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KickStarter Underworld Ascendant is a disaster

Infinitron

I post news
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Staff Member
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Infinitron She says that "The UO project" contributed funding for *UA* and that doing UO made continuing development of UA possible. That's clearly a lie.

Even in an optimistic case (2,000 copies sold and double the current price), UO made just $20,000 in total revenues. That's revenues, not profit.

To develop UO, according to Chris Siegel, Otherside "added team members locally and partnered with another company" including "one ‘inhouse’ designer, another old LGS hand to help lead the design, and a producer."

https://forums.otherside-e.com/t/underworld-overlord-wtf/9171/4

Even with a Google subsidy, OS has lost money in with UO. It did not contribute any funding to the development of UA. It sucked funds (and probably manpower and other resources) out of the UA project.

They used KS money to make UO, which is a typical sh*t game no one plays, and now they are sending their CM out to tell backers that it was all in the interest of developing UA which is clearly a lie.

It's not about how well the game sold. They were paid to make it. It's kind of like what Epic Games do with their store.
 

Efe

Erudite
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Dec 27, 2015
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2,605
UO was a smashing success and is actually still keeping the company afloat with trickling income.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Matt Davey, programmer who joined the Boston team a half year before the release, is no longer working at Otherside: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdavey/

He was promoted to Principal Engineer after the release.

Hey, he updated his resume.

Looks like Boston's unannounced project is using Unreal.

Principal Engineer
Dates Employed Dec 2018 – Aug 2019
Employment Duration 9 mos


Worked with multiple teams on numerous initiatives, including an Unannounced Project and System Shock 3. Providing high-level engineering direction, planning, support, education, mentorship, and staffing advice.

HIGHLIGHTS

Unannounced Project
• Implemented a best-practices custom Unreal Engine 4 build with UGS pipeline support.
• Supported art, design and development team throughout the transition process to Unreal.
• Designed and implemented a multi-game framework with automated testing (TDD).
• Collaboratively designed and developed unique and innovative cooperative multiplayer mechanics.
• Rapidly developed early gameplay prototype in Unity game engine.

System Shock 3
• Wwise [audio] integration development and support; including custom occlusion and obstruction system design with dynamic portal functionality.
• Environmental lighting and mesh renderer optimizations and support.
• Additional engineering tasking.

Miscellaneous
• Developed relations with vendors to support collaborative technology sharing.
• Designed and implemented a multi-stream multi-project perforce infrastructure.
• Designed and implemented a TeamCity CI build system.
• Overhauled office network infrastructure to support future growth (UniFi).

Senior Engineer
Dates Employed May 2018 – Dec 2018
Employment Duration 8 mos

Engaged originally to provide audio integration development and support. Responsibilities quickly expanded to refactoring and owning numerous systems on the project, transitioning into a senior role supporting the team as needed.

HIGHLIGHTS

Underworld Ascendant
• Designed and implemented a post-launch save game system.
• Implemented full world state persistency across all levels in the game.
• Created a dynamic lighting and systems streaming solution allowing for large singular levels.
• Lead performance/optimization strike team.
• Improved quest system/tooling to be more designer centric with improved flexibility and workflows.
• Optimized existing audio integration to prevent runtime hiccups.

Miscellaneous
• Developed a recommended frame budget for use with console and pc deployment targets.
 

BEvers

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 14, 2018
Messages
808
The're still unable to publish the console hotfixes.

August 5 2019 Weekly Update!

Morning everyone!

Sadly, same PS4 and Xbox One publishing build blocker as last week. We received some suggestions from both companies, including re-uploading new sdks, so we’ll be watching loading bars this morning to see if those are ready. Once they are, we’ll let you know when the next console hotfix is out.

On a similar note, the PC hotfix is still lined up to go live when we have the green light from Mac and Linux. So far, QA had just finished doing a rough preliminary pass on the PC version that would set to go live with Mac and Linux, which is promising, and we’re waiting on some of those bug fixes to be pushed through.

On my end, still finishing up that Making of UA DVD. I got more footage of Tim and Will last week with questions I’ve seen throughout the community, and some of which were submitted by Kickstarter backers on Discord. (Obviously not every question can be answered, but I tried to squeeze in as much as I could.)

I’m in Vancouver this week, so my replies are going to be 3 hours later than usual.
 

MasterLobar

Angry OtherSide Refugee
Joined
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Messages
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Community manager comes up with version #3 for why the game launched in a totally broken state (or is it #4 or #5? I lost track).

