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Incline This game is so good it destroys the RPG genre and itself.

Blackmill

Scholar
Joined
Dec 25, 2014
Messages
326
A bit off topic, but does any one know if there will be a "take power for yourself" type ending?
Yes if you found the surgical kit and know what to do with it. That's the only way considering that you're a nobody.

Also, are most persuasion/streetwise playthroughs just three or four hours? I can appreciate the replayability but I'd rather a single long playthrough than multiple different and short ones.
This game is the exact opposite. It meant to be replayed at least 2-3 times (if not 4-5) so you get multiple shorter but different playthrough rather than a single long one. There are over 100 quests in the game but you won't see more than 20-30 in the course of one game.

I pretty much stuck to the Commercium's main quest and ended up visiting just four or five places. I didn't find many side quest opportunities but from what you said I'm guessing I missed quite a bit. It was my first playthrough after all. That said, the game's still awesome.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
I pretty much stuck to the Commercium's main quest and ended up visiting just four or five places. I didn't find many side quest opportunities but from what you said I'm guessing I missed quite a bit. It was my first playthrough after all. That said, the game's still awesome.
Thanks!

At the moment, you have access to 19 locations out of 22.

Teron
The raiders' camp (sent by Dellar)
The mining outpost (sent by Dellar)
Maadoran
Darius' tomb (sent by Gaelius if you leave Teron early and switch sides)
The Abyss (accessible via the Slums)
The mountain pass (given by Gaelius or the Imperial Guards)
The Ordu camp (accessible from the pass)
Red Gracchus' camp (you need a referral to Kemnebi, either from Graccius or Basil)
Tower of Zamedi (usually sent by Gaelius after the Ordu camp, alternatively by obtaining the key if Gaelius is killed)
Library of Saross (sent by Abukar)
The Arch site (
The monastery (sent by the healer in Maadoran)
Inferiae (either sent by Abukar or the Oracle or discovered elsewhere)
Aemolas' village (sent by Aemolas if you pay his entrance levy in Teron and have a positive word of honor rep)
Caer-Tor (the Imperial Guards' headquarters)
Ganezzar
Ruins of Al-Akia
Hangar

Things to do/people to talk to in Teron (other than the faction questlines):

- talk to Feng about the map
- deal with Cassius
- talk to Thessalos (if loremaster, it unlocks another conversation with Feng)
- the pickpocket gang
- the thief in the shanty town
- infiltration of the Daratan compound
- the refugees
- the preacher
- the smith house
- get the promissory note from Kaeso's house
- steal the goblet for Cado
- Miltiades' ambush and all that follows
- Camilla (steal or con her out of her jewels)
- the cellar in the tower (there is a hidden artefact there)
- the undertaker and buried things at the cemetery
- the storyteller
- the thugs

Things to do/people to talk to in Maadoran (other than the faction questlines):

- Kemnebi (quest 'Down on luck')
- Basil and Quintus (quest 'Problem solving')
- Abukar the Mad (loremaster, quest requires a location that's not in the demo)
- Healer (quest requires a location that's not in the demo)
- Erebus (Gaelius' loremaster; praetors only)
- Iola (the healing machine)
- Youth (quest 'The package')
- Miltiades (continues quest 'Fool me twice...')
- Amerius (quest 'The rightful owner')
- Praetor investigating Senna's murder (should you kill lord Senna in the first place)
- Domitius (continues quest 'The map')
- The crowd near one of the houses in the Arena district
- A man selling fake badges
- The local guide
- An old man near the Abyss
- various encounters in the Slums
- the storyteller
- thugs near the gate
- the gem quest (talk to the man in the carpet store)
- the sewers (talk to the man near a well in the Slums)
- the arena fights.

Things to do/people to talk to in Ganezzar (other than the faction questlines):

  • Ganezzar’s Faction questlines (HD, HA, HC, MG, AG, TG, IG)
  • Maadoran is destroyed scenario
  • House Aurelian is destroyed scenario
Ganezzar’s side quests and situations
  • Plague (unlocks Dead River)
  • Elias (unlocks 2 questlines)
  • Trader’s blackmail
  • Power armor quest
  • Zealots when you enter the city
  • If Arena champion – the fort
  • Hector’s quests
  • Darganus' quests
Ganezzar’s NPCs to talk to:
  • Philosopher
  • Preacher
  • Cartographer (quest-related)
  • Nobleman
  • MG clerk
  • Guard at the stairs
  • Local guide
  • Zealot near the pillar of skulls
  • Refugee
  • Mercenary
  • Annalist
  • Feng
  • The Second Acolyte
  • Zealot in the tavern
  • Amulet trader
Al-Akia
  • The ritual (need Meru)
  • First of the Magi’s Log
  • Administrator’s Log
  • Qantari Sword
  • Aegis (artefact)
Hangar:
  • Ship: need the jellyfish artefact and either the mantra or high Lore to pilot
  • Gunner’s log
  • Captain’s log
  • Ghost Hand (artefact, in case you couldn't get one at the pass
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Guest
I've played the living shit out of the demo and I can wait for the full game, but accessing 19 locations sounds like a large bait to get the game right now.
 

