:: Ghols and Trow as your living foes, and Fetch weren't
:: quite clear. Myth II gets rid of the Myrmidons and
:: establishes that Fetch are of all things
:: "priestesses from another dimension" (sounds
:: like a B-film title).
:Actually, this was established in Myth: TFL. Read the
:manual.
Alas I left my manual at home when I came here to university. Correct me if I'm wrong but all I recall is that they were "not of this world". Give me a quote to refresh my memory and I'll withdraw my complaint.
:: Now we have no Myrmidons, and
:Since the Myrmidons were all Balor's, it wouldn't make
:sense for them to appear.
Where does this come from? Unless it's from the manual I can't recall a single reference from Myth:TFL or Myth II in which the Myrmidons were said to be Balor's alone, or dependant on Balor for survival. Yes, they were turned to the Dark by Balor, but he wasn't the only Fallen Lord to use them.
:: counting the Brigands, (whose entire concept as a unit
:: is just plain bizarre in the first place--how
:: believable is it that someone who has bad leadership
:: RUNS slower for crying out loud, and that this
:: justifies making a new unit?) and Dark Bowmen or
:: whatever they're called... ooh, they're Bowmen but
:: they're... Dark!
:Poorly trained soldiers do run slower. The same is true for
:athletes, etc.
Yes, poorly trained soldiers do run slower. I wasn't contesting that. You may notice that I used the term "leadership", not "training". In fact I meant to write "discipline", as the Brigands are described as running slower because they are "undisciplined". Discipline is not the same as training. I can't believe that a brigand, a seasoned fighter, is too "undisciplined" to move as fast as a warrior, most of whom have only just beaten their ploughshares back into swords.
:TFl had archers against you as well. They were even in dark
:colors (grey) Bungie gives them a new flavor text and you
:complain?
I'm sorry, I didn't really make myself clear. I didn't mind the flavour text, I minded the fact that they were a new unit type. They're still just bowmen. Do they have some disadvantage that regular bowmen do not? Again I think that any such disadvantage is silly. I thought they were just bowmen who happened to serve on the other side, does that make them deserving of becoming a new unit type?
:The living can be pretty nasty, too. As for the ghosts,
:what was wrong with them?
The living can be pretty nasty. Nevertheless a Myrmidon looks a lot more fearsome, and was a whole lot more original, than a Maul. When I saw the Myrmidons I found them pleasantly original. When I saw the Mauls I thought "oh. A pig-man." As for the Ghosts, maybe I'm just irrationally prejudiced against them but ghosts to me are supposed to be frightening. Little dwarf ghosts that plod up to you and throw real molotovs at you strike me as hardly what a ghost should be like.
:We do have plot behind the Summoner. It's not all clear,
:but TFl was obscure inmany places as well. You could just
:as easily say there's no plot behind the Deceiver's hatred
:of the Watcher. The summoner was apparently a glory hog. He
:must not have known about his abilities, because
:Soulblighter has to track him down, but he seemed willing
:enough to work for him once found.
At least we get to hear about how The Deceiver and The Watcher "had it out" after the battle for Tyr, and see their forces hacking each other to bits. Yes, there wasn't much more to it than that, but it was deliberate. It was a mystery, one that you weren't supposed to be able to fully comprehend but which left plenty of room for expansion. When you read about the Summoner for the first time, the Codex tells how he will visit horrors on the world untold in history or myth. From the sound of him, he was supposed to be worse than the Fallen Lords. What kind of plot do we get for him in Myth II? Tell me what we discover from Myth II and I may take back what I said about it.
:: -Myth II ruined magic. In Myth:TFL magic was rare,
:: exceedingly prized and most of the time you only heard
:: about it. In Myth II you have magical suits of armour;
:In TFL (and Soulblighter too) you were fighting the
:magically animated dead. A magically animated suit of armor
:is along the same lines. You liked the undead.
Ah, but the magic behind the undead was much more mysterious. When I fight the Thrall I think "here come the undead", not "here come the magically-reanimated corpses". When I fight the Stygians I think "here come the magical suits of armour". Where is the mystery in that? What does it take to slap together a spell to make a suit of armour move? Reanimating the dead is much more mysterious and spooky, much closer to the dark feel of Myth:TFL.
:The province has had sixty years to develop their magic
:without having to fight for their lives all the time. One
:ccan expect they'll make more use of it. What is it
:you hate so much about magic, and how does it go against
:what Myth was?
First of all, whose magic do you use? Warlocks, The Deceiver, an ancient sword, animated suits of armour, and Alric. How many of those were The Province's doing? Besides, if this much magic appears in the world in sixty years, the Fallen Lords should have been able to conquer the world in no time! They had millennia to develop their magic!
