Home Away From Home Review Trade Request

capnchef · June 2014

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Home Away From Home: NW-DSBY79LGB

The Creekside Chronicles: Part 4 Home Away From Home

V 1.23
Time: About 40 minutes
[This quest has a lot of story text. You can skip it, but it's not advised as it will adversely affect your understanding of the events.]

It's been almost two years since you last visited Creekside, and the promise you made to Loren to return has been nagging the back of your brain recently. You've finally decided to go. But when you return, all you find is pain and misery. How could this have happened? Why didn't you return sooner? Maybe you could have stopped this catastophe from happening, if you had only been here... something must be done.

This quest follows Parts 1, 2 and 3, storywise, but should not affect your understanding of the events surrounding the quest. Each of the quests, while related to each other, can be played as stand alone. Playing them in sequence will just add to the lore and sense of drama.

Any and all critiques are welcome, and I will respond with a review of your quest as well. Thanks!

[Edits]
Added various sound effects.
Shortened interact times for a few quest objectives.

capnchef · June 2014

Here are some screenshots from part of the adventure.

capnchef · June 2014

capnchef · June 2014

capnchef · June 2014

orangefiree · June 2014

Playing through now.

1.) Loren looks quite a bit more than two years older.

2.) During the "find Loren" objective with kobolds behind invisible walls, the kobolds keep coming through a couple at a time making it a pain to do the objective. I'm not sure how it is supposed to work, but I doubt this is it.

3.) It might be good to make Eloria move a little faster.

4.) Slawd Blackleaf mentions the "Blacklead" tribe in his second dialogue.

5.) Destroying one of the crystals actually has me interact with the explosion. The other has the explosion interactable, although that doesn't actually do anything.

6.) There is an NPC named "Osric#1" at the end.

capnchef · June 2014

orangefiree wrote: »

Playing through now.

1.) Loren looks quite a bit more than two years older.

2.) During the "find Loren" objective with kobolds behind invisible walls, the kobolds keep coming through a couple at a time making it a pain to do the objective. I'm not sure how it is supposed to work, but I doubt this is it.

3.) It might be good to make Eloria move a little faster.

4.) Slawd Blackleaf mentions the "Blacklead" tribe in his second dialogue.

5.) Destroying one of the crystals actually has me interact with the explosion. The other has the explosion interactable, although that doesn't actually do anything.

6.) There is an NPC named "Osric#1" at the end.

1.) Yeah, there isn't much I can do to make her look older without suddenly being an adult. It was supposed to be 2 years from quest 3, and I should probably add some dialogue in the previous quests to stress how much time has passed between each, because by my reckoning, she's about 13 or 14 in the 1st quest, and by this one, should be about 18. I'm actually more surprised that you commented on her, and not on the other kids from the first quest. Some of the guys have gotten big and beefy. My wife, though, agrees with you about Loren looking too old, and thought Loren's <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> were too big. C'est la vie. I'll probably go back and do some adjusting. I was able to make her face exactly the same. Took some screenshots of the face sliders for the original, kid version, and then took a painstaking amount of time getting the new model's face to that point.

2.) Good catch. I noticed that on a playthrough the other day as well, and I haven't been back in the foundry yet to fix it, but I think I just need to adjust when the invisible wall appears, because I think it's set to appear on one of her lines of dialogue, and if I change it to just the start of talking to her, it should alleviate that issue.

3.) Is there a way to do that? Isn't that still broken? I would love to change her speed, but usually when you change the value, it still acts as if it's set to 7.5, and the devs haven't changed that.

4.) Thanks, I'll get that fixed.

5.) Hmmm, weird. I'll check into that. The explosion effects shouldn't be interactable. I'll see what happened and get that fixed.

6.) Thanks. I can't believe I missed that, since I was very obsessed with making sure the names were all correct, since I had to make alternate versions of all the characters.

I really appreciate you taking the time to play through this one. I briefly logged in last night to show some visiting friends the game, and I saw I had 2 reviews, and I was like "Woohoo, Orangefiree reviewed my new quest!" And they were like, "Uhhhh is that good?" And I was like, "Yeah, barely anyone has played it yet, and he's played through all of my previous ones. Can't wait to check the forums and see what he has to say." So yeah, thanks haha.

Any issues with the boss fight at the end being too difficult? I feel like I'm a bad judge because I manage to solo my quests very easily and manage against tons of mobs, and I try not to stack encounters too much(except when it is logically necessary), but again, that makes it hard for me to gauge if it's too hard or not. I don't know if I get through the fights easily just because I know what to expect and who/what to target first, etc.

eldarth · June 2014

capnchef wrote: »

2.) Good catch. I noticed that on a playthrough the other day as well, and I haven't been back in the foundry yet to fix it, but I think I just need to adjust when the invisible wall appears, because I think it's set to appear on one of her lines of dialogue, and if I change it to just the start of talking to her, it should alleviate that issue.

This may not be doable -- on live server if you have patrol pathing that goes to the other side of the invisible wall, the encounters may just "teleport" past any invisible/physical wall. You might need to have NPCs that get replaced by encounters.

capnchef wrote: »

3.) Is there a way to do that? Isn't that still broken? I would love to change her speed, but usually when you change the value, it still acts as if it's set to 7.5, and the devs haven't changed that.