AetherVagrant

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
519
yeah i took the bait and already started a new game at least 8 times today just to see how the starting quests play out differently. the level of branching complexity is insane in this game, and will take some getting used to committing to a path and not constantly reloading for fear of missing storyfagpoints.
 

epeli

Arcane
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
719
It'll never be released though, so who cares?
You seem to have missed the Grimoire thread by a few forums. Here, let me help you: Vapourware - Grimoire™ - 4 microissues remaining - DEMO LINK IN OP - coming to Steam Greenlight next Friday

This is not the topic of the thread, but... VD, the thought of using Stgy’s engine in your next game (if there is a next game) ever crossed your mind?
You know, Ouroboros engine works so well for Underrail because it is designed for Underrail from scratch. Wouldn't be much of an advantage for other games. If you aren't going to program your own engine and devtools, it's best to go with a good general-purpose game engine such as Unreal Engine (and avoid Unity like plague.)

Besides, AoD originally had a 2D engine but moved away from it due to technical limitations.... limitations which also exist in Underrail's engine.
 

AetherVagrant

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
519
So epeli what youre saying is that if we just convince more devs that Ouroboros and AoD's engines are amazeballz l33ttoolz then we can get more isometric postapocalyptic goodness with systems so ready to implement theyd have to be retardo not to?
of course what we'd probably get is Underchapel and Age of Diablo, but even those id give a spin.
 

epeli

Arcane
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
719
I'm just saying that any future Iron Tower Studios game wouldn't benefit from switching to Underrail's engine. Though Ouroboros is modular and probably could house AoD's RPG systems, it's not a general purpose game engine with polished devtools and good (or any) support.

Torque is fine for AoD good for what it is and VD's comment about moving into UE4 sounds very promising. ITS will avoid a lot of headaches by not choosing the all-too-common coding horror known as Unity. Sane licensing model with free source code access should make UE4 the obvious choice over Unity for anyone who's not developing mobile crap.


On the topic of 2D vs 3D...
I love tile-based 2D environments and isometric viewpoint, but 2D is not a magic bullet that automatically makes everything better. Depends on what your artists do best. And when it comes to characters and animations, 3D is a better solution. So the modern compromise is to go all 3D and ignore the good parts of 2D.

Would be interesting to see a 3D RPG with isometric projection. Seriously why hasn't anyone done this?! It's definitely not a technical impossibility, you could even have a 3D engine where you can choose between axonometric ("2D") or perspective ("3D") projection at any time. Diablo 2 did it the other way - it had faux-perspective projection on a 2D game, but I don't recall playing any 3D pseudo-isometric games with actual isometric projection.
 

Ayreos

Augur
Joined
Feb 20, 2015
Messages
109
While i agree Unity is pure coding horror, in practical terms all it means is that you have to deal with Unity-trained programmers, or invest 1-3 months into figuring out its nonsensical design choices yourself (like i did...) What many people do not seem to understand is that as a small time developer, Unity is free for me, but with Unreal i have no hope of ever breaking even unless i take a serious gamble. Just because Unreal is "free to use" doesn't mean it's free to release. Out of a "successful" small game release, totalling say, 200K $, its royalty model is based on GROSS income, and the price of UE will be 10K to the developer, who otherwise perhaps barely made that same amount in NET income for god knows how long a development time. The same developer releasing with Unity will release for FREE, only having to purchase a Unity license for future games, totaling around 1.5K.
For games below the AAA thresold UE is hardly the best choice, since Unity can do everything UE can with some time investment that might very well be trivial for someone with professional game programming experience.

And regardless engines and 2D versus 3D, i'm still eagerly awaiting for AoD's IMMINENT release. It will be the first RPG i purchase proudly since.... Morrowind? Also awaiting the unavoidable sequel, guys!
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
I don't really see it as a gamble. It does cost you 5% of gross revenues whereas Unity is free, BUT you can make a game with better visuals which does increase sales. So hypothetically let's say your Unity game sells 10k copies at $20, whereas your Unreal game sells 15k copies. With Unity you get $200k *0.7 = $140k. With Unreal you get $300k*0.7*0.95 = $199.5k. Alternatively, let's say you can sell 50k copies with Unity and 60k copies with Unreal; 1mil *0.7 = 700k; 1.2mil *0.7*0.95 = 798k.

