Development Info MCA was checking out Age of Decadence

[Grimlorn]

Cool info. I also thought the game loaded too quickly to read the text. A lot of games do this I think. Perhaps a "push key to continue" when the loading finished would work? Not sure how difficult this would be to do, and whether or not people would be annoyed by it or not. I usually like reading these little snippets on the world/game but after you've read all of them once you don't need to read them again.

 

[hiver]

Vault Dweller Ubersturmfuhrer

wait.... UBERSTRUMPHFUHRER?

oh, nevermind...

- not clear that you need to talk to the innkeeper - agree; I prefer the old way of starting in the dialogue mode.

Doesnt he call out to the player in the latest demo?
The text is shown in the text box too.

- didn't realize that you need to equip a weapon to attack the thugs - h you!:

May be a bug. I wrote about it. Happened to me when i had two different weapons. My spear and a khanjar from the assassinated assassin.

- the loading text IS too dense; never liked the way it came out but didn't have time to change it

A suggestion for quick solution.

Cut the text in half, show the first half only and put the other half in the next screen... whatever that is.
Invent a new one if necessary, or use another city illustration.

- teleporting is confusing - 50/50 with a chance of growing on you

hehehe... i think its just that the option its not presented in the best way to the player.
I suggested using at least "ill walk there" as an dialogue option to refuse the teleportation.
It would make things clearer.

- extra suggestion-
Would it be possible to implement "inspect" feature like Fallouts had?
It would reduce confusions about places, chests, doors and characters tenfold.

 

[hiver]

Nothing strange that MCA liked the writing, i told you that the writing is good years ago.

Its just that some people dont get the difference between good strong writing and intellectual verbose vomit wankery, most of the time.

 

[Wild Slop]

The denseness of the loading screen is made up by the fact that you'll see a lot of it, usually while seething with anger.

 

[Metro]

VD hired to work on Wasteland 2!

 

[hiver]

Wasteland 2 Too hard! cry the disappointed kickstarter funders!

 

[kaizoku]

-teleporting is confusing - 50/50 with a chance of growing on you

hehehe... i think its just that the option its not presented in the best way to the player.
I suggested using at least "ill walk there" as an dialogue option to refuse the teleportation.
It would make things clearer.

I haven't tried the demo yet, so I'm not sure how the auto-teleport works. But you could make it optional by having something like this:

- Don't worry Carrinas. I'll take care of it. [travel immediately to location]
- Don't worry Carrinas. I'll take care of it.

It's up to you if you want to copy-paste the dialog or not, but it could save some work time.

 

[Malpercio]

I thought the writing was pretty boring.
But then again, getting teleported around and the dead environment completely killed the game for me, maybe it gets better later! Maybe not.

 

[Grimlorn]

The writing is at times long-winded but never in a pretentious manner. I thought it was very good.

Agree, I liked it personally and think it's better than most RPGs out there, but that's not saying much I suppose.

 

[Drowed]

- The jumping back and forth to NPC to NPC is alternately helpful and alternately confusing - helpful in that it would be hard to find them again, and confusing in that the "jumps" tend to break the flow rather than help it.

One thing that I was thinking is that maybe this feeling would be smaller if there was a small animation (if it's long it would be tedious) at the end of a conversation an in the beginning of the next one, instead of the way it is now.

Elaborating a bit. A character talks with NPC. The conversation ends. Close the dialog screen. Character turns around, do 1-2 steps (with the screen centered in it). Fade out while it's is moving. Fade In, with the character approaching the next guy. 1-2 steps (with the screen centered moving it), it stops. Dialog window opens. All that in about 3 seconds, maybe 4.

I don't know how much difference it would make. I don't know how hard it would be to implement it, or if even as a quick animation it would be tiring. But it sounds plausible, and I think that would smooth the transition a bit.

 

[kazgar]

- The jumping back and forth to NPC to NPC is alternately helpful and alternately confusing - helpful in that it would be hard to find them again, and confusing in that the "jumps" tend to break the flow rather than help it.

One thing that I was thinking is that maybe this feeling would be smaller if there was a small animation (if it's long it would be tedious) at the end of a conversation an in the beginning of the next one, instead of the way it is now.

Elaborating a bit. A character talks with NPC. The conversation ends. Close the dialog screen. Character turns around, do 1-2 steps (with the screen centered in it). Fade out while it's is moving. Fade In, with the character approaching the next guy. 1-2 steps (with the screen centered moving it), it stops. Dialog window opens. All that in about 3 seconds, maybe 4.

I don't know how much difference it would make. I don't know how hard it would be to implement it, or if even as a quick animation it would be tiring. But it sounds plausible, and I think that would smooth the transition a bit.

