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 Most people probably remember (The) Age of Decadence as the punchline to a very, very long running vaporware joke. The game began development in March 2004, and was not released until October 14, 2015. The list of released games with development cycles that long is short and full of spectacular failures. I was skeptical when the game came out in Early Access before the full release, but I decided to give the developers a chance. Since then, Steam has very helpfully realized that the game was in fact relevant to me with using just one metric:  "The Age of Decadence is a turn-based, hardcore role-playing game set in a low magic, post-apocalyptic fantasy world. The game features a detailed skill-based character system, multiple skill-based ways to handle quests, choices & consequences, and extensive dialogue trees." Don't let this description of what could be any CRPG since CRPGs became hip again fool you: AoD is the real deal. A lot of games tell you your actions matter, and then you realize what they actually meant was you'd get two or three choices at the end of the game that decide what ending you get. Even with the constraints of its basic 3.5 act structure and limited budget, AoD is more responsive to player builds and actions than most, if not all, AAA RPGs. The game has a basic story line that plays out in the background, influenced by your character's actions. This story line can be thrown off the rails. How badly? MEGA SPOILER: you can, completely optionally and unprompted by anything, blow up the entire city most of Act 2 takes place in and kill everyone in it, which is taken into account in many of the endings you can get. Most characters won't be able to solve the mystery of AoD's background story or complete every side quest, but that's where the fun of replayability comes in. I am going to do a fairly "completionist" playthrough for this LP. "Completionist" is in quotes because there are only so many endings you can get depending on your build and choices. I aim to get many of the special endings, including what I consider the best ending of the game in what I will call the "canon" route (as in "canon" for this LP; of course, the real canon AoD story is the one YOU make, gamer). Unfortunately, this leaves no room for audience interaction, but you will probably quickly realize why it has to be this way. But don't worry. Whatever happens ... it's gonna be big! Main LP: Part 1 - Character Creation and Opening Vignette  Part 2 - Opening Teron Moves  Part 3 - Wealth Redistribution  Part 4 - Dellar Time  Part 5 - Bomber Man  Part 6 - Highway Robbery  Part 7 - Mad about Maadoran  Part 8 - 100% Maadoran Speedrun (disclaimer: not actually 100%)  Part 9 - Obey the Lore  Part 10 - Slum Battle  Part 11 - Ordus and Don'ts  Part 12 - Abysmal Luck  Part 13 - Distant Voices  Part 14 - Ganezzar Gangster  Part 15- Spinal Tap  Part 16 - The Life and Death and Death Again of Brother Meru  Part 17 - Non-Canon Ending Showcase  Part 18 - Ascension  THE LEGEND OF BRUTUS: A Combat-Focused AoD Adventure (read after reading above updates) PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 PART 7 PART 8 PART 9 PART 10 Janissary Hop fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Sep 24, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 09:26
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Part 1 - Character Creation and Opening Vignette
Janissary Hop fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 09:26
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Looking forward to reading this!
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Aug 27, 2017 11:25
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Me too! I never realised it had such a storied past.
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Aug 27, 2017 11:38
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I've never heard of this before, but I'm interested now. I love games that really show how you affect your world.
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Aug 27, 2017 12:09
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How have I not heard of this game? It looks amazing.
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Aug 27, 2017 12:15
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Nice to see a new go at this game. The last lp (with reader participation) sadly never continued further after the first town.
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Aug 27, 2017 12:33
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mrpwase posted:Me too! I never realised it had such a storied past. pumpinglemma posted:How have I not heard of this game? It looks amazing. On top of being in what can only be described as dev hell for most of its production cycle, AoD was developed by "some random guys who posted on RPG Codex" aka Iron Tower Studios. They pretty much just worked in their spare time and learned every single aspect of game development as they went. It's actually a very interesting story, you can read an interview that captures some of it here: http://www.cshpicone.com/interview-iron-tower-studio (I don't consider anything mentioned a spoiler). Being made my "some RPG Codex guys" lends itself to uh having an uncompromising vision of how you want your game to be, but not necessarily to the promotion aspect. They still did will for themselves though, last I heard they were at around 50 or 60k sales, enough to fund Dungeon Rats (a combat-focused AoD spin-off) and their next game.