Basically, Unreal offers more but charges 5% of the gross income (which makes sense otherwise the developers will simply inflate the expenses and throw everything they can think of in there and a lot of time will be wasted arguing which expenses are legit and which aren't). It doesn't include Steam's or payment processors' cut. If you think that you can take advantage of what Unreal offers (for the record, I'm not sure that we can do that yet), go for it. If not, cheaper is definitely better (Torque or Unity).
 

epeli

Arcane
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
719
Unity can do everything UE can with some time investment that might very well be trivial for someone with professional game programming experience.
Yeah, no.

If you ever need access to Unity's source code for whatever reason (and you probably will want that at some point), it's going to be either expensive as hell or flat out impossible for small game studios. They don't even provide any standard deals for source code licenses, they decide that shit on a per-case basis. So they either A) ignore you if you're running a small operation or B) if your business is slightly larger with about dozen employees, they will slap you an insane pricetag - like 20 000 € per year. Fuck that noise.
 

PJam

Barely Literate
Joined
Aug 27, 2015
Messages
1
I don't really see it as a gamble. It does cost you 5% of gross revenues whereas Unity is free, BUT you can make a game with better visuals which does increase sales. So hypothetically let's say your Unity game sells 10k copies at $20, whereas your Unreal game sells 15k copies. With Unity you get $200k *0.7 = $140k. With Unreal you get $300k*0.7*0.95 = $199.5k. Alternatively, let's say you can sell 50k copies with Unity and 60k copies with Unreal; 1mil *0.7 = 700k; 1.2mil *0.7*0.95 = 798k.

I think your calculation is wrong. When using Unreal engine you should multiply your revenue by 0.65 (30% steam + 5% Epic for Unreal engine). In your calculation you multiply your revenue by 0.665 (0.7 * 0.95) which is not correct. It is not huge difference, but I think it is important to have correct information here, because Epic takes 5% of total revenue (before steam takes its share). From Epic website FAQ:

If I release a commercial product, what royalties are due to Epic, and when?
Generally, you are obligated to pay to Epic 5% of all gross revenue after the first $3,000 per game or application per calendar quarter, regardless of what company collects the revenue. For example, if your product earns $10 from sales on the App Store, the royalty due is $0.50 (5% of $10), even though you would receive roughly $7 from Apple after they deduct their distribution fee of roughly $3 (30% of $10).

But nevertheless I agree with you, Unreal is currently much better option for new projects than Unity (if mobile market is not your goal).
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
Age of Decadence is good, but I always find myself putting it down in frustration before picking it up for the second time and enjoying the hell out of it.

I also wish it was easier to unlock content on a single play-through. But I feel this will be alleviated as the game nears completion of its story arcs.

:5/5::5/5::5/5::5/5::5/5::5/5::5/5::5/5:
 
Unwanted

The Nameless Pun

Unwanted
Joined
Aug 29, 2015
Messages
224
This thread is shit, really. A guy complaining because the game is too good, what the fuck?! Maybe it's true, our souls are so deeply tainted by the decline that we can't keep our traps shut even when a good game is delivered :negative:
Besides, op is a faggot :happytrollboy:
 

Ayreos

Augur
Joined
Feb 20, 2015
Messages
109
This thread is shit, really. A guy complaining because the game is too good, what the fuck?! Maybe it's true, our souls are so deeply tainted by the decline that we can't keep our traps shut even when a good game is delivered :negative:

Nah, you just can't read. To say it succinctly, the game is so good of an RPG its small flaws become nigh-unforgivable, at least in my eyes. Also, because it is very close to being the climax of cRPGs, it reveals the flaws in cRPGs as a genre, which could be an occasion to improve the entire genre in the future, as a higher degree of player choice than the one seen in AoD is very hard to achieve in a computer game without some major progress in procedural story-generation, or a different focus in cRPGs entirely.

I guess it's not a good topic, after all.
 

AetherVagrant

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
519
It may not have mainstream appeal, but the c&c is unsurpassed.
Ideally Id like to play through a game with similar systems, but stay invested in one character for a full 40-80hrs of similar mechanics.
But considering their limitations in budget and manpower: it's as if someone went back to the roots of pnp fans translating games to computers, and reimagined much of it as it "could have been" rather than relying on the norms developed for our favorite genre over the past decades.

it may never be AAA or listed on IGNs awards, but even if Vince and Co dont end up able to continue their design philosophy into infecting other realms of crpgs, they may very well be extremely influential to another generation of game developers who are influenced by this game, and sharpen the angle of incline in the future.
 
