The Adventures of Sherlock Colms

luther8

closing this thread since I have a new one up at http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?288522-The-Adventures-of-Sherlock-Colms

luther8

Thanks for the helpful reviews.

luther8

Bump for a great quest.

kyeo138

Hi Luther, thanks for reviewing my quest. Here's my feedback as I play part 1:

1. Excellent detail in the house & initial dialogs. Felt very holmes-ish, er, I mean colms-ish

2. First dialog with Colms shows 4 options, & all are the same saying 'What, how do you know my name?' (You do not have this skill) on 3 of them. I think you may be able to hide those based on a previous choice. Maybe have 4 choices before this one in the dialog tree based on your skills, and they all link to the 'how do you know my name' box? It looks a little weird having 4 of the exact same thing in a row.

3. 'you where ship wrecked', probably should be 'you were' (maybe even shipwrecked as one word).

4. Same dialog belonging's doesn't need the apostrophe (belongings).

5. 'raising popularity among the guards' should probably be 'rising'.

6. Leaving the house the door says 'go to the next map'. It's the default and I hate it personally lol. Maybe change it to 'follow colms to fang ridge' or something along those lines.

7. Some of the grammar with colms is a bit off. Just need to split up your sentences, add commas, etc... I'm not an expert by any means, so i'm not the one who can help with that lol, I just notice it.
ie - 'Let's split up and find some clues and try listening to what the pay have to say also talk with the captain first' . It's a very long, run-on sentence. Try something like 'Let's split up and try to find some clues. You should start by speaking with the paid staff and the guard captain before you head out'. Just suggestions

8. In the camp, you'll probably get flagged for copyright stuff w/ Tywin and Cersi lannister (already walking a thin line with Sherlock Colms lol)

9. Dialog w/guard captain - earlyer -> earlier.

10. Same Dialog, Sherlocks -> Sherlock's

11. Examine body name is 'Body Bag 01', may want to change

12. Dialog w/body: Inspect head: ether->either, vary->very

13. Inspect chest: vary->very

14. Dialog w/rosemary: Husbands -> husband's

15. Find the clue objectives, maybe have area waypoints. It's very tough to find the 3 objects

16. Blue potion named 'Potion Bottle 01', may want to change

17. Tracks named 'Ground Cart Tracks 04', may want to change. Dialog for tracks: Track's -> Tracks, appear's->appears, 'with in'->within.

18. Backpack named 'Backpack 01', may want to change.

19. Dialog w/colms after clues: 'vary skilled'->'very skilled', 'The cart owner must of'->'The cart owner must have'

20. You should rename all of the clues instead of using the defaults like 'Shortsword Basic 01', etc...

21. I love how you gave all of the npc's names. Your attention to detail on the design side is excellent!

22. In the woods, on objective 'find the body', I had no idea where to go, maybe add object or area waypoint.

23. Encounters perfect difficulty & frequency.

24. Guard captain dialog after turning in body 'cleaver cleaver' -> 'clever clever'

25. Could use a bonfire somewhere on the map (use respawn point), probably in the main camp. Ahh nevermind, finally got to one by the werewolves at the end.

26. Thunder sounds were perfect in the woods

27. Final boss fight was great, tough but not too hard. Lots of fun.

So overall, EXCELLENT EXCELLENT DESIGN!!! You were meticulous in every detail, everything is very well designed and laid out. The only catching point right now is the dialog. Just go through and clean it all up from top to bottom, watch namings and things and you'll have a great 5 star quest!

rated 4/5 for now, but fix up the dialog and easily 5/5!

luther8

O wow thank you for the reply I'm going to get started right now with all the changes.

-update ok finished the editing, I completely forgot about naming the objects, it just never accrued to me.

One of the clues mentions to follow the blood but most people seem to over look that so I might just make all the blood stains into a Contact to show up as sparkles on the ground.

zocat1

I basically agree with almost everything kyeo138 said.
Very good design, but lacks a little polish in the dialogue section (quite some spelling / capitalization errors).
For your next mission I'd also like to have some more dialogue options. Over time it felt like "1-1-1-1-1-1".
Having to play a "dumb" character would be fun, in the same way as a brilliant character would be nice. But that's a lot of work, so just wishful thinking ^^

"23. Encounters perfect difficulty & frequency." I personally felt it borderline too much. I started to skip multiple groups (Nashers), if that is designed cool, if not well, I felt it was a bit much ^^
I also missed the path to Rosemary (where she teleports away), which sadly made me run up where the Stalker is (killing groups on the way). When I realized that I was wrong I had to backtrack. The problem is that on open world maps enemies respawn (dont think authors can change this) and I had to fight the same groups again. So maybe add an object (tracks, blood, ...) where the path leads off from the mainpath, so people who play without glowy trails know where to look more careful.

Apart from those points, the overall design, atmosphere, dialogue & detail was very good.


PS:
"8. In the camp, you'll probably get flagged for copyright stuff [...](already walking a thin line with Sherlock Colms lol)"
Sherlock Holmes is public domain (minor exceptions). He's not walking a thin line Agree with the other copyright issue though.