KickStarter Underworld Ascendant is a disaster

[Infinitron]

Do you really believe this? Their professional development didn't end with UU, they went on to found LGS and made SS1/2, T1/2 etc. Do you think concepts such as engineering proofs of concepts, functional tests, scoping and prototyping were unknown to them by the time LGS folded? That they didn't have to manage projects and negotiated deliverables with publishers? I really have trouble believing that.

I would say that awareness of what they could and couldn't do with modern middleware engines wasn't known to them from the LGS days. "Hey, look how easy it is to prototype something with Unity, we can make the Ultimate RPG with this with no budget!"

But I agree that beyond that there was also an ethical lapse here. They must have eventually realized they were fucking things up but decided to press on anyway, because that's what they felt like doing basically. An ethical studio would have scrapped the game and rebooted it as a low budget retro project.

There's something deeply weird about OtherSide's culture. Some people have interpreted that as confusion. My take is that they're utterly convinced that they should never reveal the truth about what they're doing, and the "confusion" arises because different people in the company come up with different versions of bullshit when fans ask questions.

 

[agris]

My take is that they're utterly convinced that they should never reveal the truth about what they're doing, and the "confusion" arises because different people in the company come up with different versions of bullshit when fans ask questions.

Now THAT sounds plausible.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Often the older people get, the more they relish in using their skills to great effect.

I think they found that their skills and experience were no longer relevant given the constraints they'd set for themselves (budget and design goals). Coding an "evolved" late 1980s blobber (basically what Ultima Underworld was) turns out be different from trying to twist the Unity Engine into the Ultimate Action RPG with Dark Messiah combat, Thief stealth and Arx Fatalis magic (or whatever).

Do you really believe this? Their professional development didn't end with UU, they went on to found LGS and made SS1/2, T1/2 etc. Do you think concepts such as engineering proofs of concepts, functional tests, scoping and prototyping were unknown to them by the time LGS folded? That they didn't have to manage projects and negotiated deliverables with publishers? I really have trouble believing that.

For similar reasons, I have trouble swallowing the narrative you suggested Doctor Sbaitso. Sure, UU may have started with geeks at MIT, but they went on to found a company and publish games into the year 2000. They surely had to do the above before making concrete statements about what will or will not be in a game, and even if those changed, no game released by LGS (that I'm aware of - but I'm certainly not a LGS aficionado) was in as remotely as bad a state as UA.

This is why I expect there were people involved in the production of games at LGS that were critical, but did not work with Otherside. As with a lot of collective creative efforts, names get attached to projects often unfairly, because it simplifies a media narrative. And while people love reading and digesting nice little stories about visionary X or Y propelling something to greatness, the true picture is often a lot more complex and relies on a lot of people that go relatively unnoticed.

I'm saying the crop of technical talent they had on UA was way below that of UU. They had guys that rewrote Thief AI and stealth in a week. Hungry MIT grads working for rising stars. Otherside had a revolving door of people, and Will learning Unity via physics trap sandbox levels.

I'm am most disappointed with Tim. This must be his worst work.

 

[MasterLobar]

My take is that they're utterly convinced that they should never reveal the truth about what they're doing, and the "confusion" arises because different people in the company come up with different versions of bullshit when fans ask questions.

And one day all of a sudden, it's going to be like 20 years ago:

Late in the day on May 24, 2000, Paul Neurath called a meeting. The co-founder of Looking Glass Studios asked every employee to attend. (...) "We’re closing," Neurath told the anxious crowd, (...) and the Looking Glass faithful were officially unemployed.

https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8285529/looking-glass-history

Til the last day, these sociopaths are going to tell everyone that everything is fine. The last ones they'll screw over will be their own employees. Poor folks.

 

[Mastermind]

So is this game good?

 

[BEvers]

Seems like everyone will be happy when this is over:

 

[MasterLobar]

She just announced that there may be an Update 5 after the console launch, so it seems the console version is going to launch in an unfinished state, too. Also, the console version will be digital only.

