This will be a comprehensive review of my 74 hour experience as a Level 57 Circle 3 Wiz in iCBT1. First, I would like to thank imcGames for selecting me as an early Beta Tester, giving me the opportunity to influence this game we love so much, long before even being complete (or even before development 
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This review and analysis will cover all areas of this CBT including interface (UI, Art, Graphic and music), game world (Map, NPC, Monsters, Character and Companion, quests and storyline), game mechanics, social tools, item/silver economy. This review assumes all bugs will be ironed out before release and thus will not be considered. Suggestions for features or improvement will be bold.
Interface
Patcher and Server Selection (10/10)
Pleasantly greeted with a simple and clean patcher (no news feed), server list selection is clean and beautiful with a theme BGM will leave nostalgic memories for an eternity (literally). That anticipation when you hit that Enter button with that characteristic “cling” is just beautiful.
Barrack (9/10)
I don’t think many MMO have spent so much effort in character selection screen. I only briefly entered others’ barrack and did not spend too much time exploring it. I assume this will be further expanded with more role playing tools (such as furniture, player activities) as the game progresses. UI is clean and simple, however I suggest a more streamlined method of selecting companions, it involves too many clicks right now and is unintuitive. Either a simple list and check-box or a click and drag will do well here.
Character Creation (10/10)
Lovely presentation. Nothing like the “create a character in a lab” kind of feeling that most MMOs have. Customization is limited, but I understand and concur to the design decision here. Characters features are mainly left to imagination (which creates the most wonderful features that appeals to everyone). I understand that hair color will be unlocked as the game progresses. Hairstyle seems like it will be permanent, which will help retain identity. There are suggestions to masculinize the male characters that look too cute (and thus feminine); I wouldn’t mind either way, they look fantastic.
User Interface (10/10)
Minimalistic clean UI, nothing is in the way of enjoying the beautiful world. HP/SP is presented on top left corner with no additional nonsense. Top is reserved for targeted monster. The monster icon have only generic art. I suggest each monster should have a beautifully hand-drawn (as opposed to a 3D model) icon in the Target UI. Top Right is Mini-map that is appropriate in size, clock built in is just brilliant, so you don’t miss that many lunch and dinners. Left is party members with concise HP/SP. I don’t think it gets in my way since I have a widescreen, although another thread think it was obtrusive. Right is quest window with appropriate text size and clarity, it scales all the way up until it joins with the top right mini-map when you have many concurrent quests. Bottom left is chat window, separating the text input box from it is a fantastic idea, making sure you know when typing is engaged. Bottom includes the Character and Class Level with their respective EXP bars. Bottom right has tiny menu icons with numbered notification. Menu items slide out from left or right always keeping the center quite visible. Overall masterfully created UI.
Shop UI
@Chebus had a great suggestion that bulk order text box should be left blank.
Control (5/10)
I started with the keyboard control. but found it frustrating to target the center of a mob so I switched over to mouse control for most of the game. mouse control seem okay for the most part, but control is one of the things that simply depends on how you implement it. The control right now can definitely use a lot of polishing from the bug department. The inclusion of the mouse UI is a nice consideration, though it needs a proper target lock. I found out later in game that clicking and holding the mob will lock the auto attack, but while using skills you could still switch the focus accidentally. I am certain that we will get an in game hotkey mapping solution during release, so I’m not worried about this. The objective here is so I don’t feel like I’m fighting the UI every time I’m trying to do something. We are clearly not there yet.
Art - Graphic (10/10)
Need I say more. Art style is beautiful, elements blend in well with the world. Item drops blend in so well that you can miss it, but thankfully there’s a characteristic sound when they drop, so you know when to look for it. World background had not been neglected, with beautiful scenery, rivers, waterfalls and statues among others. Nothing strike me as out of place during my entire play through. FPS drops with heavy player load, so perhaps some kind of optimization is needed.
Art - Music (10/10)
The music set such wonderful mood for each location. I never muted the entire 74 hours of play though. BGM is appropriate and beautifully done. Effect sounds is not annoying and mixes well in the BGM. Look, it is so good I completed this 10 page feedback with the same BGM.
World
Maps (7/10)
I’m pleasantly surprised by the map size, It was larger than I expected, which was one of my concerns before CBT. Maps are unique with a variety of themes. Elements are consistent with the theme. Jumping over ledges are fun. Gaps (between two bridges) will require some kind of invisible terrain that will allow jumping over but not walking over, as to avoid making things look like they are standing in mid air. Foreground object fading is decent, although it fades in and out too quickly. Maybe implement a few second delay for the object to fade back in, to counter this issue.
