The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo And Stupid Gameplay Mechanics

[Something Amyss]

He said they were 'flaws'. That's not saying you personally didn't like something. It's stating that there is something wrong with the game.

Not all "flaws" are objective. He even qualifies them with this statement:

I finally saw some major flaws in the game, at least ones I consider huge blemish marks gameplay wise.

(Emphasis mine)

It really IS saying he personally didn't like something.

 

[squid5580]

If you kill enough of the guards they do stop comin. Just saying. I didn't hide and I killed off the entire town you are talking about and walked unhindered by any enemy.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I liked the demo on PC, haven't tried it on PS3 yet, psychic guards/townsfolk aside, my only problem was the whole silent protagonist thing. I answer the people's questions and stand there staring dumbfounded as they blather away at me. I kinda thought that we had gotten away from silent protagonists unless the whole game was that way.
Well maybe not, Skyrim and all, but it felt kinda wrong that my character had no voice. Especially with some of the lines to the Fateweaver guy you meet early on just begging for a halfway decent voice actor to make snarky comments about his sobriety.

I don't know why I didn't mention it in my original post, but yeah, I thought the same thing about having no voice. It's the one reasons I tend to like the BioWare games, more, where the player character can speak, compared to the silent ones. I prefer not to have to think that my character is mute and is telepathically talking to everybody.

The only reason I mention BioWare is that it isn't hard to see that the dialogue setup borrows heavily from their games, and I like that dialogue setup. Glad BioWare is going wheel for all their games now.

I don't know maybe the developers just didn't have enough money hire two(one male, one female) dedicated voice actors for the whole game span.

I finally saw some major flaws in the game, at least ones I consider huge blemish marks gameplay wise.

(Emphasis mine)

It really IS saying he personally didn't like something.

Yeah, I try to add qualifications whenever I can. But, even though the internet is mostly made up of opinions, it seems like it is some kind a sin to have one, well, at least have one that isn't the same as everybody else.

 

[StBishop]

Your first three (item wear, killing quest givers, and alchemy items) don't bother me at all and if I knew you personally I'd probably call you names and question your intelligence. But as I don't know you I'll politely disagree about them being negatives and say that I think they're a part of the genre and that if you don't like them I'm sorry that they ruin the game for you.

The third one I agree is stupid, the main problem I have with it is the random Mob NPC's psychic knowledge ruining the stealth elements of the game making me think I'll play through as a warrior, which is a shame because I liked the way the stealth worked for the most part, I was just disappointed that it was only useful once in any given fight.

The item wear is just a part of RPGs, I don't even question it, I would be quicker to question a game that didn't include it.

The alchemy, well there's an alchemy skill which decreases that, pump points into the skill I guess. In my experience (I put no points into alchemy at all) I was getting items from ~ 80% of the items so I'm sorry you seemed to have shitty luck with those, it's a shame because it's obviously an annoyance for you whereas I couldn't care less.

On the guards, I had the same thing I accidentally opened up the jail and the guards attacked me so I ended up killing everyone. I didn't care because it was only a demo but as you said, if the game doesn't have a manual (multiple) save function I'll be severely disappointed.

 

[StBishop]

I got the PC version of the demo. Did anyone else have to deal with DISGUSTING loading times? My computer runs the game at 60fps, and yet I had to wait a good two minutes for the character creation screen to load.

No, but it is on a Corsair Force Series GT 120gb SSD.

You might need to do some hard drive maintenance. If you have a lot of movies/docs/pics/clutter all stored in a single drive, you're going to hugely lose performance as HDDs are fastest at the beginning portions. Using Partitions to divide a HDD and then put all your media on the slow part, while reserving the fast part for programs, makes a pretty big difference.

Also, defrag

It is pretty full at this point (1.5 terabytes spread over 4 drives and the C: drive is about full) but I don't have that problems with far more complex games (Skyrim, Crysis, Battlefield 3). Maybe it installed incorrectly.

But yeah, a defrag sounds like a pleasant idea.

With Windows7 you can schedule weekly defrags.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

I downloaded this purely for the Mass Effect 3 items (which means I had to play the tutorial levels and an extra 45 minutes - of which had me going around killing townsfolk because there's not enough quests to fill that time if you just get on with them), but I hadn't heard of this game before I was told about the cross over promotion and found out that Ken Rolston (who is a friend of mine) was the Lead Designer, I felt I had to give it a go.

