Editorial The Fanatic and His RPG - Mark Yohalem on The Age of Decadence

[MRY]

Thanks for all the feedback. A couple quick responses.

Who's Mark Yohalem?

The one destined to bring harmony between the Codex and NeoGAF, apparently.

And what's with this "Yeah actually I'm totally here since 2002, just different nick, They know who I am" lately on the KKKdex?

Infinitron asked how long I'd been around, and I told him.

And the "crawls with bugs" thing is bullshit - someone has never played unpatched Fallout 2, now THAT game was crawling with bugs. Arcanum was also full of bugs, ask Drog. Prelude to Darkness was a ungoddly bugfest that always glitched when I tried to play it, AoD is more polished in that regard than New Vegas, imho. Please remove the wrong info.

I toned it down. The truth is, I've had an odd experience playing games: I played a lot in the pre-Internet-patching era, and from the current era, I always play games like five years after their release because my computers are so low-end. Compared to the games I've played, the bugs were quite numerous and apparent.

And what's with the graphics moaning.

I loved the portraits and liked a fair bit of the rest. The textures were pretty hit or miss. The graphics do look dated, though. I prefer either sprites, pre-rendered, or higher end 3D. I haven't played Wasteland II.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but the author seems way too excited about AoD. No, it's not really art, and no, VD isn't a great artist.

I think if the main takeaway from the article is that I am saying that VD is a great artist, then I've clearly failed as a writer. I guess pretentiousness often obscures what one's trying to say. I quite like VD's work, though as I wrote in the 'Dex Review thread, I have plenty of gripes with his writing. The article isn't trying to establish him as a Great Master, but as an example of Outsider creation. (Whether games are art or not is totally tangential from this point; we could just as easily be talking about the Indian dude who independently developed calculus or kids who invented languages or whatever.) For example, I don't think the schizophrenic guy who wrote the books noted at the end of the article was a Great Artist.

Also, the article is written as PR for the game. I think it's an important game and I want be to recognize its importance. Sometimes fanboying is good advocacy.

Personally, I can't say that AoD was worth 11 years of development and quiting one's high paying position.

You're measuring the wrong thing, IMHO. You're playing AOD. That's something else entirely from making it. The only thing it has to be worth to you is the $30 (15% off on Steam right now!) and 10 hours or so.

 

[pakoito]

I'll buy a copy of AoD to the first Latin American who reply to me.

Manda cojones que abandonáramos las colonias para ésto.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Iren only wants white south Americans to respond to him, that narrows the playing field remarkably

 

[Arulan]

The one destined to bring harmony between the Codex and NeoGAF, apparently.

Someone has to let them know. The Age of Decadence is the type of game that would largely go unspoken of over there. Great article.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I think if the main takeaway from the article is that I am saying that VD is a great artist, then I've clearly failed as a writer.

At least you acknowledge it.

 

[MRY]

The graphics may look dated... because they were made many years ago.

Did I say anything more about the graphics than that they had a "dated aesthetic" and were "antiquated"?

 

[Turok]

I'll buy a copy of AoD to the first Latin American who reply to me.

Que??? dame una copia, demasiados $$ with the price of the game i can buy food for 3 months here. Dame una copia amigo, asi la agrego a steam.

Por cierto yo soy blanco.

 

[Ovplain]

Pretty fruity write up.:D But sorta cool too!

 

[MRY]

Dude, graphics whores. You know how they are.
Also no comment on art direction.

I'm not sure I have a strong feeling on the overall art direction. I really liked the portraits though, and said as much.

"especially not while making new games" would have been my preferred answer from MRY

Currently Torment takes up about 90% of my game-making time. The remaining 10% is going to Fallen Gods.

Pretty fruity write up.:D But sorta cool too!

The Codex really was not the target audience -- you guys already all know about the game at a level of depth I can't really reach, anyway. My hope was to try to nudge the game's profile among other audiences.

 

[TigerKnee]

Since he mentioned Prelude as an inspiration, I looked it up and found a shareware version.

I think they're giving away the full version right on their website now.

Of course, good luck actually playing it when it's almost gurantee'd to crash every half an hour, sometimes even less!

 

[Ninjerk]

Since he mentioned Prelude as an inspiration, I looked it up and found a shareware version.

I think they're giving away the full version right on their website now.