Unwanted

The Nameless Pun

Unwanted
Joined
Aug 29, 2015
Messages
224
Nah, you just can't read. To say it succinctly, the game is so good of an RPG its small flaws become nigh-unforgivable, at least in my eyes. Also, because it is very close to being the climax of cRPGs, it reveals the flaws in cRPGs as a genre, which could be an occasion to improve the entire genre in the future, as a higher degree of player choice than the one seen in AoD is very hard to achieve in a computer game without some major progress in procedural story-generation, or a different focus in cRPGs entirely.

I guess it's not a good topic, after all.
I'm not joking, I didn't get your point at the beginning of the thread. I actually find the things that you said in your last post extremely stimulating on a meta-analysis level, really. Also, you shouldn't use my English problems to mock me :hug:
 

Ayreos

Augur
Joined
Feb 20, 2015
Messages
109
Also, you shouldn't use my English problems to mock me :hug:

My apologies then. I see now my original post could have been more clear.

I am waiting for the game to finally release before playing it extensively, but while the demo alone feels like a massive leap forward, it does ultimately hit the wall of certain genre conventions. I made a thread in the jRPG section which mentions one: the D&D-derived paradigm of creating a character class at the beginning of the game is not optimal for videogames, creating problems like re-rolls and not knowing how exactly each skill and stat chosen will affect the result, creating dissatisfaction with one's choices. More simply, i think starting characters should be blank slates, and grow up in their classes as part of the gameplay.

In the case of AoD, would it not be better to start as a youngster who encounters some mysteries or other existing circumstances, only then deciding to become a lore master apprentice, soldier, explorer, etcetera, as a consequence? Of course that would require a different approach to learning skills and perhaps even the passage of time in games.
 

baturinsky

Arcane
Joined
Apr 21, 2013
Messages
5,526
Location
Russia
Character class is good for replayability. Blank state characters often leads for nearly exact same way of playing each time.
Though, it may be better to move branching into classes a little later than the starting screen, so first time player have tasted the game and can make more conscious choice about it.
 
Self-Ejected

Lurker King

Self-Ejected
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Jan 21, 2015
Messages
1,865,419
Because optimal choice in the same situtaion will be same. And people try to play optimally.

Not if you want to enjoy the reactivity or additional content provided by the different skill and stats. Moreover, AoD doesn’t have a class system, but it has different backgrounds, for instance, if you are not a praetor, you will not see an entire location in the game. The same thing applies to the other backgrounds.
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
Joined
Dec 12, 2002
Messages
29,683
Location
About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Ccpg's have never come close to pnp ones in terms of interactivity or c&c. Frankly, I doubt they ever will. However as a genre on the computer there have been a good number of awesome games. In reality, the crpg is distinctly different from pnp rpg's. Does it matter? It does if you want all your crpg's to be pnp rpg's on your computer. Not if you can abide your crpg being something different altogether.

tl;dr spergers mang.
 

hivemind

Guest
Ccpg's have never come close to pnp ones in terms of interactivity or c&c. Frankly, I doubt they ever will. However as a genre on the computer there have been a good number of awesome games. In reality, the crpg is distinctly different from pnp rpg's. Does it matter? It does if you want all your crpg's to be pnp rpg's on your computer.
100% agree with you.

I think that the basic difference is in what position to each other the narrative and player characters are.

In a pnp rpg the story arises from the characters(unless your gm is retarded). For example if I want to play a gay pirate and my friend wants to play a paladin who is dealing with a crisis of faith and the GM's gf wants to play a cannibal catgirl and the GM wants it to be in a steampunk Russia setting we take these together first and THEN make a fun and interesting story out of them.

But in a crpg it is the exact opposite.

The story and the world are given first and the player makes characters to explore them. To use an AoD example: there are things going on in this post apo Roman world and there is the Merchant's Guild and the Imperial Guards(army) as I play through the Merchant's Guild questline on my first playthrough I discover that it is actually possible to betray the jews and join the army during a highpoint of early narrative and so when I make a new character I create him in such a way so that he is capable of betraying the merchants and then being a useful soldier later on in order to experience the narrative from this perspective and see what happens to the story if one integral part of it is shifted in a different direction. This is interactivity and c&c.

Basically cRPGs are a narrative medium, because that's where their potential strength lies, and NOT a roleplaying medium because in that way they can never match up to playing pretend with friends.


Because optimal choice in the same situtaion will be same. And people try to play optimally.
What if there are many situations tho?
Like if I want to do X then build Y is optimal but if I want to do A then build Y is compete trash and build B is optimal.
 

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