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[Baconsammy]

Where is the House of Ballads quest again? I'm sure it's been answered before. I explored as much as I could in 45 minutes and got to a couple places that were closed off for the demo, but didn't seem to get that particular quest.

If you need the exact location marked on your map, you need to do the quest at the very start with the girl lying hurt on the ground. That will lead you there. Once you know where it is, though, you can just run right to it without during the injured Fae girl's quest. The best directions I can give is leave the first town and take the first right that opens up, then run diagonally-up until you hit a path. Take a right onto that path and keep going until the world opens on your left. When it opens up left, go that way and cross a little bridge. Once over the bridge turn immediately left and follow it until you hit the House of Ballads. Along the way you'll fight boggarts and some wolves.

 

[Torraz]

Liked the demo but I'm already getting Last Story and Devil Survivor 2 in February, so I'm not sure what to do.

 

[Atruvius]

i noticed camp sites all over so I was wondering if there was a wait and/or sleep mechanic similar to Bethesda RPG's and if the auto save works in the same manner i.e auto save before or after every load screen.

Because of the better combat I actually cared more about NOT dying in KoAR then in a bethesda RPG.

You can sleep in beds and you can decide the length of your sleep in a similar screen to Skyrim and Oblivion.

 

[BrettWeir]

Where is the House of Ballads quest again? I'm sure it's been answered before. I explored as much as I could in 45 minutes and got to a couple places that were closed off for the demo, but didn't seem to get that particular quest.

Here you go. North end of map.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Not sure if anyone cares but Curt will be on the Herd in the next segment in about 3-5 minutes. I don't know, he may mention it

Or not ><

Stay tuned!

 

[Aesthet1c]

Got to try the demo on 360 last night and man what a mess that felt like. I played the PS3 version last week and really enjoyed it. The 360 was extremely buggy and even froze up on me. On top of that, I think the visuals looked a lot better on the PS3. I know the bugs have already been ironed out in the main build, but I think I might have to be buying this on PS3 now, even though all my friends are getting it for 360.

 

[Lonesome_Raod]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ning-demo-bugs-wont-be-in-final-game-dev-vows

don't worry too much about the bugs in the demo. though after 8 times playing it myself I only ever had a headless npc once. no other bugs.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ning-demo-bugs-wont-be-in-final-game-dev-vows

don't worry too much about the bugs in the demo. though after 8 times playing it myself I only ever had a headless npc once. no other bugs.

I'm glad that article confirms the release will be relatively bug free.

The video interview with Grant Kirkhope is great though. It really explains the approach to the games music. I was always a big fan of his work at Rare. The music in Banjo-Kazooie is some of the best in-game music of all time IMO.

 

[Hambone]

I'm glad that article confirms the release will be relatively bug free.

That's good to hear. Can someone provide highlights from that article. I'm unable to access game sites from work.

Also, is the UI from the demo build the same as final release? It definitely needs some improvement, but it's not a deal breaker.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

"I'm not going to say the game's bug free - no game is. But it's pretty darn solid. Final code will show it's way better across all three platforms than the demo build. The demo didn't see the advantages of the last home stretch of bug fixing, which is a little bit painful."

In fact, the demo introduced bugs into the game that never existed in the code Big Huge Games created.

One of these relates to dialogue skipping - the result of missing voice over in the demo.

"The thing that's really hurtful for us is they actually introduced some new bugs in the demo that weren't even in the game when it branched," Frazier said.

Dialogue skipping is "not technically a bug", Frazier explained. "What they're seeing is the VO just isn't there. The big challenge for this demo was the game is frickin' huge so trying to get the download size down to something reasonable was a real challenge for the group that was working on it.

There ya go, buddy.






http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-01-25-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-demo-bugs-wont-be-in-final-game-dev-vows

 

[Akia]

I am buying this game at launch on Steam.

 

[Astra]

Liked the demo but I'm already getting Last Story and Devil Survivor 2 in February, so I'm not sure what to do.

I hear ya. I'll likely get DS2 with KoA, and put Last Story on the back burner. (or cave, and get all three, and suffer for it). Just recently heard about KoA, and it shot up my list of anticipated games so fast, and pushed some others down. Tales of Graces comes out in March, too. RPG overload!

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

I hear ya. I'll likely get DS2 with KoA, and put Last Story on the back burner. (or cave, and get all three, and suffer for it). Just recently heard about KoA, and it shot up my list of anticipated games so fast, and pushed some others down. Tales of Graces comes out in March, too. RPG overload!

Just pick up KoA for 45 at Toys R Us by pre-ordering. You won't suffer as badly then.

