I’m not your typical fanboi, at least not most of the time. But so far I think the expansion kicks ass. Sure, there are a lot of people in the zones right now. Sure, TT crashed a couple of times under the pressure. But the instances that we did last night, the exploring in the one of the new dungeons, the XP and achievement system, they all kick butt. Getting discovery experience for finding new areas in the dungeon, awesome. Dropping named mobs all over the zone and getting server first discoveries, excellent. Getting some pretty nice legendary items off named encounters, priceless.

I ported up immediately after patching last night (I had camped at the spires in CL) and zoned into TT. The sites were nice, but I wanted some action. I got into a group in Sanctum of the Scaleborn and we commenced a beatdown on that zone like I haven’t seen in a long time (I’m seriously thinking it was like old-school Sebilis or any of the old game zones with tons of people constantly moving around each other, in short, a zone full of life and action). The place was packed, people were everywhere, and training was back in full force. The action was fast, we were constantly fighting at least 2-3 encounters and the XP bar flew across the screen. Even with no vitality, we were gaining adventure experience at a pretty nice clip.

We tracked down a few named encounters and managed to beat them, taking their often dropped legendary chest loot. We got a number of sweet items, many superior upgrades for slots not currently occupied with T6 legendary/fabled. It seems like the base stat level for items in the expansion starts at +22 or so and goes up. We got several +22 WIS, +22 INT items, along with various chain, leather and cloth drops (it wasn’t all plate for a change!). One of our groups even managed to snag what could be a worldwide first win on an instance (against a 57^^^ instance boss).

I’m looking forward to more action tonight, my experience with the expansion so far is very good!