By John Walker on December 28th, 2007 at 2:31 pm.
I cannot think of a time when I’ve seen more polite combat.
Gametrailers, it is toward you that we aim our thanks cannon.
I find this is a lot more fun to watch if you narrate it with comments like,
“Ouch, do you mind?”
“Gosh, your sword came awfully close to striking my face there old chap.”
“Goodness me, I’m quite exhausted from all this. I’m going to have a bit of a lie down.”
In case The Age of Decadence hasn’t appeared on your radar, the game’s site describes it thusfully:
“The Age of Decadence is an isometric, turn-based, single-player 3D role-playing game set in a low magic, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, inspired by the fall of the Roman Empire.”
The oldest school of them all, it seems. If Gametrailer’s comment is the case – “Fight your way through the Roman Empire, one Centurion at a time!” at this speed this might be the longest game ever made.
I fell asleep watching that.
“Hey, it’s not your turn to hit me!”
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I’d rather puke a lung, to be honest. It would probably be more fun.
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as thrilling as an alpha centauri fight.
*weak laser shot*
*weak laser shot*
..
*small explosion*
..
win.
i loved that game, of course, and the fight wasn’t the main motif of the game. you can’t make a demo showing something like that!
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Heheh “Say hello to my little friend.”? Not /quite/ the dialogue I was expecting.
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“I’d rather puke a lung, to be honest. It would probably be more fun.”
Hey, some of the best games I’ve played feature turn-based combat. UFO, X-Com, Silent Storm… sure it might not look exciting when you present it like this, but it might still be fun to play.
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So is turn-based the new real time?
I was almost shouting at the screen “Aim head! Aim head! Nooo!! Not fast attack, AIM HEAD!”. He’s got a great bloody rock on a stick, aim for the frickin’ head. And then when he does aim for the head the guy just starts crying and falls over. I am a discerning gamer of the modern age. I demand heads that smush like rotten melons, over then top rag doll death animations and screams recorded live from Nike sweatshops.
Age of Decadance? Age of “Oh sorry, was that your face? I do apologise. Here, have a tissue” more like.
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“thanks cannon”–so THAT’s what the kids are calling it these days, huh?
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The RPGCodex people, I suspect, may be a little annoyed with you, John.
I was fine with the turn-based combat, in terms of it being an indie-game and all, with an interesting setting. But if the end of the video actually is a game over situation… man, I lose all faith in the game.
KG
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More things should be turn-based.
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Like life. Shopping, and driving.
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I agree. Furiously.
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The last bit of my post is missing. ;_; It said: “
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Again! Is [Heart] Arcanum blocked or something? I SHALL NOT BE CENSORED
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I think the less than symbol confuses the coding or something. I’ve done that before.
The damage system looks vaguely interesting, but I hope it’s more than just flowery descriptions of critical hits.
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They took their combat model from Bookworm Adventure. Snore!
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Wow, I will never play a game like that, ever. I loathe turn-based games, which is the main reason why I refuse to play any Final Fantasy game. It takes me straight out of the immersion of a game when everyone lines up and takes TURNS swiping at each other. Give me something that involves my skill. I absolutely hate it when my hit chance relies on some random dice roll. That is pure and total BS.
I’ll take Oblivion, with all its flaws, over anything turn based.
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Oh Christ, that was genuinely hilarious!
I love the dramatic descriptions of injury and death (“blood gushes into his throat like a hot weasel, choking him”) as the characters sort of fall to the floor like they’re in an amateur dramatics propduction of “People killed by Acorns” and have suddenly realised they’re supposed to be dead.
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well, the problem with that trailer is not the turn-based fights (i love some turn-based games, like the FF series and Fallout). but the reaction of each character is pathetic, and the collisions and way they fall from hits it’s just lazy. like if the designers who created the animations didn’t have time or energy or inspiration to do all this.
and the final hit.. (i didn’t saw it the first time).. ew.
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I too don’t mind turn-based but this seems anti-fun. I almost stopped watching halfway through.
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It’s classic Fallout-ish turn based combat there. Yeah, I guess that’s not for everyone, but that’s the point of AoD as I understand it, it being one of those indie games that try to follow the old-school RPG style as closely as they can.
