KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Release Thread

[RatTower]

Sound design seems alright:

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Preparing to wait at least 12 months after release to bother playing this... Assuming it isn't abandoned at launch.

 

[evdk]

What’s the plot / hook for the player?

"You've already paid for it, might as well play it a bit"

 

[Max Heap]

Preparing to wait at least 12 months after release to bother playing this... Assuming it isn't abandoned at launch.

I'd assume they'll cut the team down to the core after launch.
Depending on the sales they might have to cut a little more.

There isn't really anything comparable in the indie market, so it's hard to say how successful it will be, with or without being a proper UU sequel.
Sometimes even bigger AAA titles like Assassins Creed have weak sales numbers, depending on how well they catch on with the general public.
I remember one had around 20k, which is basically nothing for an IP like that.

It will largely depend on first reactions towards it.
Considering that it's a KS game and many of the funders might be displeased, it will probably start out at a PR negative. So that's bad.
Their chance - and I guess that is the reason why the game is the way it is - lies with streamers and influencers. You've got a lot of physics based nonsense you can show around and which might be fun to watch (if the players get it, which is another minefield of negative criticism). That, coupled with the generally non-aggressive art style, could get in some sales.

If I had to guess - and that's my guts speaking again - I'd say it will sell 20-35k units at 30$ in the first three months, accumulating to 90-100 over the next 1.5 to 2 years.
That is, if it runs okay-ish.

Is that enough? Well...

Steam takes a good 30% cut on your profits and the state takes quite a bite out of the rest. I don't know the tax law in Massachusetts. There are states that have 6% tax rates on profits, there are the ones that have 25 and then there are the robber knights and commie states that take 50% (looking at you France).
If you wanna calculate cautiously, count 30% of the remaining profits for taxes. That also includes social security if your state has laws in that regard.
So with what you earn on steam, cut that by 30% and you'll have the "real" profit.
With that cash Otherside now has to pay its employees and publisher. I believe at another point I mentioned that over the 1.5 years of financing, Otherside probably got 1.5 million from 505.

Considering all of that Underworld Ascendant should break even at around 100k units.

Which is technically possible. Legend of Grimrock had 600k sales at I believe 15$ over the course of a year. Almost Human was roughly the same team size I believe.
The thing is, LoG had way more traction, by basically re-introducing a classic genre with quite some success. Their big advantage was - and you probably already guessed it - a scene of big name influencers. Notch among others recommended the game.
I don't really see the same happening for UA. At least not at the moment.

On it's own it can still make those 100k. But it's gonna be tough and a long road and there must not be any glaring issues that shy away players.
Core gameplay has to be at least okay. Combat has to be okay. Magic has to be okay. There must be very clear hooks why these core systems are nice and interesting. You can pack that in a trailer and people will probably like it.

But yeah...
I'll be dead honest: I personally hope they have success with this, even if its not really Ultima Underworld, but if I was an investor, I'd start sweating now.

505 might have their money back by 2020. The game will have entered steam sales by then. So that is where the "real" profit starts, which is of course way lower than it would be at launch. But that's just how it is. UA's chance there is to become one of those games, that are in every sale and everybody has it, even though people never play it. It may sound derogatory but it might be successful with a "Bad Rats" sales strategy.

 

[RatTower]

Some scenes from Marcaul:

 

[ciox]

game historians are gonna have a field day with all the fucking teal&orange from this era

 

[agris]

More lizard men!

 

[Nano]

Seriously though, do you guys think they have some sort of lizardmen fetish? That post showing off those lizard asses especially made me suspicious.

 

[Max Heap]

Furcadia being made by former Origin staff should have been a dead giveaway already.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=6146.0

Sept 17 Weekly Update!

Morning everyone!

(SPOILERS: image references here)
And as a reminder, many of these screenshots will be WIPs, or mockups we're experimenting with.

First thing's first:
External playtesters should be getting a new build either later today or sometime tomorrow/early Wednesday. We were working over the weekend to make sure we had a stable build to push that can make things a lot easier to test, but our lava situation got a little out of hand...

This week we're spending time wrapping up a number of features that we can finally focus on squeezing in for a milestone by Friday. Held object highlighting is in the process of being removed, we have a number of characters' VO finally coming online, and some heavy UI updates going in soon.

On the design side, we're still crawling through our levels and shaping them up, fixing holes and occasionally making secrets out of forgotten passageways. Player movement (particularly the jump issue) is being tweaked up again so it's less nausea-inducing from the FOV change that went in a few weeks ago, and mantling should be a lot easier. Each week, the game starts to really come to life as we build up from the structures we've worked so hard to make sturdy...

Magic is finally getting a new polished pass, and we hope you'll be just as excited to pick up your first runebag as I was.

I'm finally bringing myself to experiment with some of the basic runes I've been picking up, and I'm continually surprised by some of these combinations. Make sure to keep an eye out for anything scribbled on the walls as well; you may just be led to treasure, new runic formulas, or people...

