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Trading reviews, my first quest Shadow of Albanie.

shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
edited June 2013 in The Foundry
Hey it would be awesome if you guys could checkout my first quest, it's titled Shadow of Albanie and it's code is in my sig, if you have a quest you'd like me to review just post a reply with your code and i will give it a spin, just make sure your quest is soloable and under 60 minutes long.

Also if i don't end up tipping your map, i either A closed the review screen without meaning too and i will replay your quest and review it, or B it won't let me tip your map for some reason, it's happend a few times.

Reviews

Populist Animal Revolution

Alright so i did your quest, i forgot to tip though sorry about that . My major complaints are that the landscape is a bit sparse or sometimes over decorated in areas, examples being the over world village felt a bit to empty, and the inside sometimes had to much clutter namely Porkpoleons room, though i did enjoy the comical side of the quest so bonus points for that.

Overall it's entertaining and keeps you engaged, but it could use some work on the visual side IMO, though i can tell you spent a lot of time on dialog and i do know how much of a pain in the HAMSTER that can be.

3 Stars

Exarah's Tomb

Alright so i did Exarah's Tomb: The Forgotten, i really like the layout and the fights were entertaining, my only complaints being that the last bit was kind of predictable, and the way quests and dialog were meshed together while a cool idea felt a bit awkward at times.

All in all i gave it 4 stars.

The Lost City

Liked the story a lot, some of the dialog had mistakes, or lines that didn't make sense but there weren't very many, my biggest complaint was the forest, it needs a more diverse set of trees, less bushes more grass, and some kind of land marks, other than that i loved it.

On a site note, this is more of a personal thing, i would prefer a less combat oriented puzzle in the end, and the last fight was a bit on the easy side, but i am a GWF so that may just be because of my class.

4 Stars.

And i replayed it and put my review on your quest, phew now for everyone else.

The Black Hand in Blacklake

This quest has very nice encounters and dialog, but i felt the environment and story were fairly generic, not much to say beyond that.

4 Stars.

Swine Town Part 1

I like the fights in this quest but it has it's issues, firstly it needs more context, i had no idea why i was doing anything i was doing the entire time nor did i really care all that much, my other issue is with randomly attacking the High Curator, it seems like a stretch to assume the PC would want to just decide to kill him.

Luckily Lark has some interesting dialog and the environments while not stellar are interesting and unique

4 Stars.

The Fear that Freeze

Alright so firstly i'm going to say this is one of my favorite so far, but it isn't without it's issues, first thing i didn't like was how ecstatic Tybald was about seeing dead things, most children while curious aren't so obsessed with death, secondly you had some clipping issues in the crypt in the halls, and last i feel you should rename Smellytown and the Crypt of Fear, both names are very strange and don't really fit thematically.

4 Stars.
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Post edited by shadowbox on

Comments

  • lisaxreinkelisaxreinke Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 16 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I just finished your quest. I think the best part of it is the decorations. Some of those maps are really nice.
    This quest is very hard. I think people will be more apt to play if you can get the star trails to show them the correct places to go. It's a long adventure as it is, and I don't think the wondering around trying to find places is helping you tell the story. Also, at that last crazy hard battle, it would be nice for people if the re-spawn point was much closer. But, yeah, great maps. Looks like you put a lot of work in them.

    Give my quest a review when you can. I'm trying to shorten it, so I need some more people to run it to check the current time of it (listed as 19 min now). See my signature.
    Play my Quest: Populist Animal Revolution NW-DBLLB920C
  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Reserved in case the main post gets to big. *Previously a review
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  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Reserved in case the main post gets to big. *Previously a review
    Stats.png
  • katah1969katah1969 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 89
    edited June 2013
    Hey Shadowbox. My kid and I are up for your quest. If you have a chance I could use some reviews as well before submitting to Cryptic... thanks!

    My Quest:

    Exarah's Tomb: The Forgotten
    NW-DNRBBXZK3
  • maerwinmaerwin Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I'll play and review your quest tonight/tomorrow morning. Mine is in the sig, thanks.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    NW-DMFGWPBN3 The Lost City - Review Thread
  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Reserved in case the main post gets to big. *Previously a review
    Stats.png
  • delthanindelthanin Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 188 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    I'll be sure to get to your quest either later tonight or tomorrow morning. :p
  • voivodakvoivodak Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 147 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Quest added to my to-do list.
    Check the sign to return the favor :)
    My Campaign and Quest :

    Campaign - In The Streams of Inferno
    Act I : The Fear That Freeze - nw-dnuzsyeey
    Act II : Demons Never Sleep - nw-dbj2us96n
  • chinspinnerchinspinner Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Ok I will trade, but will be tomorrow, feel free to do it now or after.
    My new quest:

    WIP
  • casten24casten24 Member Posts: 121 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Hey, giving you quest a go, now. Mine are in my sig, along with the links to the pages to leave critiques. I know it's 1 for 1, so A Surprise Siege is preferable.


