Introduction of myself and Foundry Quest, The Eye of "Tartar Sauce" (Tarturas)

phoenicianson

Hi everyone! I am PhoenicianSon, my character in game is Persephone.

Using the great recommendations from mrthebozer, karitr and tseran, I made significant changes and revisions to the quest model. Spent 5 hours completing them. I added each of their names as credits in the quest description for all to see that acknowledgement. The revisions have been published. I appreciate everyone's support in advance! Thanks for playing, and please feel free to continue offering input and suggestions. If anyone would like me to reciprocate by playing their quest, I am happy to offer same (090113).

I played countless Foundry quests after reaching the higher levels with my character, Persephone. I must have played over 100 player developed quests already. I enjoyed each and every one of them for their creativity, some more than others. You are all quite creative in your own ways, and many of these stories are wonderfully structured.

I took a stab at developing one myself. The first one of course was more of a test to understand the scope of use with the Foundry tools, yet I ensured that my quest included memorable characters that fit each of the various elements of story telling, from the main antagonist to the comic relief.

Considering I had to learn the tools, I spent more time developing the story and encounters than customizing the background maps and foundation. I was having an issue customizing preset maps where after manipulating items by means of the 3D editor and applying them, my character would end up on top of the map or under the map post rescaling of my edits in 3D.

I created an over the top humorous, and suggestive quest, that has a solid storyline, characters, and combat. It is balanced in all three elements. However, the overtone is truly meant to be comical, sarcastic and over the top using various forms of humor to reach a broad audience, along with many references from our world that I attempt to bridge by patterns in the dialogue so that the reference could be incorporated while maintaining fluidity within the DnD universe.

It is called:

THE EYE OF "TARTAR SAUCE", Short Code: NW-DLIRDBVXX.

The actual quest is The Eye of Tarturas, but the protagonist, you, refers in certain dialogue to the entity antagonist as the Eye of Tartar Sauce, and I thought the name would denote the humor.

Don't get put off by the time if you search for the title in game, as I am the single count play through. During that play through, I took time away to eat dinner and spend more time reading through the dialogue to locate any mistakes in grammar, punctuation or spelling. This time was incorporated into the average calculation of completion at 88 minutes. I however timed the playthrough during tests within the Foundry model and I timed the full quest at 25 minutes.

Please help with my introduction, especially to promote the release of the epic quest I describe below by diving my first Foundry publication a shot. As others have mentioned, your Foundry quest does not appear unless it has had several plays. Thus, searching for the title or the short code is the only means to locate the quest.

The next quest I am almost ready to publish is EPIC. All customized maps, encounters, characters, and each character has their own story, background, and purpose within the grand scope of the quest. The latter quest I epic, as I had already mentioned, so long. It encompasses ten (10) maps, and has many layers to the storyline, including in quest companion characters. Hindsight, I should have broken it down into Campaigns, but I cannot do that at this point, unless someone can tell me how to break down a single quest into a Campaign.

I will provide a more insightful description about The Dark Secret at Highgate once the quest is published. I am currently editing the dialogue and revising any mistakes in spelling and grammar. I am an attorney by trade, and I spent nights creating these respective foundry quests, but I have a degree in English writing and literature, so I am confident the storyline and the dialogues will be substantive and well structured. I am also a published author with a book available in over 25,000 bookstores. I do not share this information to gloat, but rather to offer background to substantiate myself and credibility with my Foundry creations. Finally, this initial quest, The Eye of "Tartar Sauce" is at the opposing spectrum of the current quest I am finalizing, the former being comical, and the latter being adventurous with a deeper approach to the storyline and dialogue.

Thank you for your support, everyone! And, please, I am always one to reciprocate, so if any of you would like me to play through your quests to garner further support of your own creations, PM me or reply to any of my posts.

Thanks again!

zbkolde

Hi. Good to see new and promising authors in the wake of recent issues. I'd like to play your quest, but alas festivals are my weakness, so not sure when i'll pull myself away to play anymore quests. But i will try to get to it some time soon.

Edit: Feedback sent in forum private message.

mrthebozer

Hi there phoenicianson,

Just finished doing my review run. PMing you my notes now.

Thanks for building!

karitr

Hi phoenicianson.

I don't know how else to say this, so I will just be straight; you have a tendency to over do things.

I'm a reader, so when I say the text and dialogue is bloated, it isn't because I hate reading. I love reading. But you can't write a quest in the same manner as you would a book and still keep the player engaged. You need to take shears to your text.

