38 Studios - Rise and Fall

[crpgnut]

I thought the house of ballads was the only decent long quest in the game. The rest of the quests were just too grindy. I never finished it but may go back one day if there is a way to severely trim the combat.

 

[BoboTheMighty]

Interesting, I've never heard of this Copernicus project, at least in name. But I doubt it would've succeded anyway, when EVE, Star Wars, ESO, and plenty of others with far stronger appeal, could not compete with WoW.
And when that one ends, Blizzard will line up another one.
Crazy overambitious for his first project.
Amalur was solid multi zone MMO-ish world with a strong fantasy feel to it, but it felt lacking it's own character, and a bit too similar to what was done already in other games.
Honestly, writing was surprisingly weak considering the names it had behind it.
Plus timing of release was really working against them.

 

[Deleted User]

What is MMO-ish about Amalur? That seems like a meaningless criticism of the game, IMO, and I've explained why I think that is. What does a game being "MMO-ish" even mean?

I have played quite a few MMOs, such as LOTRO, DDO, Asheron's Call, World of Warcraft, TERA, Wizardry Online, Everquest 2 and on. It doesn't resemble anything from them in the slightest, lol.

Project Copernicus was going to be 38 Studio's MMO. If you do a YouTube search you can see a leaked fly-through of some of the world. It leaked after 38 Studios went under. Here, I'll save you the trouble:

THAT was their MMO. Reckoning is a single-player game and has nothing to do with MMOs. Amalur was a universe created with 10,000 years of lore by RA Salvatore, and it was designed to have many games within that universe, with the closest influence being The Elder Scrolls. Why it continues to get the MMO stigma I have no idea. Maybe because the game is enormous, has tons of content, exclamation points (that can be turned off) above questgiver's heads and the graphics look similar to a colorful WoW or something. Combine that with people continuously seeing MMO when Reckoning is discussed and you get this weird effect. BTW, this happened even when the game was being developed. So many people couldn't get the information right and would spread misinformation, such as the famous "Reckoning was originally an MMO". No, it was never an MMO and was always a single-player game. In fact, Ken Rolston was working on another RPG at the time that never saw the light of day because 38 Studios acquired Big Huge Games, and a lot of Reckoning's ideas were pulled directly from that game. Big Huge Games was developing it with Rolston designing and it was called Ascendant.

Reckoning has tons of NPCs you can chat with, have dialogue with, tons of lore to be found in the world from various sources, hand-crafted dungeons and world, 6 hand-crafted guild/factions with involved storylines, story cutscenes, cinematic bits during quests, 9 non-combat skills - Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Detect Hidden, Dispelling, Lockpicking, Mercantile, Persuasion, Sagecraft and Stealth - and so on. I don't remember many MMOs where you can chat with NPCs and persuade them, or solve some quests in multiple ways with options. Play the game with an open mind and see for yourself what I'm saying. Sheesh.

 

[Darkheart]

That's how I would describe Skyrim too, endless boring grind, easy combat, nice but empty world. Only story was nowhere near as decent as the KoA one, and the combat was even more boring. Yet it's one of the best selling titles ever… never ceases to amaze me.

Can't say you are totally wrong, but the big difference is that Skyrim (or any TES game) is a sandbox game and even more importantly it is mod-able. I said it in the past and I will say it now: The Beth game that is good without mods has yet to be released. But with mods… Oh my gawd!!
Amalur on the other hand is alot of empty space with lots of boring and is a pain to mod. And the winner is…

 

[BoboTheMighty]

What is MMO-ish about Amalur? That seems like a meaningless criticism of the game, IMO, and I've explained why I think that is. What does a game being "MMO-ish" even mean?

I have played quite a few MMOs, such as LOTRO, DDO, Asheron's Call, World of Warcraft, TERA, Wizardry Online, Everquest 2 and on. It doesn't resemble anything from them in the slightest, lol.

