Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning(Released on February 7th)

[Mem]

Homepage http://reckoning.amalur.com/

Another new RPG out next month February 7th (US) ,10th(Europe) .
Btw it'll be available on PC,XBOX 360 and PS3.

This caught my eye, why?...

The game is being developed under the leadership of Ken Rolston, lead designer of the critically acclaimed RPGs Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

FAQs http://reckoning.amalur.com/en/r/faq .

Preview links below,
http://www.gamesradar.com/kingdoms-amalur-reckoning-preview-taking-down-balor/


http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/project-mercury/1214347p1.html

http://www.g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/64296/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning/articles/76223/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-hands-on-impressions-the-difference-is-in-the-details/

http://www.gamerevolution.com/preview/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning

It'll be interesting to see how this stacks up against Skyrim.

 

[you2]

Hopefully it is a little more directed than bethesda games; more on the tune of dks or witcher 2. My biggest concern is that it will require EA's origin to run.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Hideous graphics, but as long as the gameplay is interesting then I'm down for it.

 

[Craig234]

I heard of this from a $9 coupon at Amazon off the $51 download price, but $41.99 for a pre-order of a game I don't know much about is quite a lot.

 

[Mem]

What actually excites me more is the character system. Players are granted three trees to funnel their points into as they level up, as well as a general skill tree that grants abilities like lock picking. The three trees are Finesse, Magic, and Might, with each one granting passive and active abilities.

That said, how you spread your skills across all three trees is very important. Character destinies are class types that grant extra bonuses if you reach them, but if you want to be a high level shadowrouge with magic and rouge abilities, you’ll need to funnel a certain amount of points into the Finesse and Magic skill trees. Thankfully, the game is able to convey a potentially complex level system in a fairly clear way, and if you mess up, a respec is a quick, if financially costly, fee away.

All in all, it’s a surprisingly deep system that is flexible and powerful enough to respect how a player might want to play. It looks like something people will really enjoy defining to their play style.

Another preview@gamezone http://www.gamezone.com/previews/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-preview.

Pre-order bonus items info and details over at their official forums,
http://forums.reckoning.amalur.com/showthread.php?750-Reckoning-Pre-Order-FAQ

 

[Markbnj]

Any new open world sandbox RPG is worth checking out, especially with leadership creds like they have.

 

[Mem]

Any new open world sandbox RPG is worth checking out, especially with leadership creds like they have.

I have pre-ordered the KOA in the UK,which should work out fine since I get some pre-order bonus items ie

Pre-order Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning from Play.com and receive a code to download the The Destinies Choice Pack
The Destinies Choice Pack includes a unique Twist of Fate card, plus the Compass of Fate and 3 armour sets: Melee, Finesse and Sorcery. Start shaping your destiny, right from the beginning.

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/20270482/-/Product.html .

 

[Mem]

I found some unofficial PC specs for this game over at their forums,

Unofficial PC Requirements for Reckoning
as seen on system requirements.in Reckoning PC Requirements
Note that these are only projected spec's, the official requirements are still unknown.

Minimum System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
* CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz
* RAM: 2 GB
* HDD : 10 GB free disk space
* Graphics: 512 MB Graphics Memory
* Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
* DirectX: Version 9


Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
* CPU: Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz
* RAM: 3 GB
* HDD : 10 GB free disk space
* Graphics: 1 GB Graphics Memory
* Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
* DirectX: Version 9

Supported Graphics Cards:
Minimum – GeForce 7800 GTX or ATI Radeon X1900XT
Recommended – GeForce GT 440 or Radeon HD 3800

Btw you can see the skills and video clip of the skill you choose in action here http://reckoning.amalur.com/en/r/game/abilities-list ,remember to choose either finesse,might or magic to see the skills available.

 

[Mem]

Check out the editions,ie Special Edition,Collectors Edition and Signature Edition,prices are crazy lol...


http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2011/12/12/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-collectors-edition-announced.htm .

