KickStarter Underworld Ascendant is a disaster

[Eli_Havelock]

This game (and I use the word game loosely) is pure and utter shit with no redeeming aspects whatsoever, its just the biggest pile of shit know to mankind ... Fact Fact ... FACT.

I'm guessing that you haven't heard of Derek Smart.

 

[Crispy]

Update:

Quite a bit further progressed in the game. I've advanced the "doom clock" (where the evil overlord Typhon is released into the world/you have to face him) to five notches, which in turn releases stronger creatures into the various areas, some of which you've already visited. It's basically a mechanism for level-scaling, I guess.

I'm still having a blast. As my skills have very slowly gotten better -- earning a skill point is often a surprising and very welcome affair -- I've gotten noticeably better at things like stealth, backstabbing, and running/jumping/vaulting/mantling, which makes working my way through the dark tunnels and occupied areas both easier and more entertaining. It's quite satisfying to sneak up to creatures previously you had to run away from and stab them in the back in the darkness, significantly weakening if not killing them, then finishing them off as needed with a heavier weapon.

Speaking of which, I think my previous statement conjecture that all weapons in this game apply equal amounts of damage was simply wrong. I'm finding or buying newer weapons that are clearly more effective than the ones that are scrounged in the game early on, and this is without having spent any skill points on any of my melee/sword/heavy weapons skills at all. So that's a welcome discovery for myself that there are truly magical and more deadly weapons waiting to be discovered. Additionally, magical weapons, armor, and other items do not wear at all afaict, which is a very welcome development. No more worrying about having to buy or find pristine equipment every third or so mission.

The levels are indeed getting more and more interesting as I progress further down. The Abyss as it's called is still interesting to me. There are small keeps in certain areas, flooded areas, entire tunnel complexes -- more than enough to keep me interested in exploring. That part of the game has not wavered at all to my tastes. It's a dungeon crawler's delight if you don't mind the action type gameplay and first-person perspective.

The sliding bug is still present and still irritating, but as I mentioned previously it's under control. There are some areas that are truly jumping and/or hanging/swinging-from-chains puzzles, and if you encounter the ground sliding thing trying to reach some hidden area to loot something special it's maddening. But, that's what quick saves are for (which work flawlessly now). Another aside: while the chains mechanism in this game seems to have been p. widely panned as being horrifyingly bad, I actually like it. I can't recall the last game, much less RPG, that featured the ability to jump onto, crawl up, slide down, use actual physics to swing from, and even jump from and to, chains. It is a little awkward at first, but -- especially if you take a certain stealth skill that improves your skill at climbing chains -- once you get used to it it's a neat feature. Sometimes, leaping to a chain and swinging from it like Tarzan is the only way to reach certain out-of-the-way and hidden locations and potential treasure.

- The game is remarkably stable. Hasn't crashed once that I can recall.

- The music is surprisingly good and definitely moody. Very appropriate for a dark dungeon game.

- The itemization isn't as bad as I initially thought it was. I rescued a certain vendor who now has his own shop back in the encampment who sells really great stuff, providing impetus to continue earning and spending (and thus improving)

- Related to the above, I'm actually quite impressed with the game's balance/difficulty curve so far. Yes, there is the mechanic of the doom clock bumping all creatures' power up, but there is another mechanism (finding a lich animus and inserting it into an artifact) to "roll back" the Typhon doom clock. This is actually quite imaginative, if you ask me. That's my next mission, btw.

I could go on, but I risk losing your attention. Call me fucking crazy, but this game is still growing on me. Reminds me of Daggerfall mixed with Arx Fatalis mixed with... Ultima Underworld?!?

YES. I SAID IT.

 

[prengle]

I could go on, but I risk losing your attention. Call me fucking crazy, but this game is still growing on me. Reminds me of Daggerfall mixed with Arx Fatalis mixed with... Ultima Underworld?!?

YES. I SAID IT.

remember boys, never trust a janny

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Reminds me of Daggerfall mixed with Arx Fatalis mixed with... Ultima Underworld?!?

YES. I SAID IT.