I wasn't impressed - it was ok at best.

The whole game just felt like the creators tried taking about 10 games and stuffing them into 1, and it didn't feel like it's own game. I'll list what I mean and let's see if anyone agrees:


The lockpicking system is almost identical to Fallout 3/Skyrim's.
The combat is almost exactly the same as Fable's, as are the graphics (which I felt was a bad move - I don't judge a game by graphics, but if you're making a gritty, fantasy game, don't give it the graphics of Super Mario or Fable - Fable got away with it because of the comedy elements).
Collecting reagents works exactly the same as the Elder Scrolls series - except less satisfying, more tedious and less rewarding.
The skills system and the dialogue system is blatently ripped off from Mass Effect 1, except for the skill tree which is more akin to World of Warcraft.
As much as they say the game's open world, and it is, it's more like "there are 3 paths here and you can go down any one you like". Plus each section has different levels of difficulty and loot is randomly dropped as different colours signifying different levels of power - all which resemble World of Warcraft.

I wanted to like the demo, especially as I don't want to say a friend's game is bad after all the work they put into it... but it's very "ok" at best, and doesn't feel like it's new in anyway. Will not buy, but I appreciate the Mass Effect freebies

 

[veloper]

You guys missed the most stupid feature of them all: quicktime events where you just have to press X Y A or B repeatedly.

Combat works okay for the most part, but those quicktime finishing moves are just unnecessary button mashing.

The next thing that stands out is mediocre voice-acting. Every line is forgettable, except where it's much worse than mediocre. The writing doesn't help either. It's like the writer forgot what he wrote the moment he started on the next line.

Example: you have this warder person in the first village who's certain that the fey from the House of Ballads will massacre the whole village because one of their own got hurt, unless you do something. Then when asked about this House, he responds that he isn't even sure that they exist at all outside stories. Nomatter he's got a live one in his village and they only live a couple minutes to the north.
Still I'm on the fence about this game. I don't expect good writing from any studio and the quicktimes are only for extra XP.

 

[Joccaren]

The first reason that the game is like DA2 and ME is that the dialogue is done similar to the dialogue wheel, though with a few differences like story questions are lumped at the end of the conversation in a box so that the player can hear ever detail the person has to say on just about everything major and some minor. Now I love the dialogue wheel style, though this one is done strangely in that if you pick the options in the wrong order, you can miss some of the main dialogue, at least it seems that way.

I personally hate the dialogue wheel. It adds unnecessary effort to get to each option - especially in this where it has bad location detection for the mouse so half the time you'll be over it but it won't realise - and adds the stupidity of telling you the 'correct' choice for that dialogue a lot of the time. There doesn't seem to be any focus on the dialogue in this, so that thankfully wasn't a problem.

Certain sections of combat feel similar to both Fable and Dragon Age 2. It is fast and for the most part fluid. Yes it is button mash but it is feel good button mash. The also added a combat/time slow down mechanic that I feel is unique in one way.

It would be a lot better if it did proper freeflow where it targeted what I was looking at rather than my current target. After playing AC a lot, and looking from enemy to enemy to always stay on the move, so when I came here, seeing it had a similar system, I attempted it. Nope. You are locked on to one enemy until you block or dodge out of combat and then re-align your whole character to that different enemy and attack. Really breaks the flow of combat when I can't move to attack that bandit closing up on me as the game is obsessed with locking me to simply one enemy.

This mechanic is can be used when the a player fills up the fate bar. The bar fills up by landing several successful attacks on the enemy; the longer the attack chain without getting hit yourself, the faster the meter fills up. Once the meter is full, the player holds down both trigger buttons to activate the fate mode, knocking back any nearby enemies. In the mode the player and his weapons glow purplish white and time is slowed so the player can attack faster and dodge easier. The thing I find unique about it is that after you bring down and enemy to pretty much no health, the A button appears over them to tell the player he can use the main part of the power, which is a slow motion finishing move that is turned into a quick time event. In the event a second button will appear and the player has the press that button as many times and as fast as possible, filling up a percentage meter, which shows the player how much extra exp the player will get from the finishing move. Now, if the player is fast enough and gets the meter to 100%, the finishing move will have a special and awesome critical effect. A 100% critical finish move, will not just net 100% extra exp and kill the enemy, it will also kill every enemy in the area that is the same as the killed enemy. Kill a bandit archer with a fate 100% crit move, all the bandit archers in the area die as well, giving you the exp for those as well.

