An Early Opinion From A Solo Player
With that said, let me say that from my experience so far, SF is another decent expansion in the EQ2 series; better than KoS but still falling under RoK.
Solo play wise, there are a lot of quests to start off with. There are several quest lines that I've done, most of which involve running around killing x amounts of this, talking to this, this & this person, gathering x amount of this, or running to checkpoints, etc. Nothing new there. The rewards are mostly experience, with some + faction points to new factions, and occasionally an item. The faction points can be spent for new house and gear items, none of which are very impressive so far. The majority of faction gear is for level 90 players, but doesn't look all that impressive compared to level 80 ex-end game raid gear. The item rewards from early quests are equally unimpressive, with stat bonus' to things like crit rate or double attack, but very low +stats to things like str and agi, etc. I've managed to solo kill a few named mobs I've wondered across as well, and the legendary items I've looted so far are also unimpressive. One level 82 ring had +2 STR. That's right, +2. It's sitting on the market at a whopping 40gold. All of the 80 - 85 treasured gear I've discovered so far is also rather weak, and will remain useless to anyone with decent fabled or legendary gear from previous zones.
A few changes have occurred in the world of stats. Being a Shadow Knight, I used to rely on STR for my melee, and INT for my magic. No more. Now STR dictates the rates of BOTH my SK skills, with INT only affecting the magic attacks of pure mage classes. With this change I would have liked to see a lot of the INT on my SK/Pally items removed, but a lot still remains there, uselessly. The rest of these changes are listed in the GU55 update notes. Also, Halas is still missing. It has been pushed back to GU56, which is disappointing. I was looking forward to this.
There are two retail versions of this game on the shelves. One is a regular edition, and the other is a collectors edition. If you have not yet seen the special mount that comes with the collectors, I'd advise you to google it first, because honestly, it's rather stupid looking, and not nearly worth the extra $30 or so bucks you pay extra for the collector's. Of course that's just my opinion. I'm not a big fan of the shiny Rile unicorn I'm riding around on either but it's fast so, I deal.
Most of you know that the level cap has been raised to 90 with this expansion. The AA lines have also been tweaked for the better, and have all been reset in order to appease these new changes. Several new AA skills have been added for all classes, and I am quite happy with the available options granted to me as an SK. (The warlock and zerker lines also seem quite promising.) They allow for further distinction between several players of the same level and class, and allows you to customize your play style a bit deeper than before. There are, of course, players who've already rushed to level 90 and maxed out AA within the few days the game has been out, which proves that while extensive, the game content is still easy to level on, and steps the game even further away from the 'grind fest' that most MMO's feed on. Some may like this, others may not.
The mobs I've encountered are, for the most part, and probably as expected, rehashed from previous zones. You'll fight kobolds, except these have a bit of green tint in their fur. You'll fight crawlers, except these are blue. You'll fight purple spiders, except, well actually these look exactly the same as those in Kunark, EL, and a dozen other places. It reminds me of the early days of Nintendo, when home versions of Double Dragon kept changing the color of a mobs hair or clothing, thereby making it 'new?' (think Abobo). That is always a disappointment. There are an almost infinite amount of options dev's could put into mob design, yet we keep seeing the same giant bugs and killer trees. Lame.
The zones themselves look, alright. The city design within Paneel is decent with graphics at maximum, though I have had to keep it at 'High' at best because at any given time there are 90+ players in the zone which causes lag spikes. This will change in time, as it has in Kunark mega zones, but for now it's a hassle at peak hours. Otherwise I'm not that impressed with the new level designs. You're basically on floating islands like in KoS, and you have to get between them using transports and these slow flying discs. This makes the early 'talk to this person and that person' quests tedious as it takes a bit to navigate all over the damn place. Another hindrance to that is elevation. It's quite annoying when a waypoint or destination is 4 feet to your left, but you have to walk 900 miles out of the way to get there because of a higher elevation. This annoyance really began to 'shine' in Sinking Sands, and has only escalated with EoF and now SF. I will assume that the details inside raid zones will look cooler, as they usually do (sorry Venril, I'm not talking to you) but I haven't raided yet so I'm not sure. (I did zone into one though, Toxxulia's Mound, and it made me think of the Drafling Tower.)
There are a lot of new shiny collections, which is good news for the people who got screwed out of there 'complete 50 collection' achievement like I did with over 250 collections done before the achievement system. Shinies are quite common and you can finish a few collections within a day or two if you explore enough. A few other achievements were added, like a 'complete 75 quests' one for the new 80 - 82 zone. Those can be fun, however cosmetic they may be.
Overall, though is doesn't sound all that great, it's still EQ2, and if you're a fan of the lore like I am, giving SF a shot is worth it. If you're an old player who gave EQ2 up and wants to come back, SF really doesn't offer you much at first because it's zones are geared for level 78 - 90 players, but eventually it will be a place for you to stomp around in. Those wishing to dabble in the lore of the long lost Kerrans and explore their old towns of Paineel and other places in Odus will enjoy the story more than those players who frantically click-click-click through quests in a rush to get to level 90 first, but to each their own, right? There is also a new 'Golden Path' quest line for new or lower returning players which is geared to steer players through various zones and quests suited for their level. I also think this is there to help improve population in older forgotten zones to avoid them becoming ghost towns like so many of the fun places have in EQ1.
There is also a new Battlegrounds 24 vs 24 PVP feature, which I will only mention but not review since I avoid all PVP like the plague.
Graphics 7/10
This depends on your settings and card I suppose, but regardless, it is still an expansion for an almost 6 year old game. I will mention however that it now supports nVidia's 3D Vision technology. A combination of high-tech wireless glasses and advanced software, which you can read more about on nVidia's website.
Sound 6/10
The battle sounds are the same. I don't play with the music on so I can't touch on it (though there seems to be some bug in Stonebrunt that turns my music on after a few hours regardless of my volume settings)
Playability 8/10
It's good to see a lot of soloable mobs and quests for players like myself, but I fear I may breeze through them all too quickly like I did with "The Shadow Odyssey", which will then leave me with no other options but group instances or alt playing.
Overall 7/10
In the end, this is EQ2. Either you like it, or you don't. Things could be better, but they could also be a lot worse. I for one will be sticking around for a while, at least until Halas comes out.
I hope this short review has helped a bit :)