ZylonBane on 3/12/2018 at 22:00
Beyond the saving issues, the fact that they'd originally planned for tiny, ~15-minute levels is disconcerting. Instead of the promised Ultima Underworld successor, it's more like they were shooting for a mashup of Underworld, Thief, and Portal. Pick your little mission, run off and do your little physics toy challenge, rinse and repeat. It's an immersive sim without the immersion.
icemann on 5/12/2018 at 07:27
Which is COMPLETELY different to how the game was portrayed in the KS and the backer updates. The game was described as an immersive sim where you are free to play how you want. Discussion of dynamic ecologies etc etc.
Bucky Seifert on 21/12/2018 at 06:35
If the word is good on this update I'll rebuy it. I really want to support these developers once they have a functional product.
twisty on 21/12/2018 at 07:34
You might want to wait until the February update (refer to (
https://steamcommunity.com/games/692840/announcements/detail/2797196840743688910) roadmap) unless the save system was the only major issue for you.
They've also released a statement regarding how the game got released in its initial state:
Quote:
Taking creative risks is only a part of the story of Underworld Ascendant's launch. The project faced funding hurdles early in its development. We had lined up a healthy funding commitment with a partner, many-fold more than the Kickstarter funding we later raised. Unfortunately, several months following the Kickstarter our funding partner made a strategic pivot away from the sort of game we were making, resulting in the funding falling through. We had to make do with a fraction of the funding needed to complete our original vision for the game. We did our best to make forward progress with a tiny team. However, it was slow going as we wandered through a development desert for nearly 2 years.
In the summer of 2017, 505 Games stepped up as our publishing partner to help bring the game home. At long-last we were able to step up the pace of our progress. This past Summer we felt confident that we had scoped the game correctly and that we'd be in solid shape for a Fall 2018 launch.
With 20/20 hindsight we were overly optimistic. Part of that came from our prior experiences making immersive simulations, where a lot comes together in the final months. Having a small development team, along with the legacy of an artificially protracted schedule that resulted in relying on now outdated code, ended up impinging on our ability to execute on the same level of progress. In addition, after having worked on the game for more than three years we lost perspective on where Underworld Ascendant stood. We convinced ourselves that the game was in more robust shape than it actually was. Had we been more objective, we would have held off the launch and worked on the game longer. Instead we pushed hard and hit the planned November launch date.
It's worth reading the rest of the article to get more context (
https://otherside-e.com/wp/underworld-ascendant-where-were-headed-how-we-got-here/)
Starker on 21/12/2018 at 08:40
The save system was the single biggest issue for me, but I'm going to wait nevertheless. There's still a lot of things about the game that can easily be improved on.
It's not like I lack games to play meanwhile anyway, since I missed most of the games in 2018 due to a new job.
Starker on 22/12/2018 at 11:26
It makes more sense in context. There always was a strong competitive aspect to them to begin with, but now you have teams and leagues and spectators and televised competitions and whatnot, so games like Overwatch really are very much like a sport now.
He's talking about games that you can beat or exhaust the content, so they are not games in that sense is what he means.
Pyrian on 22/12/2018 at 17:21
Quote Posted by Starker
It makes more sense in context.
No, it doesn't (and it's not like I didn't listen to the whole thing), but that's kind of besides the point. It was a horrible thing to say and he should never have said it, he should well know better than to try and play the "game/not game" card after the
far more justified hullabaloo over walking simulators.
Starker on 22/12/2018 at 18:01
Aren't you reading a bit too much into it? I'm pretty sure he doesn't really think that multiplayer FPS games aren't games and that wasn't what he meant. It's just colourful language, a bit of hyperbole, if you will.
It's not as if they are discussing what is or what isn't a game. They are talking about games that can be played "forever" and multiplayer FPS games are his example, as contrasted with immersive sims that have a comparatively "finite" amount of content.
Also, the hullabaloo over walking simulators was never justified. The reasons for it had more to do with culture and politics than with any concern for ontology.