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[Ivefan]

Yeah. Read this thread and recalled that I wanted to play academagia but didn't because it was just the first year. Dug through their forums where they said they planned to have year two out by the end of the year.
Still way too long development time for what it is, i think.

[Viken]

They just released a new patch/free DLC for Academagia not too long ago, Shadowgandor.

Also, when they created Academagia, they created their own system of skills, magic, teaching/learning, not to mention their own systems for handling quests and whatnot.  Its alot more open-ended than how Ars Magica is, but at the same time is much more structured than the generally freeform magic system of the pen-and-paper game.  You almost cannot compare the two.  I've played Academagia from start to finish.

P.S.: You can resize the text in Academagia, search their forum. 

[Shadowgandor]

Nov. 03, 2011
Black Chicken Studios presents the 14th free DLC for Academagia: The Making of Mages, Saints and Strangers! Download it now!

That's what it says on their front page. I'll take a look on their forums though


Edit: DLC 15 has been released on the forum: http://academagia.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=2419
Still, almost a year for a new free DLC to be released. They're planning on releasing the second year in 2013. At this rate, we'll get the full experience in 2019...
 The free DLC is nice though (the fact it's free. Haven't tried the actual content out).

[ndkid]

Edit: DLC 15 has been released on the forum: http://academagia.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=2419
Still, almost a year for a new free DLC to be released. They're planning on releasing the second year in 2013. At this rate, we'll get the full experience in 2019...
 The free DLC is nice though (the fact it's free. Haven't tried the actual content out).

*blink*
The fact that it was a year between their *fourteenth* and *fifteenth* free DLC is your gripe? Seriously?

As to a company completely missing its first release day estimate for a sequel coming out, when the estimate was made when they were just in the midst of releasing (and creating the first DLC for) the original game the sequel would be based on? If that weren't par for the course for every game out there (and, based on every work experience I've had making software over the past 15 years, most non-game software products, too), I might be more riled up by it.

[ndkid]

Also, when they created Academagia, they created their own system of skills, magic, teaching/learning, not to mention their own systems for handling quests and whatnot.  Its alot more open-ended than how Ars Magica is, but at the same time is much more structured than the generally freeform magic system of the pen-and-paper game.  You almost cannot compare the two.  I've played Academagia from start to finish.

I'm curious, Viken; what is it about the Academagia system that makes you describe it as "more open-ended"? I suppose you could analogize between the techniques and forms of AM and the Phemes of Academagia, which would mean Academagia would have more, but I'm not sure if that's what you were thinking of.

[Neonivek]

I can only guess the reason the second year of Academagia took so long is simply because people actually played the first year.

There are so many silly, bad, and weird things about how the first year plays I am not surprised the second year is entirely different.

Someone gave you a cake? Well you can't eat that at lunch or breakfast. No, you must devote 4 hours to just savoring that entire cake and even if you wanted to there is no point!

[Shadowgandor]

Edit: DLC 15 has been released on the forum: http://academagia.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=2419
Still, almost a year for a new free DLC to be released. They're planning on releasing the second year in 2013. At this rate, we'll get the full experience in 2019...
 The free DLC is nice though (the fact it's free. Haven't tried the actual content out).

*blink*
The fact that it was a year between their *fourteenth* and *fifteenth* free DLC is your gripe? Seriously?

No. But it does say something about the development. My gripe is that I bought a game for €30 with promises about year two being released in the near future. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, even though I finished it in about 3 hours, because I knew I'd be able to continue with that character in the future. More than two years later and I still can't continue the characters I made. DLC is fine and all but the additions are really minor. I've tried the first 3 and they added about 5 minutes of new uhm, story( Read material? Not sure how to call it) while it didn't add anything to the experience.
I'd have preferred if they bundled the events for year 2 instead of releasing it for the first year. After having created a few characters, they start losing their charm.

Read my post. I appreciate the free dlc but I blame them for promising year 2 "in the near future" and not delivering this promise. I am not entitled to a sequel or anything but that doesn't mean I should trust them either.

[Neonivek]

I am not entitled to a sequel or anything

Uhm... arn't you?

I know Entitled tends to be a negative word... but isn't this one of those few situations where you are genuinly entitled to the sequel?

[ndkid]

Someone gave you a cake? Well you can't eat that at lunch or breakfast. No, you must devote 4 hours to just savoring that entire cake and even if you wanted to there is no point!

*laugh*
I can't wait to hear you grumble about the Ars Magica seasonal rules... this reminds me of my players in my campaign. "Wait, so I have this book, and you're telling me I can't learn *anything* unless I spend THREE MONTHS reading it?"

[Neonivek]

Well that actually makes sense. You arn't spending 3 months "reading it" you could probably have done that in a few days if you wanted to.

