not for everyone, for those hesitating weither to play or not ^^

Alright, before I begin, I'll tell you all I have decided to pre-order the game, and since I've been seeing alot of negative stuff I dont agree with: here I go ^^

The first day of open beta, I have to admit, was horrible :S

Which was mostly because of the infamous interface, plus it felt like the distance between me and the monster was way to short (I always play mage types in mmo's).

Of course, then the servers had to crash, giving me a bluescreen and forcing me to spend three hours repairing my install...(cause yes, some files were damaged and it pissed me off lol)...but back to the interface!

It took me a while, but as soon as I learned to navigate without the mouse (I only use it very rarely now), the irritation greatly decreased ^^ : less waiting time and, surprisingly, I realised it would have worked very intuitively if it wasnt for the lagg, which I'm guessing will be fixed for release.

So if you're hesitating to join because of the interface, try playing with the interface the way it was more or less designed to, (and yes, lose the WoW attitude some of you have going on)

Another major bummer at start for me was the combat as a mage type (I found the others to be ok, not stellar but its low levels, cant expect the big fireworks right out of the shop now can you? ^^)

As said I found myself too close, but besides that, all my objections I had in the first say, 5 levels, of the game, slowly dissappeared as I got better at estimating the distance and learning my way through...the interface!

The slowness of the combat was a negative point for me too, and maybe it should be tuned up a little... but it wasnt really a dealbreaker for me. Even less so when I thought about the fact that this is a group oriented game, with some potentially complicated mechanics later on in the game, where the slower pace might be a true blessing to make the party combat more enjoyable. (besides that, I found it to be alot like FFXI, which I found more playable though, probably because it has a few years of polish behind it)

As for the graphics, I'm sure you all are aware of the lag ^^

Just to be sure about it, I tested my performence, interfalls of one hour, and yes it IS the population that causes the graphic lagg, and NOT the local population (as in how much in on the screen) but the total server population.

I myself had nearly no lagg, meaning a stable run at 40-50fps both in empy places and the crowded city, but only when the server pop was low, as it dropped to a regular 30 to sometimes 10fps when the server was full, even in areas where there was nobody around!

As such, I think this will be fixed for release

Now the content...

I have to admit, I was almost angry when I read on some blogs/post about the lack of content...almost.

Almost because it might be hard for complete beginners to the mmo genre or those who are only used to the WoW way of doing things, to easily understand where to go for content.

I say "easily", because if you havent found a bitchload of content, that just means you really havent looked very far at all.

Ok, so I played around running about the city for an hour before I got how to enjoy the most of it, and get on with the main questline and such...

Lack of monsters? all you have to do is follow the main quest, and all is explained on how you can get cards, which are quests, (yes for free) for some plentyfull rewards and a groups of monsters you can smash your skills on ^^ (which are far more rewarding if you are in a big group, dont forget that )

Which gets us to the tutorial ^^

It was enough for me, who is coming from ffXI, but I get why some might be frustrated to be only taken by the hand instead of being carried like a stupid little princess :P

Yes I know not nice is it ^^ in resumé the tutorial needs some work, though not for me, and I dont like games where everything is spelled out for me: I want to discover!

So what class did I finally choose for release? not one the mage types, which just dont feel enough like mages to me lol (a bit like I did in ffXI, but a bit worse).

As such, I tried every class out till lvl 6 ( I know really short, but its just to get the feel ot it) and decided on the pugilist, which reminded me of alot of the monk in dark ages for some reason lol (dark ages, not dark ages of camelot).

Hope to see you all around ^^ dont hesitate if you have questions eh?