So close yet so far away. At times I really have to wonder if it's still understood what Ultima Underworld did for the dungeon crawler genre: took one of the first steps to make a dungeon feel like a living ecosystem, that whole factions thing that OSE phoned in via stagecoach with palette-swapped lizard stand-ins. (And definitely a bit better than the copy+paste dungeon templates of Daggerfall.) UU 1&2 took dungeon crawler and elevated it to the "Immersive Sim" genre - you know, all that goodness they baited with all through their Kickstarter and then gave no fucks afterwards. As you mentioned Arx Fatalis: yes Arkane did LGS legacy better than anyone who was at LGS have done since (though the first Deus GoatseCx wasn't too bad, comparatively speaking). That is why it's ironic that when OSE tried to lean hard on one of Arkane's games, Arkane still did it better.

In the words of the Sr. Producer who was demoted to a Design credit: "Its closer to DM MOM than the original, and that is what we said we were building."

 

[prengle]

As you mentioned Arx Fatalis: yes Arkane did LGS legacy better than anyone who was at LGS have done since (though the first Deus GoatseCx wasn't too bad, comparatively speaking)

that's pretty sad considering that most of arkane's library consists of "weeeeee look at us we can make games just like wooking gwass teehee x3" games that fail at making the same impact that thief, ultima underworld and system shock did. i can't really blame them that much considering that i doubt anything will ever reach the heights those games did ever again, it just makes me want to reach out for the antidepressants i'm not taking

 

[Eli_Havelock]

that's pretty sad considering that most of arkane's library consists of "weeeeee look at us we can make games just like wooking gwass teehee x3" games that fail at making the same impact that thief, ultima underworld and system shock did. i can't really blame them that much considering that i doubt anything will ever reach the heights those games did ever again, it just makes me want to reach out for the antidepressants i'm not taking

Most of those games were notable for being the seminal introduction of the relatively small Immersive Sim genre, a genre so starved for membership that mere mimicry is undoubtedly an improvement over some games like Gone Home and We Happy Few getting lumped in. Alien: Isolation did so well that the sequel was given a quick funeral shoveled out on mobile.

Then OSE got seminal upon the faces of their backers with such things like a DVD case roleplaying as a big box and the complete farce of UA's release incarnation, so the standards aren't particularly set that high by LGS alumni themselves.

I think those who enjoy the Imm Sim genre might be a bit tired of shitty stealth games being passed off as something similar, courtesy of an overabundance of Bethesda's ubiquitous Stealth Sniper design flaws (so that Bullet Sponge counts as Advanced Design). So if OSE aren't going to add anything great to Thick Ass Thieves (insert the hyphen wherever you'd like and call it emergent gameplay) then they might as well retire and spare the sanity of more rank and file devs (condolences to the ones they've already burned through, who may still be looking for jobs). Despite UA Creative Director Warren Spector's claims about shopping around for a System Shock 3 publisher, it looked like none of them wanted OSE to actually make the damn thing and just wanted to snag the rights.

OSE fucked this game up so much that despite hiring on a non-retarded producer/director to lead it into semi-entertaining jank, we now have to witness the horror show of Tencent System Shock 3 & maybe 4.

...and the fucked-up thing here is that it probably will be better off for that. Shit, sorry. Might want to double the dosage.

 

[Sacibengala]

A new low was reached with these guys. Now they're using the kickstarter account to spam shitty games (MMO for fucks sake!!!!) to their backers. Bunch of asshats.

 

[LESS T_T]

What.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/othersidegames/underworld-ascendant/posts/3180627

Join the Battle and Rise as an Eternal Champion!

Greetings,

Hope all of you are doing well. We are reaching out to share a great opportunity available to

you!

Our friends at ArtCraft Entertainment are preparing to launch Crowfall, the Throne War MMO

game where players fight as Eternal Champions, empowered as mercenaries for the Gods - and

they are offering you immediate free access to their closed Beta. As a Kickstarter game, we also

pursued the same path they are now completing and we made a commitment to support other

inspired and innovative gaming brands rising from the Kickstarter community. Having worked

with the founding leaders at ArtCraft, we are thrilled to be able to share a special Crowfall

Closed Beta access code with you. The Beta code offers immediate “fast pass” access to their

closed beta.

It is a great time to join the Crowfall community. The MMO Throne War game is in Closed Beta

and recently introduced, the final pre-launch game world, HungerDome - a Throne War arena!

