Recent reviews by Big Chungus

It's the grindiest grind that ever grinded. Want iron tools? Good luck.

Here's the current state of IL:

Megas determine servers before they join them, intentionally dodging other megas to do this. They don't care about playing the game, only about the dawn points at the end of a server. They'll intentionally tank the health of the game and the new/early player experience so they can get two free ships (if their union in the mega is allowed the rewards that phase) at the end of their 2-3 months of playing. They may bluster and banter about being hardcore and elite PvPers, but they're just kittens in the grand scheme of things. Non megas have three choices:
Wait for a server to open up that doesn't have a mega attached to it (rare)
Get smashed all server long and graveyard farmed by a mega, not being allowed to actually play (common)
Quit the game (More common)

There are a few people who have had enough of this and fight back, but they ultimately fall into option 2. And not just option 2, they're actively harassed, name called, bullied while being non-stop farmed. I've personally been graveyard farmed for five days straight, every time my peace shield would drop I'd get hit again to the point where making ships was a waste of time, and instead I poured my resources into just doing nothing.

The kicker? This developer promotes this behavior. They intentionally keep the new server list few and far between so that megas are constantly filling new servers while throwing their wallets at the developers, and new players find better games to play. It's a vicious cycle of the same mega alliances doing the same things, trading the same rewards every server.

The biggest offenders? PA, NIVANS, MHA. But these are three out of 6? 7? mega alliances in the game.

Oh, but they might get bored! So, to combat that boredom, while they decimate any resistance to their mega, they host "civil wars" so they can pretend like they're playing the game and boast about how good they are at PvP.

It's a giant joke. Stay far away from this nonsense game.
For reference, I'm on phase with my main account, so I'm not a new player. Nor will I be a returning player after this phase ends until NetEase either releases more servers, or opens PvE only mode.

For reference, a mega alliance is roughly 1500-2000 players. An alliance of 10+ unions, many of which are in phase 10+ and who have spent huge money to avoid actually playing the game.

Needs SIGNIFICANT polish. Everything feels like a chore, from trying to adjust the resolution to trying to get items from your backpack. Hitboxes are an absolute mess and swinging a sword feels very unnatural. Needs a year of actual polish and work.

This game has a long ways to go before it's Into The Radius good.

Pros: pretty good gunplay and weapons handling. Enemies are not bullet sponges and you need to properly breech and clear.

Cons:
No customization for the keybinds.
Weapon handling feels clunky
How the hell do you holster your rifle, crouch, etc? Am I supposed to lay on the floor to pick my gun up?

What it really needs:
Half-Life Alyx or ITR style picking up. Allow the item to be highlighted on the ground and then pull trigger and pull hand back to pick up

Holster your weapon by putting it over your shoulder. Alternatively, slings for rifles.

Customize keys. I don't want to pick things out of vest using the trigger button and if I want to give commands I will via voice, not by pressing down.

I give it a few months and it could be very well polished, but until then it's back to the radius for me.

2300 hours logged on this game.

Recently, the devs decided to entirely change the way leveling works, and remove one of the key pieces of end game: high level crafting for a piece of gear that is marginally better than the rest. This gear cost millions of in game currency to craft a set, and was a huge grind. A huge grind that was important for building off-meta builds, and keeping the hamster wheel of content spinning. Well, it's gone. Crafting is now trivial for all gear, leveling is a HUGE chore, especially for high levels trying to spin up a new theory-crafted build, and instead of taking feedback of all of the quitting players, the head dev decided to go off on players in public chat in the game about it. Taunting them, even.

All my high level friends have quit. End game dungeons are far too hard for average players to form up and do, and without the help of elite players who actually push to succeed, these parties and dungeons will fail.

Game population is at 90 players on prime time saturday night. Significantly down from pre-patch. And instead of taking feedback, the devs just say "well, muh vision." "Muh vision" doesn't include nerfing terrible builds to the ground while making meta builds even more necessary (btw, the meta builds didn't take much hit from this nerf).

One of the first weapons you start with in this game is a sword. It's also the worst weapon skill in the game. And now it's even more worse.

Amazing.

Edit:
I've now been baned for criticizing this game. They've banned someone with 3k hours who consistently helped players, held events, and went out of his way to give people a better experience in the game, and instead of having a discussion, they banned me.

The only thing these clowns are missing in this game is the actual circus.

EDIT:

New servers, same friggin' mods. They're terrible. Politics will go around global chat like it's the barrens and the moment it switches to something people can actually talk about, like sports, the weather, or even shopping, they flip out in chat about it not being game focused enough. They're ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with badges. Give a child some power and they'll abuse it endlessly. Absolute disaster of a community still years later. They even made new mods, and of course, they're the people nobody would play with years ago because they were crybaby tools.

EDIT 3:
One of the main problem moderators has been moved back into development. This is a step in the right direction but time will tell. I'm staying negative until we see what happens.

Honestly, it's what you'd expect from amazon. 100% social justice included.

"Press Z to climb the hill. Lets add a million super clunky controls to this game, for the sake of doing so."
No.

The game was fun fighting the que wall, losing all my preorder items due to a forced server change from the que wall, and then having combat nerfed to the point where solo quests now require groups. This game is absolutely trash. Oh, not to mention the sudden crashes and horrible lag.

This isn't a game. It's an alpha. It's not "pre-alpha." It's alpha.

I was optimistic about this one. Ultima was fun, UO was fun, but this one's just going to fall flat. Here's why:

The gameplay is currently strangely satisfying for a couple of houjrs, but ultimately it's just... Lacking. They have a lot of work to do and not a lot of money to do it with, and I'm almost certain that the game won't be anything more than a polished turd when it's done. It's an ambitious project for certain, but here's where it's going to fail:

Four game modes. Really? With 7.6 Million raised, you're going to make 4 game modes?

Major housing and the like already p2w. Want to own a castle? Shell out 12 grand and you'll get everything you ever wanted.

You have to pay to test the game. Who the hell thought that would be a good idea? Shut the damn game down, create your skills, and then open it back up when it's ready for an actual alpha/beta test.

The community is toxic. I expected douchebaggery from a large PvP crowd in Ultima but this is worse. This is carebear, PvE, solo-player, memememememe douche baggery. It's an assumptive crowd that's full of butthurt all the time. All. The. Time. In almost every thread. Did you know they have strict enforcement of pedantic things, like minor wording and signature requirements? Who does that?

The current mechanics make no sense. Buggy isn't even the word for it. Ridiculous is. I expect things to really lack in an alpha, but all signs are pointing to "stay away."

"We're crowd sourcing. But only music. Even though we were going to crowd source everything else." I know too many modders with too much time on their hands, but apparently their work is just not good enough. The game looks alright, if we're still in the 2010s.

I spent the past 24 hours training for combat, only to be able to kill the starter mobs slightly more efficiently. Should tell you everything you need to know about the current state of the game mechanics. And this is after release 23.

Hope you like playing every variety of sword and board you can think of, because that's all you really get for the first few hours until you've made enough money to buy yourself something else.

Honestly, I don't see this game ever getting released. They're a year into full development, two years past kickstarter originally began, and still in "pre-alpha." They're still lacking any sort of community organization and marketing, the game mechanics still look like sawdust on a shop floor, and the funds just aren't there. I had some intention of playing the game, but honestly it's just going to be a battle of the wallet warrior kings over their hamlets while the rest of the player base grinds bandits for days on end just so they can kill tougher bandits.

3/10, rated on an alpha scale. If this was rated towards an actual game it'd barely scratch 1/10.