Aware me

Is the open world fun to explore?

>>3764895 (OP)
this game was designed to be an MMO and they turned it into single player

>>3764899
sounds comfy

>>3764899
This is always the first comment when this game is mentioned. It's not saying much though. Is the story interesting? Does it have cool quests and characters and mechanics?

Same as OP I'd really like to know more if any anon has played it. I downloaded it yesterday and I'm planning to play it after finishing lords of the fallen

>>3764895 (OP)
>>3764956
I’ve beaten it twice, the story is meh but there is tons of lore written by a fantasy pulp novel author. The world is pretty and fun to explore and the gameplay is good. The quests are meh design wise but there are plenty of them so you won’t run out of things to do. All in all a nice game if you just want to get lost exploring stylized fantasy world

>>3764956
It's written by RA Salvatore, who is not a great writer

>>3764895 (OP)
>>3764899
This. Starts off cool with a decent premise, but then stays to long with a bunch of useless quests and not enough story.

funny how that game almost bankrupted the state of Rhode Island.

>>3764978
Care to explain more?

>>3764899
I wonder why they abandoned the idea of turning it into a MMO, maybe they ran out of money?

>>3764992
Not him, but for some reason Rhode Island thought it would be a good idea loan the company 75 million and ended up getting the rights to the game when the studio went bankrupt.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/09/rhode-island-now-owns-kingdoms-of-amalur#disqus_thread

- great and interesting beginning
- after this there is no sense of purpose and no real directions. At the same time it's not like Morrowind where you can do MQ but you can also say fuck it I will be a Temple pilgirim. The game is very shallow
- awkwardly designed locations, it's supposed to be semi-open world but the areas are small but not detailed
- cringe boring quests and very little story/lore given to player
- too easy, rapid clicking based combat
- little rpg mechanics, you can switch weapon types any time you want
- when you open chest with dlc goodies in starting town, you cannot close it and leave them for later because they are too powerful, you have to take it right away
- overwhelming feeling of wasted potential

>>3764895 (OP)
it's kinda like fable, in the sense that it's shallow

>>3764895 (OP)
>get the remaster
>play on the highest difficulty
>optionally play as a Univeralist for the best gameplay variety without respecs
The game never escapes mediocrity, but it can be surprisingly fun - especially in the beginning. Both DLCs (ignore the new one) are better than the main game, which suffers from content bloat. The most interesting parts of the main game are the guilds and the final stretch of the main quest.

Maid of Windemere is the best girl.

>is the open world fun to explore
Yes. It's extremely comfy. No jumping though.

Game is the peak 7/10 rpg game. Astoundingly comfy game though

>>3764895 (OP)
this is the kind of game where there will always be a small amount of people playing it year after year

>>3764895 (OP)
crafting breaks the game wide open

>>3764964
His irish fae story turned out to be very bland, dull, and boring.
You've got humans moving into a world were two factions of an immortal race are fighting an eternal war. How do you make that boring? But he managed.

>>3764978
Yeah I came to say this, fuck you Curt Schilling you spat on my state you schizophrenic dullard. Swear to god I will leave his entire wardrobe bloody if he gets within an inch of my money again, forget just the sock he can get a whole free dye job courtesy of my New England sized fist remodelling his homebase hole. Write a message in autocrat syrup about what he did and dissolve him in Del's lemonade. They're not gonna need to deep fry pig anus for calamari anymore if he does this again because I will personally serve his asshole to every Rhode Islander on a platter.

Yeah im still mad.

>>3766521
How did this affect you personally? It's a serious question, I don't know how the burger economy works.

>>3766591
Responsibility is always diffused but Rhode Island is a tiny state, small population. We've punched above our weight class for a while but jobs (at this time) were shrinking rapidly and Rhode Island wanted to expand into tech in a big way to shore up our economy. Providence is small, cyberspace is huge, makes sense. Two problems: 1. Curt Schilling and 2. Neoliberal tax policies. Nobody got a bill that said "kingdoms of amalur fee" but the state gave him our money (and we pay a lot already because neolibs won't touch the rich) on the basis of him being a Sox player. There were so many other options. You know whose headquartered here? Fucking *Hasbro*. State funded gaming ventures could've been a lucrative way to promote tech literacy, provide good paying jobs and generally support the arts. Curt blew it on our dime and discredited a whole niche for a state that needed it.

>>3764895 (OP)
Not an RPG and also pure dogshit. Somehow a worse version of the already abysmal Neverwinter Nights.

>>3766614
sounds worse then I thought it would be.

>>3766521
no way this is the curt shilling game? lmaoo hey at least it finally shipped i thought it never even got released lol

>>3766614
>we pay a lot already because neolibs won't touch the rich
when i hear leftist whining about the rich generally skeptical but wow rhode island has some shitty tax brackets
>Taxable income of $0 to $77,450: Tax rate of 3.75%.
>Taxable income of $77,451 to $176,050: Tax rate of 4.75%.
>Taxable income over $176,050: Tax rate of 5.99%.
i mean that's not bad if u have hella high income my state taxes 1 million and over at 10% but for lower income people, what a rip!

