Thick as Thieves - multiplayer stealth game set in a low fantasy early 20th century metropolis from Warren Spector's OtherSide Entertainment

[Tacgnol]

What the hell. Looks like they sold the trademark "Otherside Entertainment" to Yuga Labs, the crypto company behind that stupid Bored Ape thing, in May.

https://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=tm&reel=7718&frame=0504

This Yuga Labs supposedly launched a metaverse thing called Otherside in May.

I wonder if this trademark deal valued more than selling System Shock 3 (and 4) to Tencent.

Otherside (or whatever new name they will have), the company specialized in selling IP rights.

In other news, they removed the D&D image and D&D project-related job postings from website, leaving only a posting for Lead Artist on Warren's project. A pessimist in me initially thought, "did the D&D game cancelled?", but well, let's assume that they filled the positions they needed.

NFT and crypto fuckery seems to be the final fate of every incompetent games dev these days.

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh right, some hints from what I posted in UA thread:

Looks like she updated job description again. Sounds like she's practically narrative lead or something. https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleine-shopoff/

Senior narrative designer and UX designer for an upcoming unannounced title from Otherside Entertainment. Heading up world building, character design, storyline, and working with the lead designer to create missions and gameplay. Creating engaging and intuitive UI and controls.

Also, mission-based?

Another update:

Senior narrative and UX designer for an upcoming unannounced title from Otherside Entertainment. Heading up world building, character design, storyline, and aiding in mission and systems design to weave gameplay and narrative into a cohesive experience. I oversee writers, cultural consultants, and designers to craft unique and replayable narrative, and implementing story into engaging gameplay. I also head up UX design, overseeing UI artists and engineers to implement usable, scalable, and accessible UI systems.

Little bit more details from gameplay engineer who left Otherside in April. Multiplayer component seems more prominent than I expected: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ablexxive/

- Project: A networked multiplayer first-person action game in Unreal Engine 4.
- Design and implement behaviors in a custom Utility AI system to improve AI coordination, ranged combat, and player detection/chasing.
- Implement networked character abilities using Epics Gameplay Ability System (GAS).
- Empower audio/animation devs with hooks and knowledge to interface with the AI system.
- Push for company wide communication changes to improve remote work information sharing & introduce new company protocols to uplift minority voices.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

I wanted to say I'm most concerned about WotC getting its grubby fingers anywhere near Warhammer.

As if GW's grubby fingers were any better.

 

[LESS T_T]

That trailer of D&D: Honor Among Thieves makes me wonder if this game is tied to that movie.

 

[LESS T_T]

Justin Papas, lead level designer of this game, who was there from the start of Underworld Ascendant, left Otherside this month. https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-pappas-49771a3/

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like this will no longer be a D&D game? (Abandoned by WotC?) Renewed Otherside website unveils Thick As Thieves, co-op thief game set in an alternate history Edinburgh, instead of the supposed D&D stealth game. This explains why they registered the trademark.

https://otherside-e.com/our-games/

THICK AS THIEVES​

Set in an alternate history Edinburgh, Thick as Thieves throws you into a world of supernatural intrigue. Society’s elite amass wealth and power, while the lower classes struggle to simply survive. It’s time to even the score. Team up with your fellow thieves and relieve the rich of their ill-gotten hoards. You’ll need your wits, a skillful crew and no small amount of luck to pull off daring heists. And if you get filthy rich in the process… who could hold that against you?

More will be revealed about the game in time…

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh yeah, sizzle video on the main page has clips of the new game.

 

[J1M]

Could be really cool as a Dark Messiah spiritual successor.

Unlikely to be that though.

 

[SharkClub]

So they're jumping on the co-op stealth action heist genre train? Hoping to compete with SEGA's billion dollar franchise Hyenas? Is that what this is?

Might be worth renaming the thread and moving it to General Gaming, seeing as it is no longer a D&D game, has an official name now and doesn't seem to be an RPG.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

What the hell. Looks like they sold the trademark "Otherside Entertainment" to Yuga Labs, the crypto company behind that stupid Bored Ape thing, in May.

https://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=tm&reel=7718&frame=0504

This Yuga Labs supposedly launched a metaverse thing called Otherside in May.

I wonder if this trademark deal valued more than selling System Shock 3 (and 4) to Tencent.

Otherside (or whatever new name they will have), the company specialized in selling IP rights.

