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Age of Decadence February/March update

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
So is a second game from ITS confirmed?
I mean, will you start working on something new regardless of how many more sales AoD makes once it's released?
No, not confirmed yet. We're discussing it internally and have a well developed concept, but it's subject to funding via AoD sales. Right now we sell 3-5 copies a day. Naturally, we hope that once the game is released, it will sell a lot more. If it doesn't...

At the moment, our plan is to finish AoD without cutting any corners, then do an 'under 10 bucks' combat heavy, party-based dungeon crawler set in the AoD world (fight your way out of a prison mine) to boost sales. We put together the combat demo with 15 fights in about 4 months. We should be able to do the 'prison crawler' in 8-10 months, while prototyping the spaceship game's systems, art/style, and possibly switching to Unreal 4 (something our programmer is very keen on exploring).

We'll aim (for what little it's worth) to do the spaceship game in 3-4 years (roughly what it took us to do 19 locations after we released the first fully playable demo).
 

hivemind

Guest
I wish you the best of luck!
Age of Decadence is the best RPG I have played in my life by far, now given I wasn't exactly paying much attention to cRPG or in some cases wasn't even alive when the classics of old were released but having played most of them over the last few years I have to say that none of them came even close to offering me a game experience of such quality as AoD has so far. The main reason for this is that AoD plays strongly upon the one thing video games as a medium have over any other medium, that of course being interactivity and reactivity in storytelling(C&C basically), it makes me upset whenever I play a game and the story presented in it is one fit more for a book or a movie, except it's usually not good enough to be featured in one and so the sad untalented author gives up on his dreams of being published and instead goes to write "just" a video game. In AoD it's the exact opposite, the passion you guys have for the medium can be felt through not only the game but the general interaction you have with your customers, and it's amazing. It's not just the storytelling though the rest is brilliant too, the character development system and combat are entertaining to learn and to master, the music fits the rest of the game fairly well and the graphics whereas they are budget don't really look bad the animations and everything do their job and never really impede the enjoyment in any way.
Overall I think that AoD has the potential to have the same, if not bigger, sort of impact on young consumers who have discovered a love for the genre as Fallout has had on all the people who have been posting on this forum for 10 years or more.
 

Achiman

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech
So is a second game from ITS confirmed?
I mean, will you start working on something new regardless of how many more sales AoD makes once it's released?
No, not confirmed yet. We're discussing it internally and have a well developed concept, but it's subject to funding via AoD sales. Right now we sell 3-5 copies a day. Naturally, we hope that once the game is released, it will sell a lot more. If it doesn't...

At the moment, our plan is to finish AoD without cutting any corners, then do an 'under 10 bucks' combat heavy, party-based dungeon crawler set in the AoD world (fight your way out of a prison mine) to boost sales. We put together the combat demo with 15 fights in about 4 months. We should be able to do the 'prison crawler' in 8-10 months, while prototyping the spaceship game's systems, art/style, and possibly switching to Unreal 4 (something our programmer is very keen on exploring).

We'll aim (for what little it's worth) to do the spaceship game in 3-4 years (roughly what it took us to do 19 locations after we released the first fully playable demo).


I'll get a copy for my stingy cousin and a mate, on Thursday. Lot of my friends are really turned off EA games but are keen on finished games.

Imo Steam has really turned a lot of people off their "catalogue" with the free-for-all to publish any old shit. Used to be some sort of gatekeeper/inherint (minimum) quality in the titles. Too much greenlight shovelware/abandoned games has soured expectations. Anyway, I hope it sells well.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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I wish you the best of luck!
Thanks.

The main reason for this is that AoD plays strongly upon the one thing video games as a medium have over any other medium, that of course being interactivity and reactivity in storytelling(C&C basically)...
That's exactly how I see it. RPGs (and video games in general) can do what books and movies can't, yet more often than not game developers are trying to mimic movies. For me it's a new medium with barely explored (and often barely understood) dimensions. At very least, that's what I want to explore.
 
