As iandarksword linked -- Wizards of the Coast is trying to keep PnP and Online games "in-sync" to promote cross-advertising or something. Module 4 released in conjunction with Tyranny of Dragons release by WotC.
Not a big stretch to imagine Module 5 is going to release nearly simultaneously with WotC PnP release.
I'm not so certain - with only two weeks to go and no information whatsoever since the announcement? That'd be a lot of hype to drum up in a very short amount of time, to say nothing of how little meaningful testing would get done on the preview shard. M4 may have synced up with the 5e release, but its release date was announced months in advance and by this point we already knew everything that would be included and they'd already been doing a lot of balance adjustments on preview. For them to do the same with M5 with so much less lead time seems rather unlikely. But that's just me, I guess. I suppose we'll see when the release date gets announced.
Not as much correlation as you'd expect. I captured that information for every quest, expecting to find the same thing. People are looking through the reviews and the tags to see what to play.
I think there might be correlation, or at least and interesting thing to note. When my quest was featured, it was listed sixth on the first day. I know. I checked. The order that week I even posted in this thread. Then somehow it moved up to first and stayed there. I checked with some other people, so it wasn't just me. Quest after me had just a couple hundred, then one after that like 1000+. Made no sense.
I didn't know placement in the list could change, based on number of plays, stars, or any other factor.
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!
Mine also moved to first, and Kasul's has moved to first this week. I also don't know why, but it didn't push mine ahead of "Missing", or Kasul's ahead of "The Puppet" -- which started out in the For Review tab for days. And Kasul's is a straight-up combat quest, but it has the scarlet letter of being challenging.
As iandarksword linked -- Wizards of the Coast is trying to keep PnP and Online games "in-sync" to promote cross-advertising or something. Module 4 released in conjunction with Tyranny of Dragons release by WotC.
Not a big stretch to imagine Module 5 is going to release nearly simultaneously with WotC PnP release.
Only contrary evidence I've seen is that on Preview (maybe just in Well of Dragons zone) there is an "Event" timer that was counting down 45 days (as of yesterday) - to Dec 5th. Most of the other forum posts I've seen cite that as the drop date for M5. I haven't seen a dev post on it though.
Mine also moved to first, and Kasul's has moved to first this week. I also don't know why, but it didn't push mine ahead of "Missing", or Kasul's ahead of "The Puppet" -- which started out in the For Review tab for days. And Kasul's is a straight-up combat quest, but it has the scarlet letter of being challenging.
The list order is set.
and after the weekly maintenance it is flipped round. so every tuesday if you see your quest go up, hope it is on the 6th spot (so it will be 1st in the rest of the week). If you have been analysing the plays, you will note a huge increase of plays for the first and second listed quests, after which it drops off drastically.
Also from speaking to people I know who complained a few times during the contest on how bad some are, I ask them why bother doing them? the responses they gave usually either "I don't check rating" or "Wanted something quick", which can explain why bad ones also get as many plays as good ones. People just see the top of the list and accept it without checking.
EDIT: just logged in to see mine is up this week! But its listed 2nd, so if I am correct will be 5th after this weeks maintenance /sadface
8 1 Arselu'Tel'Quess NW-DFAZGGI7Y sn0wst0rmz
8 2 A Call for Heroes NW-DS8X97JUU grimah
8 3 Dragon Prey NW-DCGPN3CBB kynveel
8 4 Arroway Manor NW-DDP2MYWA9 josephskyrim
8 5 Precious Things NW-DRCUVGUWM Orsogufo
8 6 Cult of the Dragon: Blue NW-DT7JOSACJ blacksadd1
Grimah has a heck of a lead in these unofficial standings, because of the huge response to his quest before featuring, but the devs won't be counting the ratings the quest had prior to featuring. In my own inaccurate way, I'm leaving them in and hope that the prior plays get drowned by the flood of new plays
Good luck to all in Week 8! This may be the last week of the contest -- perhaps one more week.
