BETA: The Puller of Strings: Part I (NW-DU2FHRFBA)

chinspinner

This is a solo foundry of 15-20 minutes, with a 50/50 mix of story and combat. All maps and characters are bespoke.

If anyone will try mine (and leave some helpful feedback) I'll return the favour (solo only).

Thanks in advance.

ladyorianna

Hey, there! Just finished and tipped your dungeon!

All in all, I thought it was a great story. The combat was challenging but not too overwhelming, although I did get into trouble a couple of times when I wasn't paying attention. :P I definitely liked the undead popping on all sides; it gave it a nice "undead don't care where you are, we're gonna swarm you and eat your brains" feel. Very nice.

The only problem I had was the end chest animation freaks out my graphics because it's really close to a wall. Sometimes just pulling it away from the wall a little helps, but it honestly could just be me this is happening to. I enjoyed running this, and I'm looking forward to the next parts!

If you have the time to run my quest, I would greatly appreciate it! The codes are in my signature

chinspinner

Thanks for the kind review Lady. I'll take a look at yours now.

Cool, played through them. Great fun dungeon crawlers. The dungeon maps in the second one in particular were superb; as was the boss fight.

Minor comments; but the following struck me :-

1st Quest:

Wandering guards clip Lady Orianna during first interaction.
The encounters are rather static, it would be nice to have some linked to waypoints etc as a bit if a surprise.
Encounters are also rather generic, some different costumes/ names to tie them into the quest would be good.

2nd Quest:

The first map is a little sparsely decorated.
The rest of this quest was cool, the dungeon decor look really good.

chieori

Greetings chinspinner!

I had a chance to run The Puller of Strings: Part I tonight. You did a great job on the detailing and the story, it was enjoyable and intriguing. I did find a few things on my run, but nothing quest breaking. Tipped and Stared.

I will have to say, that after the talk with Lark in the Caravan wagon, from there until we returned back to the wagon, I was fairly confused about the story. Lark clearly said that he was not there and neither was I, and I was not able to respond at all during this whole portion. Which lends credence to my not really being there, except as a observer. Yet, I had to kill slavers multiple times during this "view of the prophesy" portion. If I wasn't really there, how was it that I was able to kill anything? And at the same time, if I were there, why wasn't I able to talk to Lark? It seemed somewhat disjointed.

Old Man Lightowler - when you approach him, he is reading a book, the book does not go away during the conversation with him and looks quite odd sticking out of the side of his arm and even looks like he is hitting himself in the head a few times.

Transition between mansion and the cave hallway/ruins - (both directions) There is a gap in the floor between the 2 hallways.

Ruins, through out - There are a number of encounters which are labeled as "zombies" which are skeletons and several of the zombies are labeled as skeletons. Perhaps use rotter skins for the ones that are supposed to be zombies?

Perhaps it is just me, but the entire dungeon seemed very bright, well lit, considering all the undead. Most undead usually hang out in dark, cold, damp and messy places.

Later part of dungeon - there were 2 patches of fire on the ground, where 2 skeletons spawned, the fire turned into ash marks afterwards. I liked this portion, but it seemed like a pair of the blazing/flaming skeletons would be more appropriate to that particular encounter.

Inside the tower - it appears that you placed the walls right up against the room builder walls or just beyond them, every time I moved around the room, the back wall would disappear, then pop back up. Same with the door/wall at the end of the hall you come in at.

After killing Rockwall - clays name was "Clay Lightower #1"

The ruins - second time - the ground fog/smoke and the overall atmosphere seemed more appropriate for the undead setting, yet it was slavers.

If you have the time, please run my quest - Clan Ravenclaw : NW-DU3QXH237

chinspinner

Thanks Chieori, very useful feedback. I'll be updating the quest as per the majority of your comments.

Edit: I think I have answered your concern regarding being harmed in the prophecy by despawning the slavers and spawning 'shadow' encounters in their place.

I'll run through yours this afternoon.

EDIT: I've just run your quest. I love that dungeon map, really well designed, and the interactions to lower bridges/ reveal secret rooms etc. all work really well. There is also a good balance on the encounters.

The outdoor map feels sparsely decorated; it would be nice to tighten it up a bit and create more of a backdrop and perhaps more defined paths with interesting features around them. The crows also clip the ground.

But all in all great quest, Starred and tipped.

ladypeanut66

Hi,

I am doing your quest right now. Here my comments:

The garden is cool and vivid with all the flowers, but maybe you should put an abort exit, just in case someone wants to exit and don't know about the button?
Loved the Elemental Encounter, by the way.
The house is nice decorated. I don't know why, but the house seemed isolated, maybe because of the lack of npcs. If that is not the impression you want the house to give, maybe you should put six or seven npcs.
The Old man on the dialogue has the book on his wrist; you should do something about it, but i don't know what you could do
On the ruins, every encounter that appeared near a hanging skeleton made that skeleton disappeared. The idea of having encounters appearing is cool and I would not change it.