HungerDome offers twelve teams of five players fast-paced team-based action set in a dark

fantasy world where players fight for domination ---in a 30-minute battle --last team standing

wins! This is just one of the many worlds you can explore and conquer in the Crowfall universe!

The release of Crowfall’s HungerDome world was accompanied by the announcement of

ArtCraft’s first-of-its-kind, Twitch event, the Eternal Champions Series 2021 (ECS ‘21) - now

live. Sponsored by Razer, Intel and Alienware, players can compete for $50,000 in cash and

prizes if their Team survives to win HungerDome. Crowfall has 4 other unique worlds each

offering a distinct PvP experience from massive siege wars to mercenary 3-faction battles. Plus,

all Crows become ruler of their own Eternal Kingdom, an expansive area to build and rule as

you see fit.

The ArtCraft team is offering a free instant closed Beta access to all of the Otherside

Entertainment community starting today. Plus, if you buy Crowfall at launch, you will receive

20% off the purchase price!

A great offer, to join the battle in an exciting new universe, if you are looking for an adventure.

Join now to become part of this innovative game universe, where no two worlds are ever the

same. In Crowfall, player choices matter and change the world forever! Are you ready to rise as

an Eternal Champion?

Join the battle now! Use the link https://crowfall.com/join/:otherside to create your account at

Crowfall.com!

Take the Throne!

Crowfall.com


OSE + ACE

(Look at the formatting.)

And it's not like they're giving some special offers to backers, it's just a referral code anyone can use. They also put it up on their social accounts.

 

[Katana1000S]

Crowfall, the Throne War, FFS, they have no fucking idea do they? something for you though Efe

 

[Tyranicon]

A new low was reached with these guys. Now they're using the kickstarter account to spam shitty games (MMO for fucks sake!!!!) to their backers. Bunch of asshats.

Best part was they didn't even bother formatting it, so you know they copypasted it from whatever email they got.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Good god....

 

[karnak]

And to think that - to this day - there are still people who want the GOG store (who's rejected a vast number of decent RPGs in the past - including the great Grimoire)to sell the Underworld Abomination, claiming it's a "decent game".
I suspect coprophilia, unfortunately, is a far more widespread issue than most people imagine.

 

[Infinitron]

Crowfall is made by former Ultima Online devs, so it's gotten some promotion in those circles, eg https://ultimacodex.com/category/crowfall/

 

[Sacibengala]

In the original campaign page you can report this nonsense to kickstarter. We all should do it. I did.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Not only did OSE scam their backers - now they're spamming them!

Greetings,

Hope all of you are doing well. We are reaching out to share a great opportunity available to

you!

Our friends at ArtCraft Entertainment are preparing to launch Crowfall, the Throne War MMO

game where players fight as Eternal Champions, empowered as mercenaries for the Gods - and

they are offering you immediate free access to their closed Beta. As a Kickstarter game, we also

pursued the same path they are now completing and we made a commitment to support other

inspired and innovative gaming brands rising from the Kickstarter community. Having worked

with the founding leaders at ArtCraft, we are thrilled to be able to share a special Crowfall

Closed Beta access code with you. The Beta code offers immediate “fast pass” access to their

closed beta.

It is a great time to join the Crowfall community. The MMO Throne War game is in Closed Beta

and recently introduced, the final pre-launch game world, HungerDome - a Throne War arena!

HungerDome offers twelve teams of five players fast-paced team-based action set in a dark

fantasy world where players fight for domination ---in a 30-minute battle --last team standing

wins! This is just one of the many worlds you can explore and conquer in the Crowfall universe!

The release of Crowfall’s HungerDome world was accompanied by the announcement of

ArtCraft’s first-of-its-kind, Twitch event, the Eternal Champions Series 2021 (ECS ‘21) - now

live. Sponsored by Razer, Intel and Alienware, players can compete for $50,000 in cash and

prizes if their Team survives to win HungerDome. Crowfall has 4 other unique worlds each

offering a distinct PvP experience from massive siege wars to mercenary 3-faction battles. Plus,

all Crows become ruler of their own Eternal Kingdom, an expansive area to build and rule as

you see fit.

The ArtCraft team is offering a free instant closed Beta access to all of the Otherside

Entertainment community starting today. Plus, if you buy Crowfall at launch, you will receive

20% off the purchase price!

