Assassin Chronicles 2: Pirate City - Review Trade Thread

zovya

After 2 months and 5 days of slaving over this latest quest and placing over 6000 items, I need to take a break and play some of your quests this holiday weekend. Here's the link for more info on my Pirate City quest.

It takes people somewhere around 30 minutes to an hour to play, depending on how much fear of heights they have. I know that's long, but I made each map progressively better and more exciting as a reward for hanging in there.

If you play my quest, and leave a critique here in this thread along with your Short Code or link, I will reciprocate. (that means I will do the same for you).

The List:

Zigby's First Strike NW-DTZKRXY4J by Wushin - Bumped thread and sent PM.
Devils in the Details NW-DLAEBDHC6 by Celantra - Done, will discuss in Vent tonight.
Felling the Forgemaster NW-DOHCJ5VE3 by Rogu3ish - Done, commented in this thread.
The Dwarven Tale NW-DS3RNY82R by Lolsorhand - Done, bumped thread.
Adventuring College NW-DPCZNUVQ7 by Drakesigar - Done, bumped thread.
The Black Hand in Blacklake NW-DTET2QLF4 by Delthanin - Done, bumped thread.
Prologue: Misty Hollow NW-DISM87G71 by Beeblebrox69 - Done, bumped thread.
Return From the Void NW-DRFKYD2CN by Runis12 - Done, bumped thread.
Following the Whispers - Tribulations NW-DCJV53UTU by Saerrael - Bumped thread and sent PM.
All's Fair in Love and War NW-DJ5BFT52F by oortexplorer - Done, bumped thread.

All completed.

redneckronin

Well I don't have anything really in need of reviews at the moment (Part 2 is still WIP), but I've been looking forward to your next instalment ever since I played part one.

Its now on my "to play" list, and I'll hopefully get to it in the next few hours - if I can ever get through all this dialogue tweaking.

All The Best

lolsorhand

I need to play your first part, and then this - Almost, almost done with my Part 3. Been hell and heaven in one go, especially with the foundry having its usual misfits.

Edit : Part 3 done, time for a foundry break and play some other foundries, because foundries. lol my head is spinning already.

wuhsin

Since I also just published a sequel that terrifies people with a fear of heights, I'll trade with you.. The link to the thread is in my sig. Going to go play yours now.

wuhsin

Just so there's no confusion, the one I want reviewed is Zigby's First Strike

celantra

We talked Zovya - take a look at the latest Devils in the Details - NW-DLAEBDHC6. It's in a little better than beta state at this point and would love getting your feedback. Link to the post in my sig.

runis12

Sure! I'll try yours out! Pirates, eh? You can play my Q1 if you want...though I timidly look back at it now and I think, "Man I've come such a long way from that!"

Return From the Void
NW-DRFKYD2CN

wuhsin

Well I'm at the animal ship now but I'm stuck, can't figure out what to do...

zovya

Port side, rear of the ship, you will find scaffolding on the side.

wuhsin

I finally managed to reach the end. Man, this is an epic quest. And by epic, I mean you have to have ninja skills and an army of hallucinated wizards to defeat it... Luckily Zovya's mushrooms gave me the edge I needed at the end. Here are a couple of typographical errors I managed to catch..

1. When in the prison, talking to Krishana, you have the option to say "I know plenty of you're ugly dwarf mama jokes." or something similar.. You should replace "you're" with "your" in that sentence.

2. When talking to Krishana in her quarters after you beat the captain, one of your dialogue options is "Whatever happened to you being a jerk?" when it should be "Whatever happened to me being a jerk?" since she had previously called you a jerk assuming you did like me, and actually acted like a jerk.

Also, one thing that bugged me is I chose to let the pirate children die, then had to rescue them anyway.. Then when I told that pirate woman afterward "Who cares, let them die." when she inquired as to their safety, I got ambushed and died, which respawned me on a burning ship I could not get off of.. So I had to exit the map, walk through Protector's Enclave, and enter Pirate City again to redo that small portion of the quest where you escape the burning ship, and talk to the woman with the fiercely maternal killer instincts. I also had to hit /killme a dozen times, but no biggy. My rogue skills allowed me to traverse the multiple chains, ropes, and clothes lines, in order to kill my mark, get the gold, and the girl.