This I liked. It was entertaining and fun, though you also got points to your fate bar by just killing enemies. It also had rather bad detection on the PC where it said 'Press X to activate'. 'Keep Holding X'. Keep holding X was on for the entire battle in that first part, and the mode didn't activate at all. In the end, the game just gave me the finisher for no reason. Really sucked. Every time after that it worked fine, just not that first time.

I found that ability quite fun, though I do get extra mad if I some how don't make 100% in time.

Hehe, I never made it to 100%. They changed the button to damn often. It started out alternating between left and right mouse button, right as thought 'Ok, I see what its doing' and prepared to use the mouse, it told me to use spacebar. FFS. After that I didn't have a lot more time to use it before the demo ran out - I hoard my fate - so I never ended up getting to 100%.
I think though that if you kill all enemies in fate mode, or almost kill them, then perform that finishing move on one of them, it kills them all and gives you the XP bonus. Not sure, will have to check when I buy the game.

The game is also like Mass Effect 1 in that the skill section when leveling is made up of lines of little squares. A point can be used on each square, and some squares are specially marked in that when you get to that point in the skill line and purchase that square, a boost in that skill will be unlocked. Like with the alchemy skill, at one specially marked point in the basic level, it says that failed potions will still form a potion, but it will be unstable. The skill lines are broken up into basic, adept, and master, five squares in each section.

I had no problem with the skillsets. I liked the unstable potions. They were always good for a laugh. "Oh, I'm on 5 HP. Whatever shall I do? UNSTABLE POTION! -HP. FUUUUU! UNSTABLE POTION +HP WOOHOO! UNSTABLE POTION! -HP FUUUUU! UNSTABLE POTION! -HP FUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFU! UNSTABLE POTION! +HP WOOHOOO!" ect.

Now in a couple respects the game is like WoW. The art design has sort of a wow feel, the game is insanely colorful. Also in that design come the race of Gnomes in the game. The faces on some of them look quite like WoW Gnome faces, though these Gnomes look to be about twice the height of WoW Gnomes, about the height of a WoW dwarf. Now the other respect that it looks like WoW is in that the ability trees look like WoW's three section class ability trees. There is a warrior, rogue, and mage section, and the trees in each section are made up of boxes with different pictures that are connected to straight lines to other boxes. Some ability boxes can have multiple points put into them to make that ability much stronger, like the beginning dagger box will boost my dagger stats and use with each point added, same goes for the shock ability I first got to use as part of the mage section. The only slight difference from WoW is that the tree goes from bottom to top, rather than top to bottom.

Yeah, I felt kinda let down by the graphics. Its low fidelity and excessive bloom I can get, though I don't like it, but there were plenty of glitches like characters faces not moving at all during dialogue, parts of the terrain turning into a badly stretched brown or green overlay, that sort of stuff. Aesthetics and that I didn't mind. Its a fantasy game, what do you expect?
I liked the class selection, in that you could change your class, though I think they left out one bit of vital info: How?
I unlocked further classes, but was unable to change to them for some reason. No idea why. Nothing told me why. It just ended up annoying me.
Ability trees are ability trees. I don't really care too much for how they look - far too small for my liking - but I can live with them.

The first one is a blatant copy of Fable. When you have your weapons out in front of the non-enemy NPCs, a little skull will appear on the up button on the D-pad. It has a red circle and slash through it. If you press and hold it for a second and then let up, it turns off the function that prevents the player form killing the friendly NPCs. The reason I think this mechanic is stupid is that there is no reason for it other than if the player is feeling murderous and just wants to kill all friendly NPCs. Though the problem with this is that every NPC, accept main story NPCs, can be killed, even the quest givers. So if you go on a homicidal rampage and decide to kill the equivalent of the game's town sheriff that just gave you a quest, you will lose that quest and never be able to complete it. That problem gets worse coming up.

Has been a problem with quite a few sandbox RPGs. It at least gives you the power to choose whether or not you want to kill the NPCs, and if you want to continue with the game you really shouldn't.

