Double thumbs up (First Ward)

Just wanted to say that i VERY MUCH enjoyed all the story arcs in first ward. Its been the most fun ive had in this game in a long time. I was actually sad when the story came to an end, like the end of a good book. Very well done!!

I hope the DA revamp will be equally as epic.

I guess this shows how diverse the Playerbase's preferences are. Personally, I loved the look of FW and the concept behind its arcs, but hated pretty much all of the actual arc content. Too many walls o text, irritating zone runarounds, ambush mania and not enough use of the bits of the zone I thought were the coolest.

That said, I'm happy that you were very pleased. CoH is best when there's something for all

I'm hoping that the new DA isn't mechanically like FW.

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Yeah, First Ward was awesome - it still felt like it was a part of Praetoria, but it built on the GR story to add some great new lore and stories.

I personally have an odd relationship with these arcs. I think they are great, but I don't really like them in terms of CoX.

Expounding a bit: I think First Ward represents some of the best stories and execution of those stories in game...

but,

I don't think I'll run them more than thrice total. The atmosphere and genre-sidesteps that many of the arcs take are quite far afield from the superhero and supervillain content I prefer here. In away, many of the arcs feel like an update to what Striga IMO was originally supposed to represent: an homage to horror comics. But First Ward is with a twist: it's more of an homage to post-apocalyptic horror fiction and film (not counting the Master Midnight exception) rather than many comic sources. A well done homage, but one that really steps too far afield for what I'm after and in terms of gameplay is already well covered by both other MMO and SP titles.

First Ward takes everything that's wrong with Praetoria and dials it up to 11. I haven't run it on live and probably won't.

I really liked the look of First Ward, the characters, and the story behind it all. What I didn't like is how my character fit into that story. And I don't mean the specific character I took into First Ward, I mean the general "my character" (because I think I probably picked one of the best of my characters to take to FW in terms of story and difficulty).

I liked the start of First Ward. I am now on Master Midnight and have little desire to go back.

The story was pretty good. The zone is fine, interesting in places.

What I really dislike is that almost every other mission I am alternating between fighting someone and being their ally. It makes the story feel like I'm just being jerked around. I no longer care about any of the groups because I have fought both with and against them. I appreciate the attempt to have diversity in enemies, but it just killed the story for me.

Probably for the reasons stated above, but FW just annoyed the dickens out of me. I took a dm/wp brute through there at launch and not had any desire to go back with any other character.

I enjoyed the FW arcs for the most part. The story was adequate, except for leaving Katie imprisoned at the end (which I understand is a cliffhanger for future content).

The only thing I didn't appreciate was the freaking Awakened. One of the Lieutenants has a 40ft AoE buff that grants +40% to-hit.

Playing at elevated difficulty through the whole set of missions for the challenge, then needing to change said difficulty for one mob group every time you encounter them due to "Huge To-hit Buff for Everyone" is just annoying.

At least versus Devouring Earth you can destroy the To-Hit Buff of Cheating.

As i said before, i enjoyed the first ward, but rl time constraints have limited my ability to finish it, loved what i played so far though. and the seed of hami is the only thing in the game right now outside of lusca that i legitimately consider a giant monster. not a big lt like caleb, adamaster and the kraken. a giant MONSTER.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I really like what I have done so far with first ward. Much more the starting in goldside.

I liked the characters and the story well enough (Even though I did get a little tired of the repeated "Okay, time to do something horrible to my friends. Again."-thing...), but from a playability standpoint it was annoying as all hell.

See, I went through it the first time solo. With a Stalker. <_<

I knew it would be a pain on a Stalker going in, just because a lot of things in Praetoria are. That's the way the place was designed... But about half-way through the early arcs I seriously began to wonder if a Stalker had ganked Protean's puppy as a child or what. There's 'Hostile to Stalkers' and then there's 'Let's see just how useless we can make you, you sneaky jerks!', and whole swaths of First Ward fall solidly under that second heading.

I'm about to head there with another Stalker... I doubt my reaction this time will be any different, but I figured it was worth giving it a second chance. Now that I know what I'm in for, maybe Anteros will fare better than Whisper did. o_0

The first ward arcs were really well written imo. Im all for ambushes if it does make sense and i think apart from instant, it all seemed to fit.

I've taken a regen brute and a dominator through there and didnt face any problems that seemed too much to handle, my next character through it will be flashbacking my stj/nrg scrapper through it. The only problems i had with it was that the xp the total arcs gave wasnt that high solo [20 - 24 iirc] and so some of the hunt missions became VERY tough indeed, plus the arcs only really seemed to use half the map which seemed a shame since the other half of the map seemed like it could have some awesome arcs in them.

Loved FW, but it gets way too depressing and ends in a sort of downer ending imo. Bu I guess thats just praetoria for you

I'm glad you like it! I just started it for the first time (I was setting up a specific character for it) and I've got high hopes.

I hear it's pretty grey area. I hope the new DA stuff has properly heroic content in it. I've been playing the Faultline arcs lately because they're good at making you feel like a big damn hero.