Game News AoD Gameplay Video - Carrinas Assassination

[Vault Dweller]

I liked when the one guy spent all his AP running back and forth in an enemy's zone of control and got attacked over and over again during his whole turn.

He was surrounded and couldn't use his crossbow point-blank. He had to move and was attacked when he was "disengaging" and then attacked when he entered another NPC's zone of control. He failed to get close to the spearman (see the textbox) and had to step back, which made it seems like he was running back and forth. Basically, a spearman can make an attack of opportunity to prevent an enemy from getting close to him. A successful attack forces the opponent to step back. If there is enough AP left, the AI will make another attempt. Etc.

Long time irritant of mine showing up in this clip.
Anyone else annoyed by a ranged fighter not being easily defeated when a melee fighter is 1 foot from them.
And what about the crossbowman running from the melee fighter all the while loading 2 bolts and firing?
Mount and Blade handled this accurately showing the crossbowmen using both feet and hands to cock the string but impossible to do when a sword is being swung at you from 1 foot away.
/oldtimerrantoff

Mount & Blade is a RT group warfare simulator. AoD is a single character TB (as in as realistic as chess) RPG. You have to look not at what's realistic, but at what would work for both NPCs and your character. If you play an archer/crossbowman who is "easily defeated" the moment a melee enemy gets close, your experience will be very frustrating and will most likely create a brand new irritant.

The game doesn't let rangers attack point-blank and requires to either switch to a back up weapon or step back, which triggers an attack of opportunity. That's as far as we go when it comes to modeling ranged characters' disadvantages.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Any plans to get this on Steam by the way? I think I've grumped about it before but I don't remember hearing if you guys intend to or not.

 

[waywardOne]

We have key shortcuts for every kind of attack,

 

[MetalCraze]

Damn music is shit.

Also... isn't the game vapourware?

 

[denizsi]

- Grid: It can have different opacity levels, you can toggle the lines or fills on and off, or toggle it off completely.

- we will probably do a "minimal" interface at some point (probably after the game is out).

- There will be options to increase the text size, especially at higher resolutions.

WOW! If we asked for these things a year ago or two (I and a few others actually did), VD would brush over us as unnecessary (which he actually did). Good to see i

Ok, new request: this might have been in the demo, I forget, but can we have a camera toggle to keep it ever fixed on the PC and also an option for fixed relative to PC ie. I manipulate the camera to my liking and then, even though the camera isn't focused on PC, it pans along with PC as (s)he moves?

 

[CraigCWB]

Their stuff looks less and less state of the art with every year that goes by. I don't know what the justifications for all the delays are worth when at this rate it's going to be hopelessly outclassed by stuff high school kids are doing for facebook applets, but whatever.

On the other hand, maybe these guys have just decided to become professional procrastinators and don't intend to ever deliver anything.

Two thumbs down for spending 5 years marketing a couple of months work, by the way. Good thing they are "indie" developers because they'd have been fired by any game company a long time ago for taking months to do what they were allotted days to accomplish. This is the kind of bullshit that leaves me with zero sympathy for today's breed of "indie" developer. The 1st generation of garage/mom's basement game programmer was moving mountains. The 2nd generation was struggling, but still managed to compete with the big guys. This latest generation? What have they accomplished? I guess it just goes to show that the industry has matured enough that everyone who has actually got any talent is working for an actual game company. Which leaves who doing the "indie" work?

 

[torpid]

Stop making requests or the game is never going to be released -- the feedback on this video alone will probably delay the game even further.

Everything looks good. Proceed with haste

 

[CraigCWB]

- we will probably do a "minimal" interface at some point (probably after the game is out).

- There will be options to increase the text size, especially at higher resolutions.

You see that bullshit right there? Doing an interface layout takes half an hour in xml. Even doing it BY HAND FROM CODE any decent programmer could do alternate versions of the user interface in a day or two, no matter how poorly written the code is.

And changing the fucking font size? Is he ever serious? That's between 1 and 5 lines of code depending (again) on how poorly written the code is. Oh, but we need a menu interface so that the user can PICK the font size right? Well, guess how many lines of code it is to add a nested menu for font size?