Right now, Dragon Prey seems to have the right stuff to go all the way -- based purely on stats. Strong story quests, like A Call for Heroes, have done reasonably well, but more often closer to the start of the contest. Arselu'Tel'Quess shares stats with several extremely well done, but poorly performing, quests. It's too early to tell where the three on the review tab will eventually shake out.
We'll see if stats can tell the story this early in Week 8 pretty soon. I'm hoping they can't, because that would be depressing.
What's even more depressing, for grimah and kynveel especially, is that those who have already played the quests before featuring, their stars have already been discounted. I already rated A Call for Heroes, and when I play it again, my stars won't be counted (since it shows that I have already reviewed it).
Only contrary evidence I've seen is that on Preview (maybe just in Well of Dragons zone) there is an "Event" timer that was counting down 45 days (as of yesterday) - to Dec 5th. Most of the other forum posts I've seen cite that as the drop date for M5. I haven't seen a dev post on it though
/back on topic
Dec. 5th would be more in time with the release of Sharandar last year. It's possible that they would want to link the release dates on Nov. 4th, but realistically, I think that's pushing the limits even for what we've previously seen. The DM guide releases Dec. 9th so they could always link with that release instead.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
What's even more depressing, for grimah and kynveel especially, is that those who have already played the quests before featuring, their stars have already been discounted. I already rated A Call for Heroes, and when I play it again, my stars won't be counted (since it shows that I have already reviewed it).
I'm not so sure; when you review a quest a second time, it overwrites your original review and gives the new one a new date. Presumably the new review would still count, though I suppose we don't really have any way to know for sure.
Dear Week 9 authors: If your quests are currently in the For Review tab, you have just a few days to get them off.
Don't be Cult of the Dragon: Blue, trapped in Review and now the weekly contest announcement is buried. Only Black Ice and Plaguefire, and Assault on Pyremourn, are out of review. There are only six quests remaining, so we know what the six for the final week are going to be (unless they pull some in from earlier, but they have done that only once). And one of those quests is in French, giving it the double burden of being in the For Review tab, and not visible in the default, English-only, search.
My unofficial scorecard for the contest is right here, if you like spreadsheets as much as I do.
If you'd rather look at charts, you might enjoy this bubble chart ranking all the quests so far by category (combat/adventure/story), challenge, and rating (larger bubbles are rated more highly).
Finally finished playing through this week's quests (and it looks like Cult of the Dragon: Blue finally made it out of the review tab).
Here's my thoughts:
Arselu'Tel'Quess - 5/5
Amazing map construction, with a killer story drawing from plenty of lore.
A Call for Heroes - 5/5
I honestly wasn't really sold on the premise when it started, but by the end I was hooked. Amazing job telling a great (and hilarious) story! Wonderful mapwork, and amazing NPC intereactions.
Dragon Prey - 4/5
Great mapwork. Fun story. Ending felt a bit abrupt.
Arroway Manor - 2/5
I really liked being able to read all the books, but on reflection I'm really not that sure what this quest was about or what I even really accomplished. It feels like an unfinished framework rather than a complete quest.
Precious Things - 3/5
Interesting story, but the spelling and grammar made it very difficult to follow. Please find a proofreader. Also, I don't know why the caves were in black and white, but it didn't really look very good.
Cult of the Dragon: Blue - 2/5
Story and encounter choice felt very haphazard, as though they were just made up as it went along rather than planned out to any degree. I'm baffled as to why the thoroughly evil Cult of the Dragon would want to "patch up their reputation with Neverwinter"
Finally finished playing through this week's quests (and it looks like Cult of the Dragon: Blue finally made it out of the review tab).
Here's my thoughts:
Arselu'Tel'Quess - 5/5
Amazing map construction, with a killer story drawing from plenty of lore.
I logged back into NWO today for the first time since the 1st week of the contest featuring. I did not expect to have the winning entry, however I only see 162 plays.... so It's obvious to me that spending 14 hour days for an entire month on a foundry is truly a waste of time. I expected as much though. Also as I have posted before, I cannot even collect the prizes through ARC... so there is nothing lost... in fact if anyone else lives in a region where you can collect a prize from this Chinese company, I hope they collect on everyone else's behalf. I think I got 2 emails with some promo code about a contest pet Demogogue or something... however... there is no place for me to claim them. In fact I have to download the game files through steam because there is no link from ARC that works.