There’s a console patch system in place, and we’re only selling digitally for consoles at this time, to be clear. So Update 5 would most likely be released across console and PC / any other platforms we have available at the time.

https://forums.otherside-e.com/t/april-22-2019-weekly-update/10041/10

 

[BEvers]

Also interesting:

My biggest priority after Update 4 / console is making sure we fulfill our Kickstarter promises, so I am estimating there should be AT LEAST 1 more update / patch with KS content.

Although I don't know what OE's definition of their "Kickstarter promises" is.

 

[Perkel]

So what is actual state of the game ? Does anyone have summary ? Is it just 2 levels and 5 enemies or something ?

 

[BEvers]

You could write volumes about UA's shortcomings, but the tl;dr is that it's a technical mess with no interesting content.

 

[Perkel]

You could write volumes about UA's shortcomings, but the tl;dr is that it's a technical mess with no interesting content.

I know that but i am talking mostly about content itself.
What is in the game ?

 

[Gord]

I know that but i am talking mostly about content itself.
What is in the game ?

They released a slightly more elaborate tech-demo and have now reached a late-alpha state.
Content is mostly randomized missions in levels filled with random loot and randomly placed enemies.
In theory the levels allow for different approaches, like stealth/ghosting, fighting or sometimes using the environment, but eventually just running past any obstacle towards the mission objective is the most efficient approach.
There's some abstract and super-basic backstory going on about how the big bad is threatening the abyss and every other plane of existence and in order to stop him you need to unite the factions, but ultimately you'll only ever meet the lizards and even they surve no other purpose than to act as trainer/vendor/billboard.

 

[JDR13]

So what is actual state of the game ? Does anyone have summary ? Is it just 2 levels and 5 enemies or something ?

It was a bug-ridden joke at release, but they've squashed most of the bugs, and the game runs fine now. The updates have improved it dramatically, but it's still not very good as an immersive sim.

 

[JDR13]

I know that but i am talking mostly about content itself.
What is in the game ?

They released a slightly more elaborate tech-demo and have now reached a late-alpha state.
Content is mostly randomized missions in levels filled with random loot and randomly placed enemies.
In theory the levels allow for different approaches, like stealth/ghosting, fighting or sometimes using the environment, but eventually just running past any obstacle towards the mission objective is the most efficient approach.
There's some abstract and super-basic backstory going on about how the big bad is threatening the abyss and every other plane of existence and in order to stop him you need to unite the factions, but ultimately you'll only ever meet the lizards and even they surve no other purpose than to act as trainer/vendor/billboard.

I don't think the missions are still randomized. Have you played it since the updates? It's one large interconnected world now instead of separate levels.

 

[Gord]

I played after update 2, I think, where they had done the first major overhaul. IIRC, there were some "story" missions now, but most "side" missions were still randomly chosen per level.
Might be mistaken, though, I haven't played much more than 30-60 min since then.

 

[MasterLobar]

It was a bug-ridden joke at release, but they've squashed most of the bugs, and the game runs fine now. The updates have improved it dramatically.

This take strikes me as fabulously optimistic. Some quotes from the most recent Steam reviews (all post-Update 3):

User: 88z, April 25th (neg.)

It's heart-breaking how consistently this game crashes during the tutorial level.

User: DrWakey, April 25th (neg.)

this is just bugged as hell. I bought it AFTER update 3 and it still crashes very often (in my first 2 hours into the game at least 10 times, so that makes a crash every 12 minutes)

User: jsatuaho, April 25th (neg.)

Crash to desktop on first time playing after 19 minutes.

User: clockworksaga, April 22nd (neg.)

in the last 2 hours I had 5-10 crash to desktop.

User: BillyBatTabs, April 20th (neg.)

The feeling that this game is still in beta pervades almost every aspect

Even the three positive reviews since Update 3 all say it still has bugs and crashes a lot.

User: n8mahr, April 14th (pos.)

It´s still a bit buggy, but it only crashed thrice so far. (comment: the reviewer played 3 hours since Update 3 is out, so one crash every hour)

User: Gregor, April 16th (pos.)

