My First Foundry: The Orcish are coming! Review for review?

ghanncallide

Updated: 6/18/2013
Orcs are occupying the forests outside of Neverwinter. Every adventurer has different reasons for helping in the conflict. Protecting the weak, helping the wounded or the promise of great wealth, but no matter what, the Orcs must be stopped!

Meant to be soloed, responses change based on class. Playing in a group allows you to choose an otherwise closed path and allows for leeway in difficulty.

**This is my first Foundry quest, so let me know if it's overtuned or if something is broken. You may want to bring lots of potions or friends at higher levels just to be safe. I cannot control what loot drops or is in the end chest, so please do not leave loot based reviews. Thanks for playing.**

Short Code: NW-DH7USOU92

Thanks in advance, i'll check back every few hours to see which ones you guys want me to review and any suggestions you leave. :cool:

V2 changes:
*Expanded dialogue and more varied encounters/goals throughout
*Neverwinter Woods has been lightened slightly and shortened. Mobs now patrol.
*Ruined Temple recieved a great number of ambience updates, now feels more lived in. Mobs now patrol.

oortexplorer

I am close to caught up on the rather lengthy list of foundry missions I offered to play a while back, so I will add yours to my list. I know how frustrating it can be sitting in the Pit of For Review. I should get to it tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest. Hopefully a few others can help you out as well.

pris23

I just ran your quest. Normally I like more story elements, but I enjoyed slaying Orcs for the good of the people of Neverwinter. I am a level 60 cleric and found this to be quite challenging at times, but nothing I couldn't handle if I was smart about pulling the monsters instead of charging in head first.

- I really liked your creepy night-time forest.
- Your objective statements were amusing.
- A player can complete this in a reasonable amount of time. Thanks for that.
- I think inside the ruins needed a little more decoration...maybe some orc banners or campfires to show that it was inhabited. Certainly not a game breaker though.
- A few more sounds would be nice as well. (I understand that some of the sounds still don't work even after "the fix" so disregard this if you did put sounds in and they just didn't play for me.

You can find my quest info in my signature. As a side note: Part 2 is published, but was meant only for me to test. The foundry broke right after and it is not ready. In fact it is broken at this time so please do not play Part 2. You can leave comments on my thread for Part 1 here http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?330921-Will-trade-for-reviews-on-The-Secret-to-Paradise-Part-1-Paradise-Lost!

Thanks for the fun dungeon crawl. Cheers!

avatre21

Hi, I've just finished playing your quest. Firstly, I just want to say that this quest was really not for me. I enjoy reading a lot of story in the ones I play and the combat is usually just an annoyance to get to the next bit. I picked up a typo or two:

Disgruntled Guard: Of course, you aren't you cute little thing? - Of course you aren't, you cute little thing!
Peck: Encampment jsoon - Just soon.

I did find your quest objectives themselves amusing and the combat was at the right level of difficulty, but I was just frustrated before I left the forest. Sorry. I know a lot of other people prefer combat over story, and so I hope you get some reviews of more help than mine.

ghanncallide

The reviews and suggested fixes are greatly appreciated. I have ideas for things to add, subtract and tweak as soon as the editor is working again. I'll play any requested to review later on this evening.

ghanncallide

I will probably be lightening the nighttime forest a little bit but hopefully with some good fog usage and other effects it will add to the atmosphere rather than diminish it.

talli0

Just tried running through your quest but found an issue with it

I made it all the way up to the step that said something about "This is the last one, I swear..." and my internet went out and disconnected me. Rebooted modem, logged back in, and now I'm back at the beginning of that zone and have to do it all over again. Thats the issue of having a big zone with alot of quest steps in it....I will eventually get to finishing your quest but going to bed for tonight.

Other comments:

• LOVED your forest zone. I'd think twice about messing with it. I can really tell you had a mental image/idea of the zone and really stuck to it. I LOVED the feel of it. Check out my quest (in sig) and my second zone is something similar. I had an idea and made it the best I could to fit that idea. Of course, the few low reviews I gotten mention that zone but I'm sticking to it.
• That being said, it would be my personal opinion that you're overkilling the whole fight orcs thing. By the quest step "The orcish are coming..." I was getting tired of fighting them and wanted it to end. Main issue I think would be that there just isn't enough variety in orc encounters to keep it interesting.
• My conversation with Murdock at beginning felt like it just abruptly ended. I choose that I wanted gold to help him and then the conversation just immediately ended.
• There is a weird magical effect going through both floors of the barracks. Intended?
• Some of your conversations, you use dashes to indicate OOC or descriptive text. Try using [OOC] to make it more obvious.
• The pedestal you interact with during the "Ruins" step still has it's default name of "Dungeon Pedestal 01"

Hope all that helps.