Second, as I have said, there is too much magic. It has lost its mystique. Instead of being a rare and mysterious thing, magic pops up in a great number of levels in Myth II. I found magic in TFL to be mysterious and very well done because it was used sparingly. As I said before, if I want a world in which magic plays such an overt role in so many missions, I'll go play Warcraft. It's not that I don't like magic--indeed, when I got the Bow of Furious Incandescence in "The Road North" I thought it was great--but when magic is used too much, it ceases to be 'magical'.
:: -Myth II ruined the Heron Guard. Don't get me wrong,
:: they're nice units but dressed up like that with their
:: twin swords and especially their armour, they don't
:: look at all like they should be to fit in with the
:: Myth setting.
: What should they look like? The Heron are from a different
: culture, so it follows they would look different.
You do have a point, I suppose. It merely seemed like quite a vastly different culture when they just lived on the other side of the Cloudspine.
:: I didn't like Berserks that much but at least they were
:: technologically parallel.
:They were in TFL. This really doesn't help your arguement.
? My point was that even if one isn't enamoured with the idea of the Berserks, they at least seem to fit in with the technology of the world and its mythos. I felt that the Heron Guard used drastically different weapons and armour from the rest of the world technologically speaking, and despite the fact that I liked the concept of the Heron Guard better than the concept of the Berserks, I didn't think they fit in as well as the Berserks did.
:: And what's with the hordes of Heron Guards that crop up?
:: The maximum number of Journeymen you'd ever have was 3,
:: and that was only in one level.
: They were scattered all over the place, but they all came
: back to Muirthemne once there was an Emperor. Thus they
: were more concentrated.
Where did the Heron Guards go? The lands east of the Cloudspine were pretty much all overrun before TFL. Did they spread around the West? Even then, when the West was getting its butt kicked before TFL begins, many would have been found and killed. If there were some area that had been untouched by the Fallen I'd agree with you, but it just doesn't seem that there was that much room for them to wander off to given their numerous return. Besides, though they may have been shamed, did that make them willing to let the Fallen walk all over the West? They may have been shamed by the Empire's fall but I would have thought that they would have still felt some compulsion from their noble heritage to protect humankind against its greatest foes, the Fallen.
:: After the big re-declaration of the Empire, you get to
:: use 30 Heron Guards at a time. Where are all these people
:: coming from? And please, don't tell me that all someone
:: had to do all this time was find some crown and proclaim
:: himself emperor, and they would have come out of exile
:: just like that? In Myth:TFL the very existence of
:: humanity was threatened and they still shuffled around
:: with their shovels. Why are they all of a sudden
:: worthy of becoming Guards again?
: They bacame Journeymen out of shame for not protecting
: their emperor. Once there's a new Emperor, if they don't
: protect him, they'll be doubly shamed.
Very well, I see your point. It's all about the Emperor. I merely felt that they would be less than thrilled when Alric came along and suddenly proclaimed himself their emperor. He wasn't even remotely related with the Catch Bruig. He was already king of the West. I would have thought that many Journeymen would have felt it was a sham.
: Their shame came from letting Muirthemne be conquered. if
: they stop it from being conquered, then they've made up
: for the time they didn't. I don't see what the problem is
: with this.
Once again, I think it wasn't much of an achievement. Given the number of the enemy that attack you in that mission, defending the walls was not much of a task, especially when you have the Trow and the mortar Dwarves on your side. I would have thought it would have taken more of an effort than that to restore their pride.
:: -Speaking of technology there is also the issue of
:: Dwarven Mortars and Ghol cannons, which seem to have
:: become remarkably sophisticated and compact given that
:: they have had a sixty year period, maximum, to be
:: developed in. As for the Poachers, yes, that was a
:: cute level wasn't it but it just ruined things even
:: more. Secret levels, fine and dandy. Poachers with
:: blunderbusses? Give me a break.
: Think of what technology was like 60 yearas ago compared
: to today? Do you still stand by what you said?
Yes, I do. Our age is an industrialized and extremely technological one. We have made more advancements in the last 60 years than in the past centuries of humankind's existence. Look at Myth. If one had to attempt to compare them with a historical period, it would be medieval. Yes, they knew about gunpowder in medieval times, and in the late medieval era they actually tried to use it a fair amount. However, MythII asks us to believe that from throwing molotov cocktails, in sixty years the Dwarves have suddenly discovered how to make compact, portable mortar launchers with quite a decent range to them. These are mortars too, not merely small arms such as handguns. I think that given the state of development of the Myth world, and given real-world precedent it is unbelievable that in the space of sixty years the Dwarves could develop such a potent weapon, seemingly from scratch. The Ghols using cannons are even more ludicrous. When have the Ghols been masters of creativity or ingenuity? How could they make cannons, let alone compact ones like the ones they use?
