First day impressions:
The character creation is robust but has some mildly disappointing limitations. Face types come with up to four eye types and the colors of the eyes are locked and can't be changed. Also, certain races that I played around with in creation like the Castanic and Elin have their hairstyle locked to their 'adornments'. This means things like ears and tail and horn type are tied to your hairstyle. For example, if you want the long curly hair with bangs you are stuck with the fluffy bunny ears. In addition, body type is completely locked so you can not make your character any thinner, fatter, muscular, taller, or shorter. Trust me when I say that I am not bashing the creation, just nitpicking here. There are alot of faces, hairstyles, hair colors, skin colors, features, and presets to choose from. In addtion, there are sliders for detailed adjustments of most features including eyes, nose, mouth, and face (sorry, no boob slider). Overall, there is a good level of customization which I found to be much better than Rift and FFXIV.
The game is a blast and I'm very impressed with the combat, world, and design. The entire game just feels so fresh and exciting compared to other MMOs. The interface is intuitive enough that you can figure most of it out without being able to read the text. Having GAF guild at your disposal to share tips and help is great also!
Mouse and keyboard control is excellent and much better than expected for an MMO with action oriented gameplay. I had my PS3 controller connected and without any configuration at all it works as good as the setup in FFXIV right out of the box:
Left Analog: Movement
Right Analog: Camera and cursor control in menus/interactions
R2: Attack
Square: Menu
Triangle: Action/Interact
X: Jump
Start: Menu
* Sorry, forgot what the others were at the moment...
Ultimately, as good as a gamepad works, I found myself preferring the mouse and keyboard. You can left-click and hold to continuously attack and assign dodge (or another action) to the right click. Auto-run on the side button is also handy. With movement on WASD you have quick access to all of your other abilities at the number and F-keys, "F" for action, various menu shortcut keys (i for inv, l for quest log, m for map, etc.) and Spacebar for jump. There is an in-game configuration where all of this can be customized.
I really liked how it auto sets your chat mode. For example, if you type /g and then space it will auto switch to guild chat mode. You can also manually change chat modes straight from the message box. The UI is very smooth.
I managed to get to level 6 yesterday. The majority of my progress was achieved through quests which offer decent rewards and experience points. The pacing feels perfect so far but we'll see what happens in the later levels. I wish I could keep my character and change or try out other classes so it makes me sad when I think about hitting cap. I hope there will be enough content and expansions to keep me busy but on the bright side it seems like you are allowed unlimited character creation to try other roles.
Mister Wilhelm said:
Considering playing now but I don't think I want to have to do all the work all over again when the NA version comes out.
The NA release seems so far away. En masse mentioned that around 2 months after the Community Event they would begin having beta tests. I think this will probably last at least a month or more so with that said I'm guessing around August or September at the earliest. I am having such a good time that I know I will not mind replaying. It will be like experiencing it all over again for the first time since I will be able to enjoy the lore and questing and better understand the mechanics.
Izayoi said:
So busy playing that I forgot to take screenshots. I've got school all day tomorrow unfortunately but if I'll try to get some tomorrow night.
I took several but for some reason FRAPS quit working and there were only four screenshots from the char. creation in my directory. I may need to change my shortcut key for screenshots since it currently uses the ALT key. Anyone have any video requests?
Unknown Soldier said:
Fuck you guys, don't make me buy this shit. I remember playing China Aion and the lag was horrendous.
Do it! I play side-by-side with my waifu and the game is virtually lag free. When we play FFXIV, it would sometimes take several seconds for movements on her screen to register or match what I saw on my screen. Then again we haven't reached a zone with many players yet. I think having the separate channels helps. I'm on the East coast by the way, if that makes any difference. En Masse already announced that NA/EU release will have NA/EU server locations so that is even better.
I'm not going to be able to play much until Friday but I am going to immerse myself in the game this weekend. Believe.
EDIT: Updated to comment on (no) lag.