FIXED in NW.15.20140415a.2 - 15
05-03-2013 [FIXED] Patrol Speed: Constant 7.5fps regardless of setting

Check my "Current Verified Foundry Bugs" posting for current bugs/recent fixes.

orangefiree · June 2014

capnchef wrote: »

1.) Yeah, there isn't much I can do to make her look older without suddenly being an adult. It was supposed to be 2 years from quest 3, and I should probably add some dialogue in the previous quests to stress how much time has passed between each, because by my reckoning, she's about 13 or 14 in the 1st quest, and by this one, should be about 18. I'm actually more surprised that you commented on her, and not on the other kids from the first quest. Some of the guys have gotten big and beefy. My wife, though, agrees with you about Loren looking too old, and thought Loren's <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> were too big. C'est la vie. I'll probably go back and do some adjusting. I was able to make her face exactly the same. Took some screenshots of the face sliders for the original, kid version, and then took a painstaking amount of time getting the new model's face to that point.

2.) Good catch. I noticed that on a playthrough the other day as well, and I haven't been back in the foundry yet to fix it, but I think I just need to adjust when the invisible wall appears, because I think it's set to appear on one of her lines of dialogue, and if I change it to just the start of talking to her, it should alleviate that issue.

3.) Is there a way to do that? Isn't that still broken? I would love to change her speed, but usually when you change the value, it still acts as if it's set to 7.5, and the devs haven't changed that.

4.) Thanks, I'll get that fixed.

5.) Hmmm, weird. I'll check into that. The explosion effects shouldn't be interactable. I'll see what happened and get that fixed.

6.) Thanks. I can't believe I missed that, since I was very obsessed with making sure the names were all correct, since I had to make alternate versions of all the characters.

I really appreciate you taking the time to play through this one. I briefly logged in last night to show some visiting friends the game, and I saw I had 2 reviews, and I was like "Woohoo, Orangefiree reviewed my new quest!" And they were like, "Uhhhh is that good?" And I was like, "Yeah, barely anyone has played it yet, and he's played through all of my previous ones. Can't wait to check the forums and see what he has to say." So yeah, thanks haha.

Any issues with the boss fight at the end being too difficult? I feel like I'm a bad judge because I manage to solo my quests very easily and manage against tons of mobs, and I try not to stack encounters too much(except when it is logically necessary), but again, that makes it hard for me to gauge if it's too hard or not. I don't know if I get through the fights easily just because I know what to expect and who/what to target first, etc.

1.) If she is supposed to be 18 here then she looks fine I was thinking she was a lot younger in the other ones.

2.) From what I saw, they were coming at me half way through the dialogue still. I'm thinking as Eldarth said, you'll need to not have the kobolds spawn until after the dialogue, or just turn of the patrols.

3.) Yep, as Eldarth said, it was fixed about a month ago.

Boss fight seemed fine, though that character I played it on was only like level 14 so not all the abilities were unlocked yet.

capnchef · June 2014

orangefiree wrote: »

1.) If she is supposed to be 18 here then she looks fine I was thinking she was a lot younger in the other ones.

2.) From what I saw, they were coming at me half way through the dialogue still. I'm thinking as Eldarth said, you'll need to not have the kobolds spawn until after the dialogue, or just turn of the patrols.

3.) Yep, as Eldarth said, it was fixed about a month ago.

Boss fight seemed fine, though that character I played it on was only like level 14 so not all the abilities were unlocked yet.

1.) Yeah, I think I'll need to add some dialogue in the previous quests that gives a better indication of her age. I didn't think about it at the time when I made the first quest, because she wasn't intended to be a major character or anything. She just sort of grew into the role in quest 3. She's taken on more of a life of her own than I initially intended, so I'll have to make some tweaks to the first quest to make her age more better known.

2.) Well, they are set to wander, so I don't know how that would affect how they interact with invisible walls, but to fix the problem, I just pushed their spawn to the when the conversation is over. Not quite the effect I wanted, but it will have to do.

3.) Eldarth, I'm really glad you keep track of all of that, because I wasn't paying attention. I just assumed it wouldn't get fixed because it had been so long. Thanks for letting me know.

Good to know, about the boss fight. I've tested it with a 60 GWF, 35 GF, 32 TR so far. I need to test it with my cleric, ranger, and wizard next. I want it to be challenging but not overly so. My main focus is on the story, not ridiculously hard combat.

I've made the changes and am publishing the updated version. Thank you so much for you input, Orangefiree and Eldarth.

eldarth · June 2014

capnchef wrote: »

3.) Eldarth, I'm really glad you keep track of all of that, because I wasn't paying attention. I just assumed it wouldn't get fixed because it had been so long. Thanks for letting me know.

"Out of sight, out of mind" right?

So, I figure in-sight, updated regularly (i.e. refreshed visibilty), and dated (since beta!) list of dozens and dozens of bugs -- just might be embarassing enough to fix some of at least the easier ones. :cool:

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