Many things need to be changed. None of us would deny that. There are things that are still new to me. My history with MMORPG though has taught me a number of things, as well as my long history in developing interfaces.
Disclaimer: I know that some of these have probably been addressed but the manual and other documents do not readily describe them. I also know there are only so many ppl on the development team, but after reading the FAQ I concluded AO was using that as an excuse instead of as a catalyst to fixes.
I would recommend that you make all mappings for keyboard controls changeable. For instance, let us reconfigure the auto-run, etc keys. It is sort of silly to restrict it and let us bind other commands.
The tab key doesn't seem to be the best key for targetting. Might want to change that to something more realistic.
Remove the requirement to use the mouse for any activity. The mouse control should be optional.
The looking up and down should be controllable by the keyboard not solely by the mouse.
The chat box should be moveable and sizeable. It should allow me also to change the chat colors and tex size.
The title bars of the inactive collapsed windows is red on black. Some color blind people have great difficulty reading that. You need to make it white on black. The active one should be yellow on black.
On a side note: the cloud patterns don't change. Seems sort of silly to make a persistent world where the clouds are static and only the sound effects and lightning is added (for storms).
When turning around and watching the screen the whole thing gives a tunnel vision sort of effect. This is wrong, flat out. If you turn RL there's no tunnel vision effect so there shouldn't be one in the game. I have a gforce 4 ti 128mb 8x asus video card. I'm not talking about defects in coding, just conceptually the way it is setup is wrong.
That whole patch process, even on a cable modem connection, is just plain wrong. I sat for a very long time waiting for the patches to continue. A patch should patch it all at once, not 20 times. Take it for what it is worth. Don't force me to patch more then once. Do it all at once and get it over with. A new player would want to see the game right away, not 1 hour after beginning the patch process. BTW, don't attribute it to my computer or my connection. I'm talking about the sheer number of prompts for patching.
When I ask for the time it would be nice if the time was presented in my time-zone.
When /telling ppl it would be nice to have /t work. The shortcut of "t" would be nice too
When replying to people it would be nice to type "r" and have it reply.
A much easier method of switching chat channels or addressing chat channels would be nice. For instance, the newbe neutral channel requires alot of typing if you don't select it as the main chat. But there will be times when I need to talk in multiple channels and to multiple people and would prefer to not have to type out long channel names or be forced to use the mouse to select a new default channel.
Actions need to be much more responsive. For instance, when I stand up I should be able to run right away instead of having the game sit there till I hit the run key again (if I am quick on my actions). It gets annoying. When you are attacked your normal reaction is to stand and run. That means fast reflexes, which I have. It is a big annoyance when I am trying to run and haven't started even though I have hit the run key.
The target health bar should be moveable. I'd like to move it right above my chat window so I can see the mob health while I am chatting.
My own health bar and the health of my groupmembers should be moveable also, so I can see everyone's health relative to the mob and any chatting I'm doing such as "move the mob here or stop attacking or let the pet tank it or run for your lives". It is very important that I be able to react to the situation. In RL it is done with voice but in a game such as this it is a chat and I must read and react and that reaction has to be based off the circumstances surrounding me. Therefore I need those pieces of information in proximity to one another on the screen.
I should be able to adjust the resolution of the game while in the game. I couldn't find anything that allowed me to adjust the screen resolution.
Are there really only 3 worlds (servers)? I would have thought that by now there would be a large number of servers that players play on. How can a game get game of the year and have such a tiny player population?
On another side note: I'd really like to know what the high end is like in AO. What is the actual goal? Is it PvP? Seige warfare? Is it about conquering planets and taking over the galaxy? Is it about killing uber mobs for uber items? After quite a bit of reading on the rather confusing web site I was not able to actually ascertain the purpose behind actually playing. I know that mmorpgs typically don't have a final phase of the game as I have played other mmorpgs for the past 4 years. I'm just looking for what is the raison d'etre.