Now for a big nail in this game's coffin. It is blatantly obvious to see as we have been told, that the lead designer from Oblivion, Ken Rolston, was a part of the development of this game. First off, when I was a half hour into the game, I finally noticed that there was a number/number next to my weapons and armor. The blasted game has item wear. Most light items have a 20/20, and the heavy items have a 30/30. The game demo lasted about two hours and in that time most of my items had worn down at least by 2 to 3 points. As far as I'm concerned there is no need for this mechanic in gaming, it is my top list of stupid mechanics. While in combat, I should only be worried about beating the enemy and having fun doing it, not worrying if my staff, daggers and armor will outlast my battle with the latest big enemy. Or that when I find that my weapon needs repairing badly and I don't have any more repair items and I am possibly a half our of gameplay away form getting to a place that sells repair items.

Item durability is good when done well. Its a RPG, its focus is not meant to be on 'FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT' all through the game, you're meant to have more tactical aspects to focus on.
My main problem with Repair kits was that they seemed to take up no space in your inventory. Hopefully I am wrong, but it should be a choice between repair kits or more loot. If you don't bring enough repair kits, its a choice of which item will aid you best in your fight, and therefore is the item you need to repair first. I quite like it as a mechanic, as it forces you to think about you're battles a bit more than just run in and press buttons. You have to actually prepare for them.

The another Oblivion blunder mechanic added is that of the alchemy agent acquiring system. So, while play the game, I see a glowing flower(first time I seen one). Though since it is glowing I know I can pick up an item from it. So, I walked over and pressed the pick up button. It pops up that I acquired nothing useful, meaning I picked at an alchemy item staring me right in the face and it says there is apparently nothing there. When this happened the game's little help box popped up and said, "Picking alchemy items isn't always success full, sometimes you won't get the item." And in all seriousness through my whole 2 hour play time, I came across at least 50 alchemy items, only about 15 of my pick up attempts were successful. This is a moronic mechanic and makes the game less enjoyable. I come across and item and say, neat that is the ingredient I've been looking for; I walk up to it and pick it and it says there is none there, then I "RAGE!!!". Why of why instead of putting over 50 pick-able items in one small area and only around 20% yielding and item, why not just put 10 or 15 pick-able items in the area, and just let the player pick them up like he should be able to. Oh, and items don't disappear when you pick them, they stupidly shrink back in on themselves like a turtle. This tells me that the items probably respawn in time, but still the whole thing is just messed up and not enjoyable. It would be like, if in real life, I go outside and pick a dandelion and then it just vanishes from my hand, or if I got to pick it and on it's own, it shrivels and retreats into the ground away from my grasp. Just plain stupid, not fun, and not needed.

I didn't find it that bad. It helps push you to make the decision to go down alchemy or some other route. Do you want to look for reagents and be good at making potions, or be better at sneaking and observing things. Its not a jack of all trades forever game like Skyrim, you have to choose what you want to specialise in. If this means not filling up your inventory with reagents as you fail to pick them (Don't think it disappears from your hand, think you squash the important part by accident due to your ineptitude at gathering alchemy ingredients).

The last Oblivion blunder mechanic is the guards and as well as the resisting of arrest from said guards. Now when I got to the first town in the game, I get a quest from the sheriff and then after that, I walk into the alchemy shop. I talk to the shop keeper and then proceed to explore the shop. I noticed that there was a guard walking around the shop(a very Oblivion-esque looking guard in the armor styling/look. I see him go down to the basement of the shop, and I follow him to explore the store. Downstairs, is and alchemy lab room with all kinds of books and potion making supplies and an alchemy creation table. In the other room, is another room with a fire place and dining and bed setup. In the alchemy lab area though, I see a big chest; I walk up to it and see that it says pick lock and that it counts as stealing. First I see that the guard is still in the room, so I wait for him to enter and go far into the bedroom area. The chest in the room I was in is out of his line of sight, and he had his back turned to me. Just to make sure I crouched into stealth mode and the symbol above his head showed that he didn't know I was there in the other room.

