KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Release Thread

[Ranarama]

They've focused almost exclusively on environmental puzzles.

I don't remember much of that from my time playing UU. What I remember is exploring and dealing with the different people and factions.

 

[RatTower]

Haven't seen it yet.

Let me rephrase that then:

What aspect of the game are you most worried about?

 

[Thal]

Haven't seen it yet.

Let me rephrase that then:

What aspect of the game are you most worried about?

I'm worried that the game has a simplistic combat system (Oblivion-like), uninteresting encounters and that it is generally speaking unchallenging. I'd prefer directional attacks, perhaps locational damage and stamina management, additional attack types, animations or combos unlocked by increased skill levels.

I'm also worried that the game has poor level design, choose your own corridor types, lacking in verticality and secret areas. I'd prefer something like Thief's Bonehoard or Deus ex's better levels.

 

[Infinitron]

Some additional screenshots:



https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=6072.0

Morning everyone!

There's been a lot of incredible feedback (and bugs!) noted by our playtesters this weekend, and much of it lines up with changes we've already been thinking about, which is good for both of us to confirm. I'll be busy ferrying information between the playtesters and dev team this week, particularly with regards to "things you can do in the levels," so I apologize if I'm not as active as I usually am.

Last week, we talked about how a lot of the levels are getting a new lighting pass overhaul, particularly to accommodate for players who choose to carry a light source with them... or refrain from bringing one, depending on the situation. We'll be playing around with that again this week, as well as cleaning up on some more performance milestones we aim to hit by the end of this month. A lot of work is going to be invested in making sure the world ties together, which is never easy for an immersive sim like this. Each part of the level needs an art pass to make sure it lines up with the narrative, and the narrative needs to enforce the "why" of your goals in the Abyss, etc.

It may feel inorganic when I describe it this way, but for those of you who have experience playtesting immersive sims, you know that the life of the game normally doesn't come together until nearly the last minute. Each individual cog is worked on, tested against its neighbors, and then refined until suddenly the entire world is alive and working as intended. The game comes first.

Also, still really excited to see some of the outside work we've had help us really refine the narrative choices available. I love Typhon, so I'm excited to see an option that would reinforce my choices

That's it for now, but I'll be poking around the forums to check in on you guys whenever I can.
Also, as a reminder, we released our July Newsletter last week!

 

[Invictus]

That new lighting looks much better...until that neon light rave king skeleton showed up

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Did they really make one single wall texture wall texture and slap it on half the dungeon, including ceilings? Sheesh.

 

[Big Wrangle]

Oh man, I didn't even notice. Yeah, the ceiling does look kinda weird.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Those are nice screens actually. Two screen updatea in a row I want to explore the shown areas.

 

[SlamDunk]

The issue here is that Blue Sky Productions/Looking Glass Studios consisted of young, enthusiastic and ambitious smart guys. What I've gathered is that the ones making the big decisions at Otherside Entertainment consists of some of those guys, but now they are just old and smart. The all-important inner fire that youth embodies - the essence for the creation of truly great, wonderful and novel things - has long since withered away.

 

[RatTower]

Dostoyevski wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" at the age of 59.

....and then he died immediately after finishing it.

Kinda like SirTech.

 

[Nyast]

The amount of gray fog in these pics...

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Did they really make one single wall texture wall texture and slap it on half the dungeon, including ceilings? Sheesh.

It's not the same texture. Same family yes, which makes sense. Look closely.

 

[Max Heap]

I looked closely. It is the same texture.
In their defense though, most developers do this.

 

[LESS T_T]

505 Squad panel at PAX West: http://west.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/single-player-is-dead-long-live-single-player

Single-Player Is Dead; Long Live Single-Player

• SAT 09/01 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
• SASQUATCH THEATRE

The viability of single-player games is an ongoing debate, and in the AAA space they’ve been pushed aside for more lucrative multiplayer games. But not everyone has given up. Developers including Remedy, OtherSide Entertainment, Lab Zero Games, and ArtPlay are bucking trends and creating new single-player experiences. This panel explores how independent studios are embracing the realities of smaller teams and budgets to deliver quality single player games on their own terms and keep the genre alive.

