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KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Release Thread

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
Newsletter: https://otherside-e.com/wp/update-an-ever-evolving-stygian-abyss/

UPDATE: An Ever-Evolving Stygian Abyss

Hey everyone,

Kind thanks for all the positive response to the new footage, screens, interviews, and press from PaxSouth! We’re deeply appreciative of your support! The game wouldn’t be here today without you.

In this month’s newsletter, we’re excited to tell you more about three key aspects of the game: the constantly evolving nature of The Stygian Abyss, player progression, and a bit more about narrative aspects.

An Ever-Evolving Stygian Abyss
Many of you have asked about our plans for Underworld Ascendant’s environments. For example, is it a hub-and-spoke model? Is it a large open sandbox world? Or maybe one-off, discrete levels? In Underworld Ascendant, we’re taking a similar route to Ultima Underworld 2. The player will accept missions and bounties, acquire skills, trade for provisions and equipment, and interact with Faction intermediaries in Marcaul, a Lizard Man settlement and hub of trade and intrigue. Once you’ve readied yourself for your next challenge, you’ll navigate The Circle of Portals outside of town to travel to levels.

The primary reason we’re using this design is because it maximizes the amount of time players are in interesting and relevant environments. Second, this design leverages our small team in the most optimal way (currently 14 internally) and allows us to focus on making great interactive and dynamic environments where you can track even small changes as the narrative progresses.

UnderworldAscendant-2018-02-08-15-10-02-3960-1024x576.png


Exploration is an important feature of The Stygian Abyss and there will be plenty of dark tombs and labyrinthine caverns to explore, with the help of The Silver Sapling!


New quests are offered by the Factions each day in Marcaul, and these range in challenge, reward, consequence, and location. You may even return to a level area two or more times over the course of the game. However, each time you visit a level, you’ll encounter new opportunities, challenges, and more. Helpful creatures like Lizard Man allies may be present or a swarm of Lava Bats may now inhabit the area. Useful flora like the glue plants may have been harvested and replaced with Nether Moss, which causes Deep Slugs to leave a sight-blocking smoke trail. Movement options also change, as the Outcast tribe’s construction efforts expand or are destroyed.

outcasts-w-masks-1024x671.jpg


The first look at Underworld Ascendant’s Outcasts.


We’ll talk more about the Outcasts and their relationship with the Factions (and you!) at a later time.

As the game progresses, the world state begins to decay, causing the local ecology to become even more challenging, as fierce creatures crawl up from the lower depths and thermal vents appear.

These are a few of the ways we’re working to ensure that not only are levels different every time you visit them, but that you can play through the game multiple times and have a uniquely different experience each time.

In future updates, we’ll talk about the world state changes in depth, as well as its driver: our main nemesis, Typhon.

Feat-Based Player Growth
It’s been important to the team to closely examine RPG gameplay and story elements from the previous games in the series, to determine what to build upon and where to do something differently.

We’ve kept elements like The Silver Sapling, while eschewed others like stats and character classes. (Apologies those of you burning to play once more as a shepherd.) Instead, the player has a wide variety of combat, stealth, and magic skills and abilities to choose from to customize their character to match your preferred play-style.

We want players to teach themselves and reward them for experimentation as they explore Underworld Ascendant’s deep gameplay systems. It’s important to us to avoid overtly hand-holding the player, while teaching them the full depth of the opportunities within the immersive sim ecology, where logic-based simulated systems ensure elements like physics and physical properties make sense.

Our earliest example of this during our Kickstarter was a locked wooden door: You can burn it down, either with a spell, torch, or burning debris. You can pick the lock. You can bash it down, but the sound may attract foes.

Add to that a bevy of spells that allow you to alter physics, transform physical properties, manipulate creatures with exploitable behaviors, and, well, there’s much to learn.

UnderworldAscendant-2018-02-12-10-08-16-1518-1024x576.png


This door presents choice and consequences. (Oh wait… this one’s actually unlocked.)


So, instead of taking the traditional experience point route or requiring players to repeatedly use a skill to improve it, player growth in Underworld Ascendant is focused on a Feats-based system.

