Interesting game, indeed. Feels like it stands in between PoE and D4 in terms of complexity. I bought the game 3 days before launch and besides the slightly lengthy load time between zones, game was working quite well. Upon reading the 1.0 patch notes, I was delighted to see improvements in graphics, especially lighting and shadows, character/hit animations, and a speed up patch for inter-zone loading times (networking). On the day of the launch, I drove back home at speed and excitedly waiting for the 1.0 patch and servers to come Online. I freed up my schedule till Monday to play with friends starting from launch. Yet, unfortunately, after a brief couple hours of gameplay the networking issues kicked in, which were later fixed then broken again then came down utterly crashing making it near impossible play with my team. This basically sums up the launch for me.

I would love to give this game a YES, sadly, I cannot considering current server issues. The issue is more profound in game code than just overwhelmed servers. You can always deploy more machines, enable more clusters, put people in queues, and etc. Their issue is that they seem to have made some changes to their networking stack and hadn't tested the entire connected systems with heavy load. Irregardless of your server capacity, if the code hangs, eventually, nothing else matters. They could have done their testing by moving the release date to Friday or Saturday and push a small patch containing only the launch critical code, then give the people the shawl, which was gifted to reprimand the connection issues past launch, under the title "Free MTX for anyone that logs in between 21st and 22nd of February." This could have generated enough load for testing and still have some time to iron out any sticking issues. Who am I to give business advice anyways?

I would still suggest the game to ARPG fans despite the on-going multiplayer problems. Epoch Dev made a great decision on adding the FULL OFFLINE mode. You can play the game and enjoy the story, and experiment in the mean time. MTX purchases aren't accessible due to the nature of the FULL OFFLINE mode, but, hey, you can still play the game without the eye candy.

*Edit*
I'm leaving the initial review up. My entire hype and will to play this game died past launch and following couple weeks after they "fixed" the game. I barely touched it. I was doing the monoliths and don't really see any reason to continue the meaningless grind. The locking-in of the items to factions are just moronic, the trade is utterly pointless. They made it the way it is to stop paid 3rd party services for in-game items and currency, yet failed miserably. I cannot even properly trade with my friends and it's such a chore compared to the other ARPG ppl now had returned. Game isn't utterly bad. I simply cannot find any appeal to continue playing, so are my friends. Good thing this game came out (to improve the other ARPG game). However, it was a waste of cash for me, should have bought the Helldivers 2 game instead and continue with the other ARPG enjoying the improvements until the league goes down the gutters.

Interesting game, indeed. Feels like it stands in between PoE and D4 in terms of complexity. I bought the game 3 days before launch and besides the slightly lengthy load time between zones, game was working quite well. Upon reading the 1.0 patch notes, I was delighted to see improvements in graphics, especially lighting and shadows, character/hit animations, and a speed up patch for inter-zone loading times (networking). On the day of the launch, I drove back home at speed and excitedly waiting for the 1.0 patch and servers to come Online. I freed up my schedule till Monday to play with friends starting from launch. Yet, unfortunately, after a brief couple hours of gameplay the networking issues kicked in, which were later fixed then broken again then came down utterly crashing making it near impossible play with my team. This basically sums up the launch for me. I would love to give this game a YES, sadly, I cannot considering current server issues. The issue is more profound in game code than just overwhelmed servers. You can always deploy more machines, enable more clusters, put people in queues, and etc. Their issue is that they seem to have made some changes to their networking stack and hadn't tested the entire connected systems with heavy load. Irregardless of your server capacity, if the code hangs, eventually, nothing else matters. They could have done their testing by moving the release date to Friday or Saturday and push a small patch containing only the launch critical code, then give the people the shawl, which was gifted to reprimand the connection issues past launch, under the title "Free MTX for anyone that logs in between 21st and 22nd of February." This could have generated enough load for testing and still have some time to iron out any sticking issues. Who am I to give business advice anyways? I would still suggest the game to ARPG fans despite the on-going multiplayer problems. Epoch Dev made a great decision on adding the FULL OFFLINE mode. You can play the game and enjoy the story, and experiment in the mean time. MTX purchases aren't accessible due to the nature of the FULL OFFLINE mode, but, hey, you can still play the game without the eye candy. *Edit* I'm leaving the initial review up. My entire hype and will to play this game died past launch and following couple weeks after they "fixed" the game. I barely touched it. I was doing the monoliths and don't really see any reason to continue the meaningless grind. The locking-in of the items to factions are just moronic, the trade is utterly pointless. They made it the way it is to stop paid 3rd party services for in-game items and currency, yet failed miserably. I cannot even properly trade with my friends and it's such a chore compared to the other ARPG ppl now had returned. Game isn't utterly bad. I simply cannot find any appeal to continue playing, so are my friends. Good thing this game came out (to improve the other ARPG game). However, it was a waste of cash for me, should have bought the Helldivers 2 game instead and continue with the other ARPG enjoying the improvements until the league goes down the gutters.