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Well, better than yet another accursed twitch-fest, I suppose…
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There’s already a turn based 3d fighter… why not a turn-based FPS?
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why not a turn-based mmo racing game ?
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To clarify; I do not dislike turn-based fighting, quite the contrary, this just looks extremely boring.
Perhaps there’s a deep strategical gameplay hidden behind the clumsy animations and dull graphics.
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Wow that looks rubbish, and what the hell happened at the end?
“Andrew Doull says:
There’s already a turn based 3d fighter… why not a turn-based FPS?”
There is a turn based fps! On my phone! and guess what it is? Its Doom!!!! “Doom RPG” you and the monsters actually take turns shooting/clawing each other, its eerie but still fun.
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I think this looks interesting, tbh. I don’t mind the animations looking dull as long as its fun. And I like the setting. You can play as a ROMAN, damnit!
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Nope, that was placed to end the movie, and won’t show up on the finalized game (it’s a lolz thing).
You can speed up the combat with a speed slider, like that thing everyone that pirated or simply isn’t very comfortable with reading game manuals seemed to miss while playing Fallout.
Or you can even put it slower, for people that enjoy devising their moves three or four steps behind and play it slowly, reviving the chess days. A bit like me.
Only half a douzen guys are working on the game, all power to indies.
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Why isn’t this a post about TF2?
Oh, turn based combat, yada yada, ‘executed brilliantly in Fallout’ etc, someone brings up a walrus and next thing you know this whole thread Godwins.
Lets do something more productive, like discuss the up and coming Medic achievements for Team Fortress 2. Oh, here is a thought;
Achievement I’d like to see-
Revenge Served Hot – For the Pyro, by racking up X number of posthumous revenge kills.
Example: Paul Pyro lights Sam Scout alight. Paul gets Scattergunned. Ten seconds later Sam burns to death. 1 qualifying kill racked up.
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Game looks INTENSE!
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Reminds me of fire emblem if you turn off the combat screens.
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And fire emblem is MOE polite. They take turns in MID combat.
IE:, Bob and Billy enter combat.
Bob: *attack*
Billy: *dodge*
Bob: I do believe it is your turn. *resheathes sword* *still in midst combat*
Billy: Golly Gee, thanks bob. *critical fireball*
Bob: AAHHHHHH MURDER!
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This is for those times when you want to sit back in your chair and only click the mouse once every 10 minutes.
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I think scarface jokes are on the rise.
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As Briosafreak said, there’s a slider to speed up the animations. Also, if you absolutely hate turn-based combat, you can play as a con artist, loremaster, diplomat or some other character build that never uses weapons.
There’s no grinding or unneeded hack and slash in the game; the fights are usually relevant to your current quest and can be avoided if you so choose.
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That looks chuffing RUBBISH. And I love turn-based games.
All things being equal, I’d rather be playing DoomRL.
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First, neither The Witcher nor Mask of the Betrayer make it into the advent calendar, now all the outrage over “TURN BAESD COMBAT?!”
Does RPS haet RPGs?
Seriously, sure, the graphics and animations are about four or five years outdated by AAA title standards, but this is a game made by less than ten guys with no publisher backing. I think it’s kind of funny to see you guys bitching about graphics right after the Dwarf Fortress update.
As for the combat itself, my only real gripe is that it uses a square tile system rather than radial distances. “Oh no, there’s a man one foot away from me at my diagonal, but my sword somehow can only go in front of me or to my sides! Oh fiddlesticks!”
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I can understand turn-based combat in the video looking rather dull, especially to those with little experience of it, even if I see its obvious potential and virtues. What I struggle to understand is the unfortunate ignorance of the responses, have you people played a game more than 5 years old? Have you played a real, quality RPG with TBC (does not include Final Fantasy)? Do any of you understand the limitations of real-time combat and advantages of turn-based combat? The only way to understand these comments is if you were expecting Half Life 3 or Oblivion 2, this is a very different game with a very different focus (thankfully).