Shoddy.
I would like to thank Steam for giving us access to this game, considering that the hosting website has my region blocked from downloading their files, or being able to access simple things like 'in game rewards'. I say this, because regardless of my disdain for Perfect World and their ponzi schemes, I did have a small amount of fun making my contest entry. When people are obviously 'hate posting' my quest, it makes me realize that they simply cannot compete, and have to resort to such means. A sad state of affairs.
Thanks for reviewing the contests man, i've actually come back to the website to read your reviews each week or so. You are very generous, as my quest is far from perfect.... many others that I have played.... were just atrocious and it's obviously been a contest on how many accounts they can use (combined with friends and guildies) to bolster their contest reviews (however that dead horse has been kicked too many times to discuss at length again). Placement of contest entries pretty much dictated the results of this contest.
I would like to state this one thing. If they are going to award contests for certain features, they need to have a panel that will actually reward those features. Right now it's only about manipulating 'plays' on a 'featured quest', not about the contents of that quest. N'uff said. Even the guy that gave me my last review "DO NOT PLAY THIS QUEST" gave me 1 star which adds to my total. I gotta thank him for his ******baggery sometime. lol.
I have yet too see a foundry quest with the amount of custom designing that mine has. There is no question about that. However, it doesn't matter because I couldn't collect the reward anyhow as of now.
I made a prediction based on nothing more than looking at the combat/story focus stats that Dragon Prey would be the Week 8 winner, and lo, it turned out to be. The vast majority of players just want a quick combat quest to level up or farm drops. If they even play foundries at all. I couldn't even get my own guild to care enough about the contest to play my entry.
Your work really was appreciated. If the contest judging was done in a sensible way, your quest and Sharandar's Defense would win for astonishing map construction.
The green Mystagogue pet code was only valid for a limited time.
Your work really was appreciated. If the contest judging was done in a sensible way, your quest and Sharandar's Defense would win for astonishing map construction.
The green Mystagogue pet code was only valid for a limited time.
Thanks for vocalizing that, but I simply don't care. I quit playing due to boredom. Only reason I will come back in the future is foundry updates (my fingers are crossed but i'm definitely not holding my breath).
So after hundreds of hours of work on my quest, I don't even get the free green pet for participating. Wow. Just... wow.
I suppose that the reason they set this up in general is too share their speechlessness brought on by the pollution smothering China. They just want to share. *sniffles*
I guess you can't blame them when their retirement motivation is a cancer city.
So one maybe two weeks remaining? Still unopposed week one in the lead (unofficially), with obvious interest winding down each successive week. Masquerade winds out this week, but it's fairly passive, although much of the player base will likely grind for the scarecrow companion. What lessons were learned from this contest? Are many of you going to build upon the interest generated by your quests? How? Sequels? Story arcs?
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
I'm glad people out there have enjoyed my quest, and even though I took a risk with my narrative choice and quest design, I think it was worth it in the end to see it working for most people. It was a challenge to produce something that i have not seen yet so it has been a success for me, even if I did not win.
Grats to those who do win, there are some great quests in there and i think the contest has been successful in most areas. I just wish they could have cut out half of the quests they decided to feature. I speculated before, that public interest would decline after playing crappy foundry quests and it seems to be the case.
Now the featured tab is a mess to navigate, and foundry interest has declined due to the contest. Where can players find good quests now? and how will authors get players?
I'm glad people out there have enjoyed my quest, and even though I took a risk with my narrative choice and quest design, I think it was worth it in the end to see it working for most people. It was a challenge to produce something that i have not seen yet so it has been a success for me, even if I did not win.
Grats to those who do win, there are some great quests in there and i think the contest has been successful in most areas. I just wish they could have cut out half of the quests they decided to feature. I speculated before, that public interest would decline after playing crappy foundry quests and it seems to be the case.
