[Hilo Oficial] Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning -Teeth of Naros-

ahona escribió:Se me da un aire al Two Worlds 2 pero con un toque mas fantástico y colorido.
Esperemos que salga algo bueno.

Un saludo!

thedarknight escribió:

ahona escribió:Se me da un aire al Two Worlds 2 pero con un toque mas fantástico y colorido.
Esperemos que salga algo bueno.

Un saludo!

Hablando de Two worlds 2 ¿no hay hilo oficial? el que he visto está chapado y con la expectación que creó el 1 y este parece que esté pasando desapercibido... un saludo.

The other panel of note is the world's first public gameplay demo of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the upcoming single player fantasy RPG from developers Big Huge Games and 38 Studios. By the way, the official PAX Twitter page has posted up word this weekend that "we only have a few hundred 3-days (tickets) left."

So a former baseball star, world-renowned fantasy author, iconic comic artist, and gaming industry demigod walk into a bar and… We forgot how the rest of that nugget of comedy gold goes, but we imagine it’d sound a lot like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The brainchild of a hugely diverse brain clan that includes Curt Schilling, writer R.A. Salvatore, artist Todd McFarlane, and Morrowind and Oblivion lead Ken Rolston, Reckoning is poised to dodge cries of “just another fantasy RPG” – a magic missile-shaped target that seems to appear on the back of just about every aspiring swords ‘n’ sorcery behemoth these days. In response to such cynicism, however, general manager Sean Dunn presents a very simple philosophy: if it’s good, it’ll find an audience.

“You can look at all the current big names in the RPG space, and everyone started as an unknown IP,” he told VG247 during EA’s GDC showcase event. “And really, the core essence of their success has been building an awesome RPG. Whether it’s an open world RPG or a story driven RPG, it’s been that execution – that commitment to a quality product. And that’s what we’re all about. The IP is a world for us to play in.”

“And really, the visionaries that we have working on the project – R.A. Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, and Ken Rolston – it’s a place where they’ve been able to craft this world and give us all of this backstory, history, and future to pull from to build the essence of the world. It really allows us to ground the player within a space. So there’s the ten thousand years of history that R.A. Salvatore built with the team, and we take place in just one portion of that history.”

The moment of reckoning

Big plans, big talk, big names. All great, sure, but what about the game itself? We were treated to an eyes-on (whatever that actually means – it sounds painful) demo of Reckoning, and we came away fairly impressed, if not a wee bit skeptical.

The game opens with your character awakening from a very specific sort of sleep. You know, the dead kind. You’ve been given a second lease on life by an old scientist who’s been experimenting with something called the Well of Souls for years, and – wouldn’t you know it – you’re his first success story. And the others? Well, they became hideous, deranged cave monsters, which translates roughly to “combat tutorial” in badass fantasy hero-ese.

As soon as the main character started hacking and slashing, however, Reckoning stopped looking like a chip off The Elder Scrolls’ block and transformed into the LARP-obsessed bastard child of God of War. Everything – from sword swings to massive, rock-shattering spells – looked equal parts big and stylish when viewed from the game’s dynamic third-person perspective. In other words, as un-RPG-like as possible. Combat, however, was mapped to a single face button, with timing – and not the finger equivalent of Twister – deciding what sort of beatdown foes received. In spite of that dedication to crowd-pleasing choreography, though, Dunn assured us that Reckoning’s still very deeply entrenched in its RPG roots.

“It’s been that execution – that commitment to a quality product. And that’s what we’re all about.”

“When you look at the combat, it’s a very robust, almost fighting game-like system. There are parries, dodges, [and things of the like]. But at the core is RPG combat. So the stats of your character, the weapon that you have equipped, the armor, the bonuses apply, skills and traits that you’ve applied to your character through leveling up – that’s a huge portion of your combat. That’s going to dictate whether you win or lose more than your skill. You can’t skill your way through the game without progressing through talents and progressing through loot,” he explained.

Character building, similarly, takes the Ye Olde Booke of Fantasy RPG Cliches and chucks it out Ye Olde Window, instead allowing you to invest in whatever skills you want. In other words, the game has no pre-defined classes. Want to pluck a skill from the big, burly “might” talent tree? Go ahead. Want to sweeten the pot with a little magic? Be our guest. It’s all up to you, and the Reckoning team’s aiming to create a system in which variety rules the day – not boring dedication to a single talent tree.

