KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Prototype Thread

[Darkzone]

Let's look at the last updates, shall we?

Update #14 - instead of talking about something new it explains the bridge thing again. This time they also mention that destroying the bridge isn't an issue as you can get across in different ways. Different ways across are nice, removing the consequence - not so much.

They mention that specializing in bows makes you more effective at killing things from a distance, which is kinda to be expected.

Then they talk about the factions. Killing some things will lower your rep with the related faction, but the effect isn't explained. So what happens if I kill a bunch of things the Dark Elves hold dear? They stop trading? They stop talking to me? Hunt me down? What?

Then they mention that the world is dynamic and killing some beasts might force other beasts that eat the beasts you killed to move on and might even affect your future quest. Killing the bigger beasts will invite other predators and might make the area too dangerous. They also mention that you can alter the environment and turn a humid bog into a dry plain.

This sounds fucking cool BUT they dedicate to this exciting, rare, super awesome feature a couple of sentences, not an entire update or two. It's like selling Doc Brown's car and mentioning that it doesn't need roads without elaborating. It raises nothing but questions that remain unanswered which turns this potentially cool feature into vague promise of something awesome.

Update #13 - backstory in a short paragraph, honorary mention of Bioshock, Thief-streaming announcement, Facebook banners, Twitter banners, rage rising.
Update #12 - Name that monster - like I give a fuck, badges, watch us play older games announcement
Update #11 - Claim your rewards, exclusive itams! Voice-overs, a Shrouds add-on, a shield that glows, oh my! That's like 3 fucking updates without a word about mechanics but these guys are old school, they play old games and stream them and everything.

Update #10 - get your rewards! Steam greenlight, bored now.

Then let us do this:
Update #09 (2.13.2015) View on A.I. and thief's A.I. implemtation.
One day later:
Update #10 (2.14.2015) Yes, steam greenlight is very important as you know.
Two days later:
Update #11 (2.16.2015) Weekly Goal. Extra weapons for ks backers and buckler add-on + 'Stephen L. Russell'.
One day later:
Update #12 (2.17.2015) Name the moster and anouncement of Dire Faeries and twitch + 'Terri Brosius'.
One day later:
Update #13 (2.18.2015) Utopia fallen, Twiitch times with guests who worked on this games.
Not even one day later:
Update #14 (2.18.2015) The big Update and clarification on some points.

But i will now address you questions:

Different ways across are nice, removing the consequence - not so much.

No. You have to find now a new solution to a problem that you have created. This is by definition the best approach to C&C. By letting this impassable or unaccessible, people will not try such thing like blowing up the bridge to save their asses.

They mention that specializing in bows makes you more effective at killing things from a distance, which is kinda to be expected.

There is also magic.

So what happens if I kill a bunch of things the Dark Elves hold dear? They stop trading? They stop talking to me? Hunt me down? What?

Perhaps all of this things, and perhaps it dependes on your reputation in the dark elven community. To declare what exactly will happen if you kill a certain thing is quite a spoiler.

Then they mention that the world is dynamic and killing some beasts might force other beasts that eat the beasts you killed to move on and might even affect your future quest. Killing the bigger beasts will invite other predators and might make the area too dangerous. They also mention that you can alter the environment and turn a humid bog into a dry plain.

Alone this three sentences let me to raise my pledge in the endrun. Do you understand why this is a great thing, and why expect nothing less then this from LGS?

This sounds fucking cool BUT they dedicate to this exciting, rare, super awesome feature a couple of sentences, not an entire update or two. It's like selling Doc Brown's car and mentioning that it doesn't need roads without elaborating. It raises nothing but questions that remain unanswered which turns this potentially cool feature into vague promise of something awesome.

Should the really explain all the things? No. The discovery of a dynamic world is what this game is about. How you as a player influences this world. This is more than T:ToN will ever do.

We got the idea and the Codex does love Thief, SS, and Bioshock

That had better be joke, fool.

