Age of Decadence - Public Beta Preview @ Heroic Fantasy Games

Heroic Fantasy Games have played the public beta of Age of Decadence and come back with their opinion of it.

Another thing I realised was that the 'Block' skill is better than the 'Dodge' skill if you want to take advantage of heavy armour. So I made another character, this time specialising in Swords, and Block. And this character had a good time. It seemed like he would master every encounter, crushing all his enemies under his blade.

Which brings me to another thought: when playing Age of Decadence, you have to leave all moral concerns aside. In this game, fighters must take every opportunity to kill a character, in order to gain skill points and treasure. It doesn't matter if the victims are completely innocent.

So how far did my Sword character go? Very far. He became a friend of the imperial guard commander and overthrew the city's king. But then he was captured and caged. Then he was given a chance to escape. But before he could escape he had to kill two guards, while being completely naked except for a dagger. Since the character had put all his skill points into Block and not Dodge, he had approximately zero chance to survive. You need a shield in order to block attacks.

More information.

while being completely naked

I guess the walkthrough for this game will be a short one:
1. Pick a female character
2. Let'em arrest you
3. Enjoy boobs!

unfortunately, the game is not high profile to really enjoy yourself
but i like the idea. To have 15 20% of users playing the game just to watch some naked girl. We'll have it in the future for sure

this game is still vaporware as far as i am concerned. endless monthly updates about content tweaking and no firm release date tells me there is no leadership involved. beware on the preorder.

cptbarkey, your constructive advice based on a reasoned and informed opinion is certainly welcome!

For those who don't know, Heroic Fantasy Games published Knights of the Chalice.

Are you going to claim that it's vaporware in every AoD thread, Barkey?

From earlier threads:

"still disappointed with all these content updates and still collecting preorder cash. not ponying up a penny until this is released. "
^ Yeah, I hate detailed content updates too.

"not bothering because i dont think this game is ever going to come out. nothing but monthly BS updates and no real commitment to a release date. no thank you."
^ Nobody responded, so you decided to type it again and add a warning to raise the stakes?

We've released two demos. Do you really think that after getting that far (engine, all systems, etc), we'll just stop one day because … what? What would be a good reason?

This is obviously proven to be anything but vaporware. Regular status updates means regular progress, and also with all the let's play threads and people testing the game regularly I would say it qualifies as one of the games if not the game which has the most contact with their fans.

Certainly not a good write-up. The writer magnifies the negative points while what he describes sound like the most reactive RPG ever. Not to mention how he attempts to squeeze all positives in like 3 sentences.

Originally Posted by VDweller
Are you going to claim that it's vaporware in every AoD thread, Barkey?

From earlier threads:

"still disappointed with all these content updates and still collecting preorder cash. not ponying up a penny until this is released. "
^ Yeah, I hate detailed content updates too.

"not bothering because i dont think this game is ever going to come out. nothing but monthly BS updates and no real commitment to a release date. no thank you."
^ Nobody responded, so you decided to type it again and add a warning to raise the stakes?

We've released two demos. Do you really think that after getting that far (engine, all systems, etc), we'll just stop one day because … what? What would be a good reason?

if you think you are doing a public service by calling me out, by all means enjoy my opinion as much as i type it out then

Your opinion doesn't bother me. Naturally, I read all AoD threads on the Watch and you're pretty much the only guy who consistently claims that it's vaporware.

So, I thought I'd finally ask why.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
Certainly not a good write-up.

It's more of a forum post than a real review. He's a great guy, but his analysis of the combat in the game definitely left something to be desired.
——
Vince, I think Barkey has some kind of inside scoop on what's going on behind the scenes with AoD. Perhaps we should pin down the lead developer and ask him to explain himself. Also, if AoD isn't vaporware, I personally would like to see some in-game footage, or maybe a demo.

Originally Posted by VDweller
Are you going to claim that it's vaporware in every AoD thread, Barkey?

From earlier threads:

"still disappointed with all these content updates and still collecting preorder cash. not ponying up a penny until this is released. "
^ Yeah, I hate detailed content updates too.

"not bothering because i dont think this game is ever going to come out. nothing but monthly BS updates and no real commitment to a release date. no thank you."
^ Nobody responded, so you decided to type it again and add a warning to raise the stakes?

We've released two demos. Do you really think that after getting that far (engine, all systems, etc), we'll just stop one day because … what? What would be a good reason?

Originally Posted by VDweller
Your opinion doesn't bother me. Naturally, I read all AoD threads on the Watch and you're pretty much the only guy who consistently claims that it's vaporware.

So, I thought I'd finally ask why.

i am excited about new and innovative rpg games as much as you are about creating them. my suggestion as stated before is to set a public release date, or at least an internal one so you have goals to reach for. I wouldnt be saying this for an open source or non paid community project, but you are already collecting preorder money since april and a vague release date of 2013. for that, you OWE the community at least a carrot. at least narrow it down to a quarter period in 2013.

We owe the community many things, but first and foremost, we owe them a quality game. This takes precedence over everything else.

As for the release date, we're aiming at October 2013. That's what it says at the top of our Steam Greenlight page.

Before you express your displeasure or skepticism, allow me to run some numbers by you. From another post:

"It takes time, manpower, and experience [to make quality RPGs]. According to Tim Cain, it takes 3+ years to make a decent RPG. Let's say you have a 12 people team. So, 40 hours a week (they usually work longer, but let's disregard it for now) x 52 weeks x 3 years x 12 people = 75,000 man-hours. Now take 4 people working part-time, which means 3-4 hours a day at best (and 3-4 hours after you've done 8 hours elsewhere isn't the same as 3-4 hours in the morning), so 4 x 52 weeks x 8 years x 4 people = 6,656 man-hours - less than 1/10th, and that's before we account for the lack of experience and learning the trade trial and error style."

Voted for it on Greenlight and been trying to be Blue to cover it more.

Thanks for all for the hard work on AoD.

Still looking forward to it. Preordered as soon as I was able.

Just let me know when it's finished. Plenty of ambitious projects have become vaporware over the years.

I'll be making room for AoD on my playlist, fer sure.



-Carn

Originally Posted by cptbarkey
beware on the preorder.

Why? We got 2 quality demos, second of which has as much content as some full games. We also got lots and lots of information in the updates about stuff, that's not covered in the demos. Why is that all bad? If anything, all that stuff should give you a very good idea what you'll preorder. Would it be better in your opinion to throw in your money based on trailers alone, as is pretty much the norm in the game industry?

Originally Posted by VDweller
"It takes time, manpower, and experience [to make quality RPGs]. According to Tim Cain, it takes 3+ years to make a decent RPG. Let's say you have a 12 people team. So, 40 hours a week (they usually work longer, but let's disregard it for now) x 52 weeks x 3 years x 12 people = 75,000 man-hours. Now take 4 people working part-time, which means 3-4 hours a day at best (and 3-4 hours after you've done 8 hours elsewhere isn't the same as 3-4 hours in the morning), so 4 x 52 weeks x 8 years x 4 people = 6,656 man-hours - less than 1/10th, and that's before we account for the lack of experience and learning the trade trial and error style."

Well, you have to add that you're doing an RPG with an amount of choices and consequences never ever seen before, C&C is the most complex and time consuming part of any RPG, so it is amazing you've gotten as far as you have in the time that you have considering the circumstances.

Thanks!