TBS dying already?

[kekenewah]

I have noticed fewer and fewer people in the TBS zones and most are going back to TSS for exp. As soon as people had the faction and orum to get their TBS spells they all fled back to TSS. Orum which at one point was for sale as low as 100 pp each is now back to 500 pp each and is rarely for sale any more on my server. Looks like SOE missed the boat with this expansion. I think they really need to add more stuff like augments/weapons/equipment to the TBS merchants to make people want to spend all the time getting faction and earning orum.

[Aetemius]

I think part of the reason people have migrated back to TSS is that it's somewhat easier to exp in these zones.

I hate doing the group missions in TBS. Katta is too **** big with too many walls that I can't lev over. Group missions are full of see-invis mobs that can aggro you upon zoning in. The lag in some of these zones is horrid as well.

[Wyvernwill]

One thing I see in TBS is that they made it an expansion that they want people to do both instance and non instance content. This is evident in the fact that there are no augs, jewelry, etc on the vendors. There is a lot of nice things in the mission zones, but to be honest, there's little reason to do the missions outside of a few gear items/progression. From what I have been hearing, TSS's non instanced content is better balanced than TBS.. but that's only what I have heard.

Personally, I never left TSS so far. Been having too much fun PLing alts in Direwind to even check out much of TBS so far.

[filobeto]

Katta is too **** big with too many walls that I can't lev over.

Katta is not bad at all once you finish the portal tasks.

It took us (full group) two evenings to finish the three portal activation tasks, I hated it then...but now, I can't begin to think of what I would do if I hadn't done those tasks. They are worth the effort.

[BeltiraBelkira]

well it depends really i know from TBS out of the buried sea itself there is a long series of tasks for a nice aug that fits only in glove slot but there are so many tasks that i think some people who know about it dont feel like doing so many tasks for so many pieces and have to do the group pirate missions to combine em all together.

[Zacatac]

I go out the Buried Sea zone all the time to work on the Skeletal Hand augment quest. It's great to do something casually, that I can log in and work on for an hour, and log back out. Some parts I solo, other parts I might get a guildmate to help out and duo. So far only 1 part of it needed a group of any sorts, most everything can be done with less.

But it's a very long series of quests, around 38 different task missions total to get the 27 different pieces. I'm about 50% done.

[Strokker]

Just my opinion here. TBS was really and truely designed with the higer end player/Raider to group with their friends and really many do not group much, they just log on to do raids and such and then are gone. At least this has been my observation in My Guild of those who raid with UBER raid teams. Personally I think Sony shot themselves in the foot on this one, but I wait to see.

[Sunshadow]

Bad pathing and annoying mobs = Little usage. However like DON and DODH you rarely saw people xping in the static zones, most were locked away in instances. The impression of empty zones is the result an instance heavy expansion gives.

[cibby]

I have to admit that we are in Buried Sea mainly for the aug but we are having a blast....this is group of 3-9 depending on the time and we are hard core groupers.....finished all TSS Group pieces for the mains.

We do Katta missions 1-2 times a week and there are some pirate group missions that while little hectic our wizzy pulls them and its instance version so it could be considered similar to 69.1 but we use it as a way to get our rk1until ally or what not for rk 2.

I will alway prefer icefall exp over any zone but we are spoiled with spiders and bears being kitable.

It will take us a while to get 4 of our friends (1 married couple) who are very casual the aug done but in the mean time we are having fun and 2 of the 4 of us have finished enough to make one part of the aug (free up tradeskill bank space!!)

4 of us 9 are working on the Artisan too and that has been good and bad.....oh my some these skill up or lack there of!

Cibby

[Fox the Clever]

To tell you the truth, I've never noticed lots of people in the Buried Sea zones to begin with. After all, this expansion was designed for very high level characters, and as such has a compliment of monsters to match. I've heard a lot about these really tough critters, enough that I'm glad I never purchased the expansion at all.

There is also the fact that EverQuest has so much content these days, to the point of being overwhelming. On the Tribunal server, a random /who all check will often reveal high level players in Gates of Discord or Omens of War zones. Heck, the highest level of content that my main character has experienced is Planes of Power and Dragons of Norrath! Who's going to bother getting yet another expansion when there is all of this content to experience?

There is also the download issue to consider. After all, The Buried Sea is the third expansion in a row that can only be purchased online. Some people like this, but I personally wonder if the real reason Sony does this is because the retailers perceive EverQuest as a game that is slowly dying off, and as such do not put EverQuest related material on their limited amount of shelf space, leaving Sony with no choice but to resort to digital downloads. I've also noticed more than just a few people coming to the same conclusion.

From a purely tradeskill point of view, there is very little in this new expansion to warrant notice. Don't bother to try and make orbs using sunshard dust or pebbles - sunshard ore based items seems to be the only thing in demand, and that's only if you can actually find someone who's wearing any of the new armor sets.

Finally, you can only acquire the alternate currencies by doing group missions. The problem with this is once people get tired of The Buried Sea and leave, how are you going to get the currency? Sure, you can buy it in the bazaar, but that supply will only last so long, and at any rate it's a pretty lame thing to do and then end up travelling to zones that, in due time, will be deserted as those of Lost Dungeons of Norrath or Prophecy of Ro just to get some bauble.

Allakazam's posted a poll some time ago asking if people had pre-ordered The Buried Sea expansion, and the resulting feedback was mostly negative (and not merely rants; some people were bringing out very legitimate points and concerns). In short, it's not good news at all.

[Leana]

Since release, I have spent almost all my time in TBS. I have enjoyed the expansion as much if not more than any other expansion. I am ally to Katta and warmly to pirates. I have completed the hand quest and am currently working on the urn quest when I can get people to actually go to the non-instanced zones.

This expansion has a lot to offer the non-raider. Group missions are more interesting than most of the fare previous to this expansion and have a lot more versitility than group missions in previous expansions. Non-instanced zones have mobs in them that drop very nice loot for any non-raider.

A number of the areas are more solo friendly, with easily single pulls of mobs that give good exp and have less DPS than Direwind and other zones. There are a ton of solo tasks that can actually be soloed by appropriately geared people.

[Dea]

I am sorry Fox.. but from a pure tradeskill point of veiw this is a great tradeskill expansion, Sunshards are easy to get and while the armor components are somewhat expensive the completed armor/weapons and orbs sell back at about 2/3 of cost. Not to mention great skill up path for JC, Fletching, Tailoring, Smithing, Tinkering and Spell Research. Yes the finished armors have a small baz market but small is better the non- exsistant as in the case of Master's DoN cultural and being able to vendor sell back rather then skilling up the destroy button is a big help.

Dea