I just realized there doesn't appear to be any actual incentive to pre-buy the expansion. Checking the DDO Market, the "Ultimate fan bundle" for sharn shows it includes all the same things as the pre-purchase did.

So... what exactly is the advantage of giving them my money right now?

There's no advantage and that's why I'm choosing to wait and see. Some people just had to have their sparkly goat now, though.

As usual, that is some quality salesmanship from SSG...

See I always remember MOTU had all sorts of goodies ONLY for pre-ordering. I did not pre-order, and missed them. I guess they stopped rewarding loyalty a long time ago?

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Why are you here again? You're like a grandmother complaining about the cold. Go away.

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I dunno, I thought MOTU was pretty good. I liked Ravenloft. And Sharn. Really Shadowfell was the only one that really sucked. Did Shadowfell even have a raid?

Ravenloft and MOTU's absolute fucking shit raid-flagging mechanics aside, they are actually pretty great.

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MotU is fine if you can take off the rose tinted glasses due to the enhancement crash.

Ravenloft is definitely the best out of the bunch from loot to quests to art. It's all around a great job.

Sharn is the quick-fix money expansion. I can guarantee it was created due to Daybreak saying the devs needed to pony up some cash or lose their publisher. I think the art team tried; but the highly fantasized Steampunk aesthetic of Sharn completely clashes with the rest of Eberron content's aesthetics and like a crotchety old fart I absolutely hate it.  The quests are a slog save the Cogs quests and the raids are both designed by a masochist that's never played the game, let alone tried to pug raids before much like Strahd. (Though Strahd is actually a fun raid beyond the knowledge-barrier to run it.)

Feywild is still up for debate. Atleast the gear isn't a direct power creep system and the new augment design with the general augments and Soulforged is great. Set augments I'm holding off until we get a direct confirmation whether or not they'll be expanded to actual item sets rather than the strange 3pc bullshit they've previewed.

So that's 2/4 by default. And no, Shadowfell is not an expansion, don't try to sell me that shit. It's a loosely connected series of quest packs.

noamineo wrote on Oct 18^th, 2020 at 5:19pm:


See it as a bundle of content you do not yet own. I've bought the standard edition and got the expansion (on release day) and the shifter race.

Bought the ultimate for both MOTU and shadowfell and will never do anything like that ever again. Sorry but 120 bucks do not justify the crap they're selling, mostly cosmetic stuff I will never use (and only the winter eladrin is  BARELY acceptable in my eyes), an universal tree I will unlock with favor and the shifter iconic I'm not yet interested in since I have other racials lives to grind first. The insta-teleport is easily accompished by binding in a tavern and /death. The only actual interesting thing is the tome of destiny but that is still not enough. The hirelings suck, went in the lv 11 quest (just to get some favor points) where the zombies try to break the front gate and escape and I park a lv 17 owlbear, a lv 20 onyx panther, a lv 25 owlbear and another normal hire I don't remember. 3 druid past lives, all in attack mode and parked at entrance  and those motherfuckers managed to let the zombies break the fucking gate. Sorry but I'm not paying for a defective product (not anymore)

This time around the ultimate does not even have exp potion or anything with actual practicality and fuck unicorns (by the way). The ultimate is complete crap imho but the standard and the collector are okay so it's not "wasted" money

Still, not my money so I don't care.

The value in getting access to the race and tree early is fun.   You can explore those and get the PL's before the content comes out.  That way you aren't focused on leveling.   

That was a bit mitigated this time by releasing 3 raids with the pre-order.  I'd prefer to run the raids and get the PL's later.  Even if it means I've lost the racial completionist for a bit.

Well, you get bragging rights by showing off those goaty unicorns and run around like a christmas tree. You can hammer out the racials and iconic lifes b4 the expansion even starts ...
You would be AWEsome. Maybe next year you get a digital sticker saying just that.

kum-gulp wrote on Oct 19^th, 2020 at 9:53am:


I agree.   I'd have no problem with them selling the Black Panther in the store.  if it makes them money, go for it.   I don't care if they make previous HC cosmetics available in the store.   If someone wants the horse or a particular helm or cloak and they can make some coin off of it, go for it. 

Some people place value on the exclusivity.   It's important to them.   I'm not judging it.  I just don't agree.

I think they could also give out pre-order only consumables.   Give out a reward box from each sharn raid.  Give out some threads, rems, runes, ottos boxes/xp stones, or sov pots, etc.   Those would increase the value of buying now without using "exclusive" permanent items.

As someone who bought the MoTU collector's edition I was always pissed off that I couldn't get the silver preorder mask. And any request made towards customer service was a flat "no".

I'd have rather gotten the silver mask than the weird purple-red one from a visual standpoint.

Asheras wrote on Oct 19^th, 2020 at 11:00am:


100% agreed but I recall someone already asked SSG those questions and it looks like it all depends on the publisher since a player wanted to buy the flying cat companion and was willing to pay the price for the ultimate MOTU expansion, Cordoban replied they would have loved to even release the cat as a single buy option but it was out of their hands.


As much as I like to dump piles of steaming shit on SSG, not everything is their fault.

Artorias wrote on Oct 19^th, 2020 at 6:08pm:


You need to buy a Vault of the Odorous Labial expansion pack for that feature.