Kingdoms of Amalur Could Fall to Rhode Island

[Vault101]

I love how people complain about seaquels, but dont go out of their way to pick up new IP's

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Oh. Well, here I was hoping for some Rhode Island propaganda interspersed in their next projects, but this isn't quite as fun. I liked Skyrim Lite, was impressed that it was a first attempt, though, admittedly, I only played it for about 30 hours before my attention was diverted by my friend suggesting a consecutive run through of all the God of War games.

 

[Freechoice]

What a colossal fucking snafu.

After all that effort and ridiculous overproduction, the game actually came out against powerful opposition and was really rather good. Better than decent. By most counts that's a fantastic result for a new studio, under inexperienced direction, with a shiny (if somewhat generic) new IP.

Someone needs to man (or woman) up and take the responsibility for this. I wasn't a rabid fan of the game but this news is incredibly disappointing.

Inexperienced direction? Wasn't the lead designer from Oblivion behind KoA? Shitty direction, maybe.

I love how people complain about seaquels, but dont go out of their way to pick up new IP's

It'd be more defensible if it wasn't so meh. I will defend something like Bastion like a rabid fucking dog, but I will also talk about what MW3 does right.

Just because it's new doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to get booed into The Elder Scrolls IV. A pile of shit is still a pile of shit whether it's freshly laid or put back into the microwave once the stank has worn off.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

To be fair, it seems like 38 studios sunk a lot of money into trying to build yet another MMO, which strikes me as the business equivalent of dipping your balls into a nuclear reactor to see what will happen. Sure, you might develop superpowers, but probably not.

Hahahahaha...

Well, sucks for these guys. I wasn't as big a fan of KoA as everyone else in this thread, it was more generic than DAO (which is saying something) and at times felt like a single-player version of WoW.

But it wasn't bad. If anyone is to blame for its mediocrity, it's the big names that were brought in to help with the writing. RA Salvatore, was it? I've heard the gameplay is quite good once you get into the swing of things, and the gameplay was 38's work more than anything.

Its like a really good sandwich. The ingrediants aren't unique by any stretch, and it doesn't look too much different to most others you've eaten but the person who made it is a clever bastard. He's swapped out the standard ham with smoked salmon, instead of mayo there's spicy ranch dressing, and intead of plain jane tomato and onion its spanish onion and sundried tomato on a greek roll instead of white bread.

Its true that it looks like WoW, plays like Fable and its tale is hardly ground breaking but it isn't as self obsessed with its own grittiness like Dragon Age was and being a mage doesn't make you a fucking lightning rod for satanic pranks and trolls.

It was fun, and I really need to get the two DLC packs next week.

 

[UnderGlass]

What a colossal fucking snafu.

After all that effort and ridiculous overproduction, the game actually came out against powerful opposition and was really rather good. Better than decent. By most counts that's a fantastic result for a new studio, under inexperienced direction, with a shiny (if somewhat generic) new IP.

Someone needs to man (or woman) up and take the responsibility for this. I wasn't a rabid fan of the game but this news is incredibly disappointing.

Inexperienced direction? Wasn't the lead designer from Oblivion behind KoA? Shitty direction, maybe.

Actually I was referring to Curt Schilling but also the general "newness" of the composite team of 38 studios and BHG. There were certainly some competent and experienced people employed there. The game's relative quality is testament to that despite the radical change in direction part-way through development.

 

[Mortuorum]

It would be cool to see Activision drop some big bucks to snag Kingdoms of Amalur just to mess with EA, though.

It EA really wants the Kingdoms of Amalur IP, they could probably write a check to 38 Studios today. Might not be a bad idea, either... it would help the studio pay off its debts and maybe stay in business. The State of Rhode Island certainly doesn't want to wind up owning the assets of the Studio; in the event it happened they'd turn around and sell them at fire sale prices anyways.

 

[Freechoice]

What a colossal fucking snafu.

After all that effort and ridiculous overproduction, the game actually came out against powerful opposition and was really rather good. Better than decent. By most counts that's a fantastic result for a new studio, under inexperienced direction, with a shiny (if somewhat generic) new IP.

Someone needs to man (or woman) up and take the responsibility for this. I wasn't a rabid fan of the game but this news is incredibly disappointing.

Inexperienced direction? Wasn't the lead designer from Oblivion behind KoA? Shitty direction, maybe.

Actually I was referring to Curt Schilling but also the general "newness" of the composite team of 38 studios and BHG. There were certainly some competent and experienced people employed there. The game's relative quality is testament to that despite the radical change in direction part-way through development.

Well that's where you and I disagree. I only cared to play the demo because I was bored shitless. First, an overly long exposition dump, then some more uninteresting character designs (Hmm, Imperial, Redguard, Altmer or Dunmer... HOW FUCKING INTERESTING) then, to quote the great Nahtzee, an introduction to "baby's first Skyrim."

If the game wasn't bad, it was so meh that it doesn't deserve a sequel, let alone an MMO.

