The real Breakdown on a game that falls short...but has potential later on. I gave this game an honest chance
Map: the map is marked with names of places. You cant scroll around with your mouse in map mode. You must use the keyboard. Also party members DONT show up on map when theyre past a certain distance (the whole point of a map defeated).
Control: controls are good (i used keyboard). The problem is with the interface menus. Most people..including me..have to wait maybe a second or 2 for your menu to finally register a click. You have to deal with MANY menus when working with items. So this can be a real pain.
Menu System: LAGs. To many menus. Cant sell items by 1 click, must open menu after menu after menu etc...
Sound: Amazing..but since its non stop looped...can lose its magic.
Party system: non existent. Most people dont even respond to "hi" and since the game servers are based in japan i have a feeling this is the reason. a translator is used in game to remedy this. But who really feels like pressing tab, scrolling for right words, etc...just to say a few lines...Also most quests are solo able anyways and you dont feel like you NEED to party. Players familiar with the FF11 series may be let down on the party structure here. Wow players may enjoy the solo aspect.
Auction house system: there is no AH. There is a bazzaar system. Each player can be a walking vendor and send a mule to the vendor section of the map (market wards). Items are UNsearchable and UNsortable. This means you have to walk up to every person and HOPE they have the item ur looking for. Markets are divided by sections but people still sell COOKING stuff in the Weapons section.......
Grind: Seems endless. Youll be fighting dodos, and marmots for ever it seems. and then when you hit your class fatigue (time limit of class xp you can gain set by the game) you will have to switch class...which means...MORE marmots and MORE dodos on your lower lvl class LOL... or you can get into crafting....
Crafting: Horrible. NO ingame recipes. Literally its like heres you cooking pan...you figure out what to make LOL. Combine it with the multiple menus + lag = frustration. Your left putting meats in the cooking pan only to see the words "you can make anything with those items".... and combinations are PRECISE..so theres no getting lucky here. There is a little minigame when u actually DO craft so that is a plus.
Community: there seems to be no hostile people and the community is really mellow which is good. Now this can also be because some player dont speak english but so far so good...
Learning Curve: honestly...you will quit this game early. They throw you in the crowds...inform you of very little info on where to go..and dont even mark your map. You spend time trying to figure out what NPC to speak to and WHY. No sense of direction....until about 5hrs in and you feel how the game works... you have to look for yourself to find stuff....which can be a pain due to laggy server congestion. and NPCS loading up on screen slow.
Traveling: good grief.....there arent mounts yet...and you CAN teleport but its not as good as it seems. You have 100 anima points. It costs 4 to teleport to a waypoint uve visited. Thing is you get 1 anima back every hour. or maybe its 1 every four. Either way...when you finally reach zero anima...your stuck having to WALK everywhere. With no more teleport points you start seeing how poooooorly set up this system really is. It makes it worse that camps dont go in order (A camp to B camp). Its more like go to this place....then travel allllllllllllll the way over here for your next zone....then BACK allllllllllll the way over here for the next... (literally back and forth). so you get the feeling walking is nothing but a TIME SINK. and for those of you that work or have school...the last thing you want to do is waste time WALKING everywhere. (also you can auto run but still must manually control turning).
Graphics: AMazing. I feel sorry for people who cant play it at its max because this is really what kept me playing. If it werent for how Beautiful the game was....i would have given up on it through all the other issues.
OVERALL: i give this game a 6.5 because i KNOW its a MMO and MMOs take time to get into gear. But as of NOW it isnt an impressive game worthy of challenging WoW for the MMO title.
Maybe in a couple months of fine tuning...but for now. 6.5 is where it stands. Good LuCk!