Poll: Serpent's Spine ImpressionsFollow

Exceeded my expectations. It's a very good expansion, from the multitude of quests, (mostly) good quest rewards and generally decent groupable gear. It might be a stretch to call it the best, but definately very good.

I love it. I can easily say it is the best I have seen, simply because I have only been in the game a couple of years. So ya best expansion I have experienced.

Awesome graphics, nice quests, better organization/layout etc. It would be perfect if drakkins had dye and weren't subject to being doomed to drabness. Other than that it is great.

Seamy

High-end raiders tell me TSS sucks big time for raiders. 80 solo quests to win access to the raid zones that are finished in weeks and itemization that seems like it was done by an intern overnight, and maybe that is so, I will probably never know. But as a semi-casual player I can only say IT ROCKS. I can solo again - wheee! There are mobs that do not summon - YAY! The zones are beautiful ('natural', for want of a better word), and there are no more weird aliens with unpronouncable names. Thank you SOE for getting it right. The spell system is ingenious, and much better than the silly rune system for 69 and 70. The race, well, it's ok. I'm not sure I understand the need for a new race, but this one is a definite improvement over the froglok fiasco imo.

The only thing that bothers me is the lack of Focii on some of many of the raid level drops. Upgrading gear has become a pain because often I'll end up having to trade a focus that I need for a 40 or 50 mana upgrade.

If Merloc would fix that, then I'd be happy with everything.

it's a grat zone just a bit laggy for me :( dunno if anyone else has same problem or not

The zones are too big and therefore, laggy....


The gotta have right armor-type mold drop, then the right armor-type power source drop....sucks....one or the other but not both...

The fact that they raised the level cap and now the only place to xp is either of the last 2 expansions...sucks...

And let's up the drop rate on the rk. ii spells plz....

Aye! way laggy for me (but I have an old system). I still started a drak and as long as I'm not in the home zone everything is good. I like the content as far as I've used it. I just wish I could get a good enough system to enjoy it.

I like it, there is a lot to do. Ive been playing for 7.4 years now, sometimes many hours a day, but that doesnt mean im allways 'Doing' something.. lots of time is spent LFG, AFK, or just BSing with friends. Ive never been in a power Raiding guild, and dont plan to, I took 3 years to get to lvl 70, and have yet to see many of the end zones, Time, Tacvi, Anguish, Dreadspire, ToB. I classify myself as a Casual Gamer, even with such an extensive playtime, because i just take my time and enjoy myself with friends.

I enjoy the new TSS , there are lots of things to do, and im loving the new Armor quests, some say they are too easy, or too hard.. everyones a critic... And so, heres my little bit of a rant...

2 things in particular :

1st> Having my main a Cleric this hits a bit to the heart.. the Aego line ( temp, virt, conv, tens ) are a 1 buff coverall to the " 3 buff combo " of HP type 1 HP+AC ( resolution, Rectitude, etc ) + HP ( symbols ) + AC ( ward of valiance ).. Most players either want the coverall ( Conviction ) OR the Druid combo ( Stealoak + Symbol + Ward ).. with the new expansion clerics got an Upgrade to the coverall ( tenacity ), Symbol ( Symbol of Elushar ), and HP type 1 ( Rectitude ).. But no upgrade to AC , the highest we have is still the lvl 66 Ward of Valiance.. we recieve Rectitude, a buff we will NEVER use, but not one our Druid buffed collegues actually ask for .. Seems a bit bass akwards to me.

2nd> Im sure there is a reason out there somewhere , but it has not been explained yet, but the new Drakkin race can not color thier armor.. I originally thought this had something to do with the bloodlines, maybe your heritage colored it differently.. but that doesnt seem to be the case. It cant just be a bug, since its been this way since day 1 and im not the first to notice it, without anything being done, so perhaps a couple lines of Why they thought that was neccissary would put us at ease over the matter.

Hmm... I see a lot of "It's pretty" comments... Are the graphics better than what we're used to? What makes it pretty?

The skill cap increases have been poorly implemented. I cast thousands of spells with my skill at the old cap. Suddenly the cap is raised by a very large percentage, causing the level 71 spells to fizzle at an alarming rate. Do I get any credit for all the previous casts? No. Do I get quick skillups? No. It is taking on average more than 20 casts to get one skillup. When I need to raise my skill level by almost 100 points, this is ridiculous. I spent several hours getting my most vital skills up to the necessary level. How stupid is that?

Here you go, new spells! But you will have to waste hours of your time before you can use them efficiently. Too bad!!

Please. I still have skills that are well below the cap, and spells that I have cast over and over that will fizzle 7 or 8 times in a row. Why should I have to spend hours of my time fixing a poorly implemented change?

Yeah, there is some good new content. But what were they thinking?

P.S. Sig is out of date, I am level 73 now.

Edited, Dec 4th 2006 9:28am by oengus

I thought it was rubbish. The single group tasks do not have any interesting rewards. The itemisation is ridiculous. The initial raid progression is ridiculous from all accounts. There is no challenging single group content with any degree of requirement for strategy. The Drakkin look like a pack of metrosexual coffee house parusers. The task system makes me feel like im playing WoW. The spell rank system is annoying due to buff overwrite issues.

Fancy graphics is no excuse for lack of in depth content.

I was considering quitting EQ again, although I decided to get TSS and see if it could revitalise my interest in the game. About a week after it was released, my friend who I hadn't heard from in years popped onto Povar and sent me a tell saying he'd returned to EQ and was on The Sleeper, so all TSS really did is keep me hanging around long enough to go to The Sleeper with him (and eventually The Sleeper was destroyed by SoL and PoP being unlocked).

Edited, Dec 4th 2006 1:41pm by Soulgrinder

Pros:
1) Lots of quests

Cons:
1) All the quests are in zones with extreme jumps in hardware requirements.
2) The zone layout (linear with one fork) is HORRIBLE. Takes forever to get to a grind group.
3) No instances (for those times when you don't want to grind the same camp over and over)
4) Gear Inflation: This is EQ for babies considering how easy it is to get mana-regen and +atk.
5) Everyone has a pet! (Adds lag, kinda kills the novelty of real warders or pets)