I gave it five stars. I imagine this took a great deal of time to make. It's really frustrating to complete, but I don't mind a challenge, and it gives you a good story, plus some interesting, original characters. I look forward to the next installment of this series.

zovya

Thanks Wushin. Thanks for the spell check, and I'll look into that respawn issue. I owe you some Injury Kits!

wuhsin

zovya wrote: »

Thanks Wushin. Thanks for the spell check, and I'll look into that respawn issue. I owe you some Injury Kits!

Nah, I never use Injury Kits. In my table-top D&D campaign my rogue got crippled by an evil sorceress, so I just let him walk around injured. XD

Oh, one more thing, some of the names for your encounters were a little redundant. I killed some Wolf Wolfs and lots of Pirate Pirates. You might want to consider changing those to Animal Wolf, Human Pirate, Pirate Swashbuckler, etc.

kamaliicious

That must have taken forever to build in 3d mode.

ash4ll

Perhaps you would want to participate in my review trades thread? We have around 20 quests here that would definietly like having your opinion on their quests

I'm not asking for review mine quest but if I have time today, I'll review yours.

celantra

Thanks Zovya for the review and feedback. Much appreciated.

saerrael

Been looking forward to this one, so will certainly look it up.
You could review my second quest that is just out, but, after two days of bug-hunting, I seriously need a break from it before I start slaying kitties.
In other words; I'll trade yah if you could postpone your review of mine at least two or three days.

rogu3ish

I thought this was a great quest, and gave it 5 stars. It's obvious you spent a lot of time placing all the details. I like how the environment changes during combat in some places, and the effects in the burning ship are fantastic.

I'd love it if you take a look at my first foundry quest - Felling the Forgemaster (NW-DOHCJ5VE3). It's not nearly so epic as this quest, but I've got plans for quite a few in the series so there's room to grow

zovya

saerrael wrote: »

Been looking forward to this one, so will certainly look it up.
You could review my second quest that is just out, but, after two days of bug-hunting, I seriously need a break from it before I start slaying kitties.
In other words; I'll trade yah if you could postpone your review of mine at least two or three days.

Consider it done.

drakesigar

I'll give it a shot. My quest has changed greatly so I'd be very interested to hear your opinion too.

anrix2

I don't really have much to contribute in terms of fixes, I just wanted to say the whole quest was clever from start to finish. The construction of the hull and under-deck parts of the ship were masterfully done. The port that followed was painstakingly laid out and brilliantly path-ed. The objectives in the fire felt as unique as you can get given we only have a handful of objective types to work with. The environments as a whole were really impressive, the costuming was also well done. I guess I do having something to add. There were a lot of female witches that were nasher hexers reskinned. When you engage them they have male voices. Changing them to the undead pirate hexer or the drow priestess might make for better aesthetically. Overall 5/5, and I am going to have to step my game up in the foundry, this quest just raised the bar for all authors

redneckronin

I just played this on my level 16 CW, had great fun.

There's not even a shadow of doubt about the rating, its a clear 5/5 all day long.

The Story is even more engaging than Part 1, the environments are stunning, detailing and costuming/reskinning are brilliant.

There were part I found frustrating: I fell off and was wandering around the beach for a while, then tough "hmmm, why are these light pillars here" - poof back on the sky-port, so perhaps a note to that effect from the first Zovya might be an idea.

The only thing I could even suggest may need looking at (and I admit you may have intended it to be like this) is that in the main ship there's a stack of shelves "floating":



and that there are one or two "sparklies" that you may have intended us to interact with but are out of reach:





All The Best

wuhsin

I think those sparklies may be teleporters.. Just my hypothesis.

lolsorhand

They didn't seem to float for me, more attached to the roof. Also reviewed, liked it though felt the combat to be abit repetative. I tried putting some thought into the story but I dunno, I love pirates and all but this story isn't for me lol. -Great enviroments, truly!

