[UGC] A Friendly Reminder - First Foundry Quest

jkpark · May 2013

Hi guys and gals.

I'm introducing my first foundry quest:

A Friendly Reminder
(NW-DAQN7H5GO)
Solo-play
Estimated duration: Around 15 minutes

Description

There's been a murder. The city guard are spread thin, and Lord Veretir isn't happy. He's sent out a plea for help: Find and bring the killer to justice. Whoever does so will be rewarded well.

Update 10/05/13: Made several changes as per suggestions made through reviews.

It's a short, story-driven, murder mystery style quest. I've made it deliberately simple, as I was learning the ropes of the Foundry and didn't want to over-extend myself.

I'd appreciate any feedback or reviews, so I can focus on what I need to improve on for my next quest, or rather campaign, as I've decided.

Thanks, and happy hunting!

TavernUGC were kind enough to review this quest. You can have a look at the consensus here.

dzogen · May 2013

Hey guys,
You should check out this quest if you haven't already - it's really great. He's also a professional author and it shows in the dialogue.

jkpark · May 2013

*cough cough* That would be she, not he, dzogen.

dzogen · May 2013

Oh lol. Sorry about the Megan Fox bit then, before.

~

jkpark · May 2013

Haha. No need to apologise. I can appreciate a beautiful woman, too. :P

lanessar13 · May 2013

Review - Wizard's Challenge

Summary

A well done adventure that requires little to no polish. While I wish it were longer, it was technically very well executed. Ambushes were really well done, and didn't appear out of nowhere to mob your character unnecessarily, with mobs running around corners as if summoned by the noise. Good use of maps and transitions to give you the feeling of going to different places in Neverwinter without actually having to do excessive walking. Dialog gets an A+, for good use of flavor text, good grammar and the flow of the quest was easy to digest. I recommend.

Technical points

Drapes are hanging in mid air at Captain Wekles
Interrogator Shifnar is standing in a doorway where you have to talk to a young lady (didn't take the name down, sorry) when you're in the guard outpost. Moving him closer to the door and out of the way would improve the quest flow.
Go to the scene of the crime - small point, but perhaps "reach location" style objective would work better here, and you could include the quest update "Look for clues" as DM flavor text.
Campfire in the last house is spawned in the doorway, so I missed the basement being there. Possibly move it to the fireplace? Although quest progress won't be "saved" until you reach there (after a fight). Hmm.

Artistic points

Really not much to say here. The story was well done, dialog well-executed for a short quest. Hard to critique, but if I were to critique, this would be the point:

There are several NPCs which could be interactable, even if the quest doesn't require them (servant in the basement, a dead body upstairs, some NPCs at the scene of the crime). Again, minor point, and I would not have noticed had I gone to the basement first.

In a perfect world

This quest would be much longer. I'd love to see this story get branching story arcs, multiple ways to achieve the objective, and even multiple outcomes to the quest. That's sort of "advanced objectives", but another pass or part 2 of this quest would really benefit from it, as a "whodunnit". I think Gillrmn put up a very good post someplace that details how to do this within Foundry.

jkpark · May 2013

Great feedback, lanessar, thanks.

I hadn't figured out how to work the whole branching dialogue/story thing very well at the time of making this quest, hence the sad amount of simplicity. The same goes with a lot of your other points. I just hadn't figured out how to do them any better then. Thankfully, I've learned since then, and also thanks for the pointer to the info as well. I'm umming and ahhing about changing the quest, or just focusing on the next one. I will do a follow up to this, as I left many questions at the end, intentionally though, so I was open to do a sequel, so to speak.

As for that durned hanging curtain by Captain Welkes... Unfortunately, it's part of the map itself, and not a detail. Although, I've no idea why. I couldn't do anything with it.

lanessar13 · May 2013

Totally, and it was reviewed with that in mind. A superb first offering, honestly, save for the length (again, not a bad point, just wanted to play this story line longer). Can't wait to see more on this!

I'm not sure if I have a copy of the non-linear post that Gillrmn did in the Foundry beta, but it would be useful for you. I'll dig around and see if that was something I saved. I'm not sure how active Gill is now, or if he's just working on tutorials, but this should be added to the list (How to write a non-linear quest).

I figured that the curtain might be a Foundry bug. But just in case, I mentioned it.

jkpark · May 2013

I did try to look for that thread you mentioned, but couldn't seem to find it. If you could point the way, that would be fantastic.

And yus, when I played through the quest after I published it, I thought to myself, 'I really should have made this just a little bit longer'. The next one most definitely will be though, so that should please anyone who likes the story. c:

jkpark · May 2013

One of TavernUGC's reviewers was kind enough to play and review my quest. I've added the link to the main text of the original post in this thread.

jkpark · May 2013

Added some screenshots to the OP. I've also made quite a few tweaks, updates and changes to the quest in the past day. Unfortunately the foundry is proving difficult with its publishing problems, but hopefully they'll be live soon.

[UGC] A Friendly Reminder - First Foundry Quest

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