Game News The Age of Decadence Released

[Amasius]

Vincenism.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Wow those early graphics and GUI are pretty jarring compared to the final product.

I think the UI for the game is pretty damn good now. It has a nice polish and consistency about it.

There are some really monstrous UIs out there for RPGs with huge budgets and I can't understand why.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller
Hey, Vault. Congratulation on releasing game. I have little question - how much stuff you plan to add?

Depends entirely on sales. We had a strong start, which is encouraging, but for us the revenues aren't a reward for years of past work but funding of the colony ship project. My goal is to launch it on Early Access in 3 years, which means whatever we get should be enough to cover 3 years of full time work.

It's been eleven years. I think he plans to rest.

No rest. We work on AoD until the end of the year, then start working on the dungeon crawler and the colony ship game.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

No rest. We work on AoD until the end of the year, then start working on the dungeon crawler and the colony ship game.

So your best days as a game developer are already behind you. Thanks for letting us know Vinney.

 

[GuiltyofBeingTrite]

Colony Ship game sounds fun, any more details on it?

 

[Rivmusique]

Is the dungeon crawler going to be set in the same world as AoD? Whenever I see it mentioned I recall that being established, but now I'm not sure if I just made it up.

Game is great btw, 2 playthroughs complete so far, a talky-loremaster/merchant guild and a fighty-mercenary/Imp Guard + screwing around by branching in different directions mid/late-game and playing until the end. Some stuff around the world that I know I haven't got to the bottom of yet and probably a bunch I have no idea about, solid value. Have a fair few questions that I don't want to ask/have answered by reading around until I've completed it 5(+++) more times.

Some possible errors (some probably me being dumb) (lots of game spoilers):

Spoiler

- You can meet the Cartographer in the third city before you meet the Dom-something guy in Maadoran (I'll probably spell everything I attempt here wrong, but you'll know what I mean). The conversation seems to assume you've talked to Dom. If you manage to run in to Dom after this, you still get the conversation telling you to seek out the Cartographer (I got this on my first playthrough, I swear I swept that arena district 3 times before I caught that damn door. Had it in my head that perhaps he would turn up after an arena fight or something, as the guide you talk to says he might come around for the entertainment, and therefore my non-combat loremaster was fucked for it.).

- The Oracle that was at The Arch on my fighter playthrough, having killed the slaver this time, you say that you are seeking Al-akir(? the buried pyramid ruin) when you arrive, I don't get the reason for that. Only mentions of that was in passing by Dom, and I don't think he said that the Arch people would know, so why ask them? And I was currently on a mission to escort Meru's men there, but finding it's location wasn't really part of that.

- The Lady that you can bring in to the conspiracy to kill Maadoran Lord for the Merchant Guild, I asked for a favour as the reward, could never call it in. Would have loved to ask for:
- Library access
- Have the guard let me back in to the Abyss
- Soldiers to help murder the Hellgate construct
Is there anything that she can do for you if you choose "favour"? Just a Yes/No, no spoilers.

- You can get stuck in the Inferie pit/tower ruin. Go down, mass murder village, get out via tele, take power supply (portal disabled), go back to pit, go in to pit again*. No way out. Fair enough, mostly*, but a game over screen would be good. Though perhaps it's saveable if you can murder the construct (which that character could not).

*With everyone dead, you can use a rope to go in to the pit. Should probably be able to climb it to get out.

- Post siege Gazeenar seems strange, I delivered the Air ship there with my Loremaster, having sided against Meru, and his second is still around to thank me for the service. Similarly, my fighter fought a little war against zealots with his old buddy Militades and House Crassus guards turned up to suppress the riot, even though we'd just slaughtered them in a war.

- When you use the mask in the Lakebed, it doesn't tell you it's stealing a Power Tube from your inventory. Didn't notice for hours, when my Loremaster then picked up 2 more, I thought "fuck yeah that's three, now I can use that glove!" only to find my old one gone. Took me awhile to realise that that was where I lost it. FUCK YOU VD FOR MAKING ME WAIT A FEW MORE HOURS (when I found a new Tube) TO GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO HEARTLESSLY THROW SLAVES AT A PORTAL DEMON!

