns, but I do believe that within towns, where the focus is on dealing with different NPCs, it's essential. Obviously, not everyone feels the same way, which is regrettable but hardly unexpected.

 

[Infinitron]

You go to MT, she asks you to choose sides, based on your answer, she either attacks you, in which case the quest is over and you need to go back, or gives you the ball and sends you back. You give Delores a ball, she dies, you go back to MT a second time to get your reward. A lot of running back and forth, not a lot of thinking.

The Witcher was even worse, requiring you to run back and forth between different districts (loading time, navigating, etc). We don't have any teleporting outside the towns, but I do believe that within towns, where the focus is on dealing with different NPCs, it's essential. Obviously, not everyone feels the same way, which is regrettable but hardly unexpected.

Or you can think about doing other stuff and other quests while you're running around, instead of doing questlines one at a time. The situation you describe typically only occurs once an area is "exhausted" of things to do and you're finishing off the last few quests in it.

 

[Captain Shrek]

You go to MT, she asks you to choose sides, based on your answer, she either attacks you, in which case the quest is over and you need to go back, or gives you the ball and sends you back. You give Delores a ball, she dies, you go back to MT a second time to get your reward. A lot of running back and forth, not a lot of thinking.

Or you can think about doing other stuff and other quests while you're running around, instead of doing questlines one at a time. The situation you describe typically only occurs once an area is "exhausted" of things to do and you're finishing off the last few quests in area.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's not about dumbing down, quite the opposite. It's about keeping the experience focussed on the brainy parts.

This. That's exactly why we did it.

What are you doing about the teleportation/screen-balckout thing?

Nothing at the moment. It would be nice to make it less jarring, but we're busy with other things and overall it's not a priority. I feel that most people who bitch about it bitch for the sake of bitching. We've tweaked it significantly in R2, making it a lot more flexible and adding options to end a conversation without teleporting after. Not to mention that you were only teleported within a quest and were free to explore the town between quests, which really makes it a non-issue.

So how do you explain the frequently voiced sentiment that AoD teleporting is "jarring"?

Because it is jarring at first. However, just because something is jarring doesn't mean that it serves no other purpose and offers no benefits. In other words, I feel that the good outweighs the bad, but I'm well aware that not everyone feels the same way.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You go to MT, she asks you to choose sides, based on your answer, she either attacks you, in which case the quest is over and you need to go back, or gives you the ball and sends you back. You give Delores a ball, she dies, you go back to MT a second time to get your reward. A lot of running back and forth, not a lot of thinking.

Or you can think about doing other stuff and other quests while you're running around, instead of doing questlines one at a time. The situation you describe typically only occurs once an area is "exhausted" of things to do and you're finishing off the last few quests in it.

I humbly disagree. While in real life, walking is often a good opportunity to think of what you need to do and figure out how you're going to do that, RPGs aren't nearly as complex or stressful, and I daresay that you don't need lengthy walks to figure out what you need to do. You stop, open the journal, then decide where to go next, or you look at the dialogue options and consider which would serve your interests or beliefs better. That's the extent of it.

 

[Infinitron]

You go to MT, she asks you to choose sides, based on your answer, she either attacks you, in which case the quest is over and you need to go back, or gives you the ball and sends you back. You give Delores a ball, she dies, you go back to MT a second time to get your reward. A lot of running back and forth, not a lot of thinking.

Or you can think about doing other stuff and other quests while you're running around, instead of doing questlines one at a time. The situation you describe typically only occurs once an area is "exhausted" of things to do and you're finishing off the last few quests in it.

I humbly disagree. While in real life, walking is often a good opportunity to think of what you need to do and figure out how you're going to do that, RPGs aren't nearly as complex or stressful, and I daresay that you don't need lengthy walks to figure out what you need to do. You stop, open the journal, then decide where to go next, or you look at the dialogue options and consider which would serve your interests or beliefs better. That's the extent of it.

I disagree. There's tons of stuff to think about while you walk around in an RPG. What equipment your guys could use, how much money you need to buy it, how you're going to make said money, what areas you may not have explored thoroughly yet, what people you have not have talked to yet, what you plan to do next...

In short, content. Only once content is exhausted does the degenerate situation you described occur.

 

[Captain Shrek]

To only add to it, the extra content/challenge from trying to figure out what to do next/who to talk to is also welcome (!) as long as the 'mystery' is not a result of bad UI/journal note keeping etc. I do agree that this will drastically kill your audience.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Nothing at the moment. It would be nice to make it less jarring, but we're busy with other things and overall it's not a priority. I feel that most people who bitch about it bitch for the sake of bitching. We've tweaked it significantly in R2, making it a lot more flexible and adding options to end a conversation without teleporting after. Not to mention that you were only teleported within a quest and were free to explore the town between quests, which really makes it a non-issue.

Not my place to comment but I could guess that the reason was to avoid unnecessary running around the map.

This I sympathize with entirely. Infinitron is right though. You should put some side-quests just to make the world more interesting to make the running around fun. Several games have done that well, best being Morrowind.