Now the featured tab is a mess to navigate, and foundry interest has declined due to the contest. Where can players find good quests now? and how will authors get players?
I understand that the quick play foundries got more hits than mine because it's long, however if I was in the first week batch... I'm pretty sure I would have broke more than 200 plays with mine. Right now it's under 170 plays. I'd venture to say breaking breaking 1000 wouldn't have been out of the question week 1.
Considering I can't even claim a prize because ARC doesn't work in my region.... this isn't nor was it ever about me. I have to go back to what i said about 30+ pages ago on this thread. Give everyone a decent prize that put in the time, and give the community an apology. Then hire a decent DEV to focus on the Foundry for Neverwinter Online as a permanent position with a singular focus. There's potential here, worthy of the investment.
I understand that the quick play foundries got more hits than mine because it's long, however if I was in the first week batch... I'm pretty sure I would have broke more than 200 plays with mine.
It's emblematic of something that the winning strategy for the contest would not so much depend on how many hours you put into a quest, or how innovative it was, but that you posted it on the contest thread soon enough to get featured in the first week.
And in the end, I think the contest drove more people away from playing featured quests than it brought.
It's emblematic of something that the winning strategy for the contest would not so much depend on how many hours you put into a quest, or how innovative it was, but that you posted it on the contest thread soon enough to get featured in the first week.
And in the end, I think the contest drove more people away from playing featured quests than it brought.
By the end of the contest, I would have to agree with you from the numbers. Seems a rush of bad content has worsened the quality of the Foundry even further than the limitations imposed upon it by poor business management. I wish I could say that was very insightful of you, unfortunately however.... it was obvious a very long time ago. Like I said before, they should have just given out rewards to those that put forth effort and post an apology to the community. Now... this Chinese Ponzi scheme business model has only solidified their reputation of milking out the death throes of an IP acquisition.
A LOT of things happened throughout the course of the contest that affected the weekly outcome. Everything from the different events causing competition for plays, to the growing disdain for the amount of dailies and sheer repetitiveness involved in the newest module causing players to burn themselves out and rage post on different threads in the forums. I think the Foundry got a pretty fair amount of attention from the player base in general, the player base just simply doesn't have time for longer Foundry quests (this was discussed a week ago.) It is in no way a reflection of the quality or effort to create any of the quests, they all run the board in terms of type, quality, and build time (as Tipa has discussed, weekly, thank you Tipa.) There is much room for improvement within the Foundry editor itself, perhaps seeing what players could come up with was an experiment to see how much effort needs to go into improving the features the editor provides. I wouldn't be so quick to call the contest, or anyone's quest a failure.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Looks like only three quests are featured this week. Guess that means it's definitely the last week. One of them is mine, though, so I'm pretty excited to see how it does.
I am pretty pumped about this right now, like...super excited. Mine's up too, and though I haven't been particularly active in Neverwinter this past month, I'll totally drop in to play your quest DTZ, as well as Zwatha's. We are rivals after all.
That being said, I would like an honest review, as I will give the same you. Good luck!
Two adventure quests and a story quest! No combat quests this week makes a tough prediction, but my quick assessment is, Assault on Pyremourn wins the week, with DTZ's quest second and howlite's third -- this is purely based on how long each quest takes.
However, I plan on enjoying three amazing quests tonight, so thank you, week 9 authors ;-) Looks like a fantastic lineup.
Two adventure quests and a story quest! No combat quests this week makes a tough prediction, but my quick assessment is, Assault on Pyremourn wins the week, with DTZ's quest second and howlite's third -- this is purely based on how long each quest takes.
However, I plan on enjoying three amazing quests tonight, so thank you, week 9 authors ;-) Looks like a fantastic lineup.
Don't forget all the troll accounts that 1 star their competition. I flat out had someone leave a 1 star with the quote "Do not play this". If they really wanted to have a competition that meant something, they should have made a judges panel that did an actual critique for each category. Going by plays just reinforces apathy towards the foundry in general. So someone could literally use their bot accounts to win the competition the way it is now.