A whole new world

Reckoning’s foundations are undeniably solid, but let’s face it: most people don’t play RPGs for the combat or the number-crunching. Those things – no matter how promising – are just gravy. The world and the story, meanwhile, are the creamy mashed potatoes in this mouth-watering analogy, and in that area, Reckoning raised more questions than it answered. On the upside, what we saw looked quite gorgeous, though nothing really popped out and took us by surprise. During the demo, we were shown a colossal, high-ceiling-ed cave, a forest that may well have contained every shade of green known to man – as well as a few new ones – a tiny rural village, and some crumbling stone ruins. The game’s art style reminded us very much of a higher-fidelity, more detailed World of Warcraft. It still retained that cartoony slant, but we could definitely tell its console’s innards weren’t asleep on the job.

For all its size and majesty, however, Reckoning’s world struck us as oddly empty and – at this point, anyway – somewhat lifeless as a result. It also didn’t help that 38 Studios and Big Huge Games weren’t talking story or character interaction just yet, though Dunn did note that it’ll be “what you expect” from a game in this space. He was also a great deal more forthcoming with details about what was going on underneath the hood of the game’s sleek, shiny exterior. For instance, “big” and “open” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but what’s Reckoning’s take?

“It’s really big,” said Dunn. “It’s really hard to put a square footage or anything like that on the world. It is an open world kind of in the frame of, like, an Oblivion. You can go just about anywhere. Also, there’s the power of the player [to consider]. We don’t auto-level the power of the world depending on the level of the player. You can get yourself into trouble by roaming into an area or a dungeon where stuff is just too powerful for you.”

“And the beauty of that is that you may get your ass kicked in a place, but you get to go build up your character and then return to exact retribution on the stuff that caused you problems. To feel powerful in a world, you have to also feel in danger, you know? So it’s really important that we don’t want to pigeonhole the player into playing this area and then this area and then this area. It is an open world, but there are places where the player can get themselves into trouble.”

“We don’t just have guys sitting there waiting for 300 days for Joe Blow to come by and save his chickens.”

Meanwhile, Dunn also attempted to allay our fears about Reckoning’s apparently blank planet, saying that “NPCs definitely aren’t static. You saw in the demo when we moved through a day-night cycle, characters have different ways that they move between towns. We also want to make sure, though, that quest-givers are always there. We’re not talking a whole lot about that right now, but you can kind of see that – in the world – we don’t just have guys sitting there waiting for 300 days for Joe Blow to come by and save his chickens. We try to make the whole place feel alive. It is open world, you know.”

On top of that, not all of the game’s story is coming from desperately needy quest-givers. When you’ve got R.A. Salvatore spilling an entire universe from his brain onto a page, it’s generally a good idea to stuff bits and pieces of story wherever they’ll fit.

“When you come upon, say, some ruins in the world, they’re not just there to look pretty. There’s actual backstory on what those ruins were – the language they used, the markings they used, you know. There may be books in a nearby town that may be able to tell you about the history. There may be myths about that civilization that built those. So it’s really important that it be grounded,” Dunn explained.

“That’s really the purpose of building the IP. It’s not just building an IP so we can sell stuff for it. It’s like, you need to have a world that your RPG can live inside of. Just like the Elder Scrolls series, or Dragon Age, or Mass Effect, they all started as original IPs and came to fruition because of really high quality execution.”

Fantasy fatigue

Granted, even the most detailed, imaginative world ever conceived won’t do you a lick of good if everyone just judges your book by its cover and uses its pages to line their cat’s litter box. Dunn, however, doesn’t think the situation for fantasy – which has lost its place as the sexy, young arm candy to pop culture’s evergreen movie star – is as dire as many people are making it out to be.

“I think those can be trends,” he told us. “You know, the industry can support those trends and still support that core idea. Lord of the Rings wasn’t something new when the movies came out. When you execute on the core fantasy of a world well, I think it’s compelling no matter what – whether it’s fantasy or sci-fi or modern day. It’s about that core execution, and it brings palatable story and palatable content. Really, you’re here to save the world. It’s about building a world that’s worth saving – whether that’s in the future or in the past or in some fantasy world.”

“It’s about building a world that’s worth saving – whether that’s in the future or in the past or in some fantasy world.”