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Aug 27, 2017 16:31
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I played the hell out of this game's demo but never picked it up because I never felt like I got the hang of the character generation or the combat. Looking forward to seeing how you break it down.
Coolguye fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 17:50
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Part 2 - Opening Teron Moves
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Aug 27, 2017 18:01
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I'd never heard of this before, but it looks interesting and right up my wheelhouse. On the character creation screen, how come certain skills are highlighted (e.g., Crossbow, Throwing, Dodge, etc)? Are those just the dev highlighting "hey, you might like these?" Or is there some actual mechanical benefit to increasing those as a Thief - they cost less skill points or get extra bonuses or etc?
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Aug 27, 2017 18:06
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MagusofStars posted:I'd never heard of this before, but it looks interesting and right up my wheelhouse. At some point they patched in the highlighting just to show "hey, this background will probably use these skills." It's different for each starting background. There's no mechanical benefit, it's just a show of mercy from the devs. Anyway, if you really wanted to farm free skill points, there's a fun way to resolve the situation between Feng and Cassius: Tell Feng you'll deal with Cassius, lure Cassius to the abandoned building, let Cassius trick you into thinking he's leaving town, go back to Feng, get the free training from Feng for having high charisma and the chance to con Antidas, go to Antidas, find out Cassius went to Antidas instead of leaving town and get yelled at, go back to the now vacant Feng house and look through his stuff for lore and lockpicking training without having to break in, go back to Antidas and pass the harder skill checks to con him with Cassius arguing with you, get high Daratan rep by getting into Antidas' good graces and use the rep to get Cassius to give you training in social skills. This is insane by the way and I didn't even realize you could do it until it was explained to me by someone. You don't need to do this at all to win the game in any manner you choose, it's just funny that you can do it.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:11
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This is a really good game. It's an homage to old CRPGS like Fallout and such, but I think it's even better-- the combat is more interesting, there's loads more options for every challenge, and there is a lot of replayable. Each playthrough only sees a small portion of the total content and the total "storyline" occurring in the foreground/background, you have to keep going it from different backgrounds and routes to get a sense of everything that's going on.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:38
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i somehow think i'd get more enjoyment out of this game just reading the code to see what was all possible rather than playing it, not because the game seems bad but because the solution space of what's possible seems so vast that it would be an everlasting mindfuck.
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Aug 27, 2017 18:42
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pumpinglemma posted:How have I not heard of this game? It looks amazing. It's really not good, it's rpgcodex - the game. Free demo up on steam so no reason not to just give it a try yourself though.
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Aug 27, 2017 20:08
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Avalerion posted:It's really not good, it's rpgcodex - the game. Free demo up on steam so no reason not to just give it a try yourself though. I don't know what you mean by "rpgcodex - the game," but I can say that the dev team did have a vision for what they wanted AoD to be as a niche title. I think they not only mostly executed their vision, most RPGs could stand to learn a thing or two from how AoD does things. And yes, demo's on Steam so I recommend anyone interested to see if the game is for them. I've had a pretty good success rate recommending the game to people who hadn't heard of it or were turned off by its dev history. Janissary Hop fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 21:42
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My only request is maximum grifting.
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Aug 27, 2017 22:25
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Part 3 - Wealth Redistribution
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Aug 27, 2017 23:49
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Can you still go do stuff for Dellar? It seems like a bit of a shame that you couldn't go do a bunch of stuff, probably get experience out of doing it, and then break in anyway - especially when, if 4 is the max skill rating as you mentioned, with just what you have from that escapade you could max out every social skill in the game and still have some left over to drop into combat skills.
