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The Sealing of Najena's Lair - NW-DBQH5L5QB by @Tipa
tipadaknife
Member Posts: 229 Arc User
Looking to trade reviews for my second foundry adventure, The Sealing of Najena's Lair. It's set after the events in my first foundry adventure, The Crypt of Befallen, but isn't tied to it in any real way. One NPC moves over.
It should take about 20-25 minutes to do. There are several optional encounters that could make that longer. Although there's a good amount of combat, there's a strong story that takes you through the mission. As you find out more, you may wonder if you're on the correct side of history here.
I've learned a lot since my first foundry mission. Put two weeks of vacation into this one. I've been inspired by a lot of the foundry missions I've seen in these threads! Hoping you'll enjoy this one.
The setting and many of the NPCs are based on the EverQuest dungeon, Najena. The story is entirely mine.
Here are some pics to, hopefully, whet your appetite. More pictures at the Sealing of Najena's Lair album.
Please reply with your quest and short code and I'll play and review it well ASAP.
Thanks!
It should take about 20-25 minutes to do. There are several optional encounters that could make that longer. Although there's a good amount of combat, there's a strong story that takes you through the mission. As you find out more, you may wonder if you're on the correct side of history here.
I've learned a lot since my first foundry mission. Put two weeks of vacation into this one. I've been inspired by a lot of the foundry missions I've seen in these threads! Hoping you'll enjoy this one.
The setting and many of the NPCs are based on the EverQuest dungeon, Najena. The story is entirely mine.
Here are some pics to, hopefully, whet your appetite. More pictures at the Sealing of Najena's Lair album.
Please reply with your quest and short code and I'll play and review it well ASAP.
Thanks!
Post edited by tipadaknife on
0
Comments
First, thank you for reviewing my quest, much appreciated!
I had a chance to run The Sealing of Najena's Lair today. The story was well written, the design and layout of the quest nicely done and the encounters were scripted really well. Overall, I enjoyed the quest, good job
I did find a few minor things...
I found the denizens of the first map, extremely weak, one hit kills. Wouldn't expect that of elementals.
It seemed to me, that all of the cave type rooms/halls were very empty, aside from a couple of creatures to kill.
The dungeon areas were much better, detailing, debris furniture, lighting etc.
First cave room, 4 skeletons, 1 was a Large the other 3 were normal, although the Large one died in 1 hit and 1 of the smaller ones took a bit to kill. Seemed a bit odd.
Trazdon's room - The 2 portal levers, the eastern most one had an animation, like you were doing something on the ground, instead of the lever 4 feet up the wall. western lever seemed fine.
Rathiel's room - I don't recall if the skeleton was on the floor to the left when I came in or not, if it was, then all of this is meaningless ... when he died, while you spoke to him, the skeleton was there, with the body, should have appeared after his body left? Also it was still there after the next part.
The larger cave area - might want to turn off the trail in this area, because of the different layers, it was leading me all over the room in the wrong directions.
Last room - after speaking to Najena, she disappeared then reappeared, then walked down the steps, I followed her down and didn't notice the next objective till I had followed her and couldn't do anything. Then when I went back down to her, there were 2 of her.
In the underwater part, what effect was that that caused the blurring? It wasn't water, but it was a good substitute.
I didn't note them all as I was fighting in several spots, but I did notice separations in the walls in numerous places in the dungeon area.
[1] Devils in the Sewer
[2] The Summoning
[3] Temple of the Winds
Clan Ravenclaw
Children's Babble
Solstice Academy
Elemental groups in the outside area were just for flavor. I didn't want to distract anyone from the goal, which was to get to the dungeon. But it seemed like there should be critters there
Many rooms were empty because of the encounter budget -- I'm hovering at 50, and had to keep removing them. I, unfortunately, made some fights really complicated and chew through encounters. The rooms do feel a little empty. The mage lab probably needs some more work.
I'll fix the skeleton encounter in the first room. I did notice that, but forgot to fix it. Same with the earth portal animation -- noticed, forgot to do something. I need to start keeping pen and paper by the computer...
Skeleton should appear after you talk to him. I'll take a look at that.
How do you turn off the trail? It doesn't work in cave builder/dungeon builder rooms, like the dark elf area and Najena's cavern. Didn't know you could turn it off.