:: -Myth II's plot was extremely sad compared to Myth:TFL.
:: Is there anything you DON'T do in Myth II? Let's see,
:: you have the Myrkridia resurrected on you, meet both
:: of the living Fallen Lords and one of the dead ones,
:: fly halfway around the world seemingly at leisure,
: They marched, same as in TFL. TFL spanned from Crow's
: bridge to Rh'iannon. Soublighter doesn't cover any more.
In Myth II we have a whole legion being sent through a World Knot. I can't even remember how many times the narrator is sent through world knots. From being ancient sites of mystery they have become a commonplace method of transportation that can handle huge armies at a time. Why didn't they use them to transport huge armies in Myth:TFL?
:: re-found the Cath Bruig Empire, re-found the Heron
:: Guard, face destruction of the entire world, which
:: only becomes a plot issue in the last mission or maybe
:: the second-last one (COME ON!) ... did I miss
:: anything? Oh yes, I nearly forgot that you ally with
:: the Trow, earning their respect with of all things a
:: game of Territories (boy, that sure proves your
:: valour!)
: So now the plot is too much, I thought it was too little?
You must have misunderstood. Myth II attempted to do too much. The actual plot itself was remarkably thin given all the things that your troops achieved. You get to do practically everything that was dreamed of in TFL: refound the Cath Bruig, meet the Summoner, have the Myrkridia summoned on you, see the Fallen Lords you haven't met (except the ones who we haven't had named yet), et cetera. How plot, how much mystery, suspense and story was built around these events? Extremely little. I can't see how anyone can claim that I was saying that the plot was too much.
The same goes with the Fallen Lords, which I neglected to reply about earlier. Getting to see them all, and even use one of them really goes against everything that Myth:TFL stood for, and why it was such a great game. You only got to see the Fallen in exceptional circumstances. You saw Shiver in one picture if you lost a mission. In the actual levels, you saw Soulblighter but he never let you get even close to hurting him except in the final mission. You got to kill the Watcher but only after a desperate attempt by the Legion. You got to kill Balor, but only after an immense sacrifice in which you knowingly threw your troops to be killed, risking everything for a desperate chance that was your only hope of victory. Most of the time the Fallen hid behind their armies and commanded them from afar. It was only when the Legion got extremely lucky (or unlucky) that they tangled with the Fallen. In Myth II there are Fallen Lords all over the place. All the mystique of the Fallen Lords is gone in Myth II, now they're just some powerful sorcerors.
:: What would I like to see if a Myth III were ever made?
:: Let's have a return to the dark feel of Myth:TFL. Yes,
:: I know it would be hard to do and Myth III could never
:: match Myth:TFL, but they could at least try. More
:: undead, fewer living units, a return of the mystique
:: in magic, no more hicks with blunderbusses even in
:: bonus levels, and a plot that didn't try to DO
:: everything.
:That's only possible once.
Yes and no. I never said they could recapture all of the feel of Myth I. All I wanted was the dark feel of Myth I to return. Even a bunch more living units wouldn't be so bad, but I felt it was badly done in Myth II and ruined the feel that Myth I had built up.
:Sequels add to an existing story, and you seem to hate
:everything except the wonder of a totally new story.
That's unfair. Myth:TFL's story was great. In Myth II, I was glad that they expanded on some of the elements. I was however disappointed that they wrapped up so many loose ends from TFL in Myth II. If they had developed more Myth:TFL story lines instead of closing so many of them with so little plot behind them, I wouldn't have minded so much. They could have made a whole game about the Summoner or about the return of the Heron Guard. Instead they made a couple of levels about each.
:There's actually a lot Myth II's plot didn't bring in. The
:fir'Bolg and Forest Giants never came up, there were
:no appearances by levelers, they didn't mess with the fetch
:homeworld, there are still two fallen lords who haven't
:appeared, they never got into the rest of the nine, etc.
:I think you started hating Soulblighter early on, and after
:that, only saw more things to hate. Try to relax, and read
:stuff here. You'll learn just how much
:Myth II added to our understanding of TFL.
Given that the point of my message was why I think TFL was much better than Myth II, did you expect me to expand on how much I loved Myth II? Yes, Myth II did help explain stuff in Myth I. It also sealed off a lot of interesting lines that could have been explored more in, IMO, a very unconvincing fashion. I'm not saying all of Myth II was bad. Indeed, from a plot perspective some of it was very interesting and informative. I feel that from a gameplay and enjoyment perspective, however, it fell far short of Myth:TFL, and from the plot analysis perspective it tried to do too much, to tie too many loose ends and resolve too many mysteries all in one game.
Wasp.
