KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Prototype Thread

[Bubbles]

What exactly does the tier add? Please tell me it's not as stupid as non combat pets.

In that case you will get no answer to your question.

 

[CyberP]

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Nice adjustment pulling in the music and adding more content to sweeten the deal on the way.

You've done it! The Lizardmen have been unlocked, and are moving into the Underswamp as we speak!

And, since we passed the $725,000 mark as well, we'll also be adding the Dire Grove to the Underworld. A natural home for the Lizardmen, the Dire Grove is also home to the swamp willow, a tree that bears fluorescent berries with magical properties.

Next Up, Companion Creatures + Enhanced Music!

Exploring the Stygian Abyss can be a scary experience, so why do it alone? If we achieve the current $800,000 Stretch Goal, you won't have to! With the Companion Creature feature added to the game, players will be able to have a faithful little buddy tag along on their adventures. Companions might be useful in a fight, or in boosting skills and abilities, but they can also help the player in other unexpected ways.

We've been listening to our fans and have decided to move Enhanced Music down from the $850,000 stretch goal to the $800,000 goal, alongside the Companion Creatures. This will help ensure that more music tracks and more elaborate scores are added to the game. The music of the original Underworld games is memorable even to this day, and now we will be able to create music to inspire the next generation of CRPG gamers!

In addition when we get to $775,000, halfway through the Stretch Goal, we will build in the Stygian Abyss a new area, the Necrotic Graveyard. This dark and foreboding locale seems to hold an allure for the various monsters and creatures of the Stygian Abyss who, upon arriving at the graveyard, pass away only to be reanimated as the undead. It is for the player to learn the purpose in this and to perhaps stop this terrible curse from inflicting the denizens of the Underworld.

The OtherSide Team

 

[thexsa]

"We've been listening to our fans and have decided to move Enhanced Music down from the $850,000 stretch goal to the $800,000 goal, alongside the Companion Creatures."

Hmm..

 

[Metro]

"We've been listening to RPG Codex..." The pets made no sense as a tier. Not sure what crowd they were intended to draw.

 

[mindx2]

Good to know the music/sound tier will likely be reached. If anyone knows how to use sound effectively in games it's Looking Glass vets!

 

[Bubbles]

Just to clarify, they haven't merged the 850k stretch goal into the bunny goal, they've just snipped out the "enhanced music" and put it in the lower tier:

We brought some of the audio stretch goal down into the current stretch goal, and pushed up a few of the elements planned for companion creatures. Presuming we get through audio stretch goal it will end us up at the same place.

He makes it sound like companion creatures are going to get further upgrades in the next tier. What could that entail? Different "outfits" for the bunny? Fur color selection?

 

[Metro]

Maybe you can breed them like chocobo.

 

[tuluse]

Just to clarify, they haven't merged the 850k stretch goal into the bunny goal, they've just snipped out the "enhanced music" and put it in the lower tier:

We brought some of the audio stretch goal down into the current stretch goal, and pushed up a few of the elements planned for companion creatures. Presuming we get through audio stretch goal it will end us up at the same place.

He makes it sound like companion creatures are going to get further upgrades in the next tier. What could that entail? Different "outfits" for the bunny? Fur color selection?

Perhaps romances will make it into the game after all. A subtle nod to classic RPGs such as Arcanum.

 

[mindx2]

It's now officially their 3rd best day of funding.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I don't really see what's so bad about asking for more and higher pledges during a pledge drive. I guess I'm just weird.

It's okay to make a public appeal if you don't overdo it, but a private message telling you "Hey, please don't pledge to that tier, pledge to a higher tier" is like...dude, pushy.

It's probably still a net positive for them, but it really wasn't necessary.

"How weird, I gave them my email in case they wanted to contact me and they contacted me"

C'mon, now. You're acting like it was a threat.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

They alluded to the companions being useful somehow, like you could work with them to help you do shit or solve puzzles like in Lost Vikings (Lost Vikings my words).

 

[Metro]

Sounds lame.

 

[Jaesun]

A pet? Is Richard Gariott coaching them?

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Hah!

In response to what backer names can be included in the game - in credits, carved in stone, on a plaque or whatnot.

Jeff replies:

Your name as you want it to appear will be something we will get from the backer surveys at the end of the campaign.

Subject of course to editorial approval.
D1ck Cummings might have to supply a drivers license to prove thats his real name.

 

[:Flash:]

I also cancelled my pledge due to the private message buggering.
What irked me even more than the message itself, was that they didn't even respond to the threads in their forum. They did respond to unrelated things in those threads, but conveniently ignored the OP. A simple "this is why we did it", or "it might not have been the best idea" would have been enough, but simply ignoring it convinced me to cancel.

