Foremost, huge KUDOS to the Merge team.
Playing through MM6, 7, 8 with a unique party, combined from each world gives just totally new and better experience. (Despite I would miss the training part when entering other world with high-level party -> no more searching for promotions or trainers needed, as all members are practically maxed up)
Hiatus side effects: most of relics, that boost primary 7 stats become less attractive (as after combining black potions, hundreds of genie lamps, dozens of wells and shrines, getting my stats to 200+ without spells or artifacts is normal) so I found myself selling one relic after another
But well, all the hype about relics was slot-machine related addiction, hence it is probably good to get rid of it.
What I never experienced before - visiting any region or any dungeon right off the bat (entering Enroth with 75+ level party) and in few weeks hunting dragons in Kriegspire or clearing Pyramid... felt quite ecstatic. Especially as it is easy to travel in between world freely.
The new main quest was also tailored with this in mind : traveling through various worlds and hunting for rare items. (O gosh, I spent like 12 hours looking for one citrine... I had all other 8 gems gathered in 30-40 minutes, but citrine, that foker could not be found no matter where I looked)
Also the Philosopher stones - found 5 in Clanker's lab, another 4 in Eofol, and then, no matter laboratory or world / region I visited or what shop I browsed through - it was pretty difficult to get the 10th.
Nevertheless, I got the Telelocator - but after that, it seems like the quest-line was closed. I understood that I was supposed to find heroes with it, and when using it, I should enter a name (name of NPC, item or monster) but there was no quest in my quest list assigned to this - so it looks just like a handy tool, that can help me locate things/people, but the Merge specific quest - story line is at the end and does not evolve anymore, correct?