My impression of the first hour of play

My impression of the first hour of play

I really enjoyed it, the feeling is great and the graphics are excellent without losing the old school touch! Here is  some feedback of the things I found strange, not to be negative, just to let you guys know:

- I really like the character creation, like the way how you can fine tune a character and the dept of it, would love to see more faces and haircuts to choose from, some more portraits that match the hairstyles and faces would be nice to. Some portraits don't match the game's feeling and feel out of place.

- Wizard spells during character creation have no info like range, damage, aoe.

- Graphics are very impressive, but the game backgrounds and nature like the trees and grass look extremely static to me.

- Missing item descriptions and what the product / item / weapon does at the traders and shops. Some items only give info after placing them in the trade bar, why not with a mouse scroll over.

- Loading screen really needs a polish, too much black, the cetic / medieval font is great, why not use some of that awesome artwork?

- Tavern sounds could be upgraded with a little more chatter and ambience noises for a more cheerful effect.

- Damage bars in the portraits go from top to bottom, i don't know why but it gives me the creeps, why not from bottom to top like the normal way.

- The aoe and range cursors could use something more fancy than a yellow line.

- Minimap would be nice to have.

- Auto save after going to a new map would be nice.

- I played all of the BG, Icewind Dale, and Planescape games, but the encounters here are very hard for me, I played on normal, and I am not a fan of easy games, but just the lions and the beatles alone gave me a hard time, that took the fun out of the exploring. I rushed into battle and did not buy any gear, or changed something in the party. Perhaps i missed something. It took the fun out of the game after six party wipes in 30 min. Fight's don't feel like fun and it's very difficult to know whats going on.

Overal this game is awesome, can't wait for another beta or the end product, but keep in mind that there are lots of quantity games out there, what gamers need is quality! So please take your time to make something special, don't rush it, and keep up the good work!