Game News Underworld Ascendant Kickstarter Update #43: Doing Damage

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

It's how it plays into the design that matters. As I recall, Dark Souls was not particularly reactive in that crates would burn over time, but nobody complained about the physics engine. If all you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail. All that matters is how emergent, and open-ended the design allows you to play.

 

[Zep Zepo]

It's how it plays into the design that matters. As I recall, Dark Souls was not particularly reactive in that crates would burn over time, but nobody complained about the physics engine. If all you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail. All that matters is how emergent, and open-ended the design allows you to play.

Because Dark Soul's wasn't showing "burning creates" over time so what kind of retard would complain about what they weren't showing in your made up design document?

Zep--

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

It's how it plays into the design that matters. As I recall, Dark Souls was not particularly reactive in that crates would burn over time, but nobody complained about the physics engine. If all you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail. All that matters is how emergent, and open-ended the design allows you to play.

Because Dark Soul's wasn't showing "burning creates" over time so what kind of retard would complain about what they weren't showing in your made up design document?

Zep--

I think the discussion was about "shitty physics engines," not opinions on how great or poor a game was. Aside, I think Looking Glass focused on emergent game design, no? So why are you complaining about a studio that started a trend focusing on continuing the obvious.

Derp.

 

[Immortal]

It's how it plays into the design that matters. As I recall, Dark Souls was not particularly reactive in that crates would burn over time, but nobody complained about the physics engine. If all you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail. All that matters is how emergent, and open-ended the design allows you to play.

Because Dark Soul's wasn't showing "burning creates" over time so what kind of retard would complain about what they weren't showing in your made up design document?

Zep--

I think the discussion was about "shitty physics engines," not opinions on how great or poor a game was. Aside, I think Looking Glass focused on emergent game design, no? So why are you complaining about a studio that started a trend focusing on continuing the obvious.

Derp.

It has nothing to do with "Physics Engines".. That is all provided by Unity.

Every video it feels like they are trying to show us what they learned that week about Unity.. These Demo's aren't features they have coded.. they are prototypes they are just implementing / trying for the first time in practice. It's clear nobody on this team has any experience with Unity.. and that's fine.... However ~~

Kickstarter is not the platform for you to learn an engine and test prototypes.
Kickstarter is not here for you to dick around and spin your wheels figuring out how the game is gonna work.

You should already know that - You should already know what your game can and can't do, even if it's just a loose design document. You should already know what engine your going to use and if it can do the things you want. You don't pick an engine then start tinkering around hoping it will do stuff that is cool and you can retroactively start shoving in your game.

These demo's feel like the developer just figured out how to do it a few hours before hand and was so proud of what he was able to do that he threw up a video like "Wow check this out".

I'm calling it right now, If they don't increase their team size or hire more advanced developers, this thing will either crash and burn as they slowly realize prototypes != a functioning game OR it will release.. and it's gonna be another case of "Why did I spend money on this before seeing videos of a working game" syndrome.




EDIT:

Where I give props to Obsidian / PoE

Does anyone remember Obsidian's Kickstarter for PoE? It was rushed, Brian Adler was probably riding a caffiene high for days but that is how it should be done. They were working on having a full level rendering using their wonky 2D Plane style with full shadows / water / lighting / rigid body movement.

They had this in prototype before even putting up the video:
http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/screenshots/0001/PE-TempleEntrance01-2560x1440.jpg

It was basic.. but enough. They did extensive testing with unity, learning the engine, testing if things would work or are extendable. It was clear they knew it could do the job they set out to do. They weren't dicking around for 2 months on KS money making videos like "WOWWW I CAN MAKE THE BURREL EXPLODE"

 

[ROARRR]

Kickstarter is not the platform for you to learn an engine and test prototypes.
Kickstarter is not here for you to dick around and spin your wheels figuring out how the game is gonna work.

Wow never knew that Kickstarter has that kind of rules

 

[Infinitron]

I have to say that i agree with Immortal and Zep, that all what they have shown is a no brainer, and can be done within few hours. But still i don't know why i am not concerned about this game. Perhaps i assume that they show us only certain bits or parts, and other things they keep concealed. Perhaps i have too much respect for MIT people. Luckily i can only lose $40 on this one.

Let's see...

Option 1) The founder of Looking Glass Studios, his MIT-educated lead designer, and their hand-picked team of intellectually-inclined mild-mannered New England nerds who interact with backers on a daily basis on their forums and have even met a Codex representative in person, are all secretly incompetent con artists who are going to trash their reputations for a sum of money they could all collectively make in a year of legitimate work.

Option 2) Yes, the programmers have been instructed to show off bits and pieces of interesting things that are possible to achieve with the engine that are relevant to the game's design while the rest of the game's pre-production goes on in the background.

