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KickStarter Underworld Ascendant is a disaster

Sonus

Educated
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Messages
84
Why can't an employee leave a job and look for something else? Why "laid off" and "fired" every single time?
 

Eli_Havelock

Learned
Joined
Dec 22, 2019
Messages
669
Our new concept is coming along nicely and we are really excited about it. We have cool and we think distinctive art style for it and we have that and gameplay coming together in UE4. I know it’s a tease, but I just can’t really say anything about it at this point.

So, given what they have said in the past, shittier than UA. And they will have to try to sell that after taking money for a UU sequel and without shame summarily blowing it on feature skunkworks.

I do hope that OSE understand that they clearly owe a game to their backers, because anything else would be the developer entitlement that shadows any gamer's. I doubt their backers are going to feel charitable enough after the KS to throw money at something that will surely be more janky than UA as OSE retraces the same steps, just with UE4. Customers might still have to wait for 4 post-launch updates or more to see a game worth buying...on sale, as long as whatever publisher OSE have suckered into it will fund until the miserable console ports are pushed out.
 

BLOBERT

FUCKING SLAYINGN IT BROS
Patron
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Messages
4,235
Location
BRO
Codex 2012
Why can't an employee leave a job and look for something else? Why "laid off" and "fired" every single time?

BRO LOLLOLOL ITS BECAUSE GAME COMPANIES HIRE FOR A DEVELOPMENT CRUNCH THEN LAY OFF

AND ALSO THE COMPANIES SEEM TO FAIL AT A DECENT RATE
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
From new community manager: https://forums.otherside-e.com/t/physical-awards-update/10070/46

Hey all!
We are currently in the midst of getting the last of physical goods to FanGamer, and they will begin to package and ship off the games. This process in normal circumstances would typically take a few weeks. We are also getting in touch with them about how COVID is affecting the rate at which they are operating. It is hard to give an accurate estimate at this time until we know how FanGamer is holding up, but we are in the home stretch for fulfillment.

Also Boston team got a new engineer in lieu of Will Teixeira. Zach Kamsler. According to his resume he has more than 13 years of experience: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachkamsler/

Principal Engineer

Company Name OtherSide Entertainment (Full-time)
Dates Employed Apr 2020 – Present
Employment Duration 1 mo

Also

Hey, but they've got an experienced lead graphics engineer:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-s-1773641/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,51584/

They're really going to make that Thief spiritual successor, I guess.

He became CTO of the company some time ago. Probably not so coincidentally he and the new engineer both worked at other Massachusetts company Disruptor Beam.

Looks like Boston's secret project is going along, stealthily.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Walter Somol (Marketing/Business VP) is leaving Otherside: https://forums.otherside-e.com/t/walter-signing-off/10308

Hi folks, today is my last day at OtherSide. This is bittersweet news for me. It’s a great team here of awesome and talented people that I will miss working with. On top of that, I’m really excited about the new project the studio is working on and will eagerly await more news about it. With that said, the studio is mainly focused on game development now and has less of a need for someone like me, at least for the time being. I am moving on to a new opportunity that I’m really excited about, hence the bittersweetness (more about that another time).

Thank you all for being and remaining our fans. Alyssa, who has popped into the forums and Discord recently, will be keeping you all updated going forward, particularly in the near term on UA Kickstarter fulfillment.

Keep gaming and stay healthy and safe during these times.

Walter

FWIW he was the only one from the top level talked to the community for a while.
 

MasterLobar

Angry OtherSide Refugee
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
Messages
358
Location
Killorn Keep
He seems to confirm that the company mothballed SS3 (not mentioned at all) and that they are now instead working on a "new project."

They worked on SS3 for over 3 years, got $6.8 million from Starbreeze for development, said it's "more than halfway completed" in February 2019, showed several trailers at gaming conferences and claim they have a playable pre-alpha.

But hey, let's walk away from this one and start something new entirely. Because why not.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Boston team supposedly worked on this new project almost 2 years. So it's not "new" from a production timeline standpoint.

IMO at this point, if they don't want to give up, retaining Boston project would be more sensible approach.

Scrap the Boston project and let Boston team take over SS3 ->
  • They lost the opportunity (however small it is) to capitalize the Boston project that they worked on almost 2 years
  • They have to go through the same struggle of finding publisher/investors to finish SS3 anyway
  • If I have to guess finishing SS3 would be more expensive than finishing the Boston project. So now keeping afloat Boston team becomes more expensive than when they were working on their own project (plus the cost of adapting the team for SS3)
Go with the Boston project and let Warren Spector find a way to revive SS3 ->
  • They have opportunity to capitalize the Boston project. If this goes well it may lead to funding SS3 later
  • At the same time Warren can keep finding a way to revive SS3 without worrying how to keep afloat Boston team
 

MasterLobar

Angry OtherSide Refugee
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
Messages
358
Location
Killorn Keep
With respect, Less, this makes no sense.