The map foundation is beautifully done, however I felt a little disappointed that most maps do not have enough interactable objects besides a few sign boards, boss triggers and chest box. The crystal mines resting area is a great example of interactable objects that makes the world worth exploring (yes I made my character eat all the spoiled dumplings until she knocked herself out, great fun!). The map itself should tell a story through objects and intaractable elements.
I see many maps that have obvious sites for portals. An open world seems to be possible and I believe that the linear map progression is just a byproduct of a quickly assembled CBT. Dungeon maps should go further than the main quest requires, giving more options to grind and item farm. The deeper levels of Crystal Mines with lvl 100+ mobs was a missed opportunity, if it offered an alternative to Panto Archers it would have been great.
Indoor maps were very very limited. Except for the few wonderful indoor maps (like pyromancer training ground in Klaipeda), there isn’t many indoor maps. I also felt like I wanted to enter the many houses in open world villages. I think it would add a lot of depth if we could explore the buildings with interactable objects, NPCs telling stories or giving side quests.
The instance system that blends in with the world map is a great system to take advantage of the best of both worlds. I really liked how smoothly it is integrated.
Map design is done well overall. The only real area that needs improvement is to make the world more interactive (like the crystal mine resting spot). Increase the amount of indoor maps and make sure that every map tells a story.
NPC (3/10)
Look at those beautifully drawn artwork. You can just look at it forever. That aside, the purpose of NPCs is to provide game mechanics (buy, sell, items, class advancement), but more importantly to provide stories in the form of quests and dialogs. I felt like this department was poorly done. You had a great background setting where Goddess have disappeared. However this setting has not been expanded well in NPCs. I could not discover much about how this has impacted local Klaipeda population. Most NPCs were pure utility (job advancement masters). Also NPC masters location did not feel unique and was only lined up. As Noctureon put it:
It would be much better if NPCs were placed in theme relevant spots around the world where it would require player to actually explore to do job advancement. I do see a few masters spread across the world but still they are not placed in specific maps (like Archer Master in an archery range, or robin hood style forest camp; Mage Master in a mage tower, etc). I really hope that class advancement experience will be placed at a very high priority, because those are the moments people cherish.
In summary, NPCs needs work from the story telling department, to make the world more alive. Class advancement NPC should also be reworked to provide a more meaningful experience to players.
Monsters (3/10)
I have nothing to complain about the monster design, but I also felt that they weren’t truly iconic (like Porings). Don’t get me wrong, these models are well done overall, it just seems to lack a bit of that “OMG THIS IS SOOOO…. “ kinda excitement. It’s fairly late in the development cycle (I think), so I’m not sure how much this is worth exploring considering other priorities.
Monster Spawn seems random with some fixed elements. B1 Chapel was great fun with its spawn mechanic. Running around mobbing was a lot more fun than running in circles with Panto Archers. I would suggest to emphasize more on the random element and reduce the fixed spawns elements.
AI needs serious upgrading. Monsters now have such poor damage application due to poor mobility and gap closers it diminishes the need to tanky classes greatly. Defensive stats are almost entirely useless because they can barely ever hit you. The AI right now lets you kite everything (including bosses) with impunity and this is not a good design. Agro range is also small making mobbing a lot harder.
Monsters also do not have any “stopping power”. It feels like you can just bunny hop your way across high level maps. This reduces the meaningfulness of making a successful travel. They should be given tools to slow down, lock down and mob up unprepared players to encourage proper partying and clearing. It’s a lot more fun to travel in a group, carve out a path, than to simply bunny hopping away. Granted we mostly tested low level stuff but lvl 40 mobs should still give headache to lvl 35s and below that are not well geared.
Player Character and Companions (9/10)
Character and Companion is closely related to the overall game mechanics. This section will only briefly discuss about the design. As previously mentioned I think characters are wonderfully designed with plenty of room for imagination. There are slots for costumes but I wasn’t able to test them out besides headgears (which looks fantastic, my panto horn was just adorable). It was also pleasant to see that right hand stuff stay right when facing forward or backwards. Walking and jumping seem quite natural so its pretty well implemented. There were suggestions to include small gestures like swaying or hair brushing when idle, but I can live with only blinking eyes.