This is the kind of shit that just screams "We aren't serious about making this game!".

 

[Tycn]

What manner of handheld ballista is your assassin buddy using that is capable of flinging victims across the room?

 

[Michael Ellis]

Long time irritant of mine showing up in this clip.
Anyone else annoyed by a ranged fighter not being easily defeated when a melee fighter is 1 foot from them.
And what about the crossbowman running from the melee fighter all the while loading 2 bolts and firing?
Mount and Blade handled this accurately showing the crossbowmen using both feet and hands to cock the string but impossible to do when a sword is being swung at you from 1 foot away.
/oldtimerrantoff

Mount & Blade is a RT group warfare simulator. AoD is a single character TB (as in as realistic as chess) RPG. You have to look not at what's realistic, but at what would work for both NPCs and your character. If you play an archer/crossbowman who is "easily defeated" the moment a melee enemy gets close, your experience will be very frustrating and will most likely create a brand new irritant.

The game doesn't let rangers attack point-blank and requires to either switch to a back up weapon or step back, which triggers an attack of opportunity. That's as far as we go when it comes to modeling ranged characters' disadvantages.

Thanks for the response.
My rant was driven by a long-standing pet peeve with fighter vs archer rules.
The only reason I mentioned M&B is that it popped into my head as a game portrayal of the time and physical positioning necessary to prepare the weapon for fire.
Basically a visual example to convey to folks why I have my melee vs archer opinion.
Even though it has been forever in D&D, I have never agreed with letting the archer continue attacking with a bow/crossbow while suffering a penalty and an attack of opportunity when enemy within 5 feet or adjacent grid.
Archers should be required to switch to melee and no point-blank shot feat.
I understand accomodations must be made and it sounds like I will be happy with what you have decided.
I was at work and I just needed to vent.

 

[shihonage]

CraigCWB, you're so off the mark, debunking your crap would take a ton of time with no payoff. What a loaded post.

 

[circ]

Why would it take a ton of time to debunk? The coding requirements are accurate.

 

[Inziladun]

Stop making requests or the game is never going to be released -- the feedback on this video alone will probably delay the game even further.

This I believe is VDs major weakness. He's too busy trying to make the game perfect, the game looks great, we'll love it! Now finish the damn thing already!

 

[shihonage]

Why would it take a ton of time to debunk? The coding requirements are accurate.

His requirements are only accurate in isolation. This type of underestimation is common among those who don't know what they don't know, because they never had to work on these things in the context of a project of this complexity.

Such a person does not understand the system of priorities involved in making the project (of which there are hundreds, all higher than picking font sizes and duplicating menues), and they do not comprehend that every single font size has to be hand-picked and tested (and, if necessary, adjusted for) in various parts of the interface, which may or may not scale to it depending on functionality and implementation of a specific part.

Perhaps the biggest clue to his cluelessness is that he's comparing the work spent on AOD to that of an ambitious Flash app. This naivete, the gross underestimation of any and all effort involved, is born of the same source from which comes great enthusiasm of creators of new RPG projects which end up dying off the next summer, with great enthusiasm.

The only thing that can deprogram such an individual is attempting such a project on their own.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Long time irritant of mine showing up in this clip.
Anyone else annoyed by a ranged fighter not being easily defeated when a melee fighter is 1 foot from them.
And what about the crossbowman running from the melee fighter all the while loading 2 bolts and firing?
Mount and Blade handled this accurately showing the crossbowmen using both feet and hands to cock the string but impossible to do when a sword is being swung at you from 1 foot away.
/oldtimerrantoff

Mount & Blade is a RT group warfare simulator. AoD is a single character TB (as in as realistic as chess) RPG. You have to look not at what's realistic, but at what would work for both NPCs and your character. If you play an archer/crossbowman who is "easily defeated" the moment a melee enemy gets close, your experience will be very frustrating and will most likely create a brand new irritant.

The game doesn't let rangers attack point-blank and requires to either switch to a back up weapon or step back, which triggers an attack of opportunity. That's as far as we go when it comes to modeling ranged characters' disadvantages.