Self-Ejected

Lurker King

Self-Ejected
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That's exactly how I see it. RPGs (and video games in general) can do what books and movies can't, yet more often than not game developers are trying to mimic movies.

Triple-A games are becoming walkies, i.e., they are pseudo-games for pseudo-players.
 

Goral

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I wish you the best of luck!(...) Overall I think that AoD has the potential to have the same, if not bigger, sort of impact on young consumers who have discovered a love for the genre as Fallout has had on all the people who have been posting on this forum for 10 years or more.
I'm afraid that it will be extremely difficult. I've been trying to advertise this title in Polish community for years now (ever since I've played the Teron demo) but most of them were very sceptical about it from the very start. And if someone would even try the demo they didn't like the controls/steering/camera/graphics or they were too stupid to even pass the first fight. Some of them didn't even know how to extract the demo in 7zip format that someone has uploaded to Mediafire. These young consumers are too used to games that hold their hands and when they're suddenly required to use their brains they get irritated, delete the demo and launch Skyrim where they can play on autopilot like some hentai VN game.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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Pretty much. AoD is a very niche game and it will never be a strong seller (even for non-mainstream RPGs). Look at Kenshi, for example: 1400+ reviews vs our 205.

Thus, the only question here is 'how bad?'
 
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Lurker King

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Pretty much. AoD is a very niche game and it will never be a strong seller (even for non-mainstream RPGs). Look at Kenshi, for example: 1400+ reviews vs our 205.

My guess is that the main repellent is not its difficulty, since challenging games such as Dark Souls and Neo Scavenger have been well received. The problem lies in its complexity. Most games are child’s play in comparison with AoD and most players are lazy. But you never know what will happen. I bet you did not expect to achieve more than 12 thousand sales in early access. We will see.
 

bat_boro

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Nov 22, 2006
Messages
1,531
I thought RPS was into the game? And I think all you need for an indie title is for sites like RPS and some youtube personalities (as well as having a good game) to be in your corner and you are all set?
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
The main reason for this is that AoD plays strongly upon the one thing video games as a medium have over any other medium, that of course being interactivity and reactivity in storytelling(C&C basically)

This is why I love what I've seen of AoD so far. It is like ITS have made a game just for me. When looking at the conversations, the skill checks, the different paths etc it makes me think this is the game Obsidian would make if they didn't care about sales at all.
 

hivemind

Guest
From what I remember about it I feel like alpha protocol was a step in the right direction.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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I thought RPS was into the game? And I think all you need for an indie title is for sites like RPS and some youtube personalities (as well as having a good game) to be in your corner and you are all set?
Our game isn't youtube-friendly. As for RPS, they can generate a lot of awareness but being aware of AoD won't make people interested in a text-heavy, hardcore RPG all of a sudden. If you have a casual game with mass appeal, this awareness is pure gold, quite literally.
 
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Lurker King

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This is why I love what I've seen of AoD so far. It is like ITS have made a game just for me. When looking at the conversations, the skill checks, the different paths etc it makes me think this is the game Obsidian would make if they didn't care about sales at all.

I don’t know, man. I don’t think they are just worried about sales numbers. Do you remember Avellone interview with VD? He said that Planescape is not that great, that is too heavy on text, that he wanted to experiment more with facial expressions rather than text, etc. That’s a lot of embarrassing things to say, especially from someone that is almost praised as Shakespeare in cRPGs. And I’m not even considering some of the superficial games he praised in other interviews such as Walking Dead and his later work, from KOTOR 2 to W2.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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I don’t think they are just worried about sales numbers.
A few years ago Obsidian disclosed that they burn rate was a million bucks a month. When it takes this kind of money to keep you afloat, you HAVE to worry about sales numbers all the fucking time.