Turn-based combat, for me, is still far and away the best choice for an RPG, largely because it ensures a strong role for the character (one of the most important defining aspects of an RPG), while still being perfectly capable of providing a strong role for the player. There’s no question that the closer you come to complete player control of actions, the further you stray from what makes an RPG different to other genres, and closer to an FPS (Oblivion comes very close to this). Those stats you use to create a character become pretty unimportant if the game enables the player to override them with their own twitch skill.
It may be that the ignorant comments are due to you not knowing what you’re looking at, or maybe this is just the wrong forum for discussion of such a game, this is an indie game, being developed by a team of 4. As such, it is very polished, with decent to good animations (Oblivion’s poor animations were much less acceptable, especially the laughable facial animations, considering its large team and budget), with very impressive graphics (take a look at other indie RPGs like Genefore or Avernum for a comparison).
I have much more interest in this game than the mainstreamed, dumbed down piece of shit, Fallout 3. Oblivionising Fallout (mixing one of the best RPGs with one of the worst), It does not get much worse.
While I do like turn-based combat, it is a very small part of why I’m so looking forward to this game. It’s the aspects that Oblivion lacks entirely, and most modern RPGs are weak in that make this game my most anticipated of 2008: choices which have a heavy influence on gameplay and story progression, well developed branching quests, many different character builds which really feel different and contain exclusive content, multiple ways to complete quests (how many quests in Oblivion could be solved due to your character’s intelligence or silver tongue?), real dialogue trees with actual choices and many skill checks.
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Yeah, well done RPS. Let’s take an indie turn-based CRPG that is aimed at a specific niche audience and then ridicule them because it doesn’t meet your “I’m a discerning gamer. I demand rag doll physics” audience.
Not relevant but did you guys play Dominion 2 with the Qt3 guys? I’d have to check the threads. Did the Dom2 trailers look teh awesum!!, as well? Or was it all about the gameplay?
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I agree with Me (lol) and Dhruin.
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One can’t really deny that it does look odd if not humorous in it’s that’s it’s turn based and low quality. I’ve seen some great stuff out of indie developers, like SumoTori, which is the most awesome game for only 87 kbts, but this really looks boring. Toribash at leash looks good when you connect all the turns and it looks like a real fight sequence whereas this just looks silly. Taking turns fighting may be something “classic” and “niche” audience, but it’s “niche” for a reason, people are looking to new things, and while rolling dice worked for pen and paper, we don’t have to do that anymore and for most people, it’s just not all that fun. Real time is just more immersive for most that want to deal with something that feels more like a real world, not a jumble of numbers and calculations on screen, the illusion is maintained with it off screen, happening in real time while people move and fire freely aiming where they want, when they want, how they want.
Hell, I believe the FF franchise is kept alive soley by Japan and fanboys in the US.
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It’s a weird juxtaposition of enjoying “rag-doll” physics on a decent modern gaming rig while exploring all the potential it offers, while still being nostalgic over the great fun of old school turn based games, which we enjoyed when PC’s were little more then expensive word processors. You have to accept though that we can’t go back to those times without being poignantly aware of how far we’ve come. No, it’s not the end of turn based games, but it’s definitely the end of turn based games who don’t keep up with tools we have, and evolve with them.
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I hear what you’re saying, but it’s really only the graphics that are outdated in this game, the combat itself is not too bad. There are better turn-based combat systems out there, Temple of Elemental Evil and Silent Storm being two of the best, but overall the combat system seems to stand up against most modern RPGs.
Look at the combat systems in other RPGs out there, they are not of the highest quality (and certainly nothing new), and most have less tactical options than this game, many do not even have targetable body parts. The combat does what it’s supposed to (being that it’s not the game’s major focus), provides good tactical options and is completely based on character skill.
Age of Decadence is not trying to be the best looking game, or the game with the best combat. It is trying to bring back to the genre aspects which have been missing in the mostly shallow modern RPGs, roleplaying is not all about combat, dressing up your character, or big world exploration.
The rolepalying aspects that Age of Decadence looks to be doing better than almost any modern game, are those I consider much more important to an RPG than how it looks. These include: story interactivity, your choices will actually affect the story, many different viable and varied character builds, non-linearity, interesting dialogue and story, quests with multiple paths and possible approaches including diplomatic, disguise, combat, sneaking, thieving.
