This is a repost from the official forums:

I was hoping to have an opportunity to provide more feedback in CB, but didn't get the chance.  I was part of the group that was granted access, had it rescinded, granted, rescinded, eventually got access to the first big stress test (which I was never able to successfully login to), etc.. So, the first chance I've really had to playtest has been in the last few days for the early start open beta.  Please note, this is not a review.  I've only played my max character up to level 11 and have just reached Anglorum.  Regardless, I do have some thoughts based on what I've seen so far - if I'm wrong about something, please let me know.  I welcome the dialog.

General impressions:

So far, I like it. Nothing has been particularly difficult, thus far.  In fact, I haven't even bothered upgrading or adding any abilities - haven't needed to.  I think the overall art direction is fine and appropriate for the theme, audience and delivery mechanism for the game. It's a little bland and generic, but not bad.  That being said, I'm surprised the game doesn't play better on older systems, because it doesn't "seem" like the requirements should be very high based on the overall appearance of the world, the textures used, etc... Regarding the theme, I like it.  I'm not a furry, but I do have a good imagination and am a fan of fiction like the Redwall series and Watership Down.

While I haven't see much of the game, so far, based on what I've seen I think it shows promise.  It's cute, fun and seems well suited (so far) for casual/solo play.  The fact that it can be played in a browser window will probably ensure it's success, at least amongst the younger players.

Constructive criticism - These are things I've noted during my playtime that either bug me or that I think would enhance the overall experience of the game.  Please note, I know some of these have been suggested/discussed in other threads - I'm simply putting a comprehensive list down based on my experiences:

• UI Scaling - I generally like to play games at 1920 X 1200.  In the case of EE, I play the game in the client and maximize the screen..  I like that I can change chat opacity and size, but dislike that I can't scale the UI text to be larger.  I'd love for this to be an option like it is for the chat window.
• The dreaded "must be facing the target" message - so irritating. If your character has a mob targeted and attacks, why can't the character just be rotated to face the target?  It would make combat simpler, especially when surrounded by multiple mobs. It would also prevent those situations where you run up to attack a mob, which then proceeds to run through and behind you. Updated 07/29/2010: In the last patch, an option to auto-pivot to face target was added.  You do still get the message sometimes, but this was a much needed change, IMO.
• Mailboxes - there aren't any early in the game, are there any later in the game?  Is there a shared bank?  It stinks finding an item one of your other characters could use, but not be able to give it to he or she. Update 01/19/2010: Vaults (player banks) were added recently and included in the player vaults are a 'Delivery Box".  Per Matt Mihaley, the delivery box is to allow Sparkplay to send gifts to players and, eventually, for players to send gifts to other players.  Whether or not this can be used like a true mailbox system is unknown. Update 07/29/2010 - still not functional
• Item linking - there's a trade channel, but is there item linking? No
• Inability to access previous zones - obviously, I've only just now got to Anglorum, but I can't go back to Corsica or Earthrise - even though I've out-leveled those zones, I'd like the option to go back and chat/help lowbies if I want to. Update 12/04/2009:  it's only the two tutorial zones that you're not allowed to revisit.  All other zones are open to you once you progress past them. Update 07/29/2010: you can now teleport to friends or party members in all zones (and back to previous zones) except for the initial starting point on Bastion Island.

Performance - I'm currently playing on an Inspiron E1705 with NVidia GO 7900GS 256MB, 7200 RPM HD, Core 2 Duo at 2.16 GHz and 2 GB RAM - at max resolution, the game looks and runs pretty good with all the bells and whistles, except for AA  - as soon as I turn it on, the game turns into a slideshow.  Yes, it's older hardware, but the game doesn't "look" like it would require anything more substantial to run at max settings.  I play "prettier" games on it at the same resolution with better performance, even for features like AA - City of Heroes is a good example.  I also play Dungeon Runners and have played WAR, LotRO, Runes of Magic and Darkfall on it with what I consider to be a good mix of looks and performance.  A game like Wizard101 plays flawless at max settings, even on our oldest, lamest machines. Update 12/04/2009:  Matt Mihaly (CEO and Lead Designer) has acknowledge performance issues and that fixing them is a top priority.

"Quote | goldstar78i posted on 12.03.09 | 19:10
my issue is not with content, but how badly the game runs! I'd be fine with running dungeons and grinding, if only I could get above 2fps and not rubberband!!!

Totally agree with you there. Clearly the game has performance problems. We have guys tasked to working on nothing but that. Performance issues are tricky and difficult though. There is no silver bullet fix. Improving it is the result of working many small improvements in many different systems, so you're not going to wake up one day and suddenly you're getting zero rubberbanding and 60 fps in Camelot.

Believe me though, this is a top priority.
POSTED :: 12.03.09 | 12:40
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I'm the CEO and Creative Director of Sparkplay Media, the company making Earth Eternal. I don't bite....much.

Updated 01/19/2010 - Additionally, here's an excerpt from his Happy New Year letter:

I want to acknowledge up-front that EE’s technical performance is not where we want it. Frames-per-second is too low on all but the more recent systems, loading times are too long, the system requirements should be lower than they are, and of course, there are lag problems. I bring those up specifically so that you don’t think that we’re in denial about the technical work that needs to be done. We are in beta, but everyone on the EE team knows this work has to be done, and we have multiple people on these issues full-time. We’re also bringing the creator of Ogre 3D, the rendering engine we use, on board half-time to help improve performance. We should see some significant improvements in the next few months, and of course bug fixing is something we're always working on.

Update 02/27/2010 - this last week some performance upgrades were patched in.  I can now run the game at 4x AA (the max in game) and with ground clutter with no slowdown, whereas previously if I had AA turned on at all, the game was unplayable.

Update 07/29/2010 - with the last patch, a number of performance issues were introduced, included mobs that never fully load in, an increase in the memory leak, etc..

• Replayability - so far, each character starts in the same zone and does the exact same quests.  There's no variety.  As far as that goes, the game--at least based upon what I've experienced so far--is very, very linear.  Yes, you could grind mobs all day long if you want, but there's no real reason to do so except to farm items/coin/exp.
• Mob aggro on attack on activation, not hit - this one just bugs the crap out of me, sorry.  Part of the benefit of having a ranged attack is the ability to snipe. When the mob aggros on me and gets halfway to me before my attack animation finishes, that's just silly.  Aggro should occur when the mob is hit, not when I hit the key..
• Mob density - it's out of control.  There are way, way too many mobs for the number of players running around. That being said, their aggro radius seems pretty small, so it's relatively easy to navigate through them - it's just irritating.
• Custom key mapping - personally, I like using Q and E for turning, and A and D for strafing.  I'd love to be able to customize the keyboard based on the way I like to play. Update 12/04/2009:  Matt Mihaly has also stated he favors custom key mapping, too. Update 02/27/2010 - Custom key configuration was added this last week!
• Remembering the client window size - every time I login, I have to maximize the screen size - why can't it remember the last UI size in a config file?

As I stated above, this is just feedback/constructive criticism based on what I've experienced so far. I'm not "picking" on the game, just giving my personal thoughts. Overall, I think the game is fun and shows promise, but there are definitely things I think would help it reach it's potential faster.  In other words, "polish".

 Additional feedback after further testing - fewer positives, more negatives:

• Races - 22 races, absolutely nothing to distinguish one from another except for looks.  No traits, skills, quests, starting areas.  Nothing.

• Linearity - caveat - I haven't played to higher levels yet, but you can't leave the starter zones without doing quests to unlock the exits to the new zones.  In other words, you're forced to quest.

• Difficulty curve - imagine my surprise after having waded through all previous opponents in the various starter zones, making my way to level 10 or 11 in Anglorum, getting a quest to kill a named mob and getting pwned almost instantly.  Ouch.  To be fair, though, the quest description did recommend a party of 2 or greater, but it still seemed like a pretty steep curve and it basically forces grouping and/or purchasing potions.

• Combat - Pro - you can attack while moving.  Con - it doesn't do anything for you.  There's no "action rpg" style dodging, etc..  All attacks are still autohit/miss, whether you're moving or not.  It doesn't really help with kiting, since mobs are tethered to a location and will regen and go back to their spot if you get past their tether range. That and the fact that mob density is so high, you'd have to clear enough space just to be able to kite, anyway.

• PvP - doesn't exist yet, possibly slated for future

• Crafting -  (updated 12/04/2009) Crafting is very, very simple, but fraught with a number of issues: The amount of ingredients seem ridiculously high for how rare they are.  FYI - Also, the item you make is bind on pickup, meaning itthe market is remedial in that there's only a channel, but no linking as mentioned in the post above. (updated 04/27/2010) Crafting is being tweaked.  Patch 0.8.6 removed it for <20 items and prices, components now drop more frequently and the prices for molds are going to be adjusted.
  • How it works: Be awarded or loot a recipe, take the recipe and ingredients to an NPC - make item.  Simple, right?
    1. Ingredient scarcity - The ingredients are mob drop only, not harvested from nodes, so you're basically at the whim of the random loot Gods or other players.  You can grind mobs for ingredients, but it's tedious, since the number of ingredients for a single recipe is pretty high. (updated 04/27/2010) As mentioned in the update above, components now drop more frequently, although I don't know by how much
    2. Inventory: What you see behind the chat bubbles in the picture above is my entire inventory.  There's no bank, shared or not.  So, unless I spend in-game gold to increase my bag slots (I could afford up to 24 slots with the gold I've gathered with 4 characters, but it would wipe out my gold and would be 3 8-slot bags) or I could buy a lot more space by purchasing Dragonscale Backpacks from the credit shop (a 24 slot bag  for ~$14.75 USD - I could buy a maximum of 4 for just under $60.  Please note, this is for a single character) .The point of this is that unless I upgrade my inventory, I literally don't have enough room to gather and store ingredients in the hope that I'll one day have enough to actually craft an item.  Update 12/04/2009: FYI - Banks are something either being worked on or planned, per Matt Mihaly.  Update 01/19/2009: Banks (vaults) have now been implemented.  Every player gets 8 free bank slots and can purchase additional rows (8 slots, each) for credits.
    3. Bind on pickup - whatever you craft is bind on pickup, so you can't trade it.  As such, being a "crafter" isn't really a viable option.
    4. Economy - players do trade ingredients, which is good, but not the actual crafted items, as indicated above.

• Player Housing - doesn't exist (possibly going in @ launch in the form of "Groves") - hasn't made it to open beta, though

• Secondary attacks - all four classes have both ranged and melee attacks, but characters don't start off with a secondary weapon (throwing daggger for a rogue, as an example).  Instead, the first starter island quest rewards the player with gloves.  Unless you're lucky enough to find a secondary weapon for your class, I highly recommend new players buy one as soon as they get to the second island. It makes a huge difference for extra dps and pulling/splitting for melee characters.  I'd highly recommend Sparkplay swap a ranged weapon for the gloves in the first quest or provide a secondary weapon from the start, especially since a secondary weapon auto-attack is slotted from the very beginning, but isn't usable. Update 02/27/2010 - New characters now start with secondary weapons as of this last patch!

• Credit shop - the game is in open beta, still needs a ton of polish/features, IMO, but the cash shop is open for business. That seems wrong to me. (Updated 04/27/2010) "Wrong" is probably the wrong word. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I basically consider the game to be in a soft launch mode.  Yes, they're open for business, albeit with limited features.  Eventually they'll have a hard launch with more features. I think this is fine, personally.  I just take exception to it being called "beta" when the shop is open. 

• Target Audience - i mentioned this in another post and have mentioned it on the official boards.  Who is this game for?
  • It's cute enough to appeal to kids, but the game isn't a "kids game".
  • It's got decent, albeit generic core mechanics for an adult game, but it doesn't have enough polish yet to be ready for launch and it's almost too cute.
  • It appeals to the furry crowd, which the developers didn't even know existed. On top of that, the furry demographic is both small and stigmatized, so being known as the "furry game" might not bode well for Sparkplay unless they can demonsrate they understand and can appease a larger market.

The credit shop being open for business really bothers me.  Nobody's required to use it, but frankly the status of the game feels more like a soft launch than an open beta.  After all, they're taking in money. Is it a cash grab, are they short on funds?  Couldn't they test the credit shop by giving beta testers credits (not without wiping open beta characters, else they'd get free gear)?  Couldn't they hold off testing the credit shop until other, more important MMO mechanics are put in place?

I do think EE is a fun game with lots of potential, as I've stated before, but it really lacks the kind of depth most experienced MMO players would appreciate and even expect.  If the game launched today in it's current state, it would probably be panned. Yes, it's still in "beta", but it's "open beta", which is generally pretty close to launch condition for many games.  That concerns me. I'd love to see some sort of design roadmap from Sparkplay that might alleviate these concerns.

~Ripper

Regarding the large number of races, here's a quote from a TenTonHammer interview with Matt Mihaly:

Ten Ton Hammer: Earth Eternal boasts an incredible number of races: 22 in all, covering most of the animal kingdom (the land dwellers, anyway). What makes each race different or special, given that none has a gameplay advantage over another? 

So, the lack of differences between races is intentional.  Personally, I don't agree with this approach.  I think there are things that could be implemented to differentiate between races without turning it into a min-max stat game or forcing class choice based on race.  So, as far as feedback goes, I personally don't think this is a good design decision.  I hope it changes over time.

Regarding the target audience, from the same interview:

Ten Ton Hammer: What’s your target audience? What does Earth Eternal have to offer, say, a hardcore MMO gamer who has over a dozen hours a week to play but expects to constantly have a new carrot on the proverbial stick?

Sounds reasonable, but I think the game needs a lot more polish in order to have a "ton of depth".  I think Sparkplay has a good vision and the game is fun, albeit shallow, so I'm anxiously awaiting new content and features.

~Ripper

Further feedback:

My son's impression- Created brand new character and played with my son tonight (he's 10).   When asked what he liked about the game, he said "because you can play as animals with other animals".  When asked what he didn't like, he said he didn't understand the loot rules.  I'll get to those in a minute, but IMO, that's just a learning curve.  When we played he had fun, but mostly because it was dad/son time.

Child safety, from a parent's perspective:

• Chat - there's a chat censor feature you can turn on.  Please note, however, that the filter is dictionary based and there are a lot of words that get through ("gay", for example).  Unlike a true kids game like Wizard101, which uses a list of allowable words, vs a list of prohibited words, chat in Earth Eternal is just like it is in most other adult games - filtered, but easy to get around (and people definitely try to do so).  The good news is you can turn off chat channels.  So, even though my 10 year old son only gets to play and group with me, I can turn off the regional and local chat so he doesn't see the idiocy.  He gets to play and have fun and I don't need to worry about "barrens chat".
• Quests - the quests are relatively easy for a child to follow, but I'm not a big fan of the "kill x mobs" quests.  Once again, this is a teen+ game, so it's "kill" vs. "capture" or "knock out".  Same thing mechanically, different semantically, especially for kids.
• Blood - there isn't any, which is nice for kids.  Attacks/hits  have various "energy" particle animations.  When you loot a mob, it turns into a cartoony gravestone.
• Graphics - definitely cute and cartoony and colorful.  Very appealing to kids.
• General impression - not a kids game, but can be fun for kids. Be a good parent and play with your kids.  Teach them the fun parts of playing this game and limit their exposure to the seedier aspects of world chat.

Shards - in open beta, there's only 1 server.  In order to handle the load, the server is broken up into shards.  These are basically instances of the same region (zone).  When you look at your minimap, it will tell you which region and shard number you're in ("Corsica 7", for example).  Regardless of the shard, you can still see all chat in the /region chat channel.  That's really useful.  To change shards, simply click the region name in the minimap to pull up a list of all available shards and pick the one you want.  Please note, however, that you  must be near a sanctuary (located in camps, cities, etc...) in order to change shards.

Targeting - targeting is tab-base\d.  Just hit Tab and you'll target the nearest mob.  The downside is the nearest mob might be off your screen to the left or right.  In other words, the cone of vision for the tab-based targeting is too wide.  It needs to be narrowed to the field of vision for the player, IMO.

Group mechanics:

• Invites - in order to invite another player, you need to right-click them. You can't invite them via command interface.  There appears to be a command to allow you to do so (/party invite, but it doesn't seem to work). Update 07/29/2010: as of the last patch, you can now remotely invite players to a group by either typing a command or right-clicking their name in chat or your friends list.
• Group control - the leader can invite, kick players and change loot settings.
• Loot rules - there are two types of looting allowed: Free for all (everybody can attempt to loot the mob) and Round Robin (the game will let on player loot, per mob killed and then move to the next player when the next mob is killed).  Regardless of which of these two options are selected (FFA is default), there are two optional settings: Need for Greed (forces a random roll for loot if players select Need or Greed on non-mundane items) and "Include mundane items", which forces rolls on basically every item in the game.
  • Bug - the loot rules seem to default to the standard settings when you change zones.  We tested this going in and out of Corsica and the LIghthouse (an instance).  That's bad. Update 01/19/2010 - this appears to be resolved.
• Main assist - doesn't exist.  Would be great, since I had a hard time explaining to my son which mob to attack together.  Main assist would be great. Per official forum member Raymond, main assist does exist. In order to use it, a group member would need to target the main player by clicking on them. All attacks would then attack the main character's target. That's very useful, but mouse-based party member targeting might get messy in a large battle with a full group. As such, I think this mechanic could be improved.
• Voice chat - none built in.  I hate voice chat personally, since listening to some squeaker (WARNING: NSFW comic due to language) complaining about how gay a drop is tends to break immersion, IMO. Not being a big raider, I don't miss it.
• Text chat - the /party chat channel is fine.
• Combat - it sucks when you're in front of the person pulling and the mob runs behind you, forcing the dreaded "must be facing the target" message.  Once again, it would be great if your character just spun around, especially since the attacks don't seem to be position based.
• Experience - XP is split equally amongst all party members and the distance between party members can be pretty large.  I'd recommend that the XP radius be lowered significantly in order to mitigate rampant powerleveling. Update 07/29/2010: All players in a group now get full experience, per kill.
• Disconnected characters - This is handled very well, IMO. Tthey remain in the group. My son completely logged out, yet was still in the group.  That's good for linkdeaths/accidental disconnects. Furthermore, the XP isn't split to the disconnected character.  If the loot rules stipulate Need/Greed rolls, the Need/Greed window still pops up, but the active players don't have to wait for the disconnected player.  Looting is immediate. Update 07/29/2010:  when a player disconnects, that player gets dropped from the group, This can be problematic if a player drops while in a group instance.  Not a good change :(.
• Group member targeting - you have to click a group member in order to target them - no hot keys like F1, F2, etc.. - wow - that needs to change, IMO.  Update 01/19/2010: F-key based targeting is now in game.  Woot!.

Trade - attempted to give some items away yesterday.  Was a real pain due to the lack of item linking, as mentioned before and also due to the fact that I had to run to a sanctuary to change to the same shard as the person I was trying to give the items to and then still have to meet up at the same spot within the region.  I'd LOVE a game that let me trade across the region via command line instead of having to physically be next to the other player.  Seriously - originally, that was the plan when Dungeon Runners first introduced it's trade window, but they removed that aspect of it for some reason.  If EE or other games had this feature, it'd be the win.

In-game help - doesn't exist.  You can't even see a list of emotes or the key mapping.  If you click the help button, it simply launches the EE website and a very small list of articles, none of which pertain to actual play.  They're all technical or legal articles (EULA and ToU, for example).  In order to see the list of emotes and the key mapping, I had to read a post in the forums.  Lame.

Summary - still testing it, still think it's fun and shows promise.  The types of things I mention above (main assist, item linking, auto turning to attack, etc...) would help polish the game, IMO.

~Ripper

Clarification and updates - crafting details, for example.

~Ripper

Since there is now an official mmorpg.com review (and reviews from at least one other gaming site), I decided to revisit my impressions posts and see how they hold up.  I've updated them, where appropriate.  Some things have changed (indicated in the posts above), but all-in-all, I stand by the posts.

Please note. I've been playing the game consistently since open beta and have rolled/re-rolled several characters, playing them up to ~level 20.  I am still having fun, although I can definitely see problems with grind, travel time and believe there needs to be a major crafting/economic overhaul in order to attract and retain more players.

I still also believe the game is in a soft launch phase. Think of it like a small ma-and-pa cafe that opens with a very limited menu, due to a limited budget.  They're not in beta.  They're open for business as soon as they start taking money.  They may have a limited menu, but they're still charging for it. As they get more popular and generate more revenue, they'll hire staff, re-vamp their offerings, etc..  It's no different with Sparkplay and Earth Eternal.  Yes, nobody is forced to pay for anything, but that's because it's a F2P game, not because it's in beta. 

All that being said, is being in a soft launch a bad thing?  No, I think it's fine. I just think the term "beta" is being applied very liberally.  The game has been in open beta since mid-October (3 full months now) and there's no ETA for going "live".

~Ripper

 02/277/2010 Updates in green

~Ripper

Updates 04/27/2010 in orange

~Ripper

Updates to multiple posts (not just the first one) 07/29/2010 in Turquoise

~Ripper