OK! With over 30 40 50+ hours of playing, here is a summary of what I think:
This *IS* Basically Ultima Online, the 3D version. There is TONS of crafting. Player Vendors and Player owned Towns. FISHING! Resources to harvest and craft. Skills/Crafting go up, the more you use them. Basically, all the same basic stuff found in Ultima Online.
It's still at EARLY ACCESS and on build 50. Performance is still very bad (it stutters and crawls), but most all the *basic* game-play is working and quite a bit of content. And even still playable (for the most part). Entering a Town is ugh, a slog fest of slowdowns. The "Adventure Areas" are pretty much ok and playable. And loading screens is just sooooo fucking long.
Basically there is a World Map you travel around. You can then enter Towns (even Player made ones) or Adventure Areas. Then a long ass loading screen, then you are plopped into where ever you wanted to go to. Town for selling loot/train/bank/craft the Adventure Areas are where you gain crafting resources and finish quests (and build up your abilities).
Towns: Every Town has a Bank where you store your crap. You are given a default 30 slots. To get more slots, you need to buy more with gold. The banks however are NOT connected (you can see what's in your bank at any Bank location), but you can only withdraw from a Bank from the exact one you placed items into. That's a tad fucking annoying, but manageable. There's always all the crafting station for all skills, and a combat and crafting trainer. As well as a merchant for all the other crafting materials you will need to craft items. Also a Player Vendor. Basically, sell shit, craft and throw crap into the Bank. You can also get quests from some towns too.
The game does feature a full Day/Night schedule (complete with NPC schedules). Most of the Plot/Quests character do not ever go to sleep and will ALWAYS be standing there, but many of the Merchants (to sell loot or get crafting materials) do go to bed and are on a schedule. Interestingly, this Day/Night schedule actually WORKS in a MMO, because of the basic activities: During the Day Time, you go to Adventure Areas and do quests/gain craft resources/get loot/keep leveling your skills, then when it starts to get dark, run to town and sell shit, craft, throw shit in the Bank and repeat. Of note, the Merchants go to bed during the Day, and come out early morning.
Adventure Areas: They all have a Tier rating (Like I, II, III etc...) and are color coded: Green: Not challenging, and you won't get any loot. Yellow: Challenging, you will get loot and resources just fine. Red: YOU WILL DIE LOLLOLOL You CAN enter ANY Adventure Area, just know the Red ones you are going to die, unless you are possibly good at spotting locations just to avoid monsters. Also Monsters will fight other monsters. This can create very interesting situations. For example, I'm fighting away at this EVIL ELF FIGHTER, and suddenly, this Doe comes running by, trying to avoid an attack from a huge fucking BEAR. The Bear kills the Doe and then looks around and spots me. R00fles! Anyways, it can be amusing to watch.
The combat is OK. You can be a Mage, Fighter or Ranger. But you are class-less and are free to take ANY abilities you want. Like I decided to focus on Maces/Shield/Earth Magic (Strength), Sun and Healing. So you play however you want. Combat consist of you clicking on a bar of abilities when fighting monsters. Heath and Focus (Mana) regenerate over time FAST out of Combat, but VERY SLOW in combat. Spells and Abilities consume Focus so you have to be mindful of that. This is where eating food comes in: It gives you a small bonus to health and focus regeneration. You of course can place what ever abilities in the bar (10 slots) so the attacks are always available (but on a timer) OR Just place a few skills you want for sure and lock them in place and then leave the rest blank. This is how the "Deck" combat works. As you fight, it will then select skills from a pool of your Deck you currently have equipped. So basically each battle will be randomly picking skills for you to attack with. This I actually like. It's a bit more involved but that's about it.
So for the most part (obviously) I'm enjoying it so far. I have NO idea what the higher End Game shit is, and don't care. I was just curious about the games basic functions. Other than the terrible performance and dreaded loading screens, I give it a thumbs up.
Anyways, back to the game, I'm about to make GARLIC CHEESE BREAD MOTHERFUCKERS! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!