Not sure about the "!" but at least the minimap is a toggle. They are going to have a very customizable interface where you can activate/deactivate all the helpers as you please (at least for the PC version, not sure about the consoles which this footage was obviously from).
What I disliked was the seemingly hack'n'slash style of combat in that dungeon. In combination with the awkward monster names it had a bit of a Diablo-/WoW-ish flair to it. Hopefully there's not too much of that boring click-dead-click-dead-click-dead kind of combat in the final game.
Also, although I have to admit that I was too lazy to go back and slo-mo my way through the bits of dialog that were presented (well or not "presented" since he skipped through it all like mad
), I got the impression that the dialogs and voice acting were pretty weak. The hero's voice actually sounded like Butthead or something.
That one quest he picked up also seemed to be very simple (go and kill 10 wolves kind of material like in Gothic 3 and other MMO-/A-RPGs).
However, I guess that might be due to the fact that that particular part was from the starter island (Feshyr) as the presenter said so maybe this was only tutorial level stuff.
Everything else (graphical/technical quality, seamless game world, exploration, art style etc...) looked really great and I think that the game might have a lot of potential. I'm sure that we will get to see LOTS more at Gamescom in August and I'm looking forward to it.