Kaunisto
Rear Admiral
Thinking of game design and storytelling, I've wondered would it have been better if there was a path that Behemoth succeeds. So that you'd have Ending A (Behemoth), Ending B (T-bomb) and C/lose ending. (Or rather you'd have to have beside the main losing ending two variants, failing last Behemoth/T-bomb missions - but we already have the latter and those could've even been one and same.)
The most obvious problem with this is that Behemoth ending would cut the game much shorter. But you could fix that by rearranging some of the missions. You could have the scientist rescue before Behemoth, only revealing he was actually related to the T-bomb project if you fail Behemoth path (before final mission), moving to T-bomb path. And for this storyline you'd anyway need few additional "Behemoth goes to Kilrah" missions. (Perhaps altered from final missions, like player scouting ahead?)
However one thing about such best ending/good ending game design that I don't like is that it puts pressure on player to make the best ending, to win completely. While the same goes for having just one good end, it does leave you much more room to fail. And that's one of the things I've always loved most in WC, that you don't have to always succeed, to play each and every mission till you win it to move on to next (like most games still work).
So on game design perspective, I'm not sure I would've wanted this kind of branching for the end. But thinking of storyline... I think it would've been cool (if leaving bit of question of which is the canonical ending, but that'd be small difference since we blow up Kilrah either way).
The most obvious problem with this is that Behemoth ending would cut the game much shorter. But you could fix that by rearranging some of the missions. You could have the scientist rescue before Behemoth, only revealing he was actually related to the T-bomb project if you fail Behemoth path (before final mission), moving to T-bomb path. And for this storyline you'd anyway need few additional "Behemoth goes to Kilrah" missions. (Perhaps altered from final missions, like player scouting ahead?)
However one thing about such best ending/good ending game design that I don't like is that it puts pressure on player to make the best ending, to win completely. While the same goes for having just one good end, it does leave you much more room to fail. And that's one of the things I've always loved most in WC, that you don't have to always succeed, to play each and every mission till you win it to move on to next (like most games still work).
So on game design perspective, I'm not sure I would've wanted this kind of branching for the end. But thinking of storyline... I think it would've been cool (if leaving bit of question of which is the canonical ending, but that'd be small difference since we blow up Kilrah either way).