Age of Decadence- A turn based isometric WRPG from Iron Tower Studios

So after several freaking years the demo for Ao D is finally here. For those who don't know, this is a spiritual successor to Fallout 1 and 2 set in an Ancient Rome inspired setting that's also post apocalyptic by a group of indie developers made in their spare time. Like Fallout it's turn based but single character rather than party based.

There's a strong emphasis on choices and consequences with multipath quest design...so basically everything I could ask for from an RPG personally.

Demo contains 2 or 3 towns with several quests (developer said there's 30 in total but you won't see all of it in a single playthrough since they branch out and change based on your starting build).

I'm downloading it right now and I'll post up some impressions later.

Fuck I'm really excited.

edited 22nd Mar '12 7:41:45 PM by ShadowScythe

Can't play it right now cause my laptop's screwed up but I figured I might as well post up some video links.

It's shaping up to be a great game and a good throwback to old WRP Gs and I wouldn't want fellow WRPG fans to miss out on this cause they simply hadn't heard about it.

an Early combat vid it features an older UI style that's since been changed to something that looks a lot cooler.

a video that outlines the types of choices and consequences and branching quest design that you'll see in the game.

Some guy spliced some footage from the demo together with some noob's comment from RPS pointing out that this game isn't going to hold your hand with minimal stats like most modern 'RP Gs'.

Next weekend I'll try and get back home and play it on my desktop before posting some impressions.

Hmm. Downloading this demo now. May as well try it out. Hopefully it avoids the biggest problem I had with Fallout 2, the one that made me give up on it without having played all that much.

That goddamn tutorial dungeon.

I wanted to keep making new characters to try different playstyles out to see what I liked, but that goddamn tutorial dungeon!!

As far as I can tell the combat is very brutal and difficult but the game's quest design is very open ended so a full dialogue or stealth build will be viable from start to finish.

I think I'll probably run a full dialogue build first before dabbling in combat and stealth.

Also from I've read trying for a jack of all trades build isn't really recommended unless you know what you're doing so I'd say go full combat or full stealth or full dialogue for your first run.

Okay, thanks for the tip!

Oh you know what, I realized that all the games I tried from the old school isometric WRPGs (unless you count Diablo 2) gave me a poor first impression. Fallout 2 had that tutorial dungeon. Planescape: Torment ended up a cluehunt for a literal piece of junk. Baldur's Gate 2 was inexplicably horrendously difficult despite me being pretty damn sure I had it set on the easiest difficulty.

And all that makes me sad because otherwise I think I would have loved these games.

So here's hoping this game work out for me!

There were a few other options for that one. I remember the first time I played it I killed a Dustman using a dexterity check and took his clothes and keys and just walked out the front door like a boss.

Also I'd highly recommend Arcanum since it has a pretty good first impression. The first few combat encounters aren't that difficult and the tutorial is very short and takes you to the first town (which has some fun quests and an interesting companion or two) very quickly. I'd recommend playing a mage for that game on your first go since Mages have some amazing spells and let you solve quests in some really creative ways that the dev team actually acknowledge in the game. It's pretty awesome like that.

I played a bit earlier and beside some horrible UI decisions it seems ok.

You sold me on Spiritual Successor of Classic Fallout, but in classic Rome. Dear lord, i hope it's good.

It's about time. Installing it now, hopefully it's decent. Somehow I don't think their "fuck you if you don't like our game" advertising is going to win many people over, though.

Edit: Game is cool. Combat is difficult and fun. The interface and graphics are much nicer looking than a couple years ago. This game has a disguise skill! Not even Fallout had a disguise skill.

Fun stuff, now release the full game already!

edited 25th Mar '12 6:43:22 AM by Talby

Downloading it now.

That downloading site made me shit my pants. You just don't go and have a robot voice inform me when my download is ready. It ain't cool.

EDIT: Not giving a good first impression. Keeps crashing on start-up and I have no idea what's causing it.

edited 25th Mar '12 7:40:02 AM by Mukora

It's on Steam Greenlight. Check it out and vote for it, it'll be awesome if we can get it onto Steam.