As for what Avellone said, it can interpreted in different ways. For example, Troika did a fantastic job with facial expressions and voices in Bloodlines. Too much text - stating the obvious. A small company like ITS can afford to say 'fuck it, we like text' or 'there is only difficulty level - hard, don't like it, go play something else'. A large company has to compromise and do whatever it takes to attract more people in order to avoid layoffs.
 

Kos_Koa

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
Joined
Feb 12, 2006
Messages
315
Pretty much. AoD is a very niche game and it will never be a strong seller (even for non-mainstream RPGs). Look at Kenshi, for example: 1400+ reviews vs our 205.

My guess is that the main repellent is not its difficulty, since challenging games such as Dark Souls and Neo Scavenger have been well received. The problem lies in its complexity. Most games are child’s play in comparison with AoD and most players are lazy. But you never know what will happen. I bet you did not expect to achieve more than 12 thousand sales in early access. We will see.

I often wonder why AoD doesn't appeal to more people (as a fan for these types of games, not as a developer), since compared to other games, it is not that different, especially once you break it down to its specific qualities.

Turn-based
Used to be a bad word to most people, but with the resurgence of RPG's, it has become more popular. Even though a majority of players may prefer real-time (or rtwp for some reason), I can't see turn-based being a turn off for players anymore. If the new XCOM can be a success, it tells me that turn-based is not that big of a deterrent to players.

Text Heavy
Pretty much removes the Minecraft kids from buying AoD, but adults are still a majority of the gaming market. I've seen plenty of popular text heavy genres (RPG, JRPG, Strategy, MMO, Adventure, etc.) Based on a general feeling, I think I read just as much when playing a game like Civilization as I do in AoD. Again, it's hard to tell, but I enjoy reading, so maybe my scales are off. That Civilopedia sure has a lot of text, right?

Difficult
Again many games are just as difficult as AoD, especially with the new survival genre that emerged, people are more eager to die in games than ever. Dark Souls, Spelunky, The Binding of Issac, Neo Scavenger, etc. If players hate dying so much, these games wouldn't even exist.

Roman-Themed
I can imagine many people may be turned off thinking that AoD might be some boring historical-based game, but there are enough people out there that enjoy (or tolerate) the Roman themed setting to some degree, considering the popularity of games like Rome: Total War and Ryse: Son of Rome. I'm not saying that people like these games because of the Roman setting, but that they aren't turned off by it.

Complex
This one is subjective, since AoD doesn't come across as complex to me, especially when you compare it to the likes of Dwarf Fortress or Crusader Kings 2, which are both very popular and are known to be very difficult for beginners. For example, when I watch videos of people playing Path of Exile, I barely know what the hell is going on half the time. Some item stats are like paragraphs (not the lore bits, the actual stats). AoD is like "babies first RPG" in comparison.


So each of these aspects have exceptions (but maybe adding them all up into one game is the problem). Regardless, AoD is like my dream game. Turn-based, challenging, developed world, factions, choices and consequences, etc. As a player I'm already in heaven, and as a developer, I'd love to continue making these types of games. Like VD said earlier in this thread, "RPGs (and video games in general) can do what books and movies can't, yet more often than not game developers are trying to mimic movies. For me it's a new medium with barely explored (and often barely understood) dimensions. At the very least, that's what I want to explore."
 
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Lurker King

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VD, did you manage to schedule more interviews with game sites? They would certainly increase your sales until the release.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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VD, did you manage to schedule more interviews with game sites? They would certainly increase your sales until the release.
No. At the moment the interest in the game is very low (partly because there isn't much to ask or write about) and I'm busy with Ganezzar. As someone who interviewed a lot of developers, I wouldn't know what to ask a developer who's slowly wrapping things up. If someone wants to introduce the game to their readers, the best and easiest way is to write a preview or quick impressions.

Such things are usually the hardest to get because there is no shortage of more exciting games to preview and write about.

