How much did Amalur steal from Skyrim/Oblivion exactly?

[Feanoro]

So after my 3rd Skyrim playthrough I decided to try Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning, as I like R.A. Salvatore's work and if you add the people who've worked on Oblivion/Morrowind to that list, how can it not be enjoyable?

 

And I was right, it's a lot of fun to play and I'm glad I started playing it.

 

However...

 

First thing I notice is the TES style beginning...you're (almost) dead, you have to go through a dungeon to exit, and among the first monsters you encounter are a variation of rats and spiders. Ok, fine, not that big a deal, many games use similar tutorials. Then the 2nd thing I notice is that Stealth mode is pretty much identical to Skyrim, except instead of the detection eye being on your crosshair, it's on top of your target's head.

 

Ook...fine, not that big a deal, still. However, I then get to move outside the dungeon and look around. Guess what, the open world has some similarities with TES worlds as well. It's structured on levels just like in TES, at least for most things. It looks like they managed to make small villages open-world (kinda like they are in Skyrim, eg Riverwood, Falkreath, etc.) but everything bigger still requires loading of a new level.

 

However, the apex of the plagiarism is attained by the map. Guess what, it has a similar structure to Oblivion's map (guess they couldn't figure out how to make it 3d, Skyrim style). Guess what, it has a local map function that works EXACTLY like in Skyrim. Guess what, you can FAST TRAVEL to each discovered location, be it a town or a dungeon of some sort. And it goes on: there's a quest menu that works pretty similarly to skyrim's, including having a pointer to whatever quest thing you need to do on the map. The only difference is the quests are partitioned by type.

 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure there are a lot MORE similarities to find (ex: armor degrades and needs to be repaired just like in Oblivion, you have alchemy, blacksmithing, mercantile and other familiar names as skills), etc.

 

So what's different about Amalur?

 

First of all the graphics, they clearly tend towards anime more, the degree of realism present in TES environments cannot be found here. Secondly, the open world is there, but it's considerably more limited than in a TES game: First of all there is no jumping in Amalur as far as I can tell. Actually they pretty much tried their utmost to ignore the vertical axis as much as possible, and so far I haven't been able to succesfully do battle from height with my enemies (even though there is archery, for example, it seems you can't shoot people from above or below. This limitation makes the map feel like there's a network of roads from which you can stray left and right a bit but never too much and never over or under things.

 

The biggest difference, however, lies in combat. Clearly this is the part that's been most worked on as you have the ability to instantly switch between primary and a secondary weapon, your magic abilities are easily selectable through number keys and right click shoots them and there's been a LOT of work put into special finishing moves that you actually DO yourself instead of watching a cutscene when your enemy dies the way it happens in Skyrim. However, from what I can tell, magic seems to be strictly combat related so far (think Destruction school on steroids) with a few exceptions in the form of abilities I'd imagine. At the same time, the archery system is a bit...weird. At first glance it looks like there's an autoaim on it, but then I tried it outside of the tutorial and people dodged my arrows even at close range soo...idk what's going on there.

 

In terms of skills, some are identical to Skyrim (take Alchemy for example: you harvest ingredients in the field, you experiment with them to learn "Recipes" just like in Skyrim and then once learned you can make the desired potion; At higher levels you get to harvest more ingredients from a single plant, to use more than 2 items for a potion, etc.). Blacksmithing, however, is completely different: You can't improve items anymore. Once they're made you can either keep them, sell them, or salvage them for parts (of which you only get a small portion back every time), etc.

 

In conclusion (I could go on for ages drawing parallels between these 2 games) I think Amalur is a great game to play between Skyrim vanilla and heavily modded Skyrim, as you'll have many of your TES features, with a few losses and a few improvements, a more or less open world (not as much as Skyrim but still) and an interesting story with tons of sidequests. However, the plagiarism will smack you in the face so hard you'll be wondering how this anime-style TES ripoff could possibly be legal. But still, it's fun to play:)

[terzho]

Well RPGs such as Skyrim use similar game mechanics such as the local maps and fast traveling to different locations. In fact this is pretty common stuff. Skyrim did not invent fast travel or local maps so no, it's not a rip off.

[hector530]

ive been playing Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning for like 12 hours or something, and it stole a lot for WoW. not really elder scrolls but some the stuff looks like it was ripped from that game (WoW). Edited February 9, 2012 by hector530

[Ganon2020]

EA needed to get their dirty little hands into this game genre. It was inevitable.

Also, you can expect it to be similar to TES games, as any fool can see how popular they are.

 

EA has been getting involved in every genre and pumping out 2^nd rate games for a long time.

It's all just to maximize profits. They make it so easy to hate them.

 

...

 

The first Battle for Middle Earth game, is likely the only game I've liked much, that they had a hand in.