>>3766614
I'm pretty sure rhode island just embezzles all it's money. I mean look at it.

>>3764956
>Is the story interesting?
No.
>Does it have cool quests and characters and mechanics?
No.

It's a mildly interesting footnote of a game (what if a cheap wow clone with diablo loot was single player?) but nothing more than a footnote.
It leaned slightly towards ARPG combat, but Guild Wars 2 came out soon after and no one ever talked about this again.

>>3764899
>and they turned it into single player
*tax fraud

>>3764899
>this game was designed to be an MMO and they turned it into single player
This isn't accurate. The game intentionally follows MMO design principles in a single player context, but was never actually intended to BE an MMO. The studio acquired the project from a smaller company it absorbed and released it as Kingdom of Amalur, while they were simultaneously working on an MMO sequel in the same universe (Project Copernicus) that never reached fruition and ultimately bankrupted them.

>>3764895 (OP)
>How's this rpg (Kingdoms of Amalur)?
It's surprisingly good. There's 3 main talent trees to play and they're in the flavors you'd expect: warrior, rogue, and mage. You can mix and match. You get bonuses "class upgrades" no matter what you choose to do so going full warrior is supported as is going a full mix.

The various zones of the game have their level set when you first step into them meaning you can hyper focus on the main plot and ignore all the other content and do that just fine. On the other hand you can try to do everything and spend as much time is as prudent. So much so that there's 3 quest lines focused around warrior things, rogue things, and mage things and it's more than possible to do all 3 in a single playthrough.

It's also possible to respec very easily too in case a playstyle starts to get dull.

Loot is randomized beyond a few sets that you can ignore. Crafting gear is better than anything you'll find if you choose to do it, but the loot you do find is plenty good enough anyway.

The point is that the game is very easy to get into and have a blast with. The controls are intuitive enough. The combat is fun enough. The world is large enough to sink a decent chunk of time into.

>>3764956
>Is the story interesting?
It starts pretty interesting. Your character died and is the only successful reanimation, and this is a mystery that is slowly and steadily unwound as the plot carries on. It's a fun romp. It's engaging enough. It's only Klurikon and thereafter where the plot really becomes all consuming. The rest of the earlier areas are quite meandering unless you're specifically focusing on the plot alone.

I'd give it a B. Pretty decent. Not the best but far from the worst. Entertaining.

>>3764895 (OP)
it's a decent game

>>3764895 (OP)
This came in 2012?? Always seemed like those 2000s two worlds games to me
>by ken rolston, oblivion's lead designer
This after skyrim had come out?

OOF

>>3768133
Good post.

>>3764895 (OP)
I distinctly remember liking the artstyle n allat.
It was kinda shit otherwise. No RP elements just completing grindy quests and collecting loot

>>3771974
The artstyle and combat are more or less what Fable sequels should've turned into.

>>3764895 (OP)
Love the gameplay. Nothing has ever quite played like this game to me and its why I replay it every few years. The world is interesting, even if the story used to explore it is a bit meh. I'm a fan, so I'd recommend giving it a go.

>>3772070
Fable 2 was peak and everything after that was a cliff plummeting into a shitpile.

>>3764964
I used to think he was good u til I read his Dark Elf trilogy. Thr story could've fit into a book and one novella, but he stretched it out.
Amalur's setting and lorr back when it first released showed that he didn't have much imagination to start with. Whole new world, limitless potential and what does he write?
Foegotten Realms 2.0.

>>3774516
>I used to think he was good u til I read his Dark Elf trilogy. Thr story could've fit into a book and one novella, but he stretched it out.
The first trilogy is not stretched by any means, we're talking about three very short novels. The rest of the series is a cash cow, obviosuly.

>>3774548
The first trilogy is the Icewind Dale one, which was fine, even though the Halfling's Gem was not memorable at all.
Dark Elf had three novels, each about 300 pages long. Individually it's nothing, but when put together it becomes a bloated mess. No matter how short a novel is, if little is happening to progress the plot then it may as well be a tome on the nature of concrete.

>>3764895 (OP)
>shitskin syntax
It's probably a perfect fit for you

My dad loved this game before he died. It was the only game he played besides FFXI.

good game with an interesting story behind it's development.

>>3777652
>story behind it's development.
That's all everyone ever talks about. In reality we need more studios attempting this because all we're left with at this point is >Bethesda

>>3774516
>>3774548
>>3774557
I thought that of all the things Salvatore wrote the Dark Trilogy was the weakest.

Icewind Dale, great.
Legacy of the Drow, okay-ish.
Paths of Darkness, great.

>he didn't have much imagination to start with
If youve read any of his novels like you claim you did you would have realized that he is meh at worldbuilding and meh at character development.

