I thought the Indie DNF was Grimoire.

Here's the unofficial AoD trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JSV1ei6OjY

Thanks for the replies :)

1.The reason I asked about PS:T is because it is mentioned on the steam page a few times :

You can acquire it and, in the best traditions of the Planescape Torment, swap it for one of your own

They are generally very well written (minor criticism: the swearing arsenal seems limited to the f word, which makes me miss Annah and Morte from Planescape Torment

The greatest testament to the power of genuine choice and consequence in an RPG since Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer.

2. I actually didn't realise it was only 75% done and had been in gestation for so many years.

3. I think Ill wait for a full on gog version.

Thanks again for the replies :)

Or UnderRail? - UnderRail looks Very Fallout-ish!

Age of Decadence is a very unique game, and in my opinion it can't really be compared with anything properly, though I guess Fallout or PS:T would be the closest comparison. It's basically an RPG completely focused on the idea of choices and consequences, and multiple solutions to problems which open storylines which are vastly divergent. The game has multiple "Backgrounds" such as Grifter (con-man), Mercenary, Praetor (soldier nobility), Loremaster, Merchant, you can play the game once as one of these backgrounds and only get a bit of the full story, you would need to replay the game as a differen background to see another perspective on the events in Teron, all the stories interlock and each other only has it's limited perspective.

Basically if your idea of a good RPG is environmental interaction, exploration, looting and killing lots of stuff, run far away because in AoD you are just as weak and prone to death as anyone in the world, it's not a game about exploring dungeons - their are no dungeons, it's not about clicking on every object Ultima style, the only thing you interact with in AoD are people, and what you say, whether your Streetwise, whether you have Etiquette, whether you can persuade or intimidate, determines how the story progresses. Pretty much everything is determined at character creation, and how the world interacts with your character is based ENTIRELY on their stats, if you are not intelligent or charismatic then this will be reflected in your dialogue choices.

If I had to explain what I think AoD is about, it's a game where CHARACTER skill completely and utterly overrides PLAYER skill, you can't be a hero and do everything, and making your character good at one thing means you will suffer at everything else.

It's not really my type of game, cause I'd probably suck at combat, but I'll probably still give it a go, when it comes out.

Cheers - hopefully it'll be good when/if finally finished then!
(saying that, I haven't actually played FO2 yet, I'm on Geneforge 1 as my turn based, isometric RPG at the moment...)

Its decent enough now tbh, just giving a heads up that its not quite done yet and is taking its own sweet time getting there apparently :(

The other day I reclaimed a steam key from them, because they were greenlit, and I realized I pre-ordered the game several months before registering on GoG. Even if that's a lot of thursdays, they always were careful with "release dates" and were even more carefull with pre-orders (they didn't want to make pre order without having a demo out, and always told people the game wasn't meant for everyone). I always respected their stance on that.

The main issue they have in my opinion : they aim to make the perfect thing, while they know it is impossible to achieve, there is still an infinite way to make things good and .... well .... choices and consequences.

Side-note : the other day I think I heard people wondering who coined "choices and consequences" first, Iron Tower Studio are probably the first to use that motto as a design orientation for a video-game (to that extent).

Further-note (?) : DarrkPhoenix, when I read your posts I instantly want (scratch that : need) a coffee. I should hate you ! (Edit : you've had this avatar since day one, am I right ?)

I think a major issue they've had is that just about all of the team were fairly inexperienced with game development and software development in general. In such a situation it becomes easy to start thinking "We only need to do A, B, and C, we're almost done!" without realizing what A, B, and C actually entails, and that once you actually get into trying to do those things they amount to more work than has been put into the project to date. In short, they lacked project management experience when they started, and there are a lot of problems that stem from that (including feature creep, which I suspect is an issue they've had and is along the lines of what you stated).

Yep, I've been using this since the beginning, although ironically I gave up my own coffee habit several years ago. Still a chemist, though, and I figure by this point this avatar is as much a part of my identity here as my username.

I see they passed 10 years of developement last month. That's some anniversary.:-)
I played some demo/beta/whatever probably 2 years ago and I remember mostly liking it. I have all but forgotten about it since then.
Ignoring the fact I don't do pre-orders, I would never pre-order game that has longer gestation period than 5 elephants.
If it somehow gets released and I won't forget about it until then, I'll consider giving it a shot.