So, I proceed to pick the lock and I successfully do it and take the contents, but as soon as I exit the item menu after taking everything. Guard turns and says, "Hey!" I see that he some how knows and is headed into the room, so I hide out of his sight for when he entered. He came in and looked at the chest and said, "Hey! Who did this!" I proceed to successfully sneak into the bedroom area. I waited there for about two minutes to see what the guard would do. He just paced back and forth a few steps, the symbol above his head still showed he didn't know I was around. So I thought I was in the clear. I stood up and nonchalantly walked out of the bedroom like I had always been in there and that I knew nothing about said opened chest. But, before I could make it to the steps back up to the main shop, the guard turned to me and the screen changed to the conversation mode and the guard said, "Hey you did this and broke the law, come with me!" Then it gave me the options of go to jail, bribe(13%), and resist arrest. So I'm pretty pissed since this tells me that the game has those stupid psychic guards that always know you did the crime, even if there are no witnesses.(Insert, "Stop right there criminal scum" here)

So, that was the last stupid like Oblivion straw, so I decided to resist arrest. I killed the guard then, then two more psychic guards appear, and I kill them, and more appear. Now the only way to stop the guards from appearing is to crouch and hid just before they appear, that way they can't see you, then if you can stealthily assassinate both guards, they stop appearing. Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there. I go back upstairs and exit the shop, and see a whole host of read dots on my mini-map. I found out that apparently the whole town is psychic, knowing what I did. So everybody and their mothers, and the quest givers as well, descended upon me as the worst angry mob I had ever seen. Plus, as I a said with the Fable-like part of the game, you can kill quest givers. So in my rush to escape the town, I apparently killed that sheriff(or warden as he called himself) and it said I failed his quest. Now, the demo didn't have a save function, so the resist attempt and killing of quest givers was a terminate thing, though I'm quite sure there will be some sort of save function in the final product. But, as you can see the whole situation is just plain stupid. In no game should the NPCs have such open knowledge about what happens in the game. Lastly another problem that stems from that is that the regular enemies can be just as psychic.

I was out in the wooded fields after I escaped the town, and I cam across a bandit. He didn't see me, so I went into stealth mode and assassinated him. The problem I found is that, a group of three bandits that was at least the equivalent of 250 or more feet away with their backs turned to me, with no way they could know what I did, perked up and turn and started after me, with the psychic knowledge that I killed their buddy.

With that, something tells me that Mr.Rolston wasn't with or working with Bethesda when they made Skyrim, because none of those three problems, item wear, alchemy item item picking failures, and psychic NPCs(not psychic for the most part) are not in Skyrim, and Skyrim is better for it. Since the game is so close to launch these things can't be stopped, but if Mr.Rolston gets a hold of and does this again to another game, we need to sit him down and have a stern talking to.[/spoiler]
Psychic things are annoying when you're sneaking, but otherwise I don't mind. You will make noise fighting the guards, of course someone's going to hear it. If you go to a town up the other side of the country and they hate you too, then you're in Oblivion turf.
Apparently there is always a chance you will get caught stealing, meaning you were just unlucky. I picked the chest unsneaked when the guard was coming down the stairs and he didn't notice at all.

Many of the Pros and Cons you stated were personal preferences, and I would swap some of them round, but overall I'm thinking of ordering the game. It was entertaining enough (Or would be if it actually provided decent instructions on how to do things. My game said I get fate for performing special moves, so I do the rogue charge thing and get no fate for it, even in combat, but you're telling me you get it for chaining up moves? Why not just say that? And why provide a class selection page when you can't select other classes. GAH!) and looked like it might have some pretty places, so I'll probably get it.

The bonus items for ME3 are just bonus. Its what drew me to the game, but the game is what kept me playing (BTW, anyone with the demo, play it to the end. You unlock more items [Forgotten if they were just for the game itself, or for ME3 too. Someone tell me which])
I especially loved my mad rush at the end of the Demo. 20 seconds to go, I was in the first town, and I wanted to finish getting to that seer's hut to the East, so I did it as quickly as I could, got there, did the dialogue, did the next set of dialogue, and it ended right after that as the guy told me to go on ahead, and that he'd see ,e at whichever place I was meant to be going. Perfect timing for the finish.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yeah, I try to add qualifications whenever I can. But, even though the internet is mostly made up of opinions, it seems like it is some kind a sin to have one, well, at least have one that isn't the same as everybody else.

Yeah, I honestly don't get the "that's your opinion!" sentiment. Normally, it's stated in a realm where that fact is obvious, but it gets even worse when you've literally and explicitly qualified it as such.

I mean, obviously, nobody's realistically going to call things they like "flaws," anyway.

I mean, would anyone call "fun, fluid combat" a flaw?

Anyway, I haven't played the demo yet, because I want a good block of time to seriously muck about, but I would automatically consider omniscient guards a flaw, even if it might not bug others. And I've never seen a wear and tear system that was implemented in a way I thought was good, so I'd call that a flaw. Though there's the remote possibility that this game might change my perspective forever.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I fired up the ol' Xbox earlier to give this a go and get my free ME3 DLC.

