I’m level 30 now. I’ve spent the past day maxing my reputations, testing builds, PvPing, and doing some real nitty gritty beta testing. Whether or not my efforts at reporting bugs or suggesting improvements are futile, I still want to contribute what I can. Below are some general ways to improve the game.
Chat Interface – It needs additional functionality and improvements to its customization. There is no /who command among other things. Linking items into chat would be a nice feature. Overall it needs to be brought up to speed with modern chat enhancements.
Guild Window – It lacks functionality. The Guild Info button does not work. It could do with more options and tools like the ones in WoW. If nothing else, just fix what is currently there.
Other Windows and Frontend – More functionality to other windows would be nice as well. A nice social window with search options and LFG would be useful.
UI Improvements – A minimap would be nice, although I have gotten used to not having one. Map improvements with the ability to zoom would help. More map functionality for us to see Sites of Power and who holds them could increase PvP frequency at those points. Unitframe bug fixes are also on the top of the “must fix” list.
Itemization – Gear diversity is teetering on the edge of almost right and not enough. I would like to see more options for my gear. It’s better than some games, but there are still certain items I know I want and they’re the same ones everyone wants. There is an ideal setup for each class and spec each level. Not that there isn’t in other games though. I remember playing WoW and knowing that at 19 I wanted the staff from Wailing Caverns and that the Scarlet Monastery gear was where it’s at for the 30’s. Diversity helps though. It feels like stats on gear are a bit cookiecutter. More stat diversity on gear could be the solution.
Reputation Gear – It feels slightly throwaway. This ties in with itemization diversity. Every new zone brings with it a new reputation or two that offer gear for Trusted and Respected. Working towards this gear is part of your natural progression through the zone. It would be nice if stuff just lasted longer.  That sorta counteracts the request for diversity if we’re holding onto stuff longer, I know. Perhaps these reputations can make a return and offer us higher level gear? Maybe allow us to pursue different reps that others are not and introduce more reputation ranks along the way. Depth to the rep/faction system would help it not feel so throw-away.
Tool Tips, Translations, and Bug Fixes – Many of my tool tips ase a Warden are just plain wrong. Wisdom does not tell me that it affects melee like Finesse does – same for perception. Several talents say one thing and do another, have incorrect values, or do not work. My Gibberling racial does not work. These may already be fixed in the next version, but they’re bothersome.
I have the video of Castle Blight bosses done. I was in the middle of a Tensess Temple run when the servers came down (doh!) so there’s only one boss recorded for that. I have some PvP footage too that I’ll compile.
There are racials?
Seriously, I knew they existed but I haven’t actually found them yet. Since I’m playing a gibberling, that might be moot. Where are they, though? Do they come at a certain level, or at character creation?
Speaking of character creation, you are able, nay required, to name all three of your gibberling siblings at creation, but as far as I can tell you never see the names of number two and three in game. I can’t even remember what I called mine. Is there any way to see that?
Yes there are racial abilities. I got mine from the Gibberling in the capital city at level 8. You get them from completing quests.
Some world mysteries also unlock new class (maybe race?) abilities, such as the one from completing the line that leads to Castle Blight.
I have not figured out how to see the other names of Gibberlings.
I don’t think there are racials like WoW’s racials if that’s what you’re thinking. The racials I think Keen is talking about are racial class abilities, not a racial ability that all gibberlings posses.
I’m not sure but I think the world mystery abilities are the same for everyone.
Right, it’s the racial based on your class.
the last point is really the biggest for me… having the game say 1 thing and then do something completely different and unexpected is a real turnoff.
if they would just go ahead and copy the rest of WoW’s interface that would help a ton… and i can’t believe they don’t have a /who command…
one thing i’d add is to make lvls and stats not matter quite so much… from what i’ve heard just 2-3 lvls between players is an insurmountable difference in pvp battles… i understand they want to give higher lvl players an advantage, but it seems like they’ve taken it to the extreme… by making lvls and gear play such a big part it really limits the number of opposing players you can realistically engage with (or that you actually WANT to engage with)… especially when the game is going for more open world pvp with a wide range of lvls in each zone.
Raid Interface – Completely useless from a healer perspective, as it gets bugged so often. I pretty much heal using line of sight (health bar above characters) and using the mouse to select a player.
Faction Gear – “Working towards this gear is part of your natural progression through the zone.” When leveling up, I always try to get the faction gear as soon as it is available to my level. So if I’m going to hit 14th or 15th lvl soon with a lot of nice Respected gear available to me, I grind the rep beforehand. Thus as soon as I ding, I have it. It makes the entire zone experience really enjoyable, not only in terms of leveling yourself but in helping others as well. BTW I think this is why I spent four hours per day leveling versus your three hours per day. That one extra hour was for grinding rep to ensure I got it as soon as I could use it. As I mentioned before, when I got the 15th lvl Respected gear at 15th lvl in Gravestein, I feel invincible for the rest of Siveria.
Replayability – Keen, I’d like to get your feeling of the Holy Lands and Ejune from a perspective of replayability, especially now that you’re at 30th lvl. From what I can see so far, I don’t really see much incentive to keep PvPing there. People keep saying it’s a contested zone but contested over what? There are no things to capture or hold, etc, etc, like there was in Warhammer Online or even like the battlegrounds in WoW. Am I missing something obvious? It sounds like the Astral Combat is going to have to be pretty amazing to make people stick it out for the long term. Still it would be nice to have an option to choose where to PvP (i.e. land or astral sea).
