General Impressions and Comments

I've only done a cursory play through, but overall the experience is great. It's amazing to see how far it's come from just a few months ago to now. Great job.

Here's what I've observed so far:

I really like the zoom in to chat feature; it's wonderful. However, I am noticing that I have to scroll up up after each message to reselect things. This makes following dialogue a little clumsy. Would it be possible to either. 1.) highlighting non-explored conversation topics in another colour, or
2.) place unfollowed chat dialogue in a separate window?
Perhaps we could even combine the two?

The inventory looks great; I love the known issues book and player guide!

Vendors seem a bit buggy. For example:

Textbox input for items doesn't seem to work particularly well. I know probably should file this under bugs, but just as a general feedback for me the inputs are off by one. For example, by selecting 2 on my keyboard the text box will input a 1, selecting 3 inputs 2, etc. This happens when buying arrows or other stacked items. Also, backspace doesn't work in these same textfields. It would be handy to have this in case a mistake is entered.

Selecting purchase closes the vendor window but does not disengage from dialogue; instead I must press escape to do this. This would be fine, except the vendors I speak to generally do not have a great deal of dialogue so it's oddly surprising I am in a conversation with them after the sale. (Known issue!)

The overhead map looks and feels good. The detail for the characters is there, etc. I do miss the click to navigate option, though. Sometimes I get stuck at a bridge or mountain not knowing why I cannot move. Also, right clicking to move the overhead map works opposite to what I'd expect; right click, drag right, map moves left. This emulates 'real' movement, but can be counter intuitive for people used to doing this the other way. Would it be possible to add a feature to optionally switch this input style?

I love that the nameplates update after you speak to people with their names! Very Ultima-esque!

Houses are looking good, and people are starting to genuinely populate them. One point of note, rendering a house with items in the distance causes some weird effects. You start to see tables, tapestries, etc, floating in the distance before you can see the house itself.

Love the switches in Owl's head on the portcullises. It really makes the environment feel a bit more alive, and the way the switches are coloured/built/shaped reminds me of Ultima 7 and how they could be hidden along the walls, etc.

Walking speed seems improved! The current speed feels great.

I like the confirmation about going into PVP zones.

Love the auto-equipping of items to harvest from animals! This feels very convenient, great design idea!

Thanks for all your hard work.
CS

 

Regarding conversation mode and keywords in a separate box....check out this suggestion.

 

Until the UI has more functionality, I agree so much that auto-equipping the tools for skinning, mining, etc is a nice tough. I don't expect that to go away. I just expect more improvement to the UI like double clicking a weapon to equip it. I can only imagine the code that has to be done to make that work. The game is fun, and I have to make myself stop playing since I know it's going to go away anyway.

 

It looks like we came to a similar conclusion, independently. Good to know some others feel similarly.