Double thumbs up (First Ward)

I really liked First Ward as a Kin/Regen brute.

I liked how the contacts interacted....and the ending was pretty cool.

I thought I might be the only one that was droven crazy by "wall of text." I had to create a tab just for NPC chat to not miss anything in all the spam....plus, reading all the crap to get to damn mission.

Half of it is just "politics".....I hate politics....."I need you to do this for me otherwise this person will do X....and X would be viewed poorly by the people because it'll have effect Y. If effect Y happens, i'll receive some heat from Cole....and if that happens, my funding will dry up. If my funding dries up, I can no longer afford my Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter ice cream fetish....and with an accelerated metabolism, that's catastrophic!!! Go to the warehouse and kill everyone. K? Thx!"

10 pages of chat to explain a simple political motivation. I want: "*SCREAMS* SAVE MY KITTAH FROM THE FIRE!!!!!"

Ok, a little more detailed than that....but political 10 page motivations are yawn-fests....and I read NOT ONE word of that crazy girl (the CW-king's psychic girlfriend in our reality, her name escapes me atm).....I know it's not a First Ward contact....but, needs to be said nonetheless: Crazy talk I can't figure out, I'm going to click to the mission and read mission text and finish that contact confused. Seriously. =P

Other than making heroic missions heroic.....and villianous missions villianous....and perhaps, like someone said: the villians win sometimes. Maybe a "oh, well the portal to the underworld was established, but you saved a lot of people from dying, still.....at least you tried hero!"

However, I think First Ward is a great first step to making newer interesting stories. The mother Mayhem flashback was friggin' genius! I loved that one. I see the trend away from "kill alls" and "click glowies"....thank god. I said on the second week I played beta: Nice game, I just hope it's not all office buildings, blue caves, and sewers....and "kill all" and "glowie clicks." They are finally moving forward (maybe it's been for awhile, I just got back after 2 or 3 years off.)


....oh, and more new tilesets I cannot say that enough.



Mr. True Shot.

I really liked First Ward. Here's the thing to me that made it work: in many ways, it's not quite a superhero story. Oh, it's a comic book story, but it's like you stepped into a parallel genre. First Ward is a post-apocalyptic ronin story, with you playing the part of the wandering ronin. It was like walking into a western, set in the ruins of First Ward, that grew from helping the civilians to survive as it embroiled you further and further into the machinations of those with power and larger events.

This distinction between four color superhero and a ronin is important. I found treating it as a superhero was hard. But treating it as if I were a good-hearted warrior, who while heroic is first and foremost a warrior, made it work better.

I didn't mind the big blocks of text, but I read fast so things like that don't bother me much. I liked the extra reading. It really made me feel like there was other stuff going on that wasn't just me.

Also, Sorceress Serene had one hell of an entrance. That scene was awesome.

Honestly, my only complaint has been that I get sometimes the same lag I get in Atlas Park. I'll be jumping along and suddenly the game hangs and BAM! Slam into a building. Moving across the landscape is... difficult because of that. Since I hit every single building doing that. I do hope that's something that can be cleaned up.