CyberP please be more civil. With 'Bioshock' VD is truely leaning and dropping out of the window. But to fall out of the window, does not make all people to whom it happend fools.

 

[Renevent]

I know this is kinda of backwards but I want this to be basically Arx Fatalis 2. I almost pledged as well, but, well they "ran out" of the $20 tier which is kinda of ridiculous. Looks like they will hit their mark anyways so just will pick it up when it hits Steam EA/released.

 

[CyberP]

CyberP please be more civil.

I have called for civility, order & organisation of the Codex many a time to no avail. If you can't beat them, join 'em.

 

[mindx2]

Let's look at the last updates, shall we?

Update #14 - instead of talking about something new it explains the bridge thing again. This time they also mention that destroying the bridge isn't an issue as you can get across in different ways. Different ways across are nice, removing the consequence - not so much.

They mention that specializing in bows makes you more effective at killing things from a distance, which is kinda to be expected.

Then they talk about the factions. Killing some things will lower your rep with the related faction, but the effect isn't explained. So what happens if I kill a bunch of things the Dark Elves hold dear? They stop trading? They stop talking to me? Hunt me down? What?

Then they mention that the world is dynamic and killing some beasts might force other beasts that eat the beasts you killed to move on and might even affect your future quest. Killing the bigger beasts will invite other predators and might make the area too dangerous. They also mention that you can alter the environment and turn a humid bog into a dry plain.

This sounds fucking cool BUT they dedicate to this exciting, rare, super awesome feature a couple of sentences, not an entire update or two. It's like selling Doc Brown's car and mentioning that it doesn't need roads without elaborating. It raises nothing but questions that remain unanswered which turns this potentially cool feature into vague promise of something awesome.

VD, mind if I use this in my interview?

 

[Darth Roxor]

We got the idea and the Codex does love Thief, SS, and Bioshock , but it takes more than having an idea to get properly funded. KS is about salesmanship and so far these guys have displayed none. They failed to generate excitement which is what it takes to get 3x the asking amount.

I'll ignore your Bioshock mention and assume it was some bizarre brainfart, but as for the rest - I am not talking about their marketing for this KS and don't want to go into whether it is good or bad. What I'm talking about is the reception here on the codex of all places, and that is largely irrelevant to their salesmanship.

Looking Glass has always been about innovation, all their games were spectacularly fresh in one way or another. Thus, ex-LGS people are in my view just about the only people out there who can be blindly trusted to actually deliver on their promises of innovashun and not just drop them around baselessly to gather hype. I would also assume that people of the 'dex who are self-proclaimed experts that are supposed to at least know their shit would realise that as well and not post retarded comments such as 'lol coop dis will nevar work! and envirointeracshuns that are prob just scripted anyway! radiant world haha! scam! con artists!' etc. This is not a question of marketing. It's a question of ignorance that is so pervasive itt that it is making my blood boil.

 

[mindx2]

We got the idea and the Codex does love Thief, SS, and Bioshock , but it takes more than having an idea to get properly funded. KS is about salesmanship and so far these guys have displayed none. They failed to generate excitement which is what it takes to get 3x the asking amount.

I'll ignore your Bioshock mention and assume it was some bizarre brainfart, but as for the rest - I am not talking about their marketing for this KS and don't want to go into whether it is good or bad. What I'm talking about is the reception here on the codex of all places, and that is largely irrelevant to their salesmanship.

Looking Glass has always been about innovation, all their games were spectacularly fresh in one way or another. Thus, ex-LGS people are in my view just about the only people out there who can be blindly trusted to actually deliver on their promises of innovashun and not just drop them around baselessly to gather hype. I would also assume that people of the 'dex who are self-proclaimed experts that are supposed to at least know their shit would realise that as well and not post retarded comments such as 'lol coop dis will nevar work! and envirointeracshuns that are prob just scripted anyway! radiant world haha! scam! con artists!' etc. This is not a question of marketing. It's a question of ignorance that is so pervasive itt that it is making my blood boil.