Three months is you reading, decoding, understanding, and memorising. Plus magic is considered so complex that ordinary mortals without the gift could spend their entire lives reading magical texts and only essentially see gibberish. So this becomes a book that is nothing but thick stacks of scientific formula.

So 3 months understanding a magical book is entirely understandible.

---

Eating however being delegated to a 4 hour period when the game implies that your character has several points where he eats (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) is odd.

My suggestion to them, that I cannot deliver, is that every day you can eat one thing and the "Eat" action just allows you to eat more then usual.

This thus makes food useful but it also makes it more logical as well.

[ScriptWolf]

Update bump

There was a update on the kickstarter explaining covenant gameplay it sounds really good how they plan on doing it check it out.

[Neonivek]

Yep apperantly they are vastly increasing the number of resources in the game.

On one had it feels cheap to have things like "Piety" reduced to a score... at the same time however it does make sense that they would reduce a sort of story perspective thing that would have otherwise been handled by the ST/GM/DM (How the church thinks about you) to a score since... well... how else is the game not only going to keep track of something like that but also tell you at the same time? It is nice that they include these story telling elements even if they have to be reduced to a number rather then a simple statement on a sort of quasi-relationship between large entities.

I still kinda wonder if they will even do justice to the spells in the game with respect to your covenant. A lot of the things that pressured starting covenants were REALLY unimportant later on.

It is why I worry about this game simply being... well... for lack of words a game.

Need walls for protection? Well use Control or Transform earth to do what would cost a fortune. Need money? Sense Earth and find gold deposits or just create money by selling your invaluable services. Your important people dying of old age? well don't waste immortality on them. Simply create a race of expert dragonfolk (Not sure if 5 actually limits your ability to do this or not) to help you.

[ndkid]

Yep apperantly they are vastly increasing the number of resources in the game.

On one had it feels cheap to have things like "Piety" reduced to a score... at the same time however it does make sense that they would reduce a sort of story perspective thing that would have otherwise been handled by the ST/GM/DM (How the church thinks about you) to a score since... well... how else is the game not only going to keep track of something like that but also tell you at the same time? It is nice that they include these story telling elements even if they have to be reduced to a number rather then a simple statement on a sort of quasi-relationship between large entities.

I'm not sure it feels any more or less cheap to me than reducing Strength or Intelligence or Presence to a score. Not to mention Grog Loyalty. When you have a game with multiple perspective characters, I think it'll be tough to expect players to maintain narrative cohesion across characters. I think you're spot on about needing to quantize something in situations like this.

I still kinda wonder if they will even do justice to the spells in the game with respect to your covenant. A lot of the things that pressured starting covenants were REALLY unimportant later on.

I've definitely noticed a lot of variation, even among Spring covenants, between different sagas. Especially if you look at the stories from the AM forums, there seem to be a lot of players who want a high powered game, so they min-max their mages and the SG accommodates by handing them easy access to lots of vis, nice books, tutors for any mundane skill they might need, etc, etc. When I'm SG, I tend to start the players with no incomes (vis or mundane), but allow them to Midas their way around for several years while they get some infrastructure set up.

Simply create a race of expert dragonfolk (Not sure if 5 actually limits your ability to do this or not) to help you.

In 5th ed, creating things with souls is outside of the ability of magi, as it falls under The Limit (to Magic) of the Divine. Having your resident Verditius create enchanted items that do the tasks that might otherwise fall to grogs is more common... the Covenants sourcebook had a section on craft magic.

[Neonivek]

In 5th ed, creating things with souls is outside of the ability of magi, as it falls under The Limit (to Magic) of the Divine.

Yeah but the limitation meant a lot less then it seems. What the lack of an ability to create a soul does for this game is simple: Your creatures lack pernamence.

Not to say that they don't last forever... but an intelligent dragon or a humonculi (a creature who looks and acts exactly like a human) are subject to dispelling and the waning of magic.

Plus depending on how you interpret it, creatures without souls have a very limited ability to learn and evolve, in that they couldn't (Becoming something more is something only someone with a soul can do)... but even that concept is betrayed several times within the setting (Heck I am sure you CAN create non-magical intelligent mythical beings)

A human who lacks a soul cannot learn and is doomed to a short life. Sort of a shell of their former self.

But even with that limitation in mind, there is still flexibility in making your own creatures.

[ndkid]

Over at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackchickenstudios/ars-magica-video-game
the first UI screen is up, showing a dialog screen. Along the sides of the dialog itself are spells that will be familiar to AM veterans (Oh, Sight of the Transparent Motive and Aura of Rightful Authority, you never go out of style!) There's also an update discussing said screen.