The Shadow Odyssey - not worth the trip
User Rating: 7 | EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey PC
I do sometimes find it strange that I pay to play an MMO online, yet I spend 99.9% of my time playing solo. Because of this, I really cannot tip my hat to TSO, since the majority of it's gameplay revolves around instanced zones. There is a solo storyline to complete with numerous quests and what not, but I just did not find that I had the drive to finish them like I did with Kunark (the best expansion to date imo). The level design outside of the instances is very drab and boring. All of the monsters you fight are taken from past expansions and zones. There are the same old boring graphics thrown about as well. The 'starting zone' is nothing but a heap of scattered boxes and planks that look like the designers created by closing their eyes and randomly clicking in a design editor. The inside of instances look alright, from what I've seen, but I've only ran a few so I cannot really comment on them all. There is a lot of new legendary gear to buy from merchants using void shards, which can only really be achieved from running instances, which require a guild or group of annoying nerds to deal with. The new factions introduced also offer faction gear and titles, which is a nice touch, but if you already have fabled Kunark gear then you need not bother. The titles are a nice touch, though I wish Kunark had offered titles from their faction merchants, since imo something like 'Sentinel of Rillis' would have been better than 'Knight of Tupta'. I can only hope that the next expansion (something velious maybe) is better than TSO which, to me, is a waste of time (though it's still better than KOS, yuck!).