There’s no question that AOD will be much better than Oblivion in all of the above aspects (not hard, as Oblivion was pathetic in these). This is the point of the game being made, to develop the kind of game that is being overlooked by mainstream developers in favour of shallow combat heavy rubbish. There would be no point in an indie game (being made by 4 people) trying to compete with mainstream developers on graphics, the focus for AOD is very much on gameplay, and I can say it’s shaping up very nicely.
AOD is for those who want a deeper game focusing on choices with real consequences. Not those who want an awesome looking combat heavy game, with adrenaline pumping action, there’s enough of those already. It’s being made as a reaction to the proliferation of dumbed down, pretty but shallow games on the market (well, my reading of it, not wanting to speak for the devs), there would be no point in them making the same mistake as mainstream devs and putting most of their effort into graphics, would there?
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Of course it’s niche for a reason. Is that not self-evident? So it’s not for you…that’s nice – move along. The game *is* aimed at an audience that will like what they see, especially in the context of the excellent CRPG system underneath. The trailer was released for those people; unfortunately, RPS has brought it to the wrong audience (apparently) purely for the ridicule value.
But, you know, if you’re so right – what’s with the love for Dwarf Fortress but one newsbit down? I’m wondering what a trailer for DF would look like…all turnbased and ASCII and not a rag-doll in sight for the discerning modern gamer.
And yet – somehow – quite a few people like it. Even here. Maybe (again) the gameplay has something to offer a niche audience that isn’t obvious just looking at the lack of rag-dolls and bump-mapping?
Look – horses for courses; I fully appreciate why most of you aren’t interested – I just expected RPS to respect some of the forgotten corners of PC gaming rather than go straight for the lulz.
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The Civ series is still turn based and has a rather large audience.
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Ergh, just had an attack of the after thoughts:
For the old “Oh ho ho, it’s not realistic to stand there and wait while the other person hits you!” argument. Well, it’s a fucking game isn’t it? I don’t think you can go from standstill to around 40mph instantly on foot whilst carrying 8 guns on your person (WHERE?) either, but I don’t see people crowing on about that aspect of most FPS, just for example.
People still play and enjoy board games, or aren’t they super futurist-o-modern enough to be legitimate entertainment?
Why should every PC game have to have awesome-shiney-sheep-that-glow graphics over gameplay?
Or, rather, if they don’t but are actually good, so what?
That said, I have no idea if this will be any good, but if it isn’t it likely won’t be down to it’s lack of rag dolls.
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“[...] you can play as a con artist, loremaster, diplomat or some other character build that never uses weapons.”
Sold! Seriously, my interest in this game was slightly below average before you said that. If this turns out to be true, it’s pretty much a must-buy for me.
Also:
“For the old “Oh ho ho, it’s not realistic to stand there and wait while the other person hits you!” argument. Well, it’s a fucking game isn’t it?”
QFT
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As a balance to the influx of pro-AOD comments I’d like to submit the following:
I, among others, have previously stated that turn-based combat is per se not bad at all. For me it’s all in the execution.
If I swing a big old ‘ammer at someones head I expect the animations to reflect this – not only the reaction of the guy I hit but the way I swing my hammer. It probably weighs 10 kg, how can you wield it like a fork!?
Yes, it’s a small developer and yes, there’s a very rich RPG element in the game but for those of us that have only seen this short clip that focus on the combat it is rather hard to comment on anything else but the combat.
And, to be fair, if we’re not allowed to comment on the combat based on what we see here then I think we should stop discussing right now.
I’m glad that there are people who love the game that come here and fill the rest of us that haven’t even heard of it before in but until we have a clue the comments will be about the lifeless combat.
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I really miss turn-based RPGs. I’d really hoped that we’d see more of them after KotOR proved they don’t have to look like crap, animation-wise. And, yet…
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“First, neither The Witcher nor Mask of the Betrayer make it into the advent calendar, now all the outrage over “TURN BAESD COMBAT?!”
Does RPS haet RPGs?”
Good heavens no. And to the others who called me a Mr Poopyhead, have a look at the post. I was simply overwhelmed by how *polite* the game looked, and commented thus. The negative Nancys have all been in the comments.
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We love RPGs. And we regard the fact that Mass Effect is only on 360 as essentially a criminal act.
