I was going to reply to the Post Mortem thread, but I got a little (ok, a LOT) wordy, so I decided to start a new discussion. This may be tl;dr for some of you, so just skip to my suggestions at the end. ;)
This was my first chance to play Glitch, and although it wasn't quite what I expected, I am really enjoying the game. In fact, Glitch is BETTER than I expected, and I only wish I would have bugged my Facebook friends with Glitch icons for an invite sooner!
The challenge of choosing which skill to master next makes this MMO stand out from the now-defunct Faunasphere and Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, two games I used to play (I played Y!PP for 5 years). The skills feature reminds me a lot of the technology advances from Civilization, which I love. And the social interaction of the global chat makes the game fun and makes it easy to get a quick answer to a simple question. I think more people should mention the wiki in chat, however, to let newbies know there is such a thing, but that's not a big deal since most folks are quick to point out interesting tidbits on the wiki depending on the conversation.
My favorite game feature has to be the maps and the GPS system. When I first tried the "set as destination" feature, I was amazed at how quickly and easily the game led me from place to place. That was awesome, and so is the "create link for chat" feature. Incredibly helpful ideas! My Glitch spawned in Groddle Forest, so I picked a map destination waaaay up north, trying to see if the GPS would lead me there, and lo-and-behold, I got to the savannah area just fine. Totally amazing feature and different from the map/world features of the MMOs I've played before. In Faunasphere, there was an in-game map of your area, but you had to have a map handy (I drew one to use for reference) to easily travel from world to world, and in Y!PP there is an overall world map, but if you don't have charts or if you don't have league points memorized, you can't sail your ship to those islands (You can use a "whisking potion" to move your pirate around, but that doesn't work for ships). For me, then, the game's maps and GPS feature -- and the subway! -- was a really nice surprise.
So far, I have two favorite animations: the little wiggle the pigs do after you pet them and the adorable mail delivery frog. I haven't participated in a rook attack, but from the video I saw on Youtube, those animations are also fantastic. Having the rooks crawl OUTSIDE the game window was a brilliant idea, so major kudos to the clever Glitch who thought of that. I also enjoy reading the stories from the trees, rocks, and animals. I really appreciated the sense of humor that went into writing the game's dialogue.
Finally, I would like make a few suggestions. These are from a new player, so I don't know if they've been covered in other posts or discussions before.
1. Chat filters -- I personally don't give a fuck if someone curses, but I'm sure that when the game opens for real, there will be many people who get easily offended by others' language. I suggest changing curse words to more "Glitchy" words. For example, in Y!PP, the curse words become piratey; "fuck" becomes "scuppering," e.g., and "shit" becomes "barnacle." The abbreviation "omg" is "billions of blue blistering barnacles" -- my personal favorite. Something similar would work in Glitch to allow folks to curse without using words that people will freak out over. Also, a way to emote in chat would be handy, such as saying, "Tonya laughs" or "Tonya smiles." It would even be nice to be able to do a /em like in Y!PP to say, "Tonya gives you a cookie."
2. A few changes to the awesome map -- I love the fact that I can mouse-over an icon on the map to learn which vendor and shrine is on a particular street, but those icons are teeeeeensy, which reminds me: Being able to zoom into the map to better read names and see features would be handy, as would letting the streets' splash screens stay up a few seconds longer so you have time to read if that street really does have a bubble tree; also, why don't those splash screens tell you if there is dirt or loam or a patch to tend on the street? Back to the icons suggestion: If each giant and each vendor type had its own color or icon shape, it would make finding what players need easier. As I mentioned earlier, the map is my favorite overall feature in Glitch, and any changes could only make a awesome feature even awesomer.
3. A few more quests based on level rather than skill -- I decided to focus most of my time and donations to appease Lem and learn the faster learning skills (I recently completed Better Learning IV). Doing this, however, made me quickly run out of quests since I postponed learning many of the easy level 1 skills. I know some quests can't start until certain skills are learned, but maybe more of the "pet X number of piggies" or "visit X number of streets" quests could be created to give players who strategize like I do something to do other than mine 24/7 while waiting to complete a skill.
4. Ability to queue skills to learn -- I use Google Chrome so I have the extension for this, but it's such a great feature that it would be handy if the game would let you choose a few skills to learn at once. When you click on the rock, he lets you set up to 3 areas for teleportation, so why not let him have 3 skills lined up to study? He just sits there, so make him work!
5. "Are you sure?" pop-ups -- I know many people hate additional pop-ups in games, but sometimes they can remind you that you're about to do something stupid. For example, I bought a couple of the shrine powders, and I'd get about 3 uses out of them before I stupidly dragged the powder icon onto the shrine icon and poof! It was gone! I donated something that I didn't want to because I expected the powder to automatically sprinkle itself onto the shrine, since that's its main function. A warning of, "Wouldn't you rather sprinkle the powder thandonate it?" would have saved me a few moments of cursing at the computer. And while it's interesting to die and go to Hell (haven't done this yet), a more obvious pop-up reminding people they're about to croak may prevent there being so many tombstones besides sparkly rocks.
6. The auctions really aren't -- Rename the auctions to classified ads or something. I expected to have to bid and wait to see if I won an item, but nope -- it was all buy-it-now. That's not an auction; that's a sale.
7. A refrigerator -- Since we have storage bags and toolboxes, why not a fridge that would only accept food items? I bought different colored bags and labeled them Food and Drinks, Ingredients 1, and Ingredients 2 to keep my foodstuff separate, but I kind of like the idea of having a little fridge icon to visually remind me that duh, there's stuff to eat in that there box.