New community Q&A from the dev team went up today.
Q: Any chance we'll see some puzzles, riddles or environmental hazards (swinging blades, shooting flames, etc) in the some of the dungeons? Thanks! By subotai
A: You'll find many dungeons to explore in Amalur that offer puzzles, hazards, and traps. In some dungeons, you may find puzzles that you must solve in order to progress on certain quests, and also to gain access to deeper reaches of the dungeon itself. You may find hidden doors and levers, as well as secret exits or jump platforms. You may also notice there are a variety of traps in Reckoningwe sometimes use these as puzzles, and also sometimes they conceal ways to get to special loot or reach other areas of a dungeon.
We also sometimes present traps themselves in the form of environmental hazards, such as pools of poison water, or the more naturally occurring plant traps that will snap at you. Some of these traps will add to the dungeon's environment in a way that affect your pacing or timing. You may have to dodge certain traps or use an ability to quickly maneuver swinging traps hanging from the ceilings. Some good advice for the stealthy hero might be to invest some points into your Detect Hidden skill, making these traps easier to spot on your map. Be careful where you tread, heroes of Amalur! By Kitty "Neko" Hughes, Level Designer
Q: Just how "open" is the world? I know it has been said you can stray off the path, and there are five distinct zones. But how will the transition between these zones take place? Is it Elder Scrolls level "If you can see it, you can go to it?" (Within reason) By Outlander
A: The world of Reckoning is huge, and at any point you can decide to veer off the main roads or take a break from the main quest. We strongly encourage it! The main quest does a good job of giving you a tour of the world, but it only touches on the depth and breadth of the different regions. A lot of care went into giving those explorers out there a vast world to roam and fight through. There are sweeping plains and dense forests that are stocked full of side content, but theres also a great deal to be found from just free exploration. You might uncover some of our secret nooks and crannies that are hiding some of the best loot in the game, or even extra bits of lore.
There are load screens between the five biomes for technical reasons, but you can spend real-world days exploring the massive amounts of content of each one. There are also over a hundred and twenty hand-crafted dungeons to explore.
All in all, you could spend countless hours just wandering the world of Reckoning and uncovering its secrets. Please tell us what you find! By Colin "Hugohan" Campbell, Lead World Designer
Q: What is your favorite secondary world? Why? By Lady Nerevar
A: Honestly, and this will make me seem immensely old, I would have to say Myst. The first game was AMAZING, and (spoiler) learning that both brothers were evil in their own special way (/spoiler) blew my freaking mind. The Miller Brothers were good enough to write some really great books in the Myst universe (The Book of Atrus, for starters) that explored what it really meant to create worlds through the books.
A favorite "scene" I have is young Atrus, learning how to create stable worlds, sitting on the edge of a cliff in his new world to watch the moon rise. The moon looked unexpectedly reddish, and it soon became clear he'd written the moon too close to the world and it was pulling magma through the surface as it orbited. Run, Atrus!! Good stuff. Since then, I've often thought about how interconnected everything is, and how fun it would be to figure out how to create the most basic of worlds in the same way. It kind of makes sense that I'd work on an insanely big, open-world game for the last five years
By Sean "notthatseanbean" Bean, Producer
Q: Will mages be able to wield swords? By TecHead
A: Absolutely. Unlike armor items, which have ability-based equipment requirements (you cant use a mage helmet without investing enough points in Sorcery, for example), weapons only require the player to be a certain level before they can be equipped. If you're playing a mage, and find you love using the longsword, you can be just as effective as if you were using a staff or sceptre.
With the Destiny System, you're encouraged to experiment with other weapons, regardless of which ability trees you have focused on. Complement your sword-wielding spell caster with one of the Fighter-Mage destinies, and youll have a brutal combination! By Will "BHG_Miller" Miller, Systems Designer
Q: Is it possible to re-listen to a specific Lore Stone, once we have found and activated it, through the Lore Stone menu option without having to revisit that particular Lore Stone? By Ajwol Semreth
A: You can listen to any and all lore that you have found via Lorestones in the world through the Lorestone page, found under the in-game Status sub-menu of the main menu. On the Lorestone page you can see the area, name, and description of all Lorestones as well as the reward for finding all of the Lorestones in a set. Once you have found a Lorestone in the world, you can go into that set and listen to the individual pieces of lore. Accompanying the audio is a transcription of the spoken lore, which ranges from the comedic to the morbid. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed writing them! By Alex "xael" Horn, Narrative Designer
