Game News Kingdoms of Amalur as big as Oblivion

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Big Huge Games; Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

<p>Gamesradar <a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/kingdoms-amalurs-world-comparable-size-oblivions/" target="_blank">found out</a> that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will be comparable in size to Oblivion.</p>
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<p>&ldquo;How big is the game world overall?&rdquo; we asked as he showed off the game&rsquo;s map. At a glance it looked very large and open, unlike Fable's, which was broken into small segments.</p>
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<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve looked at this, and if I look at something like Oblivion, it&rsquo;s very comparable in size,&rdquo; he said, though we shouldn&rsquo;t expect the worlds to look all that similar, even if they&rsquo;re approximately the same size.</p>
<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re slightly different scales, though,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;In Oblivion you have the central city and the area around that. We have a fairly vast area that&rsquo;s spread out a little bit more with a lot smaller cities and towns within it.&rdquo;</p>
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<p>Though Big Huge Games has teased this before, this is the first time they&rsquo;ve gone on the record with the comparison.</p>
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<p>Oblivion's map isn't the biggest in games, but at 16 square miles it's still plenty large. Krstolic's claims that the world is spread out more than Oblivion's might sound like a bad sign to some, but we're excited to explore these small cities. Oblivion sometimes felt too empty, and we'd get excited whenever we saw a new place to visit in the distance. Having more small, scattered cities will likely enhance this feeling, and we're looking forward to accepting whatever quests its citizens might have.&nbsp;</p>
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[Micmu]

SMALLER "cities" than Oblivious? What's that? Two houses and a tavern?
Also, they still can't get past those virtual NN "miles" that mean jack shit, really.

 

[Drakron]

SMALLER "cities" than Oblivious? What's that? Two houses and a tavern?
Also, they still can't get past those virtual NN "miles" that mean jack shit, really.

Dont be a ass, Oblivion had large cities.

Unless you are going to compare Oblivion cities (that are about 14-16th century cities) with modern (20th century) cities, of course that is STUPID.

 

[MetalCraze]

14-16 century cities weren't made of 2 streets with 40 people living on them.

 

[DragoFireheart]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdoms_o ... _Reckoning

Developer(s) 38 Studios, Big Huge Games

Composer(s) Grant Kirkhope
Platform(s) Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows
Release date(s)

* NA February 7, 2012[1]
* EU February 10, 2012[1]

Genre(s) Role-playing game
Mode(s) Single-player

...

Publisher(s) Electronic Arts

- Looks like it's a big pile of shit then.

 

[Mastermind]

Oblivion's cities are very small even compared to 14-16th century cities. I suspect it's largely due to console limitationslaziness since morrowind cities weren't that big either.

 

[J_J_M]

The Imperial City, the largest city in Oblivion was pathetically small. Surely you can't go smaller than that and dare call it a "city".

In any case, if they're going with small towns and cities, they should have taken a note of how the first two Gothic games did it. Khorinis felt very lively thanks to the fact the developers put quality over quantity. In Gothic 3 they followed Bethesda's model, and unsurprisingly it turned out shit.

 

[J_J_M]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdoms_of_Amalur:_Reckoning

- Looks like it's a big pile of shit then.

http://www.ea.com/reckoning/1/pre-order-offers

 

[Mastermind]

The Imperial City, the largest city in Oblivion was pathetically small. Surely you can't go smaller than that and dare call it a "city".

In any case, if they're going with small towns and cities, they should have taken a note of how the first two Gothic games did it. Khorinis felt very lively thanks to the fact the developers put quality over quantity. In Gothic 3 they followed Bethesda's model, and unsurprisingly it turned out shit.

Oblivion and Gothic 2 towns (well, town, I only saw the first one because the game was shit) were indistinguishable in scope to me. They both felt like "real towns" until you realized that from a slightly higher vantage point you could see the borders and the illusion shattered.

 

[Metro]

In any case, if they're going with small towns and cities, they should have taken a note of how the first two Gothic games did it. Khorinis felt very lively thanks to the fact the developers put quality over quantity. In Gothic 3 they followed Bethesda's model, and unsurprisingly it turned out shit.

Exactly. The problem with the cities in Oblivion wasn't that they were necessarily small it's that they had little in the way of actual content/interesting buildings to explore. A lot of it was just useless LARP filler.

And lol @ the preorders. When I thought this was going to be a $30 indie/budget title I was moderately interested. As a $60 AAA release they can go fuck themselves. I'm sure it'll be a decent enough hack and slash ARPG but EA is trying to promote this as the groundwork for yet another failed MMO.

 

[Jaesun]

So basically, Crispy will have another Hiking Simulator to play?

 

[sgc_meltdown]

I'm guessing these will be titan quest style cities with little waypost villages

cities - have all the different vendors and trainers and a few quests, probably mandatory to visit for main quest
waypost - one merchant and a quest
both - less exploration and dialog than a final fantasy town

 

[deuxhero]

Oblivion wasn't even a good hiking simulator! The terrian is computer generated and it SHOWS oh so badly. There is no reason to look around.

 

[sea]

Isn't it interesting how every single time someone comes out with a successful original franchise, EA comes up with a carbon-copy response to it that's nowhere near as good? I can't wait for this to be hurried to release within Skyrim's launch window - I'm sure it won't be completely obvious it's a rushed piece of crap!

Oh wait. With that many pre-order bonuses and a subtitle like "Reckoning", you know this game is going to be fucking awesome. I take it all back!

