First off, let me give a shout out to a fellow poster that was known in-game as "Angard" and on the boards as "inexorable." He/she is a bit of the lurker type, but it was nice to find somebody from Blue's and Angard, a priest, really helped us on taking out the first sunken ghost ship in the wetlands.

You did something I have failed at so far - finding someone from Blue's News on the Beta Server.

Second, I do have to say that there is a somewhat bitter feeling or taste from the whole "closed beta" contest experience. I certainly was not going to kill myself to get into, but yeah, I was definitely interested in it. However, there were various issues and concerns over cheating and shady conduct. From day one, there were closed beta PCs that were going out of their way to help their friends through everything - some people had a leg up on knowing what to do, profession routes to take, and locations for all items. That was understandable, but then there was some definite cheating going on - reports of people being rested at all times (200% XP) and some people had the most bizarre level jumps. Things started getting worse and I just gave up on it - an even newer cheat had been found (100% protection) and there were level 50+ characters with mounts, too. Perhaps Matthew can comment on how stupidly ridiculous that is within a ten day period. As it stands, my character ended at level thirty.

First off, the first exploit (I've hear rumors but don't know exactly what it is or how to do it) just stinks. I had heard that it was removed rather quickly. As for the second exploit - I don't know anything about it - again it stinks that people would find something like that to get around the basis of the game - I've never understood people like this.

As for level 50 in 10 days - I'm flabergasted. My current character is level 29 after months of play. The most time I have logged at any one time is maybe 4 hours of play. Most of the time I get an hour, maybe two, 3-4 nights a week. So level 50+ in ten days is just plain unbelievable.

I did read some of the posts regarding the contest - many people posted that they were unemployed and playing every waking moment of the day as they had nothing else to do. I guess if I played for 10-15 hours a day I could hit 50 in ten days - I wouldn't enjoy it - I'd miss a lot of the back story - I would skip the trade skills (professions now) - not worth it to me. When a game is more work than, uh work then I'm out.

I do not know if I would have ever won, but I know that I never had a chance to win - that is what irks me. Meanwhile, Blizzard really did not have anything to say other than a vague promise to look into things on the last day.

Well they did expand the pool of people that qualified. Still, they left a lot of unhappy people.

Likewise, now that it is over, I was going to wait a day and make a fairly detailed post covering things ranging from my general playing to various bugs all the way to sweeping design decisions they should make. However, the stress test board, the only one stress testers could post to, was locked yesterday and has already been removed. Blizzard could not even wait a day before locking/closing the board?

That was dumb on their part. I know their intention was to test loading and registration issues with their games. While I could see an argument on their side that stress testers would not have enough time to really form opinions with respect to game balance and class issues. Believe me when I tell you the PVP and PVE beta testers are constantly providing this kind of info. Not to belittle your input in anyway, just trying to see it from their standpoint.

As for the game, it is both amazing and yet shockingly shallow.

I think there is more backstory and continuity than you are aware of.

Why, as a high level warrior with 1600+ armor, was I taking as much damage as the lower level rogue with 400+ armor?

Even better, why would a Rogue just two levels higher than me have the same number of HP as me? There are class balance issues to be sure. I really can't imagine this game being released any time soon because of class balance issues.

After everything, I do have to give the game credit for its art design. The textures are low resolution, the game looked fugly the first time I played it , but there are a lot of them and I cannot stress the amount of attention and love that went into crafting the levels.

I really enjoy the artwork. No, it's not photo-realistic. I like the flavor of the different areas. No reusing textures is right.

I could go on and on, but this is already way too much.

No it's not!

Removing skill points is stupid - you go from working for knowledge and being able to make a uniquely-skilled character to just purchasing the two fields of experience you wish - and I view it as a "cheat" on Blizzard's part.

I agree with the skill point removal being dumb. I'm happy that people will be limited in the number of skills you can acquire. At some point people could become too independant.

Why is the character creation so blatantly limited?

Blizzard has stated that many more character 'types' are due to be added as well as more varied items, animations, etc.

I still hit level thirty in ten days. Mind you, the game is supposed to be capped at, what, level sixty?

The cap is currently 55 and will jump to 60 I believe. Each patch seems to bump it 5. I don't know what the max is but there are NPCs in 90's so I would guess they will go at least that high.

Wondering if anybody at Blizzard wants to move RaymArden to the closed beta.

I sure hope someone from Blizzard reads this.

-TPFKAS2S
http://www.braglio.com

http://www.shamings.com