A “Feat” in our game is an action that demonstrates the player is hitting a key milestone toward understanding a play-style (combat, stealth, magic, environ, or key combinations) or game system. Think “the Labors of Hercules.”

Performing a Feat will gain the player a skill point. New skills cost one or more skill points. A few of our internal rules for Feats are that there should always be multiple ways to perform them and they can never be mundane.

One example? Many of our traps are physics-based, so can be blocked by heavy objects or stuck in place with adhesives. We decided to make this action a Feat after an external tester showed that she could stop a tick tock trap by tossing a glue ball directly at its seams. Which worked! (We’d never seen this before… Something that happens often when external testers play our game.) And that example is one of many ways to perform that Feat.

Through this, we hope to reward fun with more fun, while also not overwhelming the player with too many options right off the bat. And as you prove you understand and are actively engaging the many options available to you in the sim, you’ll unlock skills and abilities that grant you access to even more.

“Rewarding” Narrative
We’ve also spoken before about how the game rewards innovative problem-solving, but not who is giving the reward, what it is, and how exactly your performance is being judged.

In Underworld Ascendant, the society of the lizard man tribe known as The Saurians in Marcaul is based around self-improvement and the sharing of important survival skills. They were founded off the teachings of Ishtass, who — following the cataclysmic events at the end of Ultima Underworld — stayed on in the dangerous upper reaches of The Stygian Abyss, cataloguing all he learned using Memora, a magical means of preserving memory.

ishtass_screenshot2-1024x576.jpg


Ishtass, the model for modern society in Marcaul, was big on self-improvement, even from the start.


A central feature of The Saurian society is The Memoreum, a repository of great knowledge. In such a deadly environment, survival skills have great value. As you discover new strategies and innovative solutions and strategies, The Saurians reward you for it because sharing that information will make the whole tribe stronger and more adaptable in the face of the great challenges you all face.

The keeper of the Memoreum rewards your character for performance based on doing something well (within constraints, like not being damaged in combat or detected) or cleverly (combining systems together in interesting ways).

The Saurians also place high value on those who push themselves and experiment. They offer side-bounties to the Factions for tackling audacious challenges, like completing a quest unarmed or without extinguishing lives.

wip-lm.png


Not all Lizard Men tribes are friendly… as you can see from this work-in-progress render.


Ultimately, these goals and rewards are completely optional to the player. In a game that focuses on player choice, it’s completely up to you how you want to play.

But we’d be remiss in spotlighting all great fun to be had by actively engaging the deep systems and multitude of interesting options found with the immersive sim. (A recent metaphor from a conversation with Warren Spector: “You can always order the burger, but let us tell you about the specials…”)

There’s MUCH left to show and tell you all about Underworld Ascendant: spellcasting; numerous skills, spells, levels, and creatures yet to be revealed; the deeper narrative surrounding our main characters Cabirus, Aelita, and our nemesis Typhon; food and survival; and more.

We’re looking forward to sharing more about it all with you in the coming months and hearing your thoughts.

Underworld Ascendant T-Shirt Giveaway
UA_shirtimage.jpg


We recently printed some Cabirus-themed Underworld Ascendant shirts just for the dev team, but we had a few extra and decided that we’d like to give them away!

This week, we’re holding a Backers-Only event, and you can only enter once on Facebook, Twitter, or through the Forums. Read the post information on the appropriate site for more details!

The giveaway winners will be announced during our Friday stream from 3-4pm ET on our Twitch channel. Come celebrate with us!

FINAL REMINDER: We are locking down our BackerKit orders this Friday, so be sure to log in with your Kickstarter email and check on your pledge. You will NOT be able to edit your pledge once the orders are locked down.

The only exceptions to this are the LORE SEEKER backers and above ($300+), to accommodate for specifics on some physical orders. You will receive emails about this soon!

SXSW 2018: Underworld Ascendant Panel with PCGamer


Last but not least, for those of you in Austin this March, Paul Neurath and Warren Spector will be speaking at a SXSW panel with PCGamer on the development progress on Underworld Ascendant!

Even if you can’t make it in-person, we’d appreciate it if you “Like” the panel page or “Tweet” out your excitement!

We hope to see you there!

