Call of the Forsaken NDA Lifted, Discuss

I'm not complaining so much about the staggered release more about the lack of info as to how much and when new content will be coming.

RoF started well but there was a lack of information as to when the new releases were, we even got the announcement for 1 part AFTER it had gone live. The quality of HoF was awful and last time I checked the last zone was still missing vendor trash drops. The worry is that is what the future will be like.

That would work of me or charge me $10 every 3 months(ish) for the new content as it is released rather than the full $40 upfront.

This staggered release stuff basically is what happens when the devs don't have time to finish full expansions.

It went from 2 expansions a year, to one expansion a year, to this staggered release where they can't even finish a full expansion on time once a year.

The problem I have with this whole thing is 2 fold.
First, the amount of content for this stuff is very lacking right now and we have to pay $40 to use it. More if buying collectors.

Second is that we have no idea what we will get later and if they might charge us again for it. This may be partly because devs may not even know since soe laid off lots of employees recently and its may be only be in planning stages. Of course this is always what happens when a game fails and goes ftp, the quality and quantity will begin to get worse and worse and this staggered release stuff is proof of it for EQ.

I'm starting to view this staggered content as a interest free loan to Sony. While the interest gained on $40 in my credit union's account isn't all that much the principle is what matters. Spending $40 on this expansion is more about hanging out with my fellowship than seeing content. I haven't talked to them yet about if they are getting the new expansion or not. Who knows, since most people are yawning over what's being offered there might be another 12 accounts reliving in older zones.

Banks do it by delaying direct deposit of paychecks. They 'work the float'.

Staggered content worked fine in RoF but they took it to far in CotF.

Six starting zones (no lobby type zones don't count) followed by three T3 zones four moths into expansion followed by another three T4 zones eight months into expansion works fine.

Two T1 zones along with two Lobby zones just ins't enough content at the start..

You forgot the 5th zone in Tier 1a

with RoF you paid 40 dollars and got a bulk of the expansion to check out for 30 days, with CoTF u pay forty dollars for 4 zones and cannot progress your character or alts of the same level to any noticeable increase. Actually, in some situations your characters are going to be less powerful now due to the "adjustments" made to certain aa's and spells, and how multiplicative effects are applied.

The people at SoE have literally lost their minds of they think I'm going to spend 40 dollars for 4 zones and virtually no aa's, gear, or spells.

I don't care what promises of free content they have made, I'm not shelling out that kind of money for a hollow content release for a 15 year old game.

For your own sake, get it together SoE.

-Egg

As I said before, this feels more like a normal patch than an expansion launch. The content and number of raids is so minimal. It feels more like a Living Legacy kind of patch-in instead of the launch of a new expansion. I think this is one of the reasons why not many are excited about it and are just "meh"

Used to, you'd see a ton of excitement surrounding the launch of a new expansion. You just dont see that excitement as much anymore, yeah, its still there, but its not as widespread as it used to be.

Its just getting harder and harder to get excited about anything regarding this game anymore. Im far from being alone in that boat. All this minimalist new stuff will be, to a lot of us, is just another means to an end in our collective corners of Norrath. We'll all continue playing like drones as you continue churning this garbage out to us.

Also, dont even get me started on Beta. Beta is becoming more and more useless by the year it seems. This year, we have so many spells and AAs going live undertuned, broken or not working at all. This doesnt even count the bugs and broken crap within the group content and raids. What is the point of Beta again? If so many things are going live in such garbage forms, you may as well just let us take Beta to live and test there instead.

...Hell, Beta was even extended for Christ sake.

They dont even have "time" to finish Beta it seems. SO much stuff is going to be going live either undertuned, broken or not working at all.

This new "expansion" to me, is a tune down expansion for some classes. It'll be known as the expansion where so many classes were nerfed.

At this day and age of EQ, I dont know if i'd go on a mass nerfbat hunt if i were the devs....EQN is coming up....a lot of EQ players are likely looking for a reason to quit/retire etc....you just know that is the mindset of quite a few in this game right now.

I wouldnt rock the boat too much in other words.......

I dont know if I have said this yet, so...