“I think Dungeons and Dragons is a great example. It’s something that’s been around for who knows how many years, but it’s still [around] and has its moments of popularity. When you have moments of great execution of story in fantasy worlds – whether it’s George R. R. Martin or whether it’s R.A. Salvatore – they’re multiple time best-sellers in fantasy novels, and their numbers aren’t dropping. They’re still very relevant. And using Salvatore to craft this world, we’re still pretty sure that the relevance of the world is still there. It’s not just generic fantasy. It’s not just orcs and elves. It’s the R.A. Salvatore take on that world.”

Sky’s the limit

No matter how far Reckoning strays from generic fantasy conventions, however, comparisons between it and Bethesda’s upcoming 800 lb three-eyed gorilla monster The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are inevitable. And with Skyrim launching at the tail end of 2011 and Reckoning reckoning it’ll hit shelves sometime in 2012, the two might be battling for more than just bragging rights. Dunn’s response? “Bring it on.”

“I think our attitude is more of a ‘bring it on’ type of thing. I mean, we love it when there are successful RPGs. The more great RPGs there are, the bigger the genre grows, and the more people there are that play these games. They approach the game the way that they want to and they’ve been doing open world games for a long time. We have a lot of people from their previous teams, but we’re also doing our own take on open world RPGs,” he said.

“You know, combat’s a thing that’s really important to hit in that real-time way that we have. The look and feel of the world is totally different than Skyrim’s. The way that we approach characters and story and things like that [is also very different]. So we think there’s space for everybody to play in. If you make an awesome, high-quality, open world RPG, we think people will buy it.”

Well then, Sean, you follow through on that first part, and we’ll take care of the rest.

alexy escribió:http://www.3djuegos.com/juegos/avances/8304/2655/0/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning/

Warriors get in close and beat the crap out of skeletons, zombies, and demons. Wizards stay back and spam fireballs and other spells. This is the natural state of fantasy RPGs. There's always a sacrifice choosing one over the other. Either you lose the visceral elements of hacking and slashing or you lose out on cool-looking spell effects . The 2012 RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning destroys this old notion. You can be both. This game has the bad-ass mage.

Dual-wielding razor-edged throwing discs, called Shakram, the mage can be a force in combat even without the benefit of his spells. The combat is simple button presses with a system similar to Fable -- with a button dedicated to melee, one for ranged attacked and one for spells. While the mage's staff may not cleave enemies in half like a sword, it can have similar attack chains. The mage lacks a true warrior's strength, but not his skill at putting the beat-down on enemies.

And, like any character in Reckoning, the mage has access to fate-shift kills. These special finishing moves are rewards for effective use of combos and lead to brutal, cinematic kills of enemies. These end with a simple button mash to finish off an enemy, but fate-shift kills give that sense of combat superiority over an enemy. An odd feeling, for sure, for a mage in an RPG.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Trailer

Rather than a roll-dodge, the mage teleports short distances. In skilled hands, this is an impressive tool to get in close, dodge a stream of attacks, unleash a devastating combo with the staff, leap backwards and throw the Frisbee-like Shakram to slice into an enemy before tossing a fireball to finish the group off.

A mage is all about spells -- at least that's the expectation -- and there seem to be plenty in Reckoning to play with. A detonation spell seems quite effective. You tag multiple enemies, then choose when the spell "explodes" them. This adds more strategy to magic than I'm used to seeing. And then there's the big daddy spell -- the meteor strike. Just as it sounds, this rains down hell. This one's at the top of the spell tree, so you'll have to work to acquire it. And when it's used, be sure you have some distance from the strike point, because it's easy to get caught in the massive blast.

Now consider being able to mix this in with weapons such as the Shakram or a staff that is almost as effective as a sword and it's easy to see how mage combat in Reckoning could be very special.

The beauty is the way each element of combat chains together. Going from one to the next looks fluid and opens up the possibilities for tackling a group of enemies. Mages no longer have to hang to the outside, backing away at an enemy's approach. Though you may have some AI-controlled allies along the way, Reckoning has you largely on your own. Now you don't have to lose having an awesome hand-to-hand combat experience for the sake of being a spellcaster.



This is largely made possible thanks to Reckoning's player progression system. There isn't a point in Reckoning where you pick a class and are stuck along a particular way of leveling up. Instead, Reckoning has a series of "destinies" which players invest experience points into. As you pump in experience to the mage destiny, you unlock new spells and skills. But at any point, you can start investing in the warrior destiny. In this way, you can create different hybrid classes that suit your gaming style.

