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Cult of the Dragon Foundry Contest - Official Discussion Thread

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  • dtzdtz Member Posts: 174 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    Fair warning, Culling the Cult of the Dragon is an interminable, grindy slog of stacked encounters on pre-fab maps. Bleh.
    Rank 8 Foundry Grand Master

    Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
  • tipadaknifetipadaknife Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    That's one of the ones we didn't get to tonight. Kasul and I pulled Unearthed Dragonica out of the review tab with our reviews, and we both gave it four stars. A bug at the end prevented it from getting five. Icy Depths of the Past was the other strong entry this week, so far. We'll get to the other two (besides mine) tomorrow. Mine isn't doing so well on its first featured day, but I have hopes it will pick up.
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  • dtzdtz Member Posts: 174 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    I'll probably get to yours tomorrow night. Tonight I played the crappy ones to get them out of the way, and between Culling the Cult of the Dragon and Missing (which actually got two starts instead of one this time, I think because I had just played Culling) I didn't really feel like playing anymore.
    Rank 8 Foundry Grand Master

    Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
  • kendaricvkendaricv Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    dtz wrote: »
    I'll probably get to yours tomorrow night. Tonight I played the crappy ones to get them out of the way, and between Culling the Cult of the Dragon and Missing (which actually got two starts instead of one this time, I think because I had just played Culling) I didn't really feel like playing anymore.

    Yeah, Culling the Cult of the Dragon is the very definition of bad. Playing (or rather enduring) through it right now and it seriously makes some bad contest entries look like masterpieces. Unless someone desperately wants to review it (or likes to inflict pain on oneself...), I'd recommend staying away from that.

    - Pointless hordes of stacked encounters
    - Bad encounter design
    - Absolute lack of story

    How this could even make it into the contest is beyond me. It's a grind/farm and even for that kind of module it's very badly designed.
  • bardaaronbardaaron Member Posts: 545 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2014
    I just played through and reviewed Fire Sale:

    It was great. Really Great. Epic story and some great maps, as well as the opportunity for choice. It had some rather glaring errors though, which kept it out of 5-star territory for me. 4/5

    The Auction quest seems to have had an error: "Obtain the orb" completes upon entering the room, leading to confusion about what to do, as the "Thieving Auctioneer" hasn't stolen anything yet (which gives away the surprise). And he (and the orb) never disappears, so when I went into the hallways, apparently he is in 2 places at once, and he has the stolen orb in the hallway while he stands near the not-yet stolen orb in the auction room. You can look back-and-forth at them. The Thieving Auctioneer also mentions (or I mention while talking to him, I forget which) fighting with some undead, which never actually happened. Not sure what that's about.

    I loved the choice involved, and that we got a different story based on the choices we made. That makes me really excited to play it again. I loved the multiple betrayals. It really feels like we got duped at times, and that makes it all the more fun to kill them. I was worried when a third power group was introduced, but it mostly worked. I would have liked to see them tied into the story a bit more; because I didn't fully understand.

    The Maps were quite well done. There were some very unique areas, and the assets were used pretty darn well.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • tipadaknifetipadaknife Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    Thanks for playing it!

    Hmm... the auctioneer is only supposed to ever be in one place at once. Guess that broke, somehow, and too late to fix it now :P Oh, well.

    As far as the foulspawn, they were a spoiler group. Since neither faction knew about them before they headed to the Crags, they couldn't prepare you (or themselves), and they're more or less being slaughtered before you show up. Most NPCs in foundries are omniscient, always able to let you know what you're about to face. How do they know? When you arrive at the Temple, you find the leader of your chosen faction nearly beaten, and the other factions crushed, though you're able to help both factions (with help from your own, unless you get the third faction, who only helps you once). Basically, the faction you choose implicitly sets the difficulty level for the final map by tuning the amount of help you get for which fights. Though in the end I made all the fights significantly easier.

    I knew when I was complaining about all these contest entries that turn into mindflayer or drow quests or something that I ran the risk of being called a hypocrite, or at least vague. I mostly just knew what I didn't want -- a kill quest. And I wanted to explore multi-path dungeons, though I also had to back off from that a bit and give a sparkly path because early feedback was that people had no idea what to do. Still an issue, I guess, from comments.

    But hey, it's a quest where NPCs are actively misleading you, and they themselves don't know what's really going on until it's too late :) I had a lot of fun making it.
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  • bardaaronbardaaron Member Posts: 545 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2014
    I played through Unearthed Draconica today.

    While this had some very cool aspects to it, a number of things diminished my enjoyment of it.

    We enter a seemingly abandoned hovel in Protector's Enclave, but upon finding a secret door behind the bookcase, we realize we have been summoned here by a kobold sage. Luckily, he's not dangerous. He just wants us to go on a quest, to a mine that doesn't exist, except it does, do stop...uh, someone from finding...well, something. He actually doesn't appear to know anything. But sure, let's go with it.

