Preview The Age of Decadence Demo Preview

[felipepepe]

Varying degrees of brown combined with rather similar brightness/contrast values when it comes to all elements of this window hamper its readability and clarity, unfortunately. It's a solid concept, but needs to be worked upon a bit more.

How about switching place of black background with the brown background, and vice verse? It should make it more readable.

It looks great and easy to read for me, maybe it's a matter of screen brigthness....

And using the darkest color as background is the best & logical choice, otherwise the background becames more distractive than the information on it.

 

[Azalin]

So this might actually come out before I am unable to play it due to altzheimer's ?AWESOME

 

[markec]

The most important question is will there be modding tools, since i need my better bodies mod and slutty female clothing. Also will there be unicorns, I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin', but I think unicorns are KICK ASS!

Below is the picture of my unicorn halloween costume, I like the pose on it and how it says "Im dangerous but still sexy unicorn, come closer and you'll get impaled on my horn and maybe you'll like it."

So the point is will there be modding tools?

 

[Cassidy]

VD mentioned Torque engine is particularly "unfriendly" to the kind of game design that enables modding or something like that.

Nevertheless good news altogether. It has been years since I ever had positive expectations for a CRPG. I also like the text adventure/CRPG hybrid style of non combat approaches.

Can't wait thursday for playing the demo.

 

[sea]

Just want to say that I've been following Age of Decadence for years, and every time I hear news of it, I am impressed. You guys have really accomplished something great and I'll be more than happy to buy a copy day one. I'm not kidding when I say that, at least to me, this looks like it will be one of the best CRPGs of the decade, and probably the only one that really follows up on the promise of games like Fallout and Arcanum. Keep up the awesome work!

 

[villain of the story]

I want a "making of documentary" in the full game!

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Really, guys, it's pretty obvious that the character creation screen it's using an old, placeholder texture compared to the other ones. Even VD said that it was a placeholder a page ago. In any case, here is one of the concepts we are playing around with for the final character creation screen.

Varying degrees of brown combined with rather similar brightness/contrast values when it comes to all elements of this window hamper its readability and clarity, unfortunately. It's a solid concept, but needs to be worked upon a bit more.

How about switching place of black background with the brown background, and vice verse? It should make it more readable.

That could work.
There is also the option of using a bit brighter color for the small text and a fatter black boarder around said text to make it stand out. Over all it is good and very soft on the eyes.

 

[Castanova]

Looks like quite the accomplishment of indie game-development.

Still, even though commie is trolling I agree with him that the text-adventure aspect sounds terrible, regardless of whether the text adventures are good, per se. It sounds like they wanted the game to meet the ideals of C&C-ism frequently fapped over on this forum only to realize mid-way through development that it's not achievable without a massive development budget. So, now we're getting two, disconnected games in one... a classical turn-based cRPG (promising...) and a text-adventure "RPG" broken up by long periods of time where you have to watch your character walk around the environment (yay, PST II).

 

[hiver]

Shut the hell up you stupid bats! The colors are fine, its all crystal clear and looks great! SHUT UP!
Markec... for the love of god! Youre shaming us all man!

sigh... with that put behind for the moment... Wanderer?
WANDERER??

 

[nihil]

Great stuff! Looking forward to be playing it, as usual.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Shut the hell up you stupid bats! The colors are fine, its all crystal clear and looks great! SHUT UP!
Markec... for the love of god! Youre shaming us all man!

sigh... with that put behind for the moment... Wanderer?
WANDERER??

Hey, Vince? You know that game we've been wanting you to come out with? Yeah, the one we've been complaining about because it's been like 5 years in development. Well, we'd like you to work on the interface. Again. And change the colors. Again. Cuz that's why we come here. We're the Codex and we're pissed cuz not enough RPGs have the proper color scheme for their interface.

 

[hiver]

They wont change it. Especially not because two, three "posters" on codex had an graphic whoring epiphany. Its just annoying reading such garbage after so much interesting stuff in the preview.
And that line to Markec wasnt about codex "us".

Anyway... whats with the Wanderer background?
I dont remember seeing that one before.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Anyway... whats with the Wanderer background?
I dont remember seeing that one before.

Looks like they've renamed Drifter to Wanderer.

 

[commie]

Looks like quite the accomplishment of indie game-development.

Still, even though commie is trolling I agree with him that the text-adventure aspect sounds terrible, regardless of whether the text adventures are good, per se. It sounds like they wanted the game to meet the ideals of C&C-ism frequently fapped over on this forum only to realize mid-way through development that it's not achievable without a massive development budget. So, now we're getting two, disconnected games in one... a classical turn-based cRPG (promising...) and a text-adventure "RPG" broken up by long periods of time where you have to watch your character walk around the environment (yay, PST II).