Project Copernicus was going to be 38 Studio's MMO. If you do a YouTube search you can see a leaked fly-through of some of the world. It leaked after 38 Studios went under. Here, I'll save you the trouble:

THAT was their MMO. Reckoning is a single-player game and has nothing to do with MMOs. Amalur was a universe created with 10,000 years of lore by RA Salvatore, and it was designed to have many games within that universe, with the closest influence being The Elder Scrolls. Why it continues to get the MMO stigma I have no idea. Maybe because the game is enormous, has tons of content, exclamation points (that can be turned off) above questgiver's heads and the graphics look similar to a colorful WoW or something. Combine that with people continuously seeing MMO when Reckoning is discussed and you get this weird effect. BTW, this happened even when the game was being developed. So many people couldn't get the information right and would spread misinformation, such as the famous "Reckoning was originally an MMO". No, it was never an MMO and was always a single-player game. In fact, Ken Rolston was working on another RPG at the time that never saw the light of day because 38 Studios acquired Big Huge Games, and a lot of Reckoning's ideas were pulled directly from that game. Big Huge Games was developing it with Rolston designing and it was called Ascendant.

Reckoning has tons of NPCs you can chat with, have dialogue with, tons of lore to be found in the world from various sources, hand-crafted dungeons and world, 6 hand-crafted guild/factions with involved storylines, story cutscenes, cinematic bits during quests, 9 non-combat skills - Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Detect Hidden, Dispelling, Lockpicking, Mercantile, Persuasion, Sagecraft and Stealth - and so on. I don't remember many MMOs where you can chat with NPCs and persuade them, or solve some quests in multiple ways with options. Play the game with an open mind and see for yourself what I'm saying. Sheesh.

Difference between MMO multi-zone world and single player open world comes down to how believable and "realistic" it's world design/building is in context of it's setting.
Now, there is a good degree of subjectivity here...each open world, from Ubisoft, Bethesda, Rockstar, Piranha Bytes, CDPR, etc, etc...have their own design goals, strengths and weaknesses.
Amalur cannot really compare for several reasons:
Does it have well designed geography(compared to Rockstar/CDPR)? Gradual and believable climate transition? Complex and dynamic ecosystem? Settlements designed based on study of urbanism? Detailed architecture design that indicate it's world history? Complex weather system? Strong side quests that support the main narrative and have a stronger role in worldbuilding of it's setting/main narrative( instead of fetch/kill/deliver x)? Are gameplay mechanics rooted in realism? Dynamic world encounters that present world economy? Diverse town economy/npc AI routines? And so on.

 

[Deleted User]

It has great world building. In fact, Ian Frazier and Rolston would often joke in interviews all the time that their world design was so strictly coordinated by RA Salvatore's lore, that they couldn't just add things without them being completely justified by the lore as well as given the okay by RA. His example was that in most RPGs you can just add a tower with an evil wizard there and call it a day. Salvatore wouldn't let them do that and the overall world building and design was treated that way, i.e. with a close eye to detail and making the entire world coherent and in tune with the written lore.

There are several large zones each with their own architecture, terrain style, weather and atmosphere. Plenty of lore to find, books to read, quests and questlines that greatly expand on the Amalur universe and its lore. Each zone and interior "bubble" has its own themes, stories and ideas that are displayed, not only in quests and dialogue but in the design of the "bubble' itself. They are not overly done and fit well within the world as a whole, i.e. they are believable. Note that I use the term "bubble" a lot when describing Reckoning's map, because it is comprised of 5 very large "zones", and each "zone" has several "bubbles" of terrain to explore within that. The bubbles are interconnected and the zones are as well, but you only get a major loading screen when entering a new zone. The bubbles themselves are quite large, usually with several points of interest spread out, and the game never feels claustrophobic because of that. Each bubble has a very strong feeling of being hand-crafted, and they managed to make nearly every single one unique. The overall zones are huge and there is just a ton of exploration, where you find new things and twists all over the map, discover new, often beautiful areas and generally never quite know what to expect in each spot so it keeps you wanting to explore further.

As I've said a bunch, it's like TES in many ways. It's designed to be a game world you can "get lost in", spend hundreds of hours running around, collecting loot, doing quests, talking to people, crafting, following the story, examining the lore and so on. It has different ideas implemented than TES, obviously, such as more of a Diablo-style loot system (with hundreds of unique items as well as 70+ armor sets), a fast-paced action combat system (of course it's still based on your character's skills and abilities, but you have to move well with the controls as well), and a more colorful, cartoon-ish (almost) graphic design. But there are significant story bits in the game as well, and often you will have cutscenes mid-dungeon, at the start and end of the area, as well as many other spots. It focuses more on a cinematic approach than TES does, and IMO probably offers more of this type of storytelling than TES does.