    We arrive outside a cult of the dragon camp, where the ground is made of magical pixels that don't look like ground at all. I think the author used an earthmote. And while this may be an admirable attempt at making a new type of outdoor environment, the effect is awful, since it just looks really bad and low res.

    Next map, a mine shaft, is kinda neat. Love the premise of it, and the weird fish-people are creepy & effective. However, there are lots of stacked mobs that make it really hard for a lone adventurer. It also penalizes dying, since you then have to drop down the shaft and take damage right as you are starting the fight.

    Then we go into the mines. It's an impressive vista we open with, and the rest of this map is very visually effective, and pretty darn cool. But its very hard to navigate at times, and be warned, the respawn point is lodged within a hunk of rock, so you can't actually heal up, and of the 3 times I died in this map, 1 of those times I got stuck in this hunk of rock, and for some reason /killme would not function. I had to leave the map altogether. I really enjoyed these visuals, but there were lots and lots of static encounters, and a few stacked encounters. I've seen much worse, though.

    The dialog throughout was confusing, and for once I felt inclined to skip through it. The kobold seemed to ramble on about nothing a lot, and the enemies were surprisingly friendly, up until we matter-of-factly decided we had to fight to the death. In the words of Mal Reynolds "That was over a perfectly legitimate conflict of interests. I got no grudge."

    Even though I really liked 1 1/2 of these maps, there were too many issues with my enjoyment for me to rate it highly. 2/5
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • tipadaknifetipadaknife Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    Click here for my Week 4 contest reviews

    And follow this link to get the current contest standings

    Week 1 still holds the prize spots in the standings. Week 3 eventually mostly caught up to Week 2, even though there was an event going on. A Game of Dragons is right behind Week 2's Whispers of an Ancient Evil on the edge of the top three. Missing and The Icy Depths of the Past are neck and neck for the lead spots in Week 4, with the others trailing far behind.

    If the contest were being judged by average stars, Week 3's The Dragon's Prize would take the top spot, followed by Relative Security and Shadows of Purple Wings for the other two. The latter two quests are on track to win prizes no matter how things are scored.

    This weekend is a double experience weekend, which may provide a boost to Week 4 as people run their low levels through foundries. This will probably benefit combat maps more than anything, so, who knows? Culling the Cult of the Dragon, could leapfrog the competition. Though the stacked AEs may make the killing too slow.

    Good luck to Week 4. I'm guessing we're about halfway through the competition. It's yet to be seen which quest has the magic combination of combat and story to take the top spot from Relative Security.
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  • zachariah92zachariah92 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 49 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    Thank you Tipa for the review. :D

    The last version didn't show up in time, so they featured the 4.0 one... So there are still some errors.

    Btw I'm not english, (salutations from Barcelona!!) next time, I will try to get some help from a good hearted native english player. :p

    In any case, thank you very much to all who play, review and tip my foundry!! :)
    NW - DD69G42V2 - The Stolen Dragon Egg
    NWS - DPVINV31F - La Corona de la Sombra
    NW - DTKMPU3RQ - Contest: Portal - The Forgotten
    NW-DRTBVIVMU - Drowned Shore: Disembark #DS#
  • drakkenfeldrakkenfel Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 71
    edited September 2014

    Another awesome set of reviews! Thank you again for your efforts. It is really nice to see how everyone else is doing. Great work, Authors!
    Paladin.jpg
    @METH_SHADOWSTORM - Foundry author of:
    "The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
    Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
    Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
    STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
  • boomba66boomba66 Member Posts: 221 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2014
    drakkenfel wrote: »
    Another awesome set of reviews! Thank you again for your efforts. It is really nice to see how everyone else is doing. Great work, Authors!

    Nice review of the "Icy Depths of the Past.", the reason for the quotes on the title was it was taken from dialogue within the adventure. Building three story glaciers and all the effects I had used ate my budget for details badly on the glacier map. Plus was trying to stick with how it was described in the Salvatore books as being a huge glacier dug out by a dragon for its lair.

    You are correct about the level of plays dipping but it has been that way for 12 months. Since the first week of featured modules, each subsequent week no matter the quality has gotten less and less plays. With 4 campaigns, a weekly event in the siege of Neverwinter all providing rewards the foundry mods can't hope to match, we are limited to receiving plays from leveling players. Until a foundry campaign system is made, and rewards improve we will continue to see a diminshed play number.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • grimahgrimah Member Posts: 1,658 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    boomba66 wrote: »
    You are correct about the level of plays dipping but it has been that way for 12 months. Since the first week of featured modules, each subsequent week no matter the quality has gotten less and less plays. With 4 campaigns, a weekly event in the siege of Neverwinter all providing rewards the foundry mods can't hope to match, we are limited to receiving plays from leveling players. Until a foundry campaign system is made, and rewards improve we will continue to see a diminshed play number.