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Aug 28, 2017 00:50
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Coolguye posted:Can you still go do stuff for Dellar? It seems like a bit of a shame that you couldn't go do a bunch of stuff, probably get experience out of doing it, and then break in anyway - especially when, if 4 is the max skill rating as you mentioned, with just what you have from that escapade you could max out every social skill in the game and still have some left over to drop into combat skills. No no no, stats go from 4-10 while skills go from 1-10. I have definitely not maxed out my skills before leaving the first town, I think it costs over 200 skill points to max a skill. I should also mention that, in general, your physical stats are set in stone after character creation. Unless there's ways around that...? But yes, you can still do Dellar's side quests even though you've dodged the need to deal with him to get to Antidas. I'll probably do them next update, they're pretty fun.
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Aug 28, 2017 04:33
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I love how many situations you're able to solve by asking if people know who you loving work for.
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Aug 28, 2017 05:21
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oh, i see what happened - i misinterpreted the 10 civil point refund that you got at a static skill up as a 'this skill is maxed out, so here's what i would've given you anyway' bonus. instead, it is stopping you from getting an undue amount of XP from a static skill up. i understand now.
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Aug 28, 2017 06:04
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Janissary Hop posted:I don't know what you mean by "rpgcodex - the game," but I can say that the dev team did have a vision for what they wanted AoD to be as a niche title. Grognardy? Like you have to trial and error yourself into a build that actually works, it has situations where you accept a quest or walk down the wrong alley - then die because you didn't have the right skill to deal with it. Alternatively a winning strategy to deal with this is to bank your points until you come across a check you can't pass, then reload and spend just as many as you need to pass it. Combat is also heavily RNG based and the game seems to love to throw unwinnable odds against you. Story and setting seemed interesting enough but the game-play in the demo turned me off of playing it. It mostly reminds me of old CYOA's - that instadeath trap from your last update's is basically the kind of thing I'm referring to. Avalerion fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 06:17
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quote:Gla'ath-Zor the Dreamer, Bar-Hathor the Flamewalker, and Thor-Agoth the artifcer These sound like friendly beings who are definitely good guys.
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Aug 28, 2017 06:18
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Janissary Hop posted:I don't know what you mean by "rpgcodex - the game," but I can say that the dev team did have a vision for what they wanted AoD to be as a niche title. I think they not only mostly executed their vision, most RPGs could stand to learn a thing or two from how AoD does things. It's literally made by a bunch of posters on extremely curmudgeonly website RPGCodex* to be their ideal of what an RPG should be. I think I said in the last LP that the main dev was codex founder Saint Proverbius but that was me misremembering. "Vince D. Weller" contributed as Vault Dweller (you'd think the name would have tipped me off). Vault Dweller currently describes themselves as "Ubersturmfuhrer, Iron Tower Studio" on the codex forums, which probably says a lot about them. I think both were originally from the Fallout fansite Vault 13, but that might just have been Saint. Anyhow, Age of Decadence is one of those indie games that's a labor of pure spite as much as it is a labor of love. Adoration for games like Fallout 1, Arcanum and the Spiderweb Software games, coupled with hate and disdain for Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2 and above, the Elder Scrolls and any other RPG that's "dumbed down", "simplified", etc. They sure had a vision and if you share that exact vision it's a fine game. If you don't, well, gently caress you. It's not a terrible attitude to take for an indie dev in general, but it's also going to produce a game that's the opposite of friendly, helpful and inclusive. Also, Vault Dweller should probably not be let within 5 miles of a public relations role. * Full disclosure: I was one of the people who founded said curmudgeonly website. Really, my main contribution to it (and Terra Arcanum) was coming up with the name, I was not nearly sufficiently curmudgeonly to stick around (I wrote a bad jRPG review to test out the Codex's article submission code. This was viewed with extreme suspicion). I did not add anything of substance to the site, although I do really like Fallout 1, Arcanum and the Spiderweb Software games. Xerophyte fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 06:54
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I like all of the RPGs you mentioned in your post this likely makes me a heretic to both sides
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Aug 28, 2017 07:00
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It also makes you a person who isn't likely to enjoy AoD. I really tried to like this but the combat is just so bad; someone described in the Steam thread as a game with a lot of options you're trying to gamble all the time in order to avoid fighting. They weren't wrong. The whole "this isn't obtuse, it just ain't dumbed down" issue is a whole another can of worms and it can be used as a perfect excuse not to update or fix anything. Another recent controversial release with this approach, Grimoire, comes to mind - but then again, that was made by a bona fide shithead and codex isn't quite on that level. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 07:21