We did. There is a number of things you can do on your own: the ruined tower and the cellar, the cemetery, the refugees, the kebab seller, the pickpockets, the trader ambush, the gang, the preacher, the storyteller, plus the new content introduced in R3, geared towards thieves, grifters, and loremasters.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not really (just) about sidequests, it's about having Stuff To Do in general.

Of course, if you're making a slim, focused, single-character game where there just isn't much to do besides go from "quest chunk" to "quest chunk" and do some minimal shopping between them, then teleportation is more defensible.

Like I said, the problem people have isn't really with the teleportation. It's with the fact that teleportation makes sense in the first place, and what that says about the game's design and content-richness.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You go to MT, she asks you to choose sides, based on your answer, she either attacks you, in which case the quest is over and you need to go back, or gives you the ball and sends you back. You give Delores a ball, she dies, you go back to MT a second time to get your reward. A lot of running back and forth, not a lot of thinking.

Or you can think about doing other stuff and other quests while you're running around, instead of doing questlines one at a time. The situation you describe typically only occurs once an area is "exhausted" of things to do and you're finishing off the last few quests in it.

I humbly disagree. While in real life, walking is often a good opportunity to think of what you need to do and figure out how you're going to do that, RPGs aren't nearly as complex or stressful, and I daresay that you don't need lengthy walks to figure out what you need to do. You stop, open the journal, then decide where to go next, or you look at the dialogue options and consider which would serve your interests or beliefs better. That's the extent of it.

I disagree. There's tons of stuff to think about while you walk around in an RPG. What equipment your guys could use, how much money you need to buy it, how you're going to make said money, what areas you may not have explored thoroughly yet, what people you have not have talked to yet, what you plan to do next...

In short, content. Only once content is exhausted does the degenerate situation you described occur.

I think that the best time to do such thinking is when you are staring at the trading window - what do I need, what can I sell to raise money, where can I get more money, etc.

If you're doing it while walking/running, I can't help but feel that you're doing it out of boredom, to occupy your mind somehow.

 

[almondblight]

^ what he said.
Thinking is good (especially in a RPG). Make me think! Don't make me think for a second and then force me to spend half an hour in zombie mode just to get to the next good thinking bit. And then you have to travel back... It's like we don't have enough errands to run in our life that we need to waste even more time on them during our precious leisure time.

It's not about dumbing down, quite the opposite. It's about keeping the experience focussed on the brainy parts.

This. Thinking that adding more unchallenging tedium to RPG's somehow makes them more challenging is one of the cancers that plagues the genre. Sure, clicking on 40 different NPC's and exhausting all of their dialogue options is difficult, but the difficulty is whether or not a player will push through with something that's not interesting, not challenging, and not fun in order to progress (Planescape siege tower puzzle, I'm looking at you).

For more proof of this, look at the REALLY hard RPGs thread, where a lot of posters agree that there aren't many RPGs that present much of a challenge. I've been playing a bit of Binding of Isaac lately, and I usually have to put more thought (tradeoffs, resource management) into ten minutes of gameplay than I do with two hours of most RPGs.

 

[Infinitron]

I disagree. There's tons of stuff to think about while you walk around in an RPG. What equipment your guys could use, how much money you need to buy it, how you're going to make said money, what areas you may not have explored thoroughly yet, what people you have not have talked to yet, what you plan to do next...

In short, content. Only once content is exhausted does the degenerate situation you described occur.

I think that the best time to do such thinking is when you are staring at the trading window - what do I need, what can I sell to raise money, where can I get more money, etc.

If you're doing it while walking/running, I can't help but feel that you're doing it out of boredom, to occupy your mind somehow.

Why? When does it make more sense to think about these things? When you have a big Buy/Sell GUI obscuring your view, or when you're running around town, seeing what it has to offer, with a bird's eye view of your environs?

 

[EG]

It's not about dumbing down, quite the opposite. It's about keeping the experience focussed on the brainy parts.

This. That's exactly why we did it.

Rather than flesh out the dumb parts?

 

[tuluse]

I thought one of the main reasons for the teleportation was creating an immediacy to actions. You couldn't do something that would start a fight and then just bounce and come back later. You have to deal with the consequences as they happen.

 

[Captain Shrek]

It's not about dumbing down, quite the opposite. It's about keeping the experience focussed on the brainy parts.

This. That's exactly why we did it.

Rather than flesh out the dumb parts?

Well, I am on VD's side on this one. The game is finite. There can only be THIS much content. You are expecting a bit too much. Even from AoD. It's not as if he's said, hurr durr, we no make side-stuff.

 

[EG]

It's not about dumbing down, quite the opposite. It's about keeping the experience focussed on the brainy parts.

This. That's exactly why we did it.

Rather than flesh out the dumb parts?

Well, I am on VD's side on this one. The game is finite. There can only be THIS much content. You are expecting a bit too much. Even from AoD. It's not as if he's said, hurr durr, we no make side-stuff.

So am I, but I can still bitch senselessly (and wax ignorantly) about the removal of a staple of . . . every game I've ever played (ignoring sims).

We go through this sort of thing all the time over on the TIS forums: player exceptions failing to match the capability of the developers, in both scope of the project and the complexity inherit in "simple things."

The idea is to try rather than abandon that seems to offend most people.