"Who Will Die" - finale (spoilers)

Well, seems as good a place as any to say this...

Bravo to the writers and devs behind WWD, it ended in such a spectacular way...

Favorite Moments included, in no particular order:

Killing Tanks with my Titan Sword... Seriously, I killed one with Rend Armor and just stopped in amazement. All I could think was - I just totally killed a tank with a Big Frakoff Sword. EPIC! I laughed so hard... and then proceeded to waste every tank I could. Watching the Street Justice Brute with me curb stomp a tank to death with Shin Breaker was a close second. And people tell me there were Malta there? Huh? <shrugs> Too much fun killing tanks with STYLE to notice the likes of them. Think the exploding tanks got 'em...

Stepping out of the door onto the back of the ship, and turning to my left. Need I say more? I will... the only thought I had, in my stunned amaxement, was: Ok, that's new... Which, was followed 5 minuted later by two other thoughts. First, BEST MAP EVER! (Yes, I was proven wrong shortly thereafter.) Second thought: I am *never* dissing steam jump ever again... my Titan Regen Brute has zero flight ability other than the Steam and Rocket jump powers. I knew Rocket just wasn't gonna cut it this time...

In the leadup to the attack on Wade's Secret Space Island Hideout*, when Infernia (whom I must say, her chatter in the LG TF had me dreading her as a contact... VERY glad she's settled down... kinda surprised she hangs out near the Watcher though, never figured him as the patient listener type) told me that we were going to Warburg so we could nuke Wade before he nuked US? Well, that's one of five times in my life I've ever been told something that had me grinning ear to ear like a loon with eyes like you only see in anime. The other four were caused by my wife, and I've probably already said too much, hmm. ANYWAYS - moving on - I'll assume if I get nukes from Warburg ever again, it's happening prior to WWD 7, as we cleaned 'em out, and I could NOT be happier for that twist!

Also? Darrin Wade's Secret Space Island Hideout. Enough said. Well, but that's just not my style... must say, that has to be the first map since the previously mentioned USS Barry mission to ever outrank and unseat the Shadow Shard as my all-time favorite maps. To be fair, the new DA *did* come close. The red Murder Walls? Yeah... nice touch, almost enough but not quite. (New top 4 fave maps: Darrin Wade's Secret Space Island Hide-away, the Navy ships floating in mid air map, Storm Palace, and new DA. 5th place.. dunno).

Lastly, but certainly, not least. When Dakota Berg's epilogue came on, the first part got me grinning for Mr. Asbestos Suit. Pardoned? Awesome! THEN ... the SECOND part comes on. The part about his little 'celebration'
... and I barked a laugh SO LOUD, I woke up my upstairs neighbors at 2 am my time.

In closing, again, bravo, many kudos, amazing work. I'm only hoping I don't get a notice about noise at night... Speakin' of noise, I'll sign out shall I? Hehe...

~Raven, who didn't like Infernia movin' in on his turf, and is glad to see she's bowed to a master... <grins and laughs>

****Had Darrin Wade done the Dr Evil pinky-to-his-mouth-thing and welcomed us to his Secret Space Island Hideout, I would NOT have been surprised, but my eyes probably would've done a full 360 rotation in rolling at it...

Oh and Zwillinger? If I do NOT see a reply saying CHALLENGE ACCEPTED and an attached picture of Wade / Rularuu doing that exact gesture, with the earth in the background, I am DEDUCTING POINTS, and I will pay off some space ninja monkey pirates to steal a hat. You have been warned....

Im thinking..Rularuu tf's Co-Op

Well, after running it blueside last night, here are my thoughts...

First, I must point out that I was soloing, and at default settings and standard difficulty.

Story wise, this instalment showed a marked improvement over earlier parts, which had rather large amounts of stupid in them. So much so in places that I wondered how the Phalanx even had the brain power to dress themselves in the mornings.

Other than that, though, I have to admit to quite a bit of disappointment in this installment. Taking them piece by piece..

The first couple of maps were fine, standard type fights and all that. It was rather let down, though, by the Chantry. Getting around was just like regular Shadow Shard stuff, but what on EARTH did the devs do to Ruladak? That guy used to be able to hit quite a lot harder than a 4 year old, but not anymore! Seriously, the fight, on my PB, was over in seconds. A shame really, regular EB's are much tougher than this and he should be buffed.

The floating battleships map looked great, but the jumps were rather difficult if not flying (I wanted to try it the hard way!) and at the fight at the end, Wade's Destruction Beam seemed to be completely invisible. Quite a let down really as I was expecting a huge BEAM OF DEATH rather than my PB's health dropping to 1/4 for no apparent reason...

Warburg. This mission was OK, but the end of it was a huge anti-climax! You're meant to be launching loads of missiles at Wade's island, yet we don't even get to see the old Warburg missile launch cutscene! Come on devs! Laaaaaaame!!

Wades Island. This is meant to be in space, so why is gravity at Earth normal? Very dumb. They should have at least reduced the gravity to a fraction of normal to make everyone super bouncy; very fourth wall breaking.

Rulu-Wade. What. A. Wuss. Seriously. I had a harder time beating Manticore in an earlier instalment than I did splattering the guy who killed Statesman. Again, another very underpowered EB that, like Ruladak, needs to be tweaked a bit as, to me, it seemed that the AV->EB scaling wasn't working properly. Also, again, Wades destruction beam was invisible. Is it meant to be, or was I bugged?

