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Kingdoms of Amalur demo impressions thread [Up On 360/Origin/Steam/U.S. PSN]
- Thread starter CrunchinJelly
- Start date
Yep, Schilling clearly wanted to come out swinging with 38 Studios' first game by sweeping up some great talent.
spindoctor
Member
On that page it shows I have unlocked 'Chakram Launcher' and 'Reckoner-Knight'. Is there supposed to be anything else? For some reason I seem to recall a lot of popup messages telling me about stuff I had unlocked when I was playing the demo.
The rest of the stuff is unloackables for the full retail release of Reckoning.
SuicidalSteve
Member
Tried playing it on steam and all I got was a black screen and tv saying mode not supported...this is silly...anyone know how to fix this? Using geforce9800gt
from what i've seen you have to turn off post processing. that should fix the issue, it's apprently been dealt with in the retail version though.
Baconsammy
Banned
Played it one more time as a rogue, putting points into the far left bottom finesse skill. It kinda made the game feel like Too Human (in a good way). Then I put a point into harpoon and it felt like WoW (deathknight), but what a cool combo it is to harpoon someone followed by some dagger action.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
It really is, and I'm glad they're addressing it before release.
Baconsammy
Banned
Are they though? Seems like it's too late to do that before release, especially given that Joe, who is in charge of making the change, just yesterday asked people for input on what they wanted. I get the impression that 38 Studios and BHG think the camera is fine. 2-3 weeks to get a consensus on what the masses want, design it, approve it, code it, and then test it is really not something I think we'll see happen. And wouldn't pulling the camera back on the console versions introduce all kinds of framerate issues? When I first played the demo, my immediate thought was that they're making me feel claustrophobic with the camera in order to maintain the framerate.
My one wish is that they cap the framerate on the PS3 before release. If they can't, I'm going 360. It's really annoying to watch my character stutter step while running because the framerate is bouncing around between what appears to be 60 and 20.
AcceptableGhost
Member
Beyond the (pretty iffy) mouse acceleration I don't see what the problem is with the camera (outside of it going wacky on me one time while I was playing). It is going for action game combat. The point of the camera is to zoom in automatically so you can see the tells for the enemies moves, and then zoom out when it decides multiple enemies are a threat. I did not check for this game, but normally in action games when enemies are off-screen they either will not attack at all or attack much less. On a controller you would not be controlling the camera (for the most part) when fighting because you will be hitting face buttons during combat. If you think the camera is too zoomed in outside of combat, then maybe I guess.
Baconsammy
Banned
I love the game, but my main issues all seem to involve the camera:
- too close when just exploring the environment
- doesn't follow me properly...ever. I shouldnt have to babysit the camera
- Hitting R3 centers the camera, but does so by refreshing the screen, which is pretty jarring. I'd prefer it swung around (personal opinion)
- in numerous fights I've had against 5 or more enemies, I'll be getting attacked from behind by an offscreen enemy. I turn to face/attack them and the camera just stupidly sits there allowing me to continue to be attacked by an off-screen enemy. Swivel that damn camera for me so I can see my opponent. Instead it just sits there forcing me to stop attacking and mess with the camera myself.
With all that said, I can't get enough of the game. It feeds some primal urge I appear to have to kill shit and then loot it.
AcceptableGhost
Member
Can't say I played it a ton (just 1/2 of the timer - decided I had seen enough to warrant a purchase, eventually). I also did not try the controller so I don't know if it auto-controls the camera enough for it. Maybe if I had played it more I would have gotten annoyed by the camera.
Played the pc demo yesterday. Had zero issues, game ran at 60 fps and graphics are much nicer than I thought they would be for a first release from new developer. Camera could be better yes but as some have already stated I think they are zooming in to show the action better. I did get hit to back multiple times though and many of those times I could have easily dodged had I seen the enemy better. I do not understand people complaing about the UI, its fast and functional (which is much more important than looks).
Amory
Member
Oof, extremely unimpressed so far, and I was really looking forward to this game. Last gen graphics, boring enemies (and I had some frame rate choppiness when swinging my sword against them...), generic dialogue, even the menu animations seem to stutter.
I was gonna preorder, but I guess I can wait and see what happens with the price. I'm guessing it's gonna drop. Pretty fast. If amazon was offering one of those $20 rebates I'd preorder though.
I was gonna preorder, but I guess I can wait and see what happens with the price. I'm guessing it's gonna drop. Pretty fast. If amazon was offering one of those $20 rebates I'd preorder though.
