New xpac, is it worth coming back and $$?

Ultimately, you will either like the expansion, or you won't. Asking others thoughts and feelings on it is fine, but each person will give their opinion subjectively, because it is a subjective opinion. Not everyone is the same and there will be plenty of people that like the expansion, and probably a number who won't like it. It will all depend on how they determine value.

Personally, I am enjoying the new content, having recently returned to the game after having a lot of personal loss and mental health issues over the last 18 months. I felt it was worth it to resubscribe and spend the money on the expansion, because I want to experience the new content. Each individual will have different reasons for their answers.

What you need to remember on this is that running the servers and developing new content, as well as keeping the page and forums functioning is something that costs the producing company money. Without a revenue stream (subscriptions, purchases of new expansions, cash shop purchases), the game would be shut down, not because of a lack of love for the game, but because a lack of ability to pay the bills that keep the lights on in the game.

Other games are just as old, and some older, that haven't even gone to the free to play model, at all, and still charge as much, if not more, for less content and a much poorer quality product and return on investment for the player base.

I really like the fact that there's all sorts of little quests everywhere. I pick up the overland dropped quests, put them into my journal and stash the item in my quest bag. I run around and nab the catalog quests every so often as well. When I get a new quest (say, the new Tradeskill Missions) that takes me to an overland zone, I sort my journal by zone and check all the little quests for that zone, then have fun killifying. This should please people who enjoy grinding as well, since you basically just pick up all the quests and then slaughter what you want.

For the people who don't want to do Doctor Arcana's overland key-quest missions, it appears that the stuff that drops from the chests can also be purchased from the vendors in the Myrist Merchant's Gallery. I do wish there were fewer items with RELIC tags!

I'm not loving the heroics so far, but I have only been in them on my mystic. We'll see what happens after the make some of the names slow down how fast they self-heal. My spells are slow to cast and slow to cool down, and the dang wards not stacking makes it so I am doing nothing but constantly hammering my hotkeys. My mystic sees nothing in any zone, because she can't afford to look away from the health bars. There's lots of cures needed, but those, at least, don't come at an impossible rate. I loathe bleedthrough as a mechanic.

I made a new little beastlord (now making my 3rd...one geared and max level, one parked at 80 and new one at 20).

Since I'm likely going to buy the xpac, I'm playing the lower level game. Less of the frustrating stats, less of the diluted classes with Ascension abilities, less grinding. It's still a bit grinding for leveling, but I'm capping at 20 until I get the lower end tier stuff done, then I'll cap at 30, 60, 80, etc. etc..

It's a far better game. The early levels were mailed in and seem less like a cash grab. Anyone coming back for a short amount of time, I suggest it.

Xpacs will need an overhaul from those I talk to in chat, it seems "everyone" agrees. Grind heroics and singles over and over ad nauseam ...and folks agreeing that Chaos is the same formula of PoP, just with different zones will diminish their value. I'm not even in for the 30 dollar one xpac given the comparison.

Are they wrong? Can folks honestly say that Chaos isn't just a reskinned PoP?

I am much enjoying this new expac. I like the zones, the library, the quests and storyline. I never bother with numbers and stats and barely pay them any mind, and mainly solo and just play and explore, slowly and contentedly. I truly am having a nice time, admiring the art and interacting with the npc's.

Where the environment is still too tough to handle I bow out and explore elsewhere and figure I will try again at a later date, something to look forward to. No rush. So it all suits my play style very well, and I consider myself fortunate, this expac.

I've been playing MMO's since EQ was in beta. I played EQ for years, because it was the only game in town and to be honest, because it is Evercrack after all. Since then, as far MMO's go, I've played Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Horizons, Earth and Beyond, Dark Ages of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, EQ2, Star Wars The Old Republic, The Secret World (and Legends), Eve Online, both Final Fantasy MMOs, Rift, TERA, and Uncharted Waters Online for several months to years. Several others only for a few days to weeks, such as Wildstar, Vanguard, Ultima Online, Guild Wars, Black Desert Online. A couple of others, too brief and too bad to remember.

I've been playing EQ2 off and on since 2006. I was so burned out on EQ, I jumped ship to WoW at its launch.

All of them are grinds in the end game, without exception. It goes with the territory, ya know? Developers cannot keep up with an obsessed player's need for more content.