Sounds good, implies that "you're heading to the next person/event" and makes it look more like a travel shortcut/movie edit then a magical teleport.

so good i'm going to try to tag Vault Dweller so he can read it

 

[Marquess Cornwallis]

An Indiana Jones style solution with a line (moving icon, etc.) that shows your journey on the overhead map might work, too, especially since it has the added bonus of putting places in context for the player, allows them to make better sense of the world and possibly even adds some atmosphere, if done well (this I thought was one of the major drawbacks of the teleport system: you can end up in a situation where you have nominally visited several places but have no idea where they actually are and how to get there once you are thrust into the 3D gameworld.) It would be of course necessary to provide the possibility to turn the animation off for those who no longer need (or want) this sort of guidance.

 

[kazgar]

An Indiana Jones style solution with a line (moving icon, etc.) that shows your journey on the overhead map might work, too, especially since it has the added bonus of putting places in context for the player, allows them to make better sense of the world and possibly even adds some atmosphere, if done well (this I thought was one of the major drawbacks of the teleport system: you can end up in a situation where you have nominally visited several places but have no idea where they actually are and how to get there once you are thrust into the 3D gameworld.) It would be of course necessary to provide the possibility to turn the animation off for those who no longer need (or want) this sort of guidance.

Even without the line, just switch to overhead map with pin, move pin to new location, switch from overhead map back to game map, shows the journey without showing the journey. (and could hide loading screens)

 

[hiver]

kaizoku

yeah, i guess -travel immediately to location- could be used too.
how about both your suggestion and mine ?

 

[RK47]

- The jumping back and forth to NPC to NPC is alternately helpful and alternately confusing - helpful in that it would be hard to find them again, and confusing in that the "jumps" tend to break the flow rather than help it.

One thing that I was thinking is that maybe this feeling would be smaller if there was a small animation (if it's long it would be tedious) at the end of a conversation an in the beginning of the next one, instead of the way it is now.

Elaborating a bit. A character talks with NPC. The conversation ends. Close the dialog screen. Character turns around, do 1-2 steps (with the screen centered in it). Fade out while it's is moving. Fade In, with the character approaching the next guy. 1-2 steps (with the screen centered moving it), it stops. Dialog window opens. All that in about 3 seconds, maybe 4.

I don't know how much difference it would make. I don't know how hard it would be to implement it, or if even as a quick animation it would be tiring. But it sounds plausible, and I think that would smooth the transition a bit.

This is a dumb solution that doesn't make a single lick of difference.

 

[EG]

All these proposed solutions to a problem that never would have occurred if he just let us walk around . . . Truly, VD, you are an obese man that hates the physical exertion of walking to complete your goals!

 

[Captain Shrek]

Loved the writing.

Nice, quotes for the next video.

Or perhaps "Died in the first merchant ambush. - MCA" would make more sense....

 

[Drowed]

This is a dumb solution that doesn't make a single lick of difference.

I would say quite the contrary, these are the things that make all the difference. I cannot even comment upon what you said or would end up making a straw man, since you just didn't say anything but "bad, ugly, stupid, me do not like, grr". Eloquently put, my good sir, but care to elaborate?

Unlike the gameplay, where "superficial" effects just make you waste your time (Click five times instead of one! Wow so deep.), small animations and transitions during a game causes a feeling of a much better, more natural, seamless transitions. The fewer things implied in a game, the better.

 

[RK47]

You know what that reminds me of? Neverwinter Nights (special thanks to Sturm Und Dong, whoever he is). Where cheap modders simply create a ready cutscene for a player to enter and exit. So the player would complete a cutscene segment with 3-4 actors and finish it. Then he'll step back. Screen fades to black, loading screen, he arrives at another cutscene..etc. It's just jarring. How much time has passed? You don't know. How far have you traveled to get there? You don't know. That's why the game returns you the same way it sent you: teleport. Because you simply don't know how to get back unless you activate your magic map.

 

[Johannes]

Add a "teleporting during quests" checkbox to the options. Default OFF.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's not that simple.

 

[Johannes]

Some of you might be aware that Chris Avellone was checking out The Age of Decadence recently, according to his Twitter. So we've asked him for his impressions because I found it interesting what kind of impressions a guy like MCA would have of the game. Unfortunately MCA had already sent a few emails filled with his professional dev feedback to Vince D. Weller. Lucky for us, Vault Dweller decided to share MCA's feedback with the rest of us peasants.

Wait a second, it's not really for VD to decide whether it's shared or not, but Avellones call. Probably you have is blessing too, sure, but you should mention it.

 

[felipepepe]

I think that the teleporting works perfectly in the game, especially since it's a game meant to be replayed countless times.... Just as the skills checks and combat, you'll get a bit lost the first time, but once you get used to the game you'll be damn happy that teleport is there....

 

[EG]

You did it now, Vince. You've flaunted Avallon's trust and bruised the reputation of this prestiguous community.

 

[Johannes]

I think that the teleporting works perfectly in the game, especially since it's a game meant to be replayed countless times.... Just as the skills checks and combat, you'll get a bit lost the first time, but once you get used to the game you'll be damn happy that teleport is there....

It's a game meant to be reloaded countless times at least, with that the speed over atmoshpere approach goes hand in hand, but if it's actually a good thing is another matter...