Age of Decadence: Interview Pt. 2 @ RPG Vault

RPG Vault continues their interview with Iron Tower Studios on their promising indie title, The Age of Decadence:

Jonric: How about non-adversarial NPCs? Are there many of them? Can any join you to form a party? And what else should we know about them?

Vince D. Weller: Since dialogues and dialogue-based ways to solve quests play a large role, there are plenty of NPCs to talk to and use your skills on. NPCs provide information, give quests, help with quests, send assassins after you, try to manipulate you, could be manipulated by you, and do other fun stuff. They also show how reactive the world is, and how your actions affect it. You won't have to imagine the consequences of your actions, or even be told about them. You will see what happened to people you've met, helped, acted against, allied with or betrayed as you play the game.

NPCs can't join you and form a party, but they can be sent to help you by a friendly faction. You'll not have any control over such allies, and will be able to move and act independently from them. As for the groups, we have seven different factions, three Noble Houses and four professional guilds for merchants, assassins, thieves and guards. You can read more about these factions on our website.

Each faction has its own agenda, its own allies and enemies, so while you will be able to join all of them in theory, you won't be able to progress in every one, as quests usually involve several factions, so helping one faction would mean harming interests of another - not to mention that high reputation with one would lower your reputation with another.