We know that but the average gamer or KS person does not. That is the problem. They need a salesman like Fargo or Swen to get the average person to open their wallets.

 

[CyberP]

"lol coop dis will nevar work"

Nobody is saying it won't work, wont be innovative or whatever. Most are hating on it for other reasons.

 

[Darth Roxor]

We know that but the average gamer or KS person does not. That is the problem. They need a salesman like Fargo or Swen to get the average person to open their wallets.

Does it look like I'm talking about the average KS person here?

 

[mindx2]

We know that but the average gamer or KS person does not. That is the problem. They need a salesman like Fargo or Swen to get the average person to open their wallets.

Does it look like I'm talking about the average KS person here?

... but that's the only way this will be successful and we get Looking Glass 2.0.

 

[Vault Dweller]

VD, mind if I use this in my interview?

By all means. These are the questions I'd like to know the answers to. I'm always interested in HOW something works as there are many different ways to achieve the same outcome. For example, the easiest way to do the above mentioned monster thing is to respawn killed monsters with tougher monsters and pass it for ecology. Needless to say it's as interesting as blue shirt/red shirt allies.

So taking a step further:

The player can impact the ecology. For instance, killing a pack of Shadow Beasts may mean the Lurkers living in the watering hole nearby won't have a food supply. Their new home may end up being directly in the path of your next quest, or adjacent to an encampment of Dwarven allies.

It's a wonderful example of being vague and saying nothing. Immediate questions:

- The first sentence says that the Lurkers are the Shadow Beasts (SB)'s food supply. Do Shadow Beasts actually attack the Lurkers every now and then or it's an abstraction?
- If the SB do move elsewhere, do they get a new designated food supply?
- How tough the Shadow Beasts are? If they get in the way of your future quest, is it an actual obstacle? The second paragraph says you can kill them too, if yes, what's the big deal?
- If they get next to the Dwarves and you do nothing, what happens next, other than a penalty to the rep with the Dwarves?

 

[Infinitron]

I have no doubt of the OtherSiders' sincerity and talent, but I am afraid they are overestimating what they can do with the money at their disposal. We've seen a lot of these seasoned devs who are initially wowed by how easy it is to prototype stuff in Unity and figure making a full game will be a breeze, but then get bogged down into an extended development cycle anyway.

It would be an absolute disaster if a bunch of Looking Glass veterans ended up disgracing themselves with a JA:F-style premature release. But the fact that they've already spent over half a year on this game is comforting. It's not like they've just gotten into this - they should be aware of the challenges by now.

 

[Haba]

If you bring a bunch of retired athletes together and expect them to win gold, or if you reunite the band that broke up twenty years ago and whose members have spent the past years working as grocery clerks... well, chances are you won't be seeing the result you'd hope for. But why when it comes to computer games it is suddenly a different thing?

That being said, I backed, with the full expectation that this probably won't be the thing I'd like to see. But hopefully they do well enough to be able to iterate and eventually succeed.

That being said, all the nitpicking ITT reminds me why certain games have extremely niche audiences. Ain't that right, Vince?

 

[Cosmo]

I have no doubt of the OtherSiders' sincerity and talent, but I am afraid they are overestimating what they can do with the money at their disposal.

They also have money from other investors though, right ? Knowing how much would go a long way to explaining whether their campaign is barely competent or just "chill"...

 

[Vault Dweller]

We got the idea and the Codex does love Thief, SS, and Bioshock , but it takes more than having an idea to get properly funded. KS is about salesmanship and so far these guys have displayed none. They failed to generate excitement which is what it takes to get 3x the asking amount.

I'll ignore your Bioshock mention and assume it was some bizarre brainfart...

It's a reference to the proud Codex tradition to review Bioshock games, hence the monocle.