I'll check out the Najena encounter. Shouldn't be two of her.
I use a deep red water plane in the pool in Najena's cavern -- nothing special, just have to make sure you get the one with the height.
All the walls in the dungeon/dark elf area were placed by hand. That said, I thought I took care of all the gaps. I'll have another look.
Thank you so much for your feedback!
Actually I was more referring to the lack of any objects in the room like debris, camp fires, boxes, barrels anything.
**How do you turn off the trail?**
In the Story tab, where it tells you to find the next objective, should give you several choices, Point, Area or None. None turns off the trail. (As a side note, The trail is positioned in 20 foot intervals from 0 Altitude. So if you make multi-story dungeons etc, try to place each floor at 0,19,39,59 etc, so the trail is just above the floor on all levels)
**I use a deep red water plane in the pool in Najena's cavern -- nothing special, just have to make sure you get the one with the height.**
Ah ha, see learned something. I have tried a number of the water planes, some even say 10' feet deep, but aren't, they have a bottom at about 6'. Don't think I tried the red plane, usually stay away from the red water, as it tends to hide spells and power actions from mobs.
[1] Devils in the Sewer
[2] The Summoning
[3] Temple of the Winds
Clan Ravenclaw
Children's Babble
Solstice Academy
Thanks for the info about the trail! The floors in the dungeon section are at 0 and 20. I don't know if I have the patience to lower every object on the top floor by 1, but I probably should just grit my teeth and do it. Placing all those ceilings and walls and floors was tedious to the extreme, but I got through it
[1] Devils in the Sewer
[2] The Summoning
[3] Temple of the Winds
Clan Ravenclaw
Children's Babble
Solstice Academy
I was looking forward to playing this map since I saw you had tried something new. Unfortunately I got stuck at the water map. Maybe I missed the exit but I tried for about 20 minutes and if players are supposed to leave by the stairs then I was trapped under the water plane. I couldn't finish the quest after that point.
I have the notes for you that I took up until that I was stuck.
Play Through Notes:
-the torches on either side of the door in the first house look like they are wall torches that were pushed too far into the wall. I'm not sure if that is the case or if you took the plain fires and put them against the wall to appear as torches. As someone who makes foundries this looked odd to me but might not to others.
-the door to the house is away from the wall about a foot.
-some of the stones by the wagon are floating on the Lavastorm map, due to the terrain under them being uneven
-I very much appreciate that those were not two elite ogres in the dungeon map
-the bed on the rock in the room with the campfire is floating over the rocks
-after Trazdon's room two music tracks are playing at the same time in the dungeon
-it would probably look a bit better (or make more sense to me at least) if the large 4 sided fireplace had a chimney
-I like the maps, I think you used the Dungeon Builder materials with good results.
(Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
The mission is supposed to be fun for soloers, with the complexity in the boss fights, and not just stacking hard encounters on people. I've had my share of frustrations with missions which are just combat.
Thank you for your comments! I'll see if I can fix them
Campaign: The Planar Conflict: NWS-DG4CX25DT
Drelzna said she did not want to fight me, which was odd because I said I wanted to help her stop Najena.
The objective "Search for Najena" was a little confusing as I assumed the water was in a kill zone.
At the end, I spoke to Najena and there was another Najena standing next to her.
Why was there a buring skeleton helping me in the end fight?
Ah and one more thing, why did you call the ogres "an ogre guard" rather than just "ogre guard"? Seems odd to me. Same with "a (!) patrolling guard".
Feel free to play mine (see signature).
Bar'thok Rising Part 2 - The Hunt - Work in Progress, not yet published
A Non-Descript Home:
- Torches adjusted
- Door adjusted
- Summoning circle and NPCs moved to where the stock dining area was. Seemed a better fit.
- Added some runes and stuff to seem more rune-y.
Najena:
- First room:
- encounter reset and reskinned to be more appropriate to the names of the mobs
- added graves and a wisp just to make it a little spookier, if a little less true to the source.
- Second room:
- dressed the room a bit.
- Tentacle terror encounter changed to a named encounter, but not a boss-named. Added more campfire effects, and, since all the actors are now humanoids, they can chat.
- Mining room/outside dark elf wing: added detail and made what detail I had more visible; removed default lighting and added custom lighting to control mood better.
- Trap room: no changes, I like it. It's extra. Gotta make rogues happy.
