I'm seeing an uneven balance of complaint and constructive criticism here. I've been following this game since its first few months online, and it has indeed come a long way, but there are a few core game features in the current release that are proving an immense difficulty for a lot of people, and it is unecessarily challenging just to navigate the text. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm going to provide a list of commonly shared gripes about the game's design, and offer a few suggestions I think would help.
Font. The fonts in the character selection process are of a difficult family to read. I skipped over a generous portion of the reading in the character selection process because I was unable to decipher the letters that made the words. The size of the font in-game also poses a headachy challenge. the solution for these seems relatively simple.
Change the font family in the character selection process to something more straightforward, and easy on the eyes. I might also help to darken the background, or change it to something with a bit more neutral appearance. I love the depth of the character creation, and it looks very elegant, but for the amount of reading included in the process it isn't very practical with that font. the in-game font family is alright, if a bit narrow, and the size needs to be bumped up a few points there with perhaps a resizeable OR fixed, but larger chat window to minimize the disorientation that all that scrolling forces upon you.
Dialogue. Firstly, I congratulate this game on the originality of this dialogue system. It is intuitive and fun, and very enthralling, but a barrier persists in this system.. and that is soley the amount of reading that has to be done. Tying in with my previous item, the font, dialogue is unecessarily difficult and long to read. That amount of text is simply counterproductive. This has been said before, but to elaborate my point it must be said again. I've had a few good ideas to combat this, which I think players will like.
Voice overs. The issue that this is a roleplaying game need not apply here at all. A roleplaying environment can be preserved just as strongly without having to painstakingly scan again and again a constantly and rampantly scrolling tiny textbox. If the characters' speech had voice overs applied, they would be easier to understand, and it would pick up the game's speed greatly. I am making a comparison here to Blizzard's Diablo series, where the characters would speak when asked, and would recite a dialogue accompanied by appropriately scrolling textual subtitles. I have a strong feeling about the inclusion of such a system to replace the endless squinting and reading.
The player-to-NPC speech function is quite interactive and fun, reminiscent of the ancient MUD. Even with voice-overs, this function could easily remain alive. And should the player need to hear again what the NPC has told them in order to properly articulate a response, the option to re-read the text without the speech should be present.
Know that I have played many roleplaying games, singleplayer and multiplayer and massively multiplayer. I am a well-read and entusiastic reader, and I appreciate te value of written text and literature, but when you are playing a game for the game=playing experience and all you are getting is standing still and reading for many minutes at a time, the fun disappears and it becomes an arduous task. The player will begin to think, "when do I finally get to play this game?" and the game answers, "right after you finish reading how you are going to play it, and why you are going to play it."
I hope this hasn't been too much reading for you.
As I get farther and farther into the game, which despite these gripes I will continue playing for the sake of doing something constructive and positive, I will continue adding to this post my concerns with gameplay design, and I will try and offer helpful suggestions on how to fix or address them. I would be more than happy to provide my services in fixing themm if ever at all possible.