Scrap the Boston project and let Boston team take over SS3 ->
  • They lost the opportunity (however small it is) to capitalize the Boston project that they worked on almost 2 years
  • They have to go through the same struggle of finding publisher/investors to finish SS3 anyway
  • If I have to guess finishing SS3 would be more expensive than finishing the Boston project. So now keeping afloat Boston team becomes more expensive than when they were working on their own project (plus the cost of adapting the team for SS3)
I don't think they "worked on the Boston project" for 2 years. Maybe "thought about it" and copyrighted "Thick as Thieves" whatever that's supposed to mean. Had they really worked on it for 2 years, that would mean they started working on it months before UA launched when it was already clear that UA - their only game that could make some money in the foreseebale future - was an unplayable mess. And after launch, it would mean that they worked on this pipedream project while fixing UA for 6 more months and having just lost the SS3 publisher. They clearly worked on SS3 for several more months after Starbreeze walked away.

And unless The "Boston project" is something like Underworld Overlord, it's hard to see how an almost entirely new project would be less expensive than publishing some downscaled version of SS3.

And they do all of this without a partner or publisher for the "new project"?

Go with the Boston project and let Warren Spector find a way to revive SS3 ->
  • They have opportunity to capitalize the Boston project. If this goes well it may lead to funding SS3 later
  • At the same time Warren can keep finding a way to revive SS3 without worrying how to keep afloat Boston team

What's Warren's sales pitch supposed to be? "Please give us more money for what Starbreeze doesn't want to do anymore, any btw, we don't care much about it. Instead, we're doing something else entirely."

I am also wondering where the money for an entirely new game with perhaps some conceptual foundations is supposed to come from.

What I think they might be trying to do is polish UA a bit more, recycle as much as possible and essentially republish it with new characters/some new stuff and call it "Thief".
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Walter Somol (Marketing/Business VP) is leaving Otherside: https://forums.otherside-e.com/t/walter-signing-off/10308

Hi folks, today is my last day at OtherSide. This is bittersweet news for me. It’s a great team here of awesome and talented people that I will miss working with. On top of that, I’m really excited about the new project the studio is working on and will eagerly await more news about it. With that said, the studio is mainly focused on game development now and has less of a need for someone like me, at least for the time being. I am moving on to a new opportunity that I’m really excited about, hence the bittersweetness (more about that another time).

Thank you all for being and remaining our fans. Alyssa, who has popped into the forums and Discord recently, will be keeping you all updated going forward, particularly in the near term on UA Kickstarter fulfillment.

Keep gaming and stay healthy and safe during these times.

Walter

FWIW he was the only one from the top level talked to the community for a while.

If they no longer need a marketing/business VP, does that mean they now have a publisher filling that function for them? :fabulouslyoptimistic:
 

Nifft Batuff

Prophet
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Messages
3,169
Let's hope this "new project" is not some game that could be related in some way to Thief (the original one).
 

Skdursh

Savant
Joined
Nov 27, 2018
Messages
734
Location
Slavlandia
Has this game gone through any renovations yet that make it enjoyable or is it still complete fucking garbage? What's the general consensus, avoid entirely or give it a chance? Will I experience crushing disappoint if what I expect is something of a cross between Ultima Underworld I/II and Thief 2?
 

index.php

Arcane
Joined
Jul 5, 2013
Messages
875
Has this game gone through any renovations yet that make it enjoyable or is it still complete fucking garbage? What's the general consensus, avoid entirely or give it a chance? Will I experience crushing disappoint if what I expect is something of a cross between Ultima Underworld I/II and Thief 2?
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,758
And running polls to determine the lizard language. For a game that doesn’t have dialogue trees, or even written text outside of subtitles.
 

Glic2000

Educated
Joined
Nov 16, 2018
Messages
80
And running polls to determine the lizard language. For a game that doesn’t have dialogue trees, or even written text outside of subtitles.

What a huge trolling effort that was! It never even occurred to people the game might not have dialogue trees!
 

Nyast

Cipher
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Messages
609
Has this game gone through any renovations yet that make it enjoyable or is it still complete fucking garbage? What's the general consensus, avoid entirely or give it a chance? Will I experience crushing disappoint if what I expect is something of a cross between Ultima Underworld I/II and Thief 2?

You'll suffer a big disapointment because both UU and Thief are story focused with rich lore. Ascendent is an empty shell. It does have semi-decent levels, with a lot of verticality, plat-forming etc.. but it's basically empty. The only lore elements are saurians in the HUB, that tell 1-liners when you stand in front of them, and graffities on walls that tell the story of a sister trying to catch up with her brother. That's literally it. No interesting loot to find, few secrets, generic trash mobs ( and repetitive ones at that ), basically the game's a bore-fest unless you're just in for the level exploration elements ( like I did, with pain ).
 

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