Age of Decadence

[Starwars]

Aha, so this time Vince keeps his schedule, before the year's end. I still think releasing a combat demo, as opposed to a 'taste-it-all' demo, is going to result in a lot of misunderstanding, but I suppose he has his reasons, production-wise.

 

It'll be something to get my teeth into over my annual leave, excellent.

 

I agree here. While I think I'll spend much time with this demo, I think (even if there are disclaimers all over the damn thing) people will form the wrong opinion of how the final game will be. May be wrong though.

 

Well, in terms of tactics the combat system is better than Fallout's but being a single person RPG it's obviously nowhere near JA2 or, say, ToEE.

 

What Jora said. Still, what intrigues me (otherwise I honestly wouldn't be that interested in this demo) is that they seem to have spent a great deal of effort on making different weapons effective instead of one particular one being the win button, as is often the case with these types of games. And I don't know if we'll be able to hit people in the groin but I do look forward to being able to toss spears, that should be cool.

[Jora]

Starwars: I definitely get the feeling that especially in the final game itself (with it being non-linear and all) you can't be sure you can beat the opponents in your way just because you have the best equipment to suit your skills. If the opponent is tactically build to resist the kind of character you have built, you might want to search other challenges or change your tactic completely no matter how high your skills are.

[Starwars]

Yeah, I do get that much of it will be "rock paper scissors" in that certain things are very useful against other things (which is fine by me). But what I mean is that there appears to be good uses for all the equipment in the game.

 

I found the various reports on the combat beta very interesting, and it was really exciting to see how people tried out really different builds. I like that the combat builds really appear to have different feels to them. But I'm sure many, many people will be frustrated as hell with the demo judging from some of the beta comments.

[Jora]

In the latest version I played (one with a working save system), the early fights are quite easy and a chance to get to know the system, but they get very tricky later on. Yeah, all weapons and armor have their pros and cons.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Jora

[Wrath of Dagon]

Well, the graphics do look like it five years old if not older, but graphics aren't the important bit when it comes to RPGs.

These days, it's the art style that matters. You need talent to get a decent art style, not a million "artists" to do a billion hi-res textures.

 

This is how you get from this:

 

To this:

2D game, has nothing to do with anything

[Purkake]

So a 3d game can't have a cool art style?

 

Just look at Prince of Persia or Mirror's Edge, both of them could have used default Unreal Engine stuff, but didn't.

[Killian Kalthorne]

So, is this game going to get a XBox port?

[Purkake]

More like a Wii port, amirite?

[Wrath of Dagon]

So a 3d game can't have a cool art style?

 

Just look at Prince of Persia or Mirror's Edge, both of them could have used default Unreal Engine stuff, but didn't.

Sure it can, just has nothing to do with AOD.

[Purkake]

Which is why I was speaking about graphics and art styles in general.

[bhlaab]

Combat demo should be ready by tonight/tomorrow morning

[Jora]

It's out:

 

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/files/AoD_demo.exe

 

After playing go to the Iron Tower board to give your opinion.

[Tigranes]

No bandwidth to get it at the moment, but excited.

[Jora]

Mirrors:

 

http://depositfiles.com/files/33jtci9g8

 

http://www.filefront.com/15216873/AoD_demo.exe

 

edit: people seem to be experiencing some freezes and crashing. If you have problems running it don't hesitate to tell them on their board.

Edited December 26, 2009 by Jora

[bhlaab]

This game seems a lot more stable to me than some "AAA" releases.

 

Check this out: I can alt tab out... and when I alt tab back in the game still works!

Edited December 26, 2009 by bhlaab

[Starwars]

I haven't had any problems running it either, but yep, some people are definitely having crashes.

 

Anyways, fun stuff. The demo starts off an an easy note but gets a lot harder as it goes on. Combat success has a lot to do with the luck of the roll here but as the player you can heavily influence the chance of success your way if you play smart. Opponents are set up very differently, so depending on your own build, you may have a harder time with an earlier opponent than a later opponent. The fight with the three Barbari took me quite a few tries to get through.

