KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Prototype Thread

[Darkzone]

I like what they're saying about the cosmetic backer items and even co-op. Reading on the forums has led me to believe that co-op really wouldn't be such a huge drain to implement. Though I do still worry that it might influence design.

Don't worry the 1.2mio is nearly out of reach for them, and the comments (that infinitron posted) indicate that they know what is important. I have a better and better feeling about this, even better than Torment, more on pair with 'THE LONG DARK'.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Ultima Underworld was the grand RPG of my childhood... hope this turns out well, it brings back some fond memories.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Color me skeptical with EA involved, but the kickstarter seems a money grab, and superfluous. I will invest $40, no more, no less, until the merchandise is established and proven.

 

[Zombra]

Color me skeptical with EA involved, but the kickstarter seems a money grab, and superfluous. I will invest $40, no more, no less, until the merchandise is established and proven.

If $40 represents your skepticism, I'm sure OtherSide will be delighted to have many more skeptics on the project.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Zep--

 

[Jaesun]

Color me skeptical with EA involved

Why exactly?

 

[evdk]

until the merchandise is established and proven.

What does this even mean in this context?

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

To answer everyone's question in context:

Zombra: I've been waiting for an Underworld sequel, but I am not going to put down $60-$80 like on something proven, like Wasteland, or Shadowrun: Hong Kong. It requires a lot of faith without backing interviews, especially with EA involved. They have a bad habit of dumbing everything down, including Dead Space departing from horror to become a standard "action" game with horror elements for grab.

Jaesun: New Call of Duty or FIFA every year. 'Nuff said.

evdk: This is a first game for these guys, despite past credentials. I want to see the final results before I invest in a sequel.

EA has a habit of dumbing things down for the unwashed masses. I am only giving it $40 because I have waited forever for an Underworld sequel, then crossing my fingers and hoping not to roll my eyes at the end result. :/

 

[Jaesun]

Jaesun: New Call of Duty or FIFA every year. 'Nuff said.

That doesn't mean anything.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Jaesun: New Call of Duty or FIFA every year. 'Nuff said.

That doesn't mean anything.

Again, fingers crossed. In the same way I don't have much faith in Walmart, I'm at a wait-and-see stage with EA. Their business practices have generally extended to dumbing things down, not dumbing them up. :/

I'm not trying to be insulting. That is simply the connotation I get when working EA, and their corrupted business practices in the past. It's a gambit!

 

[mindx2]

Jaesun: New Call of Duty or FIFA every year. 'Nuff said.

That doesn't mean anything.

Again, fingers crossed. In the same way I don't have much faith in Walmart, I'm at a wait-and-see stage with EA. Their business practices have generally extended to dumbing things down, not dumbing them up. :/

I'm not trying to be insulting. That is simply the connotation I get when working EA, and their corrupted business practices in the past. It's a gambit!

Why do you keep bringing up EA? They have nothing to do with this except giving them the license to use everything from the UUs except the Ultima name. It's NOT an EA game, it's Otherside's game.

 

[Zombra]

That said, if Electronic Arts is shown to have any control over or direct involvement in the project, please let me know and I will yank my pledge. I'm on your side on that one DawnrazorDCLXVI. So many things they touch turn to garbage.

Insert generic complaint here about Early Access games ruining the acronym EA so I never know what the fuck anyone's talking about any more.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

It's really fucking stupid to act like making an exceptional game is somehow opposed to making a co-op game.

Divinity: Original Sin, Baldur's Gate 2 and Dark Souls all support co-op play, and are all exceptional games made even better by it.

And if you read or watch interviews with HBS, they really want to do co-op, but their current engine simply won't handle it. They certainly don't seem worried about destroying the sanctity of their single-player experience.

I'm way behind the curve on this thread since I shamefully haven't felt interested enough in it to keep reading, but I gotta pipe up for that. DoS and Dark Souls were both designed for co-op from the ground up. Singleplayer DoS is essentially just playing co-op by yourself (And even arguing with yourself), and Dark Souls would be lessened if it was JUST co-op. Since it's also (Mostly) non-consensual PvP with people dropping in to your game and killing your ass it fits the setting as sunbro co-op pals are being good people and trying to cling on to their humanity while the invaders are killing for it. Not to mention the whole multiple points in time/multiverse/whatever part of the Dark Souls setting. And in Baldur's Gate's case it doesn't add much to the game given how clunky it is. I dunno if you've played an Infinity Engine game co-op before but it's awkward as shit. If one person starts any dialog the other players have to watch it, you have to gather your party before venturing forth, and you either have to have one person assigned as OFFICIAL GAME PAUSEMEISTER or everyone will be slapping their spacebars like maniacs which triggers pausing when the first person does it and un-pauses when the other dude's spacebar hit lands 0.5 seconds later, which causes fresh desperate spacebar slapping to resume the pause and continues the shenanigans. They can be played co-op but after trying it once I bailed.

The point I'm trying to get with all that ranting is even barring concerns about the setting or basic Underworld-feel of the game, DoS and DS were both built as co-op a hell of a lot more than "Well we wanna make this singleplayer game but co-op would be cool to do". Baldur's Gate is more of a "Hey let's make this co-op too" and it's not very good.*

*Unless BGEE made improvements to multiplayer. I have no idea since I tried vanilla years ago.