    There has been a decline for normal plays, but it is quite gradual. my quest was featured twice with about 8 months space from each other, and the final result was pretty close in amount of unique plays.

    This contest though has had a huge drop off in activity, the first week was pretty active, 6 quests is quite alot, thats 1 per day and not many casual players will go through that many in a week. After the 2nd week i think they just lost interest in trying these contests... as well some are not to the standard they are looking for.
    Creator of the featured survival horror foundry: "The Silence of Haydenwick" Video Review
    and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
  • dtzdtz Member Posts: 174 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    Week 4 reviews! Overall, not quite as strong as week 3, but still better than the first two weeks.

    Unearthed Draconica - 5/5
    This quest did a lot of really cool things I've never seen done before. Top-notch mapwork, and a story that rewards exploration and discovery. Love it!

    Culling the Cult of the Dragon - 1/5
    An interminable slog of stacked encounters with absolutely nothing unique or exciting about it. There is no story, no creativity, and no variation in encounters. There is nothing I could recommend about it to anyone at all, for any reason, ever.

    The Icy Depths of The past - 4/5
    Really cool quest. Great story, awesome mapwork, very eventful. Only the high degree of spelling and grammer errors keep me from giving it 5 stars.

    Missing - 2/5
    Big maps with very few encounters made it feel very empty. Story was pretty threadbare and ended abruptly. Spelling and grammar was pretty meh. Nothing truly terrible, though.

    Fire Sale - 4/5
    There was a really good story here, but I don't think it was told very well. There were a lot of elements that weren't made clear because of my choices, but seemed to be taken for granted that I would know.

    The Stolen Dragon Egg - 5/5
    Awesome custom maps and a really fun story that felt like an actual D&D campaign. Played a bit fast and loose with the lore, but otherwise a great quest.
    Rank 8 Foundry Grand Master

    Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
  • drakkenfeldrakkenfel Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 71
    edited September 2014
    This Week's Entries in Game:

    Cheating Death @Wilbert365
    The Discovery @kcilonni
    Joining the Dragons @Longshire
    Turtle Soup @PrettyCelt
    The Crypt of Ezra @arc7r7
    Tomb of the White Dragon @Winin

    http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/7001943-cult-of-the-dragon-foundry-contest-featured-entries
    Paladin.jpg
    @METH_SHADOWSTORM - Foundry author of:
    "The Sunnydale Campaign" - NWS-DKBEJ9OOM
    Episode 1: "Missing Daughters" - NW-DCX9IZBJB
    Episode 2: "A Date With Destiny" - NW-DHYEX5NKR - Featured: NW-DHFLDPWJV
    STO Foundry: "Safari So Good" - ST-HPRP2WFWI
  • tipadaknifetipadaknife Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Really strong group, this week.
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  • dragoness10dragoness10 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 780 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'll catch Foundry contest entries as I can whislt I got RL work this month.

    - A non-spammage sort of shout can help promote your own Foundry for a contest. Include title, author, and shortcode. I don't recommend any more frequency than MAXIMUM once an hour. One at start of play, and one at end of play for you is probably more than enough.

    - Use guild email to let your guildies know your Foundry is featured this week.

    - Include your entry information as part of your signature here on forums.

    There are plenty of non-annoying legit ways to promote a Foundry. :cool:
    " I tried to figure out the enigma that was you, and then I realized mastering Wild Magic was easier." - Old Wizard in Waterdeep

    "Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."

    "Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
  • bardaaronbardaaron Member Posts: 545 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2014
    Cool reviews again Tipa! I look forward to playing through these now that the weekend is upon us.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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  • eldartheldarth Member Posts: 4,494 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    prettycelt wrote: »
    Thanks again, everyone, and thanks to Cryptic for having the contest. Hopefully there will be many more.

    Well... there's the Community Foundry Contest - Northern Docks District you could (and hopefully do!) enter. :cool:
  • tipadaknifetipadaknife Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    prettycelt wrote: »
    I will also mention here that I am NOT Asian, and don't speak Chinese or Japanese, and I simply cherry-picked whatever I thought was cool and/or fitting from one culture or the other without worry over purists.

    I know a bit of Japanese (took it in college) and have some Japanese and Chinese friends, and lemme tell you, they fully expect Westerners to not know the difference between their cultures, but THEY understand the differences EXTREMELY well. It was jarring to me -- but my review was just that -- my review -- and wasn't meant to present anyone else's views. Well, except Kasul's, because he typically doesn't leave reviews, so I ask him as we finish each adventure what his thoughts are.

