Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Interview

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning executive producer Mike Fridley and designer Ken Rolston are the subject of a new two-page roundtable interview on Ten Ton Hammer, during which they talk about why the combat is such a strong point, how they've ensured that players are always aware of the main questline, the emphasis they've put on voice acting, and more. A snip:
Before buying a new game, every gamer wants to be sure he'll be getting his money's worth, and a big factor in making the most of one's investment is how replayable the game is. We asked the BHG team to tell us what makes Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning a game that players will want to keep returning to.

It depends on the gamer, of course, but BHG estimates that Reckoning comes in at about 300 hours worth of game play. In fact, Mike Fridley explained that QA testing took over 200 hours, and that was done by people who already possessed expert knowledge of the game.

)If you just blast through the main quest line, there's still a ton of content you can play, or you can respec your character, or do the side quests,) Fridley said.

Both Fridley and Rolston expressed that exploring archetypes should certainly cause players to return to the game. For just a few pieces of in-game gold, players can respec their existing characters, and that, the team feels, is worthy of more hours of experimentation.

(The crazy thing is that you can play hybrid characters,) says Rolston. (They're deliberately impossible in almost any other game--you're always gimping yourself if you take some pieces out of one craft and try to build them into another--but our hybrids work.) Fridley concurred saying that even though he'd tried some purposefully odd combinations, mixing archetypes he typically didn't like, he managed to uncover some badass combos that made playing his character enjoyable.