Companions were much better than I imagined. They deal a bit of supplementary damage but the real deal was how well they tanked. I do not know if they eventually evolve as they progress (like pokemon!!) but what they do seems fine right now. The ability for them to be switched over to your other barrack members is a nice feature for self peel. The AI is simple but seems quite functional. The feeding animation is absolutely FUN to watch!
Quest and Storyline (1/10)
The main storyline is fine with a decent suspense element, but stories are never about the beginning and ending, it’s what’s in between. Main quest is one of those things you can do with or without (RO did just fine without a main quest line). I would not spend too much energy on the main quest line, nobody really cares (its a clickfest after the first playthrough). However, side quests that provide background settings, exploration, moving stories are of absolute importance. I do not remember RO2’s main storyline anymore, but I sure remember a lot of RO1’s unique stories that touch on all aspects of the world including everything from friendship to betrayal, love to hate, short dungeon access to epic sign quests. Sure, it took RO1 many years to get there but it’s the sort of things that make the world alive.
A world that only focuses on a Main Storyline will leave nothing to explore when it’s done. While true sidequests will provide many memorable experience (that you can opt out of repeating with your other characters). The emphasis here is true side quests, the ones we experience in CBT weren’t real sidequests at all, they were all still part of the main storyline.
A good side quest system can also give many reasons to revisit lower maps. This will encourage a lot of high and low level player interactions, that will allow high level players to offer assistance and guidance to new players.
The quests I experienced in CBT was wholly inadequate. It was unable to tell a story that described its impact on the world. It did not encourage much exploration, and overall had very little interaction with the world. Granted there are translation issues but I think even with that put into consideration, the story was still poorly presented. I think imcGAMES might not have the luxury of using open source GITHUB to translate quests (Github translation being fine for item descriptions etc), and will require a dedicated team of story writers to truly make this game shine.
Game Mechanics
Combat System (10/10)
Status Points seems well balanced with each class having at least 2 Status that they would likely want to customize from. So far it is responsible for 30% of the damage output. Base level is responsible for the other 20% and items, with refine and gems accounts for about 50% of the damage output.
Skills have linear scaling, while percentage scaling is implemented in their attributes system. The math looks good to me so far. How Devs organized the linear and percentage scaling clearly makes me have great faith on the mechanics. These guys know what they are doing with their combat mechanics. In some ways I think it may be superior to the combat mechanics like Diablo 3 (which is much less organized with unnecessarily large damage numbers).
I did not test for defensive stats as wizards do not utilize those to great effect. Effective hitpoints and armor / magic penetration is also hard to evaluate before knowing the exact formulas involved. Regardless the theme here seems to be Status points, Skill points, gems for linear scaling and attributes and equipment will do the percentage scaling.
A quick word about Gems, I think it’s a great system to customize weapons. Instead of giving out a straight bonus it forces you to specialize. Want more damage? Well say bye bye to your SP, want more SP regen? Say bye to your HP. Well implemented specialization versus versatility here.
I have great faith in their ability to balance these classes seeing how they organized linear and percentage scaling. Its only a matter of some number tweaking to get the right damage output / toughness eventually.
Skills and class system is wonderful. In most MMO titles you have big classes with giant skill tree, with limited point to work your way through the skill tree. ToS has this great idea of breaking the large skill tree into smaller section and calling each section a “class”. This makes it a lot more fault tolerant and ensures meaningful choice, e.g. if you go pyro you cannot get ice spells ever. Skill concepts are good, with nothing standing out as broken (read: difficult to use, overly niche; not OP factor) so far. I have read sorcerer skills are underwhelming but I think many classes are still in the works.
Armor and Magic Defense (10/10)
A quick note about defense is that they have almost equal slot layout that specializes with armor or magic defense equipment. This was an aspect that RO1 had always struggled with.
SP Regen
I know a lot of Wizard players complain about this. I think it’s just a problem with low level and having too little Max SP. Know that Max SP scale indefinitely with level while skill SP cost scale up to Skill level maximum. When I got to Chapel and wore a set of cloth armor, my Max SP increased so much that I barely had SP issues anymore. Also I think the design goal here is to have very large SP pool and low in combat SP regen, but we just could not get to high enough level to see this happen. I think SP regen mechanics are fundamentally sound.