Would love a run through of my quest and any comments you had.

ghanncallide

Much thanks for the tips, I'm going to fiddle with it either by adding more lighting to the paths with fog or a few other solutions. I can always put it back if necessary.

I'm planning on adding a variety of encounters at the expense of the orcs, while still keeping with the theme, as well as making the dungeon itself lend itself more to being explored, custom traps and the like.

I'll keep that suggestion in mind as far as the [OOC] text. Just use that for non-dialogue text such as actions?

talli0

I always use the [OOC] tag for the non-dialog stuff. Kinda like:

"Welcome to the dark forest, where it seems like we have alot of orcs.

[OOC]Guard Jim looks around, sniffing the air.[/OOC]

By the smell of the cookfires, I'd say we have a big group of them to the north."

Makes it easier to distinguish between what they say and what they do.

talli0

No foundry means I'm bored so another idea I had:

In terms of the amount of orcs, the main issue I had was with how repetitive the fights got since there are only 5 or 6 different types of orcs. Halfway through the map, I knew exactly each ability each mob had and how I had to fight them.

What you can do to mix things up is find another monster with an interesting ability, plop them onto your map, change their name and group, give them an orc costume and blam...new, interesting encounter.

One example: One of the wights summons zombies while fighting. So add that wight, change his name to an Orc Necromancer, and give him the orc magus costume...and just that quick, you have an encounter that most people will never have seen before...

zahinder

I haven't played yet (I plan to), but there's one plaguetouched enemy that wields a sword and gets large and strong after hp drops to a certain point. That might make a great 'enraged orc' encounter.

ghanncallide

Those are both excellent ideas! Thank you kindly! now if only the editor would come back up so i can make these tweaks, add another zany character and work on my campaign idea.

antonkyle

pris23 wrote: »

I just ran your quest. Normally I like more story elements, but I enjoyed slaying Orcs for the good of the people of Neverwinter. I am a level 60 cleric and found this to be quite challenging at times, but nothing I couldn't handle if I was smart about pulling the monsters instead of charging in head first.

- I really liked your creepy night-time forest.
- Your objective statements were amusing.
- A player can complete this in a reasonable amount of time. Thanks for that.
- I think inside the ruins needed a little more decoration...maybe some orc banners or campfires to show that it was inhabited. Certainly not a game breaker though.
- A few more sounds would be nice as well. (I understand that some of the sounds still don't work even after "the fix" so disregard this if you did put sounds in and they just didn't play for me.

You can find my quest info in my signature. As a side note: Part 2 is published, but was meant only for me to test. The foundry broke right after and it is not ready. In fact it is broken at this time so please do not play Part 2. You can leave comments on my thread for Part 1 here http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?330921-Will-trade-for-reviews-on-The-Secret-to-Paradise-Part-1-Paradise-Lost!

Thanks for the fun dungeon crawl. Cheers!

I couldn't agree more with these points. Overall it was good but in my opinion the lack of adornment really kills the mood somewhat. The level of combat was spot on, not too easy not too hard, I didn't die but I came close once.

antonkyle

ghanncallide wrote: »

I will probably be lightening the nighttime forest a little bit but hopefully with some good fog usage and other effects it will add to the atmosphere rather than diminish it.

I have to say this was the best part in my opinion, My only suggestion would be possibly a move around so that you can just make out each camp fire that you need to go to next and so on.

Sorry I didn't add this before but I didn't read the comments before I posted.

oortexplorer

Tried playing this a couple of times, but couldn't find it in the search. Maybe the foundry was having some issues? I'll try again on Tuesday. Feel free to play mine as well if you like (info in sig).

ghanncallide

I updated the quest with your suggestions in mind, and it should publish soon. Let me know what you think? **notes are in the original post***

ghanncallide

oortexplorer wrote: »

Tried playing this a couple of times, but couldn't find it in the search. Maybe the foundry was having some issues? I'll try again on Tuesday. Feel free to play mine as well if you like (info in sig).

The foundry came back up and I was probably updating it at the time you tried.

mee2002

This was a weird one for me to review. There was a lot of good stuff, and a lot of weird stuff that I just didn't understand.

-The forest was super cool looking. I don't really understand why there are corn fields in it though. Also, some of the corn stalks are floating a bit.

- I had a lot of fun knocking all the boards off of the fences.

- The entire first map seemed like an in-joke. I don't know why there is an orc stuck halfway between the floor and an unreachable room. He shows up as interactive, but there's no way to reach him. Unless it was a class only feature. I also don't understand the doctor who talks about landing on Sundays and his daughter who wants to go to Space Florida. Again, guessing it's a reference to something but there wasn't enough for me to get it.

