Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning

I bought it.
It is a nice couch relaxation game.
It's lot like how I end uplaying MMOs solo.

Glad I did.
It has none of the awkward feeling I get from shooters on the console; except for a bit of tunnel vision effect, but that's probably just becausee I'm used to playing at a higher resolution on PC.

Is there a way around that?

I'm about a little over 50 hours into KOA:R (including the Legend of Dead Kel DLC) and it's a real shame we don't be seeing a sequel. I've really enjoyed it. The combat feels good, the areas are varied and colourful and I LOVE the idea of being able to re-roll my character at any time. Truth be told, I only did it once so far to take back a couple of skills that I didn't end up using but I love that the option is there.

Negatives? Inventory limits. I know there are places to expand your inventory but I've only casually stumbled on one of them so far. Also, I refuse to put ability points into dispel but dammit I can't resist trying to unlock chests anyways. Then of course I randomly get cursed and have to trudge back to a healer or reload my save.

I'm a little burnt out at the moment, having played too much in a short span of time but I think there's still a large chunk of gametime left for me when I continue.

I'll probably have to give it the "no side quest" treatment, but in this one, the side quests are really compelling.

I put a ridiculous amount of hours in on this game when it came out (and I loved every minute). I think I need to go back and play through it again some time.

BTW, I heard a radio report recently that Curt Schilling was auctioning The Bloody Sock to try to raise some money to pay down his debts. Problem was, it wasn't *the* original bloody sock - that one was thrown away. It was a bloody sock from game 2 of the world series.

The sock went for $92,613.

Inventory management was a difficulty. You eventually get more storage, but I wanted to keep a copy of every unique armor and weapon. Eventually, I just had to get rid of or sell stuff due to inventory limits.

Just like my bank in WoW.

I'm skimming to avoid spoilers, but this may have already been discussed.
Can we turn on spoiler courtesies in the thread for the next wave of trailing edgers? ...since the thread was pretty much dead and burried.

When did this come out relative to Skyrim?
I'm finding them very similar.
I'm still a bit baffled as to why it broke 38 studios. Probably the expensive cast and crew.
I like it a lot - for what I need. I need a relaxing couch time game, with my brain mostly off, and controls easy for PC gamer.

I do see a huge map, of which I've experienced a third, and I'm burning out on the pigeon hole nature of the classes and their appearance. It seems like a smart efficient development strategy. Not a game breaker.

I'm a no side quest guy. I have to force myself to stick to the main or I won't finish the game; in any game. This one, I'm compelled to do the side quests. Maybe more than the main. This may be the eventual petering out of it for me. I'm just not driven to the main quest. Becoming a rogue warsworn is more important.

Ghostship wrote:

I'm still a bit baffled as to why it broke 38 studios. Probably the expensive cast and crew.

I'm pretty sure the MMO that spent 6 years in development and was nowhere near completion is what broke 38 Studios. I think without that, the studio that made this game would probably have been fine.

kuddles wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

I'm still a bit baffled as to why it broke 38 studios. Probably the expensive cast and crew.

I'm pretty sure the MMO that spent 6 years in development and was nowhere near completion is what broke 38 Studios. I think without that, the studio that made this game would probably have been fine.

I'd agree that, specifically, yes, it was, but also, no, generally, it wasn't. Considering that KoA:R was supposed to "fix" a money problem/save a bloated project via unrealistic target sale numbers, I don't think it's a stretch to think that clueless people were making some big decisions unchecked. Which is to say, "It's not strictly the MMO, but managerial incompetency"; I'd speculate that they could've been making anything that wasn't especially small and focused and they would've gone bust in the same or a similar way.

Of course, had the MMO come out after six years, it's pretty unlikely it would've made them a lot of money unless there was some genre-changing aspect to it. Based on how far along it wasn't after all that time, that seems unlikely.

Skyrim came out in November 2011, and KoA came out in February 2012. Lots of comparisons were made the time. I played Skyrim after KoA, and I enjoyed both for what they are.

The main quest gets more interesting later on. It's perfectly fine to work on side quests beforehand. Just to let you know, you can keep playing after you finish the main quest.

kuddles wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

I'm still a bit baffled as to why it broke 38 studios. Probably the expensive cast and crew.

I'm pretty sure the MMO that spent 6 years in development and was nowhere near completion is what broke 38 Studios. I think without that, the studio that made this game would probably have been fine.

Symptom of me ignoring it after a certain development time. I should have known that.

I was looking at it as a weak AAA single player. It could have done well in that regard if I just look at the end result.