 

[Abelian]

I'm not really bothered by it except for the fact that the early bird tier is limited and any Pioneer opening will be snatched up by someone else instead (maybe even someone who downgrades their pledge).

Let's hope Cleve doesn't get ideas from this little stunt...

 

[Infinitron]

Good posts from Melan and Zombra in this thread:
http://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=446.msg6847#msg6847
http://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=446.msg6855#msg6855

 

[Morgoth]

I'd have prefered if they keep music to a bare minimum (a' la Souls series) and instead put the money into a better SFX scape.

 

[Mofleaker]

Sweet jesus I really hate Paul Neurath's voice

 

[Runciter]

Not backing this.

The number one reason is that Otherside aren't treating the campaign
seriously; they have other sources of funding and they don't absolutely
need it, even if they want the extra money. The evidence is in how they
shuffle around the stretch goals; the goals aren't set at levels which
enable their funding, they are there purely to manipulate backers to give
more. There is no transparency as to how much they need crowdfunded
money, how they are going to spend it and what other interests are
involved.

What is lacking is a feeling of being beholden to backers. It was
definitely there in the Wasteland 2 campaign coming from Fargo, for
example. It was missing from the Elite: Dangerous campaign and I
already got burned there. If that feeling was there, you would see the
necessary financial transparency and specific promises as to game
features. Instead, the backers' attention is diverted to promises of
challenge-spoiling in-game items.

 

[Infinitron]

RPGWatch interview: http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=298

CouchPotato: What games do you play in your spare time, and if you could name your top five RPG games?

Tim Stellmach: When I have spare time these days, it mostly goes to Minecraft, as well as various board games (mostly co-ops). I guess I channel all my aggression into designing monsters instead!

If I have to pick five all-time favorite cRPGs, I’ll say Final Fantasy: Tactics, Deus Ex, Fallout: New Vegas/Fallout 3 (is that cheating?), System Shock 2, and Ultima VII.

Joe Fielder: Lately, I've played a lot of Dragon Age: Inquisition, Shadow of Mordor, Alien: Isolation, Transistor, FTL, and the board game Eldritch Horror. The Talos Principle, Darkest Dungeon, and Wasteland 2 are next on my list.

My favorite RPGs would probably have to be Chrono Trigger, Dragon Wars (aka "Bard's Tale IV"), Final Fantasy Tactics, Neuromancer, and Ultima Underworld.

Chris Siegel – Currently, I’m playing Dark Souls II, Chivalry, The Crew, Far Cry 4 and I have an unhealthy addiction to Marvel Heroes. In the RPG space, well this is a loaded question. What is an RPG? If we use the definition of Role Playing as playing a role, Thief:TDP , Shadows of Mordor, and Assassins Creed: Black Flag are up there as my favorites. In the conventional sense, as in CRPGs Baldur’s Gate II, Planescape Torment, Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Mass Effect II, and all of the SSI gold box games. If I had to pick one of those, Pools of Darkness. Questing inside the dead god Moander with level 25 characters was pretty awesome.

CouchPotato: Most of your employees are veterans of the game industry, and have worked on various games over the years. So I was wondering if you could share your opinion on the current state of the game industry?

Joe Fielder: I think it's a really exciting time for games right now, both in the indie and AAA space. It feels like there's a shift toward creating experiences that are unique to our medium. The industry seems to be coming back around toward the sort of player driven narrative and emergent sandbox gameplay that Paul, Tim, and the others helped invent back with Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld 2.

Chris Siegel: Broken but getting better. Over the past 10 years the developer has lost complete control of his work. As a film studio exec once said to me “Where are your creative millionaires? I don’t trust an industry that does not compensate the creatives.” He’s right.

When I was working for a publisher owned development house we spent far too much time talking about money and marketing, and far less talking about making a fun engaging game. Games became big business, especially now with the mobile F2P space. It’s hard to fight against that in a large corporation where money is always first. They see the dollar signs. In this environment it is a tough sell to do anything risky, or even slightly off the beaten path. Hollywood has the same pressures, it’s easier to make sequels, or to follow the emulation targets. But in both games and film this leads to very stale entertainment.

But there is hope. Over the past 2 or 3 years indies are getting headlines finally. Between kickstarter and Steam Greenlight developers stand a chance to make the games they want to make without all the crazy overhead that comes with a publisher. Risk and reward. Finally we can push the envelope that frankly has been pretty stale for the past generation. Sandboxes are better than ever, and UI is streamlined, and graphics are mind blowing, but as a player I spend most of the time being railroaded into a narrative that is not mine. That bothers me. I rarely as a gamer finish games because I’m just not interested in the story the developer laid out for me. I’m far more interested in solving problems…or causing them.