Looking Glass has always been about innovation, all their games were spectacularly fresh in one way or another. Thus, ex-LGS people are in my view just about the only people out there who can be blindly trusted to actually deliver on their promises of innovashun and not just drop them around baselessly to gather hype. I would also assume that people of the 'dex who are self-proclaimed experts that are supposed to at least know their shit would realise that as well and not post retarded comments such as 'lol coop dis will nevar work! and envirointeracshuns that are prob just scripted anyway! radiant world haha! scam! con artists!' etc. This is not a question of marketing. It's a question of ignorance that is so pervasive itt that it is making my blood boil.

Looking Glass was one of the, if not the greatest studio of all times. There is no doubt about that or their legacy and influence. The problem is, it happened many moons ago and it takes more than good intentions to make a game worthy of the ancient hallowed names (see WL2).

 

[Infinitron]

I have no doubt of the OtherSiders' sincerity and talent, but I am afraid they are overestimating what they can do with the money at their disposal.

They also have money from investors though, right ? Knowing how much would go a long way to explaining whether their campaign is barely competent or just "chill"...

mindx2 definitely needs to ask about this. He should also ask exactly what they'd been up to in the 6 months since "Underworld Ascension" was originally announced and the launch of this Kickstarter. It could ease a lot of people's worries.

 

[mindx2]

I have no doubt of the OtherSiders' sincerity and talent, but I am afraid they are overestimating what they can do with the money at their disposal.

They also have money from investors though, right ? Knowing how much would go a long way to explaining whether their campaign is barely competent or just "chill"...

mindx2 definitely needs to ask about this. He should also ask exactly what they'd been up to in the 6 months since "Underworld Ascension" was originally announced and the launch of this Kickstarter. It could ease a lot of people's worries.

Already on my list.

 

[Darkzone]

I have no doubt of the OtherSiders' sincerity and talent, but I am afraid they are overestimating what they can do with the money at their disposal.

They also have money from other investors though, right ? Knowing how much would go a long way to explaining whether their campaign is barely competent or just "chill"...

The only one who has ever declare how much they have money for their development is Hinterland Studios with their 'The Long Dark', to my knowing.

 

[mindx2]

I have no doubt of the OtherSiders' sincerity and talent, but I am afraid they are overestimating what they can do with the money at their disposal.

They also have money from other investors though, right ? Knowing how much would go a long way to explaining whether their campaign is barely competent or just "chill"...

The only one who has ever declare how much they have money for their development is Hinterland Studios with their 'The Long Dark', to my knowing.

I imagine they will also be reluctant to be very specific, if at all, due to not wanting their KS to fail with pledgers going, "Well they have XX amount of dollars already so why should I give them more!" This is more of an after KS type question but I'll ask anyway...

 

[Xenich]

No. You have to find now a new solution to a problem that you have created. This is by definition the best approach to C&C. By letting this impassable or unaccessible, people will not try such thing like blowing up the bridge to save their asses.

So the consequence is that you have to find a different approach or are you saying there shouldn't be any consequences because people will play it safe?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Different ways across are nice, removing the consequence - not so much.

No. You have to find now a new solution to a problem that you have created. This is by definition the best approach to C&C. By letting this impassable or unaccessible, people will not try such thing like blowing up the bridge to save their asses.

Yet that's exactly what would make it a good example of C&C. You go in expecting to loot the place, get chased by things you can't kill, blow up the bridge to save your ass AND seal the area for good. Don't want to seal it for good? Keep running and hope your Dex is good enough.

My point is that blowing up a bridge isn't a big deal if there is a gazillion ways to get across.

So what happens if I kill a bunch of things the Dark Elves hold dear? They stop trading? They stop talking to me? Hunt me down? What?

Perhaps all of this things, and perhaps it dependes on your reputation in the dark elven community. To declare what exactly will happen if you kill a certain thing is quite a spoiler.

It's not. It's the overall design.

