Kingdoms of Amalur

[dyeager]

http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/7982623/gov-lincoln-chafee-curt-schilling-wrong-blame-rhode-island-woes

Wheeee

[dyeager]

Interesting interview from Schilling (formatted for a mobile reader so might look pretty goofy on a regular browser): http://ireader.olivesoftware.com/Olive/iReader/ProvidenceJournalWithAuth/SharedArticle.ashx?document=TPJ/2012/05/29&article=Ar00100

[dyeager]

TL;DR summary: Schilling says 38 Studios hasn’t seen any money from “Reckoning’s” sales, nor did it expect to: that money was committed to EA, which had paid 38 Studios an up-front publishing fee of $35 million.

[Taelus]

This is devolving rapidly. I really hope it doesn't become a shit-slinging contest.

[Annubis]

Anyone else thinking that buying their MMO might be a great opportunity for a financially stable company?

[Kevadu]

No, I'm thinking that their MMORPG was a huge waste of resources from the start and even if it had gotten finished it wouldn't be profitable...

[dyeager]

Good piece:http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/169444/38_Studios_Downfall_The_Gamasutra_Report.php

[Wild Armor]

Sorry I'm late on this discussion, but FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU.

[Translation note: I live in Rhode Island and now must pay the consequence of the this]

I didn't even vote for this Gov either... :(

I humbly apologize in place of Rhode Island's politics and will do my best not to be so Rhode Island [politicaly].

Godspeed.

That is all

[Ashton]

http://kotaku.com/5915330/amalurs-developers-saved-are-now-an-epic-studio

[Perigryn]

Late to the party, but yeah, caught whiff of this a while back.

I can't believe that they just got axed and everything by EA. I haven't been reading too too much on it, but why the heck did it happen? I thought Amalur was doing well in sales, in spite of its proximity to Skyrim and ME3?

[dyeager]

EA had pretty much nothing to do with it. They only had a publishing deal with 38 Studios with regards to KoA.

It's pretty complicated so it's probably worth reading a couple of the linked pieces to get up to speed if you're interested in this sort of thing.

[Eusis]

Yeah, seriously, look into it before blaming EA. They've done a lot of crap lately, but in this case they're irrelevant.

Although if you want the short version: retired MLB player Curt Schilling thinks he can jump into the MMO business, spends millions, and gets his start up bankrupt with only a side game to the MMO getting produced. MMOs are just not a good way to jump into the industry at this point.

[dyeager]

There's also a political war that goes on between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, followed by Democrat vs Republican. It's actually really interesting stuff if you are into the business side of games or politics.

If not, stay far far away.

[Farron]

Even though I didn't care much for Amalur I felt kind of sorry for the studio for it at least seemed like a product nicely done.
On the topic, for those who played it, from what I gathered I heard this game has good combat but what put me away is the MMO structure of the quests, is this true ?
I mean, not every quest has to be epic, but at least some should be better then "go there, kill this monster". If anything quests should at least have a back story or some nice motivation.

I heard from some reviews Dragon's Dogma suffers from this as well (if indeed Amalur suffers from it), because I do plan to at least give a shot to those games, but if they happens to be like those I'll give preference to other RPGs like Atelier Meruru, Gungnir and the import version of P4.

[Yoda]

I'd say 75% of the quests attempt some sort of story or lore. However I did all the faction quests and a HUGE amount of other ones weighing in about 100hours of gameplay. I paid attention to practically none of the story except for some of the main quests. Those were ok.

That being said I had a ton of fun w/ the game because the combat is fun, the world is beautiful and colorful, and leveling up is a blast.

It's a damn great game to play if you're like me, playing a game and watching a movie or something at the same time.