Update 15
Tracy Hickman![edit]
Feb 19 2015
We are thrilled to announce that Tracy Hickman is lined up to write a novel for Underworld Ascendant. Tracy is a best-selling fantasy author, known for the Dragonlance series, the Death Gate Cycle and Apogee of Fear to name a few. He also co-wrote with Richard Garriott, Blade of the Avatar, the book that tells the story behind Shroud of the Avatar.
Tracy’s talents as a fantasy author, together with his deep experience with gaming and close collaboration on Shroud of the Avatar, a world connected to ours, make him ideally suited to write the Underworld Ascendant novel. The novel is going to be set several generations before the game takes place, and tell the story of how a band of Dark Elves from the land of the Shroud of the Avatar passed through a magic portal to make an exodus into the Stygian Abyss. It will tell of their trials in this harsh and dangerous underworld, and of how they carved out a place for themselves.
Tracy talks about how excited he is to be joining with OtherSide:
We will need the help of our Backers to make this happen. Tracy’s novel is being rolled into our first $750,000 stretch goal. Let’s bring Tracy aboard!
Other Announcements[edit]
Hope you didn't miss the first OtherSide plays LookingGlass Twitch session yesterday. Over 15,000 people joined us on this romp through Thief, with Paul, Tim, Chris, Randy Smith, and of course the stealthy Garrett. If you missed out, you can watch the archive HERE.
We wanted to highlight another of the special rewards. This time it's the Amethyst Ankh, a magical amulet given to backers at the $150 or higher pledge tiers. This artifact was forged long ago by Dwarven miners, while seeking hidden veins of gold. For when wealth is near, the Amethyst Ankh glows with a purple light alerting it's wearer to the nearby treasure. Useful for miners and adventurers alike. May yours be eternally lit!
Over the last 2 weeks a number of folks have been asking about Mac and Linux versions. From our forum poll on platforms, we’ve also learned that a larger percentage of you play on Mac or Linux than we had anticipated. There is also some information suggesting that a non-trivial number of people who have come to check out the Underworld Ascendant Kickstarter page move on as soon as they see that we’re only showing Windows support up front.
So… we have decided to roll Mac and Linux support into the base funding goal. There are tradeoffs when moving around features within a budget, but this seems worthwhile. One tradeoff is that it will likely mean we’ll need to hold off for a month or possibly longer to release the Mac and Linux versions following the initial Windows release (staging it this way helps to minimize budget impact.)
If making this change brings in new backers and funding, then it will all be a wash, as we’ll be that much more likely to go past our first stretch goal. We do suggest that our Mac and Linux backers take a peek at a tier or two above where they are currently pledged...
The Team at OtherSide