This is also the first time that a midsized studio like us, or InXile will get the profits, or at least a large chunk of them. This is very new in our industry. Developers don’t make money compared to say, creative in film or television. That is starting to change. I hate to look at what we do as a business, I think most of us in the development space do, but being on the indie side have me very excited to ‘put up or shut up’.

CouchPotato: To add to the last question whats your opinion on Modern RPGs games nowadays? I only ask because we always hear developers talk about simplifying games.

Tim Stellmach: The game audience in general has expanded enormously since I started in the business. We’ve had the hard-core RPG audience all along, but now there are games to serve a much wider audience as well. And that’s great, but for a while it seemed like the hobby RPG gamer was getting crowded out in the competition for shelf space. That’s all changing now with the rise of new platforms and indie distribution channels. It’s vastly easier now to serve the needs both audiences.

Chris Siegel: Simplifying is a double edged sword. Simplifying control schemes, UI and interaction are great. Those problems have all been pretty much solved to an extent.
But the simplification of gameplay, of player options, of player agency in the world? That is troubling. In most modern sandboxes there is a very limited number of simulations going on. Most of the time interacting with them has no real bearing on the world. The AI is not playing with you, or against you. If I’m in a game that has warring factions, why is the AI not playing an RTS in my sandbox? Surely Ruler A wants to win, and probably wants to go take over territory. Ruler B is thinking the same thing. Why are they not duking it out? Why is it that it always is centrally focused on me? Sure I’m the superhero, and I will probably save the day, but why don’t I have the option to flip that table and be Darth Vader? They occasionally do put in some arbitrary ‘choice’. The choice really doesn’t seem to have any real effect other than what end game movie I get. As developers we have to get over the urge to control the player. We all hated that DM back in our tabletop days, why do we do it to our players in the games we create?

CouchPotato: Richard Garriott stated on the Shroud of the Avatar website that he will be helping you with the story & Lore, and I was wondering if you could talk more about how this will work?

Tim Stellmach: Richard’s team is co-developing back story with us. If you look at the three main factions in Underworld Ascendant, it’s kind of symbolic: there’s one (the dwarves) from the original Underworld games, one (the dark elves) that’s a crossover from Shroud of the Avatar, and one (the shamblers) that’s wholly new. We even have Tracy Hickman (bestselling author, and SotA story developer) on board to develop the connection with an Underworld Ascendant novel, telling how a clan of dark elves made their exodus to the Stygian Abyss.

CouchPotato: So how would you sell your game to backers who never played the original games?

Joe Fielder: As someone who didn't work on the original games, I'd say you should really check them out. You'll quickly recognize that there's incredibly innovative sandbox gameplay at work there, aspects of which I don't think anyone's ever followed up on fully. In many ways, they feel very modern and even ahead of the curve. You can see how they helped influence games like Deus Ex, BioShock, Minecraft, and Skyrim and will keep inspiring game makers into the future. Even a little time playing Ultima Underworld will likely make you walk away thinking, "I can't wait to play what that team makes next..."

DarNoor: My question pertains to funding. You are only asking for 600k. That seems quite low for a game like this. So do ypu have additional funding avenues such as personal investors? Also, do you plan do do early access? Thanks.

Paul: We did raise some investment before we started the Kickstarter. So we’re not starting at zero.
Early access is available now as part of our crowdfunding campaign. In addition, higher pledge levels get to participate in various types of design events with the team.

Nameless one: What made you decide to go with Unity engine instead of Unreal or some other alternative? Was cost only reason or are there other factors?

Tim Stellmach: The big attraction of Unity for me is its flexibility. Unity gives tremendous scripting access, and I think that’s reflected in the wide variety of games you see using it. Unreal is great, but if you look at Unreal games, it’s a much narrower field. That’s the trade-off each of those companies has made.

In our case, we need to do a lot of prototyping and iteration on a wide variety of game systems and player tools.

Chris Siegel: We chose Unity 4.6 for the prototype because there is nothing better for rapid iteration. One of the things we have all learned in our years of doing this is gameplay first, looks second. We wanted to hit the ground and experiment with some of our game ideas first, and try to show them off for the Kickstarter as quickly as we could. The prototype footage in the videos is after about 6 weeks of development time.

You: The kickstarter presentation talked more about history and not so much on future; can you expand more on the future ?

Tim: We’re pushing forward on multiple fronts. With the state of the art already so far advanced in physics and rendering, we can focus on integrating new developments in ecological modeling, diplomatic AI, and more. These are the big-picture systems that will make the Underworld an even more vibrant, reactive setting than ever.

And we expect there to be more opportunities in the course of development that will surprise us. One thing we learned a long time ago is that to make great games, you have to be really open and flexible as you go. You can know what your goals are, and what your process of discovery will be, but to achieve anything really new and interesting you never have a blueprint for everything, at least not at first. On Underworld Ascendant, we’re excited to be sharing that process of discovery for the first time with our backer community.

