Ran through the NPE today, here's what I thought of it:
-General layout and mission flow is a vast improvement to previous noob island
-Having a tutorial for implant assembly is great
-Shop terminals are hard to see in the dark, especially the Bazzit style ones, it'd help if they had bright luminescent screens and/or neon blue accents to pop them out from the environment at night
-Quest text feels really sparse on many NPCs - I assume this is because it's a work in progress, but just in case, a lot of it lacks the depth of old AO writing
-Reets seem really aggressive, disproportionately to other mobs in zone
-Quest to plant the bug device was a bit too unclear and frustrating, should be more clearly indicated that you need to search for an object you need to interact with
-I really like the explorable buildings in the area! I really want to see more spots like those out in the world, too
-The outfit variety on NPCs feels like a nice touch
-The arrowed animated neon line when entering ICC looks pretty off, it'd fit better with the environment if it was in neon blue and white tones
-Omni-Tek recruitment posters in Arete look kind of amateurishly done, the fonts, colour choices and bevel effects look very outdated in a bad way, I'd strongly advise going over them and cleaning them up
-The icon on the weapons shop in Arete (idk if it appears anywhere else) looks low quality, the beveled gun-wielding figure in the logo is really hard to read and suffers from the same outdated look
-Font choices are too much all over the place in the signs and terminals and often feel too bland, it'd make sense to unify them more and use a more immersive, slick font, it's missing that Sci-Fi feel now
-I really like getting composite nanos in the noob zone, good call
-Most of the environment feels too drab at nighttime, definitely missing some lighting effects and neon signs to liven it up
-I might've missed something but I feel a bit lost coming out into ICC, shouldn't there be a greeter NPC of some kind to nudge you in the right direction on your adventure to Rubi-Ka? Yeah, there's the Subway NPC, but a new player would probably be feeling a bit lost and wanting to get an idea of the world at this point. Maybe put some optional faction content here? Introduction to the politics of RK? Conflict zones? This would help draw the player more into the story.
-Movement speed boost for noobs is awesome. Thank you so much!
-Newcomer's Armor is a great addition, I'm digging it a lot and it definitely makes early gearing easier as intended.
-Maybe consider lowering implant prices below QL50? They're still putting a big dent in my wallet.