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Preview Let's Play Age of Decadence!

Section8

Cipher
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Tags: Age of Decadence; Iron Tower; Vault Dweller

For those who don't frequent the <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/">Iron Tower forums</a>, or balk at jumping into one of the fifty-odd pages of the <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=149.0">epic Let's Play thread</a>, RPG Watch have an <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=79&ref=0&id=2">article</a> detailing a playthrough of the vignette you'll play if you choose a background profession as an assassin.
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<blockquote>A few months ago we decided to start a "Let's play AoD (The Age of Decadence)" thread. If you aren't familiar with the "let's play game X" idea, here is how it works: someone plays a game, posting screenshots documenting each step of his/her progress and letting the audience make all decisions, from the character system to quests and in-game choices. In my opinion, that's a great way to present a new game, as it's more honest and straightforward. It shows you not what developers want to show you, but what the audience wants to see.</blockquote>
<br>
If it does indeed sound like something you want to see, go and check it out. It's like one of those closed screenings that are all the rage at press events these days, but wide open for all to see.
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<br>
 

TrustNo1

Scholar
Joined
Mar 8, 2006
Messages
174
Section8 said:
It's like one of those closed screenings that are all the rage at press events these days, but wide open for all to see.

Only that the audience is discussing every little detail endlessly, so the thing takes days :!:
 

Ion Flux

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Up way, way past my bedtime.
Project: Eternity
This game just looks so awesome. This is the only thing in production that I'm truly enthusiastic about. A very nice promotional piece too.

This is a guaranteed purchase for me too so I probably won't follow the LP to avoid spoilage.
 

dagorkan

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 13, 2006
Messages
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It's not exactly very long is it? "To be continued", why bother posting half a minute of gameplay and three or four screenshots that aren't of your character sheet?
 

Andhaira

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Can you play a diplomatic assassin? I.e. one who kills with words as well as with steel?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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Actually, you can. First, you must acquire the Rat Whisperer ability. I don't want to ruin the game for other people, so I won't tell you how. Then find and accept all five "kill all rats in mah basement" quests. Whisper to rats and they will form a ruthless ratsassin creature made of thousands of rats. The ratsassin is almost impossible to kill, so you can relax and follow the blood trail your ratsassin leaves.

If you did those quests before and killed even a single rat, you screwed up the game and you will not be able to finish it.
 

Andhaira

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That was just silly and in no way answeredmy question.

What about a diplomat who is brave? WHo stands his gorund instead of running away and fights with words?
 

Serious_Business

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Yes.

"GIMME UR MONEY BITCH"
"I shall stand my ground gentlemen, and fight this brute with words."
"I WILL FUCK U UP"
"Ah, sir, it shall be known to everyone here that I spurn material wealth in my attempts to uphold the good and the virtuous. Indeed such "
"FUCK THAT SHIT, NOW U DIE"
"That is not necessary. Indeed, by comitting to violence you are merely hurting yourself, as you shall know, desire for death always come down to your own."
"OK I KILL MYSELF"
"I amso greta"
 

elander_

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Interesting quest. It reminds me one of those Daggerfall assassins guild quests. It would be even more interesting with a few more options. For example, poison his wine (stealth+alchemy), hide a poisonous snake on his bead (stealth+steal+lockpick), infiltrate his house from the front door as a city guard (disguise), trap his bedroom light with a poisonous needle trap (stealth + traps), plant some crime evidence in his room (stealth+steal) then convince the city guards/tugs/nobles to deal with him (persuasion).
 

TheLostOne

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The reason for the limited variety of options is that this is an opening vignette and must be cohesive from multiple points of view. Anything you do as an assassin must also make sense and be cohesive with advancing the plot of all the other background intros.
 

elander_

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TheLostOne said:
The reason for the limited variety of options is that this is an opening vignette and must be cohesive from multiple points of view. Anything you do as an assassin must also make sense and be cohesive with advancing the plot of all the other background intros.

I don't see how the examples i gave break anything. An assassin isn't forced to kill a person with a crossbow shot. At least poison the dudes water or hide a snake in his bead would be as much acceptable.
 

TheLostOne

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It wouldn't break the plot, of course, but it would break the symmetry. The opening is based around a singular event and you interpret that event from different perspectives.

If the guard meets the assassin in his opening story it follows that the assassin should meet the guard. Plus it has to be a face to face encounter for the assassin because the story revolves around the map you retrieve from merchant's hand.

It's not the prime example of broad choice and variety in an RPG, but those can be found elsewhere in the game. It's a story telling device used to get the ball rolling, and IMO it's clever and it works.
 
