[ProfRed]

Things I like:

• The main campaign line and story of the game is embedded into many quests and I get a good feeling of the state of the world from the start. Ex. In one measly meaningless quest a mini story unfolds about how his love had ascended and returned a wedding ring to him and told him that he could give it to her when she came back, but she never returned. The quest really gave a good feeling about how special the ascended are, and how detached those on the ground were from the rest of the race. (The quest was to kill these monsters until you got the ring back.)
• The world, monsters, map layouts, story, and campaign quests are all quite unique and interesting. I feel familiar playing the game, but I am eager to explore the inside of this planet and develop the story farther. I don't normally care to do this as most MMO's as it sems like the devs don't really care to create this in the first place.
• I like personal shops, and have always been a fan of this method of exchanging goods.
• The sounds. I really like how distinct and crisp the sound effects are for everything.
• The graphics.
• The fact that even my Nvidia quadro 135m craptastic laptop can run the game on low settings, and run it smoothly.
• The fact that I can play with only a mouse when convenient, or use the keyboard and mouse combo for total control.
• The two races/factions. This includes character designs and background story.
• The World is very cool and creative. I love that you play on the inside of a planet and the Abyss/main battleground is the center of the planet.
• Cutscenes.
• Gliding. I like flying too, but I really like gliding.
• Flight time management and skills to adjust it or bring enemies to the ground. I think this adds a nice layer to PvP combat not only with the extra axis of movement, but with manipulation of flight times.
• The devs direction. If I knew Blizzard was going to do everything they could to guide players out of world PvP and into the stupid instanced battlegrounds I would have never bought the game. I like that I can see what the devs are doing and what their direction is from the Korean version. I like that they are expanding on the whole Abyss experience and not just adding on crap to the end of the game that further distances new players and veterans.
• The speed of combat and quick reaction times required.
• The combat from animations and sounds to the reaction of the enemy is all very fluid and easy on the eyes. Nothing jumps out as being out of place really.
• The auto sort inventory.
• The font in game. (Not the chat, but the stylized font that displays town names and things.)
• The itemization. The large array of items you can acquire and mix and match to make your character unique.
• The armor swap system which allows you to combine one armors looks with anothers stats. I really, really like this.
• Character creation.
• The combo system. (Sort of, see dislikes)
• The manes on Asmodians.

Things I like that I have yet to experience:

• The fact that a group of 6 who are skilled and organized can take out a full force (24 people). If you haven't seen kilkil2's post at mmorpg.com (I reposted some info here in the Abyss section) or videos of this then find it and watch it.
• The abyss being a pretty dangerous place which encourages grouping.
• The falloff of quests as players advance in the Abyss. Like I stated I don't like linear quest grinds.
• The incentives for holding a fort in the Abyss. The new fort instances sound great, and overall the ease of defending over assaulting means that forts may actually be fought over which sounds nice after the crap that is RvR in WAR.
• The timed instances they are adding. I LOVED this type of stuff in FFXI. Timed instance with scores where bosses are adjusted based on score. Trying to find the right party combinations to defeat the instance in the best way possible. Not to mention a lot of the timed stuff seems to be attached to controlling a fort. I really like this.

Things I don't like that I have yet to experience:

• I think by now you can see that I am a big fan of the Abyss and the latter part of this game in concept. I haven't experienced much of it so I am going by what i've researched and learned from talking to level 50 players. There isn't much I have heard or learned of the Abyss that I don't like so there won't be much listed here. I know better than anyone that there are things I won't like as I progress, but I haven't come across anything to expose it to me yet.

Things I don't like:

• Classes are restrictive and lack a bunch of customization from a skill perspective.
• Classes are, for the most part, unoriginal which is a shame because it contradicts with the originality in the setting, theme, and races.
• The linear nature of the game up to level 25. (I don't mind it leading to the first major city in a game, but in general I prefer for huge cities as a major hub where all levels spend time.)
• The first 25 levels being largely a safe soloable quest grind through linear zones.
• Crafting is once again just bleh. I can't hold this game accountable in particular because it is just bleh in almost every MMO out there, but it is.. bleh.
• Clear indicators of who has quests and who to turn quests into via UI. I prefer to determine this from talking to random NPC's and quest text.
• How crowded the screen gets with text, and the text style. Luckily I can turn almost all of it off, but this won't always be viable. I guess I prefer a system where names aren't displayed above heads, and even though I can turn it off it puts me at a disadvantage to those who have it on in some instances of world PvP/RvR.
• World does not hold enough secrets, mysteries, and riddles. No world does really except for Vanadiel, the greatest virtual world ever. (No arguments please you lose)
• The Asmodians and Elyos quests being largely recycled, and sometimes almost completely mirrored. This could be good too though. I thought I would want to roll a character of each faction to experience everything, but now I feel that would be a waste of time. This is sort of a relief to me in a way because I am usually pretty thorough, but I only want to play 1 character over the entire life of this game and I feel better about it now.
• Lack of named world mobs on ridiculous timers with a small chance of dropping awesome loot. I guess i'm a glutton for punishment.
• How easy it is to execute combos with the skill just upgrading itself on the toolbar. I would prefer for more random elements to be thrown in to make it more difficult, and then maybe scale these to be more powerful.
• The lack of group based combos and chains that require a good deal of tactics, timing, and group harmony.
• There is no moghouse where I can change my job. WTF.

Overall:

• Really like the game, but wish for more sandbox type elements.
• Look forward to playing this until FFXIV, and i'm confident the Abyss will hold my attention for some time.
• Will only make 1 character to avoid having to go through the first part of the game more than 1 time.
• I am really impressed with the story, style, and setting which surprises me in an NCSoft/Korean MMO.
• I can't wait for launch. Love MMO launches.
• This is a solid game, with great entertainment value, and I will be preordering.

Disclaimer:

This is all largely based on my opinion. On a scale of -10 to 10 my bias level is a 2 or 3. I don't only post facts because I am not a robot, and this is not the news.