Thanks for the response.
My rant was driven by a long-standing pet peeve with fighter vs archer rules.
The only reason I mentioned M&B is that it popped into my head as a game portrayal of the time and physical positioning necessary to prepare the weapon for fire.
Basically a visual example to convey to folks why I have my melee vs archer opinion.
Even though it has been forever in D&D, I have never agreed with letting the archer continue attacking with a bow/crossbow while suffering a penalty and an attack of opportunity when enemy within 5 feet or adjacent grid.
Archers should be required to switch to melee and no point-blank shot feat.
I understand accomodations must be made and it sounds like I will be happy with what you have decided.
I was at work and I just needed to vent.

What's worse in D&D is that the archer, if specialised, can get the ability to greatly minimise, or even eliminate, that penalty. From memory it isn't even that onerous - point blank shot can be taken very early in 3rd ed.

It irks in D&D because that's a party-based system - specialist characters SHOULD be reliant on their party in a party-based system, that's the whole point of having a party of specialists vs hybrid classes. A specialist archer in a party-based system should need to escape from melee asap.

 

[denizsi]

Why would it take a ton of time to debunk? The coding requirements are accurate.

Because that's how much bullshit he would have to make up just to appear to debunk

Kidding. I agree with him. Even the simplest things are never as simple as they look and can drag on longer than you expect.

 

[Silellak]

Will someone please pay attention to me? Please?

 

[laclongquan]

Their stuff looks less and less state of the art with every year that goes by. I don't know what the justifications for all the delays are worth when at this rate it's going to be hopelessly outclassed by stuff high school kids are doing for facebook applets, but whatever.

On the other hand, maybe these guys have just decided to become professional procrastinators and don't intend to ever deliver anything.

Two thumbs down for spending 5 years marketing a couple of months work, by the way. Good thing they are "indie" developers because they'd have been fired by any game company a long time ago for taking months to do what they were allotted days to accomplish. This is the kind of bullshit that leaves me with zero sympathy for today's breed of "indie" developer. The 1st generation of garage/mom's basement game programmer was moving mountains. The 2nd generation was struggling, but still managed to compete with the big guys. This latest generation? What have they accomplished? I guess it just goes to show that the industry has matured enough that everyone who has actually got any talent is working for an actual game company. Which leaves who doing the "indie" work?

If we can spend 10 years replaying JA2, so can you. Shut up and suck it down, trollee.

 

[haptsonir]

Their stuff looks less and less state of the art with every year that goes by. I don't know what the justifications for all the delays are worth when at this rate it's going to be hopelessly outclassed by stuff high school kids are doing for facebook applets, but whatever.

In what sense? I don't think it ever was the goal of AOD to be "state of the art" technically, but rather to play well and to have quality content. It's not as though games are taking any giant steps past AOD in those respects.

The graphics look good anyway. Simple, but pretty.

 

[shihonage]

The term "technically" is often used in regards to world renderer only.

In reality, the most tricky "technique" goes into what makes for the actual gameplay. If AOD lives up to its ambitious design goals, it will be "technically" more complex than most modern big-budget RPGs - much like Fallout still is.

 

[Zomg]

I want to play the game please. Thank you.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Looks like shit. Will torrent.

 

[SimpleComplexity]

Is this the music you really hear during the combat? Watched the video and it already started to get annoying about half in the video "dududdu". I prefer ambient music like in Fallout.

 

[haptsonir]

The term "technically" is often used in regards to world renderer only.

In reality, the most tricky "technique" goes into what makes for the actual gameplay. If AOD lives up to its ambitious design goals, it will be "technically" more complex than most modern big-budget RPGs - much like Fallout still is.

Thank you. "Design" is the word I was so struggling to find.

 

[MetalCraze]

Is this the music you really hear during the combat? Watched the video and it already started to get annoying about half in the video "dududdu". I prefer ambient music like in Fallout.

Context-dependent music is the most retarded thing related to music to ever happen in games.

You just go through some area, listening to a calm music - then BLAM - shitty combat music starts playing (although writing 'shitty' is redundant in this case) - combat ends - calm music starts playing again... but after you walk some 5 meters - BLAM - !

This is a pro-tip, VD.