Lightning, you are way off base here. We did not rush it out, and it is totally understandable that people want content as soon as they can get it. We were ready for it to go.

Our impression is that 1.3 had a rough reception because:

1) We locked the Stash until players had done some quests. Mistake on our part. The idea was for NEW characters to have to unlock it, existing ones should not have had to.
2) We locked dungeon levels until you had completed their predecessor. Again, mistake. At least until Swamps, we think that people should be able to play whatever they want, when they want.
3) Art revamp - we touched EVERY art asset in the game. Many have not fully recovered, but there is no reason we cant bring them back to approximate their previous level of visual flair.
4) All content produced was for lower-level players.
5) Navigation changed. People don't like change.

None of these things are critical in and of themselves, but it really threw a lot of people off, so much so that they missed the much larger implications of an open world and quest-based structure.

We feel we hit 1.3 right out of the park. We had a few missteps (you always do with such a monumental release) but we are fixing issues as quickly as they come up.

Last week everyone was still jammed in the same towne, with nothing to do but spam "FOR SALE TOTH PINK 75K" and hit NEW GAME to go to a host screen. Today Alterra is a living, breathing world... ever-expanding with more and more to do. By now you guys should realize now what we have our hands on... a platform so powerful and flexible that it really can rival the best MMO on ANY platform.