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Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning?

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
Actually, the in-game manual feature is pretty cool. I have to give them some credit as most games just give you a PDF. Being able to browse the help from a menu is nice and definitely helped me learn a few bits and pieces about the mechanics as soon as I needed to.
 

IDtenT

Menace to sobriety!
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14,363
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South Africa; My pronouns are: Banal/Shit/Boring
Divinity: Original Sin
Amalur seems a bit exposition heavy for me. I don't need to know your life story if you don't offer me quests, right?
But... the game tells you who has quests and which dialogue options to pick to get to them. All the extra stuff is unnecessary (and mostly not interesting). Even then, you can skip dialogue, so, what's wrong?
OCD.
 
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i-like-money.gif

Day 1 AoD DLC(s) confirmed.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
Amalur seems a bit exposition heavy for me. I don't need to know your life story if you don't offer me quests, right?
But... the game tells you who has quests and which dialogue options to pick to get to them. All the extra stuff is unnecessary (and mostly not interesting). Even then, you can skip dialogue, so, what's wrong?
OCD.
"I spoke to Farmer Ted and he told me about his farm. What the fuck, game! This shit is so boring."
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Amalur seems a bit exposition heavy for me. I don't need to know your life story if you don't offer me quests, right?
But... the game tells you who has quests and which dialogue options to pick to get to them. All the extra stuff is unnecessary (and mostly not interesting). Even then, you can skip dialogue, so, what's wrong?
OCD.
"I spoke to Farmer Ted and he told me about his farm. What the fuck, game! This shit is so boring."

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...g-in-computer-role-playing-games.67573/page-2 :smug:

WhiteGamer said:
Fully voiced. Just don't hire AAA actors that cost 100's of thousands of dollars, hire a bunch of war veterans and college actors to do the voices of the characters you so choose, for dirt cheap.
This. Let's recall that the rules of quantity and quality go both ways. Written dialogue is not inherently better than voiced dialogue, and if I don't notice that a game's dialogue has suffered because of the voice acting, then there's no reason to not have voice acting. Tons of bad writing is just as bad, or worse. It's wasting budgets on celebrities, casting people based on star credit and not ability, and a push towards non-interactive cinematics over gameplay that are hurting videogames, not simply voice acting.

Voice acting has benefits that far in excess outweigh any downsides, in my opinion. Much as a picture says a thousand words, you can communicate tons of personality through a character's voice. It helps create a better sense of mood and drama, allows for more natural exchanges between characters, it lets you say more with less, it allows you to give out exposition and plot during actual gameplay rather than pausing for dialogue pop-ups, and it gives a degree of life to the game that would otherwise be lacking.

Usually I'm tolerant of the lack of voice acting in indie, low-budget and older games simply because I know it's beyond their means and often because the writing is good enough to hold up without it, but... I mean, yeah, if I could have RPGs with good voice acting and good writing, I'd take that every time. If you need to have tons of text in your game, it's best kept optional. I like my interactive novels as much as the next guy but that simply can't be the rule or the norm.

People like to point to Fallout as an example of voice acting done right, and I agree... but I also think it would have been way better if they were able to get voice actors and talking heads for every character as well. You might say that the minor characters are less important and so it's a benefit players can just skim their dialogue and get right through things, but that only draws attention to the fact that you have boring content in your game. If the player feels the need to skip something because it's "just another NPC asking me to do an errand", then you've done something wrong.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
Oh, I totally agree that the game has way, way too much dialogue, and a lot of it is boring. At the same time, in an RPG, where quest dialogue is clearly defined and everything else is by virtue of that defined as fluff/filler/lore material, you have few complaints to make. Ultimately it's your choice to pick each and every one of the dialogue options.
 

commie

The Last Marxist
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Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
I disagree about Fallout sea...I don't want Melcar fully voiced or the enthusiastic hillbilly that you can faggot-marry. I have my own voices for them in my head and they fit the characters' personalities better than any actor could. I've also never had to skip what the NPC's are saying in Fallout; everything was concise and to the point and interesting in some way.
Of course I write from the point of view of having played these games without voice acting. Had Fallout been fully voice acted from the start then maybe I wouldn't have minded the voices. Even so, nothing of value was lost by not having voice acting which seems to work best for ARPG's anyway because of the personal control of the character and immediate close up camera.
 

Saxon1974

Prophet
Joined
May 20, 2007
Messages
2,104
Location
The Desert Wasteland
My main issue with the game (18 hours so far, though I play slow and often leave the game open while doing other things like lunch), is as mentioned above, way too many sidequests and too many backstory stuff in dialogues. It's like the game is forcing a whole book of background story into your throat so everyone can get acquainted to the game plot asap.

While TES and even PST do that too, by always trying to tell you how awful mudcrabs are or what is the rule-of-three, there is something not right with KoA that makes feels trying too hard on the background story.

Also, yeah, the game do feel play slow, and I definetly hope that the later locations have more awesome, less generic locations and enemies to see, because spending 20 hours in a big damn disney fortress fighting diablo-fetish-wannabes gets old.

