Age of Decadence - Now on Early Access

I'd love to know how much time it takes to get through this content for the average Watch member.

It's really difficult to say because it depends on how you want to play.
If you decide to test all the possible characters and test all the possible choices that's easily 60 hours I'd say (sadly the game doesn't count how much time to played it so it's an estimation). I mean, I had soo much pleasure playing that I didn't really counted the hours so I'm not sure.
What is sure is that it's not a 10/12 hours game. Much more. And this estimation is only for the 2 third available, with the last third, which is said to be nearly as big as the 2 first combined, you may expect up to 100 hours, may be more if you want to get some special ranks very hard to get.

But once you have tested all the possible choices and found out which ones are the ones you prefer to do (for example you write them on a paper like 1, 2, 1, 3, exit, and so on), you can finish the game (well the 2 first cities available), for one character, in may be one hour (just doing the choices without reading the text on the screen).

The thing is, before you ll find the 'perfect' list of choices for your character, you'll have to spend tens of hours trying out differents choices.

And once you'll have the 'perfect' list of choices for your character, you'll still be able to start a different character... for whom the previous choices won't matter (some may be matter but most won't), so you'll have to spend lots of extra hours for each character.

So it's really hard to say... and it also depends on how fully you are ready to explore the various choices.
Because you could find a list of choices that seems perfect for your character... but then while playing with another character discover something new that you hadn t suspected so far (for example because some choices only are offered if your character has a certain level of charisma or perception or intelligence that your first character didn t had), and boom, that may push you to start the first character one more time (but this time with the point or two in charisma/perception/intell that were missing the first time) to try those new choices for him.
 
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Has combat changed much? I liked the demo but I could never gain a victory in that mandatory fight so I never went very far. I call it mandatory because it was required for a plot quest. Because I always died after about 20 tries I gave up but i liked the direction.

The February/March thing is not correct either. As we said on the Early Access page:

"We need 4-5 months to finish the third and final chapter of the game (we’re planning to start the beta test in April 2014) and your support and suggestions will help us deliver a quality RPG."
 
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I think I'll pass - I don't want to ruin my enjoyment of the final game. I can wait!
I'll second this. I waited who knows how many years now. One or two more wont kill me. Let me know when it's finally completed please.:)
 
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We'd be sad if it happens to be three and then it kills ya. :p
Who knows we all can die at any time. I have been following this game ever since it was first announced many years ago. I do know I hate playing Alpha or Beta versions of games. So as the saying goes patience is a virtue. ;)
 
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Has combat changed much? I liked the demo but I could never gain a victory in that mandatory fight so I never went very far. I call it mandatory because it was required for a plot quest. Because I always died after about 20 tries I gave up but i liked the direction.

No the combat is still the same, except there were some balance adjustment.
Anyway, the thing is that, depending on the type of character you choose to play, fight may need to be avoided and other solutions, wiser or more manipulative ones, have to be found to achieve your goals.
So, if you play a loremaster - the brain type - it s totaly normal that you get your ass kicked even with hours of training … but there is certainly another way to proceed, may be by convincing or bribing or lying to, and so on.

Also, alchemy may sometimes help... some poison on your blade or some throwing bomb may help you when you lack muscle.
 
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I don't think this fight was avoidable did i miss something in the demo ?

No the combat is still the same, except there were some balance adjustment.
Anyway, the thing is that, depending on the type of character you choose to play, fight may need to be avoided and other solutions, wiser or more manipulative ones, have to be found to achieve your goals.
So, if you play a loremaster - the brain type - it s totaly normal that you get your ass kicked even with hours of training … but there is certainly another way to proceed, may be by convincing or bribing or lying to, and so on.

Also, alchemy may sometimes help… some poison on your blade or some throwing bomb may help you when you lack muscle.
 
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I don't think this fight was avoidable did i miss something in the demo ?

Tell me which fight you are talking about and I'll let you know if you may have missed something.

Also, let me know what kind of character (thief / assassin / mercenary / loremaster / merchand / and so on) you selected.
 
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This is a single character game right? What about followers that you don't directly control in combat? Is that in?

I would say rather no, there are no followers in the usual sens (that you directly control or at least on whom you have some mean of control) BUT for some missions, generaly which contain fight, you may be assisted/escorted by "friends" (people from your guild).