Rjshae: Is this game going to use a fully realized three-dimensional environment with climbing, jumping, falling, levitation, and flying?

Tim Stellmach: Yes, in some form. The specifics will undoubtedly evolve during development. In general, the level layout in the original Underworld games was heavily constrained by the technology at the time. Even having different floor elevations at all was a unique feature back then! So our world design and movement systems can make much more use of vertical space in Underworld Ascendant.

And you left out diving and rope swinging!

Xian: I enjoyed the combat in the original games, will Underworld Ascendant use a similar method?

Tim Stellmach: The core will be the same, in that there will be a lot of focus on timing and footwork in melee. That keeps combat from settling into hacking from static positions, what I often call “chopping down trees.” That leads to more interesting behaviors out of physics and AI. We’re also developing ways to extend that system, to get even more dynamic, running battles and engagement with the environment.

rune_74: Are spells going to be like the old underworld game? Will there be any cities?

(spells)
Tim Stellmach: We’re taking the rune magic system from the original games as our jumping-off point. We’ll be doing some experiments with extending that implicit idea of magical language, shooting for a more expressive system. Should be fun!

(cities)
Tim Stellmach: Each of the major factions in Underworld Ascendant has its own home settlement, though I’d describe them as “towns” more than cities. We like the aesthetic of enclosed spaces, and much of the world will be contested territory and outright wilderness.

Dajjer: Will you have to eat and sleep, and most importantly do npcs have schedules?

Tim Stellmach: Yes and yes. That sense of wilderness survival from the start of the first Ultima Underworld is an important part of our overall journey for the player, from outsider to tourist to, finally, master of their domain. Part of that process will be forging relationships with the Underworld’s inhabitants. And they will not be just standing around waiting to give you quests! They have their own lives and agendas that you will have to discover.

Farflame: One memorable moment in UU1 was that "lizardmen language quest" when you learn lizard words to talk with lizardman. Could we expect something like that (or more) in Ascendant?

Tim Stellmach: As a matter of fact, lizardmen are part of the stretch goals in our current Kickstarter campaign. I’m hopeful and optimistic that we’ll get to do them. I’ve already told the team that I’ll personally wrestle any of them for the chance to update the lizardman language.

Joe Fielder: The Lizardmen language quest was one of my favorite parts of Ultima Underworld, so I'd personally love a chance to build further upon that particular corner of the Underworld mythos.

Farflame: Mr. Neurath said: "quests and story in Underworld are player-driven." Does it mean…

1. Sandbox made of many mostly simple quests.
2. There are few main stories or set of events which are not presented in the intro but player can uncover and pursue them.

What is closer to your vision?

Tim Stellmach: More the latter. I think it’s closest to describe the plot as the skeleton of the game, with the meat being open play. So there is definitely a structure there that helps orient and motivate the action, but what really makes up the bulk of the game is created by the player, not the designers. We just set up the circumstances to allow that to happen.

Farflame: Do you use lore from UU1 about Cabirus and the history of colony in Stygian Abyss? If so how are you going to change it to bring in your new races which werent in UU1?

Tim Stellmach: Yes. In fact, all of the characters, settings, and lore from the original Underworld games are available to us, and we’re drawing elements from both UU1 and UU2. We’ve teased some elements of this. For example, the dwarves were a prominent faction in UU1, while the dark elves came from New Britannia, the world of Shroud of the Avatar. Without giving away too much, it helps that all these games have strong themes of inter-dimensional travel.

Joe Fielder: We have big plans in the works. If you haven't played the original games, you'll be able to jump right in and enjoy the story immediately, but if you have, there will be aspects to the narrative that you'll enjoy even more.

Farflame: You recruited Joe Fielder who was a writer for BioShock Infinite. Do you/he has some fresh idea how to approach dialogues in underground fantasy realm? How to make some races/NPCs unique?

Joe Fielder: We definitely want to give Underworld Ascendant that deep, dark dungeon fantasy feel that was so fantastic in the original games, but in a fresh, original way that's all its own. We want it to feel familiar, but also be full of surprises. Part of that means coming up with takes on races that you haven't seen before.

We've discussed the Dark Elves as being a sort of a mix of Spartan warriors and social Darwinists, completely dedicated to pushing themselves to mental and physical perfection. Meanwhile, the Dwarves are shrewd, rugged frontiersmen, like early pioneers like Kit Carson with a bit of Deadwood and Jeremiah Johnson. They feel a real sense of ownership over The Underworld, because they helped erect much of its infrastructure. And the Shamblers are a fungal hivemind society that views The Stygian Abyss as a complete ecosystem... that would likely function better under its care.

