Reckoning: Kingdoms Of Amalur is such a lousy name...

[tylertoo]

I have never read a Bob Salvatore novel. I've only really been dimly aware of them. I figured (and perhaps this is a decent perception of things) that his stuff is competent but that's it.

You figure correctly, IMHO. I bought the Icewind Dale trilogy years ago (a SF Book Club compendium) and read the first of the three. Competent is an apt description. Not horrible, but certainly nothing that had me wanting to continue on to the second book. By contrast I found George R.R. Martin's stuff light years beyond Salvatore. I know that's an easy comparison, but it is apt. Martin has his flaws, but his characters come alive in a way that Salvatore would never come close to.

[Brian Rubin]

No, it just shows up in the special delivery chest in the first town. Of course, I had long outleveled all of it already, but I guess it'll be nice to have if I ever make a second character.

Crap, a bunch of stuff didn't show up. :-[

[Royal Fool]

This sounds a bit like Darksiders, I'm just wrapping that one up. Can anyone compare the two as yet?

One of them is a Zelda clone, the other isn't.

[Joe M.]

I love that it's the 3 key. It's so funny to see what designers come up with when they port a button-based interface to mouse and keyboard.

If it's not clear (and it definitely isn't!), each dialogue option that's shown when you right-click on items in the loot screen is assigned a number value that can be used in lieu of right-clicking. So, for example, 1 would be Take, 2 for Compare/Inspect and 3 for Add to Junk (unsure if there are more options later on).

[karnisov]

Nice to see KoA holding a respectable position on the steam top 10. Hopefully this bodes well for the upcoming mmo.

[McKnight]

If it's not clear (and it definitely isn't!), each dialogue option that's shown when you right-click on items in the loot screen is assigned a number value that can be used in lieu of right-clicking. So, for example, 1 would be Take, 2 for Compare/Inspect and 3 for Add to Junk (unsure if there are more options later on).

You sir are a gent and a scholar. You have no idea how much better you just made the game for me :)

Anyone else OCD about lorestones? The game is ridiculously easy but I still get joy from breaking the systems. Damn the min/maxer in me.

[Quaro]

From My Schilling himself, on the difficulty:

1) WE HEAR YOU!!! Some think the game is too easy, we hear ya. Spoke a bit with Ian and a few others and there are a couple of things to remember, some, none, all may apply.

A) Lots of you are doing everything, quests wise, which is awesome, but it appears you might be outleveling your areas. Not your fault obviously, but anyone that watched Day9's epic stream might try what he did:) Run as far east as you can at start:) See how far you can make it, you'll get one shotted not long in:)

B) Nightmare mode may be an option (I CANNOT tell you guys what the team will decide patch wise nor will I ever) but we are 24 hours past launch. As you get into the game, and remember 'just getting out of Dalentarth' means there's about 9/10ths of the world yet to see.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...postcount=3457

[Brian Rubin]

Put in a couple more hours tonight, got accepted into the travelers and have stolen a buncha stuff. Not what I was planning, but hey, fun stuff.

[krayzkrok]

Lots of you are doing everything, quests wise, which is awesome, but it appears you might be outleveling your areas.

Curt seems to imply this was a surprising way of playing the game. Really? I mean, surely someone must have tried to play it this way during playtesting?

KoA has just been released here, but I think I'll hold off for a while until they patch out the teething troubles. The above is exactly the way I normally play these games, dashing through areas just to make it playable doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

[Quaro]

Curt seems to imply this was a surprising way of playing the game. Really? I mean, surely someone must have tried to play it this way during playtesting?

KoA has just been released here, but I think I'll hold off for a while until they patch out the teething troubles. The above is exactly the way I normally play these games, dashing through areas just to make it playable doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

I wonder if they were thinking in an MMO mindset, where players generally do quests until they are powerful enough for the next area.

[Brian Rubin]

Oh, and tangent, I dunno what the name of that spell is that lets you tag a few enemies then blast 'em with fire, but it's the bees knees. Totally leveling that bad boy up.

[olaf]

Like the game a lot, no surprise as I liked the demo.

Couple of things, I like too many of the skills, so far spending that one skill point on level up has been my toughest choice. Playing a rogue, my stealth skill is not really helping me all that much, most of the enemies are clustered with at least one facing every possible approach.

Found some skill trainers, but holy shit are they expensive.

Lastly, normal is too easy. I am going to restart on hard.

[charmtrap]

Yeah, I'm finding stealth to have been a waste of points really. I took the race that had two points in Stealth to start with and I've added another point in it, but that red eye just fills up too quickly if the enemies are facing you. Which they almost always are.

OTOH, Detect Hidden is pretty good. I've got three points in it and you'll find little treasure caches all over the map. Plus you get bonus gold on some bodies...with gold being as hard as it is to come by, every little bonus helps.

[JPR]

In the quicklook, Gerstmann said that at the end of the game he had over 3,000,000 gold, just from selling loot he picked up and didn't want. After just a few hours, he never encountered anything he wanted to buy and could not. Gold is absolutely not something you want to prioritize around.