Was I trolling? Maybe, maybe not...It did sound to me like the text adventure bit takes up a disproportionate amount of space in the game. I'm as big a C&C fag as anyone but even I want the decisions in the dialogue to serve as an adjunct or a modifier to the combat/exploratory/puzzle solving aspect of the game and not to be able to replace it completely. All over the Codex we hear smartarse quips from the monocled gentry about how Bioware are ditching the game part in order to just make interactive cutscenes and daring to call this an 'RPG' yet when AoD shows that it can be 'played' in the same manner it's OMFG 11/10 AWESUM!!!!

 

[hiver]

Anyway... whats with the Wanderer background?
I dont remember seeing that one before.

Looks like they've renamed Drifter to Wanderer.

Ah, yes.. i seem to recall something about a drifter... so long ago...
wait a minute... you played it! Is it available in this build?

Was I trolling? Maybe, maybe not...It did sound to me like the text adventure bit takes up a disproportionate amount of space in the game. I'm as big a C&C fag as anyone but even I want the decisions in the dialogue to serve as an adjunct or a modifier to the combat/exploratory/puzzle solving aspect of the game and not to be able to replace it completely. All over the Codex we hear smartarse quips from the monocled gentry about how Bioware are ditching the game part in order to just make interactive cutscenes and daring to call this an 'RPG' yet when AoD shows that it can be 'played' in the same manner it's OMFG 11/10 AWESUM!!!!

At this point it would go much better for you to just pretend you were trolling.


Also, there seems to be two tunes from the game at the site of the composer Lind Erebros.
http://www.linderebros.com/index-en.htm
A player pops up, the tunes are at number 9 and 10.
The ninth "In dead world" sounds really spanking good too.

 

[villain of the story]

Looks like quite the accomplishment of indie game-development.

Still, even though commie is trolling I agree with him that the text-adventure aspect sounds terrible, regardless of whether the text adventures are good, per se. It sounds like they wanted the game to meet the ideals of C&C-ism frequently fapped over on this forum only to realize mid-way through development that it's not achievable without a massive development budget. So, now we're getting two, disconnected games in one... a classical turn-based cRPG (promising...) and a text-adventure "RPG" broken up by long periods of time where you have to watch your character walk around the environment (yay, PST II).

Was I trolling? Maybe, maybe not...It did sound to me like the text adventure bit takes up a disproportionate amount of space in the game. I'm as big a C&C fag as anyone but even I want the decisions in the dialogue to serve as an adjunct or a modifier to the combat/exploratory/puzzle solving aspect of the game and not to be able to replace it completely. All over the Codex we hear smartarse quips from the monocled gentry about how Bioware are ditching the game part in order to just make interactive cutscenes and daring to call this an 'RPG' yet when AoD shows that it can be 'played' in the same manner it's OMFG 11/10 AWESUM!!!!

The big difference is stats involvement plus a text adventure isn't necessarily an analogue of cutscenes. That's similar to making a similar parallel between a book and its film.

 

[Roguey]

Was I trolling? Maybe, maybe not...It did sound to me like the text adventure bit takes up a disproportionate amount of space in the game. I'm as big a C&C fag as anyone but even I want the decisions in the dialogue to serve as an adjunct or a modifier to the combat/exploratory/puzzle solving aspect of the game and not to be able to replace it completely. All over the Codex we hear smartarse quips from the monocled gentry about how Bioware are ditching the game part in order to just make interactive cutscenes and daring to call this an 'RPG' yet when AoD shows that it can be 'played' in the same manner it's OMFG 11/10 AWESUM!!!!

Bioware's interactive cutscenes usually only have cosmetic variations, Age of Decadence seems like it plays like a gamebook (with graphics) with a ton of variations depending on your build. Plus you're not railroaded into the same combat areas as everyone else. Something different, but not the direction I'd want to see RPGs take (too much scripting, feels like you're just heading down a rail with a million multiple tracks rather than having the illusion of beating your own path).

 

[Vault Dweller]

Shame that the setting is the same old generic fantasy crap with the same by the numbers factions ripped off from Elder Scrolls....

I know, right?

All over the Codex we hear smartarse quips from the monocled gentry about how Bioware are ditching the game part in order to just make interactive cutscenes and daring to call this an 'RPG' yet when AoD shows that it can be 'played' in the same manner it's OMFG 11/10 AWESUM!!!!

The hypocrisy!