- Mage lab: Changed the fiction for this room, now we make pets here. Somehow. Like, in that furnace. Took away "mist" elemental, replaced with fire elementals. Chimney added to furnace. Old wandering elementals now on patrol. Added custom lighting -- really helps. Took out the fog except from furnace. It was just too much. Fell into the trap of trying to add atmosphere by literally adding atmosphere.
Trazdon Boss Room -- fixed animation for shutting down second portal.
- Inky wing: Turn off sparkly while in there.
- Rathyl: Don't show his skeleton until you've heard his last words. His MAYBE last words.
Started work on lowering the second floor, but things were just getting destroyed in the editor as a side-effect, so put that aside for now. Something to remember for next time.
- Widowmistress: she has her name back. I must have made some change to the encounter which reset names and stuff for that encounter. Moved her closer to the door. The encounter budget required me to remove most of the encounters in this room, leaving her with too much empty space. Sigh. This was part of a huge finale that I had to move back into Najena's room because I just was running out of budgets and didn't want to open up a new map. Which I probably should have done. Something to remember for next time.
Am easily able to find the exit stairs for the pool. Dunno what I can do about those. Maybe some light? Wouldn't be an issue if we could swim. I put a blue light orb there.
Najena encounter -- add an idle animation. Make sure there's only one of her at a time. Fix errors in Drelzna's path. Make these ladies move a little faster.
Return to a non-descript home: Copied over changes from the first map.
All these things were call-outs to the original EQ1 dungeon. There's plenty of reasons not to have it that way -- I may fix the ogre names, etc, because there's really no reason for that.
The cavern solved a problem. The swim to get to Najena's room was something any EQ player would remember, so I had to get it in somewhere. In the similar case where I needed to be able to build a false floor so you could fall down to a lower floor, in the prison area, I had to -- just for that -- do that entire wing in Room Builder. Which was sloooow but gave good results.
I'd already done the Najena cavern at that time, though, and spent a lot of time adding a false floor -- and a false ceiling -- so I could have that swimming area. However, the resulting cavern is many, many times larger than the original because that's just how huge things are, here. If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably use Room Builder again and just have the lower floor be underwater. It would make getting around a lot easier. I'll see how energetic I feel about it tomorrow.
I'll play yours right now!
Burning skeleton was Drelzna's pet.
I was being lazy with Drelzna's dialog. I'll add a path for when you have already decided that Najena isn't your friend -- which probably was clear to everyone from the very first map
Drelzna tells you you'll have to swim to get to Najena. I'll make that more clear.
Thank you for playing, and I'll play yours tonight!
Ok, thanks. As for Drelzna's dialogue, how did you have it where I would get the same dialogue from her with all three options? I have seen it done a lot but just can't find any option to do it, it is probably some simple thing that I am missing.
I finally found out how. The arrow that points to the next dialog bubble, you can drag that to point to one that already exists. I did that to make a puzzle in an unpublished mission of mine.
Thanks , I didn't even think to move that arrow around.
Overall Score: 4/5, left a tip. Cheers!
Chapter One - A Construct's Prison: NW-DMSU8OJTV
Chapter Two - Raggyon: NW-DGIZVSQPU
Yeah, you're not the first person to complain about those corridors.... hmm... well, always room for improvement.
NW-DBQH5L5QB by @Tipa
=========================
Overall: I really enjoyed this quest. I thought that the level design and the models/costumes were all very well done. You obviously put a lot of time and thought into how to realize this vision. The 'swim' part was original and interesting, and the labyrinth of hallways and illusionary walls was very fun. I left a starred review and a tip. The only concern I have regarding the story is probably not your fault. If Brightleaf is from the other world, wouldn't he know who Najena is and what she's doing? Is that a shadow part of the plot that hasn't developed yet?
I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at one of the following quests I still have in the 'For Review' tab.
"The Divinity of Lankeshire" by @casmelak
Short Code: NW-DF7Y9QTCM
"A Time for Death" by @casmelak
Short Code: NW-DDVSHT5TY
--My playthrough notes are below. They're extensive and I probably went double over the average play time dealing with inventory management.--
SETTING --A Non-Descript Home
++++++++++++++++
Details
++++++++++++++++
+I like the costumes and general layout.
++I like the style of the dialogue.