Each faction has its own unique philosophy and agenda, which may at times make its followers into heroes or villains depending on your outlook. Each group has valid reasons for their actions – and they're definitely headed for conflict.

Farflame: Do you plan some mechanics for more realistic damage and recovery? For example - damaged arms are unusable for some time, vision can be blurred when you are strucked or confused by spell, full recovery needs healing skill and herbs… etc.?

Tim Stellmach: Without getting into specifics, we’re really interested in combat being about more than just knocking down each others’ hit point bars. We’re developing a variety of combat effects, conditions, and such. This will be less of a factor for starting players to think about, but as your character’s abilities expand (especially along the Fighter skill track) so will the depth of the combat model.

Farflame: What level of interactivity between items and game world could we expect from your Improvisation Engine? For example - could you use hammer and chisel to cut holes (crude stairs) in rock walls to climb up? Or throw boulders into stream to create a pond?

Tim Stellmach: We’ll be able to do some interesting things with destroying and transforming things around you, but the specifics are a major subject of iteration for us. The hydrology of the Underworld is definitely an area of we’re actively developing, as we’re evaluating the most fruitful approaches to our ecological system.

mercy: Will we be able to kick in locked doors? Can we lay traps? And Will there be a levitation spell to quickly fly through the dungeon like in The Elder Scrolls: Arena?

Tim Stellmach: As a matter of fact, forcing doors was one of the very first interactions we added when we started our prototype. Laying traps is high on our list for the Thief skill track. And we have a whole variety of movement options, both magical and non-magical.

Nerevarine: Arx Fatalis was a very logical progression of the Ultima Underworld design template. Have the developers played or examined Arx Fatalis? If so, how much have the ideas introduced in Arx Fatalis influenced the development?


Tim Stellmach: It’s been a long time now since I played it. I remember thinking they really captured the tone of imprisonment. And their magic system was daring (if not without its rough edges). I imagine I’ll be coming back to it more than once in the course of development.

Kordanor: In Mass Effect 3 and other games the Multiplayer Mode seems like a tacked on feature which the game didn't really profit from. How do you think Co-op will be integrated so that it feels integrated, complementing the game?

Paul: That’s a good question. There’s no doubt that if you add co-op to a single player game after the fact, that’s really challenging to do well. So, if you take that approach, it does show. We’re looking forward to being able to tackle that from the ground up on Underworld Ascendant, and we think we’ve got some innovative solutions to it. Right now, we haven’t talked much about it because it’s still a pretty far-off stretch goal. We’ll have a lot more to say as it comes on the horizon.

Dogar: Will the thief class be inspired by Thief, one of Neurath's previous games? If so, how so?

Tim Stellmach: Well, we happen to have the lead designer of the original Thief games on board. I think it’s fair to say we helped write the book on stealth gameplay. That said, there are big differences between building the whole game around stealth and supporting it as one possible play style. You can play Underworld Ascendant many different ways.

Pessimeister: What can you tell us about the nature of the dungeon design in Underworld Ascendant and how will it differ compared to the original games. and will it feature any similar classic

Tim Stellmach: The biggest difference is that we’re able to do such more, just from a technical standpoint, than was possible in 1992. In those days, you couldn’t even dive underwater, or have one tunnel cross over another. So we have a lot more freedom with vertical space, and varied movement modes. Stylistically, though, it’s still a dungeon crawl, with a lot of the same classic design tropes (like secret doors, traps, the importance of light and darkness).

Pessimeister: What can you tell us about the dungeon delving music of Underworld Ascendant? It would be amazing to hear new work from George Sanger (aka the Fatman), or even a modern re-imagining of any themes from the original games in Underworld Ascendant.

Tim Stellmach: In fact, for our Kickstarter campaign video, we selected a piece based on Sanger’s original Underworld themes. That was done by Michael Veloso, a classically-trained composer lately of Harmonix Music Systems. We love it!

Pessimeister: Are you planning to have many easter eggs from the original games as the crew from Arkane did in Arx Fatalis? (Ultima Underworld mode)

Tim Stellmach: I’d hate to compare. But our games have always had a lot of love letters to the games that came before them, like the Akalabeth-inspired maze in Underworld II and the “Game Pig” games in the System Shock games. I expect it’ll be hard to restrain ourselves.

Nerevarine: How much will the later games from Looking Glass Studios, along with Deus Ex, influence Underworld Ascendant?

Tim Stellmach: Quite a lot. Of course, the original Underworld games are the source of our story, tone, and themes. But we learned a lot since making them, and the industry as a whole has moved forward too! Tiger Style’s Waking Mars (designed by Looking Glass alum Randy Smith) is a high water mark in ecological gameplay, for example. We’ll build on elements of stealth gameplay from Thief, character customization from System Shock 2, and more.

