I've been playing the closed beta for a few weeks. I've gotten a toon from each race up to around 7, but then I lose interest.
Yes the graphics are pretty good for MMORPG although the colors and textures are earth-tone blah. Although there are quests, there are probably only 10 that are worthwhile so you will be spending 99% of your time camping monsters.
The problems I have are similar to other testers.
• Lack of customization. Few character choices for faces and hair. Plus there are only a few pieces of armor that you can acquire based on your level so you'll meet your twin all the time.
• If you die from monster or even PvP you lose XP and even levels. I had to redo level 5 three times.
• The equipment doesn't have modifiers so nothing you get feels unique or special
• Can't change your stats so once again you don't feel unique
• New skills only open up every 7 or 5 levels making you use the same spell or skill over and over for weeks.
• Lack of skills/spells. My human mage will be using the same windstrike and frost bolt till like level 40.
• The grind is really really really bad. Spend 5 hours killing orcs so you can spend 10 hours killing golemns so you can spend 20 hours killing bats... and all the time with the same spell/skill.
• Only dwarfs can craft.
• The drop rate is awful. One item dropped for the first 400 kills. The drop rate did improve with Prelude
• In pre-prelude there are about 100 quests, 40 for your race and only 10 worth while. The rest of time is grind.
• Because the way xp is split in groups, most people will solo till level 14 when they are forced to group to kill monsters tough enough to give xp. This makes the early game very lonely.
• Also the way xp is split, if people don't pull their weight, you feel like they are dragging the group down. Thats why I always saw groups of 2, healer and tank. I rarely saw any group larger than 4.
• Although things might change, I didn't see one pet. Some of the pets cost a lot of money to even summon and some had a 6 hour cooldown.
My impression is the game isn't built for the casual gamer like me who would log in for a few hours, kill some orcs, pull too many, die and lose all the xp I spent that night getting.
This comment was edited on Mar 24, 20:09.