Questions about Descent: Underground?

[Lothar]

Has anyone followed this game lately? Nothing new here since late August.

I play it regularly.

The best source of regular information right now is the dev blogs, particularly BlueDog's "week in review".

Once we add more people to playtesting, there will be a lot more first-hand information out there.

[Crusader]

Its been released for beta testing to Underground subscribers. Its for real and looks badazz. 'm waiting for steam release since im sitting on a bunch of steam cash. Cant wait!

[Hunter]

It's not BETA yet, that's coming in a few months I guess. It's just a pre-alpha, so very early in development.

[Avder]

So what kind of scope can we expect for the campaign?

[Lothar]

So what kind of scope can we expect for the campaign?

Right now, there's a planned short (~12 level) mini-campaign. If the game sells to around $2m in revenue, there are plans for a bigger campaign with more epicness.

[Pumo]

A 12 level campaign is not that short, IMO. I would be very happy with that already!
(Although a larger campaign is also a nice thing to have).

Taking secret levels aside, Descent 3 campaign had 15 levels and was everything but short.
Of course, level size, design and scripting plays an important role on per-level gameplay length, and I don't know how the campaign levels on D:U are planned to be.

[vision]

A 12 level campaign is not that short, IMO.

I'm starting to feel ripped off and I want my pledge back. Can I get it back? I certainly don't want 12 massive levels. I hated D3 because of that. I was hoping there would be more momentum for a single player campaign since I have no interest in multi-player. I guess I gambled and lost (quite a big chunk of money, actually). And then there is the fact I'll have to buy a new computer just to play the thing. Oh well.

[Pumo]

I certainly don't want 12 massive levels.

But that's the thing, we already don't know if the levels would be small or big.

If they are small, it would be a bad decision, as it would feel like a rushed-out 'demo' made just to shout the mouths of Single-Player fans.
But if they are massive, as you said, then they may become boring (like D3 Level 10, as an example), and also DS may not be able to release them in time.

The best would be something in the lines the of D1 Mars levels (levels 8 to 10), that are not small at all, but not uber-massive either.
They are just the perfect size, IMO, and I would feel happy with a campaign with levels like that.

[vision]

They are just the perfect size, IMO, and I would feel happy with a campaign with levels like that.

Yeah Mars is great. Still, 12 levels like that would not satisfy me. I'm trying to make myself feel better by focusing on the long-term return, assuming that the Descent community starts putting out lots of great 3rd party campaigns over the next several years. Right now my financial investment is larger than everything I've spent on Descent previous to D:U, so I'm really hoping this keeps the franchise going for another decade.

[Avder]

If they're massive levels like in D3 they better have a good flow to them and not require us to cross them a million times. I'm looking at YOU CED dreadnought.

Strangely, I think the biggest level (Mercs level 3) had decent flow to it. It could have used some trimming. I mean damn that place was ★■◆●ing huge.

I'd also love a few D1 style levels. Get in, get keys, nuke it, gtfo.

[Top Gun]

I have been way too out of the loop when it comes to checking dev posts and watching the weekly videos and such, so imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I get an email saying that I now have access to an actual build of the game for some pre-alpha stress-testing. (Wait, did I even get alpha access at my pledge level? ...apparently I did!) Consider that installer .exe fukken' saved.

[sigma]

People who've got a working alpha version, record a video demo, please!! And tell us what your first impression of the management of ships.

[Top Gun]

Jumped in for a bit yesterday, and even though I was bumbling around like a drunk with the default KB+M config, it felt really good. (Think I saw Scyphi in there.) Can't wait to see how things progress from here.

[Pumo]

@sigma
Here's a video that shows a bit of gameplay of the Alpha version.
[youtube]sPTfON8Mt2I[/youtube]

@Top Gun
What are your system specs? I'm curious as I want to know if my rig may be able to run it well enough.
(When it's out of course, as I don't have access to the Proving Grounds).

[Top Gun]

It might be a bit unfair to post mine, since I just built this rig a few months ago. I'm running an i7-4790K 4.0 GHz with 16GB of RAM and a Zotac GTX 970 4GB card. As you'd expect, the alpha build runs smooth as silk.

[Lothar]

Pumo, what are your system specs? I can give you a good idea of whether or not you can run it based on the current specs of people who have been playing.

Generally speaking you need a dual-core 2.5 GHz or faster processor, 8 GB ram, and like a GTX-560 or above to run it on minimum settings.

[Pumo]

I have a Core i3 2120 (3.3GHz) with 8GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 650 (Planning to upgrade it to a 950 or at least a 750 ti next year).

So regarding CPU and RAM it seems I'm good.

[Lothar]

you're probably good. Don't know about the 650, though.

[vision]

I'm stuck at "establishing uplink to server." Then again, my computer is way below spec so I probably can't play it anyway.

[sigma]

Thank Pumo. Anarchy I had already seen before. Is it in the alpha version there is no single player with robots?

Edit: Aha, I found that the alpha version does not contain single. It's a pity.
P.S. It seems, D:U is like a pump for pumping money from the players. Apparently for nothing I bought a new computer for this game.

[Alter-Fox]

They're going to have a singleplayer campaign by release time, they've been focusing on multiplayer first because it's tougher to get the weapon and movement balance right and it's tougher to debug netcode.

In the meantime if you want singleplayer Sublevel Zero's out now if you're able to get it in Russia.

[sigma]

I always thought that the first must be SP and then MP, and not vice versa. Now all became clear. Thank you. But Sublevel Zero is a different game, right?

[Alter-Fox]

Well there is the fact that Descent players are far more picky about the balance in their multiplayer than players of most other FPS games cuz Descent has those elements of strategy and movement that a lot of other games lack.

Sublevel Zero is a different game, yes.

[Jeff250]

Complaint: it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to link my accounts and then to figure out how to find the link to download the alpha.
Complement: A LINUX BINARY!!!

I don't know if my laptop meets the minimum specifications, but hopefully I can test this out soon, even if just using my laptop keyboard to play! I'm very glad regardless that in the spirit of my contribution linux players are being considered first class citizens.

[Alter-Fox]

That is good to hear, considering the inordinate number of them that wound up in this place.

[vision]

I don't know if my laptop meets the minimum specifications...

Do you think a low end laptop would fail to connect to the server? My launcher is stuck on "establishing uplink..." The computer I use is very old. I don't see the minimum specs listed anywhere on the D:U site.