"I attack the darkness!"
Foundry Author of Arselu'Tel'Quess (NW-DDQ6P4IKQ)
0
sarlacc1979Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 47
edited October 2014
@sn0st0rmz, I've met some bitter and discontented gamers in my years but you have to be near the top. I don't think I've seen you post a single positive, constructive, or even non-hostile post during this entire contest. I think we all agree that Cryptic/PWE is clearly out to milk as much money as possible from the fan base and they're definitely lazy about fixing bugs, does that make them evil? Debatable. Are they running a Ponzi scheme? Not even close, I don't see the Beta players making money off the backs of newbies unless you count how the economy of any game almost always gives an advantage to players who were early adopters. I'm sure there are some malcontents in the contest who have given 1 star reviews to other quests but not every one who gives you a 1 star is out to get you, some people have very different play styles and simply didn't like your quest. Hell, some people still complain about loot gained during a Foundry quest when we all know authors have no control over this. They clearly dropped the ball with this Foundry contest and I'm hoping they can figure out a better system for the next one but simply trolling the forums because you feel slighted is just sad.
I make Foundry quests because I think its fun, not because I expect some sort of reward from the community for building the next great module. We all know the Foundry has serious issues and I'm hoping they fix the more glaring of them, but until that happens do what the rest of us do and work with what we have. I've seen people do amazing things within the limitations placed upon them by the existing Foundry editor. I like quests with a mix of hack-n-slash and interesting stories that take less than 30 min to play because life gets in the way and I can't spend hours in the game the way I'd like to, which is why I build my quests the way I do. That's what I like to play so that's what I build and I expect most other Foundry authors do the same thing. No one is right or wrong with how they go about building their Foundry. Some people will agree with you and enjoy your quest, others won't. It's not worth getting pissed off about. I haven't been able to play every single quest in the contest like tipadaknife has (your reviews and spreadsheet have been simply awesome for this entire contest) but I appreciate the effort everyone has put into their respective quests. The amount of effort given varies wildly between all these quests but that's to be expected when many built their first Foundry for this contest. Those of us with more experience should be offering to help those newer authors instead of simply damning all of them for building simplistic hackfest loot farms. The Foundry will always be less popular and less polished than regular pve content and we can only hope and ask Cryptic to put more effort into future Foundry patches. I think the contest did a lot to raise awareness of the Foundry in general with people who might not have played it otherwise. The problem is with how the contest rollout was promoted and executed, hopefully they've learned from this and will better for the next contest which I hope will come up sooner rather than later.
That's my rambling say about things so now you can get back to your usual posts and I expect this post will get bashed like others have.
I've enjoyed playing other quests during this contests and I've also enjoyed reading through these posts as this contest has progressed, Thank you to everyone who made a quest and kept the conversation going in the forum.
Please try my Foundry campaign, "Olivia's Trials".
@sn0st0rmz, I've met some bitter and discontented gamers in my years but you have to be near the top. I don't think I've seen you post a single positive, constructive, or even non-hostile post during this entire contest.
After direct name calling, you go on to several paragraphs of negativity.
I don't think I even have to comment after that... other than pointing the "who's trolling now" finger.
Nuff said.
"I attack the darkness!"
Foundry Author of Arselu'Tel'Quess (NW-DDQ6P4IKQ)
0
sarlacc1979Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 47
After direct name calling, you go on to several paragraphs of negativity.
I don't think I even have to comment after that... other than pointing the "who's trolling now" finger.
Nuff said.
I didn't resort to name calling, I simply said you're a bitter and discontented gamer. I believe your posts back up that assertion. The rest of my post was at worst neutral since it had both negative observations and positive suggestions.
If I wanted to troll I would have kept my post simple, misleading and vague. As yours did, to which I tip my hat to you sir. You play your roll well and fully lived up to my expectations. I'm sure you'll continue with other disparaging remarks aimed at either myself or another convenient target as its presented. If you expect any more responses I do hope you can rise above "Am not, you are!".