Cheers,

The Team at OtherSide

In Other News…
In case you missed it:
 

Ash

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The world design structure sounds Immersive Sim standard and therefore fantastic. Glad they didn't try and innovate or deviate, because again, the only way is down in the context of this type of game really. Semi-open sandboxes: open without being too open and therefore lacking attention to detail, structure, pacing etc.

The faction and narrative stuff, pretty interesting.

The feats however still sounds like some unworthy of prestige design.

The keeper of the Memoreum rewards your character for performance based on doing something well (within constraints, like not being damaged in combat or detected) or cleverly (combining systems together in interesting ways).

Only way is down! The immersive sim at one point had many concepts in a state of perfection (in the context of the overarching underworld-like concept). Innovate with the things that weren't perfect or could be altered without any negative consequences. :/
 

SlamDunk

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Backed this game.

Played and loved the Underworld games way back when they were released. The first Underworld was one of those rare truly revolutionary games, and I cincerely mean it, not just making hyperbole for the sake of it. Still have both game boxes and my handwritten notes for them.

Was also a huge Looking Glass fan. The death of LGS was one of the biggest blows PC gaming ever suffered.

The footage I've seen of Ascendant so far has not been impressive, but because of the LGS background I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.
 
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RoSoDude

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The footage I've seen of Ascendant so far has not been impressive, but because of the LGS background I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

Developers in this genre have noted in the past that the games only really come together near the very end of development. It can be years of building systems and creating levels before it is possible to assess whether the game is actually any fun to play, since the design of an Immersive Sim/Underworld-like doesn't rest on a simple core gameplay loop that is iterated upon, but rather on interactions between many systems and how these are nested within the environments. So, it's possible that as we reach the home stretch, the game will really blossom.

...that's not to say I'm really holding out hope, though. They don't have much time before their supposed release date, and this new reveal of the feats system seems to confirm rather than dispense with my previous remarks. This paragraph really concerned me:

One example? Many of our traps are physics-based, so can be blocked by heavy objects or stuck in place with adhesives. We decided to make this action a Feat after an external tester showed that she could stop a tick tock trap by tossing a glue ball directly at its seams. Which worked! (We’d never seen this before… Something that happens often when external testers play our game.) And that example is one of many ways to perform that Feat.

And my predictions, most of which are represented in the example (bolding for emphasis):

Moreover, how would such a system properly track every possible creative solution? Will it simply recognize that you used a particular interaction, like igniting a gas cloud with a fire arrow, or dropping some physics objects on an enemy? Or will it elaborately track how you chained together specific interactions, noting all the possible combinations? In the former case, you're incentivized to have as broad a playstyle as possible, perhaps even to the point of taking superfluous actions just to fool the engine into thinking you were playing more creatively. If the latter, doesn't that openly expose that the illusion of a simulated world is just smoke and mirrors? Rather than thinking you as a player managed to come up with an emergent solution based on the systemic interactions, you're blatantly made aware you've actually just picked one of the solutions the devs already thought of. While this is certainly true of most solutions in every Immersive Sim, outright telling the player "oh yeah, but we already planned for you to do that" really puts a damper on the whole experience. Imagine how a truly creative solution could fly completely under the radar of such a dynamic reward system as well.
 

RatTower

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Sure.
The thing I'm hoping for are quests overarching several levels (i.e. like the Cup of Wonders), as well as different ways to travel between those levels (like the backdoor to the dwarven kingdom).
For some reason I'm getting the feeling that the zones we've seen so far might be more isolated than that.

It's just a gut feeling though

Always trust your guts:

The player will accept missions and bounties, acquire skills, trade for provisions and equipment, and interact with Faction intermediaries in Marcaul, a Lizard Man settlement and hub of trade and intrigue. Once you’ve readied yourself for your next challenge, you’ll navigate The Circle of Portals outside of town to travel to levels.

World design can still turn out interesting though. Different zones can theoretically still be interconnected in quest design. The thing's just, what holds true for world design principles also holds true for quest design and a more isolated approach there could be justified the same way.
It's a reasonable decision for a small team I guess. I'm not so much a fan of it for an underworld game, but it worked in other games before. It always depends. If the hub was a small changing level in itself (as seen e.g. in old 3D platformers) I'd be all for it even.
 

