[Jessie Rae Brouillette]

How much content do they each have? Are they interesting?

There's quite a lot of content for each faction, as far as I can tell, especially if you're going to intersperse the faction quests with side quests. I'm very early in the game... A friend and I are co-playing one character on his system, and we've just finished the House of Ballads faction storyline. (We seem to be about halfway through the Warsworn faction.) Twas fascinating. I don't know what RPS are on about when they say there's no "opera" to the game, because that's blatantly false. The House of Ballads alone gave some really good story.

To those of you who don't like KoA's stories: what were you expecting? I really don't get it. Sure, some (most?) of the sidequests might be a tad bland (although I think even most main storylines in most games could take a page from them), but they're there to pad out the rest of the game. What do you think about the faction quests and the main storyline?

[Mark Churchman]

I'm starting to think that a greatsword wielding battlemage isn't a viable skill combination. Those damn things take forever and a half to swing and leave you very vulnerable to enemy attacks. Also having to divide skillpoints between Might and Sorcery means it takes longer for the good stuff of both to unlock

I've been doing a Longsword battlemage, and it's working nicely. The various longsword attacks, supported by the ice/fire/lightning spells goes quite well. (Like I said earlier, though.... the part where high-end Blacksmithing+Sagecrafting can make gear that crushes nigh everything you can find may be helping my build succeed. Using crafted Sylvanite gear with pristine/epic gems in them, I've got 1000+ armor and a longsword that's listed at 170 damage. With the various +damage% abilities, though, actual hits do much more.)

[Alkira rose Nankivell]

24 hours of play into the game...

I've discovered the "Mage's Guild".

Before this game every RPG you played was compared to "The Elder Scrolls" series.

To compare it to "Morrowind", "Oblivion" or "Skyrim" is simply natural. They represent the paradigm.

However this is the first RPG that actually shines so brightly you don't see Bethesda's shadow.

The more I play this the more I realise this is a work of genius on so many different levels.

People have been instructed by what they read on the internet to say that this game doesn't do anything innovative because the conventions of a Fantasy Adventure are present in the story.

Without these conventions it woudln't actually be a Fantasy Adventure.

What's innovative is how everything is done so well in this smooth running, vast and entertaining game.

Az

[ezra]

So I'm running through the Warsworn quest lines and am getting massively owned in the quest Lock and Key? We've made our way into the chamber which is filled with mages and I'm just getting one shotted by them all - not making a dent on them at all. I'm only level 5, is this too low a level or is there some sort of technique I'm missing?

Its actually saying 'resisted' no matter what weapon I choose??

[Tasha Clifford]

Yes you are too low level if they kept resisting. Color of their names represent how difficult they are to you. Grey means insignificantly easy, yellow are adequate, orange is somewhat tougher, red names are the pain.

[BrEezy Baby]

Emz, what TinyHowie said. Try to sprinkle a few sidequests between each leg of the faction quests, for future reference.

[Emma Pennington]

I thought this game was level scaled?

I suppose the lower level limits actually matter in this one, then

[Alina loves Alexandra]

Yeah, I am about to finish the Warsworn questline with my level twenty. It is a nice up in challenge, compared to what I have been experiencing with the game. The questline was pretty damn good if you ask me. Same with House of Ballads.

[Reven Lord]

I thought this game was level scaled?

I suppose the lower level limits actually matter in this one, then

I think the level scaling is a bit fixed under the range which you were supposed to be at. So each zone or questline would have its own level range.

[Natalie J Webster]

The dungeons seem more level scaled than the zones. I've finally hit the desert area (after the forest and the plains), and I'm amazingly over-leveled for the zones - everything's grey and dies pretty easy. But when I do dungeon quests, the general mobs are yellow and the bosses are orange.

I pretty much haven't run into any red mobs, but that's because I'm OCD about clearing out a zone of sidequests before moving on.... if I have a chain quest that says "Ok, next step is 4 zones away", it means that I'm going to be clearing out those 4 zones before I get to it. I was around 20 when I hit the Warsworn fight you're talking about. Haven't finished that chain yet, because I've not reached the one big city - have to clear the desert first.

[Robert]

Did Curt Shilling actually do dev work on the game? I ask because he seems to be doing the media circuit for the game which seems....odd? Can't imagine anyone from Beth going on Conan to promote the game....?

Is he basically just a figurehead used by EA to promote the game or an actual programmer who did work on the game?

Curt Schilling formed 38 Studios with the money he saved up from his baseball contracts. He hired Todd Macfarlane and R. A. Salvatore to work on the universe for the, still in development, Copernicus MMO in the Massachusetts/Rhode Island ofiice. When THQ decided to shut down or sell Big Huge Games in Baltimore, where Ken Rolsten ended up after retiring from Bethesda, and then unretiring, Schilling bought them from THQ, and decided to have them work on adapting their in progress action RPG to the Amalur universe. He is not a figure head put up by EA for promotion, but the actual owner of this and the upcoming IP. EA just published the game (except the Steam version, which 38 Studios self published). As far as development of the game, Curt hired the people working on the game and payed for their paychecks, office rent, and equipment, but he did not write any code himself. Without Curt, you don't have Amalur. I think he has invested something like $35 million in the two projects.