Last gen graphics? If anything, it's nice and colorful, and some decent detail.
Amory
Member
Well sure. It's colorful. But at the very least the character models could have been done on a PS2 or xbox, or close to it.
Plus I just saw an animation where rocks fell from the ceiling...directly through the floor. And NPCs speaking dialogue only move their mouth about 20% of the time. There are definitely issues.
Edit: Mouth moved fine in my latest interaction with an NPC, so I dunno what was happening earlier.
CecilRousso
Member
Preorder a game that you are so unimpressed with, if you could save $20? Sounds a bit silly.
But I liked the demo.
Amory
Member
Just seems like a game I'd pay $40 for and not $60. I'm interested in playing the game, I'm just far from blown away, that's all.
Winnie the Pimp
Member
artstyle= WoW meets Fable... but i dig it kinda...
plays well and is a definite buy sometime down the road
plays well and is a definite buy sometime down the road
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
GATDAM, I totally forgot about him being a part of this. He was on the Herd or something a bit ago and I always forget.
Now I want to buy it to support him. It's actually an enjoyable game.
Winnie the Pimp
Member
^^ yeah this game SHOULD be a lot more polished than it is actually... still fun but you know how it goes when the say something will be fixed for the full game, nothing is fixed 90% of the time
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
It's a demo, remember that. Not that this matters to me on PC, I had only a few audio cut outs but I'm sure that will be fixed by retail. It was a solid 60 with no compromises.
Its a 4 month old build we are playing, and the demo was not cut by the developers actually working on the game. All these key points (including the fact the camera is fixed, etc) should be in the OP. We see so many of the rehashed complaints.
I'm playing the Demo on the Xbox and have ran into some serious issues.
1. I could not talk to all of the character that had dialog ques available. This happened before meeting with the professor and after the doorway to the well of souls collapses.
2. Some of the dialogue sequences did not have any sound.
3. Some dialogue sequences seem to fast forward through the entire dialogue cut scene.
4. Then the game froze.
Has anyone else experienced these issues?
1. I could not talk to all of the character that had dialog ques available. This happened before meeting with the professor and after the doorway to the well of souls collapses.
2. Some of the dialogue sequences did not have any sound.
3. Some dialogue sequences seem to fast forward through the entire dialogue cut scene.
4. Then the game froze.
Has anyone else experienced these issues?
I have seen 1,2 and 3. According to the dev posts on the forum they have all been fixed. (A while ago too)
MushroomSamba
Member
That's good to know. I haven't tried the demo myself (don't feel like waiting for 2GB download), but from what I've seen on youtube, there's a lot of bugs and looks extremely unpolished. I was getting pretty worried since the release date is right around the corner now.
I also dig the avatar. Great episode.
SuicidalSteve
Member
But how can I do that when the screen is black and cant see the menu, title screen, game etc? :/
Winnie the Pimp
Member
oh ok if that is truly the case then and that stuff WILL be fixed for final release then i am good to go with this one
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
oh ok if that is truly the case then and that stuff WILL be fixed for final release then i am good to go with this one
If it helps, I've heard the same thing.
MikeE21286
Member
dehydratedbabies
Member
My 360 froze in the tutorial area right after learning stealth kills. I hit X behind one of the two archers and it froze. I really don't want to do the tutorial again but I'm going to for that Mass Effect weapon.
GasProblem
Member
Canceled my pre-order. Will buy the game if there's going to be an option too zoom out the camera. A designer opened a topic on the forums about feedback, particulary about the camera, so I have hopes they'll do something about it.
My only real problem with the demo; I pretty much love everything else. I'm pretty confident that these guys are working on it, though. It's clear that they came prepared for the feedback and aren't just going to let it go unheard. I'm not that worried about it.
dragonelite
Member
I also thought it crashed but you have to scroll your mouse wheel.
I don't care all that much about a jump button, but it seems odd to me that you can launch an enemy but then you can't jump up to continue attacking him.
Baconsammy
Banned
I love the demo, but I'm skeptical about their claim that they're the anti-Bethesda in that they intend to test the game so much we won't find any bugs. Did they not apply this policy to the demo? I'm assuming most of us here saw at least 2 or 3 of the bugs on the very first trip through the demo. And they're not just small bugs either. They're huge. The only excuse I can think of is they knew bugs existed and said "we can live with it like this, just get it out." With a new IP you should put your best foot forward to attract gamers, but in this case it looks like that foot stepped in shit first. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt since they don't have a history either way of lying to fans, but if it releases and has this many bugs and problems, they get tossed on the heap with every one else that's lied to sell a game. Actually 'lied' may be too strong a word. 'Overstated' perhaps.
