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KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Release Thread

Eggs is eggs

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Will this have anything to do with Utlima? I know it takes place in "The Stygian Abyss" but it seems like they are just using the name and nothing else to do with the Stygian Abyss from either the Ultima games or Ultima Underworld 1.
 
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Will this have anything to do with Utlima? I know it takes place in "The Stygian Abyss" but it seems like they are just using the name and nothing else to do with the Stygian Abyss from either the Ultima games or Ultima Underworld 1.

It's said to be the same abyss from UU1, and even the lore is related to sir cabirus, tybal and the characters, races. Only the name ultima is not permitted.
 
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  • Recommended:
    • OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1) or 64-bit Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel CPU Core i7-6700
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 1080
    • Storage: 45 GB available space
16 GB RAM and GTX 1080? Game does not look that good... If the low-res textures aren't there for the sake of performance, then what for?
Going full retard with unity
 
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  • Recommended:
    • OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1) or 64-bit Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel CPU Core i7-6700
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 1080
    • Storage: 45 GB available space
16 GB RAM and GTX 1080? Game does not look that good... If the low-res textures aren't there for the sake of performance, then what for?
It's the art style.
 

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Will this have anything to do with Utlima? I know it takes place in "The Stygian Abyss" but it seems like they are just using the name and nothing else to do with the Stygian Abyss from either the Ultima games or Ultima Underworld 1.

It's said to be the same abyss from UU1, and even the lore is related to sir cabirus, tybal and the characters, races. Only the name ultima is not permitted.

Makes me wonder if they even approached Garriot to possibly include Lord British™? Of which he own the complete control and copyright/trademark over that character.

They can't even mention Lord British™ (if I understand that correctly). Would be neat if they DID at least get permission to do a small cameo of him.
 

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Approached him? I guess you didn't know that this game includes a full-blown Shroud of the Avatar crossover. The dark elves are from Garriott's game.

So it's a pretty safe bet that they can mention Lord British too.
 

Eggs is eggs

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If the game is good then the Ultima connections will be nice, if the game sucks then who cares.
 

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I don't really get the nostalgia people have for Ultima lore, it was silly as fuck (and I'm pretty sure Garriot's self-aggrandizement was just as grating when the games were released). The further UA stays from it, the better.
 

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I don't really get the nostalgia people have for Ultima lore, it was silly as fuck (and I'm pretty sure Garriot's self-aggrandizement was just as grating when the games were released). The further UA stays from it, the better.
Ultima lore was great because while it was a hokey mishmash of Ye Olde Renfaire Englande and a grab bag of 80s fantasy ideas which stuck around as the series grew, Origin still managed to build something on it that was complex, had its own history (which advanced game to game), and resulted in fairly interesting conflicts. It is also fascinating how Britannia got reinvented from game to game - it is a combination of familiarity and strangeness that gives you a sense of rediscovery, which I think is unique in the history of CRPGs. Ultima is a silly premise saved by excellent execution and the weight of its own history.

Lord British was already a self-insert character in Akalabeth (I think), along with the author's friends, and it is clear they were there as an unapologetic form of wish-fulfillment. It would be cringeworthy otherwise, but the earnestness and fun saves it.
 

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UU1 had nothing to do with Ultima at first, until someone conned them into partnering with Origin and hamfisting Ultima lore into it.

Zep--
 

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https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1820.msg23946#msg23946

Wasn't expecting another update so soon, are we switching to a more frequent schedule?

Yep! More regular schedule on updates -- this caught us up a bit for running a bit late on the previous one -- and more frequent for other elements. (Ex: Next week has the Developer Roundtable and another Dev Blog.)

On pacifist playthroughs: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1817.msg23897

Always a goal for us. But we are not going to force you to play this way.

I wont be shocked when someone beats the game with no kills.

Yep, we're actively working to ensure that there's some way to complete each quest objective w/o killing.

Might not always be easy...

Let me ask you a question, though: Should killing undead count?

We're currently acting as if it does, but I'm curious what people think.

On enemy patrols:

Patrol paths--well....sort of scripted. More like weighted. There is no "GO HERE NOW" its more like I really think you want to go on patrol find the nearest patrol point and do what it tells you to--emote, wait around, say something to telegraph state, move on your patrol exc. This way, they might double back sometimes, or just blissfully wander on a path...but that chance of going backward-adds to the tension for stealthy dudes.
But yeah a mix of scripted and simulated is the key. The tuning of this stuff is gonna take me months
smiley.gif
 
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Infinitron

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Edgy mg's complaints, with dev responses: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1814.0

I did not notice any "Rewarding creativity engine prototype" or such at play in the Pre-Alpha Backer Build (PABB), but I think this is a most terrible idea: Success is and should be its own reward. For immersion purposes, the player should be required to solve the problems that present themselves to him. No more, no less. Just like in real life, whether he solves a problem "creatively" or not, should be of no direct* concern to the game whatsoever.