    I really did like your adventure. But I do try to give my honest reactions.
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  • dtzdtz Member Posts: 174 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    It's not made explicitly clear in the quest, but it also doesn't actually take place in Kara-Tur - Xiousing is a district of Marsember, which is in Cormyr.
    Rank 8 Foundry Grand Master

    Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
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  • dtzdtz Member Posts: 174 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    And here's my reviews of this week's quests:

    Turtle Soup - 5/5
    An amazing quest with strong lore ties and a great story. Awesome conclusion!

    The Crypt of Ezra - 4/5
    A fun dungeon crawler with well-placed encounters and a good story behind it. I'm looking forward to the inevitable sequel.

    Joining the Dragons - 4/5
    Really good mapwork. Awesome RP, with some good lore references. Awesome ending.

    Cheating Death - 2/5
    Not terrible, but largely underwhelming and with pretty badly-written dialogue. Ended very abruptly.

    Tomb of the White Dragon - 4/5
    A very solid dungeon crawler with a great story and well-balanced encounters.

    The Discovery - 3/5
    Dialogue was pretty bad and riddled with spelling and grammar errors, but the story was pretty interesting and there was some nice mapwork.
    Rank 8 Foundry Grand Master

    Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
  • grimahgrimah Member Posts: 1,658 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    prettycelt wrote: »
    I confess it flabbergasted me that anyone would think my NPC's were "racist" because they were too "yellow", that certainly was not the intent, but you only have so much of a color pallette in the foundry, and not everyone's monitor color settings are the same. So *shrug* I'm leaving it as is. If that's the worst complaint I receive, I count myself blessed.

    I will also mention here that I am NOT Asian, and don't speak Chinese or Japanese, and I simply cherry-picked whatever I thought was cool and/or fitting from one culture or the other without worry over purists. The setting does exist in FR lore, and if the main concern is that Kara-Tur is too far away from Neverwinter to be viable in the first place, then nitpicking over whether something in dialog is technically from Shou Lung or Wa seems...well, nitpicky lol. Most players would never know the difference, so again I am leaving it as is.

    Managed to play it again before the time was up (have limited play-time since the contest started). I thought it was great, the new additions and such. One of the best ones out there and if it wins something it deserves it.

    As for the racist stuff, well I myself am asian (chinese heritage to be exact) and i picked up on the japanese chinese mish-mash, I never mentioned it to you because its just faction after all in a fictional world so why not have a mixture? they are exactly japanese, and in hong kong or immigrants in other countries would often speak both english interwoven with chinese words to form complete sentences so japanese/chinese is not improbable.

    As for the "yellow", in a land where some races are green blue and all sorts I don't think yellow skin is out of the question and honestly it made them more distinguishable given the limitations to the game's engine. If something is not used with racist intent then its not considered racist to me (otherwise everything could be offensive to someone). But i cannot speak for everyone, some people are over-sensitive about these kinda things.
    Creator of the featured survival horror foundry: "The Silence of Haydenwick" Video Review
    and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
  • waryurwaryur Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 167 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Doesn't seem to be a blog post this week. Found these six under the featured tab. This week's entries:

    Rise of a New Leader - NW-DPL66UK29 - @leguaxinim

    Faerun's Finest - NW-DFJDEKJZN - @djmaysin2

    City of the Lost - NW-DQ9YEIZIW - @mittensofdoom

    The Dragon has 3 Heads..or 5... - NW-DGGLBD2Y6 - @bardaaron

    Cults and Culture - NW-DCLSFYSQ2 - @groshie

    Well of Dragons - NW-DTPJEKZCT - @waryur
    Hidden Valley Ranch - NW-DPNGENL6E D&D Adventures Part I
    House of 1000 Corpses - NW-DIEYVLCML D&D Adventures Part II
    Well of Dragons - NW-DTPJEKZCT Third Place Winner CotD Foundry Contest
    It's Just a Flesh Wound Pt. 1 - NW-DM8GHAME2 Monty Python!
    It's Just a Flesh Wound Pt. 2 - NW-DFADOS4EX Monty Python!
  • bardaaronbardaaron Member Posts: 545 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2014
    Yay! My quest is up!
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • sn0wst0rmzsn0wst0rmz Member Posts: 114 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Yeah i grew bored with NWO, and quit playing. Not sure if they will even feature mine. Arselu'Tel'Quess. Been playing 5e on roll20.net, trying to put the new stuff to a real test with old school gamers. I might come start playing again since there's another contest. Will definitely check it out sometime this week.
    "I attack the darkness!"

    Foundry Author of Arselu'Tel'Quess (NW-DDQ6P4IKQ)
  • dragoness10dragoness10 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 780 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I got to play some of the contest quests today. I'm glad they are good for the daily.
    " I tried to figure out the enigma that was you, and then I realized mastering Wild Magic was easier." - Old Wizard in Waterdeep

    "Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."

    "Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
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