... couldn't find it on the marketplace. I really hope it's not a US-only deal.
I would check on Xbox.com, but for some reason I can't access it on this PC. My sister's PC it's fine, the 'family' system A-OK, my mobile will at least load the Xbox site and tell me to use a proper PC, but my real computer?
Generic Live Network error. Cannot figure it out. Fails in both FF and IE.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Yeah, I honestly don't get the "that's your opinion!" sentiment. Normally, it's stated in a realm where that fact is obvious, but it gets even worse when you've literally and explicitly qualified it as such.

I mean, obviously, nobody's realistically going to call things they like "flaws," anyway.

I mean, would anyone call "fun, fluid combat" a flaw?

Anyway, I haven't played the demo yet, because I want a good block of time to seriously muck about, but I would automatically consider omniscient guards a flaw, even if it might not bug others. And I've never seen a wear and tear system that was implemented in a way I thought was good, so I'd call that a flaw. Though there's the remote possibility that this game might change my perspective forever.

Yeah, I might end up getting the game anyway, since I think I might able to over look the flaws since the rest of the game is pretty fun and the story does sound kind of interesting.

On the combat thing, no joke, I actually have encountered people that called fun and fluid combat a flaw. It was of course in one of those nightmare threads where people that like Dragon Age: Origins are doing battle with people that liked Dragon Age 2.

I had mentioned that I felt the combat was much improved in DA2 because my character could actually run in combat instead of walking like a dope or semi-jogging like in DA:O, also that I liked how I now had complete control over the basic weapon, that my character could actually attack fast and natural, instead of like in DA:O where I had no control over how and when the basic attack happened and my character acted like his arm was caught in tar, because of how slow he swung his sword and how incredibly long it was on between swings.

When I say all that(I've said it multiple times in countless threads), I get loads of people popping out of the woodwork saying that such combat is messed up because it is too fast paced and doesn't allow time to plan the special attacks(them ignoring the fact when one uses a special attack it pauses the action to let you plan where to send the attack, at least for all the attacks that actually need planning). They also tell me that such control of the basic attack is stupid because it turns that part of the combat into a button masher(in bizarro world button mash apparently seems to automatically mean bad combat controls), that they would much prefer that the computer have control so they could keep their thoughts on their other attacks. I find this dumb because that is basically saying, I want the computer to control and play part of the game for me. Frankly, I rather mash a button knowing that my attacks are going to be really fast, not worrying if they are fast enough, then worry that the computer is going to use the basic attack in time or fast enough.

I fired up the ol' Xbox earlier to give this a go and get my free ME3 DLC.

... couldn't find it on the marketplace. I really hope it's not a US-only deal.
I would check on Xbox.com, but for some reason I can't access it on this PC. My sister's PC it's fine, the 'family' system A-OK, my mobile will at least load the Xbox site and tell me to use a proper PC, but my real computer?
Generic Live Network error. Cannot figure it out. Fails in both FF and IE.

I'm not saying that you didn't think of it, I'm just checking, did you search under K for the demo? They only had the ad for the promotion up for one day and then it was gone, but people could still search through K and get the demo and stuff.

If it isn't there the offer may already be up, or as you said it may only be an US deal.

And now that I think of it, it might be a US only deal, because there was also some kind of sweepstakes attached to it, grand prize is like 12,500 Microsoft points. The reason I say this is that every time I see a sweepstakes and enter them, I usually see in the fine print that it is for US residents only.

I hope for you that this isn't the case.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I'm not saying that you didn't think of it, I'm just checking, did you search under K for the demo? They only had the ad for the promotion up for one day and then it was gone, but people could still search through K and get the demo and stuff.

Well, I ended up going through the entire list because I could only remember the Alamur part...
Really my more pressing concern now is why Xbox.com [http://www.xbox.com/en-GB] is barring me from entry. :<

 

[Sonic Doctor]

snip

We'll my group of friends are just on the other end of the spectrum with these mechanics. I mean if I really want to play and experience a game, I will put up with such things, but I don't agree with them. My friends actually did what you said you might do if you knew me, except it was the opposite, when I said that I bought the 5th anniversary edition of Oblivion, one looked at me funny and the other laughed and asked why I would buy a game with such bad mechanics like item wear and said alchemy fail/success regarding reagents. They also harped on the combat, but Elder Scrolls combat is one thing about the series I am fine with.

