The Dwarven Tale. - NW-DS3RNY82R

lolsorhand

Finally got time for some review trading, feel free to post your foundry below and i'll see what I can do (I will be running through your foundries solo/duo with a GWF lvl 36-ish. Duo lvl 42+)

(Now classifies as Daily Foundry.)

I feel mixed about this one, Many things need improving but I will have to find a way around the detail limit. It is my first try at hack 'n slash adventure. And this will be a side-project of mine when I want a break from the campaign i'm working on. -

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The Dwarven tale. (No bugs, quest works. Minor details need improvement.)


Brethren of Five, by Draedis@lolsorhand
Short Code: NW-DS3RNY82R
Mission Type: Dungeon.
Average Duration: 15-20 minutes (Depending on difficulty, this is intended to solo.)
Amount of Combat: Medium.
Starts at: Protectorate, Neverwinter.
Maps: 2 ( Excavation area, and the ruin itself. )

Suggestions: Have fun! Hack away, there is little to no story involved.

Mission Summary: You are to help a archeologist clear a dwarven ruin of "things".

Description: Not much to say other than that, the main NPC's head, is perfect the way it is.

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Ingame Description :

You found this odd, and poorly written note on the postboard. It specified as following,

Are you a brave adventurer seeking fortune? Well seek no further!
My name is Brodalf, and I am the chief over a group of researchers that have uncovered a dwarven ruin of sorts. We will give only what you find in the Ruins of Jealgron, but we will help you inside. For the job is to clear whatever monsters you find within.
Sounds simple enough? That's because it is!

(On the note there's also a description as to where this camp is, the rest is up to you.)

Daily/Dwarf Ruins/Hack 'n Slash

Have fun, Difficulty slider ranging from Easy, Medium to Hard. You decide how to play it. (All in mind for Solo play.)

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Just hope you enjoy it for what it is, a hack n' slash with some humour. It's very simple but took alot of time to create. ( And the limit hit me hard, luckily I was prepared. )

<("<) Screens as usual




PS.
This all was more an exercise for me as a map maker, in many ways. Though most of what you see is handplaced, some things are intended to look misplaced by a bit or a tad ugly. - It is a ruin of an old dwarven outpost. (I just saw this more of the entrance to the outpost, or a city. Since a city or real outpost would take a few areas atleast to cover. But the detail limit hit me hard here, I did not spam any certain decal. (And thankfully managed to complete the quest because I was careful with it.)

lolsorhand

Bamp.. Review for review, comon guys

kamaliicious

In the quest description: "researches" -> researchers.
If you talk about his head, you get a line "now tell me about the ruins", but he doesn't actually talk about the ruins, you have to talk to him again.
Powering and activating the gate didn't seem connected to the gate in any meaningful way, just needing to go and click. The wheel you activate is too far away for it to seem connected.
It didn't seem to lack decoration, so you were prepared for the limit. Things looked good.

lolsorhand

kamaliicious wrote: »

In the quest description: "researches" -> researchers.
If you talk about his head, you get a line "now tell me about the ruins", but he doesn't actually talk about the ruins, you have to talk to him again.
Powering and activating the gate didn't seem connected to the gate in any meaningful way, just needing to go and click. The wheel you activate is too far away for it to seem connected.
It didn't seem to lack decoration, so you were prepared for the limit. Things looked good.

Yeah, that's the details I need to work on. - Hence Beta-ish. But I need to find every little bit of decor I can trash to make more room for details. I am at 1500 now. - And Researchers will be fixed.

Yeah that's on purpose, I put quest fail in the dialogue because I intend to continue down that path. Until only a few will be able to actually win against him.. He doesn't have a large head you know

harbingerdrum

The Dwarven Tale. - NW-DS3RNY82R

Fast and fun. A lot of work on those maps, good job there. The mapping is the huge time killer with these things.

Did with lvl 25 GF foundry alt and no issues.

If wish to return the review mine is listed below along with a valid place to post comments.

lolsorhand

harbingerdrum wrote: »

The Dwarven Tale. - NW-DS3RNY82R

Fast and fun. A lot of work on those maps, good job there. The mapping is the huge time killer with these things.

Did with lvl 25 GF foundry alt and no issues.

If wish to return the review mine is listed below along with a valid place to post comments.

