I had doubts that EME would do anything about the boring beginning. A few enemy change here and there is about all I was expecting but adding this prologue shows that EME does have the power to make suggestions.

The prologue really sets the tone of the game and made it more streamline into the Island of Dawn. I like it a lot, A+

Update:

Fought the starting area mobs and they were faster! Not as boring as before. Glad there's improvements since the CBT.

Also I notice the Prologue is good to test each class.

It's extremely time consuming to test each character in a MMO to figure out which class is the most enjoyable to play. I'm glad there's an option now to test each class and have a good idea on which to commit to.

I love it

But hate that the skills are locked on the hotkey bar

Quote: nhat on 04/19/2012, 04:33 PM - view

Honestly takes 5-10 mins tops

As an actual introduction to the game (rather than a "test a level 20 character" tool).. I wanted to give the prologue a try with a prologue-test character, and I wasn't very impressed with it.

I liked how it started out, but my impressions eventually went downhill from there. Most importantly, it left me with a pretty poor impression of BAM fights (super easy, no focus or strategy required) because there were so many "allies" on the scene that my participation amounted to a bunch of button mashing. I probably didn't even really need to be there. Players will walk away from the prologue thinking BAM fights are non-challenging (and they're supposed to be the big carrot getting you from level 1 to ~20).

The ending left me confused, because we killed the first BAM, then fought the second BAM for ten seconds or so, seemed to be doing fine, and then suddenly the screen went black and I was watching a cutscene with a voice over mentioning that we were slaughtered. Ok.. wait, what? Very jarring.

I liked the transition to the Island of Dawn, but thought it was odd that I just finished playing a level 20 character with my chosen name, and suddenly I'm standing on the Island of Dawn with a level 1 character of the same name (and the same looks). Must have been my more seasoned twin I was playing earlier.. who was given the same name at birth.. wait, no.. oh well.

I'm also sure some people will get confused by the "go to the cave" instructions because a) it looks like there are caves all over the place and b) their is no map/minimap function available in the prologue. Maybe a lot of the UI options (like the map, or the abilities list) should be disabled (if we're not going to be allowed to properly access them.. they'll only confuse new players).

Mostly, my favorite part of the prologue was the chaos at the beach where you first arrive, although I thought (considering the CBT feedback) the number of quests where you're sent to talk to someone five feet away and report back were overdone. I wasn't super-fond of the bleak gray-tone setting, but it made me appreciate my official arrival on the Island of Dawn (which is all bright and pretty) all the more.