[Jade MacSpade]

I thought this game was level scaled?

I suppose the lower level limits actually matter in this one, then

The Dungeons are the only thing that's level scaled in Reckoning, those automatically scale to your level and only one time like Skyrim. The outside areas are level locked to what ever level you are when you enter the zone and what the area's max/min level is. I liked the feature at 1st but I'm not a big fan of it now, partial scaling is much better.

[Anna Krzyzanowska]

I have a question is it on an open world scale like The Elder Scrolls.

I am interested in this title to see how much its the same and different from Skyrim if that makes sense. If its good and an open world I hope Bethesda will step up there game and really polish Skyrim and rid it of all its bugs and make a better effert in future installments of TES series because they ghave some competition.

[GEo LIme]

I have a question is it on an open world scale like The Elder Scrolls.

No.

It's more like "The Legend Of Zelda" or "Grand Theft Auto".

You have access to large areas but where you can physically go is restricted to the playing area.

Whereas in "Morrowind" you could cast a Levitation spell and physically walk from one end of the map to the other here you will be blocked.

If you Google the Amalur Local Map and World Map and you'll have a better idea.

It is a really huge game though, even more so when you consider the speed and ease at which your character travels and there is a ton to do.

Az

[Carlos Vazquez]

my character is mixed. my emphasis is longsword
with archery then lightening spells
works really well
do yourself a favor and get the sets for lorestones they will make a huge difference
i have all of them on the western side except 6 fall lorestones
the fall lorestones are all in dungeons
i also did a quest and got a amulet that keeps me health regen of 10% every second [called Doctors medellion].. i have armour that gives me 2.5 and 1.5
plus the regen i got from one of the lorestones of 1 [summer] so about 15% regen every second
anyway
i am very hard to kill

[Charity Hughes]

Yes you are too low level if they kept resisting. Color of their names represent how difficult they are to you. Grey means insignificantly easy, yellow are adequate, orange is somewhat tougher, red names are the pain.

Emz, what TinyHowie said. Try to sprinkle a few sidequests between each leg of the faction quests, for future reference.

Thanks guys. I guess I'm so damned used to the TES system where you can play the whole game at level 1 if you wanted.

Sort of ruins the immersion though to have to leave halfway through a quest line and come back later. Ah well, I should have done my research I guess.

Curt Schilling formed 38 Studios with the money he saved up from his baseball contracts. He hired Todd Macfarlane and R. A. Salvatore to work on the universe for the, still in development, Copernicus MMO in the Massachusetts/Rhode Island ofiice. When THQ decided to shut down or sell Big Huge Games in Baltimore, where Ken Rolsten ended up after retiring from Bethesda, and then unretiring, Schilling bought them from THQ, and decided to have them work on adapting their in progress action RPG to the Amalur universe. He is not a figure head put up by EA for promotion, but the actual owner of this and the upcoming IP. EA just published the game (except the Steam version, which 38 Studios self published). As far as development of the game, Curt hired the people working on the game and payed for their paychecks, office rent, and equipment, but he did not write any code himself. Without Curt, you don't have Amalur. I think he has invested something like $35 million in the two projects.

Thanks for this info too. Good to know.

[SexyPimpAss]

played some of this game last night, i'm really liking it so far. Totally think the fae are ugly, especially with the altmer hair they all seem to sport. This game really reminds me of fable 2, except bigger.

[Emma]

I have a few more niggles.

Wolves and bears. They pepper the entire landscape. They're not actually challenging; rather, they're there to nibble at your resources. I dislike this.

The plain region's quests are annoying. A lot of the quests make you redo the whole map, which includes re-fighting monsters (over and over again) that you've already killed.

I'm noticing micro visual- and audio-stuttering. This should not be happening with a game that is as undemanding as Reckoning.

The combat animation lock-ins are getting to me. They could have done interesting things with the combat to resolve this problem. They didn't. I'm revising my score downward, to a 4/5.

The interface becomes more irritating the more you use it. And does anybody use the potion radial? I didn't need potions before, so I didn't become accustomed to using the menu. Now that I do, I'd rather just use the inventory menu proper.

EA just published the game (except the Steam version, which 38 Studios self published).

I would still really like a link to this assertion...

[jessica sonny]

All i can say is ..I love this game. Its a nice break from Skyrim. After 190 hrs.i needed to find something new.

[hannah sillery]

Finally plowed through the demo. Unfortunately, it was SO buggy I couldn't even enjoy it. After the first 4 conversations with NPCs, the dialog mechanics were broken, the sound completely dropped out, and I couldn't initiate any of the dialog wheel options. Not to mention the horrible, choppy animations. I realize that this is just a demo and many of these glitches would have been ironed out in the final release. Unfortunately this is also my first impression of the game and I'm not likely to spend $60 on it now. I don't find the combat particularly compelling (it just feels like God of War/Force Unleashed) and the whole world seems incredibly linear, considering this is suppose to be an "open world" adventure. I mean, what is with all of the invisible walls? And while I appreciate what they were trying to accomplish with the over-saturated art style, as a whole the art direction is really inconsistent. I really wanted to love this game but nothing about it has grabbed me.

