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.
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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
“causing massive damage to vital organs” LOL
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.
And hey, this post has more comments then any other post on the first page; its gotta be doing something right.
@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)
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.
@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.
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.
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.
Oh, I know Mr. Walker doesn’t hate turn based games, what with his apparent (and highly justified) fondness of the (older) UFO series.
I never thought that was the objection in the original article. Certain earlier comments, on the other hand…
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
More things should be turn-based.
no
Yes?
Looks excellent to me.
Rather depressed by a lot of the comments here.
Hump says:
more things should be turn-based
noyesFixed.
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…
I don’t particularly like TB, but neither do I see how this kind of combat is worse than, say, the combat in NWN2.
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.
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.