"I'd also like to remind people how QA works. QA was the MOST aware of the state of the game at each interval, but that does not mean they have control over the launch date. It was the combined fault of poor communication between teams and misunderstandings between multiple levels that allowed UA to ship in November. There were internal misunderstandings about the game's state, we were mildly crunching and exhausted as it was, and we trusted without verifying for ourselves." (emphasis in original)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/692840/discussions/0/1640918469746964166/?ctp=2#c1640918469766291125

First it was "we thought the game was ready" then it was "505 forced the launch date upon us." Now it seems to be "QA was aware of everything, but it was all a big misunderstanding."

This has to be another lie because they noted dozens of bugs and broken features in their launch post.


Everyone was well aware of the state of the game in Nov 2018, and if the CM hopes to be a CM elsewhere after OS fires her, she better stop lying to the community now.
 
Joined
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Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
They're right that it's not QA's fault. QA could have(and likely did, considering how many issues there are) reported many bugs that simply went unfixed. Is it the programmer's fault for not fixing them? Again, no. They simply may not have had enough time to fix them.
But let's assume the worst: Even if QA did a terrible job, it's still not QA's fault. Even if the programmers did a terrible job at fixing bugs, it's still not their fault.

Management is the one in charge of making sure people are doing their jobs correctly and keeping the projects on track. It's management's fault for what happened — either through allowing employees to do it, or purposely releasing an unfinished project with unrealistic deadlines.
 

Efe

Erudite
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
2,605
its backers like lobar that ruined this game.
forced OE to release it in a hurry because of their harassment campaign.
its sad these people lost their job as a result.
 

BEvers

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 14, 2018
Messages
808
its sad these people lost their job as a result.

Apparently it was a mixed bag anyway:

Untitled.png
 

baud

Arcane
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Septentrion
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
if the CM hopes to be a CM elsewhere after OS fires her, she better stop lying to the community now.

I don't think telling the truth is an important skill for CM. Rather following the party line, putting out fires before they spread too much, doing a bunch of miscellaneous tasks unrelated to CM...
 

Cael

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
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Messages
22,068
They're right that it's not QA's fault. QA could have(and likely did, considering how many issues there are) reported many bugs that simply went unfixed. Is it the programmer's fault for not fixing them? Again, no. They simply may not have had enough time to fix them.
But let's assume the worst: Even if QA did a terrible job, it's still not QA's fault. Even if the programmers did a terrible job at fixing bugs, it's still not their fault.

Management is the one in charge of making sure people are doing their jobs correctly and keeping the projects on track. It's management's fault for what happened — either through allowing employees to do it, or purposely releasing an unfinished project with unrealistic deadlines.
Depends. I have seen companies where the techs basically believe that they are too big for the company to fire, and they are right. The company went for a "lean and mean" model and went too lean, so the loss of even 1 guy would be catastrophic for their committed deadlines. The techs understood this, and instead of being the lowest rank in the company, they basically turned into union bitches. Nothing management can do once that hits.
 

Katana1000S

Angrier OtherSide Refugee
Joined
Oct 31, 2018
Messages
145
This Efe person, is either a dedicated shill troll, or absolutely retarded ??

Seriously.

What was most definitely a small part of UA's ruin was the shill beta testers they hired or paid peanuts or even nothing, absolute ball sucking shill testors who were so delighted to be part of something, they would be scared to say a bad word, those fuctards need to be exposed for the lying groveling scum they are.

I forget the individual names, but they surfaced again in their forums later on once the first version was publicly released ... and they did nothing but grovel and plead it was all fine and Rosy, on track and looking perfect, they really did ... if anyone doubts me, go look at their forums where I and other disgruntled customers clashed swords with one of their official beta testers in particular, it was just grovel grovel grovel from him, those morons are in part responsible for this disgusting fraud of a game, if the Devs listen to that false feedback, they start believing it, but it is of course the devs fault for hiring such known shill's too.

Indeed, and after this, it was not long before the Devs started banning and deleting accounts of people who spoke ill of their precious job prospects, not their pathetic game, they had started to realise the gravity of the situation and nobody, not even on steam was buying this bunch of crap in the numbers they had hoped for.