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ok I get the PS:T reference, but?

Vault Dweller said:
Actually, you can. First, you must acquire the Rat Whisperer ability. I don't want to ruin the game for other people, so I won't tell you how. Then find and accept all five "kill all rats in mah basement" quests. Whisper to rats and they will form a ruthless ratsassin creature made of thousands of rats. The ratsassin is almost impossible to kill, so you can relax and follow the blood trail your ratsassin leaves.

If you did those quests before and killed even a single rat, you screwed up the game and you will not be able to finish it.

Ok, I get the reference - Many-As-One from PS:T? In the warrens of thought, where you can meet him at the NW door, and his reaction depends in part on whether you've gone around killing the caster-rats (forgotten their proper name)? And then he offers you free passage in return for discovering the silent king's secret, and if you fight him you have to kill about a metric fuckton of caster rats?

Ok I GET that - but what's the relevance? Ok, I know Andhaira is famous for posting about being able to talk to rats, but if that was just a stupid way of referring to the many-as-one character, then it isn't exactly the height of idiocy around these parts...
 

Claw

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Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
elander_ said:
I don't see how the examples i gave break anything. An assassin isn't forced to kill a person with a crossbow shot. At least poison the dudes water or hide a snake in his bead would be as much acceptable.
Actually, the MO isn't entirely up to the player, as explained in the first screenshot in the article, which excludes these options both.

Plot-wise, getting the map is the central point of the vignette. Any indirect method of dispatching the merchant would make this more difficult.
I think it's perfectly acceptable that the player is railroaded a little in this situation, as long as it's reasonably justified within the gameworld.
 

fastjack

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the south bay
re

is it just me or is some of that writing pretty close to awful?

i was showing my brother the lets play and started reading it out loud and had to stop since the quality of the writing embarrassed me.

for example where it says "the merchant is still or already awake" the writer should definately have committed and told us which one it was as it is it seems amateurish.

the rest of that paragraph seems badly done as well i cant be specific here but id go with something like

"he starts to stammer out a plea for mercy but becomes frozen with fear as his eyes catch the flash of your readied weapon"

maybe thats not any better but im wondering if anyone else cringed at some of the writing in those screenshots?
 

Andhaira

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I agree, the writing could be better. But thjis is an indie rpg;the grafix aren't anything to write home about as well y'know. The sound/music etc will also be subpar, it will have bugs and the prodcution values will be poor.

Again, indie rpg. Nothing to do about it.
 

Disconnected

Scholar
Joined
Dec 17, 2007
Messages
609
Re: re

fastjack said:
is it just me or is some of that writing pretty close to awful?
It's not just you, but I think it's safe to assume it's an early draft. VD seems fairly eloquent elsewhere & considering the amount of thought he's obviously put into the project, I doubt he'll ship it with Psychic I-know-what-the-guy's-thinking dialogue.

Still.. It's a bit scary even for an early draft.
 

caliban

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Andhaira said:
I agree, my writing could be better. But I'm a worthless troll; my reasoning skills aren't anything to write home about as well y'know. My grammar/punctuation etc is also subpar, and my ability to comprehend even the simplest of arguments is poor.

Again, troll. Nothing to do about it.

Fixed.
 

revealer

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Oct 3, 2007
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Crodex
elander_ said:
I don't see how the examples i gave break anything. An assassin isn't forced to kill a person with a crossbow shot. At least poison the dudes water or hide a snake in his bead would be as much acceptable.

Your not a ninja, just an ordinary assassin.
On the serious side.. guy is a small fish, no need to go that stealthy on him, besides the guard was gonna be there all the time so..
 

elander_

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
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revealer said:
On the serious side.. guy is a small fish, no need to go that stealthy on him, besides the guard was gonna be there all the time so..

Not talking about this particular quest, the point of having quests with choices is that if a quest doesn't work well with multiple choices then you should scrap that quest and think about another one that works. Sometimes it's hard to do this. Specially when we already have lots of quests but choices should take priority here.

Need may not be the only motivation for the player to use stealth and if you have a quest where the a guard always stands in the same place preventing you to use stealth there should be an alternative path, a moment where the guard walks away to take a piss or a way to distract him and move him away from his post for a second.
 

Lumpy

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Sep 11, 2005
Messages
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"the writing is pretty close to awful, scary, and embarrassing" says rpgcodex
They think it's an early draft, but I got the feeling that AoD is closer to the finish now (I assume that 90%+ is done).
What do you expect? It's the codex.
Funny thing when someone complains about the writing and doesn't use capital letters or even commas.
Lulz.
 

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