Of course, good luck actually playing it when it's almost gurantee'd to crash every half an hour, sometimes even less!

Later versions are available on the official forums here. They appear to be fanpatched. Fowyr

 

[Tigranes]

I liked the Outsider stuff. The whole "are games art" blah blah has been poisoned by years and years of idiots talking bullshit, so now every time we hear any comparison we can't stand it. Here, MRY isn't calling VD an artist, he's not calling AOD art, all that is entirely irrelevant to the discussion. It's about the marvelous weirdness of having a game made where everybody else says "it would be cool/crazy/fucked up, but reality", and this one dude goes there. Combat where two guys ambushing one in unfavourable conditions means deadly danger? Yeah, that would be cool, but - oh, he did it. C&C that interlinks multiple factions stretched across the whole game? Yeah, but the whole game would have to be - yeah. Every time people say "but the whole game would have to be built around it, it's hard to do right", this one dude tried. That makes it a special game, whether it gives you that delicious taste of "finally someone did it", a bittersweet taste of "oh, actually going this far isn't so great", or somewhere in between. And it's lovely that The One Dude Who Went There is an angry Codexer who used his anger for good.

Some of the language I thought was needlessly flowery, and yeah stuff like bugs comment seem overblown, but those are minor points. The fact is, this little piece explains the spirit of AOD very well, and also describes how AOD fits into the larger gaming world, and it establishes a parallel which uses art / media theory / criticism properly without going overboard. It's a nice read.

 

[Ellef]

I love how shocked they are in that RPS interview. The common sense leaps off the page and he's branded as an eclectic madman/genius working on a thousand year old lost art form.

 

[Fowyr]

Later versions are available on the official forums here. They appear to be fanpatched. Fowyr

My patch only fixes script errors, it does not increase stability. Besides frustration to restore game after finding yourself in Olvar's tavern again and again, of course.

I think they're giving away the full version right on their website now.

Of course, good luck actually playing it when it's almost gurantee'd to crash every half an hour, sometimes even less!

When I played it, version 1.7 on Win98, it was pretty stable. The only really obnoxiously crashable location was that small place with Novacula. There is a way to circumvent it, of course. Just use numpad for scrolling.

EDIT:
Grab it here.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/small-fixes-for-1-8.79946/

 

[Darth Roxor]

Also, the article is written as PR for the game.

 

[commie]

So when will Iron Tower make a EE of Prelude to Darkness? Should be a good slam dunk to fix that up and release it while working on the next game. I'm sure the orginal devs wouldn't mind.

 

[MurkyShadow]

Why is Primordia so brown, man. Seriously, the setting, the writing, everything was stellar, but I couldn't bear to play it because too brown.

It aims at getting additional sales from Germans with pre '45 nostalgia?
...yeah, I'll show myself out.

 

[Jaesun]

But some people have strange hobbies, so whatever.

 

[naossano]

So "not for retard" is a genre now ?
I hope it isn't too much niche-y...

 

[Volrath]

But some people have strange hobbies, so whatever.

Coming from one of the most autistic modders in the history of modding that is pretty funny yeah.

 

[Jasede]

Yo bro I love you but writing

"It's a triumph"

at the end of a review is just an instant game over.

 

[Western]

The one destined to bring harmony between the Codex and NeoGAF, apparently.

In the grim butthurt of the future there is only war.

 

[Infinitron]

Yo bro I love you but writing

"It's a triumph"

at the end of a review is just an instant game over.

Good thing that's not the end of the review.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Coming from one of the most autistic modders in the history of modding that is pretty funny yeah.

My Arcanum modding spree was like 6 months. Then I took a break for a few months, after that got autistic for one more month, released the high res patch and the final version of the UAP. And that was that.

Seriously though, me and Qwinn are small time. Pretty efficient and not that perfectionist. It's the Fallout 2 and Bloodlines modders who are fuckin' obsessive and are still in the never ending cycle of fix bugs -> add some of my own -> fix more bugs -> rinse and repeat.

 

[Jasede]

Yo bro I love you but writing

"It's a triumph"

at the end of a review is just an instant game over.

Good thing that's not the end of the review.

It's the end of your snippet which either means you are terrible at cropping things in a way that gives them credibility or you want the author to look bad by making his writing end with a phrase that is used only sarcastically these days. Fuck off. Your job is to make me want to read more; you failed.