JUST WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR. OMG GUYS. NEXT YEAR.

On an un-sarcastic note, I think Sawbones was probably an alias for Ecks. Kinda sounds like something she might choose for herself, and it sounds like something that would fit her facial scarring. I don't know why I think that, but I do.

I'm thinking Fantine will cure and come back to the Bake Stop. She's a fluffy little idiot and didn't realize that life as a zombie was different, and now she's back. Which is why Elsie is manning Half Baked, not her.

Kudos for the art, for the items, for the new areas and shops. I even give props for trying new things and not just throwing out a restock war.

Big minus for plot pacing. There was far too fucking long between steps. Far too many artificial delays. Big minus for out of character reactions and concerns. Skitters and Fantine bug me to no freaking end. He completely and utterly forgot about her, to all intents and purposes.

To the staff who write these things: there's a rule about red herrings. If you show a gun in the first act, you better use it. Maybe the charms and the going around to the other Subetans will show up next year, I'm pretty sure this is gearing up for another continuation. But you gotta think these things through. Like said, no one would want to see the 8th Harry Potter film if the first 7 ended unsatisfactorily. If you do continuations, each part has to be a whole in itself. There has to be a story arc in each, not just a 'DUN DUN DUN! To be continued!!!'

You see what the biggest complaints were. Not interactive enough, we don't like the click-through plot steps that we have to wait two days to do. We don't like the fixed-item quests, but you fixed that quickly and added the refreshing option to remediate it.

The art was incredible, the new areas were beautiful, the new items and shops were great. I love the building of the Underground. Good job there.

I wasn't a fan of the ending, or the plot in general, either. :/ The art and prizes are nice and I smiled at the Firefly references in that one part, but that's all I liked about it- the actual story got disjointed and boring, and I never wanted to be a zombie in the first place... so much for staying a Survivor forever :( The forced infection was really kind of a jerk thing to do.

Being on Skitters's side, it felt like there was never any progress. Go do a menial task that requires no thought or skill, hooray! Skitters still has no clue whether he's succeeding, and neither does the player. Repeat ad nauseum. It really does feel like this plot was written one step at a time, and Fantine was totally forgotten halfway through. I didn't mind the slowness and I can appreciate how the Subeta team experimented with different games/tasks even if not all of them were good ideas, but the one thing that should have made this plot really exciting- the, y'know, PLOT of it- just wasn't there. It falls so flat compared to the amazing plots we've had in the past.

I just hope that the organizers of the plot and event get their act more organized and streamlined next year. //leSIGH

[edit] oooooh lucky post

Wow, how lucky. You stumbled on a Raffle Ticket while making this post!

Sawbones was a male though. And I'm pretty sure with all the threatening Ecks did, Fantine would know who she was and also that she was a she.

That's true, but Fantine isn't the brightest thing, it's possible Ecks was in disguise and she didn't recognize her. But yeah, I guess I missed where it said Sawbones as a male.

Personally I was quite happy with the ending, my only real regret is that 'Backstabber' didn't come with a forum title X) The prizes were lovely, particularly the backgrounds, I'll have to figure out something for those. I am still itching to know who Sawbones is/was however.

Pandemic has always been my least favourite Subeta event (although the first year was fun), for the simple reason is that I am not a zombie fan. However, I followed the plot, as what else is an unemployed and lazy woman like myself going to do? I didn't mind it, it was quite interesting up until Fantine up and fucked off to the Underground, in which the activities started getting lamer and shorter, it seemed like it took forever for the steps to progress (for like two pages of dialog), and then the weirdest and most anti-climactic ending ever. So my rating is a 2... Outta 5.

I adored fishing though. I have this weird love for fish, even though I hate seafood and being in water with fish and touching them and watching documentaries about them. I loved the Moss Fish and the Weed Shark the most (they are being hoarded in my gallery). The artwork for the fish and the whole plot in general is love.

I know a few users have said (and will say) that no plot can please everyone. But yet, I'm positive the general consensus about the Saheric plot was "OMGWTFBBQ THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME", whereas I'm seeing a lot of negativity and disappointment about this one. Subetan plots have had a lot more to them in the past, I hope this one doesn't set a standard for the future.

Edit for spelling because I am a champ.

Yeah, that's true. Either way though, I really wish there was some explanation on this.

A part of me says that Ecks wouldn't want Fantine to be CLOSER to Skitters. I could see her killing her permanently, not turning her into the undead or something to that effect (which is possible).

This plot needed to start WAY earlier than it did if it was going to do the 2-day plot thing...but seriously if you can't read a paragraph or 2 in 2 days come on. The later days where you actually had to do something maybe but a day is more than enough to read.

Overall it just feels like yet another cliffhanger after last year =/

The plot had much more potential, and I was really interested at first. But the 2-3 day gaps between each plot step really bummed me out :c I actually really liked the plot step where you had to do quests, play Matlal's Jewels, and the brewing machine. The other steps were, eh, not very well set up in my opinion. And yes, there as a few things that are still left unanswered that will probably be addressed next year (?). Overall, not my favorite event or plot. I know staff said they were trying out some new things for events, so I understand. Just maybe not have big gaps in between updates xD

I'm disappointed, too. I was hoping for a much better ending than this. Maybe it's going to continue again next year? I sure hope so. I was so expecting a really great end, but it could leave things open for a continuation next year...

