Weekly Foundry Reviews -- December 24, 2014

tipadaknife

We never quite know what to expect when we choose the quests to review each week. That's kind of the fun of it -- like getting a present and having no idea what's inside the box. Shake it a little, heft it a bit, get an idea of its shape, but when it's opened -- surprise!

Read all about them by clicking on this here link!

This week we reviewed:

Temple of the Elements by @marrowyn
Jade Tower by @neoexdeath99
The Menagerie of the Mad Mage by @GetSway
Rise of Corruption: Revelation by @idiotamongus

idiotamongus

I am really surprised my campaign was played. Very well analysed and a fair review for a first foundry. All appreciated.

tipadaknife

Tons better than my first foundry!

eldarth

Have you two ever considered doing video reviews?
There's been a vacuum since Full Mental Gamers went away.

tipadaknife

eldarth wrote: »

Have you two ever considered doing video reviews?
There's been a vacuum since Full Mental Gamers went away.

I doubt Kasul would go for it :P

Plus, we spend the entire night trying to crack each other up. I guarantee this would be distressing for the quest authors. See, we go by the theory that every single foundry quest is "canon" -- which is why all the quest givers have distinct personalities as far as we're concerned. Noble Butthead, Guard FRINKO (CURSE YOU!), the Sewer Cleric, Pie Lady and so on. So we're fitting everyone's quests into quests we've done before.

eldarth

tipadaknife wrote: »

Plus, we spend the entire night trying to crack each other up. I guarantee this would be distressing for the quest authors.

Clearly you haven't watched the Full Mental Gamers reviews. That's pretty much identical.

idiotamongus

With visual reviews, it's basically an entire walkthrough of the quest. If someone see's an entire walkthrough of a game, they won't bother playing it as they have already seen what it looks like. Positive or negative feedback, people won't bother playing it if they've already seen the full gameplay. If you want to successfully do a video review, you would have to do snippets of the video so it doesn't give away too many spoilers and much of the gameplay. As a reviewer, you are reviewing on bahalf of the general foundry player populace, thus you want to let them decide if it's worth playing or not through your own opinions and experience of it. If you do a full video of the quest and give it a low score rating, people won't bother with the quest but if you give it a low score but don't show everything then some people could be interested in it. This is the same with high ratings but people usually see a reviewers judgement as the actual analysis over their own opinion.

tipadaknife

A walkthrough is one thing; a review would just show highlights. That being said, very few quests are at all visually distinctive. Battles are hard to follow, without any staging. Interaction with NPCs is done entirely via text, which is difficult to show in a review, since you don't really want people to have to read it. Combat or farm maps have almost nothing to talk about or show.

I watched one of the Full Mental Alchemist videos of Eldarth's quests, the one for the Tower of Gruumsh quest. I was bored after just a few minutes (and I really liked the quest when I played it). But, that was a walkthrough.

The official quests Cryptic makes have the ability to do so many things we cannot do -- cinematics, voice-overs, custom art assets -- that anything we do would look crappy in comparison.

eldarth

Actually, I wish Cryptic would resurrect the little mini "trailers" for featured quests -- those were perfect.
Nice voiceover and a few highlights - perfect teasers.

idiotamongus

I'm surprised no one has ever thought of doing their own Foundry trailers. Forum pictures are nice but if we did our own actual trailers, I'm sure there would be far more interest in the Foundry. Wouldn't you like to see something like this for advertisement?

Some random Foundry trailer I found on the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFWLNj04vIk

eldarth

I've seen one or two, but it's not the easiest of processes.

You have to turn recording on while you play, then you have to replay the saved demo recording while running an external recording application, then you have to use some video editing tool to cut out the pieces you don't want, etc. A bit techie for most foundry authors. Whereas Cryptic already has the stuff setup and the knowledge and does similiar things all the time.

Neverwinter Demo Record

s1151700

I decided to try Jade Tower (alone I may add), too see what was so hard about it. The 1st room wasn't hard at all and I murdered everyone with ease. The 2nd and 3rd, I died and just walked to the next map. The 4th map (which I assumed you and Kasul quit on) was PAINFUL, though 20 injury kits later, I made it to the end of the map (and the level) by picking off a group at a time.

Anyway, for my good deed for the day, I entered your review for it you gave in your weekly review page.

tipadaknife

You, sir (or ma'am), are my hero!