First Impressions

[Raedwulf]

WARNING: No Spoilers!!

The purpose of this thread is for people to give their first impressions (duh!) of the game. It is NOT to give away important information that may spoil someone else's exploration of, or participation in, the new content. Saying that Bk 15 involves a lot of travelling back & forth from Delossad & you may want to team up with a Hunter is fair warning; it does not give any clue as to what you are required to do. Saying that a certain quest is tough, or an instance, or session play, ditto. Giving out specific information about a quest, or where to find stuff, is a spoiler. If you're desperate to know where to find things, or whatever, either PM someone through the board, or do your own research on the web.

So please, please, please - courtesy towards everyone else & think twice about what you're posting ANYWHERE on the board in the next few weeks. Unless Rhy overrules me, I reserve the right to ban for up to a month anyone that posts a spoiler. You have been warned!

[Raedwulf]

So then, my first impressions, having so far spent much of the day on Angerenel, with a short session on Angrenar, my new RuneKeeper....

The game looks prettier, they've definitely upgraded the graphics engine a bit. There are differences straight away - some icons are changed, the whole of the bonus system has had a revamp e.g. +3 iCPR is now +180 iCPR which is the value per minute, rather than the value per second as it was before. Mitigations, parries, etc are also very different as you'll realise if you've read the pre-release info that's been available. It's a little odd seeing such huge figures around the place (Light Rift chest armour that was 210AV is now over 500AV, for example), but I expect we'll get used to it pretty quickly.

Epic - Haven't been down to Eregion at all yet, so can't comment. Bk 15, as you may have gathered from the above, is a typical Turbine job - waste everyone's time by making them travel around quite pointlessly. I'm up to Chapter 12 (don't know where it finishes). So far there's been one session play instance & one FS instance, the latter being extremely bloody hard! But good - Hal & I had 3 goes at it with a pretty decent PUG without success, but plenty fun. Drawing a parallel for comparison purposes, it's as though the Thrang to Thaurlach sequence had been written for a FS instead of a 12 man raid. The storyline through the book, for me at least, is the usual Turbine Epic dross. You just do it to get it done.

New classes - I've created a Warden (untried as yet) & taken my new RuneKeeper almost to the end of the Intro (he's L5). He's interesting. Abarax has already told me via Facebook that he finds the Warden gambit system quite intriguing (he's a PC journo, so has had some access to the Beta). So both of those are definite plusses.

Class trait sets - Interesting but, ultimately, I don't think that these are going to make a great deal of difference. Essentially, your traits are divided into 3 groups & you get certain bonuses for having 2, 3, 4, or 5 from the same set slotted. I have only looked at the LM, of course, but ultimately I don't think you are going to be dropping any 1st choice traits to get a better set bonus, unless you choose a second string trait to get the bonus for 5, which makes another Legendary available. Even there, that 3rd Legendary slot only opens at L60, if I remember aright, so it'll be a while before it's any use.

I've done almost nothing with the crafting so far, so someone else will have to comment.

Legendaries - You'll be pleased to know that Legendary stuff isn't rare as rocking horse shit, a la Wigfeld. I've been working through Bk15 with Haleabor. Running around Nan Gurth we picked up 3 legendary gems (i.e. the gems that add bonuses to items - all were for bonus xp); Hal got one from a Sig Scara Pack-Lord; I got 2 from Normal Blade-beaks. In the Bk 15/12 instance attempts, a total of no less than 3 Legendary items dropped (2 HNT, 1 GDN), plus the Captain that was with us had already been & done something in Eregion & picked up a Legendary Halberd from there. It looks like everyone will get a decent chance to pick something up. Whether that something will be any good is another matter...

That's it for now. I'm diving back in!

[Haleabor]

I agree on the graphics. Not only is Eregion very beautiful, but somehow the main graphics just seem (very slightly!) better (maybe it's just my positive mood). I also feel the Black Pool is amazing - I actually had goosebumps the first time I went there although this was also contributed to by the music which (once again) is simply amazing good.

I terms of play I now have my first legendary weapon and have just got used to deciding what to apply to it to max my settings. Before release I got the impression that you just had to have the item bound for it to gain IXP, however you need to have it equipped.

Quest-wise i'm afraid it's the usual fair, but then that's what MMO's are about - right?

From a class perspective I need to learn a map to ED skill but to do it i need to complete 2 x explore deeds. I like the idea of that and so far it's challenging (still to find 2 areas depsite a full search)

Traits - well I have seen a big difference. I have take a gamble and as a solo build I have chosen Bowmaster (max dps). With this i generate a shit load of threat and power use - however my DPS is off the scale. Critted Heartseekers on level mobs are 3100+ damage :)

Not actually stepped into Moria yet....but all in all I am very happy

Hal