After getting annoyed with the EU beta and giving my beta key to a friend i decided to try the US beta so i still get to try out the game for free.
Well the time from contemplating the US beta, to killing stuff in game. 5 hours flat.
Yep, 5 hours to find a US beta code, download the 10gig US client, register a mythic account, verify my beta code, patch the game, and kill stuff. 5 hours. it took 3x that time just to get to the email stage of registration in EU!
So after playing today ill give my review of the game.
Quest system - amazing! the fact all your current quests appear on the right of the screen and keep you updated is ace. also the game outlines areas where you get the things needed to complete quests and where to hand them in. the world map is great as it shows these outlined areas and your quest objectives whilst inside the map.
This may annoy anyone who likes to figure things out in pve and it will definitely annoy guidebook producers, as this game is so simple a new born child could do it and there is literally no need for a guide.
One other thing i noted, the eccentric guy whose name escapes me atm went on about how if you kill enemies before you reach a guy and that guy wants you to kill those enemies it will auto complete if youve killed enough. this
doesnt happen. dunno if this is a bug or they removed the feature but i killed dozens of dark spites. then got a quest to kill 6 of them...and had to kill a fresh 6.
Public quests are also fun as you can get involved at any stage.
Tome of knowledge - amazing! just generally an outstanding feature that keeps track of everything.
Those are the good things.
Bad things - everything else.
The graphics require more graphical power than other games due to the textures used etc...but the end result is..well, terrible. Looks worse than WoW imo.
The interface is actually not that bad but its getting put in the bad things section due to the fact i dont like the writing used
the numbers that show damage done to your enemy and yourself are far too small, you have to really look to see what you did, and if a spell has recently been interrupted, the 10foot high interrupted writing will cover up any dmg you do. annoying.
And i dunno whether this is just due to it being a beta but everything seems pretty buggy, like you sometimes have to click things 3 times before it registers the click, whether your clicking an enemy, closing a menu or anything else, half the clicks dont register (and no its not my mouse
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And finally the animatons of spells and the casting time bar look horrible, hitting tings in melee looks horrible, and everything feels incredibly clunky and slow. again may be just beta but its definitely enough to put me off.
and as for the big sell, pvp, will no doubt change throughout the course of the game but as for now, no skill involved, just a numbers game, my armies bigger and has better gear than yours so i win. oh great.
So in conclusion mythic > GOA in everyway possible.
and in game conclusions i am glad i got to try this for free as its saved me £30 as i will definitely not be purchasing this. I really dont like it. The quest system is great and i wish tat and the tome of knowledge were somehwat implemented into other games.
But i cant bring myself to play the game as it just looks and feels so incredibly bad. It pains me to cast skills and walk around cos it just doesnt feel right.
So thats my 2 cents, some very very good ideas, implemented terribly. oh well, hopefully a game will learn from this and implement similar ideas but inside a playable game.
