Anyone else think RoF will be a piece of crap?

[Mponthepc]

From just the feedback alone and the posts by people who are in beta (posting on non SOE boards of course), Rain of Fear seems like it was a sloppy rush job, with really no thought. Copy/Pasted AA's (No new ones), many critical ones even neglected, zone's like Kael and a few others just reused, even the graphical logo from ROF looks like crap compared to other expansions. Also published features like the Offline Trading Hall, not being in beta at all yet (ship to ship combat anyone). On top of that a very very tiny beta group so far. I'm guessing they don't want people seeing it and not buying it. What do you all think? Am I overreacting?

 

[Nuclearweapon]

Levels

EQ learned thier lesson... Build it with 5 levels of advancement and they will come...

ttfn

 

[Noah3]

darn

was waiting on my beta invite, now my window is smaller, doh..

but im pretty sure im only gonna get this on 1 to max of 2 toons so so i can have some prime mofos in my box set, but other than that , unless somethign awesome comes with it, im just gonna catch up on epics/old quest/ past expansions/sweet loots until they offer a sale or the next one comes out.

although i understand the necessity of them taking sc expansion purchase option away, it burned my biscuits that they used that option as one of the points of interest to stay gold member in ftp. so i am/was really hoping since they were removing that option, and knew theyd be getting real cash in actual dollar amount per expansion sale, they would really knock one out the park with this one to bring everyone in..
theyve got so many people hanging out in ftp they made such a hype about bring all new people and old people back to eq, youd think theyd go above and beyond to impress/intiese all the new/returning players to keep em around and keep em spending money...
well see, but im worried

 

[StaticX27]

It seems they're still adding people to the beta, I actually just got my beta invite yesterday.

 

[Noah3]

thats good news

i knew theyd be adding people as they went, i just figured my chances got smaller,, id really like to try before i buy even if it is just on 1 or 2

 

[aspire2008]

Its going to suck, but I'm still going to buy it for the level increase.

Reasons it will suck:

only 9 zones
only 2 tiers
NO new spells just copy/paste
NO new aa's, just upgrades

I'll buy it for my main account and wait till they run their xmas special @ $20 for the rest. Sure do miss the $ 4 bargain, I paid for VoA last year for my accounts!

 

[anothergeneric]

It's gonna be a shit expansion.

It's 9 zones... 3 you've already done. The three velious zones are exact copies of the old ones. Think back to when they did revamped Crushbone, Vox, Blackburrow, etc. It's like the same shit, just this time around you're paying $40 for it.

Your $40 is actually going toward:
-No new spells. Just upgraded spell lines of all the old spells we already have. (and not every class got upgrades to all the existing spells too.)
-No new AAs. Also, nothing planned to make new ones.
-2 tiers of raids. (not sure if confirmed as only two, just only 2 in beta atm)
-The level of detail put into these new zones feels rushed. VoA is 100x better if you compare the two.

I only spent about 3 hours on beta, and that was enough for me.

 

[Noah3]

yuck

yuck

 

[Quackanator]

Given that the expansion is the same price as the last and has next to no new content compared to the last few (hey VoA might have blown but at least it had some stuff) leads one to wonder...

Is this the last expansion for EQ they are churning out to squeeze a few mor $$ the loyal addicts/suckers before putting EQ down for good ala SWG?

 

[Noah3]

any idea

when eq next comes, if eq1 looses all all support(if) then what , can we move to emu with our toons, or are we sol?
heck i may not buy this expansion at all , cuz this seems possible and would suck to dump any more money for s really short ride before the burn out

is it possible to make an emu that would support everything that already exist, or a server big enough? is there any chance we could plead with some other big gaming company to pick us up?, we could all cry to blizzard snicker

 

[hawthorne]

No you can't move your toons from SOE's servers to another server.... THEY OWN THEM. I actually do expect this to be the last expansion, but maybe not the last content released. I think anything new will come out piecemeal in the market.

As for this expansion.. I am not impressed. I am not happy. And I am seriously considering not buying it. There is plenty to do in EQ without it.

 

[aspire2008]

My advice would be to only buy it for the 1-2 main toons you really do play and just wait till they are forced to drop the price, cause noone is buying it

If you play only the group game, maybe not buy it at all till its reasonably priced. $40 isn't much but they are just mooching every last bit out of EQ at this point is what it seems like with this copy/paste crap they are doing.

 

[devestator]

You can't move your toons to emu servers technically. But if someone was inclined and we knew the end was coming, it would not really be too difficult to make copies of them using Macroquest to parse their data.

However I don't think the end is that close. I think they will release at least a few more shoddy expansions before they stop releasing expansions, and then they will still keep at least a few servers up for years. But it's just my opinion and could be wrong.

 

[aspire2008]

Maybe this is the wrong comparison, but I picked up guild wars 2, and I am just enjoying that game because of the amount of depth in it. The amount of detail in the environment, for $45 ,the environment is so immersive, its amazing even to just walk around in the world. Even if you don't participate in the combat, tradeskill, raids etc. Simply enjoyment of the environment is worth more than the cost of the game.