 

I'm using a Strength heavy, sword and shield type of build so far. I'm using fairly heavy armor and a fairly heavy shield. No helmet though as I want to keep my attack chance to hit fairly high. First time I tried to mix it up by raising Dodge even though I was a heavy armor fighter. Quickly dropped that and decided to solely go with Block instead and it worked much better.

 

 

Quite surprised as I've found myself using all the combat options fairly extensively. Normal attack and Fast attack are kinda the "staple" attacks, with Fast attack useful against lightly armored opponents. Power Attack seems to be useful versus more heavily armed people. The Whirlwind attack (which I think is only available to certain types of weapons) is a bit of a desperation attack or maybe if you have several opponents that are all heavily injured. For the aimed attacks, aiming vs the head appears to be deadly but really hard to hit. Aiming vs the arm is very useful in some fights since a successful hit disarms the opponent thus costing him AP to re-equip his weapon. Haven't used aim vs Torso yet but looking at the combat demo guide it appears that it could be quite useful (has a chance of lowering the DR of the opponents armor). Also haven't used aim vs the legs but I can see it being very useful if your character uses ranged weapons.

 

It's pretty dynamic for being a turnbased solo game.

[Bos_hybrid]

This game seems a lot more stable to me than some "AAA" releases.

 

Check this out: I can alt tab out... and when I alt tab back in the game still works!

 

You need to play more AAA games. 40 minutes of game time, 2 crashes. It also seemed to have framerate issues, but it's just a demo.

 

I was right about graphics, they are poor, no doubt about it. But I was surprised by the combat, it was quite fun, much better then I expected. Chances of me purchasing it are slim, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

 

It did however make me want DBs ZRPG more then I did before.

[Wrath of Dagon]

If you're having crashes when clicking on the arena master, try standing a little further from him (2 squares I think). That might help. Something they're working on but haven't been able to reproduce so far.

[Purkake]

No netbook mode? I am disappoint & have to wait another 4 days to try it.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I was right about graphics, they are poor, no doubt about it. But I was surprised by the combat, it was quite fun, much better then I expected. Chances of me purchasing it are slim, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

Be sure to set the video options to the resolution of your monitor, looks tons better than the default.

[Tigranes]

Been playing it for a few hours, great stuff.

 

Where they wanted to go with the art is pretty good, as evidenced by concept art, but engine limitations and such mean the game looks pretty ugly in reality. I hope they can put in some decent lighting at least.

 

Writing, atmosphere, combat, balance, etc. are all excellent though, it really feels like I'm playing Fallout the Improved. If you enjoyed FO1/2, trust me, you're going to like this.

 

My bow guy only got as far as Sarpedon, but only because I forgot to loot half the bodies. The crossbow guy is doing better, but stuck now at Mack the Knife, who's able to use his excellent dodge and dagger attacking speed.

[Starwars]

Haven't tried any ranged weapons yet. Are crossbows fun?

 

I've done sword and shield (heavy armor and block), a hammer guy (hammers and dodge) and a spear with shield guy (heavy armor and block, though used a 2-handed spear for certain fights). All of those were extremely fun and rewarding. I tried out a dagger and dodge guy but I didn't have much fun with that. Normally I like to play sneaky characters but couldn't get into this one for some reason.

 

At any rate, I'm also having a blast. The fact that I keep replaying a combat demo is a really good sign for the game I think.

[Tigranes]

I've tried a variety so far, and crossbow/dodge is the easiest I think. You just make sure nobody can hit you and run around firing. But that's because I made use of the arrow price bug (costs 1 gold to buy arrows in multiples of 5, not 10) without realising - with a blocker you need to invest a lot more, and the butcher really gets you with the shield splitting.

 

I'm experimenting with a 2-handed hammer dude with zero dodge or block, just lots of HP and armour.

[Starwars]

Ah, nice. I was gonna try a spear build with nearly everything put into the spear skill (to maximize the interrupts) and use heavy armor and see how that goes. I kinda like using the spears since it makes for a cool playstyle, especially the 2-handed ones. Where you can sort of back away and stab the enemies each time they try to get close to you.

[Elhoim]

Hey guys, a new version of the combat demo is out. It is an improved, new build, with many bug-fixes and improvements. You can get the download links from here:

 

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index...pic,1259.0.html