IMHO his real strength is writing high-paced actions scenes in such a way that readers can really visualise it well.

You can tell however that he was kinda done with Drizzt somewhere along Paths of Darkness and that it was TSR/Wotc/Hasbro that pushed him to write more of the purple-eyed prick because hes a cashcow.

>>3764956
>>3764964
>>3766408
I dont think the writing is boring. There are a lot of cool ideas there its just that presentation of those ideas leaves much to be desired.

You are essentially in fantasy America which the mortal races have been trying to colonize for centuries which is native to all kinds of fey.
Fey generally didnt seem to care about mortals much and were just doing their own thing.
The summer court was busy re-enacting their history and their ballads and so was the winter court, they didnt bother with the mortals because they when got to know someone they were too quickly gone and replaced by a son or a grandson.

Until the presence of mortals somehow started to fuck with with their immortality.

You also have this interesting aspect where Fate is a very predetermined thing for everyone in that Setting. If you are fated to die by eating a poisonous mushroom when you are 28 there is fuck all you can do about it.
You can avoid mushrooms for the rest of your life but you will still fall of a horse and break your neck on your 28th birthday.
The fae are fated to repeat their lives for all eternity. You partake in your feat of heroism, die, are reborn the next season and do the same shit all over until kingdom come.

And suddenly it changes. Both summer court and winter court notice that less and less of them suddenly appear with each season. Works and trials and cores and functions in the Houses that each represent a different aspect of fey culture they were supposed to repeat suddenly go unfulfilled because the fae suddenly dont come back with the change of seasons.
And this fucks with them hard.
And throughout the game you are presented how it fucks with the fae and how ill-equipped the eternal folk is to deal with the sudden changes.

So there is a coup at the Winter Court and the new Winter King declares war on mortals.
A war that has now been raging for years against an enemy that while limited in number just keeps re-spawning each year.

>>3777807
So eventually the mortals while overwhelming in troops and numbers start getting pushed back by the Winterfey and eventually completly kicked out of the Winterfey lands after years and years of fighting the same combatants.

And now the war is somewhat in a stalemate, the Winterfey while doing raids into the Summerfey lands where the majority of mortal settlements and cities are sees limited success and the mortal armies trying to get a stable foothold and defend the last major fortress in the Winterfey-Lands also see limited success.
It his however rather clear that eventually the mortals will be pushed back further and lose.

And this is where the game starts.

For me the real issues KoA has are not with the worldbuilding or storytelling but presentation and baffling gamemechanic decisions which are the things that hamstring the story.

For example: For some reason the areas while having some level-scaling the ma levels are really limited and to add insult to injury the game showers you with EXP. It gets even wore when you use your Fate-Ultimate and get showered with double, triple and quadruple exp in every 2nd encounter.
You do a couple of quests and suddenly have far outlevel the max lvl range of the area making the already repetitive combat a chore.

You cannot imagine my fucking surprised when I hit max level after like 1/3 of the game before even reaching the 2nd major city.
And of course the loot is tied to the area levels and there is nothing more infuriating than finding a rare weapon or set item that is useless to you now because the random green daggers youve found all over have vastly better stats.
Add to it all of the optional content and quests away from the main hubs that you just stumble upon by exploring while the main quest never even bothers you lead you anywhere near them.
There are a lot of areas that seem to be exactly that, purely optional, far away from anywhere the main quests goes.

6/10, its okay.

>>3777827
>For example: For some reason the areas while having some level-scaling the ma levels are really limited and to add insult to injury the game showers you with EXP. It gets even wore when you use your Fate-Ultimate and get showered with double, triple and quadruple exp in every 2nd encounter.
>You do a couple of quests and suddenly have far outlevel the max lvl range of the area making the already repetitive combat a chore.
They more or less fixed it in the remaster. Together with the highest difficulty, the whole game stays somewhat challenging and you can always easily die if you're not careful. Even alchemy, when used sparingly, turns from something needlessly overpowered into a lore-friendly tool that changes fate and saves you from a certain death.
You hit the level cap only in the final stretch of the main quest even if you finished every bit of side content, and do both DLCs as a post game content. Well, unless you bought the third DLC which adds even more levels. But I doubt it's worth playing.

>>3777867
oh yeah the DLCs, i forgot they existed.
I remember really disliking both Teeth of Naaros and the pirate one.

Both in the writing as well as the pace they were inconsistent and all over the place.

I think what mainly annoyed me was that the could have used that time effort to polish up the base game and plot instead of adding DLC with their own plots that have zero to do with the overall narrative.

I also remember the Labyrinth under Naaros being a pain to navigate. I get the idea behind it, making a dungeon with a lot of one-way paths to encourage exploration through it multiple times but the execution was such a mess and it felt like such a chore to explore.

Again, I dont think its bad game, there some cool and unique ideas at the core but so many of the elements in the writing miss their point due to the presentation being executed poorly.
I also wonder how much EA messed with the nearly finished product.