One last thing, the game doesn't really "abandon" a location after you have finished most if not all the quests in it. For example, Gorhart is still my most visited place because the gnome alchemist there offered the best price to buy my stuff compared to everyone else. Also, as I visited one of the buildings in the mission there, I got a quest from a bookshelf to collect some porn books all over the world, including places in the far east. I think these early areas also contain secret doors and passages that you can visit only after getting a high rank in the detect hidden skill.

I like lots of backstory but it sounds like they are trying to do all of it through forced dialog. Honestly if they had Salvatore write a big background story seems like they could have introduced it better for those who wanted to read it. I think something like a lore book with the game or even a mini novel or something would have been good. The stinking game didn't even come with a printed manual in the box. I think doing it this way and then just some of it in dialog here and there would have worked better.
 

AlaCarcuss

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
1,335
Location
BrizVegas, Australis Penal Colony
I tried it a bit yesterday and my overall impression was mostly negative and I ain't someone that just complains. Note that I played very little and probably won't play more.

- First I had to fight with the camera and often even wanted first person, because my character filled up half the screen and I had to move wierdly just to see things. And it was hard to see... pretty much anything, enemies, where I should go, peeps. In fact it was easier to just check the mini-map.

I think this is more endemic of all 3P action games - I can't think of one that your comment couldn't apply to.

- Ranged combat. Here the camera is at fault again and instead of actually aiming the game autoaims for you and you can't miss. And you got a autofilling quiver. All about ranged combat just feels wrong.

Well, not quite - you can't miss if the bastards don't move (unless they're heading straight at you). Also, to do any real damage, you have to power up your shot, so it's pretty useless as a spammable ability.

- Melee. That is at least pretty okay, unless you roll to much and start a battle with the camera.

Agreed, melee seems the most fun to me so far as well. Though like you, I'm not very far into it - so more combat/combo choices will probably become available later on.

- Art. When I saw some screenshots I was cautiously impressed by the art, playing the game this far I have not been that. Feels very WOW and with bright colors, but nothing that feels unique or special.

Yeah, though not really an issue for me.

- Setting. It isn't to shabby when it comes to backstory, but otherwise lacks anything original. I just started and I got elves, gnoes, humans and blackclad evil people. Right and trolls. the moral/immortal divide might be interesting though, if nothing else.

Yep.

- I miss character sheets.

Me too.
 

Stabwound

Arcane
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
3,240
I mostly agree with everything everyone else has said. The game is overall nothing spectacular, and it's a shame that there's so much dialogue and text when the game world is so utterly generic and uninteresting. Elves and gnomes by another name are still elves and gnomes.

Having said that, I think it's more fun than Skyrim and many other recent ARPGs (Witcher 2).

I wouldn't want to sit in front of the computer and play it with keyboard and mouse, but sitting on a couch and playing with a controller makes it more fun to me. It's clearly a console game first and foremost and playing it as such makes for a more enjoyable experience.

On another note, has anyone discovered a way to completely disable the quest markers? The lovely option "disable quest markers" seems to not do what it says. I don't see what the fun is when someone gives a quest "look for the guy in xxx dungeon to the east of town" and then having a fucking GPS direct you to it. Whoever came up with this idea for games should be drawn and quartered.
 

Monocause

Arcane
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
3,656
Can't complain about either the PC controls or the camera. Both work perfectly fine, I found the camera to be exceptionally fine TBH, best ARPG camera I've ever seen. Never had a situation that I failed to see some of the enemies, never got dizzy. Easily superior to the TW2 camera which I found to be OK too.

One thing that comes to mind: for you peeps complaining about the camera or visuals, try disabling postprocessing. I couldn't stand the motion blur; sucks that you can't turn off the damn thing while leaving the rest on (at least I couldn't find an .ini which I could tweak to my liking)
 

Malpercio

Arcane
Joined
Dec 8, 2011
Messages
1,534
Tried it for a few hours, but jesus isn't the setting boring as fuck. It's even worse than Dragon Age, i can't believe someone in 2012 still can bear with such a generic setting.

It's a shame because the gameplay was kinda fun, but i almost fell asleep while exploring the first village.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
For what it's worth: 30 hours into the game, the setting gets a lot better as you start to reach cities and more interesting locales like deserts and grasslands/plains. The story also gets interesting at that point, and the side-quests generally get better as well. Unfortunately it's probably too late for a lot of people to sit through.

Also, game just got a 200 MB patch. Not sure what's changed but hopefully they've improved the controls and camera.

EDIT: Never mind, just seems to be some DLC packs they've added. I should stop getting my hopes up like that.
 

Dr.Faust

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 2, 2010
Messages
174
Location
West-Russia
It's no wonder the game is long as hell since they recycle the same enemies and enviroment elements over and over again.
I'm in the last few areas of the game and I'm still killing kobolds and wolves in the exact same way I've been doing since the beginning.

I've given up on listening to quest descriptions ages ago since nobody says anything worth hearing. In one specific quest you're tasked with delivering death notices to the relatives of dead soldiers and it was actually pretty jarring hearing these voice actors attempting to display some emotions, because at that point in the game you're basically going on autopilot and just following the compass.
 

