The Fenwick Cycle

zahinder

Ok, since I restructured this a bunch, thought I'd start a new thread!

The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
(searching for campaign will probably not work. Bah)

Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4
The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
(You can search by title on this one, runs ~20 minutes)

Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L
Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
(Runs ~30 minutes, 15 if you ignore everything)

Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B
Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
(Runs ~30 minutes, maybe 20 if you cut corners)


Originally 2&3 were one mission, but at 60 minutes I just felt that was... long, particularly since there were spots that provided a natural break in the action, thematically.

This should work a lot better.

zahinder

Added names for future missions in this campaign.

Because it's not like I can work on anything. Grr.

(I plan on adding some nice visuals and cleaning up some minor problems in first mission, GREATLY improving clarity in the second mission, and perhaps adding a little fluff and solving a weird glitch in the last mission -- last mission has an object that for some reason has changed to no-collision after last patch, which is messing with camera behavior)

zahinder

FINALLY can get back in!

Made some clarity and fluff changes throughout three missions, also blocked off the disk in the final mission. It's behaving... poorly.

I still need to tweak it a little, but it should at least not mess with your camera horribly.


Edit:
Bah. Was hoping to lower the invisible cylinders I used to block off the disk so you could walk on top, but either the cylinders have no tops or I'm doing something wrong, so... just leaving it as is.

xhrit

1/5 not nice enough visuals.

wuhsin

xhrit wrote: »

1/5 not nice enough visuals.

I liked it.

zahinder

I think Xhrit is kidding.

Oh, the campaign is now title-searchable, which should make it way easier to get into. Just search for 'The Fenwick Cycle.'

xhrit

Overall it is a great quest with a mix of lore rich dialog and balanced fights.

My only complaint was that the puzzle involving the stone seemed like a guessing game; not sure If I missed any clues but I just ended up selecting every option until I found the right one. Maybe the clues could be put in a more obvious place, or if there are none, then maybe some should be added.

In any case, one little complaint was not enough to hamper my enjoyment of an otherwise perfect quest, so I gave it 5/5.

>,<

zahinder

The first or second?
(First was a single number related to Selune, second was the coin puzzle, and then a third riddle)

Or do you mean the tomb puzzle earlier?

And thank you, Tears is on my list for when my kids are asleep and I have free time.

xhrit

I was referring to deactivating the the stone in Wicks and Things; if there were other puzzles I did not find them. ^^

zahinder

Ah. Yes, there were a bunch of clues in Wicks and Things, generally regarding the origin of the stone (the journal near the Fenwicks, plus another hidden journal).

There are two puzzles in Beggar's Hollow -- a combination lock to a tomb (which I don't think anyone's solved yet, but there's also a somewhat IC 'cheat code' for the folks who don't like puzzles), plus a hidden section of the forest (it's not that hidden, but nearly everyone's missed it so far).

There's a sort of meta-puzzle in Into the Fen Wood, plus a few word puzzles (like Beggar's Hollow and Fen Wood itself).

zahinder

Just throwing this out there for folks who have tried Into the Fen Wood...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries

zahinder

Really excited about my work for the next mission A Sea Voyager. Though... man. Going to be a challenge.

Early screenshot:

lovepeas

OK... that just looks wicked cool. Can't wait to play it.

zahinder

Oh, and a guy most people have missed so far, Father, the treant of the north forest:

technoskald

Just played the first one, Wicks and Things. Really enjoyed it, looking forward to playing the rest of the campaign! It just needs some more atmosphere, but I really liked all the little bits you can find in exploration, and the humor was well balanced. Nice work!

zahinder

Part 2 is now eligible for daily. Hopefully not long until third is, too, while I slowly chip away at #4...

zahinder

Added a SLEW of atmospheric sounds and music bits to make battles more exciting, particularly in part 2 & 3. Some lighting stuff, too -- a small amount of light scattering really punches up regular, lit forest (but not the north forest -- I tried it and found it didn't really suit the gloom).

zahinder

Funniest two reviews in a row (for Beggar's Hollow):
1 star
Overwhelming foes. Groups of 2 to 3 bosses. Irratating, nonsensical riddles. Avoid this one.
5 stars
Wow! Good puzzles, had me stumped for a while.Very nice!


I'm guessing the first guy didn't want to read or explore when the way got too tough.

zahinder

Another update:
Beggar's Hollow has some map markers to make the north forest more understandable. Somewhat.

(I'll be very interested to hear what people think of the change)

zahinder

Done with this game. Foundry was about the only thing I was interested in, and between the inability to make headway against highly visible exploit or really perfunctory missions, the absolutely caustic foundry community here on forums, and the inability of Cryptic to make a decent review system after -3 years- (consider STO foundry, which has had these SAME FLIPPING ISSUES)... yeah, just not enjoying it enough to be worth the huge amount of work a good mission entails.

