I'll Meet You at the Station

More Explicit TSW Issue #6 SPOILERS in this one:

Sctrz and I ran the last three quests in "The Last Train to Cairo" questline last night. We got on a little earlier than the rest of the guild, figuring on getting done with the fourth and fifth quests before calling it a night. "The City Beneath Us" and "The City Before Us" are two fascinating adventures below the desert and back in time, respectively. Much like the Caverns of Time in WoW, the time travel quests in TSW let you see how things used to be.

I don't know if Issue #5 "The Vanishing of Tyler Freeborn" does anything similar, but it would be very interesting to see Solomon Island before the Fog. Now that I think about it, I want to go back to "The Darkness War" instance in Blue Mountain and recheck the geography there, too. Anyway, it's a great way show off the landscapers' skills a bit. And that it has a "past" really gives the game a sense of presence.

The Excavation of "Beneath" was more about solving puzzles than fighting, and the mobs were soloable, though we ran it together. The Temple of "Before"was all about the puzzles—most NPCs were friendly, in fact—though there was one case where I kited a big mob while Sctrz solved a puzzle to open a door. There were echos of "Indy" throughout, much to the delight of my lovely bride. We had a blast with "figuring out" the puzzles, quotes here because often it was dumb luck that got us through.

[EDIT] Another thing I noticed during the play-through—but failed to mention before—was the large number of objects stuck in causality loops in these missions. By that, I mean objects received by the player character in the present, taken into the past and left, only to be received by the player in the present, with no explanation of their manufacture. For an non-game version, think of the pocket watch in Somewhere in Time. Where this would annoy me in a story or movie, it's endearing here.[/EDIT]

We got through those missions and decided to try the the final one: "The Last Train to Cairo."

Holy COW! what a ride! I've never had quite that feeling in an MMO, very cinematic. The train really does feel like it's speeding down the track: scenery whizzing by, slight rocking of the cars. I liked the various mechanics of moving along the train, sometimes on top, sometimes inside the cars, sometimes on the side of the cars.

I don't think we actually got very far before encountering a group or succession of mobs we couldn't handle in our current gear, a mix of QL7s and QL8s. On the plus side, it is not a solo instance as we had been led to believe. We had guildies online who were in a bigger group and had better gear that managed to finish the mission together. They'll be able to help later if we need it.

Unfortunately, we did not get the whip, which was our main goal last night. This was not a matter of completing the final mission, but doing a side bit during "Beneath" and "Before." While exploring the Excavation in the present, you have to loot a whip from one of the mobs. Then in the past there is a side room that you have to enter get past a puzzle and leave the whip in a case (an "Anima Infuser"). Then once you return to the present you have to retrieve the whip. Guess what no one in the guild remembered to do last night? And now the quest and the instance are locked out till Friday evening, for which I have a commitment I cannot (nor do I want to) shirk. You can ask my unfortunate guildmates: I was thoroughly pissed off, last night, and cussed up a blue streak on TS. I apologize to them for my lapse. So we'll probably get the whip on Saturday. That's OK, I want to get some better pics while we're in there.