The Results of the 1999 Survey

Into the Maw of Chaos

The Maw of Chaos. You have the objecitve to reach its deepest point, because that's the place where the Trickster does some odd rituals. You shall change the Eye with the trapped copy of the Eye, before he completes the rituals. And you shall also destroy the gate where all those monsters come through. It is inhabitated by Bugbeasts, Apebeast, Frogs, Fireelementals, Craybeasts, and the Trickster himself. It is supposed to be a chaotic place, and so it has a really colourful architecture, and some really odd elements as ice surfaces, marble traps, blue crystals, a really huge tree, and of course the odd waterfall.

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

Descriptive Data about this mission

Again, a not so preferred mission. Again the mean score and the modal score are very low. The last three missions were really not the favorites of the majority of the people.

The distribution of the scores

Score	N	%	Y-axis: "N", X-axis: "Score"
1	6	2.7
2	5	2.2
3	6	2.7
4	9	4.0
5	12	5.3
6	10	4.4
7	13	5.8
8	20	8.9
9	22	9.8
10	24	10.7
11	34	15.1
12	32	14.2
13	32	14.2

45 % of the people considered to be that mission to be between the scores 11 - 13. But of course there were also some people who enjoyed the mission.

'Maw' correlates highly with 'Bedfellows' (.29 **). It correlates significantly negative with the first six missions: With 'Training' (-13 *), 'Bafford' (-20 **), 'Cragscleft' (-.27**), 'Bonehoard' (-.19 **), 'THC' (-.24 **). In my eyes, this pattern of the correlations is similar to the pattern of 'Bedfellows' and 'Escape'. Sequence effect. I have no other explanations for this pattern, because it is very similar to the pattern of the last 2 missions.

'Maw' correlates with none of the other variables in any significant way.

Comments

Short Summary

I fear that a huge number of people did not play this mission - some told me that they had not bothered to play it, and that the game had ended at 'Undercover' for them. Nevertheless...

The positive comments were about the atmosphere and the level design. About the entire scenario of the finale.

The negative points were about the linearity, the easyness, the fact that this was just another FPS that ended in an alternate dimension with a huge end monster. This finale did not match the thievish character of Garrett - why should a thief want to save the world?

Positive Comments

The level design: Colours, odd details as i.e. the waterfall or the tree.
'Wow - good ending.'
'The end of this great game. That's why I didn't like it.'
Throwing Apebeasts into lava...
'Visually pleasing.'
'I's cool. Especially when you swap the Eye and show some not very good signs to the trickster.'
'I still have nightmares, bad dreams, you know.'
'Cool atmosphere for big finale. Good to actuallymeet Mr. T. In person.'
Ice scating.

Negative Comments

The kind of opponents: Monsters.
Too much fighting. Too few sneaking, too much running.
Too easy. Too few monsters in some areas. Too easy especially for the final mission of a game.
It is an anti-climax.
Too linear.
'Do all FPS games have to end in an alternate dimension to save the world?'
Could have had a time limit to beat the Trickster to hin incantation.
'Ending needed a better death scene. Movie needed more drama, perhaps a vid of the death.'
'Hell? He's a Thief, not the exorcist!'
Too surrealistic.

Some personal comments

I like 'Maw' because of the odd things you can find there. The ice, the waterfall, the tree, the spider room. All this combined together to a great mission, mainly great because of the visual effects. But the mission seems to be more designed for drug trips, not for challenges. It is far too easy, even the part where you steal the Eye. And the linearity is another negative point: You don't have so much freedom to explore everything. So is it, as far as I know, not possible to leave the organic looking tunnels, when you have jumped down into them. In my opinion, a chaotic place should be more a maze than a linear sequence of tunnels with huge oddities one after the other. But the details are fantastic, no question.