So I've unpublished my stuff and here's info for folks who might be curious:

Fourth mission was going to be on a floating island that sank beneath the waters during the spellplague. It's inhabited by the surviving Lantanna gnomes who had been outposted there, who survive with semi-magical breathing apparatus in a village of small pressured homes under the water.

Some weird magical weed-like thing has stopped the ship you are on, threatens the village, and you are sent to deal with it before nightfall and it destroys the ship (it is inhibited by light, so the gnomes have light projectors around their village). They accuse mindflayers, living in deeper waters. They also give you a light bomb.
In deeper waters are... mutated mindflayers, who are actually peaceful (unless you choose combat actions). They were transformed by the island goddess, so they no longer eat brains and reproduce more like humanoids. They talk about the problems of the deep water, and the gateway that their ancestors once came through... but was closed by a giant wielding cold iron.

In the deepest water you find the dead giant, his sword, and a portal. Light bomb or several other options would close it. The entire mission would allow combat or non-combat at various stages.

Fifth mission would involve a gnome (the iron lord) trying to be immortal by transferring his brain into an irongolem. Lots of puzzles and gadgets, and some apparatus of the crab objects.

Sixth mission would involve confronting the Matron from missions 2 & 3, and threatening her with cold-iron-warhead missiles (gleaned from missions 4 and 5).


The titles are a clue to a cute hidden thing: Wicks and Things, Into the Fen Woods, Sea Voyager, Iron Lord, Earth-Dolven -- fire < wood < water < metal < earth, the Chinese elements.

Some sample screenshots to come.

zahinder

Picture links:
On ship after being stopped by the gnomes
http://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1073213_10200938283593278_325458408_o.jpg

Under ship
http://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1009474_10200938284553302_895074332_o.jpg

A pic of one of the light projectors and Weed
http://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1079080_10200938285353322_1438322113_o.jpg

Some of the Lantanna submerged gnome homes
http://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1071088_10200938285673330_1276523320_o.jpg

Another view, showing one ship that mostly survived
http://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1074189_10200938286193343_901428151_o.jpg

More
http://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/416415_10200938286673355_228364739_o.jpg

Deep waters, the gateway
http://sphotos-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1009323_10200742008326519_894520301_o.jpg



And that's it.

lolsorhand

You could upload them to imgur for visible pictures

zahinder

Just click on the links? Should be visible unless you have FB blocked or something.

zahinder

Given the recent Arc promotion, I logged in for the first time in 6 months, poked around my missions. The second mission had a bunch of 'too much stuff!' meaningless flags on it, so I ended up deleting the last bunch of map markers and republishing the first three missions.

I'm never* going to work on this game again, but I figure what the heck. Author search Zahinder



* Barring a highly unlikely decision on Cryptic's part to actually do some decent search/predictive modeling for Foundry

orangefiree

Playing through part one now.

1.) The orcs could use some customization.

2.) One of the cultists looks like a Nasher which is kind of odd.

3.) I can't interact with the NPCs after collecting my reward, you may want to consider having an actual exit selected.

zahinder

Holy cr*! Someone playing my missions!

Thanks for feedback.

orangefiree

zahinder wrote: »

Holy cr*! Someone playing my missions!

Thanks for feedback.

Your welcome, I plan to play the others soon.

orangefiree

Playing through part two now.

1.) How did Fenrik transform into a spider?

2.) One of the sprites is labeled as a mindflayer.

3.) The encounters in the North Forest are really close together making it really easy to pull multiple hard encounters at once.

Moving on to part three.

orangefiree

I didn't notice any issues with part three. Looking forward to the next part.

zahinder

orangefiree wrote: »

Playing through part two now.

1.) How did Fenrik transform into a spider?

Backstory that you can glean through conversations with NPCs.

orangefiree wrote: »

2.) One of the sprites is labeled as a mindflayer.

Woopsie, thought I had tracked all those down...

orangefiree wrote: »

3.) The encounters in the North Forest are really close together making it really easy to pull multiple hard encounters at once.

I'm betting you followed the glittery path straight ahead, right?

You aren't supposed to and there are a bunch of instructions not to, but apparently almost nobody ever gets that. Sigh.


Unfortunately, a part 4 is pretty much not going to happen unless PWE decides to actually invest in NW Foundry.
Which is unlikely.

orangefiree

zahinder wrote: »

Backstory that you can glean through conversations with NPCs.



Woopsie, thought I had tracked all those down...



I'm betting you followed the glittery path straight ahead, right?

You aren't supposed to and there are a bunch of instructions not to, but apparently almost nobody ever gets that. Sigh.


Unfortunately, a part 4 is pretty much not going to happen unless PWE decides to actually invest in NW Foundry.
Which is unlikely.

1.) Ah, ok, I though I chose everything with them.

2.) There were actually one or two more I noticed later on as well.

3.) Yep, I had to take a break shortly after entering the second map. (DD hour was starting and some guildies were starting one of the dungeons I needed for my ranger.) So I forgot the warning by the time I came back. I usually notice directions like that, so completely my bad, sorry.

4.) Aww, I really wanted to kill the matron lady too.