So far the plan is:

- release Ganezzar; we hoped to do it by mid-March, but it looks like mid-April is a more realistic date

- use another 'visibility' round, see what happens (it's a Steam thing, you get 5 'rounds' to boost visibility, each round gives you 500,000 views and depending on how awesome your game is, you get a certain number of clicks - we got 0.6% the first time we used it, then 0.4%, then 0.3% (roughly 3,000, 2,300, and 1,600 clicks) translating into a few hundred copies sold; if I have to guess our conversion rate from click to buy is about 6-8%). We used our logo in the past as the capsule (i.e. that's what you see when the game is featured somewhere), which was kinda dumb but that's all we had. Now our artist is working on a new capsule, which would increase the view to click ratio, hopefully.

- when the content is done and we're polishing (i.e. a month or two from the release), hire a good agency. In this industry you need connections (just to get someone to play your game and write a few words about it) and we don't have any.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
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PS. If anyone knows people running Steam curator lists, we'd appreciate if you ask them to consider recommending AoD. It doesn't have a huge impact but everything adds up.

At the moment we're on the following lists:

RPG Codex
RPG Watch
Anime 1.0 (no idea how it happened or why)
Choices & Consequences
Erik Kain
Indie RPGs
Riot Pixels
Quei Due Sul Server
Nivel Oculto
Aldorlea Games
Legend of Eisenwald (true bros)
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I think the following things limit AoD's appeal or at least first impression.

A relatively unpolished presentation. It's not terrible, but you compare it to the beautiful D:OS, and well it looks lacking.

The difficulty is in understanding the systems more than player sill. Dark Souls is hard, but a player can overcome not understanding the character system with good twitch skills. You can't overcome not understanding the AoD character system. Other games like BG2, Fallout, etc you can overcome lack of understanding character system with grinding.

A sudden influx of isometric-style RPGs. 2 years ago it would have been competing with crap like the Book of Eschalon, whatever Vogel's latest game was and even worse crap like Wintervoices. Now you have D:OS, WL2, upcoming PoE, Underrail, and others. It's just a more crowded market.

There is no tutorial area or learning zone. Most of the starting vignettes throw the player right into the deep end with a high lethality rate. Dark Souls has a tutorial area. The Fallouts have tutorial areas. WL2 has like 3 tutorial areas in a row (one of the things that annoys me about the game). I think if people could at least feel like they were understanding what was going on before the proverbial hammer drops on them, I think it would get a more positive impression.

Still, you have about the same number of reviews as Underrail, and attracted a more dedicated troll than Underrail's "you stole Fallout assets" guy. So you have that going for you.
 
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Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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I feel that Underrail is in the same boat as us. Like AoD, Underrail requires dedication, willingness to invest time to understand the systems, and - most importantly - you have to be a part of a very exclusive cub that needs this kind of games. If you don't care what to play, AoD or Underrail would never make your list. That's what limits the appeal.

I don't think that the sudden influx is the problem. Again, you don't play games like AoD or Underrail simply because they are isometric. You play them because they offer you something that WL2, D:OS, and PoE don't (I backed all 3 games, mind you).

Mind you, I'm not complaining. I knew it from day one and I'm pretty sure that Styg knew that too.

Now, tell me about the troll and the great theft of the Fallout assets.
 
Unwanted
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woah i Never heard of this game3 ... sounds interesting!! Ha`!

Looks like i've got a lot of reading to do........... has it been delayed much already?
 

Goral

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I feel that Underrail is in the same boat as us. Like AoD, Underrail requires dedication, willingness to invest time to understand the systems, and - most importantly - you have to be a part of a very exclusive cub that needs this kind of games. If you don't care what to play, AoD or Underrail would never make your list. That's what limits the appeal. (...)
I suggest that you would join forces with Styg and possibly someone else and make AMA on reddit. That way both games would get a similar exposure (even if there would be more questions for Styg) and you would have higher chances of receiving enough upvotes to become visible.
Assuming of course he/they would be willing to do it with you.
 
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Lurker King

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I think that posting about AoD in other steam communities would help increase the awareness about the game. I would do it myself if I were skilled with promotions, but I'm not.
 

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