The Results of the 1999 Survey

The Lost City

Lost City. You start in Home Turf. It is odd, somehow, that the entrance to Lost City is so close to Garrett's home. You enter Lost City. The entrance is guarded by a cheerful spider family. Lost City itself is inhabitated by 2 happy Burrick families, many fireelementals with a strong dislike against other species, and some suddenly appearing Craymen. None of them is very hospitable. Additional too those friendly inhabitants, some skeletal remainings of some Keeper expeditions are spread over the place. The mission has a certain Egyptian feeling, and it is huge. Very huge. And we learn much here about the history of the place where now 'the City' is. This mission has probably more scrolls and books to read than any one of the other missions. And it has the pretty C'thulhu-statue and the most famous comments of Garrett ('creepy.')

[Descriptive Data], [Scores], [Comments], [Final Comments]

Descriptive Data about this mission

This mission is obviously not one of the highest favorites - no wonder, it is not a Human mission at all. The Modalvalue of 7 or 8 indicates that it is one of the missions that are in the middle of the ranking list. The fact that two places were voted exactly in the same number, indicates that the distribution of the scores is not as clearly in a bell-shape as others are. The StD of 3.25 is one of the largest, another indication for that fact.

The distribution of the scores

Score	N	%	Y-axis: "N", X-axis: "Score"
1	6	2.7
2	7	3.1
3	8	3.6
4	17	7.6
5	11	4.9
6	20	8.9
7	27	12.0
8	27	12.0
9	21	9.3
10	22	9.8
11	15	6.7
12	22	9.8
13	22	9.8

Well... The distribution of the percentages is another obvious indication for the fact that this mission is not the truely preferred or not preferred map. But it indicates also that more than 40 % gave that mission a score between 7 - 10. The perfect middle position, it seems. But it should also not be ignored that more people gave it a low score than a high score.

'Lost City' correlates relatively highly with none of the other missions. But it correlates relatively highly negative with many other missions: With 'Training' (-.22 **), 'Bafford' (-.18 **), 'Cragscleft' (-.27 **), 'Assassins' (-.26 *), 'Sword' (-.17 *). Well, with the Human missions, it seems (only 'Undercover' does not join the chorus here.) It seems to be a mission for those people who enjoy more the absolute archeological feeling in here than the 'realistic' feeling of the Human missions.

It correlates with the rating for the least preferred mission (-14 *). That means: Again this odd group of people who gave the least preferred map a negativer rating, rated this mission worse than other people. A map not for this critical group, it seems. Or otherwise: People disliked that mission so much that they gave it a really bad all in all rating (for the least preferred mission.) Both directions of that correlation make sense. This mission correlates very highly with the preferred style (-.24 **). But this means nothing, because the styles are not sorted in a specific way. Only in alphabetical order... (So, it would only mean: People who chose a style that is upper in the alphabet, gave the map a worser score than others... uh oh... this makes sense: 'Tomb Raider' is later in the alphabeth than 'Assassin' or 'Sneaker'.) So, this is also a indicator for the specific people who enjoyed the mission: Tomb raiders! :-)

Comments

Short Summary

Hey. I can keep me back. I can keep me from only quoting the comments that matched my own opinion. I tried also - as usual - to get a quantitative balance between the positive and the negative points. (huh.... ain't I great... ;-) ) Well... thank you, guys. Your positive comments about that mission encouraged me to enter it again. (And especially the fact that I think that this mission has revealed the identity of Vp No. 88 to me entertained me very much as I read the comments. :-) )

The positive comments were about the architecture, the hugeness, the level-design, the monster opponents, the tomb raiderish feeling.

The negative comments were about the same facts. But they were not so well-elaborated as the positive comments, I have to say. Craymen, folks, are not undead. Honestly not. They are friendly guys who enjoy to live in family triangles. And they are IMHO not really the Trickster minions, but nice and friendly natural life-forms. And comments as 'I hate, I hate, I hate!' are no guarantee for the author to be quoted here. No.

Positive Comments

Great change of the architecture.
Fun to explore.
'Felt like tomb raider.'
'Beautiful level design.'
Replayability.
'Somewhat like Bonehoard. With less action and fighting it would have been my favorite.'
'W'me slouch and whip Aye braved the depths. Raiders is one o'mye most favert films.'
The monsters: The Burricks. The Fire Elementals. The Craymen.
The 'gang wars' between Fire Elementals and Burricks.
'Best Mission! So much like Underworlds.'
Good puzzles.
The magical lights inside the building.
The background informations with the scrolls.

Negative Comments

ack of purpose. The lack of replayability.
Confusing. Too large. The map is far too inaccurate here.
Too tomb raiderish.
Too monotone. The linearity.
Too many monsters: The Burricks. The Fire elementals. 'The Undead' (?! *g). 'The Zombies' (huh? *g). 'The Trickster minions' (and another huh? ;-) )
It was boring after a while. Too easy.
It fitted not very well into the whole story.
'If Garrett has to tell me it's eerie - it's not eerie enough.'
More water would have been better.
Too few loot. Should have been much more.
'How would a buried city have so many open areas?'
Too much lava. It's too easy to fall into it and die.
Fire Elementals lame a slow computer too much down.
Too few water arrows.
A shortcut escape way would have been welcome.

Some personal comments

I fear it is a well known fact that I don't enjoy this mission as much as I enjoy others. I tried, nevertheless, to be as objective in this regard as possible. I swear that I will try that also in my most preferred mission. And in the really least preferred mission. Both extremes are still to be done.

Okay. I liked Lost City when I played it in the first time. But then I developed this odd wish to finish the game without dealing any damage. And I learned that in this regard Lost City is more than only tricky. It needed far too much time, and I did not figure out how to solve it with 0 damaged dealt. The problem were neither Spiders, Craymen, or Burricks. The problem were the Fire Elementals. Maybe I will test it again. Maybe not.

Later, I learned that it can be funny, though. Just try to swim up to town again, and stack the skulls of the Keepers in Home Turf. That can honestly add some fun - when the monsters, especially the Spiders, are still alive and awake. Hey, don't look at me this oddly. I love challenges, that is all. :-)