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Xerophyte posted:Also, Vault Dweller should probably not be let within 5 miles of a public relations role. The devs love responding to negative steam reviews, some of these can be really funny. I'm actually glad for this LP though because while I find the game no fun whatsoever to actually play, the story is engaging enough where I'm curious to experience it without having to slog through the gameplay. The other lp of this unfortunately didn't seem to get far so I hope this one sticks it out. Avalerion fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 08:08
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Avalerion posted:Grognardy? Like you have to trial and error yourself into a build that actually works, it has situations where you accept a quest or walk down the wrong alley - then die because you didn't have the right skill to deal with it. Alternatively a winning strategy to deal with this is to bank your points until you come across a check you can't pass, then reload and spend just as many as you need to pass it. Combat is also heavily RNG based and the game seems to love to throw unwinnable odds against you. I mean, yeah, you do have to be careful with your build, and you can run into dead ends. The flip side is that there's a billion different ways to play thru the game, so it's not like they made those decisions just to spite people. There's even multiple non-combat routes for people like me who don't like RPG combat very much. Avalerion posted:Anyhow, Age of Decadence is one of those indie games that's a labor of pure spite as much as it is a labor of love. Adoration for games like Fallout 1, Arcanum and the Spiderweb Software games, coupled with hate and disdain for Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2 and above, the Elder Scrolls and any other RPG that's "dumbed down", "simplified", etc. They sure had a vision and if you share that exact vision it's a fine game. If you don't, well, gently caress you. I hate Baldur's Gate and Elder Scrolls so I'm glad they had a strong vision and didn't make some watered down garbage in order to appeal to more people, because Age of Decadence turned out to be one of my favorite RPGs of all time.
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Aug 28, 2017 12:05
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Xerophyte posted:"Vince D. Weller" contributed as Vault Dweller (you'd think the name would have tipped me off). Vault Dweller currently describes themselves as "Ubersturmfuhrer, Iron Tower Studio" on the codex forums
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Aug 28, 2017 13:34
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I like that you can get a reputation for breaking your word.
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Aug 28, 2017 13:50
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Oh hey, I remember discussions of this game in the steam thread. Apparently it's stupidly hard? Not like "very hard" but stupidly hard, in that you can't take on more than 1 enemy at a time even with a combat oriented character, and can't ever invest in social skills if you want your character to be even that combat viable?
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Aug 28, 2017 14:02
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Xander77 posted:Oh hey, I remember discussions of this game in the steam thread. Apparently it's stupidly hard? Not like "very hard" but stupidly hard, in that you can't take on more than 1 enemy at a time even with a combat oriented character, and can't ever invest in social skills if you want your character to be even that combat viable? You can take on more than one opponent at a time with a combat build, especially with consumable items, and you can invest in social skills as well as combat skills, but it's harder than making a pure build. I've beaten the game with a hybrid build where I did all the arena fights and passed all the lore checks.
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Aug 28, 2017 16:19
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Coolguye posted:I like all of the RPGs you mentioned in your post
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Aug 28, 2017 21:39
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Coolguye posted:oh, i see what happened - i misinterpreted the 10 civil point refund that you got at a static skill up as a 'this skill is maxed out, so here's what i would've given you anyway' bonus. instead, it is stopping you from getting an undue amount of XP from a static skill up. i understand now. I probably could have explained the free skill training better, this is how it works. ModernMajorGeneral posted:These sound like friendly beings who are definitely good guys. Maybe we'll find out! Xerophyte posted:Anyhow, Age of Decadence is one of those indie games that's a labor of pure spite as much as it is a labor of love. Adoration for games like Fallout 1, Arcanum and the Spiderweb Software games, coupled with hate and disdain for Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2 and above, the Elder Scrolls and any other RPG that's "dumbed down", "simplified", etc. They sure had a vision and if you share that exact vision it's a fine game. If you don't, well, gently caress you. It's not a terrible attitude to take for an indie dev in general, but it's also going to produce a game that's the opposite of friendly, helpful and inclusive. Also, Vault Dweller should probably not be let within 5 miles of a public relations role. The game tells you on the character creation screen what skills your character should invest in for the easiest time for their background! It also has a tutorial, descriptive journal screen, detailed maps that automatically fill in when you visit a new area with convenient fast travel points, all the trappings you'd expect from a modern CRPG. It doesn't get much more "friendly, helpful and inclusive" than that!
