How much of Reckoning will be in Copernicus?

Leoghan

I was reading a few articles about Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning (this one specifically caught my eye), when I couldn't help but wonder how much of the single player game will be in the MMO. How much should be in the MMO?

So Reckoning is set before the MMO we know, but features certain aspects of the backstory that is going into the MMO, other than that though I don't feel like we know how much the two actually have in common. 

We know Reckoning will have a skill system broken into three tree (Finesse, Socery and Might) that we can mix and match to make our own "Destiny" or class. 

"One of the ways we see this is in the "destiny" system, a skill tree-type progression system with some interesting twists. A player can unlock "destinies," which are like classes, by investing in various skills on the tree."

Now will the MMO work this way? Should it? Part of me thinks it would be a horrible mistake to launch a "prequel" of your MMO that used drastically different game mechanics than the MMO did, but maybe I'm wrong. 

Likewise a single player game can't possible cover the kind of world that is expected of an MMO, but from the sounds of it Reckoning's world is pretty massive, if a bit short on character races. 

"Speaking of scope, I was able to get my hands on the following raw numbers for the game: 5 distinct regions (the demo only covered a teensy tiny sliver on one of the regions), 4 playable races, and 3 class trees with 22 abilities per tree. This should provide a great deal of customization and area to explore."

I would think it would be unwise to give you fewer choices (both in regions to explore and customizations) in an MMO than in its single player counter part. 

It sounds like Reckoning will also have some forms of crafting or at least gear customization, again I can't help but wonder if you put different systems into the single player prequel will this cause problems with expectations for the MMO. At this point we only know the two are set in the same world some time apart (I think I remember reading 1000 years, but I could be wrong), I'm really curious what a luanch of a single player game like this potentially implies about an MMO if anything at all.

 

more articles for the curious, most of them repeat a lot of the same stuff, but there are interesting tid-bits here and there. 

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/kingdoms_of_amalur_reckoning/b/ps3/archive/2011/03/07/quick-combat-and-a-cool-world-elevate-reckoning.aspx

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/07/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-preview/

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/115/1153816p1.html

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108416-PAX-East-2011-Kingdoms-of-Amalur-Plays-Like-God-of-Warcraft

http://gdc.gamespot.com/story/6302654/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-first-look-preview

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2011/03/q38a-curt-schilling/1

http://www.38watch.com/content.php?141-A-First-Look-The-Kingdoms-of-Amalur-Reckoning-Demo

Axehilt

I doubt they'll make the mistake of ramming a SRPG advancement system (no matter how fun; friend of mine is lead systems designer on that game) into a MMORPG.

Evasia

I think lore and some other featers will make it into mmo but it will prolly be 2 totally different games.

Leoghan

See that's the thing I see them as likely being very different games, but at the same time I can't help, but wonder if that sets them up for expectations that are going to hurt them in the long run. It'll be interesting to see how this works, as far as I'm aware this is the first time a MMO has been co-developed with single player RPG and not one being the inspiration for the other.