Chris Siegel: LGS influences me when I look at games every day. So, from my point of view, that is the bar I want to reach with Underworld Ascendant.

 

[Morgoth]

Good to know the music/sound tier will likely be reached. If anyone knows how to use sound effectively in games it's Looking Glass vets!

You mean Eric Brosius who isn't with OtherSide?

 

[Bubbles]

CouchPotato: What games do you play in your spare time, and if you could name your top five RPG games?

Tim Stellmach: When I have spare time these days, it mostly goes to Minecraft, as well as various board games (mostly co-ops). I guess I channel all my aggression into designing monsters instead!

If I have to pick five all-time favorite cRPGs, I’ll say Final Fantasy: Tactics, Deus Ex, Fallout: New Vegas/Fallout 3 (is that cheating?), System Shock 2, and Ultima VII.

Joe Fielder: Lately, I've played a lot of Dragon Age: Inquisition, Shadow of Mordor, Alien: Isolation, Transistor, FTL, and the board game Eldritch Horror. The Talos Principle, Darkest Dungeon, and Wasteland 2 are next on my list.

My favorite RPGs would probably have to be Chrono Trigger, Dragon Wars (aka "Bard's Tale IV"), Final Fantasy Tactics, Neuromancer, and Ultima Underworld.

Chris Siegel – Currently, I’m playing Dark Souls II, Chivalry, The Crew, Far Cry 4 and I have an unhealthy addiction to Marvel Heroes. In the RPG space, well this is a loaded question. What is an RPG? If we use the definition of Role Playing as playing a role, Thief:TDP , Shadows of Mordor, and Assassins Creed: Black Flag are up there as my favorites. In the conventional sense, as in CRPGs Baldur’s Gate II, Planescape Torment, Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Mass Effect II, and all of the SSI gold box games. If I had to pick one of those, Pools of Darkness. Questing inside the dead god Moander with level 25 characters was pretty awesome..

Wow, lots of old school cred here. Very reassuring to know that Tim Stellmach thinks Fallout 3 is tied for best Fallout game. I wonder if their heavy preference for Shadow of Mordor will be reflected in the combat system.

 

[Infinitron]

Another, older interview: http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/games/stories/1331705636079/underworld-ascendant-kickstarter-interview

Underworld Ascendant: A monster from the deep
Ultima Underworld’s creator on exhuming the long-buried king of fantasy RPGs.

The developers of 1992's Ultima Underworld make some tall claims. Huge, towering claims, in fact. Claims that couldn't wear hats inside the Sistine Chapel for fear of scuffing the ceiling. That may sound like hyperbole. But these are the sorts of practical, day-to-day considerations that must be taken into account when saying a game was the inspiration for modern day titans like Bioshock, Dragon Age and Skyrim.

"I didn't mean to say that we inspired people [to make] those games," Paul Neurath, creative director on Underworld's Kickstarted sequel, Underworld Ascendant, clarifies quickly. "The designers behind some of those games, like Skyrim, have told us, 'we came up with this particular game in part because we played the original Underworlds. They were a huge inspiration, we built on those, we took elements of those [for] our game.' We talked to the Bioware guys about Dragon Age and they say, 'Yeah, you inspired our games'."

Back in 1992, gaming looked very different. Blockier, obviously. But also played from a predominantly third-person or top-down viewpoint – like peering into a pixelated dollhouse and pushing angry Stickle Brick men towards what might be a dragon. Ultima Underworld, however, took players and sat them right behind the characters' eyes, giving them the freedom to poke around its gloomy dungeons and slay their denizens in what future-gazers would start referring to as first-person gameplay.

Like many of the other headline-grabbing Kickstarter projects, Underworld Ascendant, then, is partly trading on nostalgia. According to Neurath, most of the game's early backers (at time of writing, the funding total sits at a smidge over $450,000, three quarters of the way towards its $600,000 goal with 17-days to go) are fans that the series has retained, somehow, since Underworld II's release in 1993.

"I think it's a mix [of backers]," he says. "We see comments, people saying 'I never played the original games – I wasn't born.' It was 22 years ago! But the first folks to join in on the campaign were people who played the original games. I think, and I hope, that the word's getting out there that this is a game that's still relevant today. If you look at a lot of the gameplay [from Underworld], in some ways, it still hasn't been matched or exceeded. Some people get that, even those who didn't play the original games, and when they play modern games they're looking for something a little bit more. That's what we're trying to do, really trying to shake things up."

