GoD NDA lifted

[Argach]

From EQLive:

Feel free to tell your friends about Gates of Discord now that portions of the beta NDA have been lifted.  However, we are lifting the NDA only with respect to the game and not with respect to bugs, feedback, communication between SOE and beta testers, or other confidential communication regarding the beta.

I can't wait to start my berserker!

Brenlo the Anxious

So, beta beastlords, time to start talking! -_-

[Skanda]

From EQLive:

Feel free to tell your friends about Gates of Discord now that portions of the beta NDA have been lifted.  However, we are lifting the NDA only with respect to the game and not with respect to bugs.....

Haha. Feel free to talk about the good stuff but if you mention anything bad Sony will bring the fires of hell down on you.

[Zorthar]

Thats what it sounds like to me too :-p

[The Kittenpeeler]

Well, between my various computer problems and preference for playing Sartha, all I saw was The Abysmal Sea, Natimbi, and the next one from there, Court of Qinimi or something like that...

Abysmal sea is just that... it's a huge boat that's excessively high-graphics, where everything is tucked away behind a million damned doors. I hated it. Even worse, you have to wait for a boat to get there. Jesus.

Natimbi is a hunting area. Sort of like Luclin meets Kunark. Ruins, freakish monsters, and it's kind of a moonscape. There's a few dark blues to a 65 there, mostly near the steps to the Court. Mobs here aren't all that awful. My favorite were the huge spiny turtles.

Court of whatever is definately a group zone. The entrance mobs are as tough as Teir 2 critters, and i never made it any deeper.

It's an attractive expansion (especially if you're fan of Anson Maddox or BROM), and looks like it has real potential for high-end pressure release. Unfortunately I somehow doubt it'll be a challenge befitting guilds who;ve been sitting in Time all these months.

[EmrysX]

I'm also thinking it won't be a good expansion for casual players, as the meat of the expansion appears to be the new raid encounters, as well as AAs that cost too much for the return you get...I guess this was bound to happen though, with all the folks grinding out AAs in record time these days.

Those of us that still are lucky to get a few AAs a week might as well go ahead and throw in the towel.

I've been looking over every class board I can find and I'm not hearing a lot of great stuff from other players either.

I guess I wasn't expecting another huge power boost like PoP gave players, but I'm a bit miffed at rising costs for the same or less return AA-wise, and raid content means nothing to me as I don't have time for raiding....I guess my point is that this expansion probably isn't for me.

The question is, will I go ahead and blow the cash to see zones which appear to be more cut and paste than the unique and different zones SoL and PoP gave us? We'll see!

Course the new spells will be kinda nifty. Kinda.

Overall I'm underwhelmed...

[queeg reddwarf]

Lots of Eyecandy but like everyone is saying its geared towards higher end groups.   I'll be there.  The boats are a pain in the ass.  I can't believe that they thought bringing back boats was a good thing...

[Bengali]

Fortunately you only need a boat to go to Abysmal, and there really isn't that much reason to go there if you want to just get into some fightin'.

[Skanda]

The boats are a pain in the ass.  I can't believe that they thought bringing back boats was a good thing...

Watch out or Sony's ninja hitmen will be knocking on your door.

[bugman]

the last two expansions have suited a wide level range and casual players very well, i have no problem with this one being geared more towards high end content. every third expansion being high level raid content or high level exp zones is fine by me.

this board has been pretty civil as always, but there are alot of rants on other boards already about this expansion which i think is just lame.  with leveling becoming alot easier and the trickle down of gear becoming so much better then ever and of course the bottleneck of so many people being level 65 i think the smart way to go for them is to keep feeding the high level people. there's already so many low-mid level exp zones that go wasted and empty that there really isnt a need for more. and yes casual players may feel like they're getting the shaft, but even as we've seen with PoP even casual players can benefit highly from content mostly geared towards raiding guilds.

as far as content of the zones and AAs this expansion seems to be rigth on target, time will tell wether it sucks overall though  :wink:

[Dummkopf]

I have to say, it is exactly on time for my guild. Last night we killed Quarm the first time and today GoD starts which will be nice to progress in during our Time-free days. I expect to see a lot new droppable or quested gear which will benefit the casual player as well, i just hope they fix the plat duping so that prices will fall as they always did. However it is time for a new expansion that is aimed at the big raiding guilds, there was no real new content for them since PoP.