- The class dependent responses are an interesting idea, but I'd like to see either more or less done with them. More times when it actually make a perceivable difference would be really cool. As it is, it just feels like it destroys your ability to pick a response to a question. It's like being forced to play an alignment that you may not want.

- Quest wise it was fine, it not a bit repetitive. Tracking down some of the wandering mobs needed to progressive was actually a nice change of pace. More of that wouldn't hurt.

- At one point I opened a door and was face to face with one of those giant elite mobs (I forget the name). I think it actually made me jump. There was a long empty hallway and room behind him, so I'm guessing he pats, but having him right there created a great effect.

- I liked the mobs that used different creatures costumes. The spider Orc was great.

- The Pokemon themed encounter was excellent. I would REALLY like to see you make a full quest out of it. You could have trainer battles where you each pick a "Pokemon" and then battle with them. Would be a lot of fun.

- The final battle was very anti-climactic. If you're going to summon an army to help, there should be more enemies to justify it. Some hard nodes and a few more easy ones would be great.

All in all I thought it was a nice little quest. Would like to see more out of it though.

ghanncallide

All great observations Mee2002 and i;d like to address them in order.

Corn stalks were part of the stock map, that was my foundry **** mistake but i dont want to redo that entire map per se.

Glad you liked the fences.

The entire was full of references and in-jokes, in fact most of the quest was. my goal was to make a goofy little quest that everyone could enjoy and everyone who got the references would get an extra kick out of it. i don't remember that orc off the top of my head but i'll be sure to fix it once i isolate which one it is.

The class dependent choices are meant to poke fun at tropes of the class where possible rather than provide deep meaningful choices. As i become more adept with the foundry i may provide those kind of in-depth choices in a later quest.

It used to be quite a bit more repetitive, but i will be continuing to make further improvements in later versions. The patrolling mobs were one of the things improved in this version.

I had fun with the spider orcs. Did you catch the Austin Powers quote there?

That's definitely an excellent idea. My current plan is to keep iterating on this quest in between working on a story driven campaign. but i will definitely keep this idea in mind

I'll add more in right now ^-^.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

oortexplorer

Enjoyable quest. Liked the humour, and the design of the forest is great. Agree that it is a tad repetitive. (But, we are warned in the title that there will be lots of orcs). You did mix it up a little, but at one point I encountered some zombie rotters that seemed out of place. Maybe rename them?

A few items still had the stock names on them (ie. Bag - Small 01), and when you arrive at the building after the "Fingers Crossed" message, that area could still use some work. There is a backpack embedded in the stairs, and one set of stairs is higher than the others. One is set further back. Looks odd. Also, the building to the right of the stairs appears to be hovering about a foot off the ground.

I know you're going more for combat than story, which is fine, but the story could use just a little more depth (imo). One example, at one point we receive a "Kill Vorgamish!" prompt, and I was like "Who the heck is Vorgamish?" You may have set that up earlier, but I didn't pick up on it. One idea to consider would be to provide a little more info earlier on that we are looking for him (and why).

Overall, it's a very solid quest, could just use a little more polish.

zahinder

ghanncallide wrote: »

Corn stalks were part of the stock map, that was my foundry **** mistake but i dont want to redo that entire map per se.

It's frustrating how sloppy some of the stock maps are. And a little amusing that custom maps can be significantly better.

(And I again wish we could give ratings to Cryptic missions. Heh)

ghanncallide

oortexplorer wrote: »

Enjoyable quest. Liked the humour, and the design of the forest is great. Agree that it is a tad repetitive. (But, we are warned in the title that there will be lots of orcs). You did mix it up a little, but at one point I encountered some zombie rotters that seemed out of place. Maybe rename them?

A few items still had the stock names on them (ie. Bag - Small 01), and when you arrive at the building after the "Fingers Crossed" message, that area could still use some work. There is a backpack embedded in the stairs, and one set of stairs is higher than the others. One is set further back. Looks odd. Also, the building to the right of the stairs appears to be hovering about a foot off the ground.

I know you're going more for combat than story, which is fine, but the story could use just a little more depth (imo). One example, at one point we receive a "Kill Vorgamish!" prompt, and I was like "Who the heck is Vorgamish?" You may have set that up earlier, but I didn't pick up on it. One idea to consider would be to provide a little more info earlier on that we are looking for him (and why).
.

Right behind the zombie rotters is in the forest is an "Orc Necromancer" Mob. You weren't specifically looking for him, just an indiscriminate slaughter of orc forces. I just felt he needed a name instead of Orc Chieftain or something.