So I make the rounds between EQ2 and Anarchy Online, both my favorites by far, and occasionally WoW and The Secret World/Legends. Interspersed with my favorite MO's, like Minecraft and Diablo 3. I miss Asheron's Call, City of Heroes, and Landmark much, and they'd be in my rotation, if they were still around. And of course, I play single player games too.

With that context, so far, after only a month back, having last bought TOV (did a stint since then on the first TLE server, which was great fun too) I'm having a blast in Chaos Descending. Altar of Malice, Thalumbra, Kunark Ascended, and Plane of Magic are all new to me. How could I not be having fun? Given that I'm an EQ2 fan, and those expacs are all included in CD?

Yeah, the grind looms in the horizon. How could it not? It does so in every single MMO I've ever played. To the point I think it's an absurd argument and the EQ2 grind is so mild, it's cute compared to WOW. $35 is cheap for a game and always has been.

Don't tell me you've missed The Elder Scrolls Online (latest chapter less than 34$, all DLCs free with a sub, no amount of grind compared to EQ2) and Guild Wars II. Age of Conan? Runes of Magic? Runescape, even, before about 2009 (Oldschool Runescape as a pale shadow of past reminder of days of glory)? Have you been there at the glorious days of Diablo II Battle-Net Ladder, before it got taken over by the dupers and bots and Blizzard basically abandoned the game when they launched their WoW? If you have such a prestigious list of games you supposedly tried, you'd have tried all those as well for sure.
Unless you count those two to the "too brief and too bad to remember" category, in which case there's nothing more on my part necessary to add.

I wouldn't say that it's completely reliant on the Marketplace; I still don't see a lot of "pay-to-win" stuff, simply because if that were indeed the case, there would be much dudgeon raised and a lot of rage quitting.

I have yet to bother with Ascension stuff; it felt like Epic/Mythic/etc. levels of pen-n-paper roleplaying beyond 20th level, when we all know dang well that computer-based games will ALWAYS raise the level cap. I don't know why any of them pretend otherwise. /shrug

If your home server bums you out, always remember that creating characters on the Public Test server and the European server (or US, if you're Europe-based...basically, whichever region you're not native to) is free, up to the usual 7 slots. May you find a better community and guild opportunities there!

I pure solo; I've never liked the idea of the mercs and therefore don't use them (though with both Qho and Raffik being annoying above and beyond the call of duty, I'm very tempted to hire one or both of them [one at a time, I guess...darn ;->], just to deliberately get them killed over and over and...I actually did unlock the Merc feature, simply for that possibility), so I can't help you there.

For the longest time, I debated about getting a year all at once vs. paying $14.99/month. Finally went with the all at once, which is actually a lot cheaper per month.

I've waited until September of the expac release "year" (November to November [when the next one comes out], basically) to get the last few expacs, when even the Collector's Edition is on sale for 50% off (and then another 10% on top of that total, iirc, if you're a Member). I've never felt a burning desire to immediately get "the latest and greatest" in anything, and this way, I get the mount, level token, prestige house, and building block sets I want for little more than the basic edition, the major bugs have (hopefully) been squashed, balance has been adjusted, etc. It's sad beyond words that we have to pay as much as we do for essentially the privilege of Beta and Gamma testing, but that's the way nearly all game companies are doing things these days. :-/

Frankly, I haven't even put my toes much yet into the expacs I've been buying -- collecting, really; I'm one of those who spends more time creating new toons than PLing the old ones all up to the level cap asap. I figure the "old content" (for everyone else) will still be there for me to explore until the game sunsets. I have used the level 100 tokens on toons in the past, mostly on my Carpenters, so they can harvest wherever they want/need to for the most part, and do a lot of the cool crafting quests for cool house items and recipes without fear in any place but the latest/greatest/highest zones. ;->

A buddy of mine in our old gaming group once suggested, "Always have your crafters [and with the ability to buy extra character slots, I can have at least 9 toons in each region, one for each specialty] at least 10 levels higher than your adventurer levels. That way, should worst come to worst, you'll always be able to make your own gear." So, yeah, crafting is always useful. ;-> Ironically, perhaps, these days I mostly do crafting; I've always found adventuring levelling to be far easier and faster than crafting levelling, largely due to the number of quests (and quest turn-ins always have the highest XP rewards), so I've had to force myself to eventually get hooked on crafting. ;->

Uwk