Zomboss
08-19-2010, 02:19 AM
<p>Well, with all the rampant negativity and melodramatic rants on the forums today, I thought it might be nice to create a thread to thank the developers for all the work they do. I started playing a couple years ago, very casually (my highest char is about 50), and then off and on for a while. I reactivated yesterday after about a year hiatus and got to play around with the update today. As a fairly new (again) player, here are my thoughts:</p><p><ul><li>I think the new UI is lovely. The tutorial windows are actually really helpful, and reorganizing the UI so it looks less like a bunch of scattered bars and boxes makes sense to me. I think it's intuitive and the addition of color schemes is a nice touch. I also find the updated minimap and clock to be an asset.</li><li>Along the same line as the point above, I think adding quest locations to the map is helpful as well. I understand that some people think it may make things 'to easy' (although I don't buy the assumption that user-friendliness equates to a negative game play experience), but in reality without it people are going to try reading the quest text, and then just looking it up on Zam, or wherever anyways.</li><li>I love the reorganized class selection process during character creation. It's far less daunting than simply being presented with a list of 24 classes and saying 'here, pick one'. It also helps new players associate classes, where as before you sort of had to just know that Rangers and Assassins were both predators, and SKs and Paladins were both crusaders, now you see them next to each other at least.</li><li>I like the changes to the starting areas, with the New Halas area being attacked by orcs, and the Neriak area by elementals, and so on. It does help give a sense that you aren't just helping NPCs with the minutia of their lives, but instead helping them with something dire.</li><li>I think the new animations are also rather nice. I kind of think the old ones, for the most part, where just a lot of glowing, sparkly spheres that spun around me or my target with the occasional sword slamming into the ground and breaking (despite the spell description baring any mention of a magic sword), or translucent chains erupting from... no where. I think the new ones do, in fact, tie into the abilities that they are for, at least from what I have seen so far.</li><li>I think having a preview window for the SC store was a missing feature, and it's nice to have, especially with so much cosmetic equipment in there.</li></ul><div></div><div>Anyways, despite (what I assume to be) the vocal minority posting furious rants about the update, I think there are a number of changes here that I can see helping to bring newer players into the game, and it's clear you guys have put time and effort into these things. I imagine in a week or two things will calm down and people will realize that it's still the game they enjoy.</div><div></div><div>Thanks for your hard work, and I look forward to seeing what's next!</div></p>