New Foundry: A Merchant's Woes (NW-DP6ZY8GG6) - Requesting Review Trade

rumrunner711

Campaign: Antiquarian Adventures - NWS-DISZWH28K - Review Trade
Ch. 1: A Merchant's Woes - NW-DP6ZY8GG6

Author: @runerunner711
Short Code: NW-DP6ZY8GG6
Tags: Combat, Story, Solo Player
Duration: 20-30 minutes (averaged 22 minutes)

Description:
It all started with a simple request to help a local merchant in need...
Sgt. Knox informs you that a local merchant, Phillip Marto, needs assistance with some thugs that are requesting "protection money" which leads to the theft of an artifact. Now the stakes are rising, battle a rogue merchant guild and recover the artifact.


Hey all, this is my first foundry quest. I created mostly custom maps for it, 3 interior and 1 exterior (docks map!)

I'm trying to get a feel for how challenging the combat is... tried with different chars. at different levels and seemed to get through it ok. I'm concerned about the first battle, though since it is stacked (thugs harassing a merchant (easy), second group comes in during battle (standard). All other battles are more spread out.

The quest is pretty linear, but with a good bit of story.

Any and all critiques welcome.

Thanks

lumicakery

Hey man, I went ahead and played your quest. It was alright, but I think you can do a bit more for the encounters. The difficulty was alright, I think it's pretty much standard difficulty. The story is nice as well .

Anyway, here are some of my notes, hope you find them useful :
1) Some of the mobs that were named 'bowman' were female.

2) During the early and middle parts, most of the encounters were Nashers, so it got a bit repetitive earlier on. I think if you can mix it up more like you did towards the end, it'll make the combat at the beginning more enjoyable.

3) I think the warehouse and the docks could use more ambient sound/music. Maybe a slower/mysterious music theme for the warehouse and maybe the ambient sound of rain for the docks?


When you get the time, try out my quest (in the sig). The latest version is 2.4, hope you can find the newest one (with that bug going on). Thanks in advance .

winterswitch

Hey Rumrunner.

This quest is straight-up fun to play. The writing is unusually good; I really got into the story and characters. Exploring around all those warehouse crates kinda reminded me of the ending scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." I have a few minor suggestions for changes:

--The Kerasi home hallways could use some more details. A small desk in a corner, a pair of boots near the door, etc.
--Wounded Woman dialogue: "fared better then us" should be "fared better than us".
--In the warehouse, wherever thugs hang out, think about making it more chaotic/dirty. Overturned chairs, piles of debris, cheap swords leaning against the walls.
--Marto's end dialogue: "More then welcome" should be "more than welcome".

The rest was really well done. I had no trouble soloing the mobs as a lvl 60 TR (10.5K GS).

Please give "Hive Mind" a play when you get a chance. Thanks!

boudiccia

I just did your foundry A Merchant's Woes.

It was fairly short and pretty easy. Even the starting stacked encounter was pretty easy. The best parts were the custom maps especially on the docks. The use of emotes worked well and helped flesh out the characters.


The only thing I would change is adding a door transition at the very end instead of just hitting "F" to leave.

Overall very good job on this.




Please check out my foundry: Claiming the halfling District NW-DIRTSMWZH

Thanks

melinden

Hi Rumrunner,

I'm working on the quest now, I need to wait until maintenance is done to finish up. Looks good so far!

What's the music you used on the 2nd map inside the house? It was great. I get so frustrated that some of the music samples don't play in Foundry when selecting them.

Rest of the play notes:

-I really like how the warehouse has a crowded feeling
-the hay on the floor of the little stable was flashing, probably just needs to be raised a bit
-the dock area is great
-the patch of pink flowers by the small shack is floating
-that is a great way to clean the inventory in the end

I really liked it, can't wait for the next one

rumrunner711

Thanks for the comments, all. I'll look into fixing up my quest soon.
And I've started with the reviews.

Lumicakery, I finished your quest and posted in your thread about it. Fun quest!

Melinden, the music is called Blacklake.
Sound is kind of touchy in this, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - like the rain loop I use in the docks map.

phoenicianson

Rum, I played through your quest bro, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am quite impressed with your proofing, as there was not one grammatical or spelling mistake throughout your entire dialogue chain.

I would suggest that you place the defeated captain a story down from where she stands for her dialogue, since most fights will end with her being put down on the second level, not the third, but short of that, perfectly executed brother.

I will be happy to play through the rest of the campaign as you build it, have you started on mine yet? Here is the link in case you forgot... I look forward to your input:

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?493731-Introducing-New-Foundry-The-Dark-Secret-at-Highgate

Remember, you can leave the map and return later should you need to break it up, with the exception to the bug by the developers that may cause the map return to fail unfrequently, it is a sound means to save your place by map so you can return and finish playing the quest in stages.

