God knows I wanted to like this game... I really did... but it's just too damn bland. Rather then rant and rave, let me just make a nice little list:
1. Atmosphere: It's bland. It's boring. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't. It had some nice details like the little leaves floating down rivers, leaves and little seeds flying in the breeze, but otherwise it was terribly generic. The trees look like crap. They have bunches of leaves that aren't connected to anything. They picked the safest, and most boring set of trees possible. Why must everything be set in summer? You can only enter certain buildings and when you do, it seems to be the same thing over and over again. Boring Germanic tudor homes (sorry Germany) and bloom effect designed to blind us all. We've seen this all before.
I actually liked it a lot. Maybe because I'm not so picky? I didn't even notice "leaves that aren't connected to anything". Also, you can only enter certain buildings... and that's fine! If you could, then you'd probably be complaining that all houses look the same inside. Let's face it, this is a game, not a world simulation.
2. Characters: Some were nice enough, but most were bland. Where is the variety? Why can't we have someone interesting rather then the absent minded wizard, the lone woodsmen, the stalwart paladin, nature loving elves. BORING. NO. Don't do it anymore. When making a game, this should be the perfect opportunity to express yourself. Make something interesting! Don't be bound by what other game settings use. Who the fuck cares what Tolkein's elves are like!
I liked all the characters, well except the absent minded wizard that's overdone I agree. Elves are like that because that's how they are in the game setting. Nothing to do with this particular game.
3. Lore: TDE may be good and deep and all, but this game sure ain't. I barely got any worthwhile info about this game's setting. A few loading screens explained some crap, but that's about it. What's supposedly so great about this world?
I do agree at least in the beginning. When the game starts you're just someone walking down a road to a town. A bit more 'background' would have been welcome. But remember this was almost like an 'experiment' game, they didn't know if the public would like it as the whole 'pause-party based RPG' was supposed to be out of style. Now that they realize people do still want to play these games, hopefully they'll flesh it out more for the next installment.
4. Combat: It sucks. Having rats run through your tanks to get to your mages and all is lame. No excuse.
And who's telling those rats they can't do it? Why can't they, being much smaller, much faster, and more nimble, just run around the 'tanks'? Who's supposed to explain to them that those big pieces of flesh inside metal cases are "tanks" and you're not supposed to run past them? I don't even remember having that problem, maybe because I didn't have any fixed ideas of how things should work.
5. Stats: Actually, I liked this. They did good. I thought even the social skills got used a fair amount... though they could have expanded a little bit more and made combat NOT so necessary.
I agree, although something I certainly didn't like is that, in the last 20% or so of the game, all social skills were relegated to nothing, all combat.