*Of course the choice of solution can and should potentially influence other parts of the game, such that e.g. a non-lethal solution might prove to be advantageous in the future in some cases. What I am talking about here is a direct reward for picking a solution the game engine deems "creative".

Just looked at the screenshots I took, and I assume the reward for playing "creatively" is the "Raw Memora" points at the end. As I said, a terrible idea, because it will make me think about the game on a meta level (= unimmersive), and maybe even force me to do unnecessary things, as for the engine to reward me "creativity points". If anything like that exists, it should be in the form of an end-of-game appraisal/feedback, as in e.g. Dishonored 2 or the recent Prey, which both imho did a fantastic job in this regard.

Please note that if some mechanism like that existed in the original Underworld games, I was not aware of it, so it did not matter, and in any case I was never presented with a "creativity score" at any point. I just played in the game world, which to me had a level of simulation unseen at this point in computer games (and for a long time afterwards, maybe even today). I would call on the devs to honor at least this core part of what UW was about...

Giving players a multitude if choices is one thing (even if it carries its own set of problems), but forcing players along a certain line of play by directly rewarding a certain play style the devs prefer is something completely different, especially if other game aspects suffer along the line - and also runs counter to the promise "the choice is yours"...

Joe Fielder said:
I understand how you've drawn those conclusions, but that's not what this is. Please give us some time to show and tell more, but it won't be for a bit.

Chris Siegel said:
Yes..
The part we are still parsing out is 'how' to predict creativity. Some of the thoughts is reacting to the end result, not neccisarily how you got there, or maybe you got to the end result and we track that you used a wood beam or whatever. This stuff is going to be a continual work in progress throughout the whole development, especially as we start seeing new ways to get stuff done with the tools at player's disposal.
I do know the test case for the 'achievment' alert is getting a lizardman to shoot himself. There are a couple of others that are in there, but currently the system does not report it.
The thought of going this way of discovery - Oh lizardmen can shoot themselves if I do this... seems to us like a better way to teach the limits and rules of the Abyss than a long drawn out tutorial, or specific scripted areas to 'teach' these things. We want people to get the basics- then go nuts. The hope is when you discover some ability of one of the tools, it will make you start thinking of other ways to use it.

Chris Siegel said:
Will feats/creative solutions have tangible benefits, i.e. extra experience, temporary buffs, etc?

Probably - what form that candy takes is still being discussed. But yes rewards are yummy. Dopamine is good.

Joe Fielder said:
We're not talking about Feats and player growth quite yet.

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1816.0

All that obsessive focus on "creative solutions" for me leaves the "non creative" game part in the PABB lacking:
  • Combat, especially close quarter feels clunky and a bit erratic.
  • The environment feels too gimicky, because you can basically see "wall run" written on some cave walls, sticky-fruits conveniently grow right in front of every trap, etc. In short: Giving the player all those "creative solution options" all the time breaks immersion, since the environment seems forced and unnatural.
  • "Traps" are an especially sore point of the PABB for me: Many of them do not really block your way, all are easy to bypass (even more so if you have the slow-time spell).
  • Sneaking did not work particularily well when I tried to sneak up on lizardmen to attack them from behind.
  • All ways seem to lead to Rome, i.e. wherever you go, will lead to the sapling.
  • Lizardmen replenishing your arrows (step out of cover, wait for lizardman to take aim, step back into cover, collect lizardman arrow, rinse-repeat, shoot lizardman with own arrows) seemed weird, given that, like most NPCs in computer games, they seem to have an unlimited supply of arrows.
  • etc
When you play as a warrior-mage (all spells, sword/block, sneak) or as a more assassin/thief (wall-running/jumping, bow & arrows, sneak), without trying to be especially "clever" or "creative", I found the the PABB to be pretty easy & not that exciting. I never died or was close to dying on both playthroughs, even though the game gave the impression that this should be quite hard. I am of course all for not dying if I do things right, but this, to me, felt too easy...