I thought I ran it last night, but I enjoyed the time spent. I'll run it again!(My memory is vague at best with these things.)

lolsorhand

Updated, and published. Only further changes now will be to decor positioning and such. (Side project as stated.)

dzogen

This was a great quest..i'm not sure if you changed the map pathing but that wasn't super intuitive in 2 or 3 places. Other than that, great job!

lolsorhand

dzogen wrote: »

This was a great quest..i'm not sure if you changed the map pathing but that wasn't super intuitive in 2 or 3 places. Other than that, great job!

Changed what, what?

lolsorhand

One last review, any takers? ( Can even trade lol )

avatre21

Oh dear, I posted mine in the foundry spotlight area instead of here. I'm sorry about that.

lolsorhand

avatre21 wrote: »

Oh dear, I posted mine in the foundry spotlight area instead of here. I'm sorry about that.

No worries, just glad you enjoyed it

lolsorhand

Bump, review trading update! (And map update, should run even smoother than butter now.)

lolsorhand

Up up and away! Any takers?

mrthebozer

Just played through this evening -you did a fantastic job designing a dwarven ruin! It was good throughout, but I was particularly caught off guard by how authentic the initial dig site felt. Plenty of times you'll see all the attention to detail focused on the dungeon itself, with little time spent, if any, on areas such as this. But you definitely left a good first impression visually, and then kept it consistent throughout.

The combat was decent - I played it on medium for lack of more courage and I only died once at the hands of an fire elemental encounter that seems balanced a bit higher than the rest of the mobs on the same setting. Things got a bit repetitive with the Whiplashers (is that what they were called? I don't remember exactly) showing up over and over. Since your focus is definitely on hack and slash, you might consider working on variety - both visually and strategic - as this is what players will be paying attention to in your quest more than anything.

For that matter I was not entirely sure who these guys were that I was fighting. They all seemed very dwarvish to me without much explanation of who they were, leading me to worry that I just busted into their house without warning and cut them down while they defended themselves. I realize that story was not the focus here, so this is a minor concern.

I did have to restart once after a game-breaker early on. I think you have one of the first objectives linked to a mob of minions, and one of them must have dropped out of reach. However you had it set up, the first time around I was unable to advance beyond the first objective in the ruins themselves. The second time through I had no problem.

The attention to detail in the few puzzle elements you included was very nice.

All in all a fun and very visually impressive hack and slash that I will hopefully get to add to my Daily list.

lolsorhand

mrthebozer wrote: »

Just played through this evening -you did a fantastic job designing a dwarven ruin! It was good throughout, but I was particularly caught off guard by how authentic the initial dig site felt. Plenty of times you'll see all the attention to detail focused on the dungeon itself, with little time spent, if any, on areas such as this. But you definitely left a good first impression visually, and then kept it consistent throughout.

The combat was decent - I played it on medium for lack of more courage and I only died once at the hands of an fire elemental encounter that seems balanced a bit higher than the rest of the mobs on the same setting. Things got a bit repetitive with the Whiplashers (is that what they were called? I don't remember exactly) showing up over and over. Since your focus is definitely on hack and slash, you might consider working on variety - both visually and strategic - as this is what players will be paying attention to in your quest more than anything.

For that matter I was not entirely sure who these guys were that I was fighting. They all seemed very dwarvish to me without much explanation of who they were, leading me to worry that I just busted into their house without warning and cut them down while they defended themselves. I realize that story was not the focus here, so this is a minor concern.

I did have to restart once after a game-breaker early on. I think you have one of the first objectives linked to a mob of minions, and one of them must have dropped out of reach. However you had it set up, the first time around I was unable to advance beyond the first objective in the ruins themselves. The second time through I had no problem.

The attention to detail in the few puzzle elements you included was very nice.

All in all a fun and very visually impressive hack and slash that I will hopefully get to add to my Daily list.

I'll add that to my to-do-list and fix the repetetive mobs, it is something that i've noticed myself as well.
I don't have any objective but the last set to kill a mob, the first AOE marker is just that. 60 Yard Quest, must have been something odd. - I've run through it a couple of times atleast and never happened. ( Unless, you played the old version, with a misplaced marker.)

But the mobs will be improved. And probobly some of the ambushes as well.

Thanks for the input

mee2002

I'm not sure how I missed you in my 'to review' list, but just played it tonight. The big headed man was great. I enjoyed the silly conversation with him. Visually the place was wonderful. My only complaint is poor lighting in the first ruin area. You have some great lighting effect, but it also creates almost completely dark areas. Spent a lot of slowly inching forward with the camera pointed straight down. That itself wasn't too bad, but when I went exploring and ran into a Fire elemental with knockback on a narrow ledge with bad lighting.... well, it was a bit annoying. I ended up running off a ledge because I couldn't see where I was going while trying to avoid AoE. Maybe it was intended that way, but it felt a bit cheap. It was a fun, frantic fight though.