Melan

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Many of you have asked about our plans for Underworld Ascendant’s environments. For example, is it a hub-and-spoke model? Is it a large open sandbox world? Or maybe one-off, discrete levels? In Underworld Ascendant, we’re taking a similar route to Ultima Underworld 2. The player will accept missions and bounties, acquire skills, trade for provisions and equipment, and interact with Faction intermediaries in Marcaul, a Lizard Man settlement and hub of trade and intrigue. Once you’ve readied yourself for your next challenge, you’ll navigate The Circle of Portals outside of town to travel to levels.
Eh, that's a lame cop-out. One of the big reasons Underworld 2 was a disappointment was that it lost the interconnectedness of the first game, which made it feel like a single physical space, and not simply a series of vignettes. Finding different ways to move between levels was an enjoyable exercise, and often revealed something entirely new. Like a waterway leading to a hidden side cavern with interesting goodies - but my favourites might actually be on the lowest levels of the Abyss, where it genuinely felt like wandering into forgotten and forbidden places, rooms with grand treasure hoards. Underworld 2 had you flitting between differently themed dimensions, all of them small, and the game as a whole lacking in cohesion.
 

Ash

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Oh, I never played UW2 beyond Britannia castle and the sewers. So like the hubs in Hexen, namely the first? That is a shame. Still semi-open sandboxes but something IS lost this way. On the plus side it allows a variety of considerably differently themed levels that probably would be questionable in one continuous space. But I guess that never stopped many games in the past from adding theme extravaganza including UW1 and they were better for it.
 
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Hines

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Finally, some good news for Arkane (but bad news for Otherside Entertainment). Nate Welles, previously the art director on Underworld: Ascendant has jumped ship to work on Arkane's online game in Austin.

 

Nano

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Finally, some good news for Arkane (but bad news for Otherside Entertainment). Nate Welles, previously the art director on Underworld: Ascendant has jumped ship to work on Arkane's online game in Austin.
Shouldn't have much of an effect on Underworld itself with how it's close to reaching beta.

Also, nothing about Arkane's online game is good news.
 

Zep Zepo

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Finally, some good news for Arkane (but bad news for Otherside Entertainment). Nate Welles, previously the art director on Underworld: Ascendant has jumped ship to work on Arkane's online game in Austin.

The DECLINE is moving from Job to Job. Will you let it DECLINE YOUR game?

Zep--
 

Infinitron

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https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1915.msg25794#msg25794

Timing was purely coincidental, and it is not a poor financial reflection! Nate helped us solidify our art style during UA's production and made sure we were in good hands before he left us on good terms.

Some more stuff for Ash: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1904.msg25792#msg25792

Just wanted to pop in and note that with UA in particular, one of the reasons we've been focusing so much on the Emergent Gameplay aspect is because we've been working so hard on polishing it. It's a little easier to track dialogue and your narrative choices, but it takes a lot more production time to hammer out our physics, spells, and combat "feel", so we've been devoting a lot of time to that first.

We know we haven't shown much of the story, other characters, or narrative gameplay elements yet, so UA may FEEL like a game that's altogether focused on the physics of the game, but I'd say the endgame is meant to be equal parts entertaining. The world itself will react to your decisions, whether it's ignoring the Shamblers and only helping the Saurians or deciding to use Fire Spells instead of throwing torches around.

I'm rambling a little, but hopefully this gives a better sense of how we're tackling it...

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1912.msg25793#msg25793

Being a huge fan of UW1, this "hub" announcement is a great disappointment for me. UW2 was a good game, but the hub thing was clearly not my favorite game design choice. UW1 felt much more natural and consistent, giving a great sense of adventure and exploration when you discovered a new "civilization" in the depths of the abyss simply by exploring it randomly.

I'm not sure to understand exactly how this decision will make the game easier to develop. I'm also wondering what it implies in terms of NPCs inside those "hub" levels. Will there be non-hostile NPCs and dialogues inside the abyss itself? (i.e. outside the Lizardmen "town").