[garak888]

I don't think any of the things you mentioned can really rightfully be said to be innovations of Skyrim. Fast travel has been implemented in a lot of games before this one, Guild Wars comes to mind as an example (while a lot of games don't have a system as extensive where you can fast travel to every random house or mine, that's a matter of scale rather then innovation). The pop out local map again has been again used on games like Guild Wars, generally in an almost identical way. And are you suggesting leveling is something unique to the Elder Scrolls games? Because it's used in almost every RPG game ever made. Quest menus generally all look the same, and having an arrow pointing the way has been done on a lot of games before, even the old Call of Duty games had something similar to what Skyrim uses (although since it was an FPS there was only ever one objective). Armor degradation and different skills like alchemy and blacksmithing again are old ideas that I remember from the days of old text based games.

 

Thanks though, I might actually check out Kingdoms of Amalur, the combat looks like it could be fun.

[Kuramin]

I only recently found out about this game... Totally gonna check it out later...

 

Anyway, I always find it slightly irritating when people jump straight to "you stole X from Y!" despite the fact that, if you stop to think about it, there's nothing revolutionary about the idea to begin with. It's basically common sense...

Guess what, the open world has some similarities with TES worlds as well. It's structured on levels just like in TES, at least for most things. It looks like they managed to make small villages open-world (kinda like they are in Skyrim, eg Riverwood, Falkreath, etc.) but everything bigger still requires loading of a new level.

Nothing new here. I dare say almost every RPG has this,

 

However, the apex of the plagiarism is attained by the map. Guess what, it has a similar structure to Oblivion's map (guess they couldn't figure out how to make it 3d, Skyrim style). Guess what, it has a local map function that works EXACTLY like in Skyrim. Guess what, you can FAST TRAVEL to each discovered location, be it a town or a dungeon of some sort. And it goes on: there's a quest menu that works pretty similarly to skyrim's, including having a pointer to whatever quest thing you need to do on the map. The only difference is the quests are partitioned by type.

Dude, it's a map. Maps are like that. As for fast travel, it doesn't take a genius to think of something so mundane and Bethesda wasn't the first to think of it. Quest journal? Nothing new there either.

 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure there are a lot MORE similarities to find (ex: armor degrades and needs to be repaired just like in Oblivion, you have alchemy, blacksmithing, mercantile and other familiar names as skills), etc.

Should they change those names to something 'round about just so they don't get compared to Skyrim? "Hmm, I want to call it blacksmithing but Skyrim uses that... so... I'll call it Metallic-Goods-Forging!"

 

I'd go on but honestly, I'm tired... and my post looks pretty rude. My apologies, I'll word it better next time. :whistling:

[Feanoro]

Lol I was tired when I wrote my post as well, it was intended more as a question than an accusation actually. I think my real point is this: after I played Skyrim with my first character (it also being my first TES game ever, oddly enough I also have Morrowind and Oblivion on discs next to my laptop, bought when they came out but I never had the time to play them) I tried playing other games. I first tried going back to my old MMO, then some other RPG games but really they all seemed so boring and/or poorly designed in comparison that I just didn't want to play them anymore.

 

Amalur is a completely different story altogether, couldn't stop playing it at all.

 

P.S.: Btw, lockpicking is implemented identically to Skyrim as well, you move the mouse to a spot then the keys to move/force the lock. Is that a popular way to implement lockpicking as well? Also can pickpocket people but only if you're crouched in a stealth position, like in Skyrim (and presumably other TES games) and when you try to do it, a menu pops up giving you the odds of being caught.

 

It's not that these things bother me, on the contrary I like it, the learning curve for Amalur is more or less zero, it's just I find it strange that things are done in such a similar way, particularly when many other games seem so different. But you guys are probably right, I haven't been much of a gamer to notice this as an evolution of a style.

 

Anyway, back to Amalur:) Hope to see some epic quest mods for Skyrim soon, got 3 builds to play them with:)

[masseffectman1]

Reading this unnecessary thread about KoA versus Skyrim makes you seem like you've only been gaming for one year. You talk as if Skyrim invented everything, which it certainly did not. Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning (not THE Reckoning, as you referenced) is actually a really good game. I like both games and don't think it helps anyone by starting a flame war over them. It's clear you think Skyrim invented gaming as we know it, but maybe try playing other games before Skyrim, it will broaden your perspective.

[Ferodaktyl]

damn i feel so vindicated :devil: :devil: :devil:

PC version is 34E, console is 55 :dance: :dance:

 

it seems a bit cartoonish, though

[x2ruff4u]

Guys its always going to be like this. We are evolving and adapting to everything so quickly that we already seen this already. We live for so long and we did not even have internet like this back than. Back than we only had so many choices and each was NEW to us.

 

How many Call of duty games are there now? Lets see 8 - 12 by now? Idk, but its all the same.

 

GOOD EXAMPLE: When duke nukem came out the first time it was AWESOME!! Never seen before, but now that it came out we already seen this all before.

 

All in all were going downhill just like movies. Making remakes and what not. We will be using same ideas just in different ways. :wallbash: