Doc Galahan

I played during Alpha and liked it so much I decided not to play again until launch. So far I've put in about 8-10 hours. With that said, I'm a gamer who prefers to stop and smell the roses and explore every inch of the map while gathering and crafting -- so I've barely moved past the first zone but from that crafter/explorer perspective, I'm enjoying it. I actually like the simplified combat, not sure how that is going to equate to raiding or PVP but it doesn't really matter to me, it's nice -- feels a little like Conan Exiles in that respect -- different but similar. Crafting is great, you aren't forced into one skill set and are open to explore everything crafting has to offer. Even in the heat of a launch there are plenty of nodes to do what you need to do in the starter zone and respawns are fast. In fact, most nodes come in groups, so there isn't a fight for them. As for server queues, the complaints are ridiculous. Yes there are really large queues on popular servers at peak times. But I went with one of the 28 additional servers Amazon launched in my timezone, picked a low pop (i.e. MEDIUM) server and the largest queue I've seen on my server is 1. Don't like queues, pick a lower population server. Problem solved. While I haven't gotten heavily into character building, at least at this early level I'm enjoying building a character that is like a swashbuckling rogue healer. It's an odd pairing but I like that it can be done and you have the freedom to design your class. I suspect there will be plenty of players sticking to particular builds but I enjoy the freedom to go off the beaten path and take the road less traveled. That to me is a big thumbs up.