The world (wide web) of Amalur grows as 38 Studios works on its MMO

@Brockobama321

It hasn't been publicized because 38 studios doesn't want it to be. Look at the failure that SWTOR was because of how much hype they built.

They are doing it just right imo. Released a single player RPG that gives you the background and lore for the MMO. They are keeping the info on the MMO under lock and key until it is ready to be given out in tid bits.

@Maseno
Publicity really isn't the problem for TOR, though--the hype there caused a lot of backlash because the game was arguably being wildly oversold, and the devs have said stuff that's frankly pretty ridiculous no matter what you might think of the game itself.

SWTOR is a failure already? I think it's a fabulous game. Single player, primarily. I'll see if the MMO part is any good after I finish going through all the character stories I'm interested in...

@Wild Colors

If you haven't raided or pvp'd with more than 5 people around you then you haven't really seen where the fail kicks in. But I'm not explaining this for a 100th time..check the swtor forums.

@Traptz
Just because SWTOR (might) fail from an MMO perspective doesn't mean that it's a failure as a commercial venture -- which is at the end of the day what any non-Indie title is.

Even if the majority of players find the end game in SWTOR lacking, that is not enough to declare the game a failure. Nor are 30 days enough. We still have no idea what kind of churn the game is going to have, even with the analysis of one so-called expert. After all, three months after the 2008 recession had actually started, a majority of economists (aka "experts") were still saying that we weren't going to go into a recession! Experts can only be said to know what they're talking about after their predictions have proven accurate. Until then, they're just guessing.

We do know that from a financial standpoint, SWTOR has had one of the most successful launches ever. I believe its sales exceeded that of WoW's launch. WoW only launched with two raids. It was four months later that an open world raid was added. Seven months after launch before the first two battlegrounds made it in. Eight months after launch before the third instanced raid was added. When you actually look at it objectively, SWTOR is in strong shape for end game content. It only launched with one instanced raid but added its second within a month. It launched with several open world raids. It launched with multiple battlegrounds. I know a lot of us hate WoW but that opinion doesn't change the fact that WoW is a smashing success. At the end of the day, SWTOR's launch condition compares very favorably with WoW. Disappointment in how similar its systems are to WoW does not change the fact the elements are in place for SWTOR to end up being the most successful MMO since WoW.

Put another way, SWTOR may well be a failure in the innovation department but nobody can reasonably say it's a failure as a game venture.

@Traptz

Your comment is highly ironic to me, since endgame raids and/or PvP of the kind you mentioned are the two features of MMOs that interest me least. In fact, they interest me not at all.

In my opinion, SWTOR is an MMO/CORPG/SPRPG hybrid, incorporating the best features of all three and then some (voice-acting, game-length class-specific story lines, the Star Wars/sci-fi setting, etc.). I am enjoying SWTOR immensely. It is highly gratifying to see a game of this type finally show up.

My chief concern with SWTOR are its mediocre UI, clunky travel mechanisms, etc., all of which I expect to see improved and refined over time. The other big issue I have with this game is that it often seems to run very sluggishly on my (admittedly limited) computer and I do get disconnected occasionally.

But the only way this game will "fail" for me is if and when I run out of content, and that looks to be a long way off as far as I can tell.

@Tom in VA
Clunky travel? I'm curious what you mean by that. The only thing I find clunky is that to change planets I have to go to the local spaceport and board my ship. That's not particularly different from having to go to the nearest flight master and catch a griffin/pegasus/whatever. Nor is it different from how in WoW when you want to travel to another continent (or Outland or Northrend, etc.) you have to travel to the ship that goes there.

Within the local world map there are many taxi points -- but unlike other MMO's I've played they actually have one at every mission hub.

Additionally, the mission hubs also have bind points. But unlike other games' bind points you can then use your map to fast-travel to ANY of the bind points you've discovered rather than simply the last one you bound to.

In short, I've found SWTOR's travel system to be less clunky than WoW, LotRO, Rift, EQ2, Vanguard, Eve, DDO...

@Irem

I can't disagree with that, but part of that comes from pre-expectations of fans buying into such hype and being disappointed.

And I am *always* seeing this happen. Expecting something can be cool, but when you aren't happy that it isn't powered by pixies and doesn't spit out cake on your laptop, people get too angry. DCUO was like this before launch. CO was like this. (And similarly, STO was like this, too!) And really, future games that people are looking forward to ("____, You are my only hope.") are in danger of being in the same boat.

Thing is, *I* knew what to expect and even some critical of the game pre-launch and pre-beta knew; it wasn't hard to figure out. Of course, we are "insiders" and keep up with things, but even among many of the more hard-core posters who are into our hobby, I just kept seeing blinders on both ends of the spectrum.

We could blame Bioware for the hype, but really, how do you think they felt with this "tide of emotion"? Remember, any "word of mouth/advertising" is good. I would think ANY studio would be envious to have the same "firey passions" that SWTOR bought out, even in light of these critics denouncing the game.

The problem is it's going to backfire because people are going to feel abandoned.

@darzin The trend seems to be moving from the old static stand here while you stand there and we hit each other to the more action game style. I think that's great and way more fun personally.

@yeppers

I was surprised when I saw that. I thought I remembered hearing Reckoning would be console-exclusive.

@Plastic
Really? I also tried the demo on Steam and found it to be buggy and disappointing overall. The character movements are rigid and mechanical, there are tons of invisible walls, and its plays out identically to the many other single player action-rpgs.

Lore-wise, wtf. I mean really, theres the buildup in the cinematic of these unkillable warriors slaughtering the young races, and yet the first thing your character does at the start is two-shot a few of these unkillable warriors by using a rusty sword.

@h4ngedm4n They are not "unkillable" but are said to be "creatures of magic, not bound by the laws of life and death." You can strike them down, but they would just "soon rise again. " The opening cinema even shows one being killed.

@BIGGIN
My bad. I do remember that part of the cinematic, but I paid more attention to the narration and concluded that the lethal looking sword strike failed to actually kill the target.

@h4ngedm4n

The only bug I encountered was the post-processing problem already mentioned, but once I turned it off, I never noticed any sort of glitches. Which bugs did you run into?

The movement thing is definitely subjective, but I could see why someone wouldn't like it. I was a little put-off at first since it is a big departure from many games, but once I got comfortable with it, I found myself preferring it, especially the combat, which is very fluid. In fact, I fired up Fable 3 after completing the demo and the rigidity of that game was actually jarring after coming from Kingdom of Amalur. The only thing I hate is the lack of jumping and the invisible walls, like you mention, but that's kind of to be expected in a game like this.

@Plastic
Post processing is the only major bug I ran into. The other stuff is all minor, such as killed NPCs continuing to talk, certain kills not giving XP, bow rate of fire seeming too fast.

With the movement I took a closer look and identified the issue. Due to the zoomed-in 3rd person view, it looks like the character's feet do not really interact with the ground at all--airwalking! It is present in many games but usually less obvious due to camera angle.

I don't mean to sound all negative, there are many positive things about the game as well. Having given it a second shot (since some people mentioned the open world after the tutorial was good), I managed to make it out of the very boring tutorial cave and generally had a good time.