What makes this release worthy of being an Expansion?

[oradafu]

I have a serious question about the release of this expansion. What exactly about it makes it worthy of being an expansion? Besides the level cap being increased (which will affect everyone therefore its free), what in this expansion makes it worth purchasing? I'm having a hard time seeing the value in purchasing the expansion right now.

Yes, I know that not all the quests have been released, so there might be something hidden away. But I'm not feeling good about the outlook of that so far.

What are somethings that I personally expected to find in the Expansion? There's a series of things that I probably am expecting from the expansion. Now, I'm not expect all of these things to happen, but I would be expecting a good chunk of them to happen since Expansions aren't regular packs (or else VIPs would get them for free). Since Expansions are therefore special, I'd expect great XP for quests, great loot, a new campaign setting or environment, new mobs/monsters, a raid, and wilderness areas.

Okay, so it was already announced that no raid would be part of this expansion (and they pretty much waited until after the expansion was being sold to announce that one). So no raid would be fine if other stuff was delivered. Let's see how they did so far...

We got at least two wilderness areas. We're able to view the one of the wilderness areas, Wheloon Prison, and we're still waiting for the other wilderness area. Wheloon Prison seems to have delivered a nice wilderness area. I won't say it's one of the best wilderness areas in the game, but it's miles above the horribly designed wilderness areas in the game, such Restless Isles' fragmented map and House C's limited linear maps.

We've been given some new mobs and monsters. They've been mostly recycled and reskinned mobs, but that's okay since they are existentially the same thing as the original mobs. Besides, we've seen pics of some of the new mobs that will be appear in the unreleased content.

With MOTU, we were given a new campaign setting and new environments. With Shadowfell, so far we've not been given a new campaign setting, just a new area in the MOTU/Forgotten Realms setting. As for a new environment, we've gotten sort of one but it's been a very minor one. The new environment is less exciting than the Xoriat madness from other quests. Also, the last quest, Through the Mirror Darkly, is really the only quest that shouts as something special. In fact, I've stated elsewhere that all the quests feel like generic quests for any pack, except for Army of Shadow and Through the Mirror.

There's really not been any great loot. All the named loot is randomly generated items with some having Slots. In fact, there are named weapons that are worse than randomly generated weapons of the same. Outside of the +9, +10 and +11 stats, I'd say there's nothing really great about the items. Sure, some of the effects are nice but they aren't guaranteed.

As for XP, the Epic XP is great, as usual. But the Heroic XP is horrible! And since we know the other 5 quests will not have Heroic versions, this is a major let done. Since this is an expansion, the Heroic XP for quests should be on par with the Vale flagging quests. The Vale flagging quests on Elite have XP that range from 7299 xp to 10,063 xp. What is the XP for the Heroic quests on elite in the expansion?
* Thrill of the Hunt 3250 xp
* Army of Shadow 4499 xp
* A Lesson in Deception 4780 xp
* Friends in Low Places 6184 xp
* Through the Mirror Darkly 6652 xp

....
With all that said, does the expansion live up to what I should expect? No, it doesn't.

If people were to ask me why should they buy the expansion, what would I tell them? Well, if the person wants +9 to +11 stats on an item, they should buy the expansion, I guess. If they want more Epic quests and some more wilderness areas, they should buy the expansion. And I think I just ran out of reasons to buy the expansion because I don't really see anything special about the expansion. Unless +9 or higher stat items along with the new effects on items aren't going to be available anywhere else, I see no reason to encourage others to buy the expansion or even the packs when they hit the DDOStore. Not even the argument that higher Epic content would be that good since I'd expect all future releases to be focusing on Epic quests.

So, my opinion so far is that the Shadowfell expansion is a bust. There's still a little bit of time for some changes. And the other quests might impress me more... But my confidence is shaken on the chances that will actually happen.

[Cetus]

They wanted to get paid for their "work" on the enhancements.

[Wizza]

Nothing. We didn't even get the promised PrEs with the enhancement pass.

[Systern]

They actually posted that both chains will have heroic and elite modes.



But yes, I'm underwhelmed too.
They didn't "finish" the existing partial pre's, they moved their level 12 abilities to the capstone.
The random effects on named loot is disappointing. I get that they put a lot of work into redoing the effects (I.e. Deathblock VII: deathblock + 21% Neg Energy Absorb) and want to show it off/don't have time to do both... but that's just a reminder that Cannith Crafting isn't scheduled for a pass in the next year.
The trees are designed oddly. It takes a 40% total AP investiture into getting a Tier 5 ability, leaving no room to meet prereqs for basic class enhancement that are scattered through trees.
Their concept of "Core Abilities" don't coincide with mine, and I don't see any rhyme or reason why they chose the cores they did. i.e. Rogue Mechanic Core 1 is Great Crossbow Proficiency. Aura is a Radiant Servant tier 5 ability while Burst is Core 3. Isn't the core ability of Radiant Servants, ya know, radiating?

[Deadlock]

They wanted to get paid for their "work" on the enhancements.

You get the enhancements whether you pay for the expansion or not.

[Danemoth]

Is there a thread out there complaining about the exp for quests being too low?

If not, then it deserves its own thread instead of being nested in a thread that is likely to be skimmed over.

