Renewal of Ro Beta and Expansion Pre-Orders

I think basically that's because in "the old days" you could basically chuck down your £25 or whatever local currency you choose to use and be ready to go.
Now if you don't put down £100 for the collectors edition for the mount and familiar you going to be left behind when it comes to start grouping. It is pay to win but with a game this old it's basically that or no game at all I think.

SO why is it that we cannot buy the last expansion. I have been waiting for it to go on sale to see that it is gone like the wind. Truly very very sad indeed...Poor marketing since you put the New expansion for pre sale but took away the previous one for those of us would have liked to have purchased it at a discounted price since some of us have more that one account.

Ascensions should go in all honesty. They're going to be nothing but a time and plat sink. Everyone who can't spend time grinding or hundreds of real life $$ will fall behind.... again.. like every expansion. A much more needed upgrade would be improved AA tree's that make them useful again. Druid tree is basically the same spec for every druid under the sun. That's because there are only a couple of viable end line options for any type of content. The "update" to the heroic tree was a joke at best, just another stat inflation really. I've done just about everything in beta you can do already and overall I am happy with what i've seen - so don't take this as a negative rant. Upgrade AA's, update everything at the start of the xpac this time (I.E) new runes, flawless buff, etc. Don't force people to go do old content for another several months again for old buffs, runes, etc. This is such a bad habit at this point that I read in channel almost daily that people are sure old runes will still be relevant. This forces people to quit playing because they'll NEVER get enough people together to do old stuff to catch them up.

I left for two years because the game had become players that had the cash to pay for upgrades and endless krono to sell to buy gear and other items and the other players like me who don't have all the 'extra' cash to pay for things that should be able to be gotten in regular play.
When the trade-skill books to make expert spells were put out of reach of the 'regular' player ... I left and played wow until I saw varsoon was starting ... playing on the TLE with all paying customers and no layers and layers of systems is fun.
No figuring out reforges, adornment's, Ascencion's, mercenaries, familiars, AA trees ...has brought the fun back to the game for me.
Seeing all the highly desirable items that are 'giftable' on the collectors and family packs pre-orders ... is giving me chills I don't think those are going to be any kind of a good thing for the live servers.
Oh,
and that's the Other thing about Varsoon.. you can get a group without having to post a full resume' and letting them double check your socks for holes.

5 new ascension levels means I'm likely not going to buy this xpac.

Almost nobody wants them.

Yep. It's been like this for at least 5 xpacs now and I got slated for suggesting this back then from other 'uber' players.

Yup.. The stats you need from pay to win editions of the xpac, plus grinding collections and celestial mega edition spells just to even begin in Heroic dungeons turned me off live. Varsoon is so much better

Ugh, 5 more ascension levels? How many are actually going to be excited for that? Can we be done with the dang ascensions after this expansion please?

I really do not understand why people get so upset about ascension ! The only thing I can think of is that their request was not granted ! I do not think they put a lot of work into it so that it would affect the work for other aspects of the game ! It is not mandatory... simply do not use it... do not put spells on the bar , do not research them... forget about them ! I do not use all class spells, I do not use tithe or deity systems all are optional ways to play , but sooner or later if people just want it out they will take it out !

VoV was on sale for some time. For this preorder you get all previous expansions with it

Yeah, 5 more Ascension levels with new spells which i will not cast (or i dont want to).

I would love to see a new class-specific AA-tree.

And why is there for all these ages not a single one rideable dragon as a mount in the game? And i mean a real dragon, not a wyvern or drake or something. Such like the "reveal inner dragon" just as a rideable mount. And if you dont know, google the difference between a wyvern and a dragon and yes, it is a level of petty nitpicking

Heraldically, a wyvern and dragon are the same: you see the arms of the same family rendered either way over time. Otherwise, dragons have four feet and wyverns two.

Not a fan of dragons but I love wings very much ! I think we had a lot of ugly ( imo) bulky mounts lol I would love more colour versions of " Wings of passion " maybe sparkly green, blue, violet or flying colourful disks ( not too many colours at a time though lol ). This new expansion has some terrifying mounts and a nightmare-ish celestial mercenary imo !

Where are the beta forums?

You have to log into the forums to see them. Beta Forums 2022

I am logged in (how else could I post at all?). No beta forums.
Ha, nvm, they just showed up

Im sorry, this is a bit beside the point, but I wanted to ask if there are any plans to make those beautiful house items from the Prelude Event to this Expansion available some other way, so we might get them on TLEs too? I would buy them from Marketplace (or a Recipe book containing them or some such)?

And I wanted to say how extremely awesome those screens look! Looks like amazing environment art again, I think its a real beauty!

There has been several years now of occasional communication from Darkpaw staff that there was no interest in Ascensions going forward. I believe it was Kander in one of the podcasts who said he expected them to gradually die away. Looking at the new ascensions on beta, they're actually just a new upgrade to some of the existing, so it's entirely possible they still won't actually be much use, depending on scaling, combat mechanics and stat bloat etc. However, the issue with your "solution" to the problem of "simply do not use it" is that at the top end of the game, each player is looking to min/max their character's performance or dps output. I know this may sound alien or silly to someone who doesn't bother with the min/max thing, but the toughest content in the game is often tuned for those kinds of players. So if mathematically you have to get these ascensions to Ancient (or Celestial) and include them in your rotation in order to maximise your output, then there's a good chance you'll need them in order to defeat the toughest content. The outpouring of upset about this feature is for that very reason - the players are scanning the new content for the kicker, the catch, the pay to win feature for this year, and their spidey senses are saying that this could well be it, as well as just being disappointed that a highly unpopular feature isn't as dead as they had all hoped. There's also the issue of history. EQ2's population plummeted after ascensions were introduced because they were so aggressively pay to win. They are held in considerable disdain by a large number of the surviving population. I hope that explains it.

History would dictate otherwise. I would expect ascensions to be included in encounter scripts in some way to ensure those who want to clear all content will be foaming at the mouth to get the new spells maxed out. This assumption is based on a clear pattern of behaviour. They won't just shove potentially lucrative features into the game and then allow it to be benign fluff. It'll be essential, just maybe not for ultra-casual players who won't be going after the top content.

At the top end of the game they are not optional.

Ascensions being included in the new expansion is proof that this statement is unfortunately incorrect. You must be new here. Player feedback is handled... interestingly... in EQ2.

I think the reason Ascensions are included is because they are easier to add than levels to the main classes. Without adding this the expansion feature list is very short. This way they can add 'content' in a quick and easy way. Since they are upgrades of spells we already have. I was hoping for more features and content or something that really made the expansion exciting. It sounds like that isn't the case.

The way you explain it the major upset is for people at end game who need to max the character performance and who need to use best spells in rotation in high end content groups and raids. It is true that there are many players in this category ( and usually the louder part who always have something to complain about ! ) but there are also casual (and many ) solo players who like to have more options to play as they like! Many of the complainers said they just don't want the ascension system and they do not need something else in its place so... treat it like it does not exist, but the way I understand it is that you don't want ascension for yourself but also for your neighbour