Writing my first impressions before playing again tonight so this is just with around 1h of play.
First thing is this is a beta ! Wow great news ;-) I mean that I was probably expecting a more polished product by seeing the Gamescom vids. Suppose this is the demonstration effect which is the same for all software being video games or SFA ;-)
But yes this is a beta and playing it will be to help the product being better and not just take some fun of it. This is nice. I choose the beta add-on to be able to help...
Second thing is I am a little disappointed. The game is great, really great. The atmosphere, the dialogues, the character creation, the music, I have no problems with the combat even if it is confused as already noted by lots of people. But again lots of things to adjust, polish, add makes it a little sad when expecting so much...
But I know that I will take lots of time to try giving the best reports of what I found because I feel this can be the Great Game I was hoping for so long.
Just from memory the things that I have seen that needs some changes, Inventory management, crafting panel apparition is strange, some fonts issues (bi and small letter in the same word), missing or placeholder assets for objects, boar bug for the ranger in Medreth party, dupping items, the big T underneath the portraits, the ineffective auto pause, some tooltips that I would like to see, for example in character creation, for the top summary of your character you have tooltips for talents, but then not for the attributes... I find that the number of portraits was so very small... The loading screen message which seem to take much too long...
What I like contrary to some postings is the ability to see the inactive options in the dialogue so I can learn and then at some point play in hard expert mode.
To that effect playing the beta in an almost separate zone is a great idea as it does not spoil the dialogue for the main quest.
One thing I wondered is why I get no experience for finishing the medreth quest. Some spoilers ahead bu sorry I do not know how to make this in a spoiler box...
I decided to let the thief they look for go away and try to mislead medreth about the direction she took. However I had not enough resolve so I had to fight them (and only 3 boars as I did not visit too much places before ;-) ). I finish them all relatively easily with the auto pause options even if the melee was quite confused ;-)
But then no experience for finishing the quest. I was expecting some... maybe I am wrong not everything should give XP (or should it ?)
Well after this wall of text, let's get to play again and try another character.
Obsidian guys and gals, thanks a lot for the great-game-to-be. Once it is finished (and I do agree that I am expecting a delay after winter as some people have voiced already), it will be wonderful (especially if you manage to offer some modding tools for the community).
See you in game soon ;-)