PANELISTS
Thomas Puha [Head of Communications, Remedy Entertainment], Joe Fielder [Game Director, OtherSide Entertainment], Koji Igarashi (IGA) [Executive Producer, ArtPlay, Inc.]

 

[Darkzone]

Did they really make one single wall texture wall texture and slap it on half the dungeon, including ceilings? Sheesh.

It's not the same texture. Same family yes, which makes sense. Look closely.

They did it because can save ( dependend on the engine ) memory. A "good" artist would make several meshes using the same texture while retaining the look and feel of difference (different UVs), for this reason.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I looked closely. It is the same texture.
In their defense though, most developers do this.

The texture is far larger than that one stone. They may reuse stones within a set to give variation as it is easy to do and saves resources, that isn't the same thing.

If you are saying they look samey, then yes they are similar but the pattern is clearly different in comparing the ceiling to the walls.

 

[RatTower]

They did it because can save ( dependend on the engine ) memory. A "good" artist would make several meshes using the same texture while retaining the look and feel of difference (different UVs), for this reason.

Or they use vertex painting.

I haven't worked with it for a while but Unity should provide vertex color information for meshes.
Vertex color is essentially RGB (+Alpha) information for each vertex in a mesh (three vertices build a tris, often referred to as a polygon).
So essentially you slap e.g. black onto one vertex and the other ones around it, respectively the area between them and the black one is interpolated towards white:

You can use this information then as a sort of alpha mask between two textures (or just certain parts of a material), which is a good way of "breaking things up" a bit.
For example you can nicely create puddles with that:

In the wet parts of that floor mesh the vertex color would probably be black, wheras the dry parts are white.

You can also just blend two similar textures of a wall together, where one texture is e.g. overgrown with moss.
You then blend that together with vertex color and get a nice wall that's mossy in some spots.

It becomes hard to spot recurring patterns in textures once you start doing vertex painting.

Normally that "just" requires a second texture. So it fully depends how they did theirs. If they made them procedurally (like with Substance Designer) it's pretty easy to create variations.
If they are handpainted it gets a bit more complicated.

 

[Darkzone]

They did it because can save ( dependend on the engine ) memory. A "good" artist would make several meshes using the same texture while retaining the look and feel of difference (different UVs), for this reason.

Or they use vertex painting.

Spoiler

I haven't worked with it for a while but Unity should provide vertex color information for meshes.
Vertex color is essentially RGB (+Alpha) information for each vertex in a mesh (three vertices build a tris, often referred to as a polygon).
So essentially you slap e.g. black onto one vertex and the other ones around it, respectively the area between them and the black one is interpolated towards white:

You can use this information then as a sort of alpha mask between two textures (or just certain parts of a material), which is a good way of "breaking things up" a bit.
For example you can nicely create puddles with that:

In the wet parts of that floor mesh the vertex color would probably be black, wheras the dry parts are white.

You can also just blend two similar textures of a wall together, where one texture is e.g. overgrown with moss.
You then blend that together with vertex color and get a nice wall that's mossy in some spots.

It becomes hard to spot recurring patterns in textures once you start doing vertex painting.

Normally that "just" requires a second texture. So it fully depends how they did theirs. If they made them procedurally (like with Substance Designer) it's pretty easy to create variations.

If they are handpainted it gets a bit more complicated.

Yes and i have done it already in UE4 with moisture, snow, mossy and etc ( i do it for fun in my spare time ). The (our both) point is that the reuse of textures in not necessary a bad thing in different meshes or in different materials and material instances (it is obvious that you agree with me on this point with this example).

 

[United Nations]

Well, at least whatever direction they went in it still looks like a game rather than some pretentious walking sim "this is art I tell you!" garbage. I still have hope this will be a fun-ish little action game at least, comparable to say a low-budget Dark Messiah, but I doubt it will even be that...

Dark Messiah has way better visuals than this shit, and it was graphic as all hell.

 

[Ranarama]

That new lighting looks much better...until that neon light rave king skeleton showed up

I thought your avatar looked familiar.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Did they really make one single wall texture wall texture and slap it on half the dungeon, including ceilings? Sheesh.

It's not the same texture. Same family yes, which makes sense. Look closely.