Baconsammy
Banned
To not give gamers the impression that the final game is going to be a bug-riddled turd maybe?
This is my feeling as well. I don't think they will get any camera adjustments in for the GM, so it will probably be down the road in a patch. Soon as that's in it's a buy.
I also find it odd that we have so many demo apologists here. I don't care how old, or who put it together, it's their representation of the game and it is not a good one.
28 Posts Later
Member
Well all software of this scale will have bugs - it's inevitable. I assume, if they did claim to be the 'anti-Bethesda' they meant the game wouldn't suffer from game-breaking bugs in the same way New Vegas did.
Either way the development team have claimed the demo was based on old code and farmed out to an external EA team, so we can't really base our initial impressions on their quality assurance from it should we choose to trust their comments.
Neuromancer
Member
It's my understanding that EA made the demo so to speak, not Big Huge, plus it's based on an old build anyway.
Baconsammy
Banned
Yeah I get that. I'm honestly fine with it, but I can't fault anyone for being turned off by the sheer number of obvious glitches in the demo, especially if they're experiencing freezing or the entire dialogue sections being skipped.
My biggest problem with the demo so far has been the uncapped framerate on the PS3 version. My brain tells me they'd never release the final game like that. If they do, 360 here I come.
Finished the demo this morning. I love the art style and the monster designs. The UI could use work (especially the dialogue screens), and the story didn't seem especially interesting. My main complaint with the game is that it just felt much too easy. The combat was boring because none of the enemies posed any risk. I wish they had allowed us to try hard mode in the demo, or otherwise gave us a taste of some more challenging content in the game.
Baconsammy
Banned
The only time I felt any challenge was in the boss room at the end of the House of Ballads quest. 3 or 4 poisonous boggarts attacking me while the boss was. If I didnt have a potion, I would have died there, but fortunately a potion and a well-timed Reckoning Mode took care of that room. It's interesting to see how they're populating the world with stronger enemies as you level up in the demo. Once I hit level 3 I start seeing the purple and red dogs and the regular boggarts become poison boggarts.
Impressions based on 4 hour hands-on from Newb Review:
"We recently had the privilege to be allowed complete access to the entirety of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning with only a strict “you have 4 hours” limit to what we could see and do…
Now you might be thinking “Wow, 4 hours! That’s a huge amount of time! Did you manage to complete it or anything?”.
OK, let me put that thought quickly and ruthlessly to bed. Not a chance.
It has been stated by the developers that you will need 10 times as long just to complete the game’s main story line. I suspect 40 hours to complete would require not only some fairly focused sprinting, but also an almost callus disregard for the workmanship involved.
Why is that? Well many games have a visionary at their helm, a respected leader in their field pouring their passion, skill and experience into making the game all it can be. KoAR has, erm… three. Yes, as many of you will know, and all of you certainly should, not only is the legendary Ken Rolston responsible for quests, missions and the like, the excellent R.A. Salvatore has created a 10,000 year literary history of the highest quality for the world and the hallowed Todd McFarlane has led a mammoth artistic effort to give unique identities to the world’s races, cities, environments, creatures, cultures and combat."
The rest here:
http://newbreview.com/2012/01/20/preview-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-updated-impressions/
"We recently had the privilege to be allowed complete access to the entirety of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning with only a strict “you have 4 hours” limit to what we could see and do…
Now you might be thinking “Wow, 4 hours! That’s a huge amount of time! Did you manage to complete it or anything?”.
OK, let me put that thought quickly and ruthlessly to bed. Not a chance.
It has been stated by the developers that you will need 10 times as long just to complete the game’s main story line. I suspect 40 hours to complete would require not only some fairly focused sprinting, but also an almost callus disregard for the workmanship involved.
Why is that? Well many games have a visionary at their helm, a respected leader in their field pouring their passion, skill and experience into making the game all it can be. KoAR has, erm… three. Yes, as many of you will know, and all of you certainly should, not only is the legendary Ken Rolston responsible for quests, missions and the like, the excellent R.A. Salvatore has created a 10,000 year literary history of the highest quality for the world and the hallowed Todd McFarlane has led a mammoth artistic effort to give unique identities to the world’s races, cities, environments, creatures, cultures and combat."
The rest here:
http://newbreview.com/2012/01/20/preview-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-updated-impressions/