+++I really liked the timed element for the activation of the portal stone. (I'm jealous, I haven't gotten that type of stuff to work.)
-North-east most bed is floating ~1.5-2 feet.
-Seems weird that there's a stack of wood and hanging herbs drying by no fireplace.
-Maybe a bucket and stool by the hanging sheets in the south-west corner?
-Maybe replace the torch in the corner by the door with a lantern? You've got a torch there and a
wood ceiling right above it.
-The bush on the raised dais is distracting. I LIKE it, but as soon as I started to pay attention
to it...it confused me. Maybe make it interactable to have a short description? Or an additional
dialogue option with Brightleaf?
-Haven't made it far enough to know yet, but the 'map scroll' on the table comes across as
portentious. You would add some 'lore' to the story by making THAT interactable and having it be a
astronomical treatise on the current "world's colliding" problem.
++++++++++++++++
Dialogue
++++++++++++++++
Nina Tanglewood | First conversation
consider (emphasis for clarity of the difference, not to be included in text.)
Under 'how can I help' option consider
Mysterious Emissary | First conversation
Under "New worlds to plunder? Sign me up!" option -- you don't need a comma there unless you're using it for narrative prose
purposes.
Shadowy Rogue | First conversation
This is not really your fault at all, just the nature of the limitations in animation, but it's
hard to tell if he's acting tough, or defensive. Maybe a short [OOC]This guy comes off as...[/OOC]
to clue the player in?
Syndal Brightleaf | First conversation
consider-
Under option consider-
Under option consider-
Option consider- (The repetition of the triplet-doublets is a very common narrative device, and it works.)
e.g. (Come on! Hurry up! Let's go!)
SETTING -- Lavastorm Mountains
++++++++++++++
Details
++++++++++++++
+Oooh, though I can't really tell how much of this is custom it IS very pretty. Nice use of a map
space.
+Again, nice use of costumes and general layout.
-Not sure what the mood is intended to be here, but it seems less than especially ominous with the
happy-shiny blue sky interrupted only minimally from what I assume is fumes from the lava.
-The west-most 'cemetary arch' is ~6'' off the ground at it's north leg.
-Not sure if Marnek is supposed to show up in a blaze of fire when you first get here. He's not
interactive, and, at least for a first-time player in this series, it seems strange for the 'bad
guy' to just be hanging out in the open under some arches in front of a set dinner table.
-I kinda want to know what's up with the dead bodies. I come across them but can't interact with
them. Seems like they should be clues or tell me part of the story.
-For the mission point "Find the Emissary" it looks like you have 'area' waypoint, should it be
'points'?
-One thing that seems strangely missing is burning trees. They're provided in the toolset, and, I
think, would add something to the environment. A little chaos.
-Are the Elementals and Imps intended to respawn?
-I really like the blown open doors and collapsed pillars. Consider expanding on it by throwing in
some 'collapsed tunnel' style rubble, and ashes.
++++++++++++++
Dialogue
++++++++++++++
Tisiana | First conversation
There's nothing wrong at all with her dialogue grammatically. I just think it might be kinda cool
to throw in an option for Rangers to rebut here 'not a tree-hugger type' comment.
Najeena | Second Conversation
Option -consider
SETTING -- Najena
++++++++++++++
Details
++++++++++++++
+Nice use of the 'red water plane'
+I like the tons of pictures around of the same woman, presumably Najena.
+Not sure how you did the 'failed experiment' guys, but that was pretty cool. I'd recommend expanding on it some, maybe detailing this, her 'rec room' a bit more.
+Rathyl's "Cell" is pretty awesome
+Drelzna's room is pretty <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> as well, though it seems strange that she'd have pictures hanging of what is presumably Najena. Consider one on the floor on fire? Also, consider swapping out the dwarven forge decor for the one with water in it; it looks like a fountain that way.
-Consider changing the encounter type of Trazdon. The "nasher rebel" encounter type always battle-cries "serve the rebel cause" or something equally inappropriate during combat.
-In Trazdon's room there are two different ambient musics going at the same time after you beat him. Same with Issva.
-Consider getting rid of the 'AI Node' on the spots around the entrance to the southern passage to the cells. It makes the combat behavior strange. Had a couple of enemies run past me to take positions in corners around the doorway ~5 feet away.