It does have some really standout questlines as well. The factions are all generally good, with the House of Ballads being *really* good. The conclusion and last zone/mission in that game would be the best content in many RPGs. The Legend of Dead Kel DLC is more of an expansion, with at least 20 hours of new area to explore and quest through. I have said this a lot but this DLC is some of the best ever in an RPG. It shows that the devs were really, really starting to find their groove with the game, and I just wonder what could have happened with Reckoning 2. There are also good quests and little stories spread throughout like any TES game, lots of interesting places to explore and vistas to see.

Again, that's not to say it's without problems. Use mods, look into what I've said earlier in the thread and use them accordingly. If you do those things the game will be even better. As it stands it was a very high quality game that I enjoyed a lot and will have to return to sometime. I even played on the Xbox 360, so I'm sure the PC version is superior once you add mods. On the 360 it also stands as one of the better console RPGs out there as well, but that's another topic. Any RPG where you can spend 200+ hours in the world is a rare thing, and the devs in interviews even promoted it as having 300+ hours of content, which I certainly believe, as I played 250 hours or so and didn't see the last 2 entire zones! So, it's huge. Big Huge. But it's also quality. It has a ridiculous amount of content.

 

[Deleted User]

Forgot to mention that NPCs have their own schedules, too.

 

[BoboTheMighty]

It has great world building. In fact, Ian Frazier and Rolston would often joke in interviews all the time that their world design was so strictly coordinated by RA Salvatore's lore, that they couldn't just add things without them being completely justified by the lore as well as given the okay by RA. His example was that in most RPGs you can just add a tower with an evil wizard there and call it a day. Salvatore wouldn't let them do that and the overall world building and design was treated that way, i.e. with a close eye to detail and making the entire world coherent and in tune with the written lore.

There are several large zones each with their own architecture, terrain style, weather and atmosphere. Plenty of lore to find, books to read, quests and questlines that greatly expand on the Amalur universe and its lore. Each zone and interior "bubble" has its own themes, stories and ideas that are displayed, not only in quests and dialogue but in the design of the "bubble' itself. They are not overly done and fit well within the world as a whole, i.e. they are believable. Note that I use the term "bubble" a lot when describing Reckoning's map, because it is comprised of 5 very large "zones", and each "zone" has several "bubbles" of terrain to explore within that. The bubbles are interconnected and the zones are as well, but you only get a major loading screen when entering a new zone. The bubbles themselves are quite large, usually with several points of interest spread out, and the game never feels claustrophobic because of that. Each bubble has a very strong feeling of being hand-crafted, and they managed to make nearly every single one unique. The overall zones are huge and there is just a ton of exploration, where you find new things and twists all over the map, discover new, often beautiful areas and generally never quite know what to expect in each spot so it keeps you wanting to explore further.

As I've said a bunch, it's like TES in many ways. It's designed to be a game world you can "get lost in", spend hundreds of hours running around, collecting loot, doing quests, talking to people, crafting, following the story, examining the lore and so on. It has different ideas implemented than TES, obviously, such as more of a Diablo-style loot system (with hundreds of unique items as well as 70+ armor sets), a fast-paced action combat system (of course it's still based on your character's skills and abilities, but you have to move well with the controls as well), and a more colorful, cartoon-ish (almost) graphic design. But there are significant story bits in the game as well, and often you will have cutscenes mid-dungeon, at the start and end of the area, as well as many other spots. It focuses more on a cinematic approach than TES does, and IMO probably offers more of this type of storytelling than TES does.

It does have some really standout questlines as well. The factions are all generally good, with the House of Ballads being *really* good. The conclusion and last zone/mission in that game would be the best content in many RPGs. The Legend of Dead Kel DLC is more of an expansion, with at least 20 hours of new area to explore and quest through. I have said this a lot but this DLC is some of the best ever in an RPG. It shows that the devs were really, really starting to find their groove with the game, and I just wonder what could have happened with Reckoning 2. There are also good quests and little stories spread throughout like any TES game, lots of interesting places to explore and vistas to see.

Again, that's not to say it's without problems. Use mods, look into what I've said earlier in the thread and use them accordingly. If you do those things the game will be even better. As it stands it was a very high quality game that I enjoyed a lot and will have to return to sometime. I even played on the Xbox 360, so I'm sure the PC version is superior once you add mods. On the 360 it also stands as one of the better console RPGs out there as well, but that's another topic. Any RPG where you can spend 200+ hours in the world is a rare thing, and the devs in interviews even promoted it as having 300+ hours of content, which I certainly believe, as I played 250 hours or so and didn't see the last 2 entire zones! So, it's huge. Big Huge. But it's also quality. It has a ridiculous amount of content.