Special Edition will be available for $80 and includes:
Custom parchment map of the world
Custom seven-piece set of dice for your next tabletop gaming session
Full set of 40 Destiny Cards that are featured in the game
Soundtrack of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning composed by Grant Kirkhope


Collector’s Edition (limited at 700 units) will be available for $200 and includes:
All items in the Special Edition (parchment map, seven-piece dice set, full set of destiny cards, and soundtrack)
Individually numbered Prismere Troll figurine created by McFarlane toys. The solid resin troll stands at 12.5″ and normally retails for $125.
High-quality concept art lithograph from Reckoning limited to 1,000 units, signed by game visionary, Ken Rolston.


Signature Edition (limited to 300 units) will be available for $275 and includes:
All items in the Special Edition (parchment map, seven-piece dice set, full set of destiny cards, and soundtrack)
All items in the Collector’s Edition
Individually-numbered, custom sketch by Todd McFarlane limited to 300 units
The Prismere Troll figurine is signed by Todd McFarlane, R.A. Salvatore or Curt Schilling and are limited to 300 editions
Each edition is available for pre-order through here in North America only for a limited time. Shots of each are also posted below – sorry they’re so small.

Each edition is available for pre-order in North America only for a limited time!

 

[Arglebargle]

Good: Same lead designer as Morrowind.
Bad: Same lead designer as Oblivion.



Interesting approach, am definitely watching it. Much more action-y than I usually prefer, but design seems to fit it well. Sorta a set of standard fantasy tropes, but they did pay attention to world building. They say their character creation is good. Really colorful art pallette, especially for those tired of grey/brown worlds.

Plus the company owner saved Advanced Squad Leader from the clutches of Hasbro.

 

[you2]

One thing is that this is a pc game so it shoudl have a decent interface. I'm getting really tired of the these whacky console port interfaces (currently trying dragon age 2; which I picke dup on amazon for $6). Its been a while since I've played a game with a decent interface.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I'll look forward to picking it up at the next steam holiday sale. I should just about be done with Skyrim by then.

 

[you2]

The publisher is ea; not sure it will be on steam....

I'll look forward to picking it up at the next steam holiday sale. I should just about be done with Skyrim by then.

 

[Aikouka]

It looks interesting, but sheesh... the guy playing the demo was not very good. Let's stand in front of a guy that's obviously charging some physical attack!

 

[Mem]

You might find these Q&A from Reckoning team interesting http://forums.reckoning.amalur.com/showthread.php?1868-Answers-From-the-Reckoning-Team-01-04-12 ,

snippet below,

Q: A game like Skyrim is visually stunning, but the repetitiveness of npc's, their dialog, textures, etc is a turn off with as big as everything is. Did you guys consider tweaking things to make them stand out? Can we expect diversity in npc's and humanoids throughout the world? From early peeks here and there is looks more that way, but even minor tweaks like changing hair styles and colors on bandits go a long way. – By Falkon

A: When I started working on Reckoning, one of my first thoughts was that you don't see games like this anymore. Part of what makes Reckoning special is that the content is lovingly hand-crafted, individually placed, and contextually customized. Artists created countless pieces of weapons, armor, character and environmental art, effects and animations to bring Amalur to life. The world builders devoted much of their time to ensure each space feels unique: from the painstaking details of each and every individual tree in Dalentarth and Klurikon to the breathtaking vistas of Detyre and the Plains of Erathell. Level and content designers did the same for indoor spaces and encounters, and systems designers manually populated merchant inventories, loot tables, and weapon and armor stats among many other things.

Similarly, our narrative is not procedurally generated. As far as the NPCs are concerned, Amalur is as diverse a place as you'll find. Associate Narrative Designer Rachel Morgan did a polish pass on NPCs using our proprietary "paper-doll tool" to further paper-doll (customize) their appearance from their clothes down to any tattoos or piercings they might have. In other words if you see NPCs that look alike (e.g. mother and son Coriana and Mallion of the Anwon House), it's deliberate.