A great offer, to join the battle in an exciting new universe, if you are looking for an adventure.

Join now to become part of this innovative game universe, where no two worlds are ever the

same. In Crowfall, player choices matter and change the world forever! Are you ready to rise as

an Eternal Champion?

Join the battle now! Use the link https://crowfall.com/join/:otherside to create your account at

Crowfall.com!

Take the Throne!

Crowfall.com

Yes. Formatted and posted just

like that.

The comments are great:

This was posted by Clippy.

"Hi, I see you've backed a crap game! Would you like to back a crap game?"

This reminds me of how the SotA shitbags are still trying to get cross-promotion and pushing the same shit in their newsletters while they're lucky to get the likes of AI Dungeon at best promoting them. As Crowfall is similarly cross-promoted by "their good friends" at Portalarium (now defunct) and now Catnip Games (just de fuct), chances are that Crowfall might be a similar shitshow. I wonder if this Team of Industry Veterans will ever know that they did the opposite of recommending people to Crowfall.

 

[Cael]

As you mentioned Arx Fatalis: yes Arkane did LGS legacy better than anyone who was at LGS have done since (though the first Deus GoatseCx wasn't too bad, comparatively speaking)

that's pretty sad considering that most of arkane's library consists of "weeeeee look at us we can make games just like wooking gwass teehee x3" games that fail at making the same impact that thief, ultima underworld and system shock did. i can't really blame them that much considering that i doubt anything will ever reach the heights those games did ever again, it just makes me want to reach out for the antidepressants i'm not taking

Those games made the impact because they were the first. Any later copies of them, by definition, won't be as impactful. Their PR work needed a lot of help.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Has anyone actually finished this game?

 

[Zombra]

Has anyone actually finished this game?

You mean playing it, or developing it?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I saw a good ending so, I guess so.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

This consumer codependency speedrun is real, going from acknowledging the scam to running interference in the same paragraph.

Alex Valero "Danda"
This is a sad attempt to get a few bucks from a referral to a game that doesn't have anything to do with this problem, yes. But I saw this promising studio crash and burn with this and SS3 and I just don't want to add to it, I really don't want to kick the corpse. So, if you backers have any decency left, just move on and don't join the lynching. It just takes two seconds to delete the update email and forget about it.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Crowfall is made by former Ultima Online devs, so it's gotten some promotion in those circles, eg https://ultimacodex.com/category/crowfall/

In other words, fucking doomed without a Raph Koster for everyone to lean hard on.

A Total SotAshow 2.0 because not even Lord "World's Greatest Game Designer Ever" Brexit could do his job while supposedly being the brains behind the whole MMORPG genre with UO, which is a nice coincidence since SotA has been promoting Crowfall for years in the newsletter of mostly spam (probably where OSE got the idea to do this from).

Why is it that everything close to the Origin brand has turned to shit, and most spectacularly without EA being involved? A silver lining: this way the cross-promotion serves as a warning that devs of a feather are going to con at least a few gullible nostalgiafags because they can't go through normal means of publishing and the lack of any oversight by an entity with attorneys on retainer for when milestones are ignored by a measure of years (sometimes referred to as "creative freedom") is definitely appealing to low morals. They also get a bunch of people creating all sorts of excuses to rationalize their sunken cost and having promoted this to their friends/viewers and to be defensive about getting blasted for shilling for shit; Razorfist/Rageaholic taking a shit-filled cyan slurp comes easily to mind - it's as if Lowtax simped for Descent to Undermountain all the way to 1999.

Dec 2016 release date, right?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

crowfall is complete garbage from what I've read.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Is Tim Stellmach still there? What a waste.

 

[SharkClub]

So I paid for this game on Kickstarter way back when for something like $30 I think? I tried playing it once on launch and dropped it after like two hours.

Recently been going through my backlog and saw it and figured I may as well play it since I paid for it, after all they did put out some actual patches and added an actual saving mechanic (lmao). So I played it, and I beat it.

