Development Info Age of Decadence November update

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Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower; Vault Dweller

<p>Vince of <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/">Iron Tower Studio</a> offers the next monthly <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2311.0.html">update</a> on the development of Age of Decadence. The update is the following:</p>
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Long story short: we're still testing, we released build #6 a few days ago, working on the 7th. The beta test is going well. We've slowly increased the number of testers to 12 and got a lot of great feedback and suggestions. The game is getting better and more stable, but we're not *there* yet, unfortunately.</p>
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<p>But then Vince continues with a lengthy post about game design, a topic I'm sure our enlightened readers will feel qualified to comment on. To get you started:</p>
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">When we started working on the game, there was a number of "traditional" elements I wanted to eliminate to, um, "streamline" the gameplay:<br /><br />- mindless running across maps and locations. You know, the typical "fedex" quests or "now run all the way back and tell the questgiver that you finished the quest!" It adds nothing to gameplay and just wastes your time. <br /><br />- mindless sidequests. You run around and talk to NPCs with silly problems. <br /><br />(...)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />- mindless looting. "Hey, a barrel! I wonder what's inside. A magic sword?!! Wow! Hey, another barrel..."<br /><br />So, we've eliminated all 3 and focused instead of developing interwoven questlines with different options and outcomes. The outcome? There is no need to explore the towns, 'cause there isn't much to do outside the faction quests. If you want to walk around looking for spontaneous stuff to do, you're in the wrong game. <br /><br />In other words, only when we skipped the mindless stuff, did we realize what it was there for. Take Fallout 2, for example. Even though it was inferior to the first game (that's just, like, my opinion, man), it was a well-rounded game with a lot of content. Sure, some quests were silly but when mixed with the good stuff, they didn't seem to bug me that much.</p>
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<p>The <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2311.0.html">post</a> continues with a description of what was added to the game in order to fllesh out the towns.</p>
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<p>Thanks, L<strong>ibertyRansom</strong>!</p>

AoD confirmed for not having phat lewt, preorder cancelled.

Best gaem evar! GOTY!

ffs why don't they just delete the whole game and make a string of interwoven questlines instead.

There are now 3 AoD November update threads -- AoD holding its own vs Skyrim. GOTY 2014 for sure

Is it too unmajestic to release the game on 12/12/12?

Better preemptively create the fourth one!

@Derper: I'd prefer 03/06/12.

So there's nothing to do outside of the main quest lines, no exploration, no loot. Nice. Streamlined to the max. Next gen. Guaranteed success.

Reading comprehension fail. Vince was talking about how their initial design concept was wrong and how they realized their mistake during development, he wasn't saying that the final game will look like this.

Its a piece of self-criticism, not a claim that their game will be the best evah because it has no sidequests and exploring. He goes on to describe how they added mini-quests and events to the towns in order to make exploring them rewarding and worthwile.

Mini quests and all is nice. But make them contingent on things, like the stage of the game, abilities etc. Outdo fallout 2!

That's not Thursday.

First they came for side quests. Then they came for exploration. When they came for loot, there was no RPGs left for solace. Appreciate Bethesda despite all the evil they've done, folks, as they are truly the only company left spearheading CRPGs.

I like the direction they are going with side quests, making them more involved and related to the character skills.

Actually for once it does fail, and I really don't know what to make of this update.

Did you guys just read the news post? Try clicking those little white underlined words.

I tried the combat demo a long time ago and some fights were heavily based on rng and reloading, is that still true?

Change your tactics/weapon/armor/use nets. If you're brute forcing it through reloads, you're not doing it correctly, there were people who were consistently completing the demo before a save function was even in.

I'm not the one to brute force, the final arena fight was a bit retarded.

I tried everything and in the end the only thing that worked was using a 2h weapon and aiming for the leader's head, hoping it works on the first try.

I think the final arena fight was just against one guy?

If you're talking about the inn fight, that's intentionally supposed to be as difficult as possible.

It was against one mean guy with two guards, the mean guy with a two handed mace would pretty much kill you in one blow and there was no opportunity to initiate ranged combat.

I found the inn fight easier.

I read it. I guess I should not say I don't understand at all, more like I don't know how to feel about this.

Personally I don't mind having random barrels of crap. I understand how some people hate that but in general any detail you can add is going to be better than having nothing.

If every single thing is interrelated to the main quest then I don't think that will turn out so good, but I am not sure if that's what they are saying. Ultima 7 is what I think of here. In a way you could say nothing is related to the main quest. It's all side quests and flavor, and that's what makes the whole game so great. On the other hand you could say they are all related to the main quest because you do have to do all this unrelated stuff.

So how do they see it? I guess when the game comes out it will be more clear, but like someone else said I'm not sure that quest design will make an RPG good, though it can certainly make it bad.

Are they making a game or a documentary?

For awhile I thought my prediction about AoD never being released was just poor judgement on my part. Now I think it's getting closer and closer to coming true, I almost hope it gets cancelled for the drama.

Projects don't fail because the guy can't think of 5 more quests to put in. The fail when guy implodes while coding the gameplay framework, well before having any chance to plug any real content into it.

AoD's existing and clearly functional framework makes it obvious that there's nothing stopping it from release. If it was going to run into a wall, it would've done so WELL BEFORE the combat demo became reality.

You mean like having tools in a state where someone privileged to use the same source code puts out a help wanted ad with a long laundry list of stuff that needs to be done. Or recently redesigning GUI yet again, then revealing what they are showing off are mockups?

The basic game stuff is important but on top of that there's potentially years of work to do just with writing. Not counting adding in every NPC and painstakingly making sure each dialog works, which is a time consuming process even if you have easy to use tailor made tools.

Once all that coding is done it's like making a mod, and yet how many big mods drag on years and years and years?

But I still think it will get done some day as long as they don't let features/changes creep too much and nothing disastrous happens.

Internal tools are internal for a reason. They're intuitive to people who made them, but to a third party they could as well be written in Hindu.

Most mods do not actually use tools written (and upgradeable) by the modder himself. So there's a lot of guessing and experimentation involved, both mod- and engine-wise, which is a time-waster as far as getting "things to perform as intended" goes.