Shard of Fear first impressions

**Ikarri**

Well Unrest goes from 72 to 74^^^, so it is not unheard of as a zone for level 70s. It would be nice to have something new to play in while waiting for ROK, and the plane of fear (or a shard of it) is a nice little halloween treat I think. Even if it is unbeatable until the level cap, jumping in and trying to defeat it will be fun.

Of course, no one has mentioned if this is an epic zone for raids or a single group heroic, or contested... or what? Does anyone know?

Skeez1e

Cusashorn wrote:

He probably just shows up as part of the zone's storyline, if it has one.

Sorry, I wasn't clear (it was late!) - CT, the zone graphics, not CT the big ugly guy.

Its a single group zone, level 70 required to enter, and we haven't seen it all yet but we did encounter one 74 Epic x2. We only had five in the group when we did see him, we're going back tonight with 6 to play in the zone some more - will give him a shot then.

Its a persistent zone - we got a one day 11 hour message upon entering and it shows up with EH and Unrest on the persistent tab.

**kujumack**

Some screenies would be great for those of us stuck at work.

**Bramwell** · 10/02/2007 11:18:46

Darn, this zone is a persistent zone? That means it is probably around the same length as Unrest. Personally I do not like the direction zones are heading. When I start a zone I want to finish it. What PUG is going to want to finish a persistent zone I started with a different group? I would hope there will be a few OoB or CoV length zones in RoK.

p.s. [I cannot control my vocabulary] the obscenity filter.

**Lhangion**

As far as i know they want to make every new zone persistant no matter if they are as long as unrest.

**Siclone**

Bramwell@Guk wrote:

Darn, this zone is a persistent zone? That means it is probably around the same length as Unrest. Personally I do not like the direction zones are heading. When I start a zone I want to finish it. What PUG is going to want to finish a persistent zone I started with a different group? I would hope there will be a few OoB or CoV length zones in RoK.

p.s. [I cannot control my vocabulary] the obscenity filter.

yeah I agree about the zone sizes, I like them doable within a certain time. estate of unrest should have been like 3 zones.

having said that, I would not have an issue with another zone that size as long as you just go though and clean house and do what you want, go and kill what you want and then just leave, and don't have to solve riddles to get to the next part ect.

Brega

I'm not sure about Skee, but I had the impression that it wasn't finished yet. No see invis mobs other than the bosses was really wierd. Refreshing for me as a scout to actually have a purpose, but it isn't something I expect SOE to keep as is. Honestly I had the most fun in there being able to scout ahead, watch track for named, and find good pull spots. I felt like a scout, /shrug. But I can admit that if it goes live with no see invis mobs there will be a problem of the group skipping everything but the named.

The zone looked nice. The color scheme got a little tedious after awhile but not too bad. The tree models were new. Dracoliche looked cool. Although with that name I expected a skeleton or undead lookin thing. And a liche with babies made me kinda go, umm huh? Oh, the firewall was impressive, A+ guys!

The loot was pretty solid that we have seen so far, nothing game breaking, but very few, if any, made me go, "what a piece of crap" And please note I said, that we have seen so far.

Only major setback we have had so far is a ring event breaking. This was repeated by a second group from our guild as well. We found a way around it, but it may have broken the final for us. No one available at SOE to consult tho at the time so I have no answers on this yet.

The zone is 70+ just to enter as well, no idea if that will be kept. Instanced and persistant. Oh and it is nice and open, which was a joy for this ranger.

Overall difficulty.. The only hard time we had was when we got too many adds. Oh and a certain boss that whomped us, once. Other than that, up to this point, I would put this zone below Niz on difficulty. Which honestly I was hoping for harder than Niz. But it might scale up later /fingers crossed. Note - most of us were raid geared, not to the extent that you guys can be on live though.

Total summary - fun zone because it is new. Difficulty I think should go up a notch.

Final - the above is my opinion, yours will most likely differ. And I'm not going to post screenies. I'll leave that to someone else. One of the coolest thing about the new zone is that initial look through the doors and I don't want to take that away from you.

Brega - 70 Ranger, Test Server

**Siclone** · 10/02/2007 11:53:46

"No see invis mobs other than the bosses was really wierd. Refreshing for me as a scout to actually have a purpose, but it isn't something I expect SOE to keep as is."

Yeah don't expect that to stay that way....Stealth has always been worthless in this game and I don't expect that to change all of a sudden from a new zone

"But I can admit that if it goes live with no see invis mobs there will be a problem of the group skipping everything but the named."

Not if they make the difference in stealth and invisibility, like EQ1 did.
if Mobs see invis but not stealth,,,well then you could not skip to the named....

I am surprised eq2 dropped the ball on this where as eq1 had it down pretty good

Wingdini

Unless of course you had a rogue in the group, they do have group stealth.

Gungo

you do realize there is group stealth in this game, so people will still stealth past mobs to the named.

**Siclone** · 10/02/2007 12:28:16

well it should be changed to group invis,,,then it would work (thats a swahies ability i mean how hard would it be to code it from "stealth to invis"?.....I mean is that the brick wall from stopping that? of course not,,,then why bring it up?) ,,,,I did not design the game, just saying its flawed in the stealth area,,,,,and tossing out ideas

eq1 had invis and they had stealth, and it worked great, gave rogues a purpose so to speak

Gorthag

Actually, there is a difference... some mobs see invis, some see stealth... some are invis, some are stealth.... there just isn't widespread difference..

Gorthag · 10/02/2007 12:51:26

\aITEM -1115320850 1219695296:Dawnfear, the Reaper\/a

\aITEM -1887566537 1901113315:Boots of Trepidation\/a

Theres linktext for the only 2 items I've seen so far. =)

**Aela@Test**

Gear over level 70 is now dropping, in Fear, as well as other zones. We got a peice or two of level 71+ out of OOB last night.

**Hellswrath**

Aela@Test wrote:

Gear over level 70 is now dropping, in Fear, as well as other zones. We got a peice or two of level 71+ out of OOB last night.

Now that's interesting. I wonder if they will do that with live. Well, I seriously doubt it, but I still wonder. Bet that is a change they will implement when the expansion hits, though.