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In passing, just bounced an e-mail with the Age of Decadance lead designer, and we’ll hopefully be running an interview in the New Year.
KG
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“causing massive damage to vital organs” LOL
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As a balance to the influx of pro-AOD comments I’d like to submit the following:
I, among others, have previously stated that turn-based combat is per se not bad at all. For me it’s all in the execution.
If I swing a big old ‘ammer at someones head I expect the animations to reflect this – not only the reaction of the guy I hit but the way I swing my hammer. It probably weighs 10 kg, how can you wield it like a fork!?
Yes, it’s a small developer and yes, there’s a very rich RPG element in the game but for those of us that have only seen this short clip that focus on the combat it is rather hard to comment on anything else but the combat.
And, to be fair, if we’re not allowed to comment on the combat based on what we see here then I think we should stop discussing right now.
I’m glad that there are people who love the game that come here and fill the rest of us that haven’t even heard of it before in but until we have a clue the comments will be about the lifeless combat.
I am sort of confused about why animations and graphics are such a big deal for a game like this though. Cool, there isnt some advanced physics parellax bump effect modulated havoc-induced effects, but, who cares? Especially for an 4 man team indie developer with a budget around 10k, shouldn’t the focus be on the gameplay that it provides? When I heard “turn based combat’s good, but this sucks” I guess I was sort of expecting criticism a little deeper and rooted in the gameplay then “yeah that hammer hit was totally unrealistic.” Especially when, as others have pointed out, the post below this concerns Dwarf Fortress. I guess my tastes aren’t as cultured as you Team Fortress-playing martini-sipping esteemed fellows, but I thought the animations and graphics were superb, especially for an indie game. They make me laugh that much more at Oblivion’s hideous talking heads, that probably had a $100000000 budget and 40 artists and programmmers on them.
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And hey, this post has more comments then any other post on the first page; its gotta be doing something right.
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@Ricardo:That’s because they haven’t made a post criticizing Fallout.
Anyway, time for me to start hounding the AoD devs about the next video ( it’s supposed to show one of AoD’s small towns)
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I thought the video looked fairly interesting. There seemed to be a whole load of different attacks to try (How awesome isn’t the whirlwind thing?) and games almost never have that kind of weird flavour text. I’d say this game probably needs less graphics and more flavour text :D Who cares if the guy dying isn’t reacting to the weapon when he clearly is in the flavour text?
I hope the different attack options are enough to make melee combat interesting in turn based. I like turn based tactical combat but mostly because of hiding behind barrels and doing interrupt actions when enemies show up… It’s kinda hard to do that in melee.
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@Ricardo: I’m not saying that my views about AoD haven’t changed – all I’m saying is that the initial comments was about what seems to be very boring combat.
While watching it I assumed/hoped that there would be a rich and interesting gameplay behind it all or RPS wouldn’t have posted about it.
Thanks to you and others in these comments I now realise that there is a lot more to AoD than combat that’s boring-to-look-at-but-still-possibly-quite-fun-to-execute.
If this makes it a game for me I can’t say but I now know more about AoD than I did when I watched the video.
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Just to point out – it’s fine if you personally don’t like turn-based combat, but it’s silly to claim that it’s been outgrown. It is a fundamentally different gameplay mechanism than any real-time combat. It has potentials and possibilities that real-time combat never will. (And vice versa.) It’s like claiming that chess was all right back in the day but it sucks now because you can do something in real-time.
And yes, I personally prefer turn-based combat because it is, by and large, tactically richer and more friendly to my poor reflexes, and my badass character doesn’t wind up crippled by the mere human running him.
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It seems that what the original post was objecting to was not the turn-based nature of the game, but the stiff and unrealistic combat animation. It’s the “uncanny valley” problem: things that look almost real are a lot uglier than things that look realistic, or things that don’t try to look realistic (e.g., Dwarf Fortress).
Turn-based 3D animation has been done right before — look at Silent Storm. Nothing more satisfying than picking a guy off a balcony with a sniper rifle and watching him fall 3 floors to the pavement.
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Oh, I know Mr. Walker doesn’t hate turn based games, what with his apparent (and highly justified) fondness of the (older) UFO series.
