SSA 5 Discussion (And countdown till its live!)

While we're talking about in character reactions...my mastermind spread out his soldiers around Statesman in a defensive pattern, then focus fired Darrin. When he EVENTUALLY took enough knock-out serum to force him to retreat, my mastermind shook his head at the fallen Statesman, took off his coat to cover the body, then ordered his men to carry the fallen hero out of the ruins. It was a sad day, but it isn't like he hasn't seen people, even close, powerful friends die before. But...Wade will pay for what he has done.

Agreed; but changing Recluse for the better involves the words "bullet" and "brain".

Once he is redeemed, Recluse's massive brain will design the perfect bullet train.

When "death of a hero" events have been staged by comic book publishers, the news was featured in USAToday, and the mainstream publicity helped boost sales.

In contrast, Statesman's death got a mention in Massively.

Several other popular MMO news sites have also mentioned it.

I like how Statesman didn't use ragdoll physics when he collapsed. Play through the previous one and see what happens to Malaise when he exits his body and imagine what if Statesman did that too? o_O

Wait wait....Statesman sees his dead wife telling him it's ok to die, the world will be fine without him. He listens to her.

Has he forgotten that Rularuu is psychic?

Played the blueside arc on my 47 SD/WM tank. I thought the cutscene was very nice. The arc itself was quite good fun but the barroom brawl should have been me saving the otjer heroes on my own. Too many allies in arcs nowadays.

The final fight was totally underwhelming. It was a boring slugfest. Marshall Blitz-style min-trials is what I want.

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."

That fight made me laugh. BaBs died almost instantly and Mynx took out three of the baddies.

Okay, I stayed up and played SSA#5. This is not really any sort of spoiler, since the Devs spoiled it long ago, but it does touch upon the way Statesman shuffles off this mortal coil, so if you would rather wait, stop now. But this is my take, before I read any comments in this thread:






My three word review:

So. Very. Lame.

I am not talking about the technical aspects, such as the cutscene animation, which features some fine upgrades from what we have seen before. Nor do I have a problem with the design of the missions, which were fine, or fighting Wisps and Eyeballs and Natterlings, oh my. I will even give the Devs a pass on the fact that I had to be a spectator, since the result was a given and they wanted the player to see everything without distraction, ergo, a cutscene.

It was the writing.

They can't even manage the death of the iconic hero in a way that wells up any sort of emotion. It was not courageous or self-sacrificing. It felt... stupid. Statesman walks... WALKS! ...into the "obviously a trap" platform and gets bug-zapped to death. Zappity Zapp, he flops like a fish a few times and it's over.

Then his life suddenly flashes before his eyes, sappy attempts at maudlin sentiment follow and that is that. Are we supposed to say, "Awwwwwwww" when we see pony-tailed Ms. Liberty as a little tyke, since the Devs have gone out of their way to make her an odious character? The Ms. Liberty Hate on the Forums is almost as bad as the anti-Statesman sentiment. It is as though they don't realize that in order for us to empathize with Ms. Liberty being angry and out of control over events, we have to have established some positive bona fides with her previously. In the game itself, she is a trainer, and has the same dialogue as all of them. She picked up a smidge more in the Twinshot arc, but not much. In the comics, she was already an angry don't-want-to-follow orders type who told Statesman, "Bite me." So all of that felt extremely shallow, like a cherry on top of a sundae in which the maker never put any ice cream.

So Statesman just gives up and dies, prompted by his dead wife.

And as the lifeless Statesman falls over onto the ground, dead... he still raises his hands to break his fall. WHAT??

The scripting is even worse. It goes for "Casablanca" profundity and winds up being Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fodder. Most glaring example:

Statesman: I don't kill.

Wade: ... I do.

ZAAAAAAP!

Heroes and villains have dialogued forever; I don't have a problem with that. But it is easy to have it be very, very cheesy, and this was a Velveeta Fondue.

I expected far, far better.

The absolute crushing irony is that on the Beta server, all lvl 50s automatically are considered Alpha Slot Incarnates, so I played a few arcs in the Dark Astoria offerings. The writing is actually VERY GOOD. The plots seem feasible so far. Some nice graphical surprises. The action rolls along smartly and the gameplay is pretty dang good. The zone is gorgeous. This is the CoH I enjoy. Of course, I may have jinxed it right there, and if the "solo path" arc requires a Trial to finish... the peasants may be revolting shortly. Still, there is some pretty dang good stuff there so far.

"Who Will Die?", however, has been just one stinker after another. It will be "City of Heroes" that dies if this is what we have to look forward to. What a huge waste of resources. What a WASTE of an iconic hero. What a fallen souffle of a mess of a story.

Other than that, I loved it.

*heavy sigh*

Statesman went down like a chump.

I had a dislike for States that was probably from contact-hate for the dev Statesman and for being related to (and condoning by not squashing) Longbow with a dash of superman-is-a-dick hate. I felt sorry States. Not because of the flashbacks. He may have been a dick but that was a really crappy way to go, even for a dick. (And redside still has no losses, those better be coming in 6 and 7, with interest.)