Double thumbs up (First Ward)
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
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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. ![]() |
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
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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.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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.
I hope the DA revamp will be a lot less "lolstalker" than First Ward. When even the mission writers goes out of their way to make your life as annoying as possible, it kinda cuts into the fun of it.
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Hurray for the Jet Pack temp power is all I can say.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
Word. I liked First Ward fine and was more than satisfied with the story and the ability of the missions to tell the story, but having to run around the map from the northwest corner to the east side to the central tower CONSTANTLY got more than a little tiring. Yes, let's make you go right through the Seed's path 10 times and through +3 spawns even more often!
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- Garielle
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.
I really like what I have done so far with first ward. Much more the starting in goldside.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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.
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Deamus the Fallen - 50 DM/EA Brute - Lib
Dragos Bahtiam - 50 Fire/Ice Blaster - Lib
/facepalm - Apply Directly to the Forehead!
Formally Dragos_Bahtiam - Abbreviate to DSL - Warning, may contain sarcasm
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
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
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. o_0 |
well, just a thought, but since it appears a major stalker buff is imminent in i22, do you have other characters that might be a little less vulnerable to praetoria's ambushes until i22 and you get tougher? obviously, im not trying to tell you how to play your game, but it seems to me that it might help a bit if you didn't like your first run to run a different character. (for the record, i have been doing it with a kin scrapper and a cold/sonic defender. the defender had some rough patches, the scrapper seemed to be up to the task though really well)
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Honestly, I don't expect the Stalker buffs to make that much of a difference in how the place plays either. I build my Stalkers to scrap already (You've run trials with Kestrel, Shade and Surruna. You've seen what I throw them into the middle of.
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
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.
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
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 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.
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It's not just the see-through-hide (sometimes multi-)boss ambushes. It's also all the missions where you have to escort someone who can't see through stealth through a full, hostile building.
Or the ghost things that are, literally, designed to be immune to assassin strike. All in all, First Ward is designed by someone who either really hate stalkers, or who has no idea stalkers exist. I don't know which is worse.
Looking forward to the DA revamp.
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
=][=
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.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
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
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I will second the vote that First Ward is very sad- Same with the rest of the Praetoria arcs. I think the stories (edit: At least the idea, and the intention behind the stories) are well written though, and provide some very interesting dynamics. I feel that a lot of the community is dead-set on the idea of "the good guys winning" and "things turning out ok for everyone," but real life is not like that and I think that good storytelling is best exemplified when it can be compared to real-life.
For what it's worth, the low level Praetoria arcs and new First Ward arcs are the only times in the game where I've felt like the storyline had any substance at all. Granted, the "forced Resistance" path is kind of crappy, but I think it's understandable since the Dev team sort of had to force Praetorians into a world full of preexisting game lore, which provides a boat-load of fun content that shouldn't be missed out on anyways (and it's the bulk of the game.)
I've been playing the Faultline arcs lately because they're good at making you feel like a big damn hero.
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I keep hoping that game writing will return to form at some point. Arcs that aren't crammed full of pointless gimmicks, that don't require walls of text and pointless running back and forth between contacts and actually make you feel like a hero or a villain for a change rather than just adding a morally shady choice to placate villain players.
Alas until we get our *** out of Praetoria and back into our own dimension, I'm not hopeful of seeing that.
![Frown](images/smilies/frown.gif)
(Please, please, please don't screw up Dark Astoria!)
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
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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.