In other news, they removed the D&D image and D&D project-related job postings from website, leaving only a posting for Lead Artist on Warren's project. A pessimist in me initially thought, "did the D&D game cancelled?", but well, let's assume that they filled the positions they needed.

So they sold off the trademark to the name on all of their other IP filings. Well, that's not going to cause any problems whatsoever.

...and these people supposedly can design emergent gameplay? This is almost as good as watching how Richard Garriott's latest shitshow (also involving NFTs) not even being able to get a website up, have been months overdue for a land grab, but supposedly they will make NFTs better than anyone else - so good they'll have invented NFTs! At least they all can still bring the entertainment, if not playable video games.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like this game will be released pretty soon? They posted job postings for... another new game.

Lead Producer: https://otherside-e.com/jobs/lead-producer/

We are looking for a Lead Producer to join a team in pre-production on an original new game.

Recent experience working with the Unreal Engine a plus.

Lead Software Engineer: https://otherside-e.com/jobs/lead-software-engineer/

• Skill developing responsive and robust multiplayer features.

• Solid experience with building gameplay systems; AI experience a plus.
• Solid experience developing games in Unreal Engine 4 or 5.

I guess they're really into co-op thing now.

There's senior designer posting for Warren's game (Argos) too but nothing particularly interesting.

Btw...

Justin Papas, lead level designer of this game, who was there from the start of Underworld Ascendant, left Otherside this month. https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-pappas-49771a3/

He joined Monolith Production as senior world designer. A couple of other ex-Otherside developers celebrated his exodus saying "Freedom!"

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Not just champs of baiting with IP they don't have rights to (Underworld Ascendant), or selling IP they were given too much control of to the Chinese (System Shock 3), but it really looks like OSE swiped from Starbreeze to make their Period Piece Payday 2.

No honor amongst thieves, eh?

 

[SharkClub]

As one of the five people on the Codex who actually finished Underworld Ascendant, the level design was one of the few things about it that was not total shit, so he can't have been that bad.

 

[Ash]

Oh Paul Neurath and Co...you couldn't just die a legend. You couldn't retain some artistic integrity, human decency and soul? Oh well. thanks for the amazing classics, but you spit on everything they stood for when you sell out to fund your cocaine and hooker habits. Couldn't you get a job in IT or aerospace or national defense, whatever instead of shoveling digital shit that isn't any good for anyone?

Nevermind. Thanks once more for the classics, cherish them 'till the day I die I shall. I certainly consider these guys has-beens and shouldn't have given them a chance with Ascendant. Not when pretty much all the big name LGS devs have been sellouts since the early 2000s. Goodbye I guess.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

As one of the five people on the Codex who actually finished Underworld Ascendant, the level design was one of the few things about it that was not total shit, so he can't have been that bad.

That and the magic system belong in a much better game - the random deaths would fit a roguelike. The game works better as a parody of the genre than as a serious offering.

But for everything that they hyped up to the actual ecosystem of the game that is now mostly skeletons? What a simple thing to fuck up. The way bows and arrows work is just as batshit as the way skill points for achievements works for making builds for supposed emergent gameplay - the design is about as backwards as possible. It's sad to see actual talented work being wasted by those who are using names but not delivering anything what those names meant, names of both franchise and legends busy shitting the bed for everyone else until neither mean anything anymore. What kind of retadred producer would have signed off on a save system that would have failed the NES quality check? "wE wErEn'T mAkInG sKyRim!" Dude needs to stay in QA or remember to salt the fries. And now we're to the creativity on par with Richard Garriott's "Iron & Magic" - at times I'd like to think Warren Spector had a stroke after Deus Ex and to be kind someone at Disney got him a job weaving baskets and fingerpainting for Epic Mickey.

Everything Paul Neurath is doing with his company makes no sense.

There are no redeemable games from this brand of talent when they can't even do the basic shit that made them famous, having to swipe from others while putting their names on it.

What a waste.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Society’s elite amass wealth and power, while the lower classes struggle to simply survive. It’s time to even the score.

Oh, man. It seems like no Thief-like game after Deadly Shadows can avoid the temptation to go with the class warfare angle. It was in Thi4f and every Dishonored game, but not in the actual Looking Glass Thief games.

Oh yeah, sizzle video on the main page has clips of the new game.

