Greetings,
The game looks really nice and adjusting a few graphical setting it was running around 50-60fps.
The main story was a joy to play through with some real tear jerker moments. The combination of drama and music was well done and well executed.
Now to the critique :
Blasting people up to level 60 was good in theory but really just excelled people walking away from the game faster. The current state of "bartering" is one of the most horrid systems I've seen since Age of Conan PVP gear or Lord of the Rings Mines of Moria token system.
Token or "widget" systems depend on fundamental attribute and that is population. From what i could see, it was about 900-1500 returning players. 1/4 of that was gone when I reached Jadestone village. New player population around 750. That was cut in half in the third week or right now. 350-600(at most) retained players finishing the event. Lets call the pool 450, divided by time zones and work schedules, 40-100 new retained players figuring out the end game.
So players like myself looking at the "widget" system. Looking at how many items the player has so far and how man items they will need to progress. They have 4 widgets(a)s. The player can get 1-4 widget(a)s on daily. The player needs 20 widget(a)'s Thats 15-18 days depending on the rolls. The player now need to go into "Dungeon Finder" which isn't a finder at all as it doesn't randomly pick people and place them in a dungeons. Dungeon Finder really needs redone. Crap no one really wants a low level unity score player, kicked from group. 30 minutes have passed, the player still needs 20 widget(a), on dailies that the player can't groups for.
That is just one "widget" out of 50 or more widget needed to progress.
There's no disgrace in admitting it is time to stream line all of the widgets into a a few dozen, many titles have already done so too accommodate there retained player base. Bottom line, "time is not a skill".
Dungeon Finder, is one of the worst across the mmo genre. It takes so much time up to hours to get group; The Dungeon Finder becomes a gated wall amongst itself.
I'm a huge NcSoft fan, Lineage 2 was so much fun.. until widget became the treadmill. Spending months in the Catocombs was fun back in the day, but not in this new climate of mmorpg's.
Thank you for this amazing facelift to a great story driven mmorpg !
Solareus.