ok 3 mains, all at max exp, one max aa, other two essentially are as well..... so what's the point of buying the new expansion? minor gear upgrades? seems like i'll do best just playing old toons and not buying
New AA, new spells, new Merc AA, Merc gear, toon gear upgrades, experience new content/zones where everyone will move on to
So don't buy it. Garbage spells for most classes, small incremental upgrades to existing AAs, a 2% minimum increase to focus effects, another minor gear tier of upgrades, and only 4 zones. Oh, and bonus nerfs for Mages, Wizards, Necros, Zerkers and dots for everyone even if you don't buy it! If ever there was an expansion to skip, it's this one.
If it follows previous patterns, there will be some super xp mission which will be nerfed when they feel enough expansions have been sold.
The gear is a full tier better, so I don't, get the statements that there would be little growth in gear. Heroics aren't better really (though now they are on weapons so thats an increase), but like, the t1 raid gear is a good 300 hp better than t4 rof and the group gear is like 100-150 better. So its a normal tier increase in gear.
i am xp maxed and don't even need much aa's for the alt ( s ) i play ( they only can get crappy aa's ) new expansion won't add much usefull one. with pre-order we could at least have a clicky port to new zone...or 2 more slot in the fellowship ect,
New content, New missions, New Tasks, New Achievements New raids.....New bugs...... Since I get it for free I guess I can live with some the bugs
Maybe it's just me but I find the OPs question rather amusing. It is stated that there are at least 3 level 100 characters with roughly 7000 to 10000 AA each. I would guess that anyone with characters of that level and AA count must spend a considerable amount of time playing and enjoying the game. I drop 40 bucks seeing 2 or 3 crappy movies in the theatre... Approx 6 hours of entertainment. If the expansion is even a little entertaining for the next 6 to 12 months, I think it's a great deal. I know I will be spending some major hours in these new heroic missions... Then again I would prob drop 20 bucks for the 2 shared bank slots alone. The point I guess comes down to, if you like you buy. The really nice part is if you think it's not worth 40 then you can choose not to buy it with no real penalty. Most raid guilds will require their members to have it even if they think it's a pile of crap. I would be really curious to see the time played on each of the max level and max AA characters. ( might help to put spending $40 into perspective) Enjoy the new expansion, I know I will.
If you are really that skeptical of the new expansion then just go silver and wait to see how it is when the content is fully released. I'm not a fan of staggered content releases either, but I'm sure they have to in order to help break the usual cycle of: Being a gold member and burning thru all the new content, aa's, gear upgrades, etc. in a month or 2 Getting bored Not caring anymore and going back to being silver status for the next 8 to 10 months until next expansion is out.
The same kind of post appeared prior to the current expansion. Not to get off topic but, while I would have like to have seen ToV be part of the storyline and the progression with the gear bumped up a little (it would have made for more initial content) and I'd liked to have seen a bit better timing with tier release... this was one of the best expansions in the game. Every time you turned around there was something else to to - the shard, acquire augs, get flagged, collections for the aug, .Epic ornaments, ... and then when things slowed down and people were in final farm mode there were anniversary events and hardcore heritage. Need I point out a LOT of us enjoyed ToV and Naggy (just like we enjoyed ToFS when it came out). I don't know if resources are so tight that we're going to see a lot less content. What I do know is that this year despite perhaps fewer resources people did backflips to keep us entertained and they did. If you go by recent history, there's very little to complain about today's EQ. Tomorrow's, shrug, who knows?
it's not the $40 and I'll probably end up buying it. All 3 toons are about 10 years old, and I've probably averaged around 45 min a day on each of them. (mainly LOTD) I guess my point is with a level cap increase I would have the sense of at least gaining exp while I did grinds/quests working on equipment upgrades. Now any quest that only is for exp will be pointless
Embrace the fact that EQ is an old, old game and is sunsetting. Frankly, I cannot believe it's still going. Now, I want value for my dollar as much as the next guy. But we aren't going to get full-featured expansion any more. Period. Sorry you have max lvl/aa toons and feel you aren't progressing unless you have space for more XP to accumulate. I suggest rolling a new toon and finding friends to experience content with. It's a heck of a lot of fun, and you might find a new class interesting. Other than that, perhaps its time to consider sending your EQ accounts out to pasture for a bit.
If you want to skip the first few months of CotF there is basically zero cost at this time for doing so unless you're a raider. Maybe after they add more content in a few months cost of not having it will be enough to warrant purchasing it.
Level increase? Aye, there's 2 weeks. (I saw people ding max level on Day 1 of the new expansion the last time we had a level increase). AA, another 2 weeks (I get experience slowly). I've been throwing away experience (except for buying and using glyphs) for the majority of each expansion for a couple of years now. That's either the price we pay or benefit we have, depending on your point of view, for making more effort than others.
You have to look at it from the perspective of someone who doesn't have those levels and AA because they didn't buy the expansion. Instead of from your perspective and mine as well of always buying new expansions. You see new AA and levels as a tread mill and sense everyone around you is required to buy it as well to continue raiding there is no real perceived power gain just a grind to regain max level and max AA. Mostly it seems like a loss of power that you quickly regain and not a real increase. On other hand not buying a level increase expansion results in a huge drop in relative power for those that don't purchase it. You don't see this impact because you always buy expansions and only really interact with those that do as well. CotF though has basically no cost for not buying it at release.
