KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Release Thread

[Immortal]

This is all pre-alpha, but all of the edgy doomsayers can go ahead and hedge now. That way you can feel smug if the look doesn't change significantly, or find something else later to insist you foretold would be shitty. Or you could be reasonable and wait to see what happens.

I'm not hedging any bets. This game will be shit / feel unfinished at release / have huge performance issues.
My theory is they intentionally released vertical slice videos to garner more shekals before the final turd of reality hits.

Call me out if I am wrong.

 

[Infinitron]

Chris Siegel posts about stuff. On the art direction: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1120.msg17887#msg17887

Giving a weird, surreal and unique style to UA isn't a bad thing. Maybe a more realistic and common artstyle could ruin the game because, you know, many people could say: "Oh! Skyrim underground!"
I hope that they will create different models for skeletons (human, dwarves, elves).

Or worse since you know, we don't have 100 artists and 4 years.

So authored style:This screen by Will shows what we are going for maybe more than any other screenshot. Here is will holding the clay concept door, and the door in engine.

As for the skeletons what we are aiming for is what a skeleton minature looks like...not a skeleton...if that makes any sense.
Look at these skeletons made by the very talented Otherworld Minatures for example.

On parkour and class roles: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1065.msg17886#msg17886

Parkour-- who wants to run around like this-well..me.
Here's where we started:
Fantasy RPG with skill trees. Issue: Wizards win always. They get the cool skills, and at end game are usually the ones that can do more- and cross over into other classes easily. Open Door spell exc. Never-mind massive AoE spells and whatnot. Partly this is what Wizards should be - they bend reality to their will.
So we end up with 3 questions - how to make rogue skills cool, how to make fighters cool, and how to not break what is cool about wizards.

So, what can we do to make rogues cool? Well we know that already- we have Tim Stellmach. We have done Thief already--twice actually. Add in traps and some other goodies and boom...rogue is good. Tim got basic stealth working Monday actually and I totally had that..oh yeah THAT stealth model.

Wizards - manipulate the universe. It really becomes all about constraints for the wizard. Time to cast, mana...limiters.

That leaves us with fighters. There has been some kick ass fighting games in the past 10 years. From Assassin's Creed, to Batman, Dark Souls exc.
How do we differentiate? Someone said 'wire-fu' and yes that was definitely something we are aiming for. We want a top tier fighter to be Jackie Chan. Sure you start with move dodge and hit. But you end up with being the death dealer around the battleground.
Also wallrun, jump and all that--has there been an RPG that allowed it? Ever? Prince of Persia did, but go back and look at it, it only used those systems to solve puzzles really. We want it just as another tool in the toolbox.
Play your way. I know this can be a hard idea to grasp, since games for the most part have railroaded players into a mindset of 'the right way' to play. But if you don't want parkour--dont take the skills. If you don't want magic--same thing. Want to be wire-fu mage guy--do it up...it's cool been playing that way most of yesterday.

 

[Darkzone]

Giving a weird, surreal and unique style to UA isn't a bad thing. Maybe a more realistic and common artstyle could ruin the game because, you know, many people could say: "Oh! Skyrim underground!"

That was not the problem of Skyrim. Skyrim's dungeons were generic copy and paste shit.

 

[karnak]

This is indeed turning into shit.
The original Underworlds were bleak and depressing places, filled with horror and darkness. The Stygian Abyss was almost a character in itself.

But this...



7th Voyage of Sinbad it's still a great movie, though (probably better than the game will be)

 

[:Flash:]

I really hope they keep this style.
In the late 90s we watched the CGI cutscenes and said "Hey, one day, the games themselves are gonna look like this, it's gonna be glorious!"
But then we never got there, instead we got filters, shaders, motion blur, depht of field and BLOOM!
Otherside is now turning the tide of graphics decline and going back to 90s CGI cutscene glory. Keep it up!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1120.msg17903#msg17903

Those look great, and here is the thing; Personally, I actually really like the handcrafted nature of the modeling, even the skeletons (I like the skeletons) and that clay door is lovely.

The catch is that you make photos of these handcrafted items that exist in the real world, coated in natural lighting, probably the number one element that makes nature so beautiful (*praises sun*). The screenshots kinda burn retinae a bit (slight exaggeration). This is kind of the issue I'm having with it. It's not much about the colour, or cartoon look, but the visual excess of colour temperature.