I also would have liked to see The Challenge of Ishtass a lot more challenging, as it's almost ridiculously easy in the pre-alpha. But it's still early days, and I wouldn't expect the game at this stage to be properly balanced with regards to difficulty and problem solving.

Joe Fielder said:
Exactly. Again, for context, Alpha is about getting it stood up. Beta is about tuning, polish, and bug-fixing. And this is Pre-Alpha.

We'll be talking about next steps in combat, stealth, and magic in Wednesday's Developer Roundtable. I think you'll all be pleased hearing what's coming, a lot of it straight from Tim (who, honestly, I feel like I learn more about game design from every time I talk to).

Rewarding creativity and like elements will be tied into the narrative in a non-immersion breaking way. You'll have to trust me on that point for now until you see more later. Hopefully the glimmer of the narrative you've seen so far has bought me a little?

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1823.msg24017

Again keeping Pre-Alpha status in mind:
  • Why are the traps at the places they are ?
  • Why are most traps so trivial to bypass ?
  • What is the sense of the permanently 90 degree rotating scythe traps ? They feel like something from a Mario game, because they are so artificial in design...
  • Hitting the right spot to block traps with a sticky ball currently is cumbersome (in addition to being of not much use - see below)
  • In the area with the many traps: What sense is there in me going through the lengthy process of blocking the swinging scythe, rotating spike and rotating scythe traps, if the block only lasts for a relatively short amount of time, before the sticky ball gets overwhelmed (and doesn't therefore e.g. give me the tactical advantage that I can safely retreat into the trap area if pressured by opponents, maybe catching them with a trap which I might release through e.g. an arrow (even though moves like that typically is not worth the effort/risk)) ?

Walter Somol said:
...I believe the 'pre alpha build' to be more of a test bed, where the various concepts were thrown in to give the player an idea of the games current progress and potential....

Well, I suspect the answer to all of these question is "work in progress". They are probably introducing mechanics to see what players/testers can do with them and how they react to them, so they can incorporate this into the design of the areas. This is probably why there are traps in so many configurations -- alone, in groups, in a hallway, in the open, etc.

Though this is just me speculating, obviously.

It's along those lines. Standing things up and seeing how they work so that we can hone, polish and make way more devious . . .
 
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Eggs is eggs

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I thought UU was integrated very nicely with Ultima lore. The abyss was colonized as a tribute to the virtues and as a way to repudiate its evil past. The story reminds me a bit of Serpent Isle which is about another group of people colonizing a strange land and setting up a society based on virtues. Maybe Ultima eventually went too far with the virtues stuff but still for a non-mainline title it was about as Ultima as it could've been (and the lore/story was way better than UU2, which actually took place in Britain and had LB, Iolo, Shamino, etc. in it).
 

Metro

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505 games, publisher of quality titles such as: Portal Knights, Defense Grid 2, How to Survive, Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death, and Payday 2!!!
 

Ranarama

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505 games, publisher of quality titles such as: Portal Knights, Defense Grid 2, How to Survive, Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death, and Payday 2!!!

Payday 2 was excellent until they microtransactioned it and the community away.
 

Metro

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You guys are also forgetting by the time this game is released six years from now a 1080 will be mid/low end tech.
 

Ash

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Why is pacifism relevant in Ultima Underworld? It's supposed to be a treacherous place where everything is trying to kill you, save the occassional rare stray friendlies or friendly factions. What, we gonna sneak up behind giant spiders, lean over them and bonk them on the head in an attempt to cause a concussion?

Should Shock have had a pacifist option too? #SaveTheMachines #PityShodan #TheManyDidNothingWrong!

I suppose if we're ghosting past everything, and there's fully-fledged stealth, then yeah pacifism is a valid option. But there goes fighting for your life, where all AI are massive passive dumbfucks to accommodate stealth gameplay. There also goes scary surprising scripting. e.g No traps that temporarily locks you in a room full of zombies and you have to fight to the death. Bossfights? Nah. Enemy placement? Fuck you combat, placement revolves around stealth.
Combat (which was underworld in its original form, since stealth wasn't much an option) and thrilling events suffers heavily at the inclusion of fully-fledged stealth, while stealth doesn't have to suffer at all. The whole idea of a treacherous Underworld also suffers when every AI can be snuck past with relative ease.
But whatever, Deus Ex was still good. Mostly every other Immersive Sim that offered both options as a valid style of play from start to finish was not, though.
I was hoping it'd be more like Arx Fatalis where stealth is often possible, but not always as a rule.
 
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Metro

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I'm all for multiple ways to play even if one of them might seem implausible.
 

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