I am excited to hear if you enjoyed the quest, the person that has finished so far gave the story a great review. Thanks bro!

rumrunner711

Hey phoenicianson,
I sent you 2 PMs of my review on your quest, let me know if you got them or not, I can always resend them.
I'm going to run through yours again, I stopped at the entrance to the crypt - couldn't get past the mobs aggroing to the campfire.

Thanks everyone for the reviews, very helpful!
I've gotten through everyone's quests as of now and fun times all around, I posted in your quest threads or PM'd.
I'm currently implementing your suggestions and adding a few more things, namely a little more lore, story, and some skill checks.

Thanks again!

rumrunner711

Updated and published to version 1.1

Thanks for the reviews everyone, I've implemented a lot of your suggestions:
- Changed up the variety of fights in the earlier maps (kerasi house and warehouse)
- added background music to the warehouse map
- made the kerasi house and warehouse maps look more "lived in"
- added some skill checks to kerasi house and warehouse (just for story and lore)
- dialog fixes

Still looking for more reviews to get it to qualify as a daily.
Thanks!

eskarine

I can tackle this (though combat foundries are the downfall of my DC) tommorow evening, if you're willing to play through a semi-long puzzle of mine ("Absence of light")

rumrunner711

Sure, Eskarine, I'll give your puzzle quest a run-through. Sounds like fun.
It's not hard combat in my quest, easy to standard really. I was actually thinking about making it a bit more difficult.
Thanks for responding.

reiwulf

Just finished it, I liked it, it was simple but well written and got me into the story.
I loved the final map in the docks very well built. I agree you could add some more ambient sounds, at first it felt empty without music, with music it got better.
I also felt sorry for the poor prisoner in his undies, I'm glad I could save him
Thanks for playing my quest too!

runebane

Just reviewed this. Liked the detail work a lot. Everything looked nice.

Ran into a small problem at the warehouse. There were lackeys behind a closed door. Couldn't open it because I was in combat with them. Couldn't kill them because of line of sight. I ran as far away as I could, my companion ran back to the door. And somehow they passed through. Not sure where they were suppose positioned, but you might consider moving them away from the door a bit. Again though, I loved the quest. It was great.

As for trades, right now I am really looking for reviews for Sins of the Past - NW-DHBGJEOMB or for A Diversion Below - NW-DIH2R2JJA. They are slightly more combat heavy than yours though. But they are soloable.

rumrunner711

Yeah, Reiwulf, I see what you mean with the docks map. I keep going back and forth on whether to use ambient rain sound in the beginning and then music at the ship - or just music the whole way through (hmmm, maybe with rain at the same time?) Thanks for playing!

Runebane, thanks for the review! I'm guessing the encounter you mention is at the first set of large doors? I used to have a guard node there, but removed it - I still see enemies move towards there though. I'll have to look into that more. I'll definitely check out your quests.

eskarine

I just finished the quest - it was very nice. Like I said, I am not a fan of dunegon crawls, but it didn't actually *feel* like a dunegon crawl. I liked the story and I have a feeling that part 2 will be even more interesting.

EDIT: God, I never should run two quests at once. You didn't actually advertise your quest at a dungeon crawl, the other guy did. Sorry! xD

So, my notes:

- Decor. Merchant's office feels very empty - if he is a wealthy/semi-wealthy merchant, shouldn't his place show how well his business prospers? Same for the Kerasis and warehouse - they both felt a little empty.
- Windows at Kersi's bedroom are not fully embedded into walls.
- Northern docks: I am the nitpicking type who will run around looking at EVERYTHING (an extending your play time) and trying to jump everywhere, looking for ways to break a map.

Jumped from stairs (the ones you spawn on) to windowsill to roof. You have some serious horizon issues going on here. Stuff like that can be masked by fog or rocks placed in the distance. Or just move the building so you can't jump in it.
- That said, the docks are my favorite map from them all - maybe because it's the only one that doesn't feel like it's pre-made.
- I played it with lv60 DC. As a long-range caster I was able to take out 90% of the enemies without even engaging them - I'm not sure you wanted it that way?
- Enemies reskinned roar like ogres and shout out for rebels
- Are there invisible walls on the ship or you can't jump out by default? If you placed the walls then congrats, I wasn't able to knock out my enemies from it, thus making it a bit harder
- I was able to take out the captain without killing the guard next to her, despite hitting him first? (and then running back like a coward, to main ship area).
- Is the captain reskinned from ogre? Her attack range is very misleading - seems like she has short range but actually attacks quite far. I don't really care, since I learned to never stay close to enemy anyways, but some people might complain about that.