    Post-play edit:
    Okay, so, not a bad quest overall. The difficulty I found just right (if I was going into it for purely hack and slash reasons). At the same time, though, I'm a trickster rogue, so it's not going to be as easy for me as it will be for GWFs and the like. Storywise, it's a good premise, but it can use a lot of work. First, the basics. Grammar and punctuation need a lot of work. There were a few spelling errors mixed in, too near the end of it, mostly accidentally misplaced spaces (i.e. sou lanchor instead of soul anchor).

    Now, as for specifics. I found Guard Frinko's little speech a bit too informative. It doesn't really jive with the Captain's words, either. The Captain is supposed to have become a pest with how many requests he's sent to Neverwinter. Frinko doesn't relay any of the annoyance they might have about the Captain's overbearing, constant requests. At least that's the sense I got from the Captain at Backwater. Also, the beginning of the Frinko conversation. Job posting, of course, but you also have to contend with the fact that other foundry creators will be using Frinko, so it could be any of the job posting, he's asking about. It would be more believable if you the character brings up the conversation of a job posting and which job specifically it is.

    The Courtesan's list... Don't really need to list it in OOC. The list makes itself apparent with the quest, so, it's pretty much useless info that's going to be revealed anyway. It degrades the storytelling a bit. As for foundry tips for this particular part, you might want to drag the Paladin and Noble quest portion up and next to the one with the crazy halfling. That way, people can do all three in any order they please. It also makes the use of a "list" more believable storywise.

    The guy that guards the portal. I can understand his fighting to the death to make you prove yourself, but he seems rather naive in his belief that if he can be beaten, so can his boss. He seems overly-confident that you can do it... I'd suggest maybe toning down his confidence... maybe inserting more "maybes" as in, "maybe you just might be able to do it," or "maybe you have the strength of will to overcome Syl's power." It'd also make his giving you his strength to overcome Syl's will a bit more believable, even though, that whole exchange feels arbitrary. Course, that could just be, because of the overwhelming confidence he has in you. It's pretty much, "here's the rest of my strength, apparently, I was wrong about the level of your power, but I'm not gonna say anything about that at all." The fact that he survived long enough to give you the rest of his strength is also a bit unbelievable. He must have not been that injured to begin with, which makes me wonder why he thinks anyone that can beat him would be strong enough to beat his boss, when a non-life-threatening wound would incapacitate him. Maybe have him fight to submission, then have him join you.

    Syl. I'm not a fan at all of OOC. Games are visual just as much as they're story. I understand that you can't really show all of what you want her to do to the character through the emotes, but I felt that some of it could be shown. That being said, I suggest looking over your OOC stuff and getting rid of the stuff you can replace with emotes (which would include breaking up what's being said with a few "continue" options to further along the dialogue).

    Finally, the actual job to be done... First, it seems the stuff in Backwater keep feels completely arbitrary. First, your character knows that Albanie is having trouble, why not just go straight to Albanie instead of stopping in at Backwater Keep? If you keep Albanie out of it until after the quests in Backwater it wouldn't feel so arbitrary. An "Oh, hey, we're having trouble in town, think you could help?" and then after, "There's one last thing I need you to check on, we've lost contact with the town that supplies us our food, could you go check on it?" You'd probably have to change Frinko's conversation, too... to something a bit more vague (i.e. "Backwater has requested aid, can you go check to see what their problem is and help in any way you can?")

    Overall, it's not a bad story, the storytelling just needs a bit of work.

    As for scenery, you put together a pretty nice little town. Some of the wall placement could use a bit of work. The towers you travel under could probably have the walls scooted a bit more under them, and they can also be lowered a bit more into the ground to get rid of that awful window that's created between the bottom of the tower's room section and the top of the walls. Other than that, I'd suggest taking a look at some of the decals that litter the ground, there was a spot that stood out as having a bit too much clutter. It was the spot just after one of the tower-gates into what I'm guessing is the slums area. There was supposed to be hay on the ground and while each piece is not that pronounced by itself, when you see three spots close together (in what I'm guessing is to make it more obvious that hay is there) it draws more attention to the oddity of it rather than the eloquence of the scenery.