 

[villain of the story]

SMALLER "cities" than Oblivious? What's that? Two houses and a tavern?
Also, they still can't get past those virtual NN "miles" that mean jack shit, really.

Dont be a ass, Oblivion had large cities.

Unless you are going to compare Oblivion cities (that are about 14-16th century cities) with modern (20th century) cities, of course that is STUPID.

I'm pretty sure that you don't have the slightest idea of what 14-16th century cities looked like, much less any city from any period of time before that. If you put the entire residential areas in Oblivion together, it still wouldn't make a city.

 

[Micmu]

Dont be a ass, Oblivion had large cities. Unless you are going to compare Oblivion cities (that are about 14-16th century cities) with modern (20th century) cities, of course that is STUPID.

I don't know what your version you tried but mine had mini "towns" with 5-6 houses, 2 guilds, 1 tavern, 1-2 shops and 20 NPCs max, apart from the capitol.
I'd say that medieval cities were at least 1000 times bigger and with more buildings for different purposes and lots of people activity going on... if we compare them to real world which is stupid... But, still, in gaming terms oblivious "cities" were still too small and DEAD to be believable as "cities" in a continuous 3D game world. Now if they called them small villages...
I have no idea what these guys mean by going smaller.

 

[Metro]

Again, ten buildings can be interesting if you put them to actual use rather than just have a few generic vendors, an inn (which may or may not serve any purpose at all depending on the game), and half a dozen empty houses with generic npcs who just say 'hi-ho' when you talk to them.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Saying your gameworld is large is like saying your movie compares well to Titanic's running time of 3 hours and 14 minutes. That tells me fuck all about your gameworld. It's just another ill-quantified 'you'll have to take our word for it' selling point like 'revolutionary AI' or 'unprecedented gameplay'.

 

[Saxon1974]

Not sure I like the sound of the small cities thing. BUt as you all have said hopefully they have some interesting stuff in them to visit.

Also, I'm not sure how the pathfinding open world aspect is going to work. It's supposed to be open world but watching the demo if you look at the map it appears everywhere they walk is on a linear path. I can't tell if you can walk anywhere you want or are forced to stay on that path.

 

[Drakron]

I don't know what your version you tried but mine had mini "towns" with 5-6 houses, 2 guilds, 1 tavern, 1-2 shops and 20 NPCs max, apart from the capitol.

Skingrad had 21 buildings, Anvil 18, Anvil 14, same with Leyawiin, Anvil 19, same with Chrorrol and Cheydinhal.

I'd say that medieval cities were at least 1000 times bigger and with more buildings for different purposes and lots of people activity going on...

Not really, if you say they were "1000x" then you mean they had 18-21 000 buildings, now lets make 3-4 people for each building and you have a population of 54 000/84 000 people,

Now in the early 16th century Bristol had 12 000, Cologne 35 000, Strassburg 25 000 ... those "1000 times bigger" are on the level of the Italian City States and London.

if we compare them to real world which is stupid...

Not really, one of the things that I get irritated is how in games most cities seem to been made by city planers and were finished the day before ... there is no chaos were we can see overlapping development and planning.

But, still, in gaming terms oblivious "cities" were still too small and DEAD to be believable as "cities" in a continuous 3D game world. Now if they called them small villages...
I have no idea what these guys mean by going smaller.

I give you one thing, I should had said Town since City is downright wrong but they were in line with many towns that really did not amount much beyond "buildings inside a fortification" with surrounding farmlands, at least until later.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

14-16 century cities weren't made of 2 streets with 40 people living on them.

Yeah, and skyway knows - he lives in one.

 

[made]

There's a bunch of mods for Oblivion that change city layouts, add lighting and other atmospheric effects, as well various NPCs. While they don't make them bigger per se, they do feel much more natural and lively. Building count isn't everything.

 

[Oriental European]

Hey bros, you know what else is as big as Oblivion?

Spoiler

my dick

 

[Raghar]

SMALLER "cities" than Oblivious? What's that? Two houses and a tavern?
Also, they still can't get past those virtual NN "miles" that mean jack shit, really.

Dont be a ass, Oblivion had large cities.

Unless you are going to compare Oblivion cities (that are about 14-16th century cities) with modern (20th century) cities, of course that is STUPID.

14 century city.

Also Ping Yiao

 

[Turjan]

Dont be a ass, Oblivion had large cities. Unless you are going to compare Oblivion cities (that are about 14-16th century cities) with modern (20th century) cities, of course that is STUPID.

I don't know what your version you tried but mine had mini "towns" with 5-6 houses, 2 guilds, 1 tavern, 1-2 shops and 20 NPCs max, apart from the capitol.
I'd say that medieval cities were at least 1000 times bigger and with more buildings for different purposes and lots of people activity going on... if we compare them to real world which is stupid... But, still, in gaming terms oblivious "cities" were still too small and DEAD to be believable as "cities" in a continuous 3D game world. Now if they called them small villages...

Cities with 20,000 inhabitants and more were very rare in the Middle Ages, at least in central and northern Europe, which is what Oblivion probably tried to emulate stylistically. Most medieval cities in central Europe were in the 2,000 to 5,000 inhabitant range. Of course, game cities will always be smaller than that. But I agree that Oblivion failed to emulate the feel of cities.

"Towns" like Chorrol or Cheydinhal felt like some small rural settlements with vast free areas, a few corner stores, and an accidental wall around them. They remind me of a stroll through the English countryside. They lack everything that makes cities feel like cities, like a market place with some key buildings around it and people doing their business. They don't even try to look like cities.