I really want the bake shop back. The plot ending was unfulfilled, but the bake shop being closed is the biggest pain for me personally.

Hee. This.

I thought the plot was entertaining enough. Some of the questing bits had me bored as fuck, but the battles and all the of talking was interesting to me. And all of the new faces and characters, and the underground? I liked it, overall.

I enjoyed the plot. I thought the pacing was way too slow though. Most of the steps didn't take very long at all so I think they could have had a new development every day instead of every 2/3/4 days, especially for those shorter, less involved steps. From memory only the fishing and the collecting items by refreshing really needed a longer period to complete.

Besides that, I liked it. The prizes and art are great, too and the story and dialogue was funny and interesting. The ending seemed abrupt and anti-climactic considering the build up, and I figured at least Fantine's story would be resolved this year as it's all set up for her to cure and come back. That way the whole rebellion thing could be left til next year and we'd still feel like we had some sort of ending.

But other than that and the slow pacing, I liked the plot. :)

I feel like there is a huge difference in wanting the plot to have a full ending, actively wanting that ending to come sooner, and the haphazard stub of a conclusion we got after a month long foot-drag. So let's not jump on this 'people only want to complain' bandwagon just yet, okay?

Considering that this year's Pandemic was supposed to be the epic continuation of a storyline created last year, there were some serious expectations set forth. Now that it's all over and done with, and those expectations have been far from filled, yeah people are going to complain. Hopefully Subeta will actually take the feedback from this event and move forward with it, avoiding any rehashes of the issues see here next year.

I really enjoyed the plot except for some annoying stuff, but the ending could've been a lot better. Why couldn't we have had a nail biting edge-of-your-seat cliffhanger? Like have Fantine kidnapped and Ecks get an attempt on her life by someone mysterious (though she lives). And have clues to who this Sawbones really is. I want Sawbones to turn out to be a real character too. Though maybe he's not really a zombie but a human. I just don't like the fact we got egg on our face, even though we kind of asked for it with the complaints and all.

Its just the way it ended and Fantine just forgotten,I thought we would get something exciting so we could look forward to the plot continuing. Well aside from the great prizes and all. I don't know if anyone would want it to, but I wish it pick up during Morostide and continue so we could look forward to something different next Pandemic.

I don't want this plot to drag on for years, like the Neopet's Maraqua for example. I think a year and a half is long enough for a plot IMO. I wish something better could be thrown out there that would give us more excitement, like an announcement by an NPC about some current stuff going on; and not be lead to believe that was just it. That's all there really is until next year. Though I don't want the plot itself continue and run over Atebus Ball or Vesnali.

I probably wouldn't have been disappointed if this plot hadn't been made out to be BETTER and the awesome continuation of last years cliffhanger.

I mean last year we had a nice fast pace, pastries with mysteries to uncode, the SAI involvement, battling Pylots, and the unveiling of the underground and Ecks. Although all you did was find junk in the underground which turned out to not be used for anything. But there was excitement and involvement!

And then it ended and we were left wondering and we were told ” Don't worry, it continues next year...even BETTER!”

And then we get slow paced, little actual interaction (I, like a lot of people, got bored and stopped reading dialogs and just clicked through going to get to the thing I was supposed to DO which never came). So at this point, even if it IS supposed to continue next year I can't have high hopes because THIS was supposed to be better than last year but last year was actually fun!

Although as I said before...the prizes are awesome. And I love the alchemy but since out has little to do with the plot aside from being introduced with the commerce district we didn't need a whole ” plot” for that.

Edited for phone misspellings.

I dunno, I thought this plot seemed more of a set up for next year rather than a major story continuation. It was pretty much a guided tour of the underground and the zombie community there we would have otherwise not really known much about, but I can't say the actual storyline has progressed much at all. Worth it for the prizes and worth it for the expansion of the underground (to me) but I guess anyone hoping for an awesome story would be left feeling a little cheated.

I hope if it continues next year the focus is more on the story rather than all the new features that can be crammed into one event :3

That's why many of the older players were disappointed. Last year, the plot felt short and incomplete, with lots of loose ends, and when that was mentioned, staff said that it wasn't the plot, just a set-up.

To have two years of a set up for the plot is ridiculous. I can understand having chapters, but that requires something of story arc. So far we have Skitters and Fantine fall in love, with a hint of undead feeling mistreated in the first year, and year two we had Ecks outwitting Skitters in what could've been a fairly simple action, but ended up being overly complicated due to staff needed activity fillers.

I didn't mind this plot at all, but it would've been so much better if it were condensed into a week or two, with the remainder of the time leaving it open for people who have busier schedules to complete it on their own time. Maybe an achievement for finishing it the day the last plot step was released. That way people who are here everyday aren't bored out of their minds, but people who come on less still have a chance.

Eh and the ending seemed very abrupt and awkward to me. I like the idea of getting some new information every year and whatnot but it just seemed really unfulfilled and unexciting this year.