Also, there's dev quotes saying that all quests will have Heroic and Epic versions (http://ddowiki.com/page/Shadowfell_Conspiracy), something I welcome since that level range is DISMAL for quest selection.

Originally Posted by Cordovan

The plan is to have heroic and epic versions of the new quests in the expansion, although the current U18 capstone quest "Shadow of a Doubt" does not currently have an epic version planned for it. Keep in mind of course that any project still in development could see changes happen to it, but the plan is to offer heroic and epic versions of the expansion quest content.

[Cetus]

You get the enhancements whether you pay for the expansion or not.

Lol, you seem to be taking this comment literally.

What I stated was an opinion. Yes, I know that we get these enhancements for free - you honestly think I'm oblivious to that fact?

What I meant was that the developers seem to have spent a lot of time on these enhancements, and that compensates for the **** work they seem to have done thus far on the expansion given the price tag.

Its my hypothesis as to why the price is so high and the contents of the expansion are underwhelming. You may disagree all you want, its an opinion.

[CoasterHops]

Lol, you seem to be taking this comment literally.

What I stated was an opinion. Yes, I know that we get these enhancements for free - you honestly think I'm oblivious to that fact?

What I meant was that the developers seem to have spent a lot of time on these enhancements, and that compensates for the **** work they seem to have done thus far on the expansion given the price tag.

Its my hypothesis as to why the price is so high and the contents of the expansion are underwhelming. You may disagree all you want, its an opinion.

Seems pretty valid to me.

[caissede12]

I totally agree whit you oradafu. The new way of getting content out as "Expansion" is just a marketing trick, so instead of getting stuff out for free for VIP, all they do now is get all the new content as "Expansion". MotU was good enaugh to be called an expansion. Shadowfell? just like Oradafu stated, is a simple 2 quests chain pack that, so far, seems to lack reward. Yes this release will also add a lot of stuff to the game (Iconics, skill tomes, lvl28 cap etc) but all those will be obtainable to everyone without buying the expansion. So what the standard/collection editions are really are simple adventure packs bundles whit a few extra items in them, no reason to make the VIP pay for them (PS: Im not VIP).

Its outrageous that turbine make you pay for that.

[oradafu]

Is there a thread out there complaining about the exp for quests being too low?

If not, then it deserves its own thread instead of being nested in a thread that is likely to be skimmed over.

Also, there's dev quotes saying that all quests will have Heroic and Epic versions (http://ddowiki.com/page/Shadowfell_Conspiracy), something I welcome since that level range is DISMAL for quest selection.

They actually posted that both chains will have heroic and elite modes.

First, thanks for pointing to the quote about both parts of the expansion having Heroic quests. I must have missed it somehow, because the last I read was the Wheloon was Heroic only while Stormhorn would be Epic only. So I was a bit surprised by the Epic content in the Wheloon area, but not too surprised since one of the Devs basically confessed that make Epic content from existing heroic content was as difficult as the Devs had been telling us for the past few years.

Lol, you seem to be taking this comment literally.

What I stated was an opinion. Yes, I know that we get these enhancements for free - you honestly think I'm oblivious to that fact?

What I meant was that the developers seem to have spent a lot of time on these enhancements, and that compensates for the **** work they seem to have done thus far on the expansion given the price tag.

Its my hypothesis as to why the price is so high and the contents of the expansion are underwhelming. You may disagree all you want, its an opinion.

The people designing on the Enhancements, the people designing on the loot and the people who design the quests are most likely not the same people. With that said, I'd give a pass on some of the stuff I'd expect from Expansion since there's clearly work being done on the Enhancements (even if nothing but more trees for multiclasses have been adjusted since they were first previewed). I'm willing not to have a raid for the enhancements for example.

But this really doesn't excuse the horrible named loot that's being put out for an expansion. Pointing to the armor is probably the turdiest of the poor design in the current loot, but it can be spread around to all the random generated stuff and other poorly thought out loot (gloves to increase the DC of Illusions?!).

Which leads to the poor XP in the Heroics. Yes, Danemoth, I'll probably be busting out a new thread in a day or so about the horrible Heroic XP. But with all the complaining about the poor XP in the upper heroics, you'd expect the XP for these quests to be decent right out of the gate. Instead, we've been given the same poor XP for heroic quests that have been pushed through release after release. Does it matter that the Expansion should deliver something on par or better than other releases? Apparently not.

===
As I stated in the OP, I might have been willing to forgive alot of this if the expansion opened up a new campaign setting. I even stated when the Expansion was released if the campaign setting had been the rest of the Amarth storyline, that would have been worthy of being an expansion, even if it wasn't a new campaign setting.

Also the lack of a new Environment is greatly disappointing. I was a bit psyched by the environment change in Shadow of the Doubt in the pre-expansion quest. Like I said earlier, it reminded me a bit of the Xoriat madness. But when you do the quests and the wilderness area in Wheloon, it's really disappointing. The Devs didn't incorporate this new mechanic into those areas very well (if at all). Through the Mirror Darkly, which uses a different environmental effect, was the only thing that comes close to being something special so far in the expansion.

I'm just really disappointed and really can't recommend to anyone who hasn't bought the expansion already to buy it.