But unlike Kickstarter smashes like Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns or Elite: Dangerous, Underworld's influence and legacy never really faded. In the two-plus decade interim, fantasy games haven't gone anywhere. In fact, they've elevated themselves from their perceived province of the slightly nerdy to full on blockbuster success. We've got Skyrim now. Dragon Age: Inquisition. Game of Thrones. Underworld Ascendant isn't filling a niche – it's returning home to find a bunch of rowdy young upstarts sprawling on its couch.

"That's true!" says Neurath, when asked about all the competition that has sprung up in Underworld's absence. "That's the consequence of inspiring a bunch of games… But the good aspect of that is that players have seen this kind of gameplay; it's not so unusual. When we came out with the original Underworld, people didn't know what to make of it, it was so different. That made it a harder commercial sale back in the day… it took a couple of years to build the momentum, and for people to get their heads round it. Today, people know a lot more about emergent gameplay and open worlds – it's not alien anymore.

"But we certainly hear from our fans that games like Bioshock Infinite or Skyrim still feel pretty different from the experience we had in the Underworlds. Those are great games but tend to [follow this formula]: you're given a character, you're given a narrative, and you follow along that. A lot of that is informed by cinematics, which is done wonderfully well, but the sense of true freedom – the ability to kind of experiment, improvise as a player to create your own story – is not really what games like the Bioshocks are about."

What Neurath and the Underworld Ascendant team are promising is agency über alles. Neurath calls it a "player-authored experience". Underworld Ascendant will still have a story – it's not a completely untethered sandbox experience; DayZ with orcs – and will still follow the classic fantasy template of a hero in a strange land exploring, thieving and bashing its inhabitants with swords until everything's all right again (or until you plunge the world into chaos – your decisions can take the story either way). But how you get from point A to B is where the game will come alive.

As the player, you'll see that manifest in two ways. First, there are the NPC and faction interactions. The Stygian Abyss is ruled over by a trio of competing races: the Dwarves, the Dark Elves and the Shamblers – a race of ambulatory mushroom-people that root themselves in the gloomiest, dampest parts of the Underworld. You'll also meet characters with no faction alignment – adventurers and renegades who've ventured down into the dark for their own ends. Underworld Ascendant won't push or pull you toward joining any particular side, but getting in good with the Shamblers might hurt your chances with the Dwarves, and throwing your support behind one group might embolden them to wipe out another.

"There are real tensions between these three factions, which have more or less peacefully co-existed [thus far]. But now there are things afoot making the world go off kilter," says Neurath. "You as the player get thrown into this mix, and you start to get a sense that something is going amiss here and that these three factions are at odds with each other. You get pulled into supporting one of them – but it's your choice, there's no right or wrong.

"The factions have their own politics, there's an ebb and flow as a faction might grow in power, take over certain areas or take certain actions collectively. Think of it like fiefdoms in the medieval world; noble lords with their groups that are pushing factions back and forth. War of the Roses, that kind of thing, [but] in a fantasy context. But these are made up of NPCs, and there are going to be NPCs that are part of these factions, and they're individuals. We did some of this in the original Underworld, and people found it interesting that they could befriend [NPCs] and that would piss off their enemies. Your friends' enemies are your enemies. We don't set it up like, 'you should do this'. We say, 'here is the world, here are the NPCs, they have their [own] motivations'."

The second pillar of that player-authored experience is the game's Improvisation Engine. The crux of it is that for any dangerous situation you might encounter on your travels (giant spiders, evil faeries, tentacle monsters), you'll have multiple, organic solutions beyond just belting a monster in the face with an axe.

Neurath offers an example in which the player's progress is halted by an inconvenient underground river. More inconvenient still is the multi-tentacled 'Lurker' bobbing up and down in the middle of it. Obviously you can't paddle across, but you might be able to distract the monster by finding another, smaller monster, killing it, and tossing it in as bait. Or you might be able to lure it away with a piece of enchanted equipment. Or, according to Neurath, dozens of other potential actions that you could cook up on the fly.

"[The Improvisation Engine is] about moment to moment play," he says. "It's about that moment of, 'OK, what do I do? How do I get around that Lurker?' [What] we don't do is this: 'I need to go over to this wall, pull a chain which lowers a drawbridge, and then can cross the stream'. If you look at games like Legend of Grimrock, that's their design approach – they're really looking for setpiece puzzles, that kind of thing. We're at the other end of that spectrum, where it's about the player figuring out solutions. Our litmus test is when players come up with some solution we never even thought of, where our designers scratch their heads and think, 'Really? You can do it that way?'"

"The important thing that we're giving the player is the option to improvise and, you know, feel clever. That's the magical moment. 'I came up with my own solution here, and it's really clever. I could have just beaten this thing up, but I came up with this solution.' We're trying to empower you, the player. It"s not a very directed experience."

