*** Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning ***

Omaeka said:
What I said wasn't having a go at you or anything like that. :p
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No, absolutely....I find this game probably the most frustrating I have played in recent years, despite how much I like it, as the issues it has are so obvious and easily fixable, that it really could, and should have been a great game....the biggest one for me atm, as it is just the way I play every game, is the captions...every time I start a conversation with an NPC, half the screen goes black and the subtitles appear, it totally pulls you out of the game and I find it bizarre that nobody thought how much better it would be without it!

I am about 12 hours in atm, still in the firs area. I had to turn it up to hard, as combat was so easy, and I very rarely do that!

Also, I had the Shepard armour, from some kind of pre-order bonus or something(basically N7 armour from Mass Effect) and it was far better than any other armour I found in the first 10 hours!
 
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Yeah, the subtitles being forced was a little too intrusive, but the game had pretty good lore and dialogues. For a small company starting their first game that's quite impressive, no doubt that they didn't want anyone missing a word. :p

I think that the only real issue I had personally was the difficulty, there was no challenge regardless of the difficulty and when a studio creates a really, really good combat system (especially in an RPG!) there should be much higher difficulties. Still though, I don't like how the average person is completely ready to overlook some really horrible design issues in huge titles, but then critisize really small budget games for the exact same reason. Surely it should be the other way around? The more budget and hype a game has, the less issues it should have. I thought that the amount of polish KoA had was amazing for the budget and considering it had EA publishing it. No doubt they were rushed to release it and some things got overlooked, but considering that, its a very clean game.

Worst part is, the studio went bust and the KoA I.P. + engine have faded into nothing, so we'll never see a second one. :(
 
Pighardia said:
Also, I had the Shepard armour, from some kind of pre-order bonus or something(basically N7 armour from Mass Effect) and it was far better than any other armour I found in the first 10 hours!
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I got the armour and weapons pack(day 1 DLC purchase, don't go there:mad: ) and I was crafting better armour and weapons pretty quickly, they just don't look as good.:(
 
The main problem I had with this game, is it felt like it was trying to be an MMO.
I just got bored and ended up just wanting to finish it, felt like I was playing Rift.
 
wordy said:
I got the armour and weapons pack(day 1 DLC purchase, don't go there:mad: ) and I was crafting better armour and weapons pretty quickly, they just don't look as good.:(
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I always stay away from smithing in my first playthrough of a game, and just use what I find throughout the game. I have found many better individual pieces of armour, but the item set bonus for the full set has always meant it hasn't been worth changing one piece. Also, as you say, nothing looks as good as it!
 
Coincidentally, this appeared on my news feed earlier-

http://www.theage.com.au/digital-li...urt-and-video-game-racism-20130903-2t1ns.html


Kurt Schilling to face court for allegedly defrauding the state
Ex baseball star Kurt Schilling has had a terrible couple of years. The video game studio he founded in order to realise his creative vision created a bomb, the poorly-received Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, leading to the studio's bankruptcy and closure, and the loss of a substantial portion of Schilling's life savings.
Now, the lawsuit that has been threatening for two years is finally going ahead. The state of Rhode Island, specifically in the form of the state's Economic Development Corporation, provided the security for a massive US$75 million loan to Schilling's 38 Studios. The company folded, the loan went into defaulted, and the state of Rhode Island had to pick up the tab.
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....really couldn't have gone much worse as far as this game was concerned could it?!
 
Pighardia said:
Coincidentally, this appeared on my news feed earlier-

http://www.theage.com.au/digital-li...urt-and-video-game-racism-20130903-2t1ns.html


....really couldn't have gone much worse as far as this game was concerned could it?!
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They would have been okay if it wasn't for politics. They had been offered the loan by the previous governor to move to Rhode Island, did alright with KOA:R, and were close to finishing their MMO that looked really good. They were about to sign a big deal with a publisher for a KOA followup, and the new governor (who had always been against the loan to 38 Studios), basically pulled the rug out from under them publicly.

Not only did the governor screw them over by calling them bankrupt (when they weren't), he also stopped the third tranche of the previously agreed loan. This caused the publisher deal to collapse, loans to default, etc.

KOA:R was pretty successful (sold over three and a half million copies IIRC), and was pitched as a single player version of the MMO. The MMO looked really good, and was pitched as a WoW killer, but they burned through money at an unbelievable rate. Without the agreed loans and publishing deal, 38 Studios were dead in the water.

The interesting thing about KOA, was that it was originally a different game that had been reworked (and the developers bought by 38 Studios) into the KOA setting. It looks like those developers are making a followup that will again be a single player MMO style game with again a different backdrop.
 
It is a shame, as Reckoning, and the setting, show a lot of promise. A follow up with the same mechanics would definitely be near the top of my list... What this game really needs is a kind of 'ultimate edition' re-release, similar to how Dragon's Dogma did on the consoles. They basically looked at the game, and the criticisms people had about it, and released a slightly tweaked version a year or so after first release, which improved the game massively, and turned it from a missed opportunity into a really good game. Obviously, this can't happen now though:(

I hope a similarly made followup is made, as there is a market for this type of game imo.

PS . I am starting to encounter quite a few bugs all of a sudden!
 
I know some people saw a lot of bugs (there was only ever one patch on the PC version), but I never saw any apart from the odd quest item that wouldn't disappear from my inventory.

I found it a lot of fun to play, lots of atmosphere and storyline, lots to do and see. I played as a magic user, and filled out every part of the skills tree. There's something very satisfying about filling the whole screen with a meteor strike!
 
It was all such a shame. Schilling was a big gamer himself, cared about the genre, and put a lot on the line to make it happen. They had built a good game with a good IP (rubbish name) but it all got screwed by politics. (Curt was/is a very vocal Republican).

Lot of good people lost their livelihoods over the whole mess and Curt lost the best part of his career earnings over it.

Vanguard was a bigger mess.
 
I played a fair bit today, and still enjoying it, though as I said I am starting to see lots of bugs. I will probably get the DLC tomorrow if I can find a decent deal on it.

It really is a rich, lovely world to explore... It's just a shame the exploration isn't a bit more 'free'. The invisible walls do get in the way a little.
 
24 hours in, and I am lucky if the game loads at all now!... Not sure I will finish it after all.

I think this game does settlements quite well, though I am yet to see an RPG that really has a good city to explore... Imperial City in Oblivion is probably the closest.

I might look for the DLC cheap today.(Edit- Far too expensive!!!)
 
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Really loved KoA. Need to pick up the dlc sometime. Wish you didnt need the widescreen fix just to make it playable.
 
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