38 Studios is Working on a Game, Apparently, Afterall (Kingdoms of Amular)

[Tannhauser]

You can watch the Conan episode online here: http://teamcoco.com/video

Either the full episode or the Schilling segments. Two have baseball-related titles but the third is: Curt Schilling Puts Conan in Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning

BTW one other reason for Curt to go on, and to be able to get on, Conan in particular is their Boston connection.

OK that was good stuff!

Back to Amalur, it took me about 18 hours to get out of the first area and I'm doing Might/Finesse.  I really like to go guns blazing with my bow then they step on my freeze trap.  At this point I pull out my big ass greatsword and go to town.  Very satisfying combat, even dodging at the last minute is cool.  The combat's so fun I sometimes wander the world like a lord of death not even pursuing a quest.

As for the storyline, yeah those stones are easily the most annoying part of it.  Most of the quests are snoozers, but I've really enjoyed a handful.  Grabbing the Widow and impaling her on my glowing death-spike was one. I enjoyed that because

[March]

Completely bugged for me.

Black screen for all cinematics (after the first)... then stuck in character page.

Edit: Thanks, turning post processing off fixed it.  Color me intrigued... I may like this *more* than Skyrim... Bethesda games always make me feel like I'm about to do something wrong and ruin my game.

[Mosesandstick]

That was apparently a common issue in the demo fixed by turning post-processing off.

[jakonovski]

23 hours and I'm still hooked. The game just opened up in a big way, and I'm loving it. Some lovely non-combat quests in Ysa. This is approaching Skyrim level of enjoyment for me.

[Hawkbit]

Same here.  This had potential to be one of the greatest RPGs, if not for a few odd design decisions.  Too much HUD/player on the screen, for example.  Which ties into the camera issues.  That's 90% of my complaints. 

They went so far as to create this beautiful fantasy world, but the default camera keeps the player from seeing any of it. 

1.  HUD
2.  FoV
3.  I hate to say: Too much flavor text/lore
4.  DLC issues

I hope it sells well; I'd love to see some more DLC and a sequel with some of this stuff fixed.

[ffc]

What I've done is set my sprint button to a toggle instead of holding it down so I can have an easier time pointing the camera up as I run in order to better see the environment. 

There is also an FOV mod of sorts that is supposed to be a way to enable widescreen for 3 monitors so it's not a perfect solution; there can be some fish-eye and during a battle you can end up really far from the camera.  Follow the instructions here to download the fixer and the appropriate .dll file.  I get an API error with the current fixer so I downloaded the older r312 version.  The common recommendation is to use 5736x1080 and FOV of 170 in the fixer, which makes no sense (almost 3x a horizontal of 1920 which could be for 3 screens and perhaps bezel correction?), but with other settings there are weird results like having a miniature avatar in the in-game menu.  Here are some pics with different settings I tried:

Default:



My desktop resolution, FOV 70:



The crazy 5736x1080, FOV 170 settings (best):



Don't forget to enable the fixer by pressing * (numpad) when at the Reckoning menu screen, and then apply the change by clicking the zoom button (right analog stick on controller) when in game.  If you want to change settings just back out to the Reckoning menu, press * again to turn disable the fixer, alt-tab to the fixer and edit the settings, then alt-tab back to Reckoning, press *, continue to your game and press the zoom button.

[Tarami]

Am I the only one to get extremely fucking frustated with the amount of interrupts, especially in boss battles? It makes hammers seemingly useless, because you can't land a swing before SOMETHING staggers you.

[Tannhauser]

I used a giant hammer for about 5 minutes before I said 'fuck this'.  I suppose if you train some stun skills it would pay off more, but I've found a couple of awesome great swords so I haven't looked back.  Good balance between speed and damage.

[ffc]

There is a skill in the Might tree that lets you go uninterrupted for a few seconds.  I think it's called Reckless Assault.  Cast it and at skill 1 it gives you 6 seconds stun-free but you take increased damage, at skill 5 or 6 it gives you something like 20 seconds stun-free and 0 extra damage.  In my opinion it trivializes the game and I'm going to spec out of it.

I have kept a hammer as my secondary weapon for almost my entire game because I like how weighty the impact feels and it decimates the big guys.  Lots of options to make effective use of a hammer:  hookshot into hammer, dodge an enemy attack and swing from behind after the enemy misses the charge, start with a faster weapon like a longsword until you land a stun, start with a longsword juggle by pressing attack then pause then attack, parry into hammer, hold block until you see an opening then attack while in block (if you put points into the skill), etc. 

I'm full Might right now and have respec'd at least 4 times, going to go full Sorcery just for giggles after I attempt to craft some magely robes.

[Tarami]

Oh yeah, I'll try that... once I've tired of drawing the bow, waiting for them to come up close then KA-POW! releasing a dozen arrows into their bowels. It's more efficient than hitting them with a 600 pound hammer, strangely enough.