I assume things were cut down due to the time loss/site complications. Otherwise I am a bit disappointed, to be honest. I adore the items (seriously, adore them SO much !), LOVE the infections (Baker's Kiss, for the win... Yes I cured my Bindi-Bite for it !), and some of the stuff that happened during the actual plot. But at the same time I was expecting something more I guess. And I hated the "refresh and restock and click and blahblah ten million times !"

I am looking at the plot like an ongoing saga. Like game of thrones. I know theres more to the story, I know at least two more books are due out. Do I want those books now? Yes. Did I have a hissy fit at the end of the latest and pout and demand more? Of course. Am I going to have to wait like everyone else to see what happens and if winter finally gets here? Yup.

The same thing happened last year, and the only thing I'm sad about is the lack of Pylots. I wanted to see if maybe I had moved up in the battling world since last year. THe art, the story and the prizes are all fantastic! Yes there were problems but I think the staff did really well and I'll just be over here... weeping silently wishing it was next year already.

Let me start by saying the prizes are AMAHZING . Majorly disappointed by the plot after the build up you guys made i.e. Sawbones & his journal . Fantine's zombification & closure of the bake shop . The baker's kiss itself . Elsie & the pre-Merana necro gods . The charms .

Was highly hopeing about pylot-like or saheric-like challengers :s

It's sad that there were so many awesome things introduced with this plot (the underground shops, alchemy, new challengers) but they are being shadowed by things that could have been avoided.

The most important being the lack of updates. I've said this before, I don't mean more plot steps, just fluff, like news updates from Channel 5 reporters, random events from Skitters/Ecks, or Fantine, or any other underground resident, and even topics in the pandemic forums by those NPCs. We know Subeta can do witty and humorous, this would've been a good way to make this plot more alive and fresh (funny that I'm saying this about an undead plot :D)

And then the lack of interactivity, refreshing and clicking randomly on an image map is not interactive. Especially when the site is constantly going down. I noticed that during the dialogue in the last step, another subeta user had a line, I think it was . We could have had that, real interactions between users, it would've been amazing I think.

And then like everyone said, if you're going to make a saga out of a plot and leave the ends loose to pick up next year, make sure that each year is a mini-plot on its own. There are still too many questions unanswered.

I'm happy it ended,Personally. Right now we are normally fully into masquerade and then we have vesnali...With the site going down things got fucked real quick so there wasn't much choice but to slap on a lame ending and call it done cuz really it was like beating a dead animal for no reason.

.......Are Fantine and Skitters together now? What kind of ending was that? I am so confused! Is that supposed to be a cliffy for next year? If so, I am.. really disappointed. I am not a big fan of cliffhangers.

And I want the Bake Shop back. blinks I mean, I want to buy Muffins again.

Personally, I liked it and really enjoyed it. Yes, I thought that the wait was a rather long time, maybe the plot steps should have been updated more often (especially since the user has control when it ends to make sure they do everything, and it is not timed like other plots were), but other than that, I was pleased. I like that there might be more to do next year. I like that we can sit back and see what happens, and have another plot next year. Honestly, just going to Shadowglen to be a zombie is not much of a site event after you see the changes in my opinion. This just gives users more to do next year, especially the older ones. Who knows what will happen next year.

...Even with the prizes being released today somehow I was thinking that there would be another update, derp. So that's it, then? :T This feels oddly anti-climatic to me, too. Maybe because there was another long wait for the last stage of the plot, which was just dialogue again and nothing active. I thought we still might have to battle Sawbones or something. I guess not.

Will Sawbones be revealed next year, then? I was kind of hoping this would be the end of the two-year plotline and next year would be something different, or just the regular kissing/infections without having a story. I agree with about the Saheric plot- it was exciting because it moved at a nice clip (even with the small delay when they dumped more sand to allow some users to catch up, which was a nice move on the site's part and worked within the plotline itself) and was all wrapped up at the end. Subeta's still experimenting with longer plotlines and I appreciate the staff's work but maybe two years is long enough. Even a memo at the end of this year's plot saying something along the lines of "Sawbones has escaped! They will likely come back in a year's time" would have felt like a better end to this year to me, since it almost feels like the plotline totally dropped off last-minute. That would have been less confusing and more acceptable imo- if you're continue a long story, then giving people crucial details about key characters rather than having them vanish and keeping players excited for next year is important.

Sums up my feelings right now.

I think the pacing could have been sped up much more, and I'd prefer more puzzle games for the next plot such as the jigsaw, the Saheric sliding puzzle, and even the morse code puzzle from the previous Pandemic. Puzzles are much more interesting than quests and clickthrough dialogues, although I appreciate that this would require more work for the staff.

I liked the storyline, and I especially like the twist where although Ecks won, as her supporter you're left feeling slightly cheated, but while Skitters lost, he was so incredibly nice about it that you were happy to have helped him. I'm also glad that who we chose had no effect on access to skitters' den, etc! While there are lots of questions that still need to be answered, I'm looking forward to an improved plot next year ^^