I'm also the opposite in that I think it is necessary to question games that have item wear mechanics, as I see them as something not needed because all it does is add on more random thing I have to think about that over time the time dealing with it adds up and that time could be better spent on the fun mechanics of the game.

I hear the people like it because it adds something extra for them to think about in the game, and it also adds some kind of challenge . Well, considering that all gamers I've encountered not on the internet don't like the mechanic, I'm willing to bet that the like and dislike of it is split down the middle. Now, okay, if some people want it for the challenge, and the other half don't, I would propose a compromise:

In the future, if a developer wants to include item wear, they should make it a changeable mechanic in that, if I don't want to deal with item wear, that I don't want to deal with the "challenge", then allow me and the others flip a switch in the options that turns it off. It is like people being able to change the difficulty in the game casual to hardcore, or being able to turn on challenge(accidentally clicked post before I was finished) modes.

 

[SycoMantis91]

There's not a lot I can complain about in this game. It does a lot fairly well but it does nothing great. It's good in almost every aspect and I want to get into it, I just can't. At this point, it just feels like too much of a rehash of everything I've seen in every average dungeon crawler (i.e. Dragon Age 2, Dungeon Siege III) over the last half-decade or so and I just can't get through the same thing yet another time.

I want to like this game. Scratch that, I want to adore this game. The main developer, 38 Studios, is headed by former Red Sox pitcher, Curt Schilling. I'm a Yanks fan, but being the sports nut I am, I love that guys I used to watch playing on TV are in the video game realm. It's written by R.A. Salvatore. Author of the great Forgotten Realms series (which includes the Icewind Dale and Neverwinter novels) as well as the DemonWars series and Vector Prime, one of the best in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Which is high praise from someone who doesn't often give books the time of day. On top of all this, the art style is done by maybe the king of comic art, Todd McFarlane. Fucking SPAWN anyone?

This game has so much going for it name and talent-wise. I want it to be, and it should be a masterpiece of Role-Playing genius. But just based on the demo, there's something missing. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel like it should. It feels too much like a path I've walked before and it doesn't seem to have the over-the-top story, art, dialogue, and overall uniqueness that I expect. And it's honestly just plain boring. (the bore factor I blame on Ken Rolston)

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Well, I ended up going through the entire list because I could only remember the Alamur part...
Really my more pressing concern now is why Xbox.com [http://www.xbox.com/en-GB] is barring me from entry. :<

Don't know what to say, about a week ago I had the opposite happen. I could get on Xbox.com and sign into my account, but I couldn't sign into my account on my 360. Had to reset my network settings.

I don't know what the fix would be for the xbox site.

 

[Something Amyss]

I fired up the ol' Xbox earlier to give this a go and get my free ME3 DLC.

... couldn't find it on the marketplace. I really hope it's not a US-only deal.

It's Gold exclusive for a week. do you have XBL Gold?

Yeah, I might end up getting the game anyway, since I think I might able to over look the flaws since the rest of the game is pretty fun and the story does sound kind of interesting.

Having now played it, I can say I might actually like this game. I'm not sure this is one I buy until the price comes down, though.

On the combat thing, no joke, I actually have encountered people that called fun and fluid combat a flaw. It was of course in one of those nightmare threads where people that like Dragon Age: Origins are doing battle with people that liked Dragon Age 2.

To be fair, they probably didn't find the combat fun or fluid.

in bizarro world button mash apparently seems to automatically mean bad combat controls

Pretty common belief, which I don't agree with.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I fired up the ol' Xbox earlier to give this a go and get my free ME3 DLC.

... couldn't find it on the marketplace. I really hope it's not a US-only deal.

It's Gold exclusive for a week. do you have XBL Gold?

Ah. No. My Gold account ran out when I stopped playing Halo 3 online. Sigh.

 

[SycoMantis91]

I fired up the ol' Xbox earlier to give this a go and get my free ME3 DLC.

... couldn't find it on the marketplace. I really hope it's not a US-only deal.

It's Gold exclusive for a week. do you have XBL Gold?

Ah. No. My Gold account ran out when I stopped playing Halo 3 online. Sigh.

Yea. I figured that out when I tried to download the Dragon Age II demo a while back. Gold members get most demos a week ahead of non-gold members