Full body awareness? Holy shit, when will these imsimfags learn that full body awareness DOES NOT FUCKING WORK in first person games? Best case scenario, it's breaking my immersion because what my character model is doing contradicts what I would otherwise imagine to be a natural action (IE, Garrett exposing his entire body while leaning in Deadly Shadows). Worst case scenario, the controls become a janky, awkward fucking catastrophe like in TDS and Dark Messiah. Stop this fucking meme. In first person games, the PC's body should be invisible. Even the hands should be as minimized as possible. That's the only way to actually make it immersive. In real life, moving around is so natural that you don't even notice or think about your own body (unless you're a fat fuck, maybe). It's practically invisible to you unless you're consciously taking note of it. So that's how it should be in a first person game, and that's how it IS in the very best first person games like all of the games that Looking Glass made. And this also goes for games crammed to the lid with context sensitive first-person animations like Dishonored 2 and the upcoming System Shock remake. It's shit.

 

[SharkClub]

Oh Paul Neurath and Co...you couldn't just die a legend. You couldn't retain some artistic integrity, human decency and soul? Oh well. thanks for the amazing classics, but you spit on everything they stood for when you sell out to fund your cocaine and hooker habits. Couldn't you get a job in IT or aerospace or national defense, whatever instead of shoveling digital shit that isn't any good for anyone?

Nevermind. Thanks once more for the classics, cherish them 'till the day I die I shall. I certainly consider these guys has-beens and shouldn't have given them a chance with Ascendant. Not when pretty much all the big name LGS devs have been sellouts since the early 2000s. Goodbye I guess.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Oh Paul Neurath and Co...you couldn't just die a legend. You couldn't retain some artistic integrity, human decency and soul? Oh well. thanks for the amazing classics, but you spit on everything they stood for when you sell out to fund your cocaine and hooker habits. Couldn't you get a job in IT or aerospace or national defense, whatever instead of shoveling digital shit that isn't any good for anyone?

Nevermind. Thanks once more for the classics, cherish them 'till the day I die I shall. I certainly consider these guys has-beens and shouldn't have given them a chance with Ascendant. Not when pretty much all the big name LGS devs have been sellouts since the early 2000s. Goodbye I guess.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Or in this case, you go from blaming EA to being a bigger shitbag all on your own.

 

[LESS T_T]

Rich Gallup, their executive producer left.



He joined Jackbox as director of production.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like this game will be released pretty soon? They posted job postings for... another new game.

Ehh, they're looking for lead designer for Thick as Thieves? https://otherside-e.com/jobs/otherside-senior-lead-designer/

What We Need
The studio is looking for a Senior or Lead Designer to join our team in working on Thick As Thieves, a new game in the style of Looking Glass Studios’ classic Thief. The ideal candidate is a broadly experienced designer with experience managing a design team while still contributing directly to the project. The designer will report to and work closely with the Design Director to create a unique multiplayer take on the classic thief formula.

 

[mindx2]

A multi-player, co-op... Thief game?!

 

[Baron Dupek]

Sounds like Thievery, a mod for Unreal Tournament.
was it any good?

 

[Morblot]

A multi-player, co-op... Thief game?!

View attachment 29181

...by these incompetents, no less!

It's time to invest in popcorn company stocks, boys -- this is going to be a wild ride.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like this will no longer be a D&D game? (Abandoned by WotC?)

Ehh, they're looking for lead designer for Thick as Thieves? https://otherside-e.com/jobs/otherside-senior-lead-designer/

Former lead designer's Linkedin confirms that the D&D version was canceled and they most likely turned that into this original thing. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-ahlund-0816612/

Lead Designer of Unreleased Co-op Stealth Action FPP title in the D&D universe.
Lead Designer of Unannounced Co-op Stealth Action FPP title.

He also reveals there was a VR game in the System Shock setting.

Lead Designer of Unreleased VR Title in the System Shock universe.
Lead Designer of mobile VR title Underworld Overlord.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

I should have checked earlier, but y'know, I figured these devs would be capable of simple business matters by now. I guess I was really stupid in expecting they could learn from their own mistakes, but they've since diversified:

Since Sept 19th the trademark for "Thick As Thieves" has been in a mess as befitting this totally not a Payday 2 clone. Putting aside the fact that Yuga Labs now owns the trademark to OSE (and it's by that name which OSE still files their trademarks), and that the examiner schooled the trademark application attorneys OSE used to file this to should have prompted their office to respond with a quick correction of that error, "Thick As Thieves" will be considered Abandoned in March.

Because it's these fucking devs there's been no response yet and so they're going to have to rename this halfway through the "marketing" of blog posts as news before any publisher seriously picks it up.