    That all being said. I gave it four stars. It was well done, but it could do with improvement.
    The Portrait Gray Campaign
    Prologue: Fort Neverember
    NW-DL2RVQ54C
    Chapter 1: The Gray Portrait
    NW-DHGEFBMGD
  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I will be doing Delthanin, Voivodak, Chinspinner and Casten24's quests in the next day or two.
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  • maerwinmaerwin Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I mostly agree with what casten said, just adding a couple of minor issues:
    - The keep felt a little awkward to navigate. Also, I noted that everything happened on one side of the keep. The player has no reason to go and see your design of the opposite side. You could move one or two objectives (Evelyn/paladin/tiefling girl) there
    - The village feels too bland and empty. Adding a few more details wouldn't hurt
    - When I was searching the village for clues, I didn't see any bush. There was just plain ground with sparkles above it. Though that might be a display bug
    - The path to the Dusk Valley is too steep. You have to jump the edges to get up
    - The whole part with Veloth feels like a completely different person designed it. It is way too... cliche. I hate cliches. Come one... bad guy tells you his plan because he is going to kill you anyway? And then you defeat him, he regrets his decisions and decides to help you? That part ruined the whole atmosphere for me. Hell, I would have preferred to skip that part altogether and instantly go to Shadow Enclave (because Shadow Enclave was awesome! It's a proof that you can design a great-looking environment with just a few props)

    Four stars overall. It's not bad, but there are things that could be improved.
    By the way, I am not quite sure why would you name the place Albanie. That's actually a nice country.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    NW-DMFGWPBN3 The Lost City - Review Thread
  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Alright i'm ready to trade more reviews for those interested.

    And thanks Maerwin i pretty much completely agree with your opinion, i actually wasn't at all happy with Veloth and i'm going to be working on redesigning some of his dialog until i'm happy with it, but yeah your other points are spot on, thanks for the help.
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  • delthanindelthanin Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 188 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Played through your quest. Some thoughts:

    Good looking areas. Might just need a bit more going on with NPCs and whatnot.

    The dialogue needs a pretty big overhaul. The run-on sentences and grammatical errors were very distracting. If it was just one or two instances here and there, it wouldn't have bothered me so much. It was throughout the entire quest, though. If you know someone who's good with that sort of thing, you should see if they'd be willing to give the text a once-over.

    Other than the issues already mentioned in some of the above posts, not too many complaints. Nothing was broken on my playthrough. While there were some difficult fights, it didn't feel too unreasonable. Gave it 4 stars.
  • eoxideoxid Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 24 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I'll check out your foundry today
    My foundry you can find in my signature

    Done - really like your foundry - the start city looks lilbit empty and the middle of the second city (albien?) looks a lilbit empty too but at least your foundry is still nice and i enjoyed to play it :)
  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Updating the dialog now, it should be much more cohesive with less mistakes and easier to follow, the original dialog was more of a place holder really, i knew it needed major work, and i plan to slowly refine it more and more until i am satisfied.
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  • magilzealmagilzeal Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 42
    edited June 2013
    All right, I played your quest, and here are my thoughts:

    The combat was good, environments were engaging, and it had about the right amount of challenge. However, the dialogue needs a massive overhaul. I see you're already working on this, but yeah, that's my major gripe with it. In particular here are a few other things I noticed:

    Some intractable objects have their default foundry name, such as the stone formation and flowers in the Albanie city.
    It's a bit distracting when the first guy you beat up, outside the portal, is kneeling before you talk to him but falls flat on his back as soon as you start talking.
    Searching for clues in the village could've used a little more direction I think.

    I gave it 3/5 stars but I'll revise my rating once I see the updated dialogue. If you'd be willing to give my quest a whirl, that'd be super: NW-DTWX9RBQH
    Rise of the Fell King - A Forgotten Realms campaign (work in progress) NWS-DS38FJ5R8
    Part One: The Fell Cavern (looking for feedback!) NW-DTWX9RBQH
    Hopefully more to come!


  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I will get to your map tomorrow probably, i spent today completely remaking Albanie from the ground up, and i must say it's turned out really really well, i think i will be revising the story a tad, it won't be too much different but i think i'm gonna cut out Backwater Keep.
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  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Alright so i finished your quest (i think?). and i do have some concerns.

