For those interested... a few reviews that my MMO friends have sent around about their beta experiences. The two reviewers are guys who have a good deal of experience with MMOs, are not hardcore play 10 hours a day people, but have been playing for years... one since 2001 and the other since 1998
Day 1 of beta test
Same guy, a few days later
And a different person's perspective
Day 1 of beta test
Initial Impressions:
1. Buggy, but no more than any other beta. A few crashes here and there. Laggy with other players around. Some quests are at night, where you are in single-player mode. I found things much smoother.
2. Graphics are terrific. I've got a new mid-range machine, Dual-core intel 2.66 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 2 X Geoforce 8800GT SLI vid cards. I can run on high settings, turned it down to medium for lag, but didn't make a difference.
3. Combat is pretty MMO standard. They are making a big deal about active combat, but that just means you mash buttons instead of auto-attack. I made a ranger, but haven't really figured out how to play ranged combat yet. Still, pretty easy to kill mobs near my level.
4. WoW quest system. Nothing new here.
5. I like the story so far. Kindof reminds me of the beginning of Morrowind, starting out on a slave ship without knowing who you are and your destiny, etc, etc....
I believe the level cap is 13 for the beta, so I'll probably try out several classes over the next couple of weeks. Still don't know if I'll buy the game. I've done literally NO research on this game, so I don't know whether the end-game will be more appealing than WoW.
And, from general chat (which is resembling Barrens Chat), and some of the forums, I think some people had pretty high expectations for this game and are already disappointed. As far as I can tell, the main thing this game is adding to the genre is "mature" content (yes, Steve: boobies! Sorry, Gan, definitely R-rated at best) and mounted combat. But I'm only level 6, and there may be a lot more here. I can tell you that it's already much more interesting than LotRO.
1. Buggy, but no more than any other beta. A few crashes here and there. Laggy with other players around. Some quests are at night, where you are in single-player mode. I found things much smoother.
2. Graphics are terrific. I've got a new mid-range machine, Dual-core intel 2.66 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 2 X Geoforce 8800GT SLI vid cards. I can run on high settings, turned it down to medium for lag, but didn't make a difference.
3. Combat is pretty MMO standard. They are making a big deal about active combat, but that just means you mash buttons instead of auto-attack. I made a ranger, but haven't really figured out how to play ranged combat yet. Still, pretty easy to kill mobs near my level.
4. WoW quest system. Nothing new here.
5. I like the story so far. Kindof reminds me of the beginning of Morrowind, starting out on a slave ship without knowing who you are and your destiny, etc, etc....
I believe the level cap is 13 for the beta, so I'll probably try out several classes over the next couple of weeks. Still don't know if I'll buy the game. I've done literally NO research on this game, so I don't know whether the end-game will be more appealing than WoW.
And, from general chat (which is resembling Barrens Chat), and some of the forums, I think some people had pretty high expectations for this game and are already disappointed. As far as I can tell, the main thing this game is adding to the genre is "mature" content (yes, Steve: boobies! Sorry, Gan, definitely R-rated at best) and mounted combat. But I'm only level 6, and there may be a lot more here. I can tell you that it's already much more interesting than LotRO.
Got my ranger to the beta level cap (13), and tried out several other classes. Now that I get it, the combat system is pretty good. I can see how at higher levels quite a bit of skill will be required to master it, especially in PvP. For the rest of beta, I think I may level up the demonologist, which is a damage-dealing mage class, and maybe the barbarian as well.
I die.... a lot. Difficult to take on multiple mobs, so there's definitely some challenge here. No real death penalty though, at this level.
The world is pretty immersive; gritty, dangerous, exactly what you would expect in a low fantasy world. Questing is same as WoW, although the direction finding and minimap are less reliable at the moment. The best parts have been the destiny quests, which are solo quests you do at night, which is all instanced.
As far as tech issues are concerned, several closed beta testers have stated in forums that open beta is using an older client, and the release version should be far more stable. I think they're going to have a successful, albeit rough launch. I still get lots of lag whenever other players are around, even with graphics set to low. Several forum posters have stated that memory is a big issue, especially with Vista. Some have stated that 64-bit Vista made the difference, for those with 4GB or more (I have 4, but my 32-bit Vista only recognizes 3).
I die.... a lot. Difficult to take on multiple mobs, so there's definitely some challenge here. No real death penalty though, at this level.
The world is pretty immersive; gritty, dangerous, exactly what you would expect in a low fantasy world. Questing is same as WoW, although the direction finding and minimap are less reliable at the moment. The best parts have been the destiny quests, which are solo quests you do at night, which is all instanced.
