I honestly do! I already liked Heavensward, Ishgard and the Western Highlands presenting such a great wintry atmosphere, but was very underwhelmed with Azys La, Hinterlands and partially the Sea of Clouds, as they didnt fit with either the cold/winter nor the dragon/viking theme of the rest.
Stormblood is starting out great. I think the new classes are among the best-designed in any MMO since EQ1, flowing nicely and offering opportunities to perfect gamestyle, I adore the start of the MSQ (just got through the cutscene with the imperial hymn, just awesome), so far it feels less high-fantasy and more down-to-earth, the zones, mobs, even FATEs and hubs look beautiful, interesting, and the fact we cannot FLY everywhere (yet) allows me to live in these zones, not just zoom through.
I dont mind technical issues in MMOs unless they persist for weeks, and while I rushed my SAM to 61 to play the MSQ with her, I actually enjoyed a last day of Heavensward FATEs and dungeons as a send-off to a great expansion.
But Stormblood looks to be that much greater! I sincerely hope they do not drop the ball later on, undertuning and handholding too much, as I look forward to getting my face eaten by the first bosses, and learning to really utilize the movement skills and nicely flowing abilities of my class in order to overcome content.
And the music and sound design! Once you have seen the above-mention cutscene and heard the hymn, you ll recognize its leitmotif in lots of areas and parts, really adding to the feeling of omnipresent imperial threat. Not to mention the good voiceovers, which have come a long way from 2.0.
An awesome first day and impression, with signs of great game design on the horizon!
I love the Stormblood expansion so far!
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06-17-2017, 09:34 PMNiyukaI love the Stormblood expansion so far!
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06-17-2017, 09:50 PMGetFoesReqdI agree
I love this expansion as well. The music is great, as always, the zones look great, the quests are as well designed as ever, and I spent probably an hour yesterday just looking through the market boards, gold saucer, and other things that were just added in. Yeah I wish I could advance the MSQ but I'm not sweating that.
I got to nearly 62 on my main class. I leveled all my gathering classes at least once, even in the zone with all the people standing around and the instability. I ran a leveling and a trials, and with the new abilities they were amazing to do. Shoving a perfect pitch into Nidhogg's stupid dragon face was amazing.
I got my money's worth and enjoyed myself. Maybe I'm just jaded because I used to play MMOs on dialup back in the day and would have disconnects and 500+ ping a lot that way. But whatever the case, this game expansion still has impressed me even in spite of the MSQ gaffe. ^_^ -
06-17-2017, 10:17 PMSyfurion
I can only assume the people bothered by this have never actually seen an MMO expansion launch, because this was honestly pretty smooth all-in-all. The trainwreck that was launch day for Warlords of Draenor comes to mind as one that went far, far worse. I'm enjoying myself, and I'm enjoying RDM far more than i expected to, given my general distaste for casters. I got no real serious issues to complain about.
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06-17-2017, 10:24 PMitti18
same here , having a blast so far , main senario and side quests are fun and I love the design of the new zones and mobs
also great music like always -
06-17-2017, 10:25 PMEcad
I really love the asian theme of this expansion, also the underwater stuff is cool. I didn't like the heavensward theme, too much cold and snow.
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06-17-2017, 10:26 PMCendres
I'm enjoying this more then Heavensward. I think this will be the best section of the story yet, wonderful design, I'm quite excited!
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06-17-2017, 10:29 PMrabbitzeroI've been playing mmos since late 90s, and this is pretty bad, 1.0 bad. Locked out of actually doing the main appeal of this game, the story, by bad design. Crashes yesterday, even while trying to do class quests, and some to desktop. Hellgate: London was still the worst, with actual blue screens, but this is up there in bad ones. Especially since they have to had known this was going to happen, since it happened every main story expansion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syfurion
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06-17-2017, 10:30 PMFalar
Heavensward will probably always be my favorite due to the setting and story.
I am still stuck at Raubahn though. -
06-17-2017, 10:41 PMNestamaSB's launch has been smooth, but I think most people stuck on the solo-instance quest would much prefer the issues HW had. HW's launch was spotty, but for those who could enter pretty much had little to no issues, while those who couldn't spent hours trying to get in. The very first solo instance did not have the same issues SB's first instance (and second, it seems) does. You got in, beat the two jerks and you were done. No bottleneck or 'lines,' as far as I can recall.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syfurion
I definitely recall making it to the Dravanian Forelands within 24 hours. I'm still in The Fringes. Over 24 hours later. Because I can't enter this one instance (and I did decide to try and level up my RDM via dungeons. I got 90k'd, couldn't get back in and was booted out of the dungeon 10 minutes later). -
06-17-2017, 11:02 PMSyfurionAh jeez, I'd completely removed HG:L from my memory, that was a thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by rabbitzero
I'm not saying that Squeenix is completely free from blame, more trying to say that 'Thing's can be so much worse than they are'. Being locked out of the MSQ is certainly a black spot on the release, and I won't try to deny that at all, but the game is at least working in general. They should've (and probably did) see this coming, but if the behemoth that is Blizzard can't figure it out, I don't hold out hope someone else really will.