Please try my Foundry campaign, "Olivia's Trials".
Comments
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
I think there might be correlation, or at least and interesting thing to note. When my quest was featured, it was listed sixth on the first day. I know. I checked. The order that week I even posted in this thread. Then somehow it moved up to first and stayed there. I checked with some other people, so it wasn't just me. Quest after me had just a couple hundred, then one after that like 1000+. Made no sense.
I didn't know placement in the list could change, based on number of plays, stars, or any other factor.
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!
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Only contrary evidence I've seen is that on Preview (maybe just in Well of Dragons zone) there is an "Event" timer that was counting down 45 days (as of yesterday) - to Dec 5th. Most of the other forum posts I've seen cite that as the drop date for M5. I haven't seen a dev post on it though.
The Foundry is also not accessible on Preview.
/back on topic
The list order is set.
and after the weekly maintenance it is flipped round. so every tuesday if you see your quest go up, hope it is on the 6th spot (so it will be 1st in the rest of the week). If you have been analysing the plays, you will note a huge increase of plays for the first and second listed quests, after which it drops off drastically.
Also from speaking to people I know who complained a few times during the contest on how bad some are, I ask them why bother doing them? the responses they gave usually either "I don't check rating" or "Wanted something quick", which can explain why bad ones also get as many plays as good ones. People just see the top of the list and accept it without checking.
EDIT: just logged in to see mine is up this week! But its listed 2nd, so if I am correct will be 5th after this weeks maintenance /sadface
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
8 1 Arselu'Tel'Quess NW-DFAZGGI7Y sn0wst0rmz
8 2 A Call for Heroes NW-DS8X97JUU grimah
8 3 Dragon Prey NW-DCGPN3CBB kynveel
8 4 Arroway Manor NW-DDP2MYWA9 josephskyrim
8 5 Precious Things NW-DRCUVGUWM Orsogufo
8 6 Cult of the Dragon: Blue NW-DT7JOSACJ blacksadd1
Grimah has a heck of a lead in these unofficial standings, because of the huge response to his quest before featuring, but the devs won't be counting the ratings the quest had prior to featuring. In my own inaccurate way, I'm leaving them in and hope that the prior plays get drowned by the flood of new plays
Good luck to all in Week 8! This may be the last week of the contest -- perhaps one more week.
Right now, Dragon Prey seems to have the right stuff to go all the way -- based purely on stats. Strong story quests, like A Call for Heroes, have done reasonably well, but more often closer to the start of the contest. Arselu'Tel'Quess shares stats with several extremely well done, but poorly performing, quests. It's too early to tell where the three on the review tab will eventually shake out.
We'll see if stats can tell the story this early in Week 8 pretty soon. I'm hoping they can't, because that would be depressing.
What's even more depressing, for grimah and kynveel especially, is that those who have already played the quests before featuring, their stars have already been discounted. I already rated A Call for Heroes, and when I play it again, my stars won't be counted (since it shows that I have already reviewed it).
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
Don't be Cult of the Dragon: Blue, trapped in Review and now the weekly contest announcement is buried. Only Black Ice and Plaguefire, and Assault on Pyremourn, are out of review. There are only six quests remaining, so we know what the six for the final week are going to be (unless they pull some in from earlier, but they have done that only once). And one of those quests is in French, giving it the double burden of being in the For Review tab, and not visible in the default, English-only, search.
I'll still play it if it gets featured, though.
My unofficial scorecard for the contest is right here, if you like spreadsheets as much as I do.
If you'd rather look at charts, you might enjoy this bubble chart ranking all the quests so far by category (combat/adventure/story), challenge, and rating (larger bubbles are rated more highly).
Here's my thoughts:
Arselu'Tel'Quess - 5/5
Amazing map construction, with a killer story drawing from plenty of lore.
A Call for Heroes - 5/5
I honestly wasn't really sold on the premise when it started, but by the end I was hooked. Amazing job telling a great (and hilarious) story! Wonderful mapwork, and amazing NPC intereactions.