“…by making lvls and gear play such a big part it really limits the number of opposing players you can realistically engage with…”
Logan: Agreed. I’d love to see an MMO that doesn’t even uses levels. I mean each time you level, you engage quests and monsters at your same level, so you’re always being challenged in fairly the same way. Why not just drop the leveling altogether then. For it to work though, a lot would have to be designed different, like gear for example but maybe it would actually solve Keen’s dilemma of making faction long term.
In the interim, I’d recommend just doing something like Warhammer Online did whereby you were “normalized” to the zone. So if I entered Holy Lands at 22nd level, I still could only use my abilities and gear that I had but my health and level would be at a 28th lvl. Of course, the problem with this is that there are PvE quests in the PvP zone itself, so they’d have to be adjusted as well.
@Nollind: Sites of Power need to be controlled in order to do Tenses Temple. I take Asee-Teph and Eljune as being contested for the time you’re there. Clearly it’s not a place one returns to after leveling. It’s like any other zone such as Stranglethorn Vale. Occasionally people will return, but once you level through it you move on.
I’m anticipating the end-game zones to contain a mechanic that encourages fighting. The Astral area will be a constant flow of enticing reasons to fight people as well.
Overall bad/nonfunctioning UI is a game breaker for me
Increased gear options would be a game maker.
Deadon with the interface issues. also the compass working backwards is a pain. They really need to have a pve server option or flag system like in Russia currently. The gank squads will put off alot of players that try leveling behind the curve.
Keen, you may want to check out the other game Gpatato has in beta. Aika. that is 1000 vs 1000 pvp. They have regular channel for pve and a war channel that you can join once level 10 to deffend the realm, storm castles/objectives and alters. Gives your nation bonuses to exp, abilities etc and low lag in the big battles. They have good graphics, neat pet (pran/daughter) system that you raise, limited character list to hold lag down but well balanced.
All the issues with the UI and translations are just standard Beta issues that you’ll see in any early-stage beta. Since everyone (me included) is discussing this game as though it’s in open beta with no NDA, it’s easy to forget that this is still a mid-stage closed beta test.
CB3 ends on Monday. Presumably there will then be a CB4 to finish off testing up to the level cap. I suppose there could even be two more Closed Betas since that’s 15 more levels. Then we get a full character wipe before going to Open Beta, which is itself a further testing stage, although with a F2P game it will probably be a soft launch, with characters persisting into Live.
I would expect most of the UI issues to be resolved by the start of OB. The chat interface certainly needs work (the fact that it won’t remember when you resize it drives me nuts, for example). The quest translations are very good indeed, although they need a little tidying up here and there. Compare them to Runes of Magic, Allods direct competitior, which went into OB with many quest texts still in Korean or translated into pidgin English.
Having tool-tips that are factually incorrect must be corrected by OB, of course. Personally I’d rather games didn’t give you any tool-tips at all beyond telling you the key-bindings, but since they do, they need to be correct.
Do we know for sure how the PvP flag works in the Russian OB? If it is a full optional flag it will help the game a lot, I think. Not least because if as expected there is a heavy imbalance towards the League when the game goes live, if Empire players aren’t able to avoid PvP in the 20-30 range there just won’t be any Empire players after the mid 20s!
Some thing you mentioned I can live without, such as a good guild window, but other things, like the UI and gear itemisation, are very important to the lasting appeal of a game. Hope they get improved!
“Deadon with the interface issues. also the compass working backwards is a pain.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought the compass was screwed up for the longest time as well but try the following.
Stand so you’re facing north. Then turn your character / view 45 degrees to NE. When you turn right, your compass will turn 45 degrees left. That’s because it will maintain it’s facing North which is now 45 degrees to your left.
I think an easier compass would be one in which the needle always faced upwards (the way your facing) and the background wheel encasing spun instead (but it would need direction indicators on it to make it readable, such as N, NE, E, SE, etc).
“I think an easier compass would be one in which the needle always faced upwards (the way your facing) and the background wheel encasing spun instead (but it would need direction indicators on it to make it readable, such as N, NE, E, SE, etc).”
agreed… the current compass didn’t take me long to figure out, but i think the above compass style would be easier to use on the run.
furthermore, i almost think they could just eliminate the compass completely… at first i thought i would hate not having a mini-map… but then i found that i didn’t even notice it was gone, which makes me wonder why there is a mini-map or compass in game at all… i usually just hit “M” and bring up the real map when it’s needed… i’m starting to think that the mini-map/compass feature that’s become a mainstay of the genre is just a waste of screen real estate…. but maybe that’s just me?
I’ve never used the compass. I too just hit M and look where I’m going.
“I’ve never used the compass. I too just hit M and look where I’m going.”
I do that a lot too but during group PvP, I usually call directions because sometimes our group can get scattered (which is the main problem) and yelling something like “incoming right” doesn’t work for everyone. With a compass similar to what I mentioned, yelling “incoming east” would be easy to work with because you could just turn till the big E on the compass is up top.
If people in groups just stayed focused and didn’t scatter as much (slowly getting better) then ya, you could just yell things like incoming left, right, or rear (if you get attacked by surprise).
guys this game is awesome just perfect.. but there is something bothering me that the league paladins crusaders must use a spear… because of their special skill ”zealous blow” well this is a mmorpg game we must use any weapon that we want.. why is this spear.. and paladins with spear is not that cool (= hope u can help mee