[DKDArtagnan]

Stealth is really disappointing to me. Then again, I'm a huge stealth fan and I always play some variation of stealth/archer dude.

First of all, you can't make stealth attacks of any sort with a bow (TES games spoiled me).

Secondly, even with most of my points invested in stealth and near the max - creatures spot me way too easily - except for solo mobs not facing me. That would be ok if the game didn't throw a zillion mobs at you in almost every encounter. So, even if you CAN take out a single enemy successfully - you'll just be facing tons more immediately afterwards. It's a negligible advantage. The only real use is for the occasional single tough mob. Hardly worth your skill points.

Thirdly, the "smoke bomb" only works when you're not getting hit - and since you kinda tend to use it to VANISH during combat - it's very impractical to utilise. Unless I'm missing something.

As a stealth fan, this is NOT an area of the game I'm too happy with.

Thankfully, the other ways to fight are very entertaining.

[BDGE]

Stealth is really disappointing to me. Then again, I'm a huge stealth fan and I always play some variation of stealth/archer dude.

First of all, you can't make stealth attacks of any sort with a bow (TES games spoiled me).

Secondly, even with most of my points invested in stealth and near the max - creatures spot me way too easily - except for solo mobs not facing me. That would be ok if the game didn't throw a zillion mobs at you in almost every encounter. So, even if you CAN take out a single enemy successfully - you'll just be facing tons more immediately afterwards. It's a negligible advantage. The only real use is for the occasional single tough mob. Hardly worth your skill points.

Thirdly, the "smoke bomb" only works when you're not getting hit - and since you kinda tend to use it to VANISH during combat - it's very impractical to utilise. Unless I'm missing something.

As a stealth fan, this is NOT an area of the game I'm too happy with.

Thankfully, the other ways to fight are very entertaining.

Damn, just got my copy and made a stealth character as well, as I am a similar player. Kind of regretting the choice myself even though I dig the charged dagger attack. May respec to something else when possible.

Not entirely sure how the first finesse magic attack works either. You throw out some smoke to stun an enemy in front of you then follow up with thrown daggers, but in the move list it says to "attack->pause->attack". Typo? Mostly I am also not finding the effectiveness of that attack ability in combat situations, at least in its puny level 1 form I guess. Any thoughts on this weird ability?

Otherwise game is solid in hour 1, a fantastic change from FFXIII-2 which I entirely abandoned after 35 hours. On 360, I have also noticed a step up in polish over the demo. Camera is far snappier, visuals are crisper, and some odd tech issues seem thankfully ironed out.

[DKDArtagnan]

Damn, just got my copy and made a stealth character as well, as I am a similar player. Kind of regretting the choice myself even though I dig the charged dagger attack. May respec to something else when possible.

Not entirely sure how the first finesse magic attack works either. You throw out some smoke to stun an enemy in front of you then follow up with thrown daggers, but in the move list it says to "attack->pause->attack". Typo? Mostly I am also not finding the effectiveness of that attack ability in combat situations, at least in its puny level 1 form I guess. Any thoughts on this weird ability?

Otherwise game is solid in hour 1, a fantastic change from FFXIII-2 which I entirely abandoned after 35 hours. On 360, I have also noticed a step up in polish over the demo. Camera is far snappier, visuals are crisper, and some odd tech issues seem thankfully ironed out.

Yeah, I have that ability as well. It's kinda strange.

You press attack - wait half a second - and press attack again. First, the smoke "dazzles" the enemies or whatever (but for a very short time) - and then you make a frontal cone attack with thrown daggers.

The smoke thing doesn't seem too useful, but the thrown daggers are pretty strong when used up close. They seem to make enemies bleed quite a bit - and that means they take extra damage from physical attacks. I defeated some "boss" type creatures using this ability a lot. The Trolls seem particularly vulnerable to the second attack in this ability.

That said, I don't think it's really worth it overall. The frost trap is much more useful, especially when maxed. But I'm still only level 13-14 - and who knows what the game is like near the cap.

I seem to have very limited mana available - so I can't make good use of multiple abilities.

I'm considering starting over and making a finesse/sorcery dude instead. Seems to be a better match for my playstyle than pure finesse (which is what I usually go for).

But the archery talents are strong - and if you get a decent bow, you can kill most enemies without too much effort.

That said, I HATE the auto-target logic, because it picks the wrong target WAY too often. I'm not sure why they didn't implement a switch target thing - as is the norm in this type of combat system. I'm using an Xbox 360 controller, btw.

[The Mad Hatter]

If you haven't pulled the trigger yet, I should say that I think this is a $40 game. If you haven't read Sessler's review you definitely should. I would bump the score up a little, probably, but what he says is spot on. There is also a Quicklook in which Gerstmann does a reasonable job expressing his concerns about the game. He ended up reviewing it as a 4/5, btw.

I'm weak, so I bought it anyway. I didn't have much time to use it last night, but I should have some over the weekend. I don't want it to disappear into the backlog.

