The Great Memorial Day Quest Review-a-thon!

tripsofthrymr · May 2013

Memorial Day, the perfect time for picnics, barbeque, and ... reviewing Foundry Quests!

Let's team up and get our quests reviewed.

Goals

Help each author to make his/her quest awesome.
Get our quests published to the mainstream players.

Rules

Do NOT post a reply until you have reviewed at least one quest on this post (Review, or review not. There is no "here's my quest ID now I really, really am going to review yours").
Review one quest for every review that you get.
Be kind, constructive, and help each other to learn.

I have just updated my quest significantly after the first review (details in my signature below). I look forward to your reviews, and to reviewing your quests too!

atiaxi · May 2013

My quest is in my signature

I enjoyed your quest! It feels like a good lead-in to whatever's coming next. I rated 4/5 but it could easily be 5/5 with a little polish. Here's the notes I made as I went along:

- Liana has a few of the default "Continue"s as responses to her dialog

- Little confused by Liana. She says a vision guided her to Xaen's study and she got the key there... why does she need me to go to the house if she's already searched it?

- Tried to do some exploring after talking to Liana. There are a number of places that look promising (Giant ogre thing and 2 non-minions look like they're guarding an area, eye of grummush over by the tavern building) but don't lead anywhere. If the extras for exploring are in the Tower District, there are very few clues to this.

- Did you know that when you jump down the tavern building's glowing area in the foundry, nothing happens and you get stuck there? I just found this out

- Transition into the house (and I liked the flavor of finding a way in) has default "Press F to go to next map"

- If Xaen's house is barricaded, how did the Orcs get in? And why do I start out on the ground?

- Sgt. Smersh, you were also not guarding anything cool!

- I like how all the orcs, even the minions, have names

- Almost all of the interactables (Book of passage, Orc Rucksack, Doors to Maggie Snarth's room, Xaen's Journal) have default "Press F to interact"

- Ghost of Maggie Snarth: "When you entered this study, I just know" -> "When you entered this study, I just knew"
-- "Why does is spirit not rest?" -> "Why does his spirit not rest?"

- Xaen's Journal: "The journal describes..." paragraph should probably be in OOC text

- On the ramp up to the portal, there's a part missing - looks like it's stuck in the ceiling

- I have 'leave through portal', do the interaction, then am prompted to interact with the portal again (With default 'press F to go to next map'). These can probably be made into one step

- Portal takes me back to the west side of the tower district, rather than east one next to Liana

- Liana has a dialogue prompt after you complete the quest. She just says "Hello" and that's it - seems out of place

- There were items I got that don't seem to have a point, even though it's heavily hinted that they do. I got the spice in the kitchen, and it's hinted at in at least two places that it'll be useful (once on the dead guard's corpse, the other by the weird dragon) and... nothing came of it.

- You mentioned in the quest writeup that optional areas would be highlighted with cyan... I didn't find this a reliable guide. For instance, there's a part where there are two exits from a room. One looks to be cyan because it has an optional door off of it (leading to Maggie Snarth) whereas the other one, which is entirely optional, has no such highlight that I saw.

Overall, an intriguing plot and I'd love to see more!

pavvo · May 2013

Hi
Really like the story in your quest. Having it in Tower District was a boon too. My favourite game locale so far. One of the few quests I've actually stayed and read all the little *** bits.
One small comment, whenever there's a map transition, the default "Go to Next Map" dialogue pops up. Maybe change it to reflect the situation will help add to the immersion? Overall good quest! Glad I started my day reviewing this one

Appreciate a review too

Links in sig.

tripsofthrymr · May 2013

Thank you both for the reviews!

Atiaxi I especially appreciate the great detail you provided. I spent quite a bit of time polishing the quest based on your feedback. Also, I reviewed your quest just now. Pavvo, I'll review yours in the morning. Looking forward to it!

REVIEW
Author: @atiaxi
NW-DCDX6KMED

- First escort mission first I have seen from foundry
- Golden path goes through walls in village
- Well written dialogs
- Two "No" options speaking with Dreus confusingly similar at first glance
- "Fetch some items" portion well-done and entertaining.
- Tracking out of character for non-Ranger. However, it was fun.
- Bookcase in cave appears out of place (especially since presumably less-than-literate bandits live here)
- Battle with Hexer after bookcase extremely deadly to 39 cleric. Not sure why. Lost all HP in 3-4 seconds. Second (cautious) attempt successful.
- Left and right hand fought separate from leader. Leader was easy to kill.
- Nice twist to the plot.

4.9/5 stars (rounded to 5/5)

tripsofthrymr · May 2013

pavvo wrote: »

Hi
Appreciate a review too Links in sig.

I tried to review The Holy Symbol of Khyber, but the combat overwhelmed my (decently but not extravagantly equipped) Cleric. Here are the notes I have so far:

- Priestess Alsatia's temple: The statue's head goes up into the wood beam. If you lower Y coordinate by about 4 ft, it will look good.
- Why the flies in the temple?
- "But it's just a symbol, cannot be dire". Well my character is a Cleric and would know just how dire that is :-)
- Exiting the Chapel of the Blessed, the quest text reads "Go to the Chapel of Khyber". I was not paying close attention to the text I guess and thought I was already there. Probably my issue, but perhaps you can point out in the dialog that there are 2 chapels involved.
- When I select the door to "Go to next map" (add your own text there :-), I get the overland travel map but it does not show me where to go on that map. I do see the Chapel of Khyber but for some reason it is not highlighted with a quest marker.
- In Khyber, what caused the "slight creak"? If it was a person sneaking in the note, why did they not speak with me?
- At bookshelf, <angled brackets> around actions are non-standard. You use yellow there, but white on the following dialog to put book back and try again.
- "The Holy Symbol": "history fo" should be "history of"
- Reading books... why exit out of dialog? You can link back to the dialog node where the choices are given (but there, offer a choice "Done reading" or similar).
- The "Three waves" of undead totally overpowering for a solo level 40 cleric with white NPC. Also no campfire, so injuries kept stacking up.
- If I'm not mistaken there were 4 waves of undead.
- The final wave with two bosses spawing lesser undead was too challenging.

*** Had to just log out and abandon the quest :-(

- I know that it is challenging to create a quest that is challenging but not impossible for all levels that play it.

Glad to try and play it again if you make any modifications, or if I get better gear/companion.

The Great Memorial Day Quest Review-a-thon!

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