KoA: Reckoning - A world without Reckoning @ Gamasutra

[aries100]

GameSutra has an opinion piece penned by Eric Schwarz from GameBanshee. Entitled A world without Reckoning he gives his opinion on the game's loot system, as well as other mechanisms in the game. A quote:

This illusion of size is slowly diminished the longer the game goes on - not due to growing familiarity with the world or a recognition that it just isn't quite as big as it looks, but instead, due to the general lack of actual content populating it. The towns and cities that players visit are soon revealed to only have two or three quests to complete, each of them providing about 5-30 minutes of gameplay (which is often just running from points A to B); moreover, once you've completed a task in a given location, it's time to move on to the next, never to return - in most cases, literally.

And a quote from the conclusion:

For what it's worth, I do want to stress - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a very fun game, beautiful, and has some excellent game mechanics. However, as much as I want to love it, the sheer size of the game has a number of pitfalls to it. The world, being as massive as it is, is necessarily empty and devoid of unique, interesting content, and the movement through the game from one zone to the next only serves to reinforce just how fleeting and inconsequential that unique content actually is.

More information.

 

[borcanu]

well what do you want from an action based game. If it does not have good NPC interactions, why make 20 places filled with the same stuff.
Even as it is, I'm skipping sidequests like a mad man

 

[Ovenall]

I wandered around a bit after getting to the first town. I found a dungeon and cleared it out, looting all the chests. Then I went to town and got a quest to go to the very same dungeon and find somebody, which I did. The chests were all looted, but the ample supply of breakable crates was back. Found the guy, finished the quest.

Why couldn't they just have the encounter with the guy happen before you pick up the quest? You have to run back to the same place you just cleared out five minutes before and redo the whole thing? Really, this feels like an incomplete MMO.

(When oh when can we get away from breakable crates?.. I especially groan when you can run through town indiscriminately breaking dozens of crates with zero reaction from anybody)

 

[sakichop]

I wandered around a bit after getting to the first town. I found a dungeon and cleared it out, looting all the chests. Then I went to town and got a quest to go to the very same dungeon and find somebody, which I did. The chests were all looted, but the ample supply of breakable crates was back. Found the guy, finished the quest.

Why couldn't they just have the encounter with the guy happen before you pick up the quest? You have to run back to the same place you just cleared out five minutes before and redo the whole thing? Really, this feels like an incomplete MMO.

(When oh when can we get away from breakable crates?.. I especially groan when you can run through town indiscriminately breaking dozens of crates with zero reaction from anybody)

Well, the game is directly based on the mmo they are making. I agree 100% with the barrels i'm so tired of them in all games.

Also when i'm doing quest for the thieves guild or what ever they were called. Why is it they want me to go rob people. Wouldn't it be easier if I just looted the 100's of unguarded chests, hollow logs and rock piles. You know the one that routinely have better stuff than the stuff i'm stealing from people.

 

[Ovenall]

I know it's based on an upcoming MMO. I figured it would have been an actual single player game, not an MMO with other players stripped out of it. Should have tried the demo. I picked it up as an impulse buy.

Not a horrible game. It's pretty slick. But it's just very good as a single player game overall.