-A flaw in the 'room builder' makes for some weird behavior. In the center room of the 'mine caves' area with the campfire and the standard hanging on the north wall; Standing ~12' due east of the campfire, and facing north by north west (toward the northern exit to the room), you can see a space between which the two rooms are joined. The north-west corner is sort of just missing. I've had this problem as well. Easiest fix is to just flip some 'debris' upside-down and jam it there.
-The 'tri-dart' trap in the hallway leading to Kasul is under the floor, doesn't seem to be disarmable.
-Kasul should have something different to say once you've killed his buddies.
-In the 'crystal room' the webs are ~2'' off the ground.
-If the next room after killing Rathyl is "Moosh's room" the bed seems awfully small.
-Middle hay bale in Drelzna's room is floating.
-Entrance to Najena's Lair: Consider a small piece of tile platform or rubble to fill in the gap there between the 'room' and the 'large cave' room piece.
-In Najena's Lair there's still two music tracks playing over the top of one another.
-I could be mistaken, but it seems that Najena changes clothes after she reaches the portal and right before you talk to her last. Seems like it would make more sense for her to have changed her clothes before you even enter her lair.
++++++++++++++
Dialogue
++++++++++++++
Najena | First Conversation
consider
Najena | Conversation after killing Rathyl
"Moosh's" ?
Drelzna | First conversation
Option consider
<- ///Follow up questions/// -> How did you get the 'battle-cry' of the models to change! When I apply a costume to most mobs they persist their vocalizations regardless of the costume they're wearing, but all the 'Ogres' you have in there SOUND like ogres and DIE like ogres.
Ya know, I am grinning from ear to ear, because someone corrected my grammar. Nobody can see their own mistakes
Hmmm.... I hadn't considered that Syndal might know Najena. Wood elves and dark elves don't really mix in the same social circles, so it's unlikely he'd know her by sight, especially since she is dressed in ordinary clothes for most of the adventure -- she doesn't get eviled up until later. I'll have to go with that, though, honestly, it hadn't occurred to me that he might know her. He'd know her if he saw her again, but -- she's dead, now. Or at least, pulled into the Plane of Fire after the failure of her Summoning.
The delayed portal activation is from having an unconnected room with three Adventurer Fighters just waiting around for a group of weak critters to spawn when you finish talking to Syndal. Once they finish the critters off, I swap in the final effects. It took MANY MANY MANY tries to get that to work, and whenever I play through the quest, I'm nervous that it will be like that one time where the fighters escaped from their room and fought the critters in full view of the player. You have to have the room within a certain distance of the player, or they won't fight. Too close, and you can hear the screaming and yelling.
The NPCs and bodies in Lavastorm are from the previous quest in the series, The Crypt of Befallen. I may make them live again just to point people back to that quest.
The ogres in the entry room are a standard undead encounter; the others are typically adventurer fighters. I don't recall doing anything special to make them ogre-like, but I did notice that they were.
Najena changes clothes as she starts her summoning. I wasn't sure when to do that, to be honest. I wanted to show the player, if they were at all confused still, that Najena was, and always had been evil. So, of course, were all her followers, but she'd become too extreme, even for them. And I wanted the costume change to signal the final phase of her revenge.
At one time, Najena walked to her final position and started summoning, but for a lot of reasons, that didn't work out. I want the player to try to stop her, and fail. I had a whole system of invisible walls and stuff to try and orchestrate the fight, but they were incredibly buggy. I finally just had her teleport across the room, and used a wall of flames + invisible wall to keep people away, and an extra encounter to keep people busy and not noticing the stage management.
I think I will have her changed when you see her.
Thanks for the graphical glitch notes. In the editor right now, fixing those.
I'll play your quest as soon as I finish
The really funny part is I typoed in my edits...fixing.
A lot of this was explained in big info dumps that I removed. I had a regular EQ lore encyclopedia going here, explaining the factions of the druids, the inhabitants of Lavastorm and surrounding areas, deep history behind Najena and her previous experiments, and so on. Took it all out.
The dungeon felt very nice with all the secret passages and everything and the dialogue was fun, loved the ridiculous flavor text added.
You should check out @DoctorBadger's "Nim'sha's Storm" for a much better underwater effect.
edit: wow found the water you mentioned and it indeed has as underwater effect! too bad it's just 60x60, way too small for what I need