Dragon Prey - 4/5
Great mapwork. Fun story. Ending felt a bit abrupt.
Arroway Manor - 2/5
I really liked being able to read all the books, but on reflection I'm really not that sure what this quest was about or what I even really accomplished. It feels like an unfinished framework rather than a complete quest.
Precious Things - 3/5
Interesting story, but the spelling and grammar made it very difficult to follow. Please find a proofreader. Also, I don't know why the caves were in black and white, but it didn't really look very good.
Cult of the Dragon: Blue - 2/5
Story and encounter choice felt very haphazard, as though they were just made up as it went along rather than planned out to any degree. I'm baffled as to why the thoroughly evil Cult of the Dragon would want to "patch up their reputation with Neverwinter"
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
I logged back into NWO today for the first time since the 1st week of the contest featuring. I did not expect to have the winning entry, however I only see 162 plays.... so It's obvious to me that spending 14 hour days for an entire month on a foundry is truly a waste of time. I expected as much though. Also as I have posted before, I cannot even collect the prizes through ARC... so there is nothing lost... in fact if anyone else lives in a region where you can collect a prize from this Chinese company, I hope they collect on everyone else's behalf. I think I got 2 emails with some promo code about a contest pet Demogogue or something... however... there is no place for me to claim them. In fact I have to download the game files through steam because there is no link from ARC that works.
Shoddy.
I would like to thank Steam for giving us access to this game, considering that the hosting website has my region blocked from downloading their files, or being able to access simple things like 'in game rewards'. I say this, because regardless of my disdain for Perfect World and their ponzi schemes, I did have a small amount of fun making my contest entry. When people are obviously 'hate posting' my quest, it makes me realize that they simply cannot compete, and have to resort to such means. A sad state of affairs.
Thanks for reviewing the contests man, i've actually come back to the website to read your reviews each week or so. You are very generous, as my quest is far from perfect.... many others that I have played.... were just atrocious and it's obviously been a contest on how many accounts they can use (combined with friends and guildies) to bolster their contest reviews (however that dead horse has been kicked too many times to discuss at length again). Placement of contest entries pretty much dictated the results of this contest.
I would like to state this one thing. If they are going to award contests for certain features, they need to have a panel that will actually reward those features. Right now it's only about manipulating 'plays' on a 'featured quest', not about the contents of that quest. N'uff said. Even the guy that gave me my last review "DO NOT PLAY THIS QUEST" gave me 1 star which adds to my total. I gotta thank him for his ******baggery sometime. lol.
I have yet too see a foundry quest with the amount of custom designing that mine has. There is no question about that. However, it doesn't matter because I couldn't collect the reward anyhow as of now.
Your work really was appreciated. If the contest judging was done in a sensible way, your quest and Sharandar's Defense would win for astonishing map construction.
The green Mystagogue pet code was only valid for a limited time.
Thanks for vocalizing that, but I simply don't care. I quit playing due to boredom. Only reason I will come back in the future is foundry updates (my fingers are crossed but i'm definitely not holding my breath).
So after hundreds of hours of work on my quest, I don't even get the free green pet for participating. Wow. Just... wow.
I suppose that the reason they set this up in general is too share their speechlessness brought on by the pollution smothering China. They just want to share. *sniffles*
I guess you can't blame them when their retirement motivation is a cancer city.
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Grats to those who do win, there are some great quests in there and i think the contest has been successful in most areas. I just wish they could have cut out half of the quests they decided to feature. I speculated before, that public interest would decline after playing crappy foundry quests and it seems to be the case.
Now the featured tab is a mess to navigate, and foundry interest has declined due to the contest. Where can players find good quests now? and how will authors get players?
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
I understand that the quick play foundries got more hits than mine because it's long, however if I was in the first week batch... I'm pretty sure I would have broke more than 200 plays with mine. Right now it's under 170 plays. I'd venture to say breaking breaking 1000 wouldn't have been out of the question week 1.