I wouldn't even argue with the term "realism", but "natural". Nature is the definition of beauty, you create a natural looking, handcrafted world and paint it with acid (slight exaggeration).

I respect your artistic choices (and the handcrafted look is a good one in my opinion), but the excessive colouring seems to be causing the most of backlash. What about a filtering option, so people opposed to acidic paint could stay calm?

sure all are valid points about the lighting.
there is also still something slightly off with the shader...plastic is the right word for it.
All valid points folks, but it is still a WiP.

 

[agris]

gee, that sounds familiar

 

[Excidium II]

Videogames really are a product of their enviroment.

 

[Zombra]

But this...

7th Voyage of Sinbad it's still a great movie, though (probably better than the game will be)

I was gonna say, if any game's visuals can be compared to Harryhausen's work, that ... is pretty much an instant buy for me.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Wire fu? Fighter is like Jackie Chan? Prince of Persia is an rpg?

Hmm, something not quite right here.

 

[Infinitron]

Parkour and survival.
Already proven out in that zombie parkour game. The baddies are still deadly.

What do you do MOST in any game?
Movement. Why limit yourself to run walk strafe and jump? I'm not sure how that is effecting the tone for survival aspects, or combat. A top tier fighter should be able to wipe the floor with most anything, and partly because he can do all these cool maneuvers. He might have to work harder at it, and sweat a bit compared to a spell slinger...
The last thing we want to do with the warrior stuff is have him 'chopping wood' or stuck on the same 3 combos over and over again. The easiest way to make him more dynamic is not by adding +5% to damage, or a down down up up space attack sequence.
Motion.
Fighters are kinetic.
Real fighters own the environment, use what is around them. Jon Jones running up the cage into a guillotine choke.
The great fantasy fighters in literature run up walls, swing on chandeliers, throw people, objects and especially beers. Robin Hood, the Grey Mouser, or even Conan, Dartainian and the Musketeers, and the Warriors Three. Zero interest in doing yet another hero in a tuna can with a bastard sword type fighter. Besides inside a volcano, do you really want to be slow, and in a suit of metal armor? Seems dangerous to me.

I'm all about heroes like the ones you mentioned. Swashbuckling, wall running and some parkour sound great. Where I draw the line is the off the wall wire-fu "weightless acrobatics"; that doesn't feel like something that can be done without magic, so it makes the "Fighter" build look very odd. Not to mention that jumping a hundred feet makes very little sense inside a cave.

Now if you somehow attune yourself to the Abyss, and you can start throwing people like the Thor and the Warriors Three... that could be fun! I'd just want it to be explained in the game why you can do that.

Sure I agree. I doubt double jump survives. It works, and is 'fun' but it doesn't really fit. The 'fall' mechanic will probably be in there, but not in it's current form. I like the classic slide along the wall monk skill from AD&D, and a mitigation for falling damage seems like a good idea for every class.
Max distance on jump -fully kitted out is 23 (22.97 actually) feet, 6 feet short of the current world record. So, a bad professional long jumper.

Again for the 100th time- don't like this kind of gameplay...don't play this way. The skill/character system is not homoginized into everything playing the same. I don't know what else to say, if you are not going to believe me that you don't have to do any of anything from this part of the system...then we can keep going back and forth on it I suppose.
I hear your fear about the system. I do. I don't agree with it, but I hear you.

 

[Infinitron]

Chris has posted more screenshots on the forums: http://imgur.com/a/ooNQ3

Still think that statue is photoshopped?

Also:

So survival and 'horror', but being powerful. You are not the everyman. You are the Avatar. My minds eye is what I think my Avatar is...and in my fantasy he looks like Corben's Den. Nerd transported to another world, but now has the body of Ahnold. Your fantasy may be different. Build appropriately .

