(Major Spoiler inside) The Metal Age plot is flawed... at best - by far
far on 27/4/2020 at 20:54
First of All, let's be clear: I love Thief 2 metal age.
I started playing thief series about one month ago and was immediately addicted to it.
I'm running my 2nd playthrough and this is not going to be my last paly through - that's how much i love it.
In my opinion, Metal Age is even better than Dark project in terms of atmosphere, gameplay entertainment... etc.,
However, i still have to say that the Metal Age main villian evil plan is somewhat ridiculous.
Karras himself is a fascinating bad guy, who proceeds his own agenda under the banner of The Builder and
cheats everyone including himself at the same time.
His plan is, roughly, send "weaponized" servant to around 20 noble houses which have a big gardens in town.
Then release the "Rust Gas" which will cause chain-effect and eliminate all life in the world except himself, who
lives in an Air-Tight building.
This plot is actually stupid; Why all these troubles to send the servants to noble families?
Why not just release the gas into forests like the place where Pagans live? Certainly a forest is
with more "organs" to trigger chain effects and is certainly bigger than "Nobel Gardens". And it is so much easier this way.
Considering the situation in game, even if his plan did succeed, it will destroy the city only, not the entire living world.
Remeber that The Thief world is with Sea (and a quite big one with international trade!!). I don't believe that the Rust Gas can
"overflow" across the sea and destroy the whoe world. Moreover, the "Rust Gas" can't affect animals/plants under water.
It is weird that a schrewd woman like Viktoria would go nuts about this plan and proceed the suicidal action.
The Looking Glass did a good job revealing the storyline task by task and i really enjoy the process of unveiling it.
But when the whole story is finally clear, i was like: REALLY? GOD, LG you can do SO MUCH better than this.
The Game itself is good, the only problem is that the story is not reasonable at all and It feels like to me that the story writer reluctantly piece together to fit the title "Metal Age".
My suggestion would be to better use the concept of the four elements: Fire, Water, Earth and Wind.
Thief world is with magic and Earth represents the power of plants.
They could simply say that Karras is conjuring a ritual to weaken the Earth element to the extent that all plants in the world are dying.
Viktoria/Garret/Keepers need to work together to figure out the plan and somehow stop it.
Karras could become a magician who combines the force of Steam Engine and magic (Extreme usage of Fire elemental maybe?)
For those of you who are patient enough to read all this shit. Thanks for your patience and sorry for complaining so much but i've been thinking about this all these days.
Any feedback (including criticizing) are welcomed.
McTaffer on 27/4/2020 at 21:08
The difference between sending the servants to the nobles and sending them into Pagan territory is that the nobility is too self-absorbed to notice that there's anything amiss with them. The Pagans would just kill anything of Mechanist origin, particularly because there's evidence that they're fighting one another already in Trail of Blood. Just because Beck 'O the Wills had an unarmed population doesn't mean all of them were useless.
As for the destruction of the City vs. the world, the reaction would probably be sustained for a fair distance around the city since at the very least dirt contains organic material. It probably wouldn't destroy the entire planet, but Karras was too absorbed in worshiping his own image by the end that he wasn't able to see any flaws in his plans anyway.
far on 28/4/2020 at 08:47
Quote Posted by McTaffer
The difference between sending the servants to the nobles and sending them into Pagan territory is that the nobility is too self-absorbed to notice that there's anything amiss with them. The Pagans would just kill anything of Mechanist origin, particularly because there's evidence that they're fighting one another already in Trail of Blood. Just because Beck 'O the Wills had an unarmed population doesn't mean all of them were useless.
As for the destruction of the City vs. the world, the reaction would probably be sustained for a fair distance around the city since at the very least dirt contains organic material. It probably wouldn't destroy the entire planet, but Karras was too absorbed in worshiping his own image by the end that he wasn't able to see any flaws in his plans anyway.
Yes, Karras and his fanatics is too crazy to see the flaw of the plan, it could explain a lot.
However, it is certainly much more troublesome to send the rust gas to noble houses.
To send the gas into forests (Pagan territory or not), you simply need to store the rust gas into containers, then appoint 20 mechanist
brother/sisters to take the container and cultivator to the forest and release them in the same time (set a timer if necessary). This action could be low profile and hard to stop.
On the other hand, to send the gas into noble gardens... You need to first of all figure out how to make "Servant" and store
the gas into them somehow. Then make good relationship with nobles so that they trust you and have a party to introduce
the servants to them... This is apparently much more troublesome and could arouse attentions from everywhere.
The plot and the story telling is good; It is such a pity that the plot itself is ... flawed.
Starker on 28/4/2020 at 13:52
Rust gas could only sustain a reaction when there was enough organic material present, otherwise it stopped very quickly. Releasing it into a forest would have destroyed the forest and the living things in it, but there's no guarantee it would have reached the city as well, let alone managed to sustain enough of a reaction to envelop it completely -- just the wind changing direction for a moment might have been enough to spare the city entirely.
Besides, it seems to have been somewhat personal for Karras, as he talks how the nobles have mocked and spurned him and specifically makes a point in incorporating them in his plans.
Galaer on 28/4/2020 at 14:59
But there is other contradiction in the story. If Rust Gas was supposed to destroy every life in the City and it was chain reacting to the plants and trees, then why one of the targets of Mechanists was cutting all trees and plants in the City? Couldn't leaving all flora in the City, help Rust Gas to kill everyone in the City?
Starker on 28/4/2020 at 15:43
Mechanists just had a distain for nature and nobody knew of Karras's plan. Also, I don't think they were going around cutting down trees for the sake of it, but the industrialisation polluted the city so much that the trees were dying.
far on 30/4/2020 at 07:32
Quote Posted by Starker
Rust gas could only sustain a reaction when there was enough organic material present, otherwise it stopped very quickly. Releasing it into a forest would have destroyed the forest and the living things in it, but there's no guarantee it would have reached the city as well, let alone managed to sustain enough of a reaction to envelop it completely -- just the wind changing direction for a moment might have been enough to spare the city entirely.
Besides, it seems to have been somewhat personal for Karras, as he talks how the nobles have mocked and spurned him and specifically makes a point in incorporating them in his plans.
Agreed, it explains a lot; Karras is apparently a crazy bad ass and cares more about his own personal agenda.
However, it also means that the keeper metal age prophecy is only about the city, and the "metal age state" will last only a short period of time... Eventually armies from other countries will come and reclaim the city... It is still somewhat flawed...
Wish my 2nd playthrough will give more insight of the story and make it more reasonable this time.
Quote Posted by Starker
Mechanists just had a distain for nature and nobody knew of Karras's plan. Also, I don't think they were going around cutting down trees for the sake of it, but the industrialisation polluted the city so much that the trees were dying.
Yeah, in the metal age they built a lot of factories for steel making and the main power is from Steam Boiler!! The don't have crude oil at
that time and all power are from coal... The amount of pollution is huge!!