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I never thought that was the objection in the original article. Certain earlier comments, on the other hand…
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Yeah, well done RPS. Let’s take an indie turn-based CRPG that is aimed at a specific niche audience and then ridicule them because it doesn’t meet your “I’m a discerning gamer. I demand rag doll physics” audience.
Woah there cowboy. Don’t go blaming RPS just cos I got drunk before work one day. There are may intelligent people who comment on this blog, and I’m not one of them. Note that it’s a blog, not a forum. That’s why I’m banned and you can’t read this.
I stand by m’comments though. [MPK, you know better. Don't do it again - The RPS Censorship Procedure]
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The rolepalying aspects that Age of Decadence looks to be doing better than almost any modern game, are those I consider much more important to an RPG than how it looks. These include: story interactivity, your choices will actually affect the story, many different viable and varied character builds, non-linearity, interesting dialogue and story, quests with multiple paths and possible approaches including diplomatic, disguise, combat, sneaking, thieving.
I love everything you’re saying, but it’s still overshadowed by that little dude falling over and crying after being hit by a boulder-on-a-stick. Non-linearity is a fabled silver lining on a cloud thats approximately the size of forever. Eventually we need to stop grabbing at that goblet and enjoy the opium of freedom-wthin-boundaries. Hi Elder Scrolls Next!
Love what you can grab, but if you want to write your own RPG then learn how to GM.
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Understand if some cannot accept graphics and animations which are not cutting edge, though personally I’m much more concerned with what you actually get to do in the game rather than how it looks. If that’s the case this game is unlikely to be for you, that’s fine, no game is enjoyable for all.
In response to the attitide that “if you want an RPG stick to P&P” and that CRPGs should stop striving for story interactivity and stick to strict linearity ala TES, this is just silly, there is no question that RPGs are enriched by adding non-linearity as well as story and quest maleability. For me, a game where you are able to siginificantly shape the story and quests (especially along the lines of your character’s personality and skills; ie. real roleplaying, not the role imagination required in Morrowind and Oblivion), rather than follow a linear, never changing path (ala Oblivion and Morrowind which have no freedom in these terms), is much more interesting. Giving up and settling for strict linearity because we can’t achieve total freedom of choice is a cheap way out.
I have no problem with others enjoying a game like Oblivion, which looks pretty (if you ignore character models), allows you to wander at your leisure, but provides zero story and almost zero quest interactivity, the story and almost every quest play out exactly the same way every time you play, the only choice you have is which order to complete them (or to not do so at all). This is not what I play RPGs for, choices (in quests and story), mutually exclusive content all add to rolepalying, as parts of the game will be different with different character builds (the goal is for them to be siginificantly different), you may get different quests, quests may develop in a different direction, you may complete quests by completely different means (not just using different combat means), you may even have completely different dialogue options depending on Intelligence or particular character knowledge.
Given that few RPGs of quality are being made which are strong in the above aspects (had one recently in NWN2: MOTB and The Witcher seems good, though I’ve not yet played it, but none prior since Arcanum), I really don’t care that AOD’s graphics are not top notch (though they are definitely decent, and have some artistic merit), it seems to be delivering in spades on the gampeplay elements I see as imprortant.
Those who don’t value such aspects in an RPG may not appreciate AOD, just as I don’t appreciate Oblivion and was bored by Morrowind, that’s fine. For those who are interested in these aspects I urge you to check out AOD in more depth, a video show-casing combat does little to show its value.
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Yeah, I guess part of the confusion was that this was never really intended to be a “trailer” for the game, just a combat demonstration.
But anyway, entering viral marketer mode, I think the combat looks great from a gameplay perspective. Not the most complex turn based system ever, but it looks like it has nice detail, options and character skill applications. Aiming for body parts, a large variety of attacks, varied weapons and arrows, ability to create fire walls with some skill in alchemy, looks like a hell of a lot of fun. I doubt you could pull a system with similar options well in real time.
Also for those that are considering this the “oldest of old school” you might want to check the info at the bottom of the updates page (http://www.irontowerstudio.com/update.htm).
I really like this bad boy:
Q: Are there any NPC schedules, reactions to player actions or other elements that help create a dynamic world?