(Also, before anyone asks, you can absolutely use a spell without seeing the formula written down in the game first. As long as you have the proper runes, sentence structure, and the proper amount of mana to cast, the world is yours.)

And of course, who else is excited for Bard's Tale 4 tomorrow?!

Also, we're still hoping to release the Backer Beta toward the end of next week. To address questions that came up in other threads, it will be a large chunk of the game, but not 100% of it for a variety of reasons. You'll see some substantial changes and improvements over the previous backer build and we hope it will make many of you excited for the final release (we know we can't please everyone). Thanks for sticking with us!

 

[Zep Zepo]

And as a reminder, many of these screenshots will be WIPs, or mockups we're experimenting with.

Release September 2018! Release October 2018! Release November 2018!

Real release 2019? Who knows!

Zep--

 

[Nyast]

Considering the poor state of the game, I seriously wish they'd delay it by another year. But nope - it's coming, and it's going to be an okay-ish / average game in the best scenario.

 

[Max Heap]

What if the factions are just a column in the game's user interface?

Huh....

 

[Invictus]

Considering the poor state of the game, I seriously wish they'd delay it by another year. But nope - it's coming, and it's going to be an okay-ish / average game in the best scenario.

Its going to be totally shit... not a single redeemable thing whatsoever, this will be a Clusterfuck

 

[Max Heap]

I'm still ready to give them the benefit of doubt - at least with regards to what the core concept of the game has apparently become (i.e. mission based physics fuckery in something that looks like a dungeon, while pushing some reputation meter to get better goods and possibly access to more missions / three macguffins that are needed to finish the game).
I have no hopes that it will be in any way related to Ultima Underworld other than in name, but I'll still give it a go for what it is.

I just wish more developers would actually pick up the UU/Arx concept ("Open world" dungeon crawling with heavy item interactivity and life simulation aspects).
I'm still confused why first person dungeon crawling has never really caught on outside of grid-based blobbers.
At least there should be more games than just UU & Arx.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

i don't get it... Instead of wasting your time with 3d assets and models if you don't have funds to make proper models well. Do the game 3d hire nice 2d artists and flesh out more the game. I was interested on this but what i seen so far is...pretty generic and uninspiring.

 

[Mustawd]

Considering all of that Underworld Ascendant should break even at around 100k units.

Holy speculation batman. That post sure did have a lot of theoretical numbers.

Do the game 3d hire nice 2d artists

What?

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

i meant instead to do the game with ugly 3d assets do it 2d

 

[RatTower]

Good 2D is arguably even harder to do when you have to depend on variations of existing assets.
3D allows you to add a new helmet to that lizard character and (almost) automatically adapt the helmet to existing animations.
In 2D you'd have to alter the character and all its sprites manually.

There are some techniques that'd allow you to rig a 2D image with a skeleton like in a 3D tool - so you can automate some of those adaptions as well.
However, it shows a lot in animations, because the stretch and squash effects you are used to from hand drawn animations are much harder to do with that.

That's just off the top of my head - there are probably some advantages with 2D too.
But in the end, I think creating good 2D graphics probably boils down to the same effort.

 

[Nyast]

So, Bards's Tale 4 is out, and pretty much everybody is shitting on it.

I find that quite hilarious, considering I think BT4 is actually a pretty good game ( for what it is ).

One thing that came into my mind looking at the BT4 trainwreck, is that Underworld Ascendent is (at least from the alpha experience, and what the devs refuse to acknowledge as problems on their forums) easily 10 times worse. All the critics people are making about BT4, you find them in an even worst state in UA ( not a good successor to the franchise, crappy visuals, bugs/janky physics, etc.. ). The question remains on what they can fix within two months, but one thing I can say for sure is that 2 months ago, BT4's beta was in a much better state than what UA is today..

When UA comes in November, it's going to be painful ( or exciting, depending on how you side ) to watch the Steam hordes shred that game.

 

[Max Heap]

If they take notice at all that is.
Cause that's another problem UA has.
Otherside doesnt even have half the reach of inXile.

 

[BEvers]

 

[Max Heap]

It's so strange looking back at the kickstarter pitch now:



I wonder how many of these ideas made it into the final game. Especially considering some of the artwork.

 

[LESS T_T]

UA in Japanese publisher DMM Games' lineup, along with Kingdom Come, Battle Chasers, Darksiders, and Assetto Corsa: https://www.famitsu.com/news/201809/22164632.html

DMM is a big e-commerce company in Japan (especially known for porn videos) and it's doing sort of a Steam competitor in Japan.

 

[Max Heap]

DMM is a big e-commerce company in Japan

Aren't first person action games super unpopular in Japan?
Still a good idea to diversify their markets, but in the end its Steam sales will be the big indicator for its financial success.

Today it's seven weeks left.
I guess marketing should start beating the drum soon.