[McKnight]

Who in their right mind thought that *not* including a stat screen was a good idea? I'm getting a zillion different bonuses from skills and items and whatnot, I want to see all that information together in one place.

[Teiman]

That screen exist, search on the menus. Hell theres a complete manual of the game in the menus!

[DKDArtagnan]

Strange, I was looking for that screen as well and couldn't find it. I could find a screen with magical effects - but not a detailed breakdown of item/skill bonuses.

[Spect]

One major use for stealth that isn't getting mentioned is that you can loot things from owned chests, desks and bookshelves much more easily. This is actually pretty beneficial to your income.

If you're really not happy with choosing stealth, then respec. No need to start over. Just visit a Fateweaver.

I can attest that gold is not an issue in this game. Again, as with many other elements of KoA, it's modeled after an MMO. Gold will be slow to come at first, but eventually you will be swimming in it. I am currently level 12 and have around 100k gold. That's after spending 45k on training. I consider training the only real gold sink I've found so far.

[DKDArtagnan]

One major use for stealth that isn't getting mentioned is that you can loot things from owned chests, desks and bookshelves much more easily. This is actually pretty beneficial to your income.

If you're really not happy with choosing stealth, then respec. No need to start over. Just visit a Fateweaver.

I can attest that gold is not an issue in this game. Again, as with many other elements of KoA, it's modeled after an MMO. Gold will be slow to come at first, but eventually you will be swimming in it. I am currently level 12 and have around 100k gold. That's after spending 45k on training. I consider training the only real gold sink I've found so far.

I know about respec, but I've been kinda "breezing" through the first parts of the game, because I haven't had the kind of time available to really immerse myself.

I like a certain "flow" when I build my character, where I know what I want with my build - and I know what kind of skills/items I should go for and so on.

So, my experience playing is always better when I do things appropriate to my character.

Sounds silly, probably, but I do like that "pure" experience you get when you immerse yourself in the game and your character (including build/loot setup) from the very beginning :)

I think I needed to establish whether the game was "good enough" for that kind of investment, and I think it is. I'm looking forward to a serious playthrough!

[The Mad Hatter]

You figure correctly, IMHO. I bought the Icewind Dale trilogy years ago (a SF Book Club compendium) and read the first of the three. Competent is an apt description. Not horrible, but certainly nothing that had me wanting to continue on to the second book. By contrast I found George R.R. Martin's stuff light years beyond Salvatore. I know that's an easy comparison, but it is apt. Martin has his flaws, but his characters come alive in a way that Salvatore would never come close to.

His writing has improved a lot over the years too. Try the early Drizzt do Urden books - I'm a sucker for elves and orcs and D&D in general but damn. You know there's going to be problems when the bad guys are "smiling evilly".

[Jag]

Crafting: I've been salvaging over selling, which is why I don't have a lot of gold. I'm beginning to think its a mistake because the stuff I find in the wild seems to be better than anything I can craft. Unless crafting offers some really good benefits, I don't see the point of wasting points and money gathering mats for it.

[DKDArtagnan]

I intend to delve into the lore, and I hope it pays off. I'm getting a very "disconnected" feeling between the lore and the actual world and the places it relates to - but I'm hoping that will change as I get deeper into it. Would be really cool if everything actually fit together in a greater whole!

[McKnight]

That screen exist, search on the menus. Hell theres a complete manual of the game in the menus!

No, it does not.

[McKnight]

Crafting: I've been salvaging over selling, which is why I don't have a lot of gold. I'm beginning to think its a mistake because the stuff I find in the wild seems to be better than anything I can craft. Unless crafting offers some really good benefits, I don't see the point of wasting points and money gathering mats for it.

The big benefit from crafting comes from getting access to stuff tiers above what you should be allowed have. The game seems to seed crude versions (or awful green versions in shops) of weapons and armor long before you should be able to get it. With crafting you can salvage that and then craft it into something ridiculously good.

Everything bar the helmet I'm using is crafted and far ahead of anything I've found apart from maybe the odd purple weapon as I reach the level cap for that tier (if that makes sense to you). There's definitely a bigger disparity at lower levels though.

I don't really want to talk much about mechanics and stuff like that (cos people are weird about what constitutes a spoiler) but people worrying about money, just stop. The games economy is one of the most broken I've seen in a long time (or at least broken far earlier then I would be used to in an RPG).

[Lorini]

Talk about it! Just use spoiler tags.

[Tim James]

we could get five folks from Qt3 together and in a week throw together a better world and narrative than what the esteemed Mr. Salvatore came up with.

I believe this is a bigger debate beyond RA Salvatore. I thought Tom or someone recently wrote about the difference between writing a book and writing for a videogame. And I'm pretty sure gamers are usually skeptical when a team brings in a big name writer. It never ends up being that great. Crysis 2 was the most recent example off the top of my head. (I didn't play it, but I remember the comments.)

So I think you're encountering something that goes beyond 38 Studios and Salvatore. The mistake on their part might've been not knowing about the historically poor record big name writers have in videogames.

Again, this is all shooting from the hip with my vague understanding of the state of the industry. I might have it wrong.