Not counting the extra stones that have been haphazardly slapped on the wall, it's the exact same thing. It has just been rotated 90° using the top edge as a pivot and moved a little bit. Otherwise, it has the exact same pattern of stones, spaces, chipping etc, even the bad UV seam near the middle. My main point would probably be that stones arranged flatly on a ceiling like this would collapse instantly, arches were invented for a reason. I'm all for using a texture atlas to save resources and keep the same feel, but this is just lazy (or clueless or very rushed) design.

 

[LESS T_T]

Unite Berlin talk:

Lighting isn't just about making your project look good, it can, in fact, be a key component for successful gameplay. In this session, OtherSide Entertainment will walk you through their approach to both technical and gameplay-design, for the stealth action of their upcoming RPG, Underworld Ascendant.

Speakers: Justin Pappas (Lead Level Designer, OtherSide Entertainment)

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=6086.0

Morning everyone!

We're working hard on bringing together a new build and updates by the end of this month, particularly around Gamescom, so we apologize if we're a little quieter than usual this week.

Overall, there's been a huge wealth of information on the Playtest forums and Discord! We've been trying to keep up with all of the bugs submitted, as well as feedback we've received about the lack of clarity for certain skills and abilities. We hear you! Some things are far easier to adjust and fix than others, so we're knocking out things based on priority.

I know this week Joe is looking into giving more of a voice to the Factions, so we may be able to share some more information on that soon. Stacking crates is always being tweaked so it's not a nightmare to climb out of the "magic room," and we can start prioritizing progression and quest lines with lore soon as well. Some of you may notice these changes by the next playtest round, which will start most likely next Sunday. Keep an eye out for hidden messages, secrets, shortcuts, and story lines...

Also, yes. The Mac build fix for the Backer Alpha is on the back burner. The metal shader issue our Mac issues encounter on launch is being addressed for future builds, and we can start implementing that fix at a later time when the forge is cooling down. Right now, we're still regaining our breath from a big milestone we had the other week, and swinging back into the hard-hitting issues, like performance in some of the larger levels and combat/AI. *Always combat/AI.*

Definitely getting new pics out next week with Gamescom (our next big marketing beat with trailer, dev diary, screens, demo at Gamescom, etc.)

This week we'll show the Denis Loubet collector edition cover and maybe some other new ones.

Also: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=6047.msg33209#msg33209

A few things have been answered recently, and some left up in the air - so:

1. What's the current estimated release date? % Probability of a push-back...?

This is pending! Expect news at the end of this month.

2. Have final decisions been taken on how to connect levels, portals etc? If so, what?

We can't ruin the surprise on this one.

3. Will the recent good work on toning down of colours (i.e. blue light in skeleton) continue over into other areas?

Depends on the area. Some are brighter than others, whether it's because there's far more lava, or a glowing crystal cave. In general, there will be more consideration for whether the player is carrying a light source or not.

4. Is there a date pencilled-in for Beta?

Pending.

5. Is there any plan to re-do any VO work (in the 'toning-down' dept.)?

We have MORE VO work being put in, as well as ways to change the way some of the VO activates.

6. Will there be flowing water?

Hmm... not that I'm aware of, as of right now.

...and...slightly getting ahead here...but if the game is successful and you don't all retire to your private Caribbean island/s....can we have sleep as a necessary mechanic in the next game? (note: this is a rhetorical question - sleep absolutely *should/could/would/must and have to be be in any sequel*).

One step at a time

I know we have plans for several other games, and not just a UA2, if we pursue that...

 

[Invictus]

These fucking assholes, couldn’t they just say “yup we are pushing the release until Christmas” or some understandable dealy? The game looks and plays like it needs at least 6 more months of final tweaking; they are still sorting out the game mechanics ffs

We have been waiting for this for more than 4 years so 6 months are probably not going to make much of a difference but it would give some indication they are at least aware the damn thing needs still a lot of work and at least try to fix these up

Hell has ANYBODY said they like the Trine looking glowing skeletons? How about just removing that shit altogether or even adjusting the look to be at least a necromatic shimmer rather than that retarded skeleton rave lord look?

Sorry about my rant but each time I replay Ultima Underworld and just marvel at almost everything and looking at this it just feels so...disrespectful to the legacy of Underworld

At least the last couple of screens with dark Moira like tunnels and hallways do look much better than their glowing diamonds but still, losing all hope this will turn out anything other than mediocre

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

...Moira tunnels