Just want to say that I've been following Age of Decadence for years, and every time I hear news of it, I am impressed. You guys have really accomplished something great and I'll be more than happy to buy a copy day one. I'm not kidding when I say that, at least to me, this looks like it will be one of the best CRPGs of the decade, and probably the only one that really follows up on the promise of games like Fallout and Arcanum. Keep up the awesome work!

Thanks!

Looks like quite the accomplishment of indie game-development.

Still, even though commie is trolling I agree with him that the text-adventure aspect sounds terrible, regardless of whether the text adventures are good, per se.

How so?

It sounds like they wanted the game to meet the ideals of C&C-ism frequently fapped over on this forum only to realize mid-way through development that it's not achievable without a massive development budget.

It has nothing to do with it. You still have to do the same amount of writing, scripting, designing reactions, etc. We used the text adventure design to cut what we considered boring - walking back and forth. In an average RPG you probably spend 40% of time (if not more) walking from point A to point B then back to A. I just didn't think that many people will miss this particular aspect.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Anyway... whats with the Wanderer background?
I dont remember seeing that one before.

Looks like they've renamed Drifter to Wanderer.

So um...what's wrong with just "None?"

 

[Country_Gravy]

Anyway... whats with the Wanderer background?
I dont remember seeing that one before.

Looks like they've renamed Drifter to Wanderer.

So um...what's wrong with just "None?"

Could be confused with "Nun"

 

[Castanova]

It has nothing to do with it. You still have to do the same amount of writing, scripting, designing reactions, etc. We used the text adventure design to cut what we considered boring - walking back and forth. In an average RPG you probably spend 40% of time (if not more) walking from point A to point B then back to A. I just didn't think that many people will miss this particular aspect.

I totally agree with that. But I'm assuming you still need to walk back and forth in your game, right? I remember reading an impressions post about how, at the time, the cities felt empty and repetitive. Why not make the whole game a text adventure where it cuts to a combat scene when necessary? Kind of like, oddly enough, Final Fantasy Tactics or something.

 

[commie]

It has nothing to do with it. You still have to do the same amount of writing, scripting, designing reactions, etc. We used the text adventure design to cut what we considered boring - walking back and forth. In an average RPG you probably spend 40% of time (if not more) walking from point A to point B then back to A. I just didn't think that many people will miss this particular aspect.

Funny but I don't find walking back and forth in RPG's all that boring. Maybe it's the type of RPG's I play, ones with a lot of interesting things to see and do and people to meet along the way; maybe it's the atmosphere of the world, or the threat of ambush along the way etc. When you abruptly go from one location to another just to pick an answer from a list it kind of misses the point of a role playing game in the traditional sense but then again AoD is set to redefine what is meant by the term 'RPG' or something so it could all work out well...(shit I know it's not a successor to Might and Magic so I'm not expecting exactly the same approach).

Anyway, if you are going to release a boxed version with a cloth map and booklets of lore and shit in which case I'll pay 20 dollars over the base price blind just to have a proper real copy. I like to joke around about your baby, and am still unsure about this text thing or how it will work or whether AoD will even be a 'RPG' at all, but I see that you put a lot of effort into it, so package the fucker like in the olden days and I'll be all over it like the C&C fag that I am. A good game is a good game regardless of what genre it actually fits.

 

[shihonage]

I'm pretty sure that the text adventure game thing is there so they don't have to code horribly complicated ways of handling things the player isn't supposed to do. Otherwise, there are so many ways to break even the simplest sequence, it's mindboggling.

That said, I am not a fan of this approach. But we'll see.

 

[Ulminati]

Well, that was unexpected.

I played the combat demo ages ago. To be quite honest, I wasn't terribly impressed. I mostly relegated AoD to "that game we talk about because Thursday is a meme unto itself" territory and didn't pay much attention ever since.

Judging from the preview I may have been too hasty. Looking forward to a proper demo that'll showcase more than just one-on-one sword-thwacking in a small room. If it's as good as the article wants us to beleive, I'd be more than ready to splurge some jewgoldz on this.

A question for Vault Dweller ::
How are the graphic elements for the UI stored? Some sort of container with a wonky extension or as a bunch of .jpg/.tga/.bmp/whatever files in a folder I'll be able to open and change? Are we talking thousands of small images or a few dozen big ones? I know you said the UI elements in the demo were temporary, but it wouldn't be the first time I end up firing up photoshop and replacing a completely servicable UI with one that matches my own tastes. I'm picky like that.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

Well, that was unexpected.

I played the combat demo ages ago. To be quite honest, I wasn't terribly impressed. I mostly relegated AoD to "that game we talk about because Thursday is a meme unto itself" territory and didn't pay much attention ever since.

Why, you abominable scoundrel! The heresy!