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Aug 28, 2017 22:24
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anilEhilated posted:It also makes you a person who isn't likely to enjoy AoD. Xander77 posted:Oh hey, I remember discussions of this game in the steam thread. Apparently it's stupidly hard? Not like "very hard" but stupidly hard, in that you can't take on more than 1 enemy at a time even with a combat oriented character, and can't ever invest in social skills if you want your character to be even that combat viable? The combat is hard but by no means impossible or something players need to carefully tip toe around. There is a learning curve, just like with most things that are hard but ultimately rewarding. I assume people who make complaints like these about AoD combat are not brain dead and have appropriately statted their character since they have probably played RPGs other than AoD, but I still wonder: - Are they using consumables like bombs, nets, poison, neurostims, etc? - Are they taking advantage of the crafting skill to craft custom armors and weapons and use sharpening stones for bonus damage? - Are the positioning their character to minimize enemy attacks? Many fights have chokes or near-chokes if you look for them, or areas where ranged characters can't fire and have to waste turns repositioning while you fight off melee opponents. - Are they preparing for the fights? A lot of fights that seem insurmountable can be overcome with preparation, e.g. poisoning the Aurelian outpost before charging in. Again, I don't think anyone is stupid, but I think people do get frustrated and decide the combat is impossible too easily. I definitely don't think it's tedious, even if you don't like it you can still speed up the animations 4x to blast through it (another modern convenience!). People have completed the game in a single sitting doing every combat possible (edit: removed video link, I don't wany anyone getting spoiled. Take my word for it!) Janissary Hop fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 28, 2017 22:35
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Oh I remember this game. I think I actually bought it when it basically was available to buy... I have this love-hate with it. There's a lot of stuff to do, it's pretty neat... And I'm also awful at it. Because, see, Age of Decadence makes sure to tell you in its description (or something), that its not really an RPG you can play like other RPGs. You know in most RPGs, your first fights are probably against maybe 3 or 4 guys, and you'd probably wipe the floor with them? Age of Decadence can put you into that situation at the start of the game, and you're almost certainly going to get your head handed to you on a silver platter. Because even though you're the player character, you're just another shmuck, and die just as easily as any other shmuck. It's really weird to get used to, for someone like me, where I'm used to being better then everything early on and reasonably expected to win every fight you run into. Fairly sure there's a few fights in AoD's early game that are literally impossible to win without straight up cheating, because you really shouldn't pick those fights.
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Aug 28, 2017 22:46
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Here's what I'll do. I am going to continue my playthrough as planned. The goal was to minimize combat, but take on some completely optional encounters to show off how a non-combat character can do combat if they prepare for it. I planned it this way because I think it's just more entertaining to read than killing everybody. If there is demand for it though, I can do a combat-oriented playthrough where I show how to kill as many people as possible without needing to be a one dimensional brute.
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Aug 28, 2017 22:56
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If you can spare the time and effort for multiple playthroughs, i would be really interested how the different approaches turn out. You could cut down the secondary playthrough to some highlights, you want to show off. Fellow goon "ddengha" did something similar with multiple characters to show off special quests and encounters or different quest solutions for his Fallout 2 lp.
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Aug 28, 2017 23:25
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This game looks like it would be a lot of fun to play if you could cheat like a bastard to get through combat situations
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Aug 29, 2017 00:30
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