After doing my own research I bit the bullet and preordered the game. Playing it on the beta weekends (some of them that is, I missed the last one) I found the game to be very enjoyable and engaging; not perfect, but then again nothing is. The fighting was a bit more frantic than anticipated, but overall there was some strategy to be found. I -loved- the dynamic events and the way you could drop into anything going on at the time. One of my favorite battles during the first beta weekend was when a watchtower was under attack by centaurs. Myself and three or four others were on hand, but the centaurs overran us and took the hill, wrecking the tower and driving us back to a nearby fort. But they didn't stop there, and took the fort as well. By now I'd been defeated twice and had to respawn each time, but I wasn't beating-my-keyboard-with-my-fists frustrated because as far as I could tell I wasn't the only one getting trampled like that. After the centaurs took the fort, we finally got enough players together that we pushed forward in a mass attack, retook the fort, drove the centaurs off the watch tower hill, and held it long enough for NPC's to rebuild the tower.
The fighting in this game, even against NPC's, has some genuine challenge to it, as opposed to the, as Yahtzee once put it, taking-turns-kicking-each-other-in-the-shins style you see in most other MMOs. It mixes gameplay seen in several other games, like the downed state you see in games like Borderlands and Left 4 Dead, the mobile combat seen in Champions Online, to give a couple examples. The drop-in events are a welcome change from the standard npc-with-exclamation-points-overhead fare. There aren't nearly as many kill-10-rats sort of quests, plus you don't have to squabble with other players over getting credit for kills, either, if you're tasked with hunting down a specific monster/criminal/etc. If you land a blow on it, even if another player engaged it first, you still get credit.
Graphically, musically and sound-wise, you probably couldn't do much better. It's very impressive how well the game looks without having to strain a decent processor and/or graphics card. Story-wise, the game has as much to offer as WoW in the overarching plot for the entire setting and adds a personal touch by giving you a (somewhat) customized personal story. I say somewhat because it's inevitable that there are going to be others out there with similar ones to yours, but the way you're engaged by the personal story with the voice-acted cut scenes quickly overshadows that.
Crafting is both quick to learn once you've grasped the basics and offers a lot of creativity. You don't (to my knowledge) buy new recipes or find them in scrolls, you discover them through experimenting. Transmutation is easily performed once you get the hang of it, which is great for keeping that perfect look to your character (until you find a better one, if you do).
As others have said, this game comes with no subscription fee, so you don't have to worry about having wasted a lot of money if you eventually decide you're not satisfied with it. Overall I'd say you wouldn't go wrong with pre-ordering it (of course I'm biased in the game's favor), though if you're still hesitant, you can go with the basic game rather than a deluxe or collector's edition; that way you'd be out no more than anyone who bought it retail on release day.
The fighting in this game, even against NPC's, has some genuine challenge to it, as opposed to the, as Yahtzee once put it, taking-turns-kicking-each-other-in-the-shins style you see in most other MMOs. It mixes gameplay seen in several other games, like the downed state you see in games like Borderlands and Left 4 Dead, the mobile combat seen in Champions Online, to give a couple examples. The drop-in events are a welcome change from the standard npc-with-exclamation-points-overhead fare. There aren't nearly as many kill-10-rats sort of quests, plus you don't have to squabble with other players over getting credit for kills, either, if you're tasked with hunting down a specific monster/criminal/etc. If you land a blow on it, even if another player engaged it first, you still get credit.
Graphically, musically and sound-wise, you probably couldn't do much better. It's very impressive how well the game looks without having to strain a decent processor and/or graphics card. Story-wise, the game has as much to offer as WoW in the overarching plot for the entire setting and adds a personal touch by giving you a (somewhat) customized personal story. I say somewhat because it's inevitable that there are going to be others out there with similar ones to yours, but the way you're engaged by the personal story with the voice-acted cut scenes quickly overshadows that.
Crafting is both quick to learn once you've grasped the basics and offers a lot of creativity. You don't (to my knowledge) buy new recipes or find them in scrolls, you discover them through experimenting. Transmutation is easily performed once you get the hang of it, which is great for keeping that perfect look to your character (until you find a better one, if you do).
As others have said, this game comes with no subscription fee, so you don't have to worry about having wasted a lot of money if you eventually decide you're not satisfied with it. Overall I'd say you wouldn't go wrong with pre-ordering it (of course I'm biased in the game's favor), though if you're still hesitant, you can go with the basic game rather than a deluxe or collector's edition; that way you'd be out no more than anyone who bought it retail on release day.
need a free to play mmo so i can take it casually and not be fully commited ^^