All of those features – the open-world, the inter-faction politicizing, the Improvisation Engine – will come ready right out of the (metaphorical) box, assuming Ascendant hits its Kickstarter goal. But if the hype carries the game's crowdfunding into its stretch goals, there are two more features that could change up the experience significantly.

The first, which will unlock if the project hits $1,050,000, are the free mod tools.

"We released the Dark engine [upon which the original Thief was built], and with hindsight, we should have released that right away," says Neurath of the team's first modding toolkit. "We should have released it before we went commercial, you know, while we were still in Alpha – let the fans start working with it and building stuff.

"But we didn't push it out to the fans until well after these games [like Thief and System Shock 2] were released. And it was awesome to see the fans pick up the tool – and it wasn't a very friendly tool – and manage to figure it out and make great stuff. We want to put this tool in the fans hands. Empower the fans! Give them the tools!

"I don't know whether some games publishers think that distributing mod tools eats into their DLCs or something, I don't know where the logic is. But look at Minecraft, the ultimate 'power of the fan' thing. There's been hardly a more successful franchise in the last five years."

Finally, there's the wildcard stretch goal. If the game's funding hits $1.2 million, Neurath and the team will add in co-op play. It's an interesting, if head-scratching addition – with one or two notable exceptions (Divinity: Original Sin, for instance), the fantasy genre of recent memory has been one of the staunchest opponents of the multiplayer-ifying of videogames.

The numbered Elder Scrolls titles like Skyrim eschew it altogether (and Bethesda's first toe-dip into an online-centred RPG, The Elder Scrolls Online, has suffered a distinctly lukewarm reception). Dragon Age: Inquisition ropes off its co-op areas from the main storyline. And the upcoming Kickstarter fantasies Torment: Tides of Numenera and Pillars of Eternity stick firmly to their old-school RPG origins, filling out your roving band of adventurers/heroes/ruthless cutthroats with NPC supporters.

The unspoken assumption is that co-op and story make for bad bedfellows – awkward tangles of mismatched limbs flailing about under the sheets and occasionally poking their owners in the eye.

Neurath, however, is quick to assure us that co-op is an addition – something the team can add on after the singleplayer story has been fully nailed down.

"It's a challenging thing to do well," admits Neurath of the balancing of co-op and story. "I've certainly played games where the co-op mode wasn't as good as I was hoping. The core of this game is a singleplayer experience, as in the original Underworld. You're in a dark, deadly place and you've got to go from survival to mastery of the environment. Story is very important, the player-driven narrative. And some players, that's all they want to do. So we know we've got to nail that. We put up [the co-op stretch goal as our furthest stretch goal] because we wanted to get singleplayer covered.

"But there are players who really like co-op. [And] it's not just important to our players – we have a lot of fun with that [too]. We really enjoy that kind of gameplay when it's done well. And our belief is that we can do a very cool co-op mode that fits nicely into the concept of this game that, at its base, is a singleplayer experience."

When we ask Neurath to give an example of the sort of game he's thinking of, he opts instead to give us an example of co-op might look like in Ascendant.

"We've got the Odiferous Throwing Net. That gives a peek at where people can have some fun. Go back to that Lurker scenario, but imagine there are two players there now. They've got this throwing net, and the way it works is that the dumb beasts, it attracts them. So players can have this game of hot potato where they're throwing it back and forth to each other. Or they can prank each other with it for fun, so the Lurker will go after the other guy.

"But it could also be an effective tactic, like a kind of keep-away tag kind of thing, where you're trying to draw the Lurker back and forth so that between the two of you, you can use the Lurker's not-very-bright AI to an advantage as you maneuver around it. So, having two players in that improvisational environment, there are a lot of things you can tweak and try. That's the fun, and it opens up things you couldn't do in the singleplayer, and that fits beautifully into the Improvisation Engine. So we think it's worth doing. We know it will be something that some of the fans will never be interested in, no matter how fun it is for players who like that kind of thing. But that's OK!"

Without knowing its pedigree, a glance at Underworld Ascendant's Kickstarter pitch might raise, if not eyebrows, then questions. Isn't this just Skyrim in a cave? Dragon Age with mushroom people? A game that tries to ride both singleplayer and co-op horses, which almost invariably end up cantering in different directions? But these questions are all backwards. Underworld doesn't look like Skyrim and Dragon Age – Skyrim and Dragon Age look like Underworld.

In that sense, the challenge it faces among Kickstarter projects is unique: Underworld Ascendant makes tall claims, but they're coming from people who laid the first stones of the castle in which modern fantasy RPGs have made their stronghold. Younger gamers might not realise it, but these are very much the people who might plausibly take the fantasy RPG in a new direction. What Neurath and the team at OtherSide have to prove now is that the old dogs still have new tricks to teach.