They keep mentioning that your rep plays a role. I want to know what role it plays. What happens if I piss off the Dark Elves? The way I see it, 4 things can happen:

- they stop talking to me or greet me with scorn
- they stop trading with me (depends on the implementation, losing a trader wasn't a big deal in Alpha Protocol)
- they attack me on sight and I can no longer pass through their areas unmolested, in which case does it mean that I have to fight my way through every time I need to enter their territory or is it off-limits now?
- they send hunting parties to kill me.

Explaining these things won't spoil the game but helps us understand the design better.

Then they mention that the world is dynamic and killing some beasts might force other beasts that eat the beasts you killed to move on and might even affect your future quest. Killing the bigger beasts will invite other predators and might make the area too dangerous. They also mention that you can alter the environment and turn a humid bog into a dry plain.

Alone this three sentences let me to raise my pledge in the endrun. Do you understand why this is a great thing, and why expect nothing less then this from LGS?

See my reply to mindx2:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...s-kickstarter-live.92639/page-37#post-3760830

This sounds fucking cool BUT they dedicate to this exciting, rare, super awesome feature a couple of sentences, not an entire update or two. It's like selling Doc Brown's car and mentioning that it doesn't need roads without elaborating. It raises nothing but questions that remain unanswered which turns this potentially cool feature into vague promise of something awesome.

Should the really explain all the things? No.

Yes if they want to excite enough people.

We got the idea and the Codex does love Thief, SS, and Bioshock

That had better be joke, fool.

CyberP please be more civil. With 'Bioshock' VD is truely leaning and dropping out of the window. But to fall out of the window, does not make all people to whom it happend fools.

"It's a reference to the proud Codex tradition to review Bioshock games, hence the monocle."

 

[Infinitron]

The "destroying the bridge" situation isn't supposed to be an example of "choice and consequence" in the Codexian sense. It's just an environmental interaction that you can do, no different from destroying some piece of terrain in a Minecraft server. The faction stuff, that's where the C&C is supposed to be, I think.

 

[tuluse]

Yet that's exactly what would make it a good example of C&C. You go in expecting to loot the place, get chased by things you can't kill, blow up the bridge to save your ass AND seal the area for good. Don't want to seal it for good? Keep running and hope your Dex is good enough.

My point is that blowing up a bridge isn't a big deal if there is a gazillion ways to get across.

I'm not sure this is strictly true. If there is a cost associated with way to get across, that's still C&C. Even just, you don't get some cool item until later when you learn Bigby's Raising Bridge spell, there's still opportunity cost there as you could have been using the item in the meantime.

 

[Xenich]

My point is that blowing up a bridge isn't a big deal if there is a gazillion ways to get across.

Exactly. This has been one of the growing problems with games over the years, that somehow a player should always be able to win in any encounter, that all solutions should work, that every movie should have a happy ending.

It is complete "participation trophy" style of play in my opinion. Consequence should be consequence, you miss out, you lose something, you come up short... etc...

 

[Xenich]

The "destroying the bridge" situation isn't supposed to be an example of "choice and consequence" in the Codexian sense. It's just an environmental interaction that you can do, no different from destroying some piece of terrain in a Minecraft server. The faction stuff, that's where the C&C is supposed to be, I think.

Then that makes it just a useless feature that serves no purpose. Better to have them scrap the whole idea and spend time on making a game rather than Entertainment(tm).

 

[Infinitron]

The "destroying the bridge" situation isn't supposed to be an example of "choice and consequence" in the Codexian sense. It's just an environmental interaction that you can do, no different from destroying some piece of terrain in a Minecraft server. The faction stuff, that's where the C&C is supposed to be, I think.

Then that makes it just a useless feature that serves no purpose. Better to have them scrap the whole idea and spend time on making a game rather than Entertainment(tm).

Or maybe you just don't like this genre of game? Age of Decadence is coming out this year. No effort wasted on "useless" world simulation there.