Spoiler : For example, if you decide to be with the Imperial Guards, you'll have to do a "stand of" (I think that's the term) against a big tribe of barbarians. Basicaly, there will be several waves of barbarians trying to invade your "fortified" position, and you'll have to fight, with a dozen Imperial Guards, and resist long enough for a big Imperial reinforcement army to arrive. During this fight, the Imperial Guards will be fighting with you but you won't be able to give them orders, they'll be managed by the AI.
 
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I can't remember this was like 6 or 8 months ago. The character was a warrior I think; the fight is the one where you have 3 quests with this guy and the third one he asks if you are ready when you say yes you are teleported to this camp where the fight begins as soon as the teleport finishes.

Tell me which fight you are talking about and I'll let you know if you may have missed something.

Also, let me know what kind of character (thief / assassin / mercenary / loremaster / merchand / and so on) you selected.
 
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I can't remember this was like 6 or 8 months ago. The character was a warrior I think; the fight is the one where you have 3 quests with this guy and the third one he asks if you are ready when you say yes you are teleported to this camp where the fight begins as soon as the teleport finishes.

If I'm not misstaking, the quests in question are the Aurelian Outlook and the Bandit Camp.

Indeed, the use of force is not the way to deal with those quests.

If you are good at convincing people Spoiler : Instead of fighting the first and then the second group of ennemies (which indeed is really hard and probably even impossible), to convince the Bandits to attack the Outpost… and then you arrive and just have to kill (or not) the only remaining, and already half-dead bandit. All the other ennemies have killed each others. Mission accomplished !

If you are good at sneaking Spoiler : You can let Dellar pay the money to liberate the hostage and then infiltrate the Outpost and sabotage the machine inside. Like that, the Aurelian won't have any reason to stay there and will return home (when you were asked to deal with the situation at the outpost that didn't necessarly meant to kill the guys inside.. the goal is to avoid they use the machine in the mine by one way or another… kill them is a solution, but destroying the machine is another one)

If you are a loremaster Spoiler : ou can let Dellar pay the money to liberate the hostage and then go to the outpost and "offer your services" (the Aurelian are looking for someone to make the machine work) and once "hired" you can actualy choose to start the machine and put it in overheat and ask everybody to come see it, and then leave and boom, the machine explode and everybody dies. But you have another choice. Once hired, you could decide to really repair the machine : You will perform treason to the king of the first city BUT you'll gain the favors of the king of the second city… who is richer.

For a warior, Spoiler : before going in and try to kill everybody in the outpost, you should investigate where the people in the outpost get their food, and bribe the provider to put some poison in the next shipment. Like that, you still have to kill them all, but they'll all be more or less weakened by the poison.

Those are the solutions I've found… but there are may be others that I missed.

Age of Decadence is really NOT the usual "brainless" RPG in which the only solution to all quests is to go there and kill everybody with your sword / spells.
 
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When I played the demo (it was the first demo they released) I tried to speak with everyone but I do not remember many of the options you discuss above. Perhaps there is some place I need to go to invoke those options that can't be reached by simply walking around town (it took me a tries to figure out that there is some sort of 'quick' travel to key locations. When I posted on their forums they did not hint there was a way to avoid the fight but rather the build had to be very optimized to have a chance to win (there was a long discussion that the game was too sensitive to initial stat selection). Perhaps I should download a newer demo and try again ?
 
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When I played the demo (it was the first demo they released) I tried to speak with everyone but I do not remember many of the options you discuss above. Perhaps there is some place I need to go to invoke those options that can't be reached by simply walking around town (it took me a tries to figure out that there is some sort of 'quick' travel to key locations. When I posted on their forums they did not hint there was a way to avoid the fight but rather the build had to be very optimized to have a chance to win (there was a long discussion that the game was too sensitive to initial stat selection). Perhaps I should download a newer demo and try again ?

Oh yes you should definitivly do that (now the free demo is nearly bug free).

The options I was talking about may indeed depends on your "job" (assassin, merchand, so on) or on some of your stats because 2 games with different type of job or even with the same job but slightly different stats (you didn't use the points the same way when you created you character) may really change things for you in the game.

Also, it's indeed possible that there was some bugs at the beginning... but now it's working well.
 
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