I can see a lot of users who went through the plot last year being rather annoyed. Ignoring the site problems, it wasn't bad(seeing as it's the first pandemic I've experienced), but yeah the story still feels like it's only starting, even after reading through last year's events :P Bit of a shame that.

I'll be more disappointed if the masquerade gets cancelled because of how long this lasted though, I've not been on the site for previous years and want to experience it :/

I didn't mind the long waits between steps or the constant lag/downtime, but to end it like that just sucks. The plot was built up to be really amazing and then it just.. ended horribly.

This is actually a really good idea, I kind of like that.

With the amount of tasks and content released this year it is more suited as a smaller timeframe. I am a person that is very busy irl and often doesn't get online for more than training and maybe Battle Quests and I had an issue with the pacing. When you have to catch up on a week's worth of steps and it takes less than an hour I hardly see why the pacing needs to be so darn slow (and this is before the site issues, after which it was understandable to slow things down a bit).

Aside from all the completely valid complaints listed... Why can't any of the staff validate the plot being so completely crappy? It would be nice to see some sort of response to our complaints, some explanations or something? Even just tell us to suck it up and blame it on the site being DDoS'd... But to hear nothing just makes room for more completely valid complaints...

With this being my first event, I actually kind of enjoyed the plot. People above already said this, and I agree: the ending seemed rushed IMO and there are still a few loose knots, one of which is when will the Bake Stop be reopening.

Though, I think there will be a continuation to the plot next year...

I must agree with the OP. We all know Subeta can do amazing things with plots, and despite the site having been down for a time I can't help but think that this was their intended ending all along. Now I also understand that this was meant to be an experimental plot to see what things would and wouldn't work for future plots (such as the hunting for items portion where the items all just got crazily inflated), but that doesn't justify the completely lackluster ending.

Like many others I don't want to sound ungrateful, I really look forward to events here on the site because they give me something to do and I do understand that according to polls and the like most of Subeta's players are older and have to deal with school/jobs/families/other real world stuff so an advancement every few days is probably the best way to go about it, I mean if you think on it all other plots have had similar things. The infection event just seems so drawn out because kissing doesn't earn us anything other than numbers for achievements, whereas dancing and giving flowers for the Masquerade and Vesnali earns us stuff for a shop and special items so we're more willing to let it go on to try and get the tokens for the shops.

As for the plot continuing into next year.....Well, let's face it. There's only so many years they can draw out the same plot with the same characters. At some point new things will have to start happening. I agree that the ending left a lot open for next year's infection event, but at the same time if this whole bit between Skitters and Ecks doesn't end next year I think the plot as a whole will seem too drawn out and just get annoying.

Also, on the subject of the Bake Shop (since I've seen a few complaints about that here to) I agree it needs to reopen somehow, or that Fantine needs to start selling the old Bake Shop goods in her new store. It's frustrating as hell for me to be doing Item Hunter and have him ask for a piece of Wyllop Carrot Cake at level 12 and see the item inflated to over a mil (or since I just checked, about 120k) because the shop's not open and it's not restocking but it's still listed as 'common'. At the very least retire the items so questers don't ask for them until it reopens.

I love the art, the NPCs, the bgs, the prizes, Fantine turning into a zombie etc. But the plot itself.. not so much.

Basically, it felt like they set it up to be this awesome thing, and got our expectations up, but in the end didn't live up to it.

For example, they had us split into teams, so I thought we were actually gonna be part of a war or some sort. But it just ended up being some fishing, potion brewing, recruiting, and kinda an anticlimactic final encounter. And the stuff we had to do for both sides were pretty much the same, but with different dialogue. The two teams didn't actually compete directly against each other in any way, and I was a bit disappointed in that.

Another example is recruiting the quest NPCs. I thought that was a pretty original and fun idea, and I was waiting for something to actually happen with that. But nope. We did their quests, got them on our side, and that was it. The Wizard/Maleria gave us an item, and we never did anything with it (it ended up in the pit of my gallery).

And what about Matlal? I thought playing his game, and talking to him was pretty neat and interesting. But he just said "nope, can't help you", and that was it. Did that have some purpose? I was thinking he would come back and play a role.

And what of Fantine? She fully zombified and moved underground, but none of the other NPCs seemed to notice, not even Skitters.

And then there was Elsie, they introduced her, and that was it. I thought you got to talk to her or something.

Basically it felt like they were planning more, but because of the site issues, and general slow pace, people got fed up and bored with it and just wanted it to end, so they cut it short and ended it anticlimactically.

Though it does leave lots of room for next year. But you know, having to wait a year will make me forget XD (and I wonder if we can choose teams again, or would we keep using the team we chose this year)

Maybe it's because it's my first plot, but it seemed fine to me. Different stuff to do, and some nice achievements and prizes. I liked it.

I liked the plot portion of the event, it was just the ending that disappointed me. I was so ready for a Skitters vs. Ecks showdown. Hopefully the story continues next year and we gain some peace of mind c:

So first we get this sloppy tacked on ending, and rather than find a solution, like move the bake shop underground, or get a new npc, Fantine punks out this late? What a disappointing ending all over again. Really annoyed with this. Ugh.