Can definitely confirm non-hostile NPCs in the Abyss! While there are environmental threats and literal "enemies" that tend to attack you on sight outside of the Hub, I'm not sure if I would classify the Hub has an entirely "safe area." Even if I can't necessarily be aggro'd into combat while in Marcaul, my quest and dialogue options will still affect my experience when I adventure back into the Abyss, and when I return to Marcaul. The other races are always watching what you're choosing to do, and their situations are so dire that of course they'll take precautions if they feel that you may not have their interests in mind...

In addition to that, I can't see any screenshot of any dialogue/trading interface whatsoever. For me the dialogues were defining the core of Ultima Underworld games... Why isn't there anything to show on this critical topic that many years after the beginning of the development? How can the game claiming to be a spiritual successor to Ultima Underworld possibly be available in 2018 when we haven't seen a single line of dialogue?

I'm terribly sorry because I don't want to sound like the "bad guy" around here, but I have serious concerns, even though I'm convinced that some of the best game designers in the world (if not the best) are working on Ascendant.

Please convince me that my concerns are completely wrong and out of context... It might be the case, but when I see the recent demos/videos, I see something that just doesn't feel like the Stygian abyss I used to explore for hundreds of hours, and believe me, this isn't about nostalgia.

Please, pretty please, make sure Ascendant delivers that experience. I sincerely love those developers, but at the moment I have yet to see the essence of Ultima Underworld inside Ascendant.

We understand your fears! We haven't shown any dialogue or narrative characters yet (aside from some concept art of Cabirus) because our main focus has been nailing the physics of the game. Narrative design is a little easier to plot outcomes for, whereas because of the unpredictability of the spells and combat options, we want to make sure THAT experience is as balanced as possible. Please rest assured that narrative is just as important as these features! Returning to the Abyss would not be the same without interactive characters who have their own motivations and lives outside of yours, and feeling like you're truly a guest of their realm rather than a Savior with a Quest List.
 

conan_edw

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will they really release this in 2018 if they are still hiring an art director? not to mention that some people left
I really hope thth they push it back since it could have some potential
 

LESS T_T

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Chris Siegel on the influence of Dark Messiah (than that of other modern "immersive sims") and this stage of development that pieces coming together: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1901.msg25844#msg25844

I'd say the systems team looks at DMMM more than any other 'modern' game. For those of us that have done simulation games before we have been patently waiting for this moment in time. We have spent so much on this thing, or that thing, and getting stood up, then move on to the next. Now we are at the 'fun' part of making all of these bits and bobs work together. So far the individual pieces seem good. Feedback has been good. We have a pretty good handle of our current weaknesses which is really important. Like I said its the fun part because the reward of seeing it work is pretty instant, but this really is also the hardest part to get right. What feedback loop is best? What do we really lean into more than other systems. It all stops being theory and best guesses and becomes real. Honestly this is the part of the project I love the most.
OK Pre-production is fun too in an intellectual challenge way. But this point in the schedule is as close as we get to playing in a playoff game. Make the right plays, adjust to the feedback, control your emotions.

And I love Dishonored 1. Closest thing to Thief out there. Somehow Dishonored 2 missed that. I hear the DLC fixes it, but I don't really have the time right now to go back and look.
 
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Just fyi, I didn't know this, but I got it in an email in regards to my pledge and the figurines.
Since 2015, Underworld Ascendant's character customization has changed drastically during development. As a result of this, a "custom figurine" is no longer possible because the Avatar is no longer visible onscreen in the third person.
 

Zep Zepo

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Just fyi, I didn't know this, but I got it in an email in regards to my pledge and the figurines.
Since 2015, Underworld Ascendant's character customization has changed drastically during development. As a result of this, a "custom figurine" is no longer possible because the Avatar is no longer visible onscreen in the third person.
42e.jpg

Zep--
 

Ash

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good. Stupid backer bullshit figurines and whatnot. what a waste of donated shekels.

Still is pretty sneaky though.
 

Doctor Sbaitso

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I am disappointed to hear that the levels are not connected by stairs, as it added significantly to the oppressive feeling of delving deeper, the weight of previous trials above you, closer to the surface. Closer to the light of day.
 

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