Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Community Q&A #1

38 Studios has cranked out the first of their community Q&A sessions for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, with the five questions featured in this segment being focused on the design of its open world, the rewards associated with maintaining a "pure build" character, the extent of its non-linearity, and more. A sampling:
Q: What can you share about Reckoning's mission setup? Will it be open-world with fast travel options or some slightly more on-rails? Any details would be great. - By Macstorm

A: Reckoning is an open world game with fast travel. You can fast travel to any location you've previously visited, whenever you're outdoors (you can't fast travel from inside a dungeon). We try to provide roads and paths and quest markers to help guide you through the world, but if you want to ignore them and wander off into the woods to hunt antelope, there's nothing stopping you! Want to ignore the main quest and just do side quests for hours? Go ahead. Want to ignore quests altogether and just explore the world for crafting components so you can craft your own gear (and perhaps sell it for a tidy profit)? Feel free! - By Tiberius

Q: What part of RPG games don't you like and have you removed it from Reckoning?? - By Gulfy_

A: A lot of us at BHG are pretty hardcore RPG fans, so there's a lot we love about the genre, but as for what we DON'T tend to like? One thing that drives us nuts is boring, repetitive combat that makes you feel more like you're chopping wood than being a hero. That's why we've dumped a bunch of time and effort into building fun, dynamic combat that just plain feels good. It's been a ridiculously huge undertaking, but we're really happy to be improving upon that aspect of the genre with Reckoning.

Another one that bugs us is the problem of (buyer's remorse) in advancement systems making players choose attributes/class/whatever at the start of the game before they really know what they're doing and them sticking them with that decision. In Reckoning we've pulled way back on the amount and size of decisions the player has to make up front, and have built the entire Destiny system around the idea of (try the game out and figure out what sort of character you want to be as you go.)

Another one is when an RPG lets you get everything (i.e. max out all skills/abilities/etc.), as this results in everybody's endgame characters looking/feeling pretty much the same. We've deliberately set up the game such that you CAN'T get everything in a single playthrough. The Destiny system gives you the flexibility to try some of everything, but it also has some constraints in the end of the day, your level 40 character won't be the same as mine. - By Tiberius