In regards to dialogue, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's recording budget was generous. With roughly the equivalent of ten novels worth of words, the Narrative Designers were able to craft NPC dialogue to the level of depth desired, rather than be limited by word counts. After dialogue was written, Narrative Designers went through responding to feedback and adding flavor bits. For example, one specific task I had was to triple the number of greetings in Rathir. Then, copy editors gave the dialogue another pass, which of course involved identifying and removing redundancy and errant repetition.

I hope you enjoy exploring all of this enormous diversity in Reckoning next month! – By Alex "xael" Horn, Narrative Designer

 

[Aikouka]

One thing I find interesting about that is how much we've come to expect such variance with our (honestly worthless) NPC experience. I'm recalling some of the old Final Fantasy games where almost everyone in the same town would say the same thing or some stupid generic, "How are you!?" phrase. You even have the dwarves in Final Fantasy IV that only said, "Lali-Ho!", but the thing is... no one cared!

 

[mindcycle]

A: When I started working on Reckoning, one of my first thoughts was that you don't see games like this anymore. Part of what makes Reckoning special is that the content is lovingly hand-crafted, individually placed, and contextually customized. Artists created countless pieces of weapons, armor, character and environmental art, effects and animations to bring Amalur to life. The world builders devoted much of their time to ensure each space feels unique: from the painstaking details of each and every individual tree in Dalentarth and Klurikon to the breathtaking vistas of Detyre and the Plains of Erathell. Level and content designers did the same for indoor spaces and encounters, and systems designers manually populated merchant inventories, loot tables, and weapon and armor stats among many other things.

That's good to hear. Hopefully this will be more along the lines of Gothic in terms of world design rather than Oblivion. I'm still going to wait until there are some reviews out before throwing any money at it. Developers often make big claims that only turn out to be half true in the end. Fable anyone?.. Guess i'll wait it out and hope for the best.

 

[cytoSiN]

The publisher is ea; not sure it will be on steam....

Yup, more than likely an Origin exclusive, which is a damn shame. The lack of an announcement on this is the only thing preventing me from preordering. I'm sure I'll crack eventually, since I've held out on installing Origin thus far, but since ME3 is likely to be an Origin exclusive as well, there's really no point in avoiding it.

 

[PrayForDeath]

This game looks better and better with every preview I read on it, though for some reason there doesn't seem to be much hype around it. (surprising considering it's an EA title)

 

[Anubis]

One thing is that this is a pc game so it shoudl have a decent interface. I'm getting really tired of the these whacky console port interfaces (currently trying dragon age 2; which I picke dup on amazon for $6). Its been a while since I've played a game with a decent interface.

the game is being released on consoles as well, so im not sure you are going to get a totally PC designed interface. unless they do 2, but from what ive seen it looks good

 

[qwertyaas]

Can't wait to pick it up on sale.

Looks like a cross between single player WoW and Skyrim.

 

[Craig234]

So, worth $41.99 with the Amazon coupon - and is the coupon still valid? Not used to spending that much anymore on a game.

 

[cytoSiN]

So, worth $41.99 with the Amazon coupon - and is the coupon still valid? Not used to spending that much anymore on a game.

I'd preorder at that price (as soon as I get over my aversion to Origin), but I don't see the coupon?

 

[DeathReborn]

I am moderately interested but only the Demo will decide if I pre-order or wait for the £5-10 sale over Xmas/Black Friday.

I got a £20 Amazon gift card so I'll pre-order from there if I do, and pay less than a tenner towards it.

 

[Craig234]

I'd preorder at that price (as soon as I get over my aversion to Origin), but I don't see the coupon?

It's a coupon you got during the holiday sale for buying other products.

It's weird, it shows it's for a pre-order, expires Nov 2012, but Amazon said Jan 12 2012...