(also neverwinter nights is the best d&d multiplayer game (so long as you don't play the base campaign (d&d online is pretty ok too)))

 

[Jaesun]

That said, if Electronic Arts is shown to have any control over or direct involvement in the project, please let me know and I will yank my pledge. I'm on your side on that one DawnrazorDCLXVI. So many things they touch turn to garbage.

They have no direct control over this at all, they only approached EA of the IP elements. The same thing Fargo did with Wasteland 2. Have you even read this persons postings? He doesn't even know what he don't know.

Apparently you suck at reading Join dates......

 

[DeepOcean]

From Inc Gamers Interview:

"Thief was a lot about stealth. That was one very important component; the audio environment created a reactive, immersive environment. Something we learned doing stealth was that audio environment was essential. You as a player could hear the guard coming closer to you from down a corridor … because people, they take all these subtle cues they may not even be conscious of. You learn when you’re young that if you’re in a room with a set of corridors and everything, your mind is trained to know what a sound is like when it comes around a corridor. And if someone breaks line of sight, the sound changes suddenly. But you know they’ve come around a corner, even if you can’t see them.

If you don’t do sound propagation in that way, it doesn’t make that connection in your mind and so it doesn’t feel real. As soon as you do create that audio connection, and it works the way it would in real life, and the visuals work correctly with light propagation and all the other elements that go into it, there’s a critical mass where there’s a suspension of disbelief. Suddenly it feels real.

You know, “I’m really there, and the things I do in this world really matter.” That’s the difference between just creating a beautiful world with lots of pretty pixels to look at, and something that feels like a real world."

Always wanted a new Looking Glass game and we will get it. I just hope this campaign doesn't stagnate and they meet the goal.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

All these quotes from the team are very heartening. For fans of these games from the 90s, looking back on what made those games special is the very stuff this team is focusing on. Proof will be in the pudding of course but these guys just get it in ways others do not.

 

[Darkzone]

The quotes show that they have a certain clear version of this game that they want to accomplish. Also they are already 4 months into the development, so everything is planned and analysed, much more than Wasteland 2.
This is not a project that is just made because they can, this is a project to revive in certain way the Looking Glass Studios, therefore i believe that they will make after an successful Underworld release, an System Shock 3 Kickstarter. Looking Glass went out of buisness, because of their publisher, so it is highly probable that they do not want a publisher anymore. It is even more probable that they want to stand on their own, and because of the high reachability of business and digital distribution, they can do this as an indie developer. The use of Unity and Kickstarter is also indicating this. If EA was behind them, they would use their Engine and would not use the Kickstarter, and also they would have much more advertising. But even if EA would help them to get their feet on the ground, then i would not even give a second thought, and i would give a fuck about it, if EA is their publisher or not, because EA has done personally to me no harm. I think that i don't even own a modern game from EA.
Such a long text for just a simple statement: If you want to have Looking Glass Studios back, then give them your money, believe and hope.

 

[mindx2]

The quotes show that they have a certain clear version of this game that they want to accomplish. Also they are already 4 months into the development, so everything is planned and analysed, much more than Wasteland 2.
This is not a project that is just made because they can, this is a project to revive in certain way the Looking Glass Studios, therefore i believe that they will make after an successful Underworld release, an System Shock 3 Kickstarter. Looking Glass went out of buisness, because of their publisher, so it is highly probable that they do not want a publisher anymore. It is even more probable that they want to stand on their own, and because of the high reachability of business and digital distribution, they can do this as an indie developer. The use of Unity and Kickstarter is also indicating this. If EA was behind them, they would use their Engine and would not use the Kickstarter, and also they would have much more advertising. But even if EA would help them to get their feet on the ground, then i would not even give a second thought, and i would give a fuck about it, if EA is their publisher or not, because EA has done personally to me no harm. I think that i don't even own a modern game from EA.
Such a long text for just a simple statement: If you want to have Looking Glass Studios back, then give them your money, believe and hope.

(Had to post that again because it sums up my hopes and gaming dreams as well)

 

[Eyeball]

I only got one question: will rune-letter based magic be in, and will we be required to actually draw runes with the mouse?

Because if that is the case, GOTY of whatever fucking year they decide to release this thing in is already decided.

 

[mindx2]

I only got one question: will rune-letter based magic be in, and will we be required to actually draw runes with the mouse?

Because if that is the case, GOTY of whatever fucking year they decide to release this thing in is already decided.

I really disliked the drawing runes in Arx. I was terrible at it and could never quite get them drawn correctly. It may have to do with using my MS Trackball but that's the only mouse I can use effectively.

 

[Eyeball]

It was the best part of the game. Just needed a bit of practice and worked 100% of the time after that. If they could make it a bit more user-friendly this time around, I see no reason they should not put it in.

But nah, it'll be some popamole "click to win" spell system instead. Incline is verboten.

 

[Zombra]

I didn't play AF, but that sounds like a pain in the ass to me.

Then again I won't play a spellcaster anyway - do what you want.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The rune drawing was a cool idea, but the actual drawing part was VERY clunky in practice. Making any figure that was composed of more than 3 lines would often not work even though you drew it properly.

 

[Infinitron]

$350k raised, in about 4.25 days.

 

[CyberP]

Incline is verboten.

This. I pray for Arx's magic system, but it probably wont happen because even these faggots found it inaccessible. They will probably need to add an aim assist feature of sorts for these noobs.