Originally Posted by
melodramocracy
I've yet to see a 5/5 expansion, so this gets a 3/5 from me.
Pros:
-A lot of stuff to do at end game.
-SoO
-MSV
-PvP (yes, carry on about hunters and warriors all day. Every expansion has op classes, and always will)
-Storytelling mechanisms used. Even if you don't like the lore going on now, how it's being told in game is better than past efforts.
-Timeless Isle and IoT, even if their benefits were rather temporary.
-World bosses and various rares in general.
-Flex mode is good, I see it's queuing tech being adapted for normal mode eventually.
-Legendary quest was good. I see them taking the 'very long quest chain' approach again, probably with a big more variety next time.
Cons:
-Very on rails questing. This is the second 5 level expansion, and both have been an absolute failure in this regard, especially on replay. More levels = more zones = more variance on replay.
-An excessive amount of tween content. Hozen and vermin immediately come to mind.
-Hiding plot lines behind rep gain. The cut scenes that unfolded throughout the 5.1 dailies were fairly crucial to events that unfolded, and probably should have been more directly accessible.
-The barrens event was... ok, not as good as it could have been.
-Pet battles.
-5 man dungeons across the board were a HUGE letdown, easily the worst of any expansion. I look at something like Stormstout, and then I look back at something like BRD, and I wonder what happened to this shell of a company in terms of creativity and detail.
-Artwork. Detail on armor and weapons was good, and the artwork is crisper than ever, but very little stylistically impressed me in terms of armor sets and weapons in this expansion.
Summary:
Not great, but good. Whatever comes next really does need to be great.