Ok, so far, and this is my own personal, perhaps limited experience. You don't lose your precious items. You DO in many cases lose the ability to USE them. I logged into Kephi, my most advanced character combatwise (TK 0-2-4-2 - scout 4-0-0-0) to find that all of her comp armor was unequipped. Upon trying to put it back on, I got the most annoying You-Can't-Use-Me-Noob message. So much for THAT invesment. However I can still use her vk.
So, being scared half out of my wits by the hype, I creep out to test my feebleness against one of the huge packs of mobs they've littered the outskirts of all cities with now. The durni died, and I didn't. HOWEVER, the combat animations suck my butt in a big way now. All those really pretty, fancy moves I had? History. I had an out-of-game experience for a while. It's hard to get used to liking to watch people fight, then suddenly see the same, tired animation style in combat that every freaking game since UO has adopted.
So I go to take them up on the free re-spec thing they've extended and find out I can't transfer my stuff out of combat and into the only things I'll be doing in the game from now on -- crafting and entertainment. It can only go from what they define as combat profession to another SoE combat defined profession. Joy joy. No freebies for me. Typical. So I'm stuck with nearly brawl-master and the TKM/scout crappage until I can make enough money to do it the hard, expensive way. Gee, thanks for nothing.
I find out that my crap isn't selling all day because when you go to look at stuff in the vendors, it doesn't download the info half the time. Wow, my butt's getting really sore. Really, really, no-lube-bend-over-plx sore. That character's a total waste now until they fix the vendors issue. I log off her and move on to another.
Azhrarn, my jack of all trades, master of none is much less depressing. I spent the majority of the night seeing if they borked artisan up. Surprise, surprise! No artisan borkage, unless you go back to their vendor bug. Ground through 2 boxes of surveying (same watching paint dry sensation as always) and his final artisan merchant box between loads of laundry and general housecleaning. I mention this because I now have problems with motion sickness in the regualar game (as opposed to just in the space portions) if I actually look at it for more than about 15 minutes at a time. Not sure what they did to induce that. But I made some progress even if I did have to do half of it afk. Not so different from the normal artisan grind if you think about it. I guess SoE figured if they made the grind for artisan any more tedious that no one would play them anymore and the economy would completely tank. Good thing tailor and architect aren't as boring as the grind thru artisan to get to them. So as far as I can tell, they haven't ruined that.
I haven't visited Sri or Azhriaz today. There's only so much motion sickness and disappointment I can handle before I start wanting to go get a sunburn.
That's firsthand experience. Not as horrifying as advertised, but not at all what I want in a game either. They have about a week to deal with the motion sickness problem though. I do not want to pay for a game I have to macro through almost entirely.
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Master PMS Artist and curmudgeonly old lady
Noobia Moonracer, Rifleman/Ranger, Naritus galaxy