Loot system (10/10)
Loot is another great challenge of MMOs, you had to give rewards at reasonable amount of time without causing a market hyperinflation of items. RO achieved this through very very low drop rates, and an exponential refine system that breaks equipments. This of course has many undesirable characteristics, such as being overly grindy and difficulty in adding new items. ToS addressed this issue with the “Potential” system. which is a fantastic way to get powerful items out of the market, but still accessible to players. This allows higher drop rate for items and still ensure there won’t be too many items out in the market and ensuring that there will always be demand for items with full potential. It’s simply brilliant.
The only downside to the loot system I am concerned with is the lack of purpose to return to low level areas, but this could be addressed in the crafting section with recipes needing low level monster loot, which unfortunately I wasn’t able to test comprehensively.
Crafting
I had limited opportunity to test out crafting. I regret not testing this aspect of the game more sufficiently. It seems to me that most of the magical items are through crafting, and the ingredients ranges from common to very rare items. The most powerful items seems to be crafted (yay!). Customization(name and description) for crafted item is a really nice feature, and add a personal touch to the item you worked so hard for. Recipes limit the rate of crafted items coming into existence, and it could potentially be sourced into the cash shop for healthy profit making (with game balance considered of course!).
Anvil Refining
I refined everything to the safety limit only. They give linear scaling, and is a big source of silver sink. I do not know what high refine does, but I assume it is an exponential silver sink / item sink.
EXP and Progression (1/10)
The great EXP debate. I think most have missed the point here. It really isn’t the about how fast you level. It’s the content available for progression. CBT1 had 1 way of progression only, everyone had to get through Blue Panto Archers, and that is poor design. Increasing rates do not fix the problem, nor having more quests and amount of EXP cards. Its the choice for progression you have at each level. I firmly believe that there needs to be a variety of methods and location for progression. People who hate grinding and love questing can op out of grinds. Where people who don’t mind grinding should be able to do that while potentially enjoying valuable loot or faster exp rates. Keep in mind that slow and difficult progression often helps stimulate people to ask for help and form groups. Where progression that is too easy will only encourage solo play.
Long story short, it is the content available for each progression level. Of course specialize it so that each option will specialize either the fastest exp, the most silver, the best loot, no grind, better for solo or group play, and better for certain classes. All the while making sure progression is not so easy that it allows for pure solo play (as it is in this CBT). Progression is the biggest worry for me and a lot of people I am sure, because it often is the element that makes or breaks a game.
Social Tools (10/10)
So far iCBT demonstrates a complete set of social tool. This includes automatic party search, chat rooms (unfortunately broken in CBT), cute unlockable stickers, character emote (real sprite poses), fireplace, friendly competition in adventure rank, party boss events and barrack feature eventually. With these many tools you can tell the developers put 12/10 emphasis on social aspect of the game. I have not a bit to worry on this respect, and can only foresee many great friends made through this social platform.
Silver and Economy
Inflation Control (10/10)
I see that developers had foresight to implement highly effective silver sinks and item sinks to ensure a healthy in game economy that will have little silver or item inflation. Channeling excess silver to high level scaling attributes, equipment upgrades and companion upgrades will almost ensure that most excess silver will be utilized and removed from the in game economy. Potential system that I have mentioned earlier will ensure a constant demand for newly farmed items.
Repair
Some people requested that repair cost should scale inversely with durability remaining. I am ambivalent about this. On one hand it makes intuitive sense that less damaged item should cost less. However it also means you don’t need to make a meaningful choice of leaving an item at 20/40 and taking the risk it will break in a boss fight.
Barrack Item Trading
I think a way to trade your items and silver to other characters will be desirable. Currently I think it is possible to work around and trade it through the market losing 1 potential in the process. I think a more streamlined process in the barracks will be desirable as long as it honors the Potential system. I do not agree with item sharing, however, as this will corrode the demand for items.
In conclusion, I see tremendous and I mean truly huge potential of this game being the best MMO out there for a long time. It stands on the solid foundation of art, game mechanics, social function, and foresight to a healthy Economy. There are however many aspect of the game that if not addressed properly will destroy it. The most pressing concern would be the issue of in game progression, offering sufficient content and options for each progression level. The storytelling aspect (both quests and map elements) is also critical, as it determines how alive the world is and how much the players will be connected to the game world. A world too linear will make the game lose its appeal once players reach the end. If these concerns outlined here are addressed with the utmost diligence, I truly see another legendary MMO in the making. 
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