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Crushbone's Revenge (NW-DQY8XAH9D) -- looking to trade reviews
tipadaknife
Member Posts: 229 Arc User
Crushbone's Revenge - NW-DQY8XAH9D
A semi-sequel to "Tempest in a Freepot". The gnomish King Alonso has lost his nephew, Retlon Brenclog, in the Orc fortress of Crushbone. Tensions between Crushbone and the nearby wood elf city of Kelethin make a direct assault unwise, but someone from outside the region, with no ties to any side, can get in there and convince Retlon to return.
But, you'll soon find out that all is very much, not as it seems, friends are enemies and enemies are friends. And Retlon may have reasons for fleeing to Crushbone.
While this story takes place in and around EverQuest locations, no knowledge of EQ is necessary (though background information is optionally provided).
Medium combat, with difficulty sliders and/or NPCs willing to help so you can tune your challenge. A fun story, I hope. Any reactions, positive or (constructively) negative, appreciated!
A semi-sequel to "Tempest in a Freepot". The gnomish King Alonso has lost his nephew, Retlon Brenclog, in the Orc fortress of Crushbone. Tensions between Crushbone and the nearby wood elf city of Kelethin make a direct assault unwise, but someone from outside the region, with no ties to any side, can get in there and convince Retlon to return.
But, you'll soon find out that all is very much, not as it seems, friends are enemies and enemies are friends. And Retlon may have reasons for fleeing to Crushbone.
While this story takes place in and around EverQuest locations, no knowledge of EQ is necessary (though background information is optionally provided).
Medium combat, with difficulty sliders and/or NPCs willing to help so you can tune your challenge. A fun story, I hope. Any reactions, positive or (constructively) negative, appreciated!
Post edited by tipadaknife on
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Comments
Detailed analysis time!
-Very nice map detail, really brings out the essence of fantasy.
-The "regular" combat was fairly difficult, though slider adjustments did help.
-Story was very impressive. Good use of merging both worlds of Faerun and whatever EverQuests one was (not that much of an EverQuest fan).
I can see some hard work has been put into this. Not that much else I can say so not much of a detailed review, but a very nice Foundry.
STO
Smite
SWTOR
Thanks for the review
I thought this quest has a lot of detail work and technically it is very good. The story has a lot going on and to me it seemed it jumped a few steps in a couple of places. Maybe this was because I was trying to keep a lot of new names and details straight in my head.
My detailed comments are below. I don’t have anything new and I know you’ve played some of my old stuff so don’t feel obligated to play mine.
House
-the Neverember banner to the right of the entry door is clipping a little against the room detail behind it. If you flip it so it is hanging convex instead of concave that might be enough to correct that. I selected normal difficulty
-the references to your earlier work is fun
-the cut scene was nice
Elf Interior
-I like that you try and make Norrath very distinct from Faerun. Not sure if that is your intention or just part of your personal style but it comes off well.
-I had a bit of a hard time finding the vegetables and the bears. I think this was because I thought I should complete everything for the druid before I talked to the ranger. I’m not sure if that would frustrate another player so much they would give up or not. Maybe a Waypoint to help lead them along or have some more detailed directions from the NPCs?
-the area right by the throne seemed very dark, maybe add some dynamic white lights right were the lanterns are hanging? It looks like you may have one but it looks too high and behind the throne so it doesn’t illuminate it
Crushbone
-you have some gaps between the cemetery wall sections. I know they are not even and then you get a glitch if you smoosh them together. My recommendation is to use one of the fortress wall towers (the one that Idris’ tower is made from, it matches the wall) as blending pieces to cover up the gaps.
-I noticed the portal in the tree before I went in, hoping I can manage to get up there if that is the exit door.
-the first brazier after the zone in is floating slightly on the uneven floor
-Was I supposed to talk to Daish (I think that was the name)? The king was there, I saw a Contact diamond but he vanished and I fought his Encounter version. Not sure if that skips a story piece? It sort of felt like it. Maybe I am confused because there is a King and an Emperor?
Return to Elf City:
-I appreciate your being candid about not knowing FR lore. Keeping up with all these new names and politics is making the story hard for me to follow
-I think you might be able to link the Stefan’s dialogue tree up more. I asked him what was going on and then after he told me the dialogue ended. So I was stuck behind the invisible wall with instructions to Confront the Queen and not sure what to do next. I figured I would have to fight Stefan so I tried again.
-the Priest of Discord element was a little squicky for me since I’m playing a cleric dedicated to Selune. That might make other players feel weird. Maybe you can add another dialogue option for anyone with Religion skill that will sort of smooth that over?
-some of the encounters are not in their elf costumes
-Ok, I couldn’t find the other allies, I found the Priestess but the door was closed where I was expecting to find the others.
-it seems a little odd I didn’t return to the king since I reappear outside the door to his house.
(Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
/heads back into the Foundry for some tweaks
Banner fixed, thanks!
Both guildmasters now explicitly ask you to talk to the other one before leaving the room. I looked into moving the garden closer, perhaps in with the corrupted wolves, but things would look even more crowded.
I did as you suggested with the throne room lights, thanks!
I replaced the walls with the cliffs I was already using for the back. The Crushbone entrance in EverQuest is set into the sort of near vertical green planes EQ loved so much back in 1999... so cliffs probably isn't far off.
Teleporters can't be turned off and on, unfortunately. I didn't want the player to have to run all the way back out to talk to Ariel, and I didn't want to figure out some pretext to have Ariel come closer when it said earlier it would not do that. So I stuck the exit point in a tree so the player couldn't use it to get into the Keep directly. I don't like it, but...
Fixed brazier, thanks.
There's three fights in Crushbone Keep, and I didn't want them interfering with each other. I intentionally make it look like there's a conversation happening for the player so they don't expect to suddenly be attacked (with an easy encounter, because it would be cruel to jump the player with a hard encounter). Lord Darish and the Emperor are in just the same places in EverQuest. I have no idea why. Maybe it's like in Saberhagen's "Empire of the East" series, where the Emperor is just some rogue element causing trouble. I like to think that Darish is in charge of the Keep, while the Emperor is busy plotting the rise of orcs everywhere, and this is his seat of power. I don't think there are any other orc citadels in classic EverQuest; the orcs elsewhere tend to live in temporary camps. But anyway, I did it because THEY did it. Since in EQ, all these NPCs are hostile, I really don't know their actual story. In EverQuest 2, the Emperor appears briefly at the end of an adventure instance in Crushbone Keep, which doesn't resemble the old EQ1 one. In EQ2, the orcs in Antonica are ruled from Deathfist Citadel, built on the ruins of Jaggedpine Forest.
See, I know EQ lore backward and forward. No room in my brain for Forgotten Realms :P
Stefan now explicitly mentions the Priest of Discord right up front. He would also do before if you'd talked to him after you talked to the PoD.
Since I was using the new CoD encounters in places, the rogues/assassins power up into forms over which I have no control. But I really wanted to use those encounters, so I just closed my eyes and hoped nobody would notice. I was naive
OH WAIT, I FOUND THE ENCOUNTER YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT!!! THANKS!!!
The other allies are kneeling outside the fighter guild. The priestess and Retlon are easily sufficient help for that encounter anyway, but if you really really want more help, you can get the three guild masters. I shut off the rest of Kelethin because I didn't want people rummaging around in there. This last map was meant to be very linear, a quick ramp up to the revelation (which I had been foreshadowing throughout the entire quest) and then the final encounter arena.
In previous quests, the player returns to the house, gets a recap and a thanks and a don't blame me if the loot isn't to your liking, and then the final chest. But I was trying to keep the average play time for the quest as low as possible, and I was already over my time budget, so I skipped that part.
Retlon Brenclog replaces the King and Ariel in the house for the next quest, Bloody Kithicor, where we take sides in the battle between Lanys and her arch-rival Firiona Vie, who is the Priestess of Tunare.
Thank you for all the time you put into your comments! They were immensely helpful!
Lanys hard adds actually made hard
Extended the Janitor a little.
By request, flirt option for Pham first meeting.
Changed Josylyn fight to be a little harder
Don't require the player to accept Bealu to make use of the Priest of Discord's power. Clerics apparently have a problem with this
Change out the volume gate in the corrupted bear pen to one that actually works and fits in better with the fence.
Have the druid and ranger guildmasters remind you to talk to the other one before you leave to complete their tasks.
Allow clerics to offer to help cleanse the desecrated shrine prior to the Queen asking them to investigate it.
Fix banner in the house.
Fix lighting around the Queen's throne in Kelethin
Fixed brazier near Taskmistress fight
Fix Crushbone boundary walls, use the cliffs instead of the non-meshing graveyard wall
Stefan Marsinger now explicitly mentions the Priest of Discord as the person who can help you proceed in Kelethin Return.
Fixed the druid/beastlord guild encounter costumes.
Funny story (not really), this is my second quest involving Emperor Crush. The first was done using EverQuest 2's Dungeon Builder, where I had Crushbone being invaded by the Plane of Water. Crush was the final boss, and typically died in one shot because EQ2's dungeon builder sucks and you can't actually make boss battles. (Kasul and I renamed him Emperor "One Shot" Crush) Or have plots (though some really creative people have managed to kinda weave stories into their quests). This is the time I decided I would make future EQ quests in a REAL quest editor. Now, EQ2 does have something going for it -- dungeon builder quests can provide tokens which can be turned in for real rewards and real gear which can be real upgrades, or stuff like mounts. So if we could bring these two things together -- Neverwinter's Foundry and EQ2's rewards system... that would be something.