T1: The Ruined Moathouse

imaginaerum1

I recently published an as-faithful-as-possible conversion of the ruined moathouse from the classic AD&D module T1: Village of Hommlet. It's called "T1: The Ruined Moathouse", and is currently in the "for review" tab.
Everything except music is done, but it needs some feedback. Not just a star rating, but what worked for you, what didn't, what could improve it, etc.
Please give it a try and let me know what you think.
Thanks.

@Gruffydd

bardaaron

This quest demonstrates a fantastic exercise in custom map-making. It could be filled out with a few more details, but every room in this castle was custom-made. Definitely shows off what can be done in the foundry, with some patience and creativity.

I left you my thoughts in a PM on Scribes' Enclave, so I won't go into it here. I just wanted to tell people how impressive it was that you built that up piece-by-piece.

arkanarge

:C Sadly I got lost and didn't know where else to go. I saved the gnome, destroyed the weapons and killed everything I can find. I was looking in the basement and went into all the rooms and interacted with the objects and read the journal but I couldn't find any new area for me to reach. My puzzle solving skills are bad if there was one.

arkanarge

whoops i accidentally double post

silence1x

Sounds interesting. I may check it out. If I were the designer though, I'd bump this post in about two weeks since everyone has Mod4 blinders on and may miss this post.

docsc00ter

Wow! It's a great recreation of T1! The custom maps are truly impressive; I can't imagine how long they took you to develop. And I really enjoyed the "old school" exploration of the place, which gave it a creepy, suspenseful feel. (That sparkling trail is overrrated...)

My only recommendations are related to the story and aesthetics of the adventure. Reading the notes and journals found in the quest provides enough of the story, but I wonder if some kind of dialogue with the boss at the end would give a more personal feel to the final fight. Also, as beautiful as the maps are, I wonder if some custom lighting throughout would add to the atmosphere. Then again, since I *think* everything is constructed in an outdoor map, you're somewhat limited there. Finally, there are a lot of long featureless hallways in the adventure, which is appropriate. But I found myself wishing for a bit more decoration here and there. Most of the rooms have plenty of debris or furniture, but perhaps some stuff in those longer hallways? Just a thought.

Truly a great Foundry adventure! KUDOS! (Now if you want to tackle the Temple of Elemental Evil as a follow-up... Heh...)

reiwulf

This sounds as an interesting quest to try, I'll definitely play it when I get home.

bardaaron

arkanarge wrote: »

:C Sadly I got lost and didn't know where else to go. I saved the gnome, destroyed the weapons and killed everything I can find. I was looking in the basement and went into all the rooms and interacted with the objects and read the journal but I couldn't find any new area for me to reach. My puzzle solving skills are bad if there was one.

That sounds like about where I got stuck the first time, so I am guessing you got hung up on what I did; there are secret doors. They blend in so well you don't really notice them, unless you're looking directly at them at close range. Probably the best secret doors I've encountered thus far.

reiwulf

I tried it for the first time last night, sadly the spawn point made me appear outside the boundaries of the invisible walls at the start so I couldn't enter the moathouse and I saw all the little weird things outside the invisible walls XD
I did try it again later and I got inside, so I guess it was just a bug, but I didn't had eniough time to finish it. I'll try it again today, so far I'm loving it, congratulations!

bardaaron

Yeah, it seems to me like it takes longer than you expect, especially if you haven't run it before. The first 2 or 3 times I tried to run it, I couldn't complete simply because my time to play was limited, and exploring used that up. After that, though, I knew pretty much where the things I needed to reach were, so things went more quickly.

atiaxi

I took notes as I was playing:

The courtyard area with open sky really brought back some old-school D&D game memories (even if there is a roof later)... opening a door to find myself face-to-face with a giant spider also felt appropriately old-school

I like the Nasher tie-in - they just kind of vanish after the early game, nice to have some continuing adventures with them.

At (440, 256), on the first floor, there's what looks to be a wall decoration (a deer head trophy) on the floor. This may be intentional, but it looks out of place.

I like the 'why no gnomes in neverwinter?' conversation

Wow, nicely done on the secret door - though it's definitely a good thing that you warned people ahead of time, else I'd have never found it.

Due to the layout of the final fight, I ended up killing the master and his lieutenants before a few of the soldiers (who were in an adjacent room, yelling 'protect the master' but not actually doing so).

In conclusion, this was an extremely solid implementation. As an on-again-off-again foundry author myself, I'd love to know how you did some of those tricks (like pretty much... all of the castle layout . Great module!