[Mizz.Jayy]

I have a few more niggles.

Wolves and bears. They pepper the entire landscape. They're not actually challenging; rather, they're there to nibble at your resources. I dislike this.

The plain region's quests are annoying. A lot of the quests make you redo the whole map, which includes re-fighting monsters (over and over again) that you've already killed.

I'm noticing micro visual- and audio-stuttering. This should not be happening with a game that is as undemanding as Reckoning.

The combat animation lock-ins are getting to me. They could have done interesting things with the combat to resolve this problem. They didn't. I'm revising my score downward, to a 4/5.

The interface becomes more irritating the more you use it. And does anybody use the potion radial? I didn't need potions before, so I didn't become accustomed to using the menu. Now that I do, I'd rather just use the inventory menu proper.



I would still really like a link to this assertion...

I'm really enjoying this game, it's a nice break from TES. But I'm hating the Inventory Management (Specially "Inventory Space") and the UI in general.
(Which is strange, because I even liked Skyrim's UI)

[Natalie Taylor]

Finally plowed through the demo. Unfortunately, it was SO buggy I couldn't even enjoy it. After the first 4 conversations with NPCs, the dialog mechanics were broken, the sound completely dropped out, and I couldn't initiate any of the dialog wheel options. Not to mention the horrible, choppy animations. I realize that this is just a demo and many of these glitches would have been ironed out in the final release. Unfortunately this is also my first impression of the game and I'm not likely to spend $60 on it now. I don't find the combat particularly compelling (it just feels like God of War/Force Unleashed) and the whole world seems incredibly linear, considering this is suppose to be an "open world" adventure. I mean, what is with all of the invisible walls? And while I appreciate what they were trying to accomplish with the over-saturated art style, as a whole the art direction is really inconsistent. I really wanted to love this game but nothing about it has grabbed me.

Hmm.

It's been said that the demo has a number of problems (which, as you said, isn't a good thing, since it's your first impression). It's an early build, and was put together by a subcontractor (hence, bugs. Not that I saw some of the things you mention when I ran the demo). And the combat gets more interesting later - more abilities, and more need to use them.

That said.... invisible walls? Not sure what you're talking about, unless it's the fact that you can't freeform jump over/off anything. Hasn't really bugged me much.

And the art style.... I know that there's alot of personal opinion involved in this, but the more I see of it, the less I understand people not liking it. But, then, I don't really grasp those people in other threads saying "too cartoony". First, because I don't understand how that's bad in the first place, and second because I don't really see it as that cartoony to start with. It's incredibly pretty & artistic. But again - lots of personal opinion involved in art style. Ah, well.

[Jaylene Brower]

Wolves and bears. They pepper the entire landscape. They're not actually challenging; rather, they're there to nibble at your resources. I dislike this.

Just like in Skyrim But the KoA Wolves can actually do damage and they work as a team, and if you don't have armor or accessories with health regenaration they may cause few extra potions uses.

And does anybody use the potion radial? I didn't need potions before, so I didn't become accustomed to using the menu. Now that I do, I'd rather just use the inventory menu proper.

Yes, it's handy for popping an experience booster before finishing reckoning mode, don't use it for much else, though. And in House of Ballads questline you need to use a certain item many times, that can also be put in the radial.

[Steve Fallon]

does anyone have the bug where subtitles will get stuck on the screen? it gets annoying after a while of seeing "for the legion!" written at the bottom of the screen
quicksave and load fixes it though

All i can say is ..I love this game. Its a nice break from Skyrim. After 190 hrs.i needed to find something new.

same here.. taking a break from skyrim after 400+ hours of play. still plan on returning and getting all skills to 100 at some point (and finishing all the quests, so much to do in skyrim)

[Kate Schofield]

@Catface 3, I've had that happen a bunch of times with the text staying on screen but it eventually goes away.

Finally plowed through the demo. Unfortunately, it was SO buggy I couldn't even enjoy it. After the first 4 conversations with NPCs, the dialog mechanics were broken, the sound completely dropped out, and I couldn't initiate any of the dialog wheel options. Not to mention the horrible, choppy animations. I realize that this is just a demo and many of these glitches would have been ironed out in the final release. Unfortunately this is also my first impression of the game and I'm not likely to spend $60 on it now. I don't find the combat particularly compelling (it just feels like God of War/Force Unleashed) and the whole world seems incredibly linear, considering this is suppose to be an "open world" adventure. I mean, what is with all of the invisible walls? And while I appreciate what they were trying to accomplish with the over-saturated art style, as a whole the art direction is really inconsistent. I really wanted to love this game but nothing about it has grabbed me.

The bugs that you may have encountered in the demo aren't in the final product. I've played Reckoning for around 60 hours and had one freeze and one minor issue with me getting stuck next to a table, both times I loaded the autosave and I was good to go. The only bugs I've seen are the cosmetic ones, sometimes you can see below the terrain depending on how you have the camera angle setup. Other then that Reckoning is very stable which is saying something when compared to other RPG's like Skyrim and Fallout 3.