First Impressions

Quite a few people have been sending me tells and PM's asking what I think of EoF since its about a week old now. Well here it is:

Solo Content - I am not a solo type of a gamer obviously, but I simply do not understand how one of those types of people has any reason to play a game like this. I managed to complete every single heroic and solo quest in the loping plains regiong in 2 evenings of playtime, and that was mixed doing some other things. Granted a soloer probably wouldnt go as hard at is as I did, but still, that doesnt even equate to an hour a day for a week. If you are a high level soloer, save your money if its not too late.

I did create a fae because for some unknown reason I wanted to make a fae that looks like a vampire fae, or a faepire. Also, I heard the level 60 title is "Count" so I named my fae Chocula and someday will be a vampire looking fan named Count Chocula. If your a solo player and your looking for some new crap that is basically the same old but in a different location, this expansion rocks! I have no idea why anyone would want that, but for some reason this demographic exists, so buy asap!

Heroic Content - If your a high level player who basically just hits up instances with friends or pick up groups, again, Id say buy the expansion but only if there arent any other games your playing with any interest. Cypt of Valdoon, Obelisk of Blight, and Achadicism are the 3 instances you have to work with. Id compare them to Halls of Fate, Blackscale Sepulcher, and Nest of the Great Egg accordingly. Fun to go through once or twice, the legendary armor sets are probably amazing to this type of player, but I just cant stand doing them on a daily basis, not that there is a single reason to in the world for someone like me.

Other than those instances you do have Mistmoore Catacombs and Mistmoore Castle at your level range, with Kaladim and New Tunaria to a lesser degree. Mistmoore Caslte is basical a zone where the challenge for a single group might make you want to go back everyday, for a week, then you never want to go back again. I am already sick of this hell hole and thank god I am done with all the quests that lie therin. The Catacombs on the other hand are reasonably fun I guess, and if I were grinding AA's in EoF, it would be my zone of choice (Im not though, PoA still owns for grinding aa's). Also, Estate of Unrest is supposed to be added in in a couple LU's so that is something to look forward to.

For lower level players...well there was enough content to get to the high levels as is so who knows and who cares.

Raid Content - To me, the only thing that really matters. Off the bat we have Clockwork Menace Factory, Freethinker's Hideout, Inner Sanctum, and Emerald Halls for instances. There are a handful of x2 in Castle Mistmoore, The Pumpking Headed Horseman, the avatars, and someday Mayong himself should be spawning (with more overland contested and another dungeon contested yet to be added in I am told).

The Clockwork Menace Factory is fun. This zone would have been awesome if it was released with KoS. It wasnt though, it came with EoF, so its easy for any established raiding guild. The coolest part by far is figuring it out the first time through, but its nothing that is going to throw a wrench into your plans the next trip. For us, this zone is already on farm status and we even entered the MINUTE our lockout expired and ran through in under 15min. The loot is all over the place. 75% of it sucks, 25% is amazing. So far we are 1/2 as we got what I would say are currently the best discovered bracers for a cloth wearer in game. Then we got a BP that makes KoS loot look amazing. All in all this encounter was supposed to be the easiest in EoF and it is relatively fun, I just wish it was higher level.

Freethinker's Hideout is another zone that is already on farm status. I am told for the not so established raid guilds that some of the names can be a bit tricky, but I dont foresee that lasting too long. Some of the raid dropped set gear comes from here so the loot as a whole is pretty good. It is another fairly small zone though, but all in all, not too bad. It could stand to be harder though since this would use up half of the raid instances and they were both at KoS/TFD difficulty.

Inner Sanctum is the instanced home of Mayong Mistmoore. This zone needs to be made noticeably harder. First off:



Why the fuck do these guys have 3million plus hp? Why the fuck do they come in pairs halfway into the zone? Why the fuck do you add trash mobs that are of no challenge besides fighting off the boredom as you slowly kill them? No more fucking cows like PPR's third floor please. Change them. (Yes I photoshopped the name onto that picture, but I couldnt get a good picture with the name included)

Ok, now that that little rant is out of me, I can continue with the zone. The Chaperon's are cool, the first time, or second time, but by then you get the picture and they no longer are interesting or pose even the slightest challenge or speed bump. The named are jokes. In fact, the named are complete and utter jokes with nothing unique or new aside from Tacticians Armor and Mayong Mistmoore himself. The Tactician's Armor is different, but all in all I consider it to be a dumb idea simply because it makes.......something.....completely useless. Mayong is rather hard atm, and the rest of the named in zone need to be brought up so that on the first trip in the only thing not dead is Mayong. Come on, this is supposed to be an expansion that lasts several months, and we have already cleared a good chunk of it.

The loot is on par with Freethinker's Hideout for the most part. Nothing more to say about that.

Emerald Halls - This is supposed to be the grandaddy of them all. The raid zone to end all raid zones at this stage in EQ2. Admitedly due to a weird fucking problem we havent had a full night's shot in here yet, but from what I hear the zone does pose a challenge for most of it, but has some major bugs (like named killing each other off). Hopefully these bugs get worked out and I can make a better assessment of the zone later. Also, a lot of named are copycats of the matron. This is dumb, we've been there, done that, NOBODY wants to do it again.

That wraps up the instances, now for the contested.

Avatars - Impossible at this stage, much like the Matron was for the first 3 months of her lifetime. I cant put into words how sad that makes me. These are not impossible because we need to finish getting our aa's and gear up some, these are impossible will need to be tweaked down like the Matron was if they are ever to be killed. I hate when this happens. It completely kills the fun because once your ready you just sit around and wait for them to do the little tweak(s) so that you can finally kill them and see what lies on their loot tables. Granted I havent tried most of them, but the couple Ive been lucky enough to run across arent even worth wasting a minute on.

Pumpkin Headed Horseman - He definitly poses a challenge but is nowhere near impossible. He requires some more AA's and some gear for sure, but he isnt the complete let down and dissapointment the Avatars are. This mob I actually look forward to working on more. This is how I wish more of the instanced mobs were in difficulty too. Something you can work on, make progress on, but actually need to gear up to successfully kill. (or so it seems at this juncture)

That wraps up the raid content, all in all I guess I would give it a 4 out of 10. Most of it is far to easy and most of the rest is just ridiculous and not tuned at all. There certantly isnt enough to tide over raiding guilds for very long as Clockwork Menace and Freethinker's are already farm status with 99% of Inner sanctum being there as well. I know most of us saw this problem coming a mile away and it honestly shocks me they have done nothing about it. Contested are fun and all but if they cant be killed that doesnt leave much to do.

Oh and by the way, anyone kill the matron since EoF launched? Yeah, I didnt think so. Thats completely fucked up to. There needs to be a mention of something high end/raid oriented on the foreseeable horizon or I dont see the raiding base lasting all that long. As usual I have nothing to do but raid because we have gear that can only be upgraded from raids, we all have all our masters, and it wont be long before we all are maxed on aa's again. Do you understand SOE, we NEED stimulating, challenging raid content to fill every day because there is simply NOTHING else worth doing at all. I have 5 freaking alts now and 4 of them are in the same boat as my main. This fae will be there before long as well, so step on it and do whatever it is that you have planned to keep the raiding base playing. You do have something planned dont you?

PS - Someone (who is now dead to me) alerted me that my alt has the second most hp for a swashbuckler game wide. I have since spec'd him for hp/tanking so incoming number 1. Whoot! Go Sarcasmo (former Flexo) go!