In truth, there shouldn't be many pure mages in Reckoning. Instead, most people will create interesting amalgams of traditional roles -- a heap of the mage spells here, a dose of warrior might there, and a dash of rogue stealth to top it off. Even if you do stick strictly to the mage path, you will have skill enough to utilize your non-spell aspects and mix it up with enemies. But I find the possibilities of melding these different skillsets into my own unique character the most exciting prospect of Reckoning.

Reckoning: Kingdoms of Amalur has more big creative names at work on it than any other game I can think of. It’s got comic-book-artist-turned-entrepreneur Todd McFarlane as art director, fantasy author RA Salvatore writing its mythology, and former Elder Scrolls lead designer Ken Rolston on game design, and that’s on top of a few other ex-Bethesda minds.

It also has a name that’s so generic that I can barely remember it, which is unfortunate. Thankfully, Rolston is one of the more memorable and tirelessly exuberant characters you’ll come across in the realm of game design, which definitely helps give the game more of a voice.

“You would think it’d be hard, except it’s very hard for anybody to be louder and more energetic than I am,” he jokes, when I ask what it’s like having so many creative minds converging on a single project. “You would expect all the egos to be an issue, and ownership to be an issue, but the great thing is that everybody has a very different area of mastery.

“Working with luminaries doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to have a pissing contest. And in this particular case, it isn’t one. It may have to do with the personalities, but for us it’s heaven.”

Kingdoms of Amalur is an third-person open-world RPG with elements of Diablo and, er, God of War. It’s got procedurally generated loot, slow-motion finishing moves and a fantasy world with the same saturated palette and magical glow as Albion. On the surface, it looks almost as conventional as the name sounds, but it turns out to be doing interesting things with the tried-and-tested RPG class triumvirate of rogue, warrior and mage.

Stinking corpses

We’re shown the very beginning of the game: unusually, you start off dead. After a character creation sequence where you pick from a selection of unpronounceable races (Ljolsafar? Almain?) and patron gods that determine your skills in and out of combat, your newly-created hero is tipped into a pit by a pair of surly dwarves, only to awaken minutes later on a huge pile of stinking corpses.

It turns out that you’ve been resurrected. As you fight your way out of the sewers, you get your first gentle introduction to the one-button combat system, which seems to revolve mostly around timing, and to the loot. Downed enemies could drop anything – the idea is that you’ll always be looking for the next cool trinket, and it could appear at any time.

“Working with luminaries doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to have a pissing contest.”

The world that you eventually emerge into is a green, softly beautiful place – a world worth saving, as Ken puts it. From then on, Kingdoms of Amalur evidently becomes truly open. Wander off in any direction, and you’ll happen upon side-quests, dungeons or, more often than not, overpowered enemies that will send you scuttling back to the nearest town.

There really is a noticeable Fable feel here. It’s partly to do with the look of the one-button combat, but mostly it’s about the colours, the warm glow that emanates from everything in the world, the stocky character design, and indeed the British accents. There’s not much here, frankly, that looks like a Todd McFarlane world – at least, not yet.

Rolston claims, however, that Kingdoms of Amalur’s familiarity is deceptive. “You’re familiar with the idea that a fantasy world should be 90 percent familiar and then there’s the 10 percent against type that is reversing your expectations?” he says.

“Salvatore has made a world that seemingly is very conventional, but the moment you scratch the surface of it, the elves aren’t elves, the dwarves aren’t dwarves. What you should instinctively think is that when he says ‘rescue the princess’, it’s not going to turn out how you’d expect. And that reversal of expectations is one of the delicious features about this.”

Reckoning’s combat is easily the glitziest thing about it. The slow-motion finishing moves look satisfyingly graphic – though blood looks rather out of place in a world so thoroughly un-menacing – and mages, warriors and rogues alike have fun toys to play with.

We’re shown long-range chakrams – “glowing magical frisbees”, says Ken – that give mage players the same action-game combat thrill as a warrior’s swords. Rogues’ daggers are cool-looking dual weapons, and used in combat with teleporting and poison spells, they’re as flashy as they are deadly. Kingdoms of Amalur doesn’t restrict you by class, letting you flesh out warrior, mage and rogue skill trees concurrently, creating cross-over classes tailored to your playing style.

Amalur in action.

“Your skills should be customisable in the same way as your clothes,” Ken believes. “It’s not just about those three archetypes, it’s about making the hybrids inbetween playable. I think people’s role-playing impulses are to be someone somewhere inbetween those.”

