Thank you for the feedback and thoughts. As with many things, I both agree and disagree, but then I see things from a different perspective. You are correct that combat is slower than many other MMOs. That is not a failing necessarily, it is how the game was designed from the start. Given that we're 13 years into the game, now is probably not the time to begin speeding it up.
Think of it more as a tactical game rather than a button mashing game. Also, you aren't going to be sitting there doing auto-attacks at any level higher than 5 or 10.
You are partially correct about combat speed and dull combat. At the lower levels it takes longer than it does in other MMOs and this makes it feel slow and dull. I recently went back to WoW and played three new characters (Worgen, Panda, and Dwarf) to level 20. The first 5 or 10 levels go very quickly and you do tend to kill monsters in 2 to 5 hits at most. Should Istaria have it like that? Hard to say, but I don't think its a simply yes or no answer. It might have side-effects, trickle-up in our case, who knows.
You are wrong that the "great archer kite nerf" lost the game that many players. Many other factors caused the loss of lots of players early on most notably some severe bugs and crippling lag. In reality, if we really sit down and look at it, regardless of what position Istaria would have been in come November of 2004 we would have lost tens of thousands of players because of the release of WoW.
This is one of the points where I'm afraid you are incorrect. There are gear vendors both in New Trismus and Kion from which you can buy both spells and armor/weapons. It might not be techniqued gear, but it is gear and it is usable. The coin rewards from quests have been set so that new players quickly gain sufficient coin to spend at these locations. Again, every quest does not give you gear like WoW or many other MMOs, but Istaria was not designed that way. Its a game driven by player crafting, not the reverse as the majority of other MMOs are.
Thank you all for taking the time to provide feedback on the game. I'm glad even 13 years later we have players (or non-players) who are still interested and passionate about the game and its future. Keep posting and playing!
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