Hey, guys - good feedback (both pro and con).  Couple thoughts:

We've made it so you can choose whatever starting zone you want regardless of race (this is the optional objectives on the last quest in the Arkships - our thought was that would largely avoid the EQ-style-massive-run-to-meet-your-buddies issue.  

However, in practice, if your buddies aren't synced up before you all choose a starting zone (which is probably common) it can be frustrating - I'd agree with that after seeing the beta feedback we've been getting.

Part of the reason we gave out all those friend keys was to get more people in early groups; one of the downsides of a "normal" CBT is that you see so few real-life friends playing together (because keys are so hard to get) that it can actually be a bit tricky to catch situations with friends playing together that are quite obvious in the Real World post launch; a lot of small-group feedback started coming in after we made that shift to the CBT key process.  (Not defending anything we goofed up on of course).

If you're both in the Northern Wilds, we do start you a few hundred meters apart, but the quests are supposed to be doable together heading down the hill and up to the tower - I'll double check that is the case; we did just find a bug that was making certain quests not group-shareable that affected quietly a few hundred quests.  Why'd we split the areas?  Really to give you a little bit of the flavor of your race, because the downside of the arkship is that it's a shared experience.  Why'd we make 'em so close?  So you could still group with your human buddy easily.   YMMV if that works for you or not, just mentioning the thinking process.

A couple of the streaming folks have been playing as groups as well, but it's pretty rare - and most of those I've seen just kinda skipped up to dungeons/adventures/etc.  So small group feedback is really appreciated (pro and con) - and thanks; we do appreciate it.  

It's one of those RL common playstyles that is surprisingly hard to emulate in a beta with any large mass of users.  I don't guarantee we'll get it perfect, but we do listen.

Anyhoo cool review, and glad you're poking at what you don't like.