Technologically the game has came a long way, but is nonetheless plagued with bugs, stutters, quality control issues, broken AI

User: OneFirmCat, April 23rd (pos., 12 minutes of gameplay on record)

the introduction/tutorial [] is still prone to crashing

No way has Update 3 fixed this game, and at this point it seems likely it will never be fixed.

 

[JDR13]

I'm guessing some of those people claiming crashes don't have the most stable systems. I experienced a lot of janky stuff prior to the updates, but I've never had a single crash.

There was all kinds of weird stuff when it was released though. Objects floating upside down, gaping holes in the game world, items not working correctly, etc. Those things seem to be fixed now, but it's still pretty bland from a gameplay standpoint.

 

[Gord]

It runs relatively stable for me, although I had some more or less reproducable crashes every now and then.
Technically they have improved the game a lot, but without the content to back it up, there's still not that much sense in playing it, imo.

 

[Perkel]

So what is actual state of the game ? Does anyone have summary ? Is it just 2 levels and 5 enemies or something ?

It was a bug-ridden joke at release, but they've squashed most of the bugs, and the game runs fine now. The updates have improved it dramatically, but it's still not very good as an immersive sim.

Which still tells me absolutely nothing.
Is the world big ? Are there levels or open world ? How many classes ? Are there few swords or just one placeholder or something.

 

[BEvers]

The levels are pretty big, fully exploring them will take over 10 hours total. They're mostly empty though. A lot of time is spent setting wooden obstacles on fire and watching them slowly burn down.
The game was converted to "open world" by taking a level-based game and then linking the levels together with portals in a post-launch update.
There are no classes, just perks with fighter/mage/thief themes. The "run better, jump higher" perks from fighter are much better than anything else, because they save on the most important resource, your leisure time.
There are at least half a dozen different weapon models and a few (invisible) armor items, but the loot is aggressively scaled (by the number of missions completed, I believe), so you will constantly find copies of the same 2-3 items in a level.
There are also about half a dozen enemy types, although their AI is extremely bad and they have ludicrous amounts of health; they're more of an obstacle/time waster than a challenge. Running past enemies is much more efficient than fighting them. They don't give xp or drop noteworthy loot; you get most of your perk points by doing "trick moves" like double jumping or wall running.

 

[JDR13]

So what is actual state of the game ? Does anyone have summary ? Is it just 2 levels and 5 enemies or something ?

It was a bug-ridden joke at release, but they've squashed most of the bugs, and the game runs fine now. The updates have improved it dramatically, but it's still not very good as an immersive sim.

Which still tells me absolutely nothing.
Is the world big ? Are there levels or open world ? How many classes ? Are there few swords or just one placeholder or something.

In the time it took you to write that response, you could have just Googled those things.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Bubbles’ full Codex review when?

 

[Gord]

The levels are pretty big, fully exploring them will take over 10 hours total. They're mostly empty though. A lot of time is spent setting wooden obstacles on fire and watching them slowly burn down.

My biggest "motivation" to pick up the game once in a while actually comes from sightseeing the levels and contemplating what they originally had in mind for a particular area.
I might be mistaken of course, but it does look that they had at least a rough draft outlining the abyss and the planned use off the various levels. There are several areas which look like they where supposed to be used as inns, settlements, prisons, etc.
Obviously they never managed to fill them with NPCs and produce the necessary content to give those any meaning. Instead we have random spawns and loot in arbitrarily placed chests.

 

[catfood]

So is this game good?

Yes, but not as good as Realms of Arkania HD.

 

[Nyast]

The game was converted to "open world" by taking a level-based game and then linking the levels together with portals in a post-launch update.

The levels were lazily connected via a "grand staircase" ( which looks like a cupboard staircase in reality ). Only problem is that they still feel disconnected in terms of design, like they're not part of the same dungeon. It feels like you're walking in a sub-area of the Abyss, then get taken to another sub-area of the Abyss, and so on. The game lacks the "glue", aka. the parts of the Abyss that would make you feel it's a coherent world.