It's all about the curve of what you are facing. Our plan is to not have one hit enemies..er minions. OK right now we have them cuz combat in itself is in it's infancy. But the plan is to not have 'easy mode' creatures. Picking a fight is dangerous. if or When you meet a horde, sure the hit points will be lower per creature, but that occurrence will be rare..hopefully rare enough it has some serious impact.
Like the underworld, or the under dark depending on your fictional taste, both are deadly. Creatures that live in this environment are all about survival. Be that eating each other, or uneasy alliances, trading, exc.
I think as Joe has said in other threads is right now we are so focused on setting up the intractable world- player control, spells, stealth, we are not talking too much about the meat of the game. Right now it is all about interaction and building the fishbowl. There are so many other things planned to go on that are 'UU' .
As for movement abilities, part of the reason these came in so quickly is because frankly they took no time. It is a almost free win for us. Sure, tweaking exc.
As for power band, multi-classing exc. First we expect multiclassing. I came from a game that was famous for character builds. Massive crazy builds. Something like 2.5 million combinations. I've learned from that experience the first thing you need to do is balance a 'pure' build. This will very quickly point out power skills, and useless ones. When we get to multiclassing in test it will be in the last third of development, and it will be all balance. But on some level, we are cool with people creating awesome combos that are awesome. This isn't an MMO, if you want to power game feel free. If you want to tailor your experience to be like Thief go for it. The fans in the first 24 hours will find combos and ways to use them that we never thought of. Bank on it. We as dev's have to be ok with that.
Also part of what may seem too powerful now is because we don't build the 'level one' skill, we kind of aim for the high end of the bar. It's so much easier to dial something back than to push it forward and make it more powerful at least in my experience.

 

[Kem0sabe]

This has the potential to be a horribly broken experience , no such thing as absolute freedom without gameplay consequences

 

[Zep Zepo]

Still think that statue is photoshopped?

Yes. More bullshots is not a confirmation it's not.

Zep--

 

[Melan]

It is gaudy as hell, and the specular on that statue - holy moly! But at least it's got style, there seems to be a scale to the game spaces that should make movement-related skills interesting, and I like the glowing lava.

 

[agris]

The photoshop claims wrt the statue were because a) the statue is oddly occluded, but you can see it's peering in through an opening in a cavern or into a valley with the valley's walls being irregular and b) the smoke, but I think that's just too high smoke particle VFX density and maybe lack of alpha blending.

 

[Infinitron]

Video coming later this month: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1120.msg17975#msg17975

Glad folks are liking some of Chris' more recent pics. Can't wait for you to see it in motion -- both in video and the next backer prototype update -- later this month. That should give a much better and clearer impression of the direction we're moving in than static shots.

Again, all of this -- screens, concepts, and video -- are work-in-progress, but with video and/or getting to play it yourself should paint a fuller picture of the direction than we can explain in words.

Stay tuned! Details pending.

 

[Excidium II]

Every new screenshot makes it look worse.

 

[agris]

Every new screenshot makes it look worse.

if we can explore everything we see in that map, it looks interesting. the textures and lighting n general look terrible though.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Skeletons have paint on them suggesting there may be differing skeleton factions, ranks of skeleton or somesuch. The pallet is indeed overly saturated but the lighting levels look good IMO. While there are no shadows that I can see, away from light sources the area gets dark and the transition looks natural. We have only seen lavaworld to this point. Lighting is fixable after the fact and this is pre-alpha stuff we are seeing. Lots of time IMO. Dress UU mechanics in this skin and I will be happy.

 

[Excidium II]

Doctor Optimism

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Doctor count hatched chickens only.

 

[Old Hans]

what about that skeleton sword? it looks luike he borrowed it from Everquest

 

[Ash]

https://imgur.com/a/ooNQ3

Eh, I dig it. It is certainly lacking a partial realistic style that the older games had but that could work in its favor given the game's budget. I'm undecided really, I'm more concerned with how it plays at this point.

 

[Ash]

Still think that statue is photoshopped?

Yes. More bullshots is not a confirmation it's not.

Zep--

Lol, this is the current zepothesis? Fucking hell give them some credit dude. This board is squirrel nuts.

Someone said 'wire-fu' and yes that was definitely something we are aiming for. We want a top tier fighter to be Jackie Chan

Jackie chan never used wires, Chris, except during the most dangerous of stunts. Wire-Fu is referred to as a subset of Kung Fu movies where the combat plays out on wires, often accompanied by fantasy elements. Jackie Chan never did that, instead focusing on either semi-realistic hand to hand combat or unconventional environmental beat downs. I never liked Wire Fu.

Wire Fu vs Jackie Chan

"If there's a lot of camera movement, like in [some] American Movies, that means the actor doesn't know how to fight".

Damn straight.