ShlongMaster

Educated
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
74
Personally I am enjoying the game, I'm around 20 hours into the game at level 18. As far as I'm concerned it's one of the better action rpg's around, and the potential for this game is really solid. Unfortunately a few design choices and squandered opportunities bring the game down.
Playing it with one of the fxaa injectors I got from the net alleviates quite a few of the graphical shortcomings, by putting the saturation down, lowering the overbright bloom and slightly blurring the image makes the game look good for the most part.

As far as graphics are concerned I'm not too bothered by the art direction because most of the nagging problems were solved by the fxaa injector, but there are a few things that are hard to ignore, the terrain is pretty flat and looks very washed out, same goes for the trees which are a real eyesore to look at. Character models look fairly good but... and this is a big but, (one I partially blame on a few of the big name mainstream games, you know which ones I'm talking about) is the retarded zooming in on characters faces when dialogue is initiated. It's something I will never understand... how is looking at a wooden, terribly rendered model with bad lip syncing with the camera zoomed in right on them a good thing? the technology for most of these games is nowhere near advanced enough for this to be viable yet, and the fact that almost every Arpg these days does it is somewhat of a mystery to me.

Graphics aside, seeing as how they aren't all that important, I actually find that the gameplay is fairly good. Combat is good, it's no tactical haven, but it does keep you invested into the battles for the most part, swinging your weapon around is going to get you stunlocked like a bitch and you will need to pay attention to what is going around you unless you enjoy being knocked on your ass a lot, that includes rolling around like a maniac, a bit of timing on when to initiate your attacks and timing your blocks to allow more advanced combos or the final combo skill for your desired weapon and Learning some of the enemy attack patterns. At least that's what I found to be the case playing it on hard, though I am hardly the most skilled player around. Abusing potions can also be fun at times.

The majority of quests are boring, as is the setting of the game. A word of advice from me would be to ignore the side quests and concentrate on the faction quests and then the main quest or else the side quests will suck the life out of you and burn you out really quickly, at least waiting till the game opens up would be a good idea, and the game world does open up quite a lot, the story improves (both for the main quest and faction quests) and advancing in the combat skills as well as the passive skills starts getting a lot more fun, allowing you to experiment more. Looting and exploring is pretty well done, you are always bound to stumble upon some interesting piece of equipment in a dungeon or stumble upon some interesting place from te larger quests, though too much exploring, just like too much questing is likely to burn you out quickly.

If you can get past the slow start, sometimes bland mmo style quest/world design, and repetitive nature of the game (which can be avoided most of the time) then I would definitely recommend obtaining the extended demo version for a few hours of casual fun, though if combat and loot aren't your thing then you might want to give it a miss.
 

Chuck Norris

Augur
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
640
Location
Texas
I was in the mood for reading some extremely negative and offensive comments, so I opened this thread. But the posts here seem pretty tame judging by Codex standards. That's weird for a POS like this.
I played the game for around 10 hours and I feel like I can't go on anymore. Just way too generic for my taste.
 
Self-Ejected

Jack

█▓▒░
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May 5, 2010
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4,900
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Yondo
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Warsworn
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House of Ballads
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House of Valor [DLC]
 

AlaCarcuss

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
1,335
Location
BrizVegas, Australis Penal Colony
I was in the mood for reading some extremely negative and offensive comments, so I opened this thread. But the posts here seem pretty tame judging by Codex standards. That's weird for a POS like this.
I played the game for around 10 hours and I feel like I can't go on anymore. Just way too generic for my taste.

That's because 10 hours is not nearly enough, unfortunately. You've got to persevere past the 15-20hr mark with this game before it starts getting interesting (especially combat/exploration wise). Too much time for a lot of people to invest in I know.
 

Stabwound

Arcane
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
3,240
I'm surprised no one but me is so annoyed by the quest markers. Why do they put an option to turn them off when it barely does anything? It removes quest markers above NPCs heads, but not from the map. What? This is basically Fedex: The Game, where our hero must follow his GPS of Reckoning to deliver all of his packages.

I tried searching online for some kind of ini tweak, but all I came up with was people hoping that there were quest markers, and some moron talking about how he hopes it has a "spell that highlights the route to your destination." (Skyrim had this.) Is this what game development has brought upon us? People actually want to play an open-world Hansel & Gretel RPG where you just follow fucking breadcrumbs everywhere?

:retarded:

Even worse is the fact that this game seems to actually make the NPCs give you a general location of where you should be going on a quest, making the map markers completely unnecessary. Contrast this with Skyrim, where a quest will literally say something like "Retrieve my sword from Derp Cave." and that is the only information you get. Your only options are to either consult your mystic GPS or wander around aimlessly and probably never solve the quest. Analur seems to give you enough information that you could feasibly find the quest locations on your own, but nope. You can't turn off the markers that get plastered all over both the mini-map and the full map.

Fucking shit fuck this game. FUCK. :rage:
 

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