Otherwise, I think it's a fun game and well above what was my cynical expectations. First game in a long time that I feel gets random loot just about right.

[Tannhauser]

There's almost too much loot you know?  I'm running to my next quest and oh hey there's a plant I need, oh some crates that need a-smashing, wait I see a chest, time to pick the lock, oh that barghest just attacked, what's he got in it's pockets precious?

Wait, was I doing something?

My best weapon I bought at the second Warsworn keep; a blue great sword of horror 84 base damage, 22 Piercing that has a 30% chance to stun anything that dares hit me.

Very glad money is valuable in this game, but then my Mercantile skill is kind of low.

[Tarami]

Yeah, there's a point to collecting virtually everything you come across, which is neat. I stopped smashing things though, unless there's an absurd amount of them, when it's worth doing just for the satisfaction.

For a single player only game, the game systems are really rather well designed and balanced. Between vendors, quest rewards, random drops and crafting, there's always an upgrade around the corner. I mean, they've even taken into account that you can go past the max level in skills through item bonuses - most of my Might skills are now at +3, so some are 9/6, for extreme amounts of genocide. You might argue that the bonus would be useless otherwise but seriously few games... well, respect the combat systems like that. If the item says "Adds 10% to your asskicking" you can expect it to do so. You don't have to check every single stat against the character stats just to make sure.

This is what Hellgate should have been, I guess. All in all it's not a fantastic, genre-thwarting game but it sure as hell is a well made one. I've had one tiny snafu where the camera got stuck in, what, 40 hours of play?

[Rendakor]

What exactly is money valuable for? I have ~120k and nothing really to spend it on. The only thing I could think of was respeccing, buying training in every skill (since they'd all be back at 0) before spending my points to get a few free non-combats but it seemed cheesy and so I didn't bother. I've got high blacksmithing so gear on the vendors isn't usually an upgrade, and I've only seen the one backpack for sale in the first city. I bought a house in the spider village and fully upgraded it, and I'm still swimming in cash. This is with 0 points in Mercantile by the way.

[bhodi]

It's for buying crystals to combine to make into gems. I guess.

[jakonovski]

I ran into and beat the mother of all interrupt bosses so far,  On top of that it had a couple of one shot kill combos that were a total pain to avoid. Most of my (finesse/sorcery) abilities did fuck all damage for some reason, pretty much the only things worth anything were Mark of Flame and Summon Faer Gorta. The Mark staggered things and the skeleton did most of the dps while I dodged interrupts like crazy. I think it took me about 20 attempts.

[ffc]

Hah, I went back to finish that faction quest and I am stuck on the same boss.  I'm playing on hard, switched to full Sorcery, and have been having a fine time but that fight is quite the difficulty spike.  I died so many times I got the "you should tone down the difficulty, friend" notice.  I can't believe the summoned creature helps you though, mine just stands around watching me die.  I want reckless assault back.  :/

I bought a house in the spider village [...]

Gah.  I slaughtered everyone in that town because of their cowardice.  If they have the energy to barricade themselves in then they have the energy to fight!  And now I have no house for my troubles.  Then I was just exploring the area and stumbled upon a bloody farm.  I may have missed an interesting side quest.  I will take out my frustration on the next town.

[luckton]

I downloaded the demo off Steam.  After loading it up and taking in the intro, and after doing the character creation bit, I have a blank black screen, but I can hear all the effects and stuff in the background.

I'm too lazy and disinterested to troubleshoot this myself, so if anyone knows something off the top of their head about addressing this problem, I'mma pass on this game.

[dd0029]

I had this problem as well, disable post-processing in the graphics options .

[Job601]

Hah, I went back to finish that faction quest and I am stuck on the same boss.  I'm playing on hard, switched to full Sorcery, and have been having a fine time but that fight is quite the difficulty spike.  I died so many times I got the "you should tone down the difficulty, friend" notice.  I can't believe the summoned creature helps you though, mine just stands around watching me die.  I want reckless assault back.  :/

I'm playing on hard with what I'm sure is a suboptimal but very fun evenly split might/sorcery build, and I found this fight very difficult too.  I had to use a bunch of buff potions and abuse the blink/dodge you get to stay close to her.  Reckless assault did help, but not as much as you might think due to its fairly long cooldown.

I thought the whole House of Ballads questline was a lot of fun, by the way, even with the multiple "run through nearly identical caves" sections.  The last area with the journey to the Maid's castle was well-executed, and fully-realized for a game like this.

[jakonovski]

Hah, I went back to finish that faction quest and I am stuck on the same boss.  I'm playing on hard, switched to full Sorcery, and have been having a fine time but that fight is quite the difficulty spike.  I died so many times I got the "you should tone down the difficulty, friend" notice.  I can't believe the summoned creature helps you though, mine just stands around watching me die.  I want reckless assault back.  :/

The skeleton was fairly useless until I started summoning him before the battle, that way he targeted the boss just fine. I did it on hard too, and the difficulty notices were really annoying. Not as bad as God of War though, that game started telling me to lower the difficulty when I died a lot in one of the idiotic platforming sections.
 