    1- well the biggest one is that i your quest doesn't finish, it just takes you back to Neverwinter and then it's gone, though relogging fixed t his and i'm sure this is out of your control so i will not factor it in.

    2- Your environments could use work, the caverns went a bit overboard with fire and nothing else, it's all pretty bare bone, the best area for visuals is the spider cavern area, though it could still use more, such as bones and webs on the ceiling and walls.

    3- Your enemies are varied in strange ways, the scroll is supposed to weaken barriers between planes, i would pick 1 plane for example the Far Realm, then utilize the costumes tab to reskin encounters to match a singular theme, as it is now i feel it is kind of all over the place.

    4- A few grammatical errors but these are minor and won't affect my rating, one was when you first speak to the merchant about what you did on the bridge and it says stint instead of stunt, the other one i found was with your mushroom, it says These mushrooms are emit a strange glow. Just get rid of the "are" and you are good.

    Over all 3 stars, make the environments more interesting, and hone down your enemy types then i would give it a 4.

    Also if you are thinking of reviewing my quest right now it is in a bit of a broken state with the publishing bug right now, so i would wait until that is fixed and version 2 is out.
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  • magilzealmagilzeal Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 42
    edited June 2013
    "Stint" actually works in that case, though I understand it's a bit of a strange usage. The mushroom thing is just me messing up after editing the sentence a few times though, so I'll make sure to fix that. I believe I noted the problem with the quest completion in the description box, it seems to be a problem with a map transition back to a Neverwinter map before the foundry quest is "complete." I could move the quest to complete in the cavern, but I thought it fit better to talk to the merchant NPC at the end.

    I'll definitely try to improve the cavern's looks, though I actually did want to put some webs on the walls in the spider area but was having difficulty getting them to "look right," given that the craggy walls aren't straight. Still, I'm going to try and do something there. As for the monsters, I understand the confusing elements. I'll need to decide what I want to do there--the story definitely involves the Elemental Chaos and the Shadowfell. The plague-touched were only there to reinforce the idea that the cavern was twisted by the Spellplague, but they can probably be replaced, particularly if I alter the environment to give more of that feel. I have some ideas there.

    And yeah, I'll wait until you're finished with your revision to give it another run-through. Thanks again for the review, I'm looking for ways to improve this for sure!
    Rise of the Fell King - A Forgotten Realms campaign (work in progress) NWS-DS38FJ5R8
    Part One: The Fell Cavern (looking for feedback!) NW-DTWX9RBQH
    Hopefully more to come!


  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Cool yeah if you ever wanna me to review your quest again i'm totally up for that, and i totally understand how decorating can be tricky in your situation, It is harder for areas like caves and such, what i usually do for harder areas like that is 3D editing, but you probably already use that, just figured i would mention it in the case that you weren't aware of it.

    In any case thanks for taking the time to post here, it's been nice getting peoples feedback on my quest, and even more fun trying all the different quests on here, cool to see what other people came up with.
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  • caustic8caustic8 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 35
    edited June 2013
    Just played through. The environments were really well done and decorated. Good dialog. The open nature of some of the early quests was a welcome change to the standard dungeon crawl.

    On the map transition leaving for Albanie you might want to make the interactable sphere a little higher and more on the gate. It was a bit hard to see on the ground.

    Also, when turning in the quest the dialog option had the [missioninfo] tags showing. Thanks for putting this quest together.

    If you have a chance, check mine out. I've heard that it's too difficult at high levels and too easy at low levels. Confirmation either way would be nice. Thanks.

    A Short Dig - NW-DA8O42CFF
    A Short Dig - NW-DA8O42CFF
  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Reviewed your quest Caustic8, It was pretty good the story was a bit generic but i liked it a lot, i would have prefed if it focused more on the dwarf environments they were creative and well executed.

    Over all 4 stars.

    I'm also taking reviews again, so if you want to give my quest a try, just make sure the version you play is 2.0
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  • shadowboxshadowbox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Gone till the 18th, but feel free to leave your quest here after a review and i will get to it when i'm back.
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  • scanadianscanadian Member Posts: 10 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I will review your quest within the next couple of days. I just published my first quest today. I would appreciate some reviews as well. Thanks a bunch :)

    Title: Dark Hallows
    Code: NW-DCCEQXP4D
    Quest: Dark Hallows
    Code: NW-DCCEQXP4D
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