Yeah, I'm also gonna go with 2 for now

 

[Nyast]

"I find your lack of faith disturbing..."

I agree with Infinitron. Good or bad, they decided to do regular weekly updates, so there isn't that much incredible stuff they can show from week to week. It's only going to be mundane things, which you're right find unimpressive, but that still have to be done.

 

[Immortal]

Kickstarter is not the platform for you to learn an engine and test prototypes.
Kickstarter is not here for you to dick around and spin your wheels figuring out how the game is gonna work.

Wow never knew that Kickstarter has that kind of rules

Seriously?

I have to say that i agree with Immortal and Zep, that all what they have shown is a no brainer, and can be done within few hours. But still i don't know why i am not concerned about this game. Perhaps i assume that they show us only certain bits or parts, and other things they keep concealed. Perhaps i have too much respect for MIT people. Luckily i can only lose $40 on this one.

Let's see...

Option 1) The founder of Looking Glass Studios, his MIT-educated lead designer, and their hand-picked team of intellectually-inclined mild-mannered New England nerds who interact with backers on a daily basis on their forums and have even met a Codex representative in person, are all secretly incompetent con artists who are going to trash their reputations for a sum of money they could all collectively make in a year of legitimate work.

Option 2) Yes, the programmers have been instructed to show off bits and pieces of interesting things that are possible to achieve with the engine that are relevant to the game's design while the rest of the game's pre-production goes on in the background.

Yeah, I'm also gonna go with 2 for now

Option 1) My Heavily Biased Opinions that are only tangentially grounded in reality.

Option 2) What I want to believe is going on and the option I was gonna pick regardless of basically anything.

 

[ROARRR]

Seriously?

I do believe that every developer in some cases has no choice but to work on prototypes before he publishes the final product.Doing That is more than acceptable!
And if the engine is new for the developer, there is no choice but to learn it. In some cases I will trust a programming veteran to handle that very quickly, so to be able supporting a kickstarter with that conditions should be ok!
Resume: Those Kickstarter rulez of yours are just talk!

 

[Immortal]

Seriously?

I do believe that every developer in some cases has no choice but to work on prototypes before he publishes the final product.Doing That is more than acceptable!
And if the engine is new for the developer, there is no choice but to learn it. In some cases I will trust a programming veteran to handle that very quickly, so to be able supporting a kickstarter with that conditions should be ok!
Resume: Those Kickstarter rulez of yours are just talk!

I don't think it's ethically right to use people's money for a final product only to spin you wheels for 3 months learning the basics of an engine. Especially if your not even sure where the edge cases lie in that engine and if it can even accomplish the task you are trying to do.

The reason why so many Kickstarters fall apart after 6 months as a result of all the money drying up is because there is no clear design path or something went wrong that the team didn't consider and it became unrealistic to finish without restarting.

Read through the Greed Monger MMO thread sometime. This shit happens all the time in the software world (With less drama and more educated people). I don't care if the lead designer on this is Bjarne Stroustrup, this shit looks amateur hour and you can tell by the commentary they aren't even sure if half the things they are discussing can be done in this engine. You should already know that, if your game requires it and you sold it on KS.

 

[Infinitron]

The Wasteland 2 guys also learned how to use Unity after they Kickstarted it, I think.

In Underworld's case, though, I think the devs were familiar with Unity 4.x, but were planning on really warming up their engines only after Unity 5 came out, which happened two months ago.

 

[Darkzone]

I think that we can exclude a fraud, because the function of cost and gain is to high leaned towards the costs. A fraud in their portfolio is a career killer for them, despite they are getting older and do not expect to have much of a career anymore. So the worst case is that they fail to deliver the game. But even then the second case is highly improbable, so the more probable case is that the game is not good.

So we have only concern ourselves with the overall game quality. And currently there only very bad decision was that co-op play, and that they still don't scratched it entirely from their minds.
Their updates show us at least, that they are making progress, but not on which scale. If their progress is exact that what they show us in their update, then it is somehow discouraging. On the other hand, how many objects in the Underworld can burn, or be moved? Crates, chests, chairs, tables, levers, doors, small traps and hanging things. And what else?

I agree with Immortal that they should have invested more time into learning the Unity engine before the kickstarter, but they did not committed them self to the engine (even now), which can be seen as a mistake.
Wasteland 2 can be interpreted as an case against the choosing of the engine after the kickstarter, because it took inXile over 2 years to learn it's edges. And even now it is not certain if they have entirely mastered it.
But Otherside have Jeff, who has written a book about java performance and how to optimise it towards certain parameters. So Jeff will certainly look three times at the behavior of Unity, and form him most certainly comes this statement that they can perhaps use 100% of the dynamic lightning for the light sources.