You realize you completely missed the point here?
And sometimes you have to accept that other people have a different view point and their reasons for it than you, instead of bombarding the thread with It's fantastic! wall of text.

 

[Deleted User]

I didn't miss anything. If you weren't so quick to try and dismiss me at every turn and actually read what I'm saying, that might be a good start.

Difference between MMO multi-zone world and single player open world comes down to how believable and "realistic" it's world design/building is in context of it's setting.
Now, there is a good degree of subjectivity here…each open world, from Ubisoft, Bethesda, Rockstar, Piranha Bytes, CDPR, etc, etc…have their own design goals, strengths and weaknesses.
Amalur cannot really compare for several reasons:
Does it have well designed geography(compared to Rockstar/CDPR)? Gradual and believable climate transition? Complex and dynamic ecosystem? Settlements designed based on study of urbanism? Detailed architecture design that indicate it's world history? Complex weather system? Strong side quests that support the main narrative and have a stronger role in worldbuilding of it's setting/main narrative( instead of fetch/kill/deliver x)? Are gameplay mechanics rooted in realism? Dynamic world encounters that present world economy? Diverse town economy/npc AI routines? And so on.

I explained that the world building is great. It has well designed geography - extremely well designed, in fact. (Read the post I wrote.) It has gradual and believable transition of terrain, starting from the magical forest of Dalentarth and spreading out from there (Read the post I wrote.) Complex and dynamic ecosystem? Sure. Monsters are where they are supposed to be, the areas are uniquely inhabited and believable, in accordance with the world lore, wild animals run around, etc. (Read the post I wrote.) Settlements designed based on study of urbanism? lol. Don't know, but they are good in comparison to other RPGs.

The game has great world design comparable to other RPGs. I already explained this.

 

[SpoonFULL]

Fluent's description is telling me that I should give KoA another serious go.

From what Fluent was saying about the strong correlation between the lore and surroudings reminds of Ken Rolsten's design philosophy in Morrowind.

 

[Umbral]

I couldn't care less about Baseball or it's players. Kurt Shilling is an asshole and if he still has ANY money he didn't lose enough money.

 

[BoboTheMighty]

I didn't miss anything. If you weren't so quick to try and dismiss me at every turn and actually read what I'm saying, that might be a good start.



I explained that the world building is great. It has well designed geography - extremely well designed, in fact. (Read the post I wrote.) It has gradual and believable transition of terrain, starting from the magical forest of Dalentarth and spreading out from there (Read the post I wrote.) Complex and dynamic ecosystem? Sure. Monsters are where they are supposed to be, the areas are uniquely inhabited and believable, in accordance with the world lore, wild animals run around, etc. (Read the post I wrote.) Settlements designed based on study of urbanism? lol. Don't know, but they are good in comparison to other RPGs.

The game has great world design comparable to other RPGs. I already explained this.

I didn't dismiss anything...from my experience of playing KoA, I simply find your reasoning absurd.

It has well designed geography - extremely well designed, in fact. It has gradual and believable transition of terrain

How? Each area is a zone separated by artificial corridor from one another and their flora/fauna are largely disconnected.
There is no indication of erosion and no gradual change showing influence of civilization on nature in the terrain, and I could go on and on.

Complex and dynamic ecosystem? Sure

There are exactly three wild animals in entire world and there is no interaction of any kind between them.
Most of it is populated by MMO style of monster mobs.

I have nothing personally against it and think KoA is a solid, 6/10, game. It has better than average gameplay mechanics, good and flexible progression system, and comes with abundance of lore( though in my opinion it is nowhere near as well written as Salvatore's older works) and strong fantasy art. But common consensus ( and in this thread) is that difficulty, storyline, characters, most sidequests, VA, ambiance and MMO world design, are lacking in comparison.

 

[Deleted User]

On the "common consensus" point. The game has received no lower than an 80 average rating on any platform (PC, Xbox 360 and PS3) from professional reviewers, each platform having no less than 25 reviews (with the Xbox 360 having over 70). The average User Score fares well, too, with PC being slightly lower (6.6, I think?) but the other platforms being high 7.x.

