I'm hoping to get an official response regarding the phasing in this game. I remember reading a post where Zenimax had talked about changing the way phasing works. I was hoping something would be done in this patch, however reading the patches notes tells me otherwise.
I've played many MMO's starting at Vanilla EQ. Out of all the MMO's this one by far has the craziest phasing and grouping system I've seen. I have many friends who play this game and a few family members. As of now i'm forced to level up 5 different characters just to quest with them because they all have different playtime's than me and each other. I do a quest or 2 ahead of them and poof i'm in a different phasing and can't help them with that quest. Sure I can travel to them if their leader and (hopefully) be put in their instance but its not guaranteed to work, nor should I have to. The higher level I get the more I feel like i'm playing a single player game. PvP is different as there is always a zerg to join.
90% of my leveling comes from questing and map completions. I run every dungeon as they come available but I only run them once because after the initial quest its just not worth the time as the exp is so bad. So my grouping is really limited by running these dungeons as phasing for quests and map completions is really borked for me and my friends. Its not fun or productive. This is an MMO yet the game is telling me otherwise.
I know some of you maybe don't see the issue here, however I come from an older MMO generation where Community and grouping play an integral part of the game and my overall positive experience. You can throw all the fancy quest dialog and story telling, graphics and cutting edge game mechanics at me, but having no one to share it with makes me sad.