The same with the combat. Every fight bar the first - where the ogre blocked the small opening, allowing me to attack with impunity - felt like a boss fight. And another boss fight and another boss fight. The waves and waves of mobs was overwhelming at L60. As far as I know the Foundry doesn't scale to gear score, so a lesser equipped character or a different class may well be unable to cope with the sheer amount of enemy mobs.

By some miracle I didn't die and I didn't mind the level of challenge as such, just not every fight. Build up to it, keep something in reserve. At the moment it feels more like a 2-man than the solo adventure you are aiming for.

GOOD STUFF - excuse the caps, but authors sometimes only hear the negative and overlook the praise.

Your maps were ace; original and fresh, with lots of pokey holes to hide from the army of archers wanting to kneecap me (oh right, that's how I survived ).
You had some nice effects, fadeouts, transformations etc.
I didn't get to catch many of the unique titles you gave to the enemy mobs as I was too busy trying to avoid them, but it's always a nice touch. I didn't see any placeholder labels at all in fact, though your exit maps did have dual purpose. Not sure if that was intentional or not?

All in all, an impressive quest for your first attempt.

phoenicianson

Thank you everyone for your input... I agree, karitr, there is some extensive dialogue and description to the dialogue. I worked on reducing that in my second quest. I did a run through on it as well, and it is funny you mentioned the encounters, as I actually thinned them out a bit after dying a couple times on the second encounter with the Eye. I will go back and thin them out more. It is hard to gauge that when you are building, especially the first time around.

I had thought the Ogre would be blocked by the opening as well, but it came through on my playthrough, but if it got stuck on your playthrough, then it is safe to assume it shall on others as well. Problem, is that there is not much I can do with that, since the map does not provide for much spacing for place the encounters. I guess that will have to be a gift for those who play.

I appreciate the support, and look forward to reviewing the Private Messages, feel free to keep them coming.

I think you guys will truly enjoy the second quest if you like this one, but as I said, it is going to be a long one. However, I learned a lot through building my first Foundry quest, so it makes this one look like a side project.

I am just going through the dialogue in it now, as there are some long portions, similar to this one, but less bloat and more substance. Everything stated in the dialogue of the new quest is structured and overlapping to the quest.

I admittedly got carried away with the dialogue on the Eye of Tartar Sauce quest, but I hope you all found it humorous.

phoenicianson

I have actually spent the last several hours since my response revising the content and fixing some of the elements all based in great part on your suggestions. I should have it finalized tomorrow, at which time I will update the post. So, for anyone looking to play, wait until I post the update tomorrow and inform everyone on this post.

Thanks again guys!

The reason it is taking me so long is because I am going through the dialogue and significantly leaning it out. It is actually funnier, at least I think it is, with less description. I also changed a couple jokes and wording around that I thought was better than the original content as far as its humor.

I think this go around, you will not have as difficult a time going through the dialogue since it is a lot shorter with each interaction and less description to read through, if any at all in most circumstances.

phoenicianson

I just published the edited version of the quest.

I applied all of your suggestions posted and PM'ed:

1. Dialogue significantly redacted with all NPCs, literally box by box revised.
2. Thinned out Encounters
3. Added features:
a. More sounds to connect with actions and dialogues
b. Added invisible walls so you cannot get lost when area goes dark (Twilight Storyline)
c. Repaired Interactions with Map Transitions (The one to leave the marketplace does not show Interaction checked, so I added a notice in the dialogue chain)
d. Fixed Drow to follow post stairs by creating another NPC post battle with Undead Pirates.

Give it another shot, and I am not sure if the issue with the Reviews is fixed with the developers, as I noticed you could not review foundry quests played through over the last week or so myself.

Thanks everyone! Let me know!

PS. The map does not have a door between to areas, which is why I used the portal.

zerkovaplayer

Number of typos/spelling errors.

"encantation" => "incantation." (Cleric of Lurue.)
"stuped" => "stupid" (Roberts)
"sinckering" => "snickering" (Roberts)
"you'se" is usually just "youse"

The dialogue is a little on the verbose side. In particular, your character is chatty. Even with the "I'm frustrated with this" bits, you are long-winded in the first couple dialogues. Makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite for calling others long-winded. The dialogues are also long. A good way to handle this is to offer an early "snap answer" exit in more dialogues. Break what you have up into more smaller chunks. Line breaks in your responses would be nice, not sure if the Foundry actually handles that though.

"Ugly Wight" that is supposedly unarmed hits you with his sword.

"Lost Drow" doesn't have a very drowish complexion. FemaleDrow should probably be two words, it is sometimes one word.

"Vella" => 'Voila"
"Unscated" => "Unscathed"
"Monogomouns" => "Monogamous"

The interact/leave bug to get out to Protector's Enclave was a bit frustrating, after the misclick I dropped at that point.