Other than that, I just spent a lot of time running around looking at everything. Truly well designed.

lolsorhand

mee2002 wrote: »

I'm not sure how I missed you in my 'to review' list, but just played it tonight. The big headed man was great. I enjoyed the silly conversation with him. Visually the place was wonderful. My only complaint is poor lighting in the first ruin area. You have some great lighting effect, but it also creates almost completely dark areas. Spent a lot of slowly inching forward with the camera pointed straight down. That itself wasn't too bad, but when I went exploring and ran into a Fire elemental with knockback on a narrow ledge with bad lighting.... well, it was a bit annoying. I ended up running off a ledge because I couldn't see where I was going while trying to avoid AoE. Maybe it was intended that way, but it felt a bit cheap. It was a fun, frantic fight though.

Other than that, I just spent a lot of time running around looking at everything. Truly well designed.

Update publishing now.

Added light near the elementalist.-
No more Duergar repetetive clones. -
Improved pathing -
Minor visual improvements. -

redneckronin

lolsorhand wrote: »

Update publishing now.

Mmmmm, that'll be why I can't find it.

Will tray again later, the screenies have me salivating with anticipation to have a look around.

All The Best

redneckronin

Ok, just played this through.

Jaw on the floor at the complexity and sheer brilliance of the environments you have created.

Quest itself was quick and fun, and I enjoyed it.

But the environments... ...WOW!

Just WOW!

Now to the "bad things".

You may want to considers these two issues I am about to highlight as "game breakers".

1) The water-wheel spins the wrong way based on where its "feed" is coming from.
2) I think you need a few more spider webs.

Solid 5/5.

All The Best

technoskald

Maybe I'm just missing something incredibly obvious but I'm not quite finding how to open the inner gates - I've opened the large doors past the campsite and interacted with the (first?) large chain, but the gate hasn't opened and I'm unable to progress, I think.

redneckronin

technoskald wrote: »

Maybe I'm just missing something incredibly obvious but I'm not quite finding how to open the inner gates - I've opened the large doors past the campsite and interacted with the (first?) large chain, but the gate hasn't opened and I'm unable to progress, I think.

HINT: There are 2 large chains. And in the last patch Authors were given access to things like Illusory Walls.

You need to search around.

All The Best

lolsorhand

technoskald wrote: »

Maybe I'm just missing something incredibly obvious but I'm not quite finding how to open the inner gates - I've opened the large doors past the campsite and interacted with the (first?) large chain, but the gate hasn't opened and I'm unable to progress, I think.

As the above posted

Glad you all are enjoying the map!

Edit: Typo in description fixed.

lolsorhand

technoskald wrote: »

Maybe I'm just missing something incredibly obvious but I'm not quite finding how to open the inner gates - I've opened the large doors past the campsite and interacted with the (first?) large chain, but the gate hasn't opened and I'm unable to progress, I think.

Giving me a three for that, I can just say one thing. The walls will stay the way they are. - Once you figure it out, there's no challenge to it. I will not add further hints to it, because it isn't really needed.

technoskald

And here I was going to post a friendly bit about adding a small hint for people that don't even know that functionality exists in the game (I didn't).

Sorry you decided to get mad about it. I otherwise enjoyed it, as I noted in my review.

lolsorhand

And here I was going to post a friendly bit about adding a small hint for people that don't even know that functionality exists in the game (I didn't).

Edit:

Not mad, just found it odd is all. lol

lolsorhand

Update:

Some encounters have changed positions.
Certain walls are now in the correct/intended places.
Magic Piggy has been added for those who can find it.

oldrper

The title of the quest shouldn't have a period.

There is a typo in one of the early conversations... I think it was the word "tricked", but could have been a misunderstood joke.

I gave you a good review - very nice attention to detail and a fine sense of humor without spoiling the feel of adventure.

lolsorhand

oldrper wrote: »

The title of the quest shouldn't have a period.

There is a typo in one of the early conversations... I think it was the word "tricked", but could have been a misunderstood joke.

I gave you a good review - very nice attention to detail and a fine sense of humor without spoiling the feel of adventure.

*Bows* Yes, it's intended. I'm very sure there isn't any unintended typos in the quest, I made sure of that. (Because there is so little dialogue in it, figured it better be right.)

And the quest name, well.. It just has it lol, but.. I'll change it. No worries. (Figured a dwarf would use a period behind every word :P)