A: The gameworld is very reactive. Everything you do affects someone or something and has consequences. NPCs play specific roles and functions in the gameworld. For example, one of the thieves’ functions is smuggling. That function is connected to other characters and their functions, creating some interesting action-reaction scenarios for players to, well, play with.
If conditions for successful smuggling operations have changed (smugglers are dead or arrested, the shipment hasn’t been sent from another location, corruption among guards has been eliminated, etc), the smuggling stops. And now that affects someone else. Some craftsmen who relied on the supply of cheap ore are out of business. The Merchants’ Guild becomes stronger, expands its trading operations and influence.
If you manage to weaken a faction significantly, another faction will see an opportunity and move in, again, affecting a lot of things. The bigger the rock, the bigger the ripples.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff about how reactive the world is, your choices and there cosequences, the opportunites for all sorts of characters, (how a lore master can try to figure out historical info from conflicting sources, a con artist can disguise him self and forge documents), the faction conflict in the game, the non linearity, all that. To me, that all cries “next gen” a lot more than advanced physics, voice acting and parellax mapping. Ironically, it seems that its the “old-school” indie rpgs that are making the true advances in the genre, because honestly, there hasnt been much innovation going on anywhere else for more than 5 years. Kinda interesting to compare AoD with mainstream rpgs, who, with some recent exceptions, are still stuck in moral absolutism, linear plots, and lack consequence for your actions.
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I think what I was put off by, even though parts of it interested me, was the hilarious lack of hitting. Turn-based is one thing, but combining turn-based combat with a 10% hit rate is just… wow.
I love indie gaming – I bought both Armageddon Empires and Democracy 2 in one month alone. I will not, however, back a game solely for being indie.
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Well, sorta more realistic that way isnt it? I guess the guys you are fighting aren’t as fast as your character. Apparently, dodge/block skills are pretty effective/important. The player seems to make most of his hits though.
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More things should be turn-based.
no
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Yes?
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Looks excellent to me.
Rather depressed by a lot of the comments here.
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Hump says:
more things should be turn-based
noyesFixed.
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Hmm. To me this looks fantastic. If anything I think it may suffer from some kind of “uncanny valley” effect; it’s better animated than (say) X-Com or Jagged Alliance or Eschalon or Avernum… and so it reminds your eye of what “real combat” might look like, which then creates the disconnect between the real world and real time and the way that turn-based combat works in rpgs. My personal (and sadly I suspect, not widely shared) opinion is that in the end whether it looks good or bad or indifferent or “polite” is not that important… what matters is, do the game mechanics hold up after long play sessions? Is combat tense and exciting or does it merely require the player to make obvious right “choices” again and again? There’s no way to tell from this trailer…
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I don’t particularly like TB, but neither do I see how this kind of combat is worse than, say, the combat in NWN2.
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The game looks great. Will buy it definitely if it will be any good.
As for the graphics and anymation, I find them very nice.
You guys, who don’t like them and would rather look at some great realistic animation, go watch a movie. The game is meant to be played, not watched!
What difference does it make, what gestures makes the dying fellow? The only consern should be, that there is another one, who needs to be dealt with. And the dying, face grabbing fellow, doesn’t cry, but holds his nose/face, cause you obviously smashed he’s nose/face in.
As for TB combat – the more the merrier! Some of the greatest games I played have it (Arcanum, Fallout, Silent Storm, …). If you rather prefer not to think when you’re playing a game, then why don’t you just watch a movie?
I also like to play some relaxing, no brainwaves consuming, action games, but if I want to play something that’s worth while, I play RPGs. If they have TB combat, that that’s even better, ’cause that means I get to use my tactics skills and not wreck my fingers and buttons, mindlesly smashing away.
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This game totally needs simultaneous resolution of turns. I’ve always been sick of waiting for turns to end in turn based games. Having all the action happen at once would be much better.
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There are times when I actually like slow, turn-based games–I’ve been known to play games while watching TV or reading a book (you can call it ADD; I call it multi-tasking), and this game sounds ideal for those purposes. But it’s been 4 years since this post was made, and the thing is *still* in development, and that’s a bit worrying.
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