Considering I can't even claim a prize because ARC doesn't work in my region.... this isn't nor was it ever about me. I have to go back to what i said about 30+ pages ago on this thread. Give everyone a decent prize that put in the time, and give the community an apology. Then hire a decent DEV to focus on the Foundry for Neverwinter Online as a permanent position with a singular focus. There's potential here, worthy of the investment.
It's emblematic of something that the winning strategy for the contest would not so much depend on how many hours you put into a quest, or how innovative it was, but that you posted it on the contest thread soon enough to get featured in the first week.
And in the end, I think the contest drove more people away from playing featured quests than it brought.
By the end of the contest, I would have to agree with you from the numbers. Seems a rush of bad content has worsened the quality of the Foundry even further than the limitations imposed upon it by poor business management. I wish I could say that was very insightful of you, unfortunately however.... it was obvious a very long time ago. Like I said before, they should have just given out rewards to those that put forth effort and post an apology to the community. Now... this Chinese Ponzi scheme business model has only solidified their reputation of milking out the death throes of an IP acquisition.
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
That being said, I would like an honest review, as I will give the same you. Good luck!
Check out my Foundry questline, The Brightstone Explorers' Guild, now archived on Youtube!
However, I plan on enjoying three amazing quests tonight, so thank you, week 9 authors ;-) Looks like a fantastic lineup.
Don't forget all the troll accounts that 1 star their competition. I flat out had someone leave a 1 star with the quote "Do not play this". If they really wanted to have a competition that meant something, they should have made a judges panel that did an actual critique for each category. Going by plays just reinforces apathy towards the foundry in general. So someone could literally use their bot accounts to win the competition the way it is now.
I make Foundry quests because I think its fun, not because I expect some sort of reward from the community for building the next great module. We all know the Foundry has serious issues and I'm hoping they fix the more glaring of them, but until that happens do what the rest of us do and work with what we have. I've seen people do amazing things within the limitations placed upon them by the existing Foundry editor. I like quests with a mix of hack-n-slash and interesting stories that take less than 30 min to play because life gets in the way and I can't spend hours in the game the way I'd like to, which is why I build my quests the way I do. That's what I like to play so that's what I build and I expect most other Foundry authors do the same thing. No one is right or wrong with how they go about building their Foundry. Some people will agree with you and enjoy your quest, others won't. It's not worth getting pissed off about. I haven't been able to play every single quest in the contest like tipadaknife has (your reviews and spreadsheet have been simply awesome for this entire contest) but I appreciate the effort everyone has put into their respective quests. The amount of effort given varies wildly between all these quests but that's to be expected when many built their first Foundry for this contest. Those of us with more experience should be offering to help those newer authors instead of simply damning all of them for building simplistic hackfest loot farms. The Foundry will always be less popular and less polished than regular pve content and we can only hope and ask Cryptic to put more effort into future Foundry patches. I think the contest did a lot to raise awareness of the Foundry in general with people who might not have played it otherwise. The problem is with how the contest rollout was promoted and executed, hopefully they've learned from this and will better for the next contest which I hope will come up sooner rather than later.
That's my rambling say about things so now you can get back to your usual posts and I expect this post will get bashed like others have.
I've enjoyed playing other quests during this contests and I've also enjoyed reading through these posts as this contest has progressed, Thank you to everyone who made a quest and kept the conversation going in the forum.
After direct name calling, you go on to several paragraphs of negativity.
I don't think I even have to comment after that... other than pointing the "who's trolling now" finger.
Nuff said.
I didn't resort to name calling, I simply said you're a bitter and discontented gamer. I believe your posts back up that assertion. The rest of my post was at worst neutral since it had both negative observations and positive suggestions.
If I wanted to troll I would have kept my post simple, misleading and vague. As yours did, to which I tip my hat to you sir. You play your roll well and fully lived up to my expectations. I'm sure you'll continue with other disparaging remarks aimed at either myself or another convenient target as its presented. If you expect any more responses I do hope you can rise above "Am not, you are!".