Re: Recent Backer Beta Feedback
Hey everyone! We're excited to have the Backer Beta in your hands, especially for people who haven't played any of the earlier builds. Since we have your attention, we want to take this opportunity to give you more background about the game:
1. Underworld Ascendant is based on the original Ultima Underworld games and the plan has always been to do a next generation version, not a remake or remaster. In the spirit of the original Underworld games, we’re aiming to do something different, blaze a new path and take some risks, all within the boundaries of the team size and budget that we have.
2. One of the most important aspects of UW was the consequences of physics and player interactivity within the world, and a big part of UA is acting upon that and taking it to a new level. We highly encourage you to try experimenting with whatever you find in the Stygian Abyss, and use your environment to your advantage. We want to challenge people to think creatively and use the tools they have around them or have equipped to solve problems in their own unique way.
3. UA allows you to explore the dungeons in first person in real time, with real-time consequences. We're providing a LOT of different playstyle options, we believe much more so than in the originals. There's more to combat than just hack and slashing, traversing environments is much more visceral, stealth is now possible and magic is a more useful tool.
4. UA has a small core team! I know for many of you who have frequented our forums, you can count all 14 of us off the top of your head, and for those of you meeting us for the first time, keep in mind that we're an extremely small team making a relatively big game. Our small size and focus on gameplay means that we have limited cutscenes and scripted events. Most of this game WILL be up to the player's actions and self-directed exploration, and we build the tools to allow for that. Like our designer Chris recently said: many modern RPGs are built on the foundations of previous games (or, as Chris put it, you don't start with Oblivion). Creating a game that supports playstyle variety with dozens of skill options for combat, stealth, and magic, as well as dozens of unique spells, is an enormous endeavor for a team of any size, and most modern games are developed by teams of hundreds. We intend to build out these elements further -- and, yes, add new ones -- in future projects.
5. There are no dialogue trees in Underworld Ascendant. If not done well, they can be stilted and boring—and doing NPC interaction in a much more open-ended way is way out of scope. That said, character interactions and relationships are still an important part of UA, so we've opted to allow you to actively choose which Factions you're interested in assisting (or none), without branching dialogue trees. While there are less survivors in the Stygian Abyss than returning Avatars may recall since their last visit, these survivors are turning to you in the hope that you can make a difference where they have not. This is an area we intend to expand upon in the future. Last, storytelling is also accomplished with VO—you’ll hear a lot more of it in the beginning as we set the context for the game.
We are very excited about the game we are making. Our hope here is to try to help you get a better sense of what we’re focused on and how it will come together.
In the meanwhile, we're still working hard on the game and keeping track of your feedback. We've made a lot of great improvements based on our external playtest feedback, and we’re also addressing some of the feedback you’ve provided already. Remember to fill out the
Backer Beta survey after you've finished playing it as well!