 

[VoidWanderer]

I really wish game companies would stopping wasting their time, investor's money and player hype on stupid pointless MMOs. I am getting sick of these things cropping up like 'Whack-A-MMO'.

It is getting very tiring when I would rather play solo or co-op than join an 'online world' which is more 'online static scenario with jumps in time'.

 

[UnderGlass]

What a colossal fucking snafu.

After all that effort and ridiculous overproduction, the game actually came out against powerful opposition and was really rather good. Better than decent. By most counts that's a fantastic result for a new studio, under inexperienced direction, with a shiny (if somewhat generic) new IP.

Someone needs to man (or woman) up and take the responsibility for this. I wasn't a rabid fan of the game but this news is incredibly disappointing.

Inexperienced direction? Wasn't the lead designer from Oblivion behind KoA? Shitty direction, maybe.

Actually I was referring to Curt Schilling but also the general "newness" of the composite team of 38 studios and BHG. There were certainly some competent and experienced people employed there. The game's relative quality is testament to that despite the radical change in direction part-way through development.

Well that's where you and I disagree. I only cared to play the demo because I was bored shitless. First, an overly long exposition dump, then some more uninteresting character designs (Hmm, Imperial, Redguard, Altmer or Dunmer... HOW FUCKING INTERESTING) then, to quote the great Nahtzee, an introduction to "baby's first Skyrim."

If the game wasn't bad, it was so meh that it doesn't deserve a sequel, let alone an MMO.

Not so different actually. Like I said, relative, as in the context of the challenges they faced to ship it. 'Inspired'? No-way. 'Unique'? Nope, not even particularly memorable. Competent would be the best adjective I could find, even if that sounds a bit like a back-handed compliment. Yeah the demo was a bit ropey but the finished build was much more polished. Honestly, for such an ambitious game, they really delivered what they were claiming to deliver. A mostly bug-free, 'epic' fantasy role-playing game, with bombastic action-game combat. Being bored by it I can totally understand, I never finished it either although I gave it a good turn for 20+ hours. It's hard to condemn it for being a bad game though. You could argue that it implemented this hybrid better than peers like DA2, and it was certainly bigger and more diverse.

The thing which really upsets me here isn't the potential loss of a second KoA, although with better writing this could actually be cool. It's the stupidity of mismanagement when just about everything you could hope to go right for you goes right. It's the thought that an independent studio made a big budget, big scope rpg based on a wholly new IP and made a reasonable success out of it. That's the sort of thing you can normally build on.

Captcha: carpe diem, kind of ironic :/

 

[Freechoice]

The thing which really upsets me here isn't the potential loss of a second KoA, although with better writing this could actually be cool. It's the stupidity of mismanagement when just about everything you could hope to go right for you goes right. It's the thought that an independent studio made a big budget, big scope rpg based on a wholly new IP and made a reasonable success out of it. That's the sort of thing you can normally build on.

Captcha: carpe diem, kind of ironic :/

It's funny that you mention that. They had a big name fantasy sasquatch that got a degree in dry humping JRR Tolkien's leg write a fair chunk of the game and it was still pretty shitty.

Well if you want contextual grandeur, then 8monkey Labs (the guys behind Darkest of Days) are probably the kings of it. Yeah, their game was mediocre at best, but the context was the exact opposite of 38 Studios. They had a shoestring budget, a shoestring staff, nobody important working on it and they had something that was truly unique the same year Modern Warfare and ODST were coming out. Yeah, the game sucked, but it was playable and interesting enough for Nahtzee to want a sequel.

Given what Amalur had, they should have done MUCH better, but they didn't. It was mediocrity in its fullest and they deserve to lose their IP for fucking it up so bad.

Carpe diem noctem vincere [http://tyrant-celestia.tumblr.com/]

 

[Epona]

The thing which really upsets me here isn't the potential loss of a second KoA, although with better writing this could actually be cool. It's the stupidity of mismanagement when just about everything you could hope to go right for you goes right. It's the thought that an independent studio made a big budget, big scope rpg based on a wholly new IP and made a reasonable success out of it. That's the sort of thing you can normally build on.

Captcha: carpe diem, kind of ironic :/

It's funny that you mention that. They had a big name fantasy sasquatch that got a degree in dry humping JRR Tolkien's leg write a fair chunk of the game and it was still pretty shitty.

Well if you want contextual grandeur, then 8monkey Labs (the guys behind Darkest of Days) are probably the kings of it. Yeah, their game was mediocre at best, but the context was the exact opposite of 38 Studios. They had a shoestring budget, a shoestring staff, nobody important working on it and they had something that was truly unique the same year Modern Warfare and ODST were coming out. Yeah, the game sucked, but it was playable and interesting enough for Nahtzee to want a sequel.

Given what Amalur had, they should have done MUCH better, but they didn't. It was mediocrity in its fullest and they deserve to lose their IP for fucking it up so bad.

Carpe diem noctem vincere [http://tyrant-celestia.tumblr.com/]

Maybe people are tired of offline MMO's with WOW-like graphics. I know that I am and I know that's why I am waiting for a major price drop after playing the demo. I am sure there is a major price drop coming too.