“We wanted to win on the four basic things – exploration, narrative, advancement and combat – and we wanted combat to be our leader. We wanted that to be the sizzle that was better than anything else.”

The demo takes us through a dungeon, switching character types for every new scenario, and it quickly becomes clear that the combat is quite unlike anything else in the genre. Mages unleash spells in real-time, with hefty charge-ups for the most powerful ones, but they can also bash goblins about with glowing frisbees in the meantime.

A sword that’s on fire

Rogues sneak and stab from behind, but they also have very cool close-quarters combat animations. The warrior has a sword and a hammer equipped simultaneously, and switches between them for finishers. There’s a sword that’s on fire. The loot system and the combat feed off each other – each new enemy might drop a weapon that’s even more fun to use than what you’re currently sporting.

Rather than an action game with RPG trappings, though, Rolston positions Kingdoms of Amalur as a detailed RPG in an action-game wrapper. “This can’t just be an action game. It has to have all those charming RPG conventions, even the burdensome ones. But I want to be able to celebrate those, and also let you have fun with your new toys that Uncle Kenny has wrapped up in the skill tree.”

Reckoning is scheduled for an early 2012 release, so it might be a while before we hear any more about it. The main point of interest, aside from that unusual combat, is the game’s open-world nature: if it really does let you wander off the beaten path rather than funnelling you towards predictable side-quests, Amalur could offer something that Albion cannot.

Narcyl escribió:tengo miedo con este juego, le tengo muchas ganas pero no estoy segura de que cumpla al 100% con lo que espero.

“Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, is a fabulously, immersive vast narrative rpg, with kick ass combat and master crafted by visionaries. Which I think is the selling point; kick ass combat visionaries.”

KOAR do have some talented people behind the game such as; Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn, RA.Salvatore, NY times best-selling author coming from the dungeons & dragon world building period.

Ken Rolston goes on to add “The most important thing is the kind of game need to be made, as in the action part of the combat, enabling opportunity exploration in the game more fun to get better animations and a better theatre of combat.”

He then continues saying RPG’s maybe carry a burden of their conventional game four bearer’s, and all been to comfortable in the animation of combat.

“It’s great to be able to pick up the controller and feel immersive in the characters actions and to move smoothly through the world. Also clapping and saying, oh my god that is so cool, and that’s not happening in RPG’s just jabbering in pleasure. If you watch people testing our game and watch the videos of what’s happening in our game, people will get excited, and that’s what I want a excited 9 year old reaction.”

Rolston did say that the Elder Scrolls: Morrowind fans will like this game, because its immersive, huge and colourful.

coromiba escribió:Me ha bajado bastante el hype, mas que a un pedazo de morrowind esto se parece a un Fable...

La compañía estadounidense Big Huge Games es bien conocida por videojuegos de estrategia en tiempo real como Rise of Nations, pero ahora quiere dar el salto gracias a un RPG fantástico, profundo e incluso con toques "hack 'n slash". ¿Una combinación imposible? Para nada, y mucho menos después de haberlo visto hace unas semanas. Los reinos de Amalur no podrían mostrar mejores virtudes para convertirse en uno de los RPG del próximo 2012.


A cada mes que pasa, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning va ganándose cada vez con más merecimiento nuestra atención. Su propuesta RPG, a medio camino entre la profundidad de Oblivion y la acción de God of War, se va labrando un camino propio muy esperanzador gracias al talento de figuras como Ken Rolston (detrás de los últimos Elder Scrolls), R. A. Salvatore (novelista especializado en fantasía medieval) o Grant Kirkhope (director de audio procedente de la era mítica de RARE).

Todos juntos conforman Big Huge Games, una compañía estadounidense que nació con la vocación de crear juegos complejos como el presente, tanto que incluso pretendía que Reckoning fuera un MMORPG. No obstante, tendrán que esperar, al menos hasta que salga en el mercado un producto al que, eso sí, se le nota su espíritu masivo original, con un mundo que recuerda mucho al del intocable World of Warcraft, con un trasfondo de 10.000 años de antigüedad y una duración que podría ir desde las respetables 20 hasta las increíbles 1000 horas de juego.