As far as tech issues are concerned, several closed beta testers have stated in forums that open beta is using an older client, and the release version should be far more stable. I think they're going to have a successful, albeit rough launch. I still get lots of lag whenever other players are around, even with graphics set to low. Several forum posters have stated that memory is a big issue, especially with Vista. Some have stated that 64-bit Vista made the difference, for those with 4GB or more (I have 4, but my 32-bit Vista only recognizes 3).
And a different person's perspective
I messed around with several characters over the weekend, too. I started leveling a Conqueror, a Bear Shaman, and a Tempest of Set. The one I enjoyed playing most was the Tempest of Set, and hence that was the one I leveled to 13. I also decided the ToS will be the first class I play at release.
Like Jon, I also died a lot. I noticed that every time I leveled, I got weaker in comparison to the mobs. I had an especially rough time with the Bear Shaman since I all had was light armor and didn?t have the benefit of front-loading ranged damage, since the Bear Shaman is a melee-oriented damage class. I know that you can hit multiple mobs with melee attacks, which would have helped, but I?m not that skillful yet at positioning the mobs to take advantage of this. The ToS would also get pummeled when mobs got into melee range, but the front-loading of damage plus the AE lightning attack made it easier to outlast the enemy. The Conqueror also was taking the enemy down one at a time, like the Bear Shaman, but had the benefits of some better melee attacks and a lot more hit points. You regen health, mana, and stamina pretty quickly out of combat, so as long as you could kill the mobs before they killed you, downtime was very minimal. I?ve read that later on the Bear Shaman becomes a very strong class, once he gets medium armor and some more abilities. That is likely true but it was the most painful of the 3 classes that I tried at these early levels.
Healing does not seem to be a big factor at these early levels. At level 13, my Tempest of Set had a healing spell that would heal 4 points of health every second for 30 seconds. I had a lower level spell with a long casting time that healed for 2 HP/sec and no emergency heal spells at all. In perspective, it was easy to get potions that would heal 5 HP/sec.
I had a lot of technical problems on Sunday, after a patch that they deployed which was supposed to solve some problems. For me, the new patch made the memory leak situation much worse. On Saturday I could play over an hour before I crashed, but on Sunday I would sometimes crash after only 5 minutes. I read the same thing about them using an older client, but it baffles me why they would do so. In an open beta and 2 weeks before release, they should be testing out their newest client to find out more bugs that their limited closed bets testers haven?t caught. Client stability is a great concern of mine, at the moment.
I?m in the same boat as Jon with 32-bit Vista and 4GB of RAM. Perhaps I?ll update to 64-bit Vista this week and see if that makes a difference.
All in all, I am excited about the game. It has potential, but we?ll see how it develops, particularly the endgame.
Like Jon, I also died a lot. I noticed that every time I leveled, I got weaker in comparison to the mobs. I had an especially rough time with the Bear Shaman since I all had was light armor and didn?t have the benefit of front-loading ranged damage, since the Bear Shaman is a melee-oriented damage class. I know that you can hit multiple mobs with melee attacks, which would have helped, but I?m not that skillful yet at positioning the mobs to take advantage of this. The ToS would also get pummeled when mobs got into melee range, but the front-loading of damage plus the AE lightning attack made it easier to outlast the enemy. The Conqueror also was taking the enemy down one at a time, like the Bear Shaman, but had the benefits of some better melee attacks and a lot more hit points. You regen health, mana, and stamina pretty quickly out of combat, so as long as you could kill the mobs before they killed you, downtime was very minimal. I?ve read that later on the Bear Shaman becomes a very strong class, once he gets medium armor and some more abilities. That is likely true but it was the most painful of the 3 classes that I tried at these early levels.
Healing does not seem to be a big factor at these early levels. At level 13, my Tempest of Set had a healing spell that would heal 4 points of health every second for 30 seconds. I had a lower level spell with a long casting time that healed for 2 HP/sec and no emergency heal spells at all. In perspective, it was easy to get potions that would heal 5 HP/sec.
I had a lot of technical problems on Sunday, after a patch that they deployed which was supposed to solve some problems. For me, the new patch made the memory leak situation much worse. On Saturday I could play over an hour before I crashed, but on Sunday I would sometimes crash after only 5 minutes. I read the same thing about them using an older client, but it baffles me why they would do so. In an open beta and 2 weeks before release, they should be testing out their newest client to find out more bugs that their limited closed bets testers haven?t caught. Client stability is a great concern of mine, at the moment.
I?m in the same boat as Jon with 32-bit Vista and 4GB of RAM. Perhaps I?ll update to 64-bit Vista this week and see if that makes a difference.
All in all, I am excited about the game. It has potential, but we?ll see how it develops, particularly the endgame.