Wasn't Reckoning in development at BHG before they were acquired by 38, and it was then moulded into Amalur?

ianunderhill wrote:

I'd agree that, specifically, yes, it was, but also, no, generally, it wasn't. Considering that KoA:R was supposed to "fix" a money problem/save a bloated project via unrealistic target sale numbers, I don't think it's a stretch to think that clueless people were making some big decisions unchecked.

Yeah, but that's kind of what I was getting at. If it was just a game on it's own released by EA, I think it's sales would have been impressive enough for a new RPG IP entry. The problem is that the sales expectations and the IP were attached to what was a giant sinkhole of debt.

Scratched wrote:

Wasn't Reckoning in development at BHG before they were acquired by 38, and it was then moulded into Amalur?

That seems to be the story, although who knows exactly how much of the original game survived after that long of a period.

kuddles wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Wasn't Reckoning in development at BHG before they were acquired by 38, and it was then moulded into Amalur?

That seems to be the story, although who knows exactly how much of the original game survived after that long of a period.

That's the thing, nothing that was linked with 38 ever seemed to be something you'd say was on a course for success.

Just picked this up on Steam sale, downloading now. Anyone else grab this?

NathanialG wrote:

Just picked this up on Steam sale, downloading now. Anyone else grab this?

Yep - $25 was too good to pass up for everything. I played the demo months ago and it was fun, but I just lost track of it.

So I'm wrapping things up in the three big initial areas, and I'm going to have that choice between

Spoiler:

staying true to the Warsworn or stabbing them in the back.

I like the idea of being evil a lot more in this game. Especially having wikied the respective twists of fate for this particular choice. But will that cut me off from stuff on the eastern continent - named NPCs and quests and such?

Decisions like that will have repercussions later on. They remember, and news travels faster than you do.

It doesn't really have a negative impact on the rest of the story, but it does make a difference.

Finally fired this up last night. Thinking I'll go finesse/sorcery.

Anyway, just checking: The group consensus here was to just do main quests and faction quests as to not over-level everything right?

Stele wrote:

Finally fired this up last night. Thinking I'll go finesse/sorcery.

Anyway, just checking: The group consensus here was to just do main quests and faction quests as to not over-level everything right?

Yes. On Hard difficulty.

Oh I started on Normal. Had to use a couple health potions on the opening sequence boss, but that's the only time I came close to dying. Perhaps you're right...

Hard or don't bother, and even Hard isn't hard enough. And that's for anyone, not just my fellow vanquishers of Gwyn.

Yeah, Hard is the way to go. Normal is a joke it's so easy.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Hard or don't bother...

garion333 wrote:

Yeah, Hard is the way to go....

Heheheheheheheehehhe

Veloxi wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Hard or don't bother...

garion333 wrote:

Yeah, Hard is the way to go....

Heheheheheheheehehhe

If you like that, I hope you saw my back and forth with Legion on Twitter this morning.

Barely touched my Twitter this morning. I'll take a look when I come up for air.

So apparently nothing has changed since the demo for me... I still can't figure out this disenchant thing.

I mean it says press the button when it's over the circle. So I press the button... circle starts counting... press on the next one... the next one... circles going... but somehow I fail?

I don't get it. I watched two youtube videos. It looks so simple. But yet every time I fail. And get cursed. And waste more money curing that than whatever I gain from the dispelled thing... :Mad:

Oh, you mean the lockpicking/disarming thingamajig? Yeah, I dunno if anyone really figured that out. I skipped every chest with one of those thingies.

No, lockpicking I get. You push until it rattles, then move the lock a bit, push again. I can do it without losing picks most of the time.

The dispel thing where it goes in a circle and tells you to click on the icons on the circle...

Yeah, that bullsh*t. No idea what they were trying there, but it utterly failed.

Aw crap, there was a trick to doing that disenchant thing but now I can't remember it. It's easier than it seems at first because you don't have to do something that most people do naturally ... dammit now I have to fire the game up again to remember.

NOW I remember! You don't have to click ON the icons. You can click anywhere - you just have to get the timing right and click when the sweeping circle is over the icon. Also, don't try to get adjacent icons by clicking fast. Let the sweeping circle go around and catch them on multiple rotations. Click the longer lasting ones first, since they will give you a rotation or two and remain active so you can catch the shorter lasting ones on the next rotation.

Here's a video I made - the thing to note here is that I am not trying to click fast to catch adjacent icons. I'm just letting the sweeping circle go around while the slower ones time out, until I am able to get them all activated at the same time.