Age of Decadence - March Development Update

Xarg let us know that the March development update for Age of Decadence is available. It provides information on distribution agreements with Steam, Gamers Gate, and Good Old Games. Furtermore it explains why they moved to the R4 release of their engine, the end game and several screenshots of an interaction with the prospector in the Library of Saross.

R4:

I know, I know. Is it really necessary? To be honest, I had doubts myself. We talked about it internally and it sounded pretty good, but it was very tempting to say ‘next game’ and move on. Well, the next game will be different and it is a shame to throw away all these changes, which are the logical evolution of the previous concepts and the next and final design step.

So, when Oscar put it all in a design doc and made some mock up screens, I didn’t even argue. It’s fucking beautiful.  It changes a lot of things – improves the overall design, changes things that didn’t work well or didn’t fit the overall design, brings more clarity, both design-wise and the way info is communicated to the player.

Quick example: The character creation.  It wasn’t very exciting, for lack of a better word. You think about your stats, which define the rest. Then you distribute the extra points, which don’t really change the overall picture, and you’re done.

Now, stats no longer define the starting skill values. Instead, they add SP to two different pools:  Combat and Non-Combat.  Strength, Dexterity and Constitution add to the combat pool, while Perception, Intelligence and Charisma add to the non-combat one.  The formula is (Stat-4)*5.

So, let’s say you want to make a tough, but dumb and ugly bastard. Str 10, Dex 8, Con 8, Per 6, Int 4, Cha 4. You get 70 skill points in the combat pool but only 20 points in the non-combat one. It’s a lot more fun to make characters now, that’s for sure.

Knockdown is no longer a passive trait of hammers, but a special attack available only to hammers, which fixes the main (and probably only) complaint about hammers – having enemies thrown back when you don’t need it.

Expect changes to special and aimed attacks, dodge, block, crafting, counter-attack, inventory access during combat, synergies, skills, info displayed, plus new attacks.