It's passed the Greenlight. Anyone know when it'll be available?

Thursday.

More seriously, being an indie game it's got a habit of having the release date constantly pushed forward for revisions and tech changes etc. It's looking to come out either this year or next year but this has been happening for years now. Probably best to ignore it entirely until it suddenly turns up out of the blue.

It seems to be available on steam early access.

Anyway, who the frick put Vaporware into this game's trope page with explanation "It's an indie game"? Slow development time doesn't equal vaporware

I heard a lot of praise for this game's combat system, skills and C&C. I have not tried the beta (I tend to wait for the full game) but I'm really excited for the final product.

edited 30th Dec '13 11:59:42 AM by acornz

I'd like to myself hear more info about this game since I can't find much info on story or setting <_<

Huh, game is 75% complete nowadays?

Does anyone know how complex this game is choice wise?

edited 26th Apr '14 7:55:46 AM by SpookyMask

It's got a pretty detailed and branching storyline. In fact I'd say overall the extent to varying choices is its biggest strength.

It's main issues are that those choices are resolved mainly in dialogue trees and standard skill checks.

There's a huge difference in story between playing a diplomat or a warrior, but being a diplomat basically just means navigating dialogue trees all day and min maxing dialogue which leaves a lot to be desired.

Isn't that kinda what you'd expect? I mean what kind of diplomat fights all the time?

If that's the case then dialogue needs to be a much more significant gameplay mechanic than dialogue trees and skillcheck buttons.

As it stands skillchecks in dialogue are way too shallow a mechanic to carry a game.

I mean I'm not asking for a diplomat to go around killing people but at least do more than show up and pass a diplomacy roll, play some characters against each other find out info by going around and exploring and learning the lore/characters and what makes them tick and how to take advantage of that.

Combat is so challenging and grueling a gameplay set up in the game and yet dialogue is so utterly dull when all you do is build a character and min max like 2-3 dialogue skills, learn that those aren't the 'right' ones the game expected from you and then have to reroll and build it differently.

Ao D is interesting but it has a lot of shortcomings.

Hmm, I see...

I guess there are cons to building game based on Fallouts'(and similar games) quest design and skill checks and going up to eleven .-. I guess you mean that diplomacy feels like its only about reaching the skill checks and not being smart with dialog trees? I can see how that would end boring if whole game as diplomat is just that...

As an alternative to the dialogues described, I have two ideas for a diplomacy mechanic:

(I realise that this isn't quite on-topic for the thread, being unrelated to this specific game; these are just thoughts that came from reading the discussion about the diplomacy system, and which I think might work within such a game.)

One might have a variety of "diplomacy abilities" just as one has combat abilities, with successful gameplay relying on which abilities one chooses to use in a given situation: someone is undermining you at court—do you use "spread rumour" (which requires that that you have an appropriate "clue" item to provide the seed of the rumour), gamble with "baseless lie" (for which you might get skill buffs), or use some other skill? This might in part replace the dialogue trees: instead of entering dialogue and choosing a conversation option marked as a lie, which involves an invisible skill-check, you instead choose the "lie" ability from an ability bar, then select a target (which might call for some judgement: different characters might be susceptible to different lies, which one might learn through conversation and rumour). Your character then enters a brief conversation with the character (perhaps including some degree of "fine-tuning" of the lie in order to (hopefully) improve the lie's chances of success, and finally step back and wait.

The result might be like a battle, played out over a longer time-scale and without the bloodshed (on your own hands, at least): enemies are assassinated or cast out of court, allies have their standing improved and do favours for you, etc.

Another, simpler option might be allowing only a single path through each dialogue tree, and delaying many of their effects (such as the spread of a rumour) over time; again, the effects of a given option might depend on the character being spoken with, making each dialogue a matter of judging what to say when, and to whom.

edited 13th May '14 10:50:43 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

Hah, now that its released, someone should remove Vaporware from ymmv page xD

And uh... Speaking of consequences, what do you call it when you Accidentally kill the whole city by doing what was essentially "Hey, what does this button do?" x'D I did reload that save, but I was like "._. Whelp didn't expect that to happen"