If I didnt raid, I wouldnt buy this expansion. I considered not buying it despite being in a raid guild.

If this is what we get next time around, it will be time to hang up eq. I certainly won't be scouting out new soe titles to play.

Yep same boat.
Kinda forced to buy it because of raiding requirements
(Which I will probably be on the bench for melee DPS since they got boosts and casters got nerfed)

I just wanna know what I'm getting later on. It's really that simple.

With how things have been looking in Beta and over the past several weeks in general, the devs probably dont even know.

I do understand the current predicament under which many people are: should we buy an expansion for 40 $ while we actually do not know at all, if the content will ever be at least remotely adequate to the payment?
At the end of the day noone can answer how much content we will get later, because no commitment has been made by any official source from SOE (and I doubt that they could do it even if they were allowed).

What it boils down to is:
- are you a raider doing current content (i.e. the only relevant content under the current paradigm) and do you want to continue raiding?
- do you have a group of friends who like to play the current group content?
- do you enjoy beefing up your mercs, because you always enjoyed having your personal customized grouping partner who doesn't annoy you with idle chit-chat?
- do you trust in SOE that they will later deliver the content for which you pay them now?

If your answer to all of these questions is "No" then most likely CotF is not worth the payment of 40$ in its current implementation (regardless if you CAN pay the 40$). It might change later depending on the additional content which SHOULD be incoming over the next year obviously.

Personally speaking I bought the expansion because of my guild and the desire to continue raiding with my friends. If the delivery of additional content (especially raid content) over the next year though is not fulfilled up to a satisfactory amount compared to the advance payment I gave to SOE, then this will indeed be the last time I fall for this concept.
I give SOE this advance payment, because over all the years they have delivered a great product and I think I can justify to myself paying them ahead of delivery of a huge portion of the newest content. Now all that is left is hoping that I don't feel like a fool 12 months from now for doing that .

They'll keep lowering the bar, and once you get comfortable at that level, they'll lower it some more. Kinda like the standard of living in America.

This whole expansion feels like a Kickstarter project or something...

If I did not raid, I would not buy this expansion. From what I have seen in Beta, and all the nerfs.

I haven't ordered yet. As a matter of fact, Kolani has been silver and not logged in since the 23rd, for pretty much the first time ever. I'll probably break down and order a couple copies and put her back on a six month plan eventually, but it's almost at the point of why bother?

Guildies are cutting play time, we don't really have any of the chosen one classes in our lineups of 100s, and we're just not in the mood to level up a new toon just since they're the developer pet of the moment and all content is tuned for everyone else to struggle until they add the pet class and get the "WIN" button activated.

Yeah, the only reason I even bought the expansion is because I am in a raiding guild. If I was a casual grouper, or a pure grouper in general, i'd honestly hold off and wait and see what the next tier(s) are like, and how much content follows this first set of content. We'll likely see another release at some point after the new year. If I wasnt a raider, i'd wait until then to buy the new expansion personally.

To be honest, i'd hate to be a casual/grouper and blindly throw up $40 of my money for something in which I had no idea if it was adequate enough for the payment or not. $40 for this first set of content alone is a ripoff, period. Its the tiers and content that follow it that will tell the tale if its worth it or not. The thing about it is, NONE OF US KNOW if it'll be worth it or not. Its the being the dark part that have a lot of folks up in arms.

First impressions are everything. The initial impression of ANY new expansion should be a good one. THIS "expansion" that is going live this week has a HORRIBLE first impression. There is such a thing as looking bad on paper and that translating into bad in practice. That is exactly what this new "expansion" will do too.

There is really nothing to be excited about.

This is the FIRST NEW EXPANSION ever in which I feel zero urgency to log in the second that the servers go up. I'll probably just go about my day like normal and log in when its raid time like I always do.

I feel the same.

I'll log in as soon as the servers come up (as that is 2 hours later than normal playtime) and go and do my 3 hot zone quests on an alt the same as I always do. After that who knows, raids are cancelled Tuesday so I may just end up chatting.

I'll log in and become the Grandmaster AFKer that I always am, as usual.