- The Teron Loremaster that isn't Feng (Cassius?) tells you to come back when you find out what the "Jellyfish" does, but you can't ever tell him.

 

[t]

Dungeon crawler takes place in the mine Dellar tells you about.

 

[VonVentrue]

Colony Ship game sounds fun, any more details on it?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-to-be-successful.103562/page-20#post-4172993

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

Should add romances as well

At least some tasteful rap would be nice

Disappointing no one threatens you with rape if you play as a female. It seems almost logically inconsistent given the setting

 

[Bubbles]

Just downloaded a 117 MB update. Patch notes?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Just downloaded a 117 MB update. Patch notes?

I can't see the front page (Steam is down for me) but Oscar said he posted an announcement.

 

[Bubbles]

It's down for me as well, but I trust Oscar.

 

[Amasius]

The first piece about AoD from RPS was quite disappointing but todays one by Richard Cobbett is a fun read and this comment from him is promising:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/10/19/age-of-decadence-impressions/

Unlikely, but there’s a WIT coming, I believe. (Not by me though.)

So they are reviewing it, nice.

 

[Bubbles]

Cobbett seemed appropriately hyped about AoD in Ghent, so it's no surprise that he liked the release version. Should have done the review too, though.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Not by him? Hmm, whoever else reviews it may turn out to be more negative. It's just too niche of a game; finding two RPS reviewers who enjoy it might be unlikely. I guess we'll see.

 

[Junmarko]

Pretty sure it was already added.

I've just come across an immensely exploitative bug.

After convincing Livia to join the Forty Thieves, you can continually speak to her in the tavern to raise stats and gain XP, indefinitely. (this is after you raid the warehouse)

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thanks, we'll take a look.

 

[mike73]

I've got the Steam update as well. Linkie for the laziest of the lot: http://steamcommunity.com/app/230070/discussions/0/490123197958379937/

I love how with each playthrough you discover a new area, a new dialogue or even a simple note you missed in some underground locker, giving meaningful explanation to the questions you might've thought would remain unanswered. I believe it's some of the best and well-constructed lore I've seen in a long, long time. Just enough with each playthrough so as not to reveal the whole mystery, also it's pretty impossible to discover everything in one sitting when every corner you turn might bring untimely death.

 

[hivemind]

fucking hell

one of the solutions to TG6 actually made me feel bad

 

[BlackAdderBG]

TG6?

 

[Bubbles]

Sixth Thieves Guild mission.

 

[Lurker King]

Guys, you should vote on Goral's list at GOG to increase the awareness about the game:

Since AoD will be on GOG there's a good way to promote it, i.e. you can createa custom list of games so that people who look for one game will be recommended other games that are similar in some way. The only problem here is that for a list to be visible it needs to have enough votes, otherwise it might stay buried, especially when a game is popular (so including something like Planescape Torment will make your list invisible there unless you get like 500 votes).

 

[Bubbles]

Guys, you should vote on Goral's list at GOG to increase the awareness about the game:

Almost withheld my vote over the inclusion of Bloodlines, but the rest of the games are good enough.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Brave Lo Wang arrives at the mysteriooz monastery to recover the elixir of popamole health regen!

But what is this, the people living inside have dismantled the bridge? No matter, Lo Wang the ninja with 5 grappling hooks and 10 dexterity can certainly use acrobajix to vault over the few remaining planks and ropes to get to the other side!

What do you mean he can't? Oh, I have to join up with the raiders waiting outside and storm the monastery after they magically conjure up a gangplank out of their asses as my only hope of getting inside? Okay! Let's do that!

However, unbeknownst to the brave Lo Wang, the monastery inhabitants are not, as their name tags would suggest, just simple 'villagers' and 'young villagers'. They are an undercover Finnish sniper division that can tear any man apart with their shitty bronze regular arrows! Without Lo Wang, the raiders would surely be doomed... which only makes him wonder how do they manage to automagically win if he leaves the area and returns.

But no fear! Brave Lo Wang cuts through the first line of melee defenders and goes up the elevator or ladder or whatever... to end up with 3 enemy dudes right in his face because that's what an archer would aspire to do!

Still, no problem! After finally disposing of Simo Hayha and his cronies, and leaving behind his only remaining raider companion who has 9 hp left, he moves deeper into the monastery!