 

[Aselith]

So, I played the demo up until the free roam section before work and it seems pretty damn good. I do wish however that would lower the timing on dodging after an attack. Having it take too long until you can dodge makes dodging anticipatory rather than reactionary and it feels like it shouldn't be that way with how quick the combat is in this game and the fact that they referenced Japanese action games as an inspiration. Those games have much shorter timing to dodge. Have they talked at all about adjusting that yet?

 

[Klyka]

So, I played the demo up until the free roam section before work and it seems pretty damn good. I do wish however that would lower the timing on dodging after an attack. Having it take too long until you can dodge makes dodging anticipatory rather than reactionary and it feels like it shouldn't be that way with how quick the combat is in this game and the fact that they referenced Japanese action games as an inspiration. Those games have much shorter timing to dodge. Have they talked at all about adjusting that yet?

You can always dodge out of your attack at any time except for the finishing attack in a combo or when using an ability/spell.

 

[chifanpoe]

You can always dodge out of your attack at any time except for the finishing attack in a combo or when using an ability/spell.

Block with shield also can interrupt all but the finishing moves*.

* so far as I can tell in the demo build. Some of the advanced fighting videos look like the bigger advanced move sets might not be able to be canceled as well.

 

[Thrakier]

I stopped playing after levaing the dungeon. So you guys claim it gets better after that? I didn't like the graphics TBH and it wasn't very inspiring overall...

 

[SafeinSound]

I'm really trying hard to convince my friend to download the demo.

Also, only bugs i ran into were disappearing npcs while talking to them.

 

[Aselith]

You can always dodge out of your attack at any time except for the finishing attack in a combo or when using an ability/spell.

Well good! It felt like it wasn't letting me dodge until my attack ended with normal X attacks. I'll be giving it another go when I get home so I'll try it again.

 

[Levyne]

For bugs, I saw skipped dialogue (unless all of that was unrecorded yet? It happened a bunch), some texture loading problems, once my character was all jittery when talking to someone, and once had a weird artifact of some sort (a random grey square of various shapes) appear in the forest during the free roaming part.

 

[piratepwnsninja]

Not sure if anyone cares but Curt will be on the Herd in the next segment in about 3-5 minutes. I don't know, he may mention it

Or not ><

Stay tuned!

Would love to hear that.

 

[chifanpoe]

Would love to hear that.

Me too, Colin Cowherd usually hates on things not Tom Brady. Would be interesting to hear his take on Curt making video games.

* i found it

- http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=7502092

Looks like they just talk about Baseball and the Tigers picking up Prince Fielder. - at the end he briefly talks about the web site, game, metacritic score(curt thinks it will be in the 9's), and Ms. Pacman!


Also this was posted on the official forums the size of the demo/game/world map
http://forums.reckoning.amalur.com/showthread.php?2922-For-those-interested-how-big-this-world-really-is&p=49732&viewfull=1#post49732

 

[Astra]

Just pick up KoA for 45 at Toys R Us by pre-ordering. You won't suffer as badly then.

Sadly there is no Toys R Us here. $15 isn't all that much, but it'd be $15 toward the DLC in March.

 

[chifanpoe]

Found an Ability Calculator the other day, looks like they updated it to be a little more functional now.

http://www.38watch.com/calculator/

 

[Chris R]

Downloaded the demo last night and had a bit of fun with it. The graphics didn't look terrific, but they weren't terrible either. Nice detail in the world too. I just wish the controls and combat had a little more depth to them (maybe they do, and since this was only a demo I never got around to seeing that).

I can see myself picking this up at some point though.

 

[Xevren]

Sadly there is no Toys R Us here. $15 isn't all that much, but it'd be $15 toward the DLC in March.

Same price on the website, can just pre-order there.

 

[renitou]

Sadly there is no Toys R Us here. $15 isn't all that much, but it'd be $15 toward the DLC in March.

Closer to $12 off when you figure in tax. Not such a great deal. I'll be waiting two weeks for the inevitable Amazon post release week sale.

 

[MushroomSamba]

Found an Ability Calculator the other day, looks like they updated it to be a little more functional now.

http://www.38watch.com/calculator/

Yeah, that got posted a few pages back. Pretty addictive stuff just trying to map out your path. I'm still undecided whether I want to go for the pure mage destiny or do a warrior/hybrid destiny. Both have the blink ability I'm really interested in, but the pure mage path has an "ice" blink.

 

[Astra]

Same price on the website, can just pre-order there.

I cant seem to find it on the Canadian website. Even if the US site ships to Canada, after figuring in the tax and shipping cost, I won't be saving much, if anything. I don't mind paying full price for a game I am really looking forward to.

