I have used the community patches and they seem to help (they appears to mainly fix broken quests)...

I have revisied my opinion a little now that I have reach the northern area where combat is feeling a bit more of a grind (can't go ten paces without running into some preditor or others). The over all impression from the boards and the game experience so far is that the middle area Mrytana is better finished that the others but it is still fun.

Overall still having a good time...