My feedback since R28

Sorry, I'm sure that some of this is due to changes in R29, but I didn't have much of a chance to play during the last release. So here is my feedback about the changes I've noticed.

• Lag has increased, a lot. I was formerly able to run through nearly all scenes except Ardoris without a problem, but now the camera jerks and shudders while I'm repositioning it. It seems like this has to be due to the targeting system, as levels of detail don't seem to have changed at all. I'm barely able to do combat without standing completely still now.
  
• Why, oh why, did autorun get removed?! NumLock does nothing, so I have to hold the forward button or both mouse buttons. Incoming, carpel tunnel flareups.
• I don't seem to randomly shoot animals I'm not expecting too, like in R29, but having the reticle jump around the screen is quite odd. I'm still not a fan of it outside of combat, and the minimum fading before it disappears completely is still quite opaque; I'd appreciate it if there was another step down about halfway between the two.
• The new overland map detail is very nice, although I'm still noticing some oddities. Some places that look like towns are not, and some towns don't have the enter button come up until I get just past them. Makes things inconsistent.
• The stacking of items on other items seems to have come back with a vengeance. Owl's Head, for example, has returned to its Garage Sale of the Avatars model, with stacked ankhs (small ones this time) holding up larger items.
• The new scenes are breathtaking. Love Brittany Fields and Valhold!
• Possibly just because I'm used to the other, but the new handwritten font doesn't appeal to me. It seems to be thicker and harder to read.
• The new avatars and clothing models are awesome! Great job with the changes.
• Crafting is still a slogfest, but mostly because of all the steps involved. Bag mode crafting is painful, so List mode is pretty much required. If I could change anything in crafting, however, it would be that each recipe would have a minimum and maximum skill requirement, based on the ingredients used. This would allow players to easily see a progression from simple items to more difficult. As it is now, you can only go by chance of success, at which point you already have done most of the work to gather the ingredients. Is the Royal Artisan's "Double Starting Recipes" already in-game, because it would be great to not have to look up all these recipes every time. Also, what about the Edelmann beer recipe, when is alcohol brewing coming?
• I've written a whole nother post about COTOs, but I think these are great for the long-term viability of the game. I do wish the Add-On Store would only have COTOs available for real money, and other items available for COTOs; this makes it seem less pay-to-win, and more like the vanity stores in other MMOs. This would also allow players to find coins in-game, and use them (if they want) to make Add-On Store purchases; just have a mechanism to move Gold Crowns to your account in the bank, and reclaim them using the button if desired.

Thanks for listening!

 

Fear not the auto run key can be re-bound to a usable key from the settings menu. I rebound it to F and just used the menu to see my friends' list.

 

I did look in there, but didn't see it in the list. It was late, however, so I must have overlooked it. Annoying that it was removed by default. Thanks!

 

Oh, and would it be possible to fix player-editable labels? Vendor names should not be allow to be ALL CAPS, and they should be the same size as NPC names (not almost twice as large, as they are now). Showing them as other vendors, with a "Guild" type tag of <Vendor>, would also help identify them correctly.