SSA Who Will Die Episode 4 is live

I just ran the heroside version (I have, what, two villain characters, neither over 20th level?), and I have to say... What?

Without revealing any spoilers, let's just say that I do not believe, for a second, who is supposed to be behind this all.

Ran both sides with 50 Rogue DM/WP Brute.
Chose Incarnate threads from both reward tables. Running only the SSA's for Incarnate drops, this character has opened and slotted first level of both Judgement and Interface (Alpha was opened with Ramiel arc and slotted with shard drops from TIP missions).

I thought this was easily the best written of the SSA's. Both sides are remarkably similar in their wit and humor. It was actually fun, for a change, to read all the dialogue.

The Villain side can take a bit longer to complete due to a long run through a sewer filled with Hydra and an extra EB, neither of which are in the hero version.

I agree with another poster that one particular Hero ambush does hit kind of hard and without time to properly prepare.

It will be fun to repeat these on a weekly basis to continue expanding the
Incarnate stuff on this Brute. In my iPod Touch reminders, I post the dates and times the SSA's are done so that I will know when to do them again. Method has worked fine for me since SSA's debuted.

I find it hard to believe that no locks of hair were involved!

I thought that it was very interesting the way that so much of the story was driven by existing lore.

Total props for Malaise's last line.

Played both sides, enjoyed both sides. And it was nice to see it referencing a lot of little disparate elements from the game to tie it all together.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Villainside, I'm really hoping the next segment is the "Turn [name of mastermind spoilered] upside down and shake him" one. I'm getting a lot of very powerful people hacked off at me and I'm not sure what my motivation is supposed to be, and I'm getting tired of vague hints about how "it's all part of the plan." Especially since said mastermind is apparently someone I can turn inside out on my lonesome.

Heroside, I'm not sure what the point of the dialogue trees is if you just get steered to the right answer, and the final mission involves way too much sit-and-watch-people-talk for my taste. On the other hand, any chance to beat up [name of particularly annoying villain contact] is a plus in my book.

By the way, was anyone as jarred as I was by the mention of Penelope Yin heroside and it being "five years since all that stuff in Faultline"? Game time and real time do not belong together.

Still, I'm enjoying the story and curious to see where it goes from here.

(spoilers throughout)

First Mission:

Map = awesome, but felt kinda cheap that it was just recycled stuff from the base editor.

Dialogue options with Ms. Liberty = awesome

Word Balloon pacing and the amount of text contained in them was good in Mission 1.

Johnny Sonata = awesome.

Uh oh. The clickable computer has typos and repeated words. It's started already!

Sister Psyche should be unbuffable. Buffs make her stand up.

Second Mission:

Giza map is awesome. Much respect for not making the Goldbrickers look like anime characters. (Ala the "Luddite" contact from one of the other SSAs.)

Darrin Wade being there at the start = awesome

Mercedes Sheldon is kinda cool. AH. ****. SHE MENTIONED THE RULU-SHIN! That's gonna annoy me for a while now.

One of the mafia goons said they couldn't handle me because I was a super. That's cool. Nice to have the game world recognize I'm a badass once in a while.

Oh Hardcase showed up. Dope.

So Darrin Wade is the guy behind it? lol. Okay I can dig d-list characters being given a push. Respect for using an old character rather than a lame new one covered in shiney armour, spikey shoulders, and fedoras.

Mission 3:

Holy ****. Best map ever alert.

Oh check it out. Jumping to a diff map. Dope.

Uh. More typos.

WTF. MIND ****. (And lol Black Positron.)

"But when I hear Xanatos... for some reason, I associate that with some sort of defender."

Damn right.

Different conversational arcs are cool. I like it.

Darrin Wade and Malaise both have ponytails, goatees, and sunglasses. Geek "cool" at it's finest. I applaud the self-restraint in not making them also wear fedoras.

Oh Positron is now super important. Oh he helped form the Phalanx? Oh Xanatos gets to "tag along" with him? Lame.

Overall: Actually enjoyed this one. Better than the last three by a long shot. Felt like an actual superhero story. (Rare for this game.) Please give VIPs access to these maps in the MA.

Thinking about it, it's going to be pretty disappointing if the whole plot just boils down to Wade trying to steal a Phalanxer's powers so he won't be normal anymore.

For once, the Heroes actually get to BE heroes without having to play catch-up to the villain's scheme! And we actually get to do some really awesome stuff!

Easily the best so far, and a HUGE step up from the forced Idiot Ball-holding that took place in part 3

According to Johnny Sonata, all of Wade's "powers" are just magical artifacts he uses, when he doesn't have them he's just a normal guy. And part of Malaise's rant was about how the world focuses on Supers while 'normal people' and their talents are under valued.




Also, as a tangent, the Part 5 contacts have been put in place as of today's publish, Glacia is chilling out a few dozen feet from Ghost Falcon, so I would say it's safe to assume the level range for Part 5 will be 40+.

Okay, all of Wade's "powers" are artifacts. So? Like he's the only character that uses artifacts? And what about the characters with the Natural background?

Frankly, considering that AFAIK, Malaise's talents as an artist have never been referred to before (side note: No, I haven't run every mission/Task Force ever, so if it was mentioned in the past, I have missed it. But from what I recall, Malaise's background mentions him committing crimes in Europe. Nothing about being an artist.), it's a little weird to see the man with MENTAL POWERS ranting about how it must suck for normal people.

I'm not saying it's not a good arc. It is. I just don't buy what Malaise is selling. And I still don't buy Darrin Wade as the big bad of the arc. Unless (and this is a big maybe), this will end with Rularuu getting back to Primal Earth. And revealed to be the Dream Doctor. Who is really *DUN DUN DUN* Wade's father.

Yes, that last sentence is not to be taken seriously.