Marat
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2017
- Messages
- 2,615
... is what I'd say, if I knew why.
But I do have some guesses and they have to do with the story structure of the game.
AoD had two parallel storylines, the one of whichever faction you aligned with and the one with the temple, whilst CS has just the one - and it is centered on a piece of technology that's the be-all, end-all of the setting. You get considerably less variance over the course of the story compared to AoD. You always visit the same locations and see largely the same things in them, when AoD showed you different storyline in each of the major cities and you could observe and influence events unfolding from different perspectives - a feature CS sorely lacks. I can't help but think it is what AoD would be like if you only had the quest for the temple. Pit being the only exception, you see almost no consequences of your actions during the game, which seems logical given the plot and the setting, but is nevertheless most unfortunate. The political machinations over the course of the plot also have negligible impact on the endings, with whoever gets the machine basically nullifying everything else that took place - it doesn't much matter who took over the Pit and aligned with which faction, it certainly doesn't matter who rules the muties, who came out on top in the Factory, what is the situation with the Shuttle Bay - again, logical given the "winner takes all" nature of the MacGuffin-Class Converter, but it does render the player's actions in all those side locations kinda meaningless. Would be interesting to see the fate of the Ship being influenced by all those things were the machine to be taken off the table, just like not unleashing the gods in AoD, thus not subverting everything you did prior.
Another thing was the game tickling my nuts , promising some big revelations that I'd have to piece together from scraps to understand what happened in the mutiny, what caused it, what were the roles of those Named Characters(tm), but ends up not delivering. The historical account was a major theme in AoD, figuring it out, realizing the tales spun by storytellers in the taverns about the "gods" were much distorted accounts of events that actually occurred during the war thanks to something you dug up from ancient ruins or a miraculously preserved Magi tower, figuring out that the mystical shaman from the Ordu tales was actually the chief Magos of the old empire, details about the pre-war cooperation with the Quantari putting a different spin on the whole thing et cetera et cetera. CS does a good job setting up some mystery, but it fizzles out into much of nothing - the Mission Control reveal doesn't have the kick to it and leaves much unanswered.
But I do have some guesses and they have to do with the story structure of the game.
AoD had two parallel storylines, the one of whichever faction you aligned with and the one with the temple, whilst CS has just the one - and it is centered on a piece of technology that's the be-all, end-all of the setting. You get considerably less variance over the course of the story compared to AoD. You always visit the same locations and see largely the same things in them, when AoD showed you different storyline in each of the major cities and you could observe and influence events unfolding from different perspectives - a feature CS sorely lacks. I can't help but think it is what AoD would be like if you only had the quest for the temple. Pit being the only exception, you see almost no consequences of your actions during the game, which seems logical given the plot and the setting, but is nevertheless most unfortunate. The political machinations over the course of the plot also have negligible impact on the endings, with whoever gets the machine basically nullifying everything else that took place - it doesn't much matter who took over the Pit and aligned with which faction, it certainly doesn't matter who rules the muties, who came out on top in the Factory, what is the situation with the Shuttle Bay - again, logical given the "winner takes all" nature of the MacGuffin-Class Converter, but it does render the player's actions in all those side locations kinda meaningless. Would be interesting to see the fate of the Ship being influenced by all those things were the machine to be taken off the table, just like not unleashing the gods in AoD, thus not subverting everything you did prior.
Another thing was the game tickling my nuts , promising some big revelations that I'd have to piece together from scraps to understand what happened in the mutiny, what caused it, what were the roles of those Named Characters(tm), but ends up not delivering. The historical account was a major theme in AoD, figuring it out, realizing the tales spun by storytellers in the taverns about the "gods" were much distorted accounts of events that actually occurred during the war thanks to something you dug up from ancient ruins or a miraculously preserved Magi tower, figuring out that the mystical shaman from the Ordu tales was actually the chief Magos of the old empire, details about the pre-war cooperation with the Quantari putting a different spin on the whole thing et cetera et cetera. CS does a good job setting up some mystery, but it fizzles out into much of nothing - the Mission Control reveal doesn't have the kick to it and leaves much unanswered.