Y todo bajo un simple designio: aceptar la aventura de conducir a un personaje -rescatado de la mismísima muerte- hacia una aventura por conocer quién le mató y por qué. Alguien que ha revivido desde el "pozo de los espíritus" y en cuyo lugar nos pondremos para labrarnos un destino propio (o varios) a lo largo de Amalur, una fantástica tierra dividida en cinco regiones basadas en la antigua edad Arcana, repleta de magia y extraordinarias criaturas.


Un fantástico y multiplataforma reino RPG
En pocas palabras, una épica de fantasía medieval donde, una vez creemos a nuestro personaje (se pueden modificar sexo, cara, tipo de pelo, tatuajes, accesorios...), nos pondremos en marcha a lo largo de un RPG enorme que no parte del mismo concepto de clases que otros exponentes de su género. Y es que una de las grandes virtudes de Reckoning es que podremos cambiar de rol con gran facilidad. Aunque estemos en el medievo, los estados estamentales no serán para nosotros, con lo que se podrá alternar entre guerrero, mago y pícaro, incluso creando híbridos.

Pero eso no es todo. Aquí las clases no son en realidad tales. Más bien, se conocen como destinos, y en total hay más de cuarenta, las cuales nos aportan una inmensa variedad jugable. Guardianes, paladines, hechiceros, caballeros, maestros, acólitos, sabios... cada clase (o destino) dispone de sus propias particularidades, de manera que un mago podrá teletransportarse de un lado a otro para esquivar ataques y un asesino nos mostrará sus dotes para usar el sigilo en las zonas más comprometidas del escenario.

Hasta podremos ser un ladrón despiadado que sea capaz de robar dinero sin ser detectado. Aunque muchas veces esto también dependerá de la experiencia y habilidad conseguidas, de forma que podríamos ser incluso sorprendidos y obligados a pagar por nuestras fechorías, yendo a la cárcel si es necesario. Afortunadamente, para los usuarios más usurpadores no habrá gran escarmiento (la obra no dispone de sistema moral), aunque sí que padeceremos las consecuencias en forma de rechazo por parte de la población.


Así pues, estamos ante un universo persistente y reactivo a nuestras acciones que se ve complementado por un sistema de "quests" -a priori- bastante complejo. La razón está en que no sólo tenemos la opción de escuchar -en este caso leer- la historia particular detrás de la persona que nos propone cada tarea, sino que también cabe la oportunidad de presionar a nuestro interlocutor para que nos dé (si es tacaño) algo de dinero como recompensa.

Un detalle que no pudimos apreciar en nuestras anteriores impresiones, y que ahora se nos presenta, además, acompañado de la posibilidad de encontrar una alta variedad de tiendas y, sobre todo, herrerías que nos faculten para mejorar nuestro armamento. Porque otro de los grandes bastiones de Reckoning era, y sigue siendo, su espectacular sistema de combate. Una fluida y, por otra parte, poco habitual propuesta "hack 'n slash" que da mucho dinamismo a este enorme juego de rol. Y es una gran noticia, sobre todo considerando que God of War fue una fundamental fuente de inspiración.

Sólo hace falta ver alguna de sus batallas para comprobarlo. Una sorprendente respuesta en los controles, combos muy rápidos y ataques realmente espectaculares se juntan para dar un resultado satisfactorio, el cual queda magnificado por el detalle de que se puede seguir atacando a los rivales aunque estén en el aire, algo casi nunca vista en un RPG y muchas veces ausente en los más respetables "hack 'n slash".


Puede que algunos lleguen a sorprenderse igualmente por la presencia de eventos "quick time", los cuales sirven fundamentalmente para rematar a jefes finales (algunos de descomunales proporciones). Pero no nos importa en absoluto, si con ello no se disminuye la profundidad, como parece que ocurrirá. Así, los desarrolladores prometen que la estrategia, a pesar de la rapidez de las refriegas, será parte importante en el desarrollo del juego, de forma que para acabar con determinados enemigos antes deberemos estudiar algunas de sus pautas de combate.

Inclusive se afirma que la IA no será para nada deficiente. Enemigos irán a auxiliar a otros a fin de acabar con nuestra vida, aspecto que nos llamó la atención, aunque no tanto como el motor gráfico que muestra Reckoning actualmente. Fluido y sin ralentizaciones, virtudes que destacan aún más si consideramos la solidez de modelados y animaciones que presentan sus caricaturizados personajes y hermosos escenarios.