Overall, I liked the story, and the press conference at the end was OK, but generally I was left feeling rather underwhelmed. If I'd paid for the arc, I'd have wanted a refund.

Score: 4/10. Devs must try harder. You missed many opportunities in this final instalment that you really shouldn't have. Also, VERY lame that the dead heroes are STILL in the game. Next time you're going to do that, please wait until you're ready to ACTUALLY take them out of the game at the same time. Huge fourth wall breakage there.

Thought I might post something to summarize my thoughts on this episode and the Arc in general.

I enjoyed playing this particular piece but I felt that as a whole the plot was a bit all over the place almost as though the writer was having a hard time coming up with a way to deliver on certain twists and unfortunately end in the end just saying: "And then this happened" rather than giving us a convincing reason for the outcome.

At times it felt as though the missions in this arc were written one after the next until the end conclusion was reached rather than creating the story you want to tell with a path from beginning to end in mind and then figuring out the 7 parts to deliver it too us.

It seemed almost as thought there were two shorter stories being mashed together. I would have prefer ed the "kill of some Phalanx members" story to have been separate from teh Wade v Statesman story. In fact I really feel that Wade's hate just came from nowhere and I would have preferred a few episodes being used to build that hatred some more before going on to the destroyer of worlds bit.

I think it was the choice of cutscenes that really gave this feeling that at some points, knowledge was just being given to the players because it needed to be, than because it could have been otherwise earned by the participant.

Some cutscenes I liked, mostly these were the "side-flash" (Lady Grey/Wade was cool, gave a good in game idea on Lady Grey having very questionable moral standards) to an event going on that a player would have no reason to experience. But others like the final exposition of what all the secondary characters did after I felt was very contrived and could have been handled better through the press conference scene.

The information on the Phalanx lineup really felt out of place to me. Frankly, I was expecting at least an offer to join the Phalanx, regardless of whether I would accept it or not, and regardless of if it would do anything or just be some fluff. As a summary I felt it was a waste, a previous cutscene clearly showed Posi in charge and it seemed such a huge step to go from Penny the Kid to Penny the Sister Psyche replacement so quickly.

Overall I would have preferred to see cutscenes for a few different things, the launched Nukes hitting Wades shield and my character at a memorial for States and Psyche.

On the positive thought I did enjoy the unique locations the missions took you to. The missions inside Psyches, psyche was my favorite part and I loved the visuals for part 7 with the naval vessels and the orbiting Island, that felt suitably epic for a concluding part to the story.

What I hope is that in future that the plot line for a SSA is a lot tighter with each part released carefully and compellingly adding to a bigger and bigger picture as the story unfolds.

- Raith

Are people saying they felt the arc was kind of just thrown together?

Huh.

For the most part I loved the final episode. I liked the "loose threads" tie up after the conference, although it could have been slowed down just a tiny bit, trying to read it aloud for my son, I found it very hard to keep up with the pacing of the cutscene.

I would have loved to see a cutscene of the rocket ride into space itself, instead of stepping through a portal. You are told there is a rocket at the Vanguard base, so we should have walked into a room/silo with the rocket and have the cutscene showing you climbing in and blasting off.

Jump should be enhanced on that "Island in Space" (now why did the music from Giligan's Island just pop into my head?), even if we flying off into space, once you break the threshold of Earth's gravity, you wouldn't need as much force to keep moving in orbit.

Maybe they didn't say anything about Mantipants because you can kick his *** at the end, depending on what you are and the choices you make.

Liked the finale - very much so indeed...

CoX is the MMO where we can really feel like we are moving something in the world.
Sure thousands of others do the same missions - it's an MMO after all - but at the final fight and the press conference I felt huge...

Throw in the deaths of some major in-game character and an all-grown up Penny Yin and you have a world that develops and circles around your character...

Short: Nicely done devs, now go and top this with Story Line 2 please...

I liked the whole series, and found the finale to be fun. I also felt the build up towards it was cool, I felt a sense of urgency doing the last two missions. I am going to do it with one of my villains tonight to see it from the other side.

I ran the whole arc redside. Haven't bothered to do it blueside yet, but that's because I'm red at heart. If I was blue at heart... call a doctor because my trachea is firmly plugged.


The best part of the finale was the maps. The floating island and ships were awesome. Even though I had flight, I used combat jumping to try and explore the ships as a mandatory form of terrain to go through. The outer-space map was awesome, and while watching the world from afar it truly felt like it's fate was in my hands, especially as I took flight and purposefully battled Rulu-Wade in the space above it. I love atmospheric battles! My only regret was that Rulu-wade wasn't harder than he was.

Second best part was the Arachnos. They didn't feel like a static organization that is standing around ordering me to do things. Their roles were active. Playing through it, I felt Lord Recluse's motive, and his actions gave an air of a leader about him. That whole thing about how no one on the ship would even talk to you EXCEPT Recluse, and how the patrons were right next to you as the battle went on. The arachnos were capable and strong. Having to couple together the few remaining heroes and assets made the game feel like the world was falling apart. IMO, the only thing they could've done more was make a city-wide map being invaded by Rularuu being fought off by various heroes from the Rogues Gallery.