If anyone here wants to ask the visionaries of Amalur anything about the game, there is a thread over at the official forums for it.
http://forums.reckoning.amalur.com/showthread.php?2947-Ask-the-Reckoning-Visionaries!

 

[Rokam]

Is there dual wielding for anything other than Chakrams and Daggers?

 

[Lonesome_Raod]

feablades.

 

[Rokam]

feablades.

, was hoping for some titan's grip action from WoW. False art on the cover for the game!

 

[Wallach]

Found an Ability Calculator the other day, looks like they updated it to be a little more functional now.

http://www.38watch.com/calculator/

So you have exactly enough points to max out any one tree by level 40 (123 points).

Well, that makes my plans easier.

 

[Baconsammy]

So you have exactly enough points to max out any one tree by level 40 (123 points).

Well, that makes my plans easier.

The ability to totally re-assign them is what made my plans easier. Can't wait to mess with lots of different builds.

 

[Lonesome_Raod]

I've spent about ten hours on the demo. Lord help me when the full game releases.

 

[Sothpaw]

Just tried the demo on Steam. I am primarily prefer PC style RPGs but I have to admit that this game is fun. The controls feel really solid and I like the artstyle. The combat seems like it could have some depth to it; hopefully there are some challenging battles in the full game.

Anyway just wanted to add another positive impression to the thread.

 

[ironcreed]

I've spent about ten hours on the demo. Lord help me when the full game releases.

Indeed, lol. I am already getting the itch to play it yet again tonight. Just going by how addictive the demo alone is, I honestly think I'll end up getting more replay out of this game than Skyrim.

 

[Hannar]

I've spent about ten hours on the demo. Lord help me when the full game releases.

23 in the Steam version here, with one play through on the PS3, 360, and Origin so far too. Game can't get here soon enough.

 

[Syril]

I just heard about the cross-promotion they have with Mass Effect. Can I still get it if I play the demo on Steam? I'm not entirely sure how it works.

 

[Baconsammy]

I've played the PS3 version 5 times, and the 360 version at least 10. I need help. Someone help me. If the PS3 version's framerate indeed gets capped, I think I'm leaning towards that version despite not liking how floaty the movement feels, which isn't a problem with the game but just the looseness of the analog sticks on my DS.

 

[Hannar]

I just heard about the cross-promotion they have with Mass Effect. Can I still get it if I play the demo on Steam? I'm not entirely sure how it works.

Yes, as long as you link your EA account in game.

 

[Syril]

Yes, as long as you link your EA account in game.

As in link it to my Steam account, or just to the demo?

 

[Hannar]

As in link it to my Steam account, or just to the demo?

It will give you the option when you sign in to the game. So long as you do that, you're good to go.

 

[Rokam]

Been on the fence, but the interview Schilling did with Scott Johnson (The Instance/Final Score) sold me on it. I'd suggest those who haven't listened go do it finalscoreshow.com and it's at the end of the podcast.

 

[Baconsammy]

Been on the fence, but the interview Schilling did with Scott Johnson (The Instance/Final Score) sold me on it. I'd suggest those who haven't listened go do it finalscoreshow.com and it's at the end of the podcast.

Thanks for that. I love how open and honest Curt is, especially about the buggy demo. I guess I'm in for a great experience with the final game if it's better than what I saw in the demo.

 

[Rokam]

I know there's a talent calculator out there, but is there a skill calculator around the intertubes?

 

[ReaperXL7]

Sadly missed out on the signature edition but I was able tosnag a collectors edition today, just get the guys to sign it at comiccon this year. With that and the guide coming now its just the wait that's sucks.

I do think I may switch my build plan to might/fineese though as I'm really diggin the greatsword bow combo and the arrow storm and multishot skills look awesome. I did not like bows at first but the more I use it the more I like it. Compliments the GS well imo. Plus the fineese skills are pretty awesome. Saw a vid of the gambit skill and it looks really useful against groups and doubles as pretty boggart exploding fireworks.

 

[indigo-cyclops]

I tried running the demo the other day on Steam, and when it loaded the entire screen was black other than the minimap...Any ideas as to what the issue is here?

Guess I should probably check Steam forums, wanted to see if anyone had issues here first.

 

[WanderingWind]

I tried running the demo the other day on Steam, and when it loaded the entire screen was black other than the minimap...Any ideas as to what the issue is here?

Guess I should probably check Steam forums, wanted to see if anyone had issues here first.

Turn off post processing in the settings, you should be fine.

 

[ReaperXL7]

I tried running the demo the other day on Steam, and when it loaded the entire screen was black other than the minimap...Any ideas as to what the issue is here?

Guess I should probably check Steam forums, wanted to see if anyone had issues here first.

Turning off post processing should fix it for you