Didnt test the boat raids, there was always a wayfarers scout (later on the Magus did it) in Nedaria and Abysmal to port me around, but sadly enough i had too much real life work to do to play enough in beta. I like the new one group instanced zones tho and hope to see some of the raid content soon.

[Ghoat]

Yeah. it's right on time for us too.  We are at the point that 90% of the loot we get in the ele planes goes to twinks, apps, guests, new members or just plain rots.  Phase one of Time is the same way, and Phase 2 is about to that point.   I don't say that to be boastful, it's just the way it is for us, and there are another 2 guilds on the server in the same boat.  I'd venture to say there are 2-4 guild like that on most servers, add that up & you are talking 2-400 people per server at least that have run out of content.

I think this is geared more toward the high end, but when PoP came out there was a lot or people saying the same thing, but I think PoP was a good expansion all in all, and there is still a ton of content there for the people who are not bored.  Add in the new aa skills, items and a new class from GoD, along with some non-raid hunting groups, and I hope we have an expasion that will make a lot of people happy.

I jsut want something new to kill, or kill me as the case may be.

[Dummkopf]

Oh, beta is still open so i tried out the boat, not very excited about that. Abysmal could be a central zone like PoK but now its just somewhere behind a boat, not really good to travel there. Yes, we have to, but i will try to minimize my travel time since it is kinda boring to wait on a boat for 30 minutes.

[TerjynPovar]

The one thing I'm REALLY looking forward to is the new tradeskill interface.  If they botched that they are gonna have one mad kitty on their hands!

Other than that, I really could care less about this expansion. :)

[Phurbi]

Casual players may get some decent stuff fromt the bazaar, but PoP continues to suck unless you're in a high end raiding guild.  Or willing to dedicate huge quantities of time, like the folks in raiding guilds are (essentially) required to.  Even then, it doesn't have near the allure of RoK, or even SoV\SoL.

As I have a life, PoP continues to be worthless to me for the most part.

Hopefully this expansion is done better than it (PoP) was, I preordered on 1 of 3 accounts just to be safe.  If it's very PoP-like at all I'll be rather dissapointed.  I don't have a problem with high end content, but catering the majority of an expansion to less than 20% of the player base is stupid.

[Tastian]

" I don't have a problem with high end content, but catering the majority of an expansion to less than 20% of the player base is stupid."

That might have been true when it hit, but the game is insanely top heavy as I keep saying.  Almost every server has 4(ish) time guilds and many more ele guilds.  I get more people on / all 65 class than I do on / all 1 60 class almost everytime I check it.

I see in your sig it says feral lord.  You didn't get 65 out of PoP?  You didn't get new spells?  New AA?  Never use PoK at all?  Never hunt tier 1 or tier 2 zones?  I mean really how "little" did you actually get out of PoP?  It's not like back in RoK days everyone was just walsing into VP or killing trak or heck even going to HS or Seb.  The game has changed a ton, but seriously PoP was a pretty solid expansion overall.  Also you realize how many people are leveling up and moving FORWARD in EQ.  I heard a lot of people blast velious for having mostly high end content and how many people now have NToV gear or Prismatic.  How many wear velious quest armor (ok not many bst on this one lol), etc.  My point is even if right now this very second more high end content pertains to fewer people it is available to EVERYONE at some point.  Where as lower content just isn't.  People that are 65 aren't going back to runnyeye revamp.  They make an alt or it's gone.  Do you really want more and more crowding into BoT?  Tactics? etc?  I think the move they made is right and I hope this expansion is a bit slower than PoP in a few ways (and faster in others hehe).