Former Amalur Dev Lifts the Veil On "Valiance"

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Former Amalur Dev Lifts the Veil On "Valiance"

The Kingdoms of Amalur "Valiance" video is a luscious taste of what might have been.

I'm not sure what the point of this video is, unless somebody is hoping that the state of Rhode Island will somehow get the band back together and shovel Kingdoms of Amalur out the door. It's a bit like picking at a scab, isn't it? The game might have been great or it may have been crap, but thanks to either a government conspiracy or wicked mismanagement (depending on who you ask), we'll never know.

But it sure is pretty, isn't it? This "Valiance" video, minus the music, was created by the head of the Amalur city building team for a May milestone presentation, which sadly never happened, and has now been released into the wild by former 38 Studios Creative Director Steve Danuser. He also revealed a bit more about the studio's free-to-play plans for the game, which would have granted players access to all areas of the game without cost, and he does in fact touch on the possibility that it might someday be resurrected.

"The glorious state of Rhode Island now owns the assets and code that would have been our game, and some company might come along and buy it... though anyone who does won't be releasing the same product we had planned to put out - only a pale imitation of it," he wrote. "I wish you could know what we were shooting for during the years we labored to build Copernicus... a game that was loving crafted, that was starting to show how fun it would be, and that absolutely did have members of the dev team playing it, no matter what anyone else might tell you. But sadly, we'll never really know what could have been."

Source: Mobhunter [http://www.mobhunter.com/?p=747]


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FallenTraveler

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Jun 11, 2010
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I totally would've played this whenever it came out. It looked gorgeous, and based off of reckoning, I think they could've produced a super fun product.

As it stands I am more excited about GW2 coming out tomorrow night (for prepurchasers) and no state will be cancelling that on me.

Sorry to say it but it's very much a situation on "Oh you planned it great? Well then show me!"
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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Shut up and take my... oh... you won't take my money? Just take my game? fuck you rhode island... all except Seth McFarlane.
 

IndomitableSam

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amaranth_dru said:
Shut up and take my... oh... you won't take my money? Just take my game? fuck you rhode island... all except Seth McFarlane.
So agreed. I might even pitch in if they want to crowd fund the project. If I get an open world but f2p MMO where everything looks like that, I probably would.

What a shame.
 

Dendio

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Mar 24, 2010
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The game looks good enough, but its all moot if it also was centered around one or more of the following things:

Tank/Healer/DPS paradigm forces everyone into a few roles/specs for endgame anyway
- Endgame raid/loot treadmill
- Small amount of content with questionable replay value on the best of it
- Clunky/aging combat mechanics
- Limited/crappy character creation
- Triple dip fee...box cost, sub fee and cosmetic item shop



I don't care how you dress it up, if it has these features its more of the same.

More of the same=bad because why take a chance with a new IP when you can play the 8 years long expanded, extremely well polished WoW
 

Saviordd1

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Jan 2, 2011
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amaranth_dru said:
Shut up and take my... oh... you won't take my money? Just take my game? fuck you rhode island... all except Seth McFarlane.
Seth Mcfarlane's from Connecticut dude, about 20 miles from where I live in a sleepy little meh town named Kent.

OT: Damn....I might've bought this.
 

Tilted_Logic

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Apr 2, 2010
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"I'm not sure what the point of this video is"

If you had dedicated so much of your time and passion towards something, just to see it scrapped and thrown to the dogs... Wouldn't you rather the world got some glimpse of it? Wouldn't you want someone to see what you had done? To see something you worked so hard on, that was clearly crafted with loving attention to detail (talking about the art here, can't speak for the actual gameplay), wouldn't you want it to be seen?

However little there was to offer, I can't imagine spending so much time on a project, just to see it trashed... It'd be heartbreaking.

The game looked beautiful, and the tragedy isn't simply on the developers part. I hope it sees the light of day in the future.
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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Sep 26, 2008
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Andy Chalk said:
The game might have been great or it may have been crap, but thanks to either a government conspiracy or wicked mismanagement (depending on who you ask), we'll never know.
It's a little bit of both, really. If the mayor had kept his trap shut about how much debt the studio was in, they might have been able to sign some deals that would have kept them afloat. Though at the same time, Curt Schilling went way too nuts on spending. It's like he thought that he'd never run out of money, so he had this mentality of "SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!"

It's a shame. Amalur was a great game, and everything I've seen about Copernicus makes it look like the kind of world I'd have enjoyed exploring. Alas...
 

Kwatsu

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Feb 21, 2007
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Hmm. This is the second Project Copernicus video I've seen linked today. Here's the other one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXy9WFmE4gs

It's so strange to watch these videos of cities with totally empty streets, and realise that they're just sitting out there frozen and unfinished on a server somewhere; that as things stand, no one will ever walk under those banners in Valiance or hang around in Jottunhessen. Weird.
 

faefrost

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Jun 2, 2010
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It looks gorgeous. But so do most MMO's at various points. But I hate to say it, The RI Governor was right to pull the plug. The studio was grossly fiscally mismanaged. The game had already cost more than it had any reasonable chance of recouping. And quite honestly 38 Studios was essentially buffering their attempts for new private funding based in part on the unspoken fact that the taxpayers were backing it. RI's taxpayers were essentially collateral (look how fast outside funding disappeared as soon as the new Governor nixed that). It looks like a great game. It was a horrible misuse of public funds, and a stunning object lessen in how not to budget an MMO. (OK that one is surpassed by Bioware / SWTOR).
 

sunsetspawn

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Jul 25, 2009
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MMORPGs are stupid, so no matter how much I like the way it looks, I would never have played it. It's much the same with SWTOR.

I wish I could change, but I just don't do "social" gaming.