I've done beta testing for both PC software and hardware in the past, have always gave honest feedback and if the devs don't like that, too bad, mostly it was appreciated, but for the dishonest devs of UA, its history now that they took on board dishonest known groveliing beta testers too, these guys really need to hand in their cards (both testers and Devs) and go seek different employment, the lies after lies they told us, the changing of story's and massive contradictions with what they say, these disgusting lying people do not deserve to mess up another classic game series like SS3.
 
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Cael

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
22,068
This Efe person, is either a dedicated shill troll, or absolutely retarded ??

Seriously.

What was most definitely a small part of UA's ruin was the shill beta testers they hired or paid peanuts or even nothing, absolute ball sucking shill testors who were so delighted to be part of something, they would be scared to say a bad word, those fuctards need to be exposed for the lying groveling scum they are.

I forget the individual names, but they surfaced again in their forums later on once the first version was publicly released ... and they did nothing but grovel and plead it was all fine and Rosy, on track and looking perfect, they really did ... if anyone doubts me, go look at their forums where I and other disgruntled customers clashed swords with one of their official beta testers in particular, it was just grovel grovel grovel from him, those morons are in part responsible for this disgusting fraud of a game, if the Devs listen to that false feedback, they start believing it, but it is of course the devs fault for hiring such known shill's too.

Indeed, and after this, it was not long before the Devs started banning and deleting accounts of people who spoke ill of their precious job prospects, not their pathetic game, they had started to realise the gravity of the situation and nobody, not even on steam was buying this bunch of crap in the numbers they had hoped for.

I've done beta testing for both PC software and hardware in the past, have always gave honest feedback and if the devs don't like that, too bad, mostly it was appreciated, but for the dishonest devs of UA, its history now that they took on board dishonest known groveliing beta testers too, these guys really need to hand in their cards (both testers and Devs) and go seek different employment, the lies after lies they told us, the changing of story's and massive contradictions with what they say, these disgusting lying people do not deserve to mess up another classic game series like SS3.
Pretty sure that Efe is one of those people who, if the target of their hate says the sky is blue, they will disagree vehemently. Efe's target happens to be MasterLobar.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Like Efe mentioned, there is plenty of evidence that Ultima overlord is a huge success. In fact, there is mounting evidence that Ultima Ascendant was indeed profitable. One can hope a sequel is in the works.

People like Lubar are ruining it for actual gamers.
 

Efe

Erudite
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
2,605
i have nothing against him and definitely dont hate him.
if its fine when hes making wild statements... am i not allowed a little bit of fun here?

and certainly sky is not always blue....:argh:
 

MasterLobar

Angry OtherSide Refugee
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
Messages
358
Location
Killorn Keep
Peace, Efe, I don't hate you either. I don't hate the shills. I don't even hate those devs.

In fact, I have to thank them. I would never have had as much fun with a real UU sequel as I had posting on the Codex.
 
Possibly Retarded The Real Fanboy
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Ancient Aliens Spaceship
Its huge discount on Steam now [around 6 euro]. I wonder about buying this game [mainly becouse of my Origin UU I & II sentiment] and add it to my Crpg collection of already around 350 rpg titles. Can someone point me if it's worth it, i mean does story is anywhere near Ultima , how's gameplay. I know there are tons of materials around but to have word from seasoned Codexers is worth more than any internet review .
 

taxalot

I'm a spicy fellow.
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Your wallet.
Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I'm tempted to play this for the same reasons I played SOTA.

Is it possible to save anywhere now ? Are significant improvements still coming in patches ? (I know the game will still suck no matter what).
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
I'm tempted to play this for the same reasons I played SOTA.

Is it possible to save anywhere now ? Are significant improvements still coming in patches ? (I know the game will still suck no matter what).

Yes, you can save anywhere now and they even managed to make the dungeon interconnected. Wohoo. It's still lacking in noteworthy content, though, but you might enjoy a bit of morbid fascination when running through the levels.
I very much doubt there will be any additional content/feature patches.
 
Last edited:
Joined
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Chicago, IL, Kwa
Its huge discount on Steam now [around 6 euro]. I wonder about buying this game [mainly becouse of my Origin UU I & II sentiment] and add it to my Crpg collection of already around 350 rpg titles. Can someone point me if it's worth it, i mean does story is anywhere near Ultima , how's gameplay. I know there are tons of materials around but to have word from seasoned Codexers is worth more than any internet review .

Oh, you should definitely buy it. Heck, wait until it's off sale and pay full price to reward the dev's for their amazing job!
 

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