So I will agree to disagree.

 

[Darkheart]

On the "common consensus" point. The game has received no lower than an 80 average rating on any platform (PC, Xbox 360 and PS3) from professional reviewers, each platform having no less than 25 reviews (with the Xbox 360 having over 70). The average User Score fares well, too, with PC being slightly lower (6.6, I think?) but the other platforms being high 7.x.

So I will agree to disagree.

I don't give a damn about the "common consensus" and even less about "professional reviewers."
This is a RPG site and as such it has to stand up to certain RPG standarts. And here it IS lacking in many important parts.

It is by no means a bad game, but if it wasn't for the huge downfall story of the dev that comes up once a year, nobody would even be talking about it anymore. This is not a classic and you don't miss anything, if you don't play it.

 

[Deleted User]

I don't care about a consensus either, but Bobo brought it up and it's only right that I posted accurate information showing what the consensus is. The fact is it was well-received by gaming critics and gamers.

 

[Pessimeister]

I've given my opinion before, but for the sake of balancing the "Fluent happy train" I'll just say that I felt KoA was a weak and extremely hollow game which I was glad to see the end of (24 hours in total) It's full of flashy and superficial prettiness, but underneath that sheen of polish, for me there simply wasn't enough of substance or challenge outside of the dull fetch quests and kill x creatures to make it memorable.
Simply stated, it's just an average action-RPG with an extremely strong and somewhat dull MMO flavor. Each to their own, naturally!

The story of 38 Studios however is a fascinating one and no doubt full of potential lessons for any would be RPG entrepreneur or overly optimistic developers.

 

[duerer]

To me, the whole 38 Studios / Amalur -story boils down to this sad observation:

I'm sayin' that WE, the nitpicky game buying public, have caused the fall of 38 Studios, WE killed the jobs of 200+ employees, because WE made Amalur a flop.
Ahem...

(And don't come to me with the age-old mantra, that "the game was no good, it deserves to be rotten". Amalur was not a great game, true, but definitely not a bad one either.)

 

[Pongo]

Not sure about that, duerer - they did sell over a million copies, which is pretty good really. The fact they needed to sell so many more than that to break even kinda suggests bad planning and unrealistic expectations on their part.

 

[sakichop]

To me, the whole 38 Studios / Amalur -story boils down to this sad observation:

I'm sayin' that WE, the nitpicky game buying public, have caused the fall of 38 Studios, WE killed the jobs of 200+ employees, because WE made Amalur a flop.
Ahem…

(And don't come to me with the age-old mantra, that "the game was no good, it deserves to be rotten". Amalur was not a great game, true, but definitely not a bad one either.)

No, the game actually sold well, 1.22 million copies in first 3 months. Mismanagement of funds was more to blame. At least from every thing I've read.

 

[duerer]

Not sure about that, duerer - they did sell over a million copies, which is pretty good really. The fact they needed to sell so many more than that to break even kinda suggests bad planning and unrealistic expectations on their part.

No, the game actually sold well, 1.22 million copies in first 3 months. Mismanagement of funds was more to blame. At least from every thing I've read.

Hmmm, 1 million copies do sound impressive - except they are not.
1 million copies sounds fair for a well-focused, A-quality indie project (Pillars, etc), but for a AAA mass product, it is ridiculously short. (These guys see red if the retail is lower than 5 million)

The thing is, AAA game development is extremely risky.
If you have a solid backer (investors, or a financially strong publisher), then you have exactly ONE chance to hit the jackpot with a new IP.

If you do not have solid funding, you may be able to survive for a while, if your accountants are "creative" enough with the bookings -- but obviously, your game has to be downscaled somewhere to the C/B-category (Piranha Bytes, Spiders, etc).


Now on to Amalur (as I see):
They had the production values, the talent, the vision, the development team, the publishing agreement. Plus, they delivered a fairly fun game on its own right.
That is, they had EVERYTHING for success.
Yet, they failed.

Sure, there were mismanagement issues. Sure, there were this or that.
But they still failed with a theoretically good product. Why?
... Because success cannot be guaranteed. Why?
... Because the game buying public is an unpredictable beast, and no matter what the "analysts" or "experts" say: nobody knows anything (Thanks, Mr. W.G.!)

... and so, you must always have a solid Plan B if the sh*t hits the fan.