But what is this? Raider head honcho and his two arrer boyz who 'stayed behind to cover the rear' have somehow managed to magically teleport themselves behind the broken bridge, the melee defenders, the elevator, the snipers and the ensuing fight right into the monastery... and they even had the time to LOOT IT ALREADY?

For this treason, the raiders must surely die! Lo Wang has a brave tactical plan, so he moves away to a side room to hide from the two enemy archers, knife and bola in hand.

BUT WHAT IS THIS? THE TWO ENEMY ARCHERS CAN SHOOT HIM THROUGH THE WALLS NO MATTER WHERE HE HIDES?!

THESE WALLS MUST BE AMERICAN MADE!

#justaodthings

 

[likaq]

It's funny that back in 2012 /2013 ~ 50% of codex has shit on AoD* and now 3 years later aod is suddenly great incline in the eyes of hivemind

* just few examples:

I won't bother quoting the relevant passage because of your inherent butthurt at any criticism of your boring as fuck min/max CYOA adventure game with shitty 'I hit/miss you-you hit/miss' me single character combat

So far AoD seems to be mediocre at best.

There are reasons for that. The game has some glaring issues.

- Ranged chars are utterly broken. It's impossible to play as a ranged char at all. Why? Because all combat takes place in extremely tight areas. So you may as well consider ranged char to be non existent in the game.
- Combat chars are broken in general. A melee char requires 4 stats to be good. STR, DEX, CON, PER. Essentially 2 ranged stats are enforced on melee because they affect stuff too. If you still don't get what the problem is
- The problem is that diplo chars require only 2 stats. INT and CHA. And that's it. It's much easier to create a diplo char than a combat char of the same efficiency. Combat char will always have stats spread thin.
- And it's impossible to create a mix of both. Because 4 stats for melee, 2 stats for diplo. The game is predisposed to a clicking-on-dialogues-all-the-time gameplay. But if I wanted to do that - I'd play some adventure game with puzzles.

I mean having a shitton of checks upon checks in dialogues is good and all but even they are hurt by the dull binary system akin to Fallout3/NV. You either have the required skill and succeed every time at the same check. Or you don't - and fail all the time. DnD and Fallout did it right with dice rolls to always add an element of uncertainty both ways.

Coupled with what's said above about stats it leads to a problem - the stats you select at the char generation will make your char suck and win at something forever with same chances. Without variety or chance of failure or success.

Writing also seems boring. Too much text that isn't interesting to read. And it supposed to be a lore text.


VD forcused too much on adding gimmicks into dialogues instead of ensuring that you can have more builds other than "super smooth talker" and "mediocre melee fighter".

If I have to be perfectly honest here, I don't see any appeal this could have to me. Short dialogues work on a basis of '1. Bye!', long dialogues are seriously boring and I found myself just clicking through most of them, playing a text adventure with [win] options (yeah, that can fail, but it's not like the other options don't imply 'failure' either) is not exactly my cup of tea, no environment interaction is BAD BAD BAD and with the rather derp combat I think I'll just stay away. My combatfag nature has been pissed off, my storyfag nature is not satisfied and my explorationfag nature has not even been woken up. Shame.

The game cannot be fixed. All the time spent on the balance didn't take into account any sort of gameplay whatsoever outside of the combat itself. I still can't believe I thought AoD could be a good thing before delving into this retarded POS that is a 1:1 copy of the concept of Visual Novels. There is no gameplay element outside of combat, this is the first rpg I've played where sneaking is a purely dialogue-only option and the game has so many teleport and bullcrap, little meat in the dialogue, I couldn't get myself to care. It felt like playing a MMORPG, except that they replaced the RPG mechanics with VN mechanics, and you're all alone instead of playing with friends.
For a game that relies so much on dialogue as a gameplay element, and discourages you from combat, it's beyond boring. The writing is shit, I didn't care for any of the NPC, it's NO pst. The factions are a bore. There is a definite lack of control over your character (teleport much ?), over reliance on RNG and shitty pacing. I can't see anything that would pull me back to the game.
My initial impressions have been utterly annihilated. What I thought could be a decent game turned out to be worse than shit.