Immortal
Bjarne Stroustrup has made many bad decisions, like not to include most of the generics for the first versions of the C++.

 

[Immortal]

I think that we can exclude a fraud, because the function of cost and gain is to high leaned towards the costs. A fraud in their portfolio is a career killer for them, despite they are getting older and do not expect to have much of a career anymore. So the worst case is that they fail to deliver the game. But even then the second case is highly improbable, so the more probable case is that the game is not good.

So we have only concern ourselves with the overall game quality. And currently there only very bad decision was that co-op play, and that they still don't scratched it entirely from their minds.
Their updates show us at least, that they are making progress, but not on which scale. If their progress is exact that what they show us in their update, then it is somehow discouraging. On the other hand, how many objects in the Underworld can burn, or be moved? Crates, chests, chairs, tables, levers, doors, small traps and hanging things. And what else?

I agree with Immortal that they should have invested more time into learning the Unity engine before the kickstarter, but they did not committed them self to the engine (even now), which can be seen as a mistake.
Wasteland 2 can be interpreted as an case against the choosing of the engine after the kickstarter, because it took inXile over 2 years to learn it's edges. And even now it is not certain if they have entirely mastered it.
But Otherside have Jeff, who has written a book about java performance and how to optimise it towards certain parameters. So Jeff will certainly look three times at the behavior of Unity, and form him most certainly comes this statement that they can perhaps use 100% of the dynamic lightning for the light sources.

Immortal
Bjarne Stroustrup has made many bad decisions, like not to include most of the generics for the first versions of the C++.

I mostly agree with this..

I want to emphasize that I am not trying to be edgy here.. or trying to say they are snake oil salesman, I totally believe they think this game is gonna be amazing - I just really want people to know that these videos are probably a whole of 100 lines of code (95% in the camera)..

If this is what they have after 4 weeks.. You should be very worried. If you want to support it regardless because MUH MIT and you are man of faith then go ahead. This scares the shit out of me though.

 

[ROARRR]

I think that we can exclude a fraud, because the function of cost and gain is to high leaned towards the costs.
.
..
...
I agree with Immortal that they should have invested more time into learning the Unity engine before the kickstarter, but they did not committed them self to the engine (even now), which can be seen as a mistake.
Wasteland 2 can be interpreted as an case against the choosing of the engine after the kickstarter, because it took inXile over 2 years to learn it's edges. And even now it is not certain if they have entirely mastered it.

No trouble with that, but no dealbreaker in the end that is all I want to say!

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

I have to say that i agree with Immortal and Zep, that all what they have shown is a no brainer, and can be done within few hours. But still i don't know why i am not concerned about this game. Perhaps i assume that they show us only certain bits or parts, and other things they keep concealed. Perhaps i have too much respect for MIT people. Luckily i can only lose $40 on this one.

Let's see...

Option 1) The founder of Looking Glass Studios, his MIT-educated lead designer, and their hand-picked team of intellectually-inclined mild-mannered New England nerds who interact with backers on a daily basis on their forums and have even met a Codex representative in person, are all secretly incompetent con artists who are going to trash their reputations for a sum of money they could all collectively make in a year of legitimate work.

Option 2) Yes, the programmers have been instructed to show off bits and pieces of interesting things that are possible to achieve with the engine that are relevant to the game's design while the rest of the game's pre-production goes on in the background.

Yeah, I'm also gonna go with 2 for now

This.

I am also grateful they are showing off mechanics rather than promoting a pre-alpha game on shitty graphics.

L00k! We have pretty pixels. Yay!

 

[Baron Dupek]

The Wasteland 2 guys also learned how to use Unity after they Kickstarted it, I think.
.

Yeah I remember that thing. When I funded WL2 I was confident they won't use this crappy ductape thing, then all of sudden "we miracleously learned how2write in Unity. And guess what, we gonna make WL2 in Unity".

 

[DeepOcean]

The question is that the ecology system for MIT graduates or not seems like a pie in the sky feature like "You can slave whole nations with negromancy." and major cuts/dumbdown are dangerously probable unless they show how they plan to use their MIT awesomeness to turn this on code and as they only shown boxes blowing up so far... People have enough reasons to fear they are going to seriously cut the ecology system, there is a big precedence for this as that would be hardly the first time kicstarter developers cut or seriously dumbdown features. I would still have fun with an Arx Fatalis/Ultima Underworld game without a complex ecology system but I understand why people are fearful of major dumbdown when things get real and they have to actually implement the ecology system.

 

[Sonus]

Hopefully it's elegant design, not conflicting systems forced together leaving the player frustrated and disappointed, to say the least.