En esencia, todo parece rezumar el espíritu de World of Warcraft, con un diseño artístico muy llamativo, pero también con una gran distancia de dibujado, un instanciamiento moderado (sólo se carga cuando entramos en mazmorras) y un sistema de iluminación que lo distingue de cualquier exponente del género. Los amaneceres y atardeceres con rayos de sol proyectándose entre ramas de árboles ofrecen una estampa poca veces contemplada en un videojuego, suponiendo otra más de las múltiples razones por las que deberíamos esperar a un Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning que, sin generar mucho ruido, podría convertirse en una de las sorpresas roleras multiplataforma (360, PS3 y PC) más agradables del próximo 2012.

“We have five distinct geographic regions, 120+ dungeons, four big cities, dozens of towns and quest hubs… it’s a big world you’re going to be going through and a lot of time-consuming content.”

360 Magazine was given a demonstration of Big Huge Games’ upcoming Open-World ARPG Kingdoms Of Amalur: Kingdoms Of Amalur: The New God Of WarReckoning recently, a game inspired by at least four different major action and RPG titles of the last 20 years and penned by bestselling author R. A. Salvatore. It’s a canny blend of old-school RPGing and contemporary fantasy swordplay with enormous boss-monsters (like our friend Balor in the pic on the right), very much in the vein of the God Of War series. Producer Ben Smith was kind enough to fill in the details:

On the main character:

“At the beginning of the game the main character wakes up on a pile of corpses. He doesn’t know how he died, who killed him or anything like that, but he very quickly comes to learn that he was brought back to life by this machine, which is called the well of souls. One of the consequences of coming back to life – and you are the first person to come back to life in this world – is that you have no fate.”

On the size of the game:

Players care more about how you create the character more than who that character is. We have four races, two human, two elves, both genders and huge customization options. We want people to create a character they’re going to fall in love with because they’re going to follow this character for 30 hours+. It’s a big open-world, we have five distinct geographic regions, 120+ dungeons, four big cities, dozens of towns and quest hubs… it’s a big world you’re going to be going through and a lot of time-consuming content.

On the important of choice:Kingdoms Of Amalur: The New God Of War

Of course choice is a big part of it. For us there’s the macro-choice of consuming the main quest and doing the side quests and faction quests. If you try to rob a guard and fail you have the choice of paying the fine, going to jail or resisting arrest, in which case you’re going to have to five 12 angry guardsmen or so, depending on where you are. Of course, fighting is really key for us, it’s what we feel makes Kingdoms really special and we take our inspiration not really from other RPGs in the genre but from what action games are doing.

On the loot system and crafting:

Loot’s huge for us and RPG gamers, so we have thousands of unique pieces of art for weapons and armour which we then combine with a fixed system, so it generates buffs and debuffs – there are hundreds of thousands of combinations. When you’re not fighting you might be doing crafting with alchemy, putting together reagents with alchemy, experimenting with those reagents to create recipes. You might be doing blacksmithing if you’ve got armour or weapons you want to sell, you can break them down into pieces and put those back together into the weapons you want. Then you have sagecraft where you have these shard you find in the world, put them together as gems and then you can slot them into armour or weapons to add environmental effects.

On secrets and the unseen:

Other non-combat skills change how you interact with the world. Detect hidden you might find ways through a dungeon because other players don’t have enough skill, you might find treasure chests that other people wouldn’t find because they didn’t invest [in detect hidden skill]. Those treasure chests can be magically locked, so dispel skill will unlock it.

Other non-combat skills:Kingdoms Of Amalur: The New God Of War

Persuasion gives you a chance to give you different rewards for a quest but also different threads in a quest. And of course stealth isn’t just for sneaking around, it’s for sneaking around and stabbing big, dumb, red creatures that don’t see you in the back. Probably the most important thing for most RPG gamers is how you develop your character, so we have three ability trees: sorcery, might and finesse. You can invest your points in a number of different abilities and weapons to unlock special attacks. You might spread [your points] across those trees or plunder the depths of the sorcery tree to get an uber-spell like meteor.

The class system – or lack of it:

For us the most important thing is that we don’t force the player to make a choice about class up-front. We don’t really have a class system, what we do have is as you invest points in those ability trees, depending on where you invest those points we unlock these narrative wrappers upon which you’re already creating… for example if you’re a mage-melee guy you might unlock Shadowcaster. It provides a name for what you’ve been doing already and provides bonus back into the abilities you’ve already been investing in. So for example for the Shadowcaster, if you’ve been investing in longsword and spells, you can potentially get a buff to your mana.