I did that bit last night, same opinion too,
I've thrown a good five or six hours into the game tonight, 33% explored and 28 hours in, which brings me to a question, this world explored statistic, I'm guessing it means locations found and not general progress, anyone know for sure? Either way this bodes well for a mammoth game by my standards, easily over 100 hours I'd guess.
Also, keeping in mind I've not visited the elves, dwarves or mages, how do I keep stocked up on health potions? The shops seem to take ages to restock and there's only so many elfroots around.