And to top it all of, there is no subscription cost.

So I don't know if that is the right comparison, but I feel like EQ needs a vitalization from newly hired developers. I feel as though the people working there have just become complacent, and aren't putting any effort because they are locked into their job security. The perfect example of new vitalization to the game is developer Dzarn, Jchan, Sklug (when he was part of EQ). I don't think SOE runs their business to well, you need new blood to inspire new creativity and that is not happening anymore. Its so hard to get anything done with the old developers.

 

[hawthorne]

Aspire, Jchan and Sklug are not developers. They are coders. They don't design content. The do systems. I haven't been impressed with any of the new developers, to be honest.

 

[aspire2008]

Ah yes , I should have stated they are coders, but they did inspire creativity through their code work. To give you an example, turning in items in stacks, good lord it took them 13 years just to implement that?? Loot all button for corpses, not needing to loot your corpse after dying, etc..

 

[hawthorne]

Yeah it's interesting that pretty much the only good stuff to come out in EQ lately is coding work. Would really like to see the devs get their shit together and release something amazing.

 

[kirbanmanaburn]

I'm just shocked that SOE hasn't yet understood that the value of a franchise like EQ is in nostalgia. There's a reason why the progression servers were a hit when they were first implemented, and why Fippy enjoys a decent population: a lot of gamers who have moved on and would never consider making EQ their main long-term MMO again love the nostalgia experience, because EQ was their formative MMO.

I think if they could let go of trying to cater to their long-term, serious player base and start catering to casual nostalgia, they'd make decent money. A Legends-style, premium P2P server offering a limited time run (a year? 18 months?) nostalgia experience with all kinds of leaderboards, GM events, and special rewards for server firsts would attract a fair number of subscriptions and command a lot of playtime from subscribers. People are willing to pour serious playtime into a novelty server if they think their accomplishments on it will be written in stone (remember the Discord server?)

 

[Tewgn]

I can say i agree with yall on the lack of effort by the people that are rolling out the EXP.

On that note i can understand why they copy and paste things to keep it balanced and its easier for them with the less work to make new spells. But that is the draw back from doing it; It because common place to see the same spells and abilities for your classes and its mind numbing to get the new ones which aren't that much better than the old ones... (if you don't count lvl increase)

With the amount of time that they arent putting into the game i think that they should revise their processes and just not crank out stupid shit we already have.

Let some of the gamers make the next exp!!! :OP

 

[Remianen]

I can say i agree with yall on the lack of effort by the people that are rolling out the EXP.

I'll be the impolite asshole. I don't think it's lack of effort. I think it's lack of TALENT. Do I have to remind you that the ASSISTANT LEAD developer is so out of touch, he has no idea about basic player behavior. It was Absor that greenlit the OMM items (and the first set of monster missions, I might add) and his later mea culpa (for the nerf) made him look even more clueless ("We didn't realize..."). Honestly, if you don't know that people will always take the path of least resistance, you need to gtf out of game development. The original MMs were what, 20 AA per 15 mins with no lockout? Do you really need to be a gamer to see how that might be used extensively? Elidroth can't come up with a complete list of hotzones that doesn't suck yak ass. For some reason, he's also the AA designer so, yeah, think about that for a minute (WTF does he do all day? He's not making NEW AAs and he's not coming up with NEW or better hotzone ideas so wtf is he doing?).

Their art team has apparently never seen an MMO (or even single player) game past 2001, judging by the godawful Hero's Forge crap. Hero's Forge robes? YAY now we get to look like we're wearing potato sacks! It seems to me that the extra people they bring onboard for expansions (art wise) are the ones coming up with the new/good mob models (Bellikos, Telmira, etc). Then the regular hacks with tenure reskin them and recycle and reuse them for five more expansions.

Let some of the gamers make the next exp!!! :OP

Yeah, no. The Necro dev would remove the restrictions off Lifeburn and give it 18 more ranks (capping out at max Headshot type damage). The Wizard dev would do the same with the Mana Burn line (only it would cap out at max Headshot x 14). The Warrior dev would make WAR-only augs with 80+ ac and 500+ hp with mod2s and heroics to match. Essentially you'd wind up with characters who can kill one expansion old raid mobs as if they were light blues.

But there is a host of talent still available after the closings of 38 and City of Heroes. Yes, Cryptic snatched up some of the bigger names (Chris Bruce, for example) but there are still many more out there. I think if they cleaned house (keeping only the coding team), it would allow EQ to have a fresh set of eyes (and an actual working set of minds) devoted to it, which could breathe new life into the game. Sure people will whine the first time they run into a raid that requires the clerics to do the hokey pokey while the warriors are doing the electric slide and the dps are boot-scootin' but it would be a major change from the current design philosophy. I think someone there did a BC era raid in WoW and locked onto the mechanics like a pitbull's jaws.