Kickstarter campaign launches on 4th Feb

[Yandros]

Excellent, congrats to OtherSide! Now I have about a year and half to play through the original Underworlds.

I need to replay them, my wife and I played both the originals when they came out and they were truly revolutionary.

[Melan]

I am replaying UW1 right now. It feels reasonably new because the last time I played it was around 1996. It hold up very well, although the levels are much smaller than I remember. Also, for all the touted "survival" elements, the dungeon actually overloads you with equipment right from the start, so the real thing that matters is amassing ridiculously large equipment stashes and treasuries on multiple levels. On the other hand, its puzzles are still as inventive as they were back then.

After UW1, I will follow it up with Arx.

[Brethren]

The biggest issue I've had trying to playing UW1 is the control scheme, it's pretty awful by today's standards. Not a fair comparison, I realize, but still.

[Goldmoon Dawn]

Now I have about a year and half to play through the original Underworlds.

Well well, Brethren. I must say, I am quite impressed. Obviously, the graphics and movement mechanics will be a bit jarring at first, but once you get it and start digging in, you can play it all the way through. You have inspired me, I think I will put UU1 next in rotation. I think playing the 1st game would suffice. I don't want to start anything but, you can think of UU2 as the Metal Age of the series. UU1 was the true masterpiece. Mwahaa

[Yandros]

I've not played either since around 1994, but I recall liking UU2 more than UU1. Perhaps it was the multiple worlds or the story, I don't really recall.

[Brethren]

Well well, Brethren. I must say, I am quite impressed.

Maybe I'll do a "Let's Play" just for you Goldy. XXX OOO

[Tomi]

It's been more than 15 years since I've played the Underworld games, but I still remember loving the first one and how exciting it was to explore the dungeon. My English wasn't that great back then so I must have missed a lot of the story, but I still managed to get through the game in the end! For some reason I never got very far in UU2 though, I guess that's something I should (re)play before the new game comes out.

I did actually buy both Underworld games on GOG not too long ago, and I just thought that I would give UU1 a try. The game itself seems to run quite fine, but the music sounds quite terrible. I suppose that's the case with most old games with midi music, but is there a patch or something to "fix" it? Or are the any other patches/mods/fixes/DOSBox tweaks/whatever else that I should be aware of?

[Shadowcat]

I've been replaying UUW as well :) I started playing with the first character I rolled, paying no attention to stats, and I'd been thinking that I must have done poorly on strength given how much difficulty I was having with inventory. I just rolled a few characters for comparison, though, and have realised I actually have an entirely reasonable strength, and I'd just forgotten how impossible it was to lug around all the stuff I want to carry :)

[Goldmoon Dawn]

Maybe I'll do a "Let's Play"

All kidding aside, that would actually be awesome! Many people would enjoy that, as you have never experienced *any* of it yet!

[ZylonBane]

I've put in $300. I will probably lower it to $150...

You are a terrible person.

[twisty]

Good to see that they have rejigged the tiers now to some extent but is there really that much demand out there for a Tracy Hickman novel? Nothing against her or anything (never even heard of her before tbh) but I can't see the logic of spending $50k on a novel above adding in an additional race which doesn't feature until another $50k later.

[driver]

Pssst, Tracy Hickman is a guy.

But yeah, that's kinda low priority for me, I'd much rather have more content than a tie-in novel.

[Brethren]

Tracy is actually a guy. According to the Kickstarter page, he is a New York Times bestselling fantasy author.

(yeah, I never heard of him either)

Edit: driver beat me to it.

[Goldmoon Dawn]

he is a New York Times bestselling fantasy author.

I know right?

It just keeps getting more and more awesome!

He and his partner wrote the classic book Dragons Of Autumn Twilight (1984), my favorite book! That is the book that introduced the character Goldmoon. Imagine my joy, when he wrote the story for Shroud Of The Avatar and now Underworld. Crpg lives on ! ! ! !

Unaccountable amounts of drool...

[Pyrian]

Pssst, Tracy Hickman is a guy.

Seriously? I remember reading those books when I was a kid; I had no idea. Although, I don't see how it really changes anything.

[Dev_Anj]

All kidding aside, that would actually be awesome! Many people would enjoy that, as you have never experienced *any* of it yet!

I want to see you do a let's play. You're the resident RPG maniac after all, so it would be interesting to see how you talk and what you feel while playing your favourite games.

Also congratulations to Otherside Entertainment!

[GodzillaX8]

You are a terrible person.

I'm a terrible person for pledging nearly 3 times the average pledge?

[Melan]

Eh, I am really not a fan of Tracy's novels. Yeah, yeah, I read the Dragonlance trilogy when I was eleven, but even then, I knew it in the back of my head it was not really good, not even as game fiction.

There is a big missed opportunity here, though, because once upon a time, long before they turned to writing, Tracy and his wife Laura wrote some genuinely excellent adventures for AD&D: Pharaoh, Oasis of the White Palm, The Lost Tomb of Martek, and Ravenloft. They had problems with increasing linearity and railroading (which got really bad in Martek, and later the Dragonlance adventure series), but they were full of memorable, off the wall dungeon puzzles and iconic locations:

• The Moebius Tower, a desert outpost trapped in temporal stasis, everything frozen in a single second, with the top of the tower connecting to the bottom in an infinite loop.
• The Skysea, a desert plain of flat glass, created by some ancient cataclysm and sailed by lightweight ships outfitted with diamond skates.
• An underground garden beneath a great pyramid, lit by cleverly placed mirrors, blooming with vegetation and palm trees laden with explosive fruits, surrounded by reverse-gravity traps.
• Even in Dragonlance, you can remember the ruined city of Xak-Tsaroth, swallowed by the earth and crisscrossed by waterfalls, or the battle with the giant slug under one of the other fortresses... that was pretty good.

The Hickmans had tremendous imagination, and Otherside should really have hired them as creative consultants and co-designers.

[Yandros]

I agree, Melan.

[ZylonBane]

I'm a terrible person for pledging nearly 3 times the average pledge?

I see your troll-fu is as strong as ever. Here, let me rephrase that so not even you can pretend to misunderstand:

I've put in an amount, but j/k LOL they're only getting half that.

The Hickmans had tremendous imagination, and Otherside should really have hired them as creative consultants and co-designers.

What makes you think they didn't? You think Otherside just randomly tapped them to write a tie-in novel?

[Melan]

Could be. Wouldn't be a bad thing. But I sincerely hope it is more concrete encounter-level stuff, and less nebulous backstory.

[Renzatic]

You bastards didn't pledge enough. We're not getting Vorpal Bunnies now because you're all cheap!

[Tomi]

I'm still a bit disappointed if they don't reach that stretch goal ($800k). I'm still hoping for a last day pledgemania that gets us to $850k at least.

[GodzillaX8]

I have no idea how Kickstarter works.

Since you've clearly stated that you don't understand anything about Kickstarter, allow me to inform you. People only back things that are already doing well. This is why there is always a huge jump as soon as a project hits "funded" status. Therefore, pledging the highest I'd ever be willing to pledge increases the appearance of success of the project, thereby increasing the likelihood of other backers pledging. Ever heard of herd mentality? It very much applies to any successful Kickstarter project.

Further, you appear to have missed the part where I said I will gladly pledge $300 if we're close to a stretch goal at the end of the campaign.

Go back under your bridge, or the dumpster you live in, or wherever you typically crawl out of to spray bile at strangers.

[Pyrian]

...not even you can pretend to misunderstand:

You didn't really believe that, did you?