[bhodi]

So, I just did that faction quest. I'm not sure why you guys were having trouble, I beat it with no issues. Did you have your fate saved up? If not, I could see how it could be difficult, I guess, if you weren't might/sorc (OP) + Greatsword and had a full fate bar. Fate-mode is auto-win.

[Rendakor]

So, I just did that faction quest. I'm not sure why you guys were having trouble, I beat it with no issues. Did you have your fate saved up? If not, I could see how it could be difficult, I guess, if you weren't might/sorc (OP) + Greatsword and had a full fate bar. Fate-mode is auto-win.

This. I'm going tri-spec but still using Greatsword and fate just roflstomped her.

[jakonovski]

Yeah, fate mode solves everything but mine wasn't full and I didn't feel like backtracking.

[ffc]

I was also out of fate juice, using chakrams and staff.  I died a few more times and then I accidentally found an extra dialogue option.  We fight no more.     I agree the end of this quest paid off for all the cave spelunking, hopefully the thieving gypsy faction quest turns out the same.

[Spiff]

Hardest interrupt boss I found by far still:
Maid was almost a pushover after him  .

I am avoiding fate/god mode almost entirely now though, makes what's otherwise pretty solid combat too trivial for even my rheumatic old hands.

[murdoc]

I'm about 10 hours into this and enjoying the Hell out of it. I've barely touched the 'main' storyline and have been just doing side quests/faction quests so far. The combat is a LOT of fun, and really fluid. I do find the controls to be a little off and I tend to dodge in the wrong direction sometimes. Not having any sort of jump is, I thought, an odd choice.

I'm full finesse right now, with points in Stealth and Mercantile - but I think I'l respec soon to Blacksmithing since the money comes pretty easily now. Would like to end up with a Finesse/Sorcery hybrid. It's different not playing a heavy armour wearing, big sword swinging class as that's what I usually do. I can see me replaying this game with a full Might character.

Count me as pleasantly surprised.

[Hutch]

Kingdoms of Amalur sells 330k retail copies in Feb 2012

According to the article, that number is spread across PC, Xbox, and PS3.

It's worth noting that the 330,000 count ... only includes retail sales and not copies purchased on digital platforms.

So they didn't tally up the Steam and EA digital sales in the 330k.

I have no idea if this means that 38 made any money or not 

[HaemishM]

I'm going to guess that even without the digital distribution outlets, YES, they made money.

[Paelos]

Good?

[ffc]

DLC was released this week.  $10 for a pirate area.  I won't be getting it.  By the time I crossed the water to the second half of the map, my character was a tornado of destruction, there were no new enemy types and I had lost track of the story so I just sprinted through to the end.  My game map tracks my interest levels pretty accurately.

[Paelos]

In a small irony, the last section you circled looks like a pink maxi-pad.

[Tannhauser]

Yeah, the region of Alabastra is basically a long linear path.  Not much in the way of quests, just fight your way down to the end.  Note how few locations there are on that side on the above map.  I don't know how big the DLC is, but I'm not interested right now.  A great game though, and I'm very interested in seeing their MMO ideas.

[Hawkbit]

The DLC adds a whopping 15% landmass to the game.  I don't know how much actual gameplay/questing there is, but I've heard maybe 10 hours or so. 

I traded the PS3 version in, and bought the Steam version.  I am much happier playing it on PC with a 360 controller.  Its crisper and more fluid, plus a LOT less jaggies. 

I bought the DLC even though I won't get to in awhile.  I like this game and this world.  I want to keep supporting it.  I just wish they weren't part of EA.  To me, its a nearly perfect game for my schedule.  I can play it for 15 minutes and actually get something done.

[murdoc]

I just finished the DLC and it did take me about 10 hours, but I did pretty much every single thing you could. Some nice rewards, including your own keep. Can't fast travel to it though  

I'm still in the 'Still fun!' section, but i'm starting to slow down on doing every single quest and streamlining it to faction and main questlines.

I like this game and this world.  I want to keep supporting it.  I just wish they weren't part of EA.  To me, its a nearly perfect game for my schedule.  I can play it for 15 minutes and actually get something done.

I feel the exact same way. I go do stuff in 15-30 minute chunks if I want which suits my time right now.

[Spiff]

I kind of liked the pacing towards the end as well actually, it's very rare for me not to feel "let's get this over with" by the last half/third of an RPG and it fitted my schedule of inevitable fatigue very nicely.
That's just the most minor of nits to pick though.

Lots of small improvements they could make (not a GOTY or anything for me), but definitely enough to get me looking forward to any follow-ups.
Also their timing vis à vis Skyrim was almost perfect imo, all of the things that bothered me about TES were better here and the things it lacked TES had satiated me on.