On the caravan, looking at the crystal ball was a little hard because when i try to select the ball, it was the npc that was selected. Maybe another position for the ball? Don't know.
When you meet Pindrop the slaver chief on the vision of the seer for the first time, you should put some animation on Clay: she is too calm, although she has seen presumably the death of the old man and she is being kidnapped.
When the Lord has made the ritual and you have to talk with Clay, her name is Clay Lightowler#1, maybe ou should delete that '#1'

I'd love to know what encounter, or what did you do to do the Swineherd Lark encounter.

--

That's my review! In conclusion, I loved your quest, the maps, the seer thing you do about putting the player on the prophecy (the alternate universe, maybe XD). Completing the quest costed me 20-30 minutes more or less.

Bye! Remember to review my quest, please

chinspinner

Hi Peanut,

Thanks for playing through my quest and the helpful comments. Swineherd Lark was part of the 5-man guard encounter btw. It has a hard magician, archer, soldier and 2 recruits (Lark is the magician, the soldier and recruits are the boars).

I played through The Protector. It was a fun quest, and nice idea to go and save the recruits from the dungeon. A few comments :-

It felt like the maps were lacking on detail, some decoration and points of interest would be nice.
Changing the names and costumes of some of the encounters would make them fit the quest better, they all felt a little generic.
It would also be interesting, for example, to have some of the applicant turn into hard encounters when you click on them just to keep the player guessing.
The second map (crypt) was quite easy to solo (I was playing an archer and could kill all the mobs before they got near me).

Thanks again.

orangefiree

Playing through now and taking some notes as I go.

1.) Maybe I missed a line of dialogue or something but I don't remember being told I would encounter a bunch of undead.

2.) Speaking of said undead, some more customization might be nice on them.

3.) You may want to add an objective to reach the end of the ruins or something. It is possible to leave and reenter the quest, completely bypassing that part, currently.

4.) Why are some of the slavers shadows and the rest are normal humanoids?

5.) The humanoid slavers could use some customization.

Any chance you could play through one or more quests from "The Arcane Conflict"?

chinspinner

Thanks all for your reviews, the comments were very helpful and resulted in a lot of tweaks.

Orange, I haven't had a chance to return the review yet and will need to pick it up tomorrow.

Its now got daily status, but any further play throughs/ reviews would be appreciated.

melinden

I played with a level 60 DC. I thought this was a really nice quest, well constructed, and logical.

I know, I KNOW teleporters suck in so many ways but you had a lot of map transitions in there. A few of them could have been switched to teleporters when it was going from an indoor area to an indoor area. At least in those cases you can usually keep the teleporter on the same Y value and they behave much better. Just something to consider for the future.


Play through notes:

-the first map is beautiful
-in Old Man Lightowler's first dialogue he says "Valley Beyond the wall" but I think in all previous cases you have used a capital W
-the Zombie Hulk that appears next to the second Wizard skeleton, its name is currently "Zomvie"
-the stacked encounters with the wizards might cause some players some trouble.
-the Shadow Slaver costumes are very nice

tiborrus

Hi, chinspinner!
I just played your quest with my Lev 60. GWF. The quest is perfect detailed, nice lighting and fantastic athmosphere! Only music recommended in some maps(garden,mansion, ruins). Congratulation!
Sorry, but my mission not ready just yet, but I'm working on it!

chinspinner

Thanks Tiborrus, let me know when yours is complete and I'll take a look.

chinspinner

By the way, this one is now published, thanks all for feedback. It would be helpful if you could review The Dungeon Crawler (in my signature) though. As always I am trading reviews.

orangefiree

chinspinner wrote: »

Thanks all for your reviews, the comments were very helpful and resulted in a lot of tweaks.

Orange, I haven't had a chance to return the review yet and will need to pick it up tomorrow.

Its now got daily status, but any further play throughs/ reviews would be appreciated.

I have not seen your review, did you leave it anonymously?

dtz

*The zombies bursting out of the ground in massive clouds of smoke is a nice touch, but it does make the enemies very difficult to see.
*It feels like there needs to be something around Fenton's Refuge. Either mist, or water, or something.
*Very nice job with the NPCs. You got me to care about them, and genuinely feel bad about killing Scarfe.

Overall, a really solid dungeon crawl with great mapwork. Very nice job.