KoA: Reckoning - Previews @ IGN, Destructoid

IGN has a plea for gamers to pay attention to Reckoning with Give Kingdoms of Amalur a Chance:

I guess I could also tell you that everything in Reckoning is fleshed out into a surprisingly complex system. Smithing isn't an affair of just pressing a button in order to make money, but involves a multitude of component parts, allowing you to craft weapons and armor and progress your skill with new recipes. The abundant random item drops in Reckoning can be sold, broken down into parts for crafting, or donned on your character. Essentially, loot can make you feel richer in a number of ways.

Potion making also offers a lot of additional distractions. Every few feet in the environment another piece of flora appears for you to raid for potion ingredients. If you're the type who can't wander around without collecting everything, the world of Amalur is going to grab you and never let go.

…and Destructoid has a 'Talkthrough' video as Max Scoville talks through some walkthrough sequences over 10 or so minutes.
More information.

I'll pay more attention if sites like IGN don't trot out worrying facts like

"More specifically, it doesn't tie you down to your character choices. You can re-allocate your hard-earned ability points with ease, taking your character from a hardcore mage to a melee-focused beefcake with a few steps."

Originally Posted by kalniel
I'll pay more attention if sites like IGN don't trot out worrying facts like

"More specifically, it doesn't tie you down to your character choices. You can re-allocate your hard-earned ability points with ease, taking your character from a hardcore mage to a melee-focused beefcake with a few steps."

I don't see whats the problem with being able to switch? Maybe it's a personal taste, for me it's nice that something like that is possible. I would say: feel free to use it, but ignore it if it doesn't suit your playstyle/immersion.

Originally Posted by basharran
I don't see whats the problem with being able to switch? Maybe it's a personal taste, for me it's nice that something like that is possible. I would say: feel free to use it, but ignore it if it doesn't suit your playstyle/immersion.

It removes C&C from character development and, along with few other pointers (like non-restrictive factions), hints that the game is designed in a way that everyone can experience everything in one playthrough. That is rarely a good thing in cRPGs in my opinion, especially in supposedly fully-fledged ones.
Existence of easy respec equals to saying choices in character development donīt matter and I prefer when they do, in cRPGs. In the case of Amalur, I believe it also undermines the concept of the "destinies" feature, at least mechanics-wise.
Canīt say I consider all types of respecs to be bad per se, but less limited they are, the worse I consider them to be.

I also don't like respec option, but I don't mind that they're in the game for people who want to use it. I won't be using it, I'd rather take my time and just build my character exactly how I want them the first time through.

As for the game's content, completing everything on one playthrough is going to take you over 200 hours probably, since a developer recently stated the QA team was 100% completing the game in 200 hours, while they were rushing to get everything done, i.e. skipping dialog, sprinting from place to place, skipping cutscenes, etc. So 200 hours for everything is a safe bet. That's if you even choose to do everything. In Skyrim for example, there may be over 300 hours of content, but I choose not to do a lot of it because of how I'm roleplaying my character. I assume I'll do the same thing in Reckoning.

But I wouldn't worry about being able to complete it all in one playthrough. They pretty much designed it that way. There are also choices of how you go about doing different quests so you could also playthrough a second time and make different choices too.

I don't have a problem with the respec option. The justification for it and the character background feels similar to that for the Nameless One from Planescape torment.

Originally Posted by jhwisner
I don't have a problem with the respec option. The justification for it and the character background feels similar to that for the Nameless One from Planescape torment.

Changing classes in Planescape: Torment wasnīt really whatīs usually called respec though, it was not a "re-roll" feature.

Originally Posted by DeepO
It removes C&C from character development and, along with few other pointers (like non-restrictive factions), hints that the game is designed in a way that everyone can experience everything in one playthrough. That is rarely a good thing in cRPGs in my opinion, especially in supposedly fully-fledged ones.

I'd have to agree and I very rarely do more than one playthrough of an RPG. I still want my choices to feel like they count. But I guess it remains to be seen how this concept is implemented in the game.