What I will say first of all is that the game is a lot more fun when you just treat it like a lootwhore game, lugging tons of crap to the vendor and buying the super strong items from the shambler vendor. The biggest problem there is that the only way you can treat it like a lootwhore game properly is if you pre-ordered on Kickstarter for a minimum of $75, or if you pirate it for all the free DLC. The devs are basically actively encouraging you to steal their game in its current state if you have an ounce of an intent on playing it. Because I bought it but didn't buy it for $75 the fucking backpack which literally doubles the amount of inventory slots you have was not available to me, until I downloaded the cracked steam files from a pirated version of the game and put them in my paid for copy's files, which is what I'd recommend doing if you were a dumbfuck and paid for this game like I did and want to try and play it.

The rest of the dlc items are flavor trash but the backpack is a big gamechanger, and it goes in a slot on your paper doll that will remain totally fucking empty for the entirety of a playthrough unless you have the $75 Kickstarter dlc. It's the only item in the entire game that goes in that slot.

But yeah enough about the backpack, it just gave me a mild aneurysm thinking about how hostile the game is to latecomers to the point where it makes a million times more sense to pirate it than pay for it. I beat the game after something like 20-25 hours of playtime.

Pros:

• Decent, sometimes even above average immersive sim level design at times, some of the later levels are really open and offer a lot of different avenues to completing your objectives
• Decent loot whore game if you have the backpack dlc, if you don't then it's way too much of a pain in the dick to bother
• I liked burning all the wooden structures and piles of boxes and shit until there was only shiny items left at the bottom of a pile, something tells me more time went into this fire mechanic than into the rest of the game, and not for the better, I wasn't really keeping up with the game through Kickstarter at all during development but this was one feature that turns out ok, likely to the detriment of everything else
• Stephen Russell and Terri Brosius do some good voice acting here tbh, nice to hear them in a game together again

Cons:

• The AI is dogshit, it frequently breaks down entirely and swathes of enemies just stop having AI altogether, like having a notarget cheat on where they don't react to me or to eachother in the case of friendly Saurian allies vs enemies, holy crap the AI is bad.
• The loot whore game while stated as decent above does become pointless at the final dungeon level because every item that drops off an enemy there is p much guaranteed to be a magic one and there is a very limited amount of them
• Any armor or weapon that isn't magic is worthless because magic items don't degrade when you die, normal ones do and quickly go from pristine to broken in a few deaths, and there's no repair system or repair vendor, meh.
• You will die a lot, but it won't be to the enemies, or standard environmental hazards (traps, lava, etc.) You will mostly die due to the physics interacting with objects going haywire and instant killing you when your toe nudges a loose plank on the ground. I've even died when jumping on to a chain to climb it, the chain would flip upside down and smash me into the ceiling within 1 frame and I'd die. Randomly dying to shit like this that is absolutely a glitch and shouldn't kill you is another reason why non-magical items are useless and degrade so quickly.
• The skill points and feats system is hard to follow and badly needs restructuring and easier to understand feedback, some of the feats require certain skills in the skill tree to be bought, so you can achieve the feat to get skill points to buy more skills, it's convoluted to put it simply. Some feats also require a ridiculous amount of damage dealt with certain weapons and stuff and...
• Weapons don't have any visible stats aside from their condition being listed with descriptive words (wow guys we're just like Ultima Underworld!), no asshole let me see how much damage my sword does, fucking fuck, how the fuck am I meant to know how much damage my weapons do when you have feats demanding a certain amount of damage to achieve them, I don't even know what health enemies have, all the numbers in the game are a mystery on all fronts and yet the numbers for feat requirements are stated in the menu. I have nothing to go off.
• The skill tree also has retarded obscure unlock requirements for some skills, stuff that you'll only find a resource on outside of the game. As if the feats system wasn't bad enough in this regard there's also a subset to it before you're able to purchase skills with skill points, again it's a convoluted mess. A fucking simple experience points and levelling up system would have been a gorillion times better in all regards.

All in all the game felt like a ton of fucking wasted potential with some very, very small glimmers of "this is an ok game" shining through the thick layer of turd.

Don't pay for it and don't treat it like an Ultima Underworld successor. Play it like a flat straight dungeon crawl hack n slash and you might find it passably entertaining. If you're like me and already paid for it then crack your purchased copy, lol.

 

[Gargaune]

But yeah enough about the backpack, it just gave me a mild aneurysm thinking about how hostile the game is to latecomers to the point where it makes a million times more sense to pirate it than pay for it.

"Piracy is a service problem. Unless your game isn't even worth pirating, then there's no problem."
~ Santa Claus