Edit: Also would you rather review Part 3 without the story as content, just gameplay etc. if possible. Dwarven Tale doesn't need any more reviews lol

delthanin

I don't need a review trade, especially since my only quest currently (first one I ever made) is nowhere close to what I consider acceptable now.

I just wanted to say that I played your quest. Incredible areas (I can't even imagine how long it took to do that in 3d mode), clever use of the Foundry tools at several parts, and just an overall enjoyable quest. My only question concerns several interactable sparkle objects that were often out of reach. Were they connected to the Scroll of Find the Path in some way?

beeblebrox69

Outstanding work. Like someone pointed out is that some female mobs have male voices, and the only other thing I would do differently is that most groups of mobs are in a tight little group that just stands there. Maybe spread them out a bit or set them to wander a short distance or something. At one point, I knocked a mob off and he didn't die when he fell so I was stuck in combat...luckily, I needed to end up down there anyway. Nothing even remotely game-breaking.

On the plus side, everything else. Environments were fantastic, and some of the set pieces were just outstanding. Rescuing the children on the burning ship was frustrating and chaotic, but that's how it SHOULD be. Just an all-around great job. Love your sense of humor as well.

Excellent work...the many hours you spent (and I know how long something detailed like this takes) are much appreciated.

Mine's in the sig whenever you get a chance!

runis12

Hiya, played your quest!

Wasn't really looking too hard for spelling errors - just wrote some down I happened to catch:

Kheeva mentioned you aquired a slave.
You were just here to resuce me.
While in possesion of this scroll

Had issues with the bird encounters. I could not hit them for the life of me (playing through as 17 TR). Opted to jump into teleporter oblivion or just try to run through pirate city to lose them (which turned out bad in some cases). I would target them and swing my weapon, but no attacks would connect. Swift and sneaky little dudes. They were just too high for me to hit. I fought them mostly in middle towers/bits between the ships. I don't know if this had anything to do with them being up so high or what.

Perhaps in the burning ship sequence, actually cause the objects you pushed aside to appear so instead of completely disappearing?

Hmm, can't really thing of anything else. Loved the mushrooms.

zovya

Thanks for the comments everyone! I'm doing some more quests now. Although I'm going to have to skip around a little. Some bug is causing me to not be able to accept some quests. But I'll get to them next.

zovya

rogu3ish wrote: »

I thought this was a great quest, and gave it 5 stars. It's obvious you spent a lot of time placing all the details. I like how the environment changes during combat in some places, and the effects in the burning ship are fantastic.

I'd love it if you take a look at my first foundry quest - Felling the Forgemaster (NW-DOHCJ5VE3). It's not nearly so epic as this quest, but I've got plans for quite a few in the series so there's room to grow

I had fun with your quest. I liked the puzzles. I like the burning faces too. If I had to come up with any complaint at all, shorten the hallways some. Lots of running around. Players usually frown on that.

rogu3ish

zovya wrote: »

I had fun with your quest. I liked the puzzles. I like the burning faces too. If I had to come up with any complaint at all, shorten the hallways some. Lots of running around. Players usually frown on that.

Thanks! Yeah, my girlfriend commented about the hallways being too long too. Given the size of the rooms I'm not sure how to rearrange things to shorten them. As long as it seems, the map is already pretty compact.

rogu3ish

zovya wrote: »

I had fun with your quest. I liked the puzzles. I like the burning faces too. If I had to come up with any complaint at all, shorten the hallways some. Lots of running around. Players usually frown on that.

Thanks again for the feedback. I did come up with a few tweaks to make the overall path a bit shorter. I short-circuited a couple of hallways and added in a teleporter, so now there's significantly less backtracking through previously covered areas. It definitely has more of an 'always moving forward' feel than it did before.

drakesigar

runis12 wrote: »

Had issues with the bird encounters. I could not hit them for the life of me (playing through as 17 TR). Opted to jump into teleporter oblivion or just try to run through pirate city to lose them (which turned out bad in some cases). I would target them and swing my weapon, but no attacks would connect. Swift and sneaky little dudes.

I always hated seagulls. Real ones are bad enough with their tendency to dive-bomb your seaside chips, but these virtual ones go right for the eyes.