[UGC] - Tomb of Wernar - Feedback Thread

keylord02 · May 2013

Tomb of Wernar
Short code: NW-DJGYNI7NH

In this adventure, the hero(es) explore an old ruined castle while searching for a fabled magic item.

Story: Medium to me, Heavy compared to the default stuff.
Combat: Light
Play time: High Variable, but probably 10-20 minutes.

This is my first attempt at using the Foundry. I'm excited to get some feedback on it, because I want to know what people like and dislike about it! It has a couple of small one-room areas that build the plot up, then when you get to the dungeon, it becomes really open-ended, so I have no idea how long it'll take people to complete.

Any bugs, annoyances, or weird environmental stuff, please let me know so I can fix 'em!

wolf213 · May 2013

This was an excellent little quest. I really enjoyed the exploration aspect to it, and it reminded me of playing those old "Fighting Fantasy" game books, which are some of my fondest memories. I loved having the choice, and always appreciate it when the authors give me the chance to be the character I want to be, so well done on that part!

The dungeon was actually well designed. It felt a little empty, but detailed enough to feel like it should. The intersecting mines was a nice touch, but generally the whole dungeon felt like a nice, well-known fantasy environment with kobolds and ghost sorcerers.

It was also nice being able to instigate combat if we wanted to, or avoid it. To add on combat, I think there might have been a tad too little, which is perhaps a bit too little for people less appreciative of this style of quest.

The story, I am afraid to say, was nothing too great. I didn't expect or want it to be because it feels like you are finding your grounding and experimenting here, not making a masterpiece. However, it was enough to make the quest engaging, and the all the characters/dialogue was incredibly well written. (Written well enough to make me smile at the induced memories of books and dice!)

I'll list the things I took note of while playing the quest now. Keep in mind I am not too familiar with the foundry so I don't know what is cryptic bug, or author oversight.

"Unlocked" spelt wrongly as "Unlcoked" in the "What do you know about the orb" response to the young magician.

You have to say "Thank you for the information" to complete the objective. Might want to put in a more descriptive end to the objective, perhaps even on the main list of information? I had to retalk to him just to select that option because I thought just leaving the conversation would work.

"Gnoll Scavenger Boss" The word boss kind of ruins the immersion. Same problem with "Kobold Boss"

After selecting "Fight" on the Gnolls it seems to exit the dialogue automatically. Didn't get to read what it said. =(

Bonegnasher and Skullcrusher confusion in dialogue? Is this a typo (Speaking to Pethar).

Human slaves vanish for the encounter. If it is not a technical difficulty, then maybe they should stay?

"Cast a knock spell/pick-lock/bash door" doesn't work on the door in the mines.

Dialogue with Pethar with the key says his name is "Taran". From a previous version I assume?

The orbs of magic (using the key to blow on them) appear before you speak to Pethar

Hiding spider in fountain room made me jump! It was so still and I didn't realize it was an enemy before it started attacking me. Loved this! The room was also rather nice. The fountain was a nice touch.

"Journey to the tomb of Damara complete!" Wrong tomb name? Another early draft? =P

Returning home from the apartment has the objective "Go to next map."

To finish, an excellent start into the foundry. I rated the quest four stars, especially for it's ingenuity. I look forward to seeing what you create next.

keylord02 · May 2013

Thanks for such a thorough review! I'll be sure to fix all this stuff as soon as I get the chance

The human slaves disappear during the battle because they hide under the table. I had trouble finding a way to state this to the player and eventually decided not to.

Some of the names are from my earlier version where I was just straight-up adapting an old module. After the name changes and some required adaptations because of the Foundry's limitations, it's about 50-50 my stuff and the original module's stuff.

As for the door in the mines. Were you playing a Cleric? As it's currently set up, a fighter can bash it down, a thief can pick the lock, and a wizard can cast Knock but a Cleric can't open it at all. This is totally intentional, and I intend to add in a religion requirement somewhere at some point. Maybe the Altar in the chapel gives a Cleric some hints?

Anyway, thank you again for all the details!

slaidz · May 2013

I'll play through yours.

keylord02 · May 2013

Some fixes in the newest version include:

Kobold Boss and Gnoll Boss changed to Kobold Leader and Gnoll Packleader.
Dialog choices with those two groups are now improved substantially beyond the original "Talk, Fight, Surrender, Retreat"
Various typos have been fixed including the old names updated to match the new ones!

Also worth noting! This is pretty indicative of my intentions with the Foundry. I've played many great Foundry quests already with tons of well written dialog and/or action packed large group combats, but my own stuff will honestly tend towards Old School Dungeon Crawls. Simple plots with a lot of open-ended freedom. Combat will vary based on what makes sense, but I try to put even amounts of avoidable and unavoidable combats.

Hope to see more people reviewing it soon!

EDIT: I'll play through your's too, slaidz, just gotta wait till after I run my D&D game. Tonight, I'm starting S2: White Plume Mountain for my gang.

tabris82 · May 2013

Ok, just finished your quest. Actually had to do it twice because my bf zoned before i could finish to rate it /rage (but i managed to try some other options, like surrendering xD)

Anyway, the story is very nice and original but i found some issues:

The boy magician and most dialogs had no animation, so they are just static the whole time.

After speaking with the boy magician, the quest say go to the tomb of Damara instead of Wernar.

Near the Orc taskmistress, before the attack, you have drudge 1 (twice) and drudge 2 (twice too).

The door with before the boar doesnt dissapear nor it is physical, you dont have to actually interact with it, just pass.

If you surrender you get stuck on the wall, since you can reclick the object, i managed to fall into the room the third time. it was a nice touch, but maybe you could add an emergency exit there, like an orb instead of us just clicking the minimap to leave.

While playing at 2, the person without the flute will not see the orbs, its not a big problem though.

When i gave food to the boar, he just ate and nothing changed, quite dissapointing.

Btw i killed Trebbelos in the end, nice touch.

----/

I killed all the other mobs so i dont know if using their object would change anything.

I did not dive into the well.

----/

I saw that you reviewed mine. Thanks alot!

I notice you said on your post above this one that the gnoll and kobold have different names and that you corrected some other names, so i guess i reviewed an old version since the gnoll and kobold were still named boss.

keylord02 · May 2013

I bet I did those changes while you were in the quest, but I completely missed the Drudge 1 and 2 thing, so there's more to do!

The glowing orbs being visible to the key-flute holder is working-as-intended.

I worried about that door, I'll have to fiddle with it even more. It's actually 4 doors stacked on each other. One for each class, basically! Fighter can bash, Thief can pick, Wizard can cast Knock, Cleric can look sad at the door because it won't open.

One big Foundry limitation I found is that players can leave dialogs without anything happening. I wish there was a "default option" you could choose, so I could make enemies attack if you choose Cancel or click the X. If so, then feeding the boar would basically be the only way you could get out of the conversation without a battle happening, as intended!

I'm still trying to think of some bonus for doing that. Maybe the boar has a note stuck on its tusk and you can remove it safely and read it to get a hint? I'll have to think it over!

In all my tests Surrendering dropped players into the room just fine, but I heard from others that the live version of the game would be different in little ways, and that might be one of them. I'll continue to see if I can do it my way, because I want the NPC to give the "Game Over" summary, but if all else fails, a clickable in front of an abort door would do the trick too.

Thanks for the review!

slaidz · May 2013

Just played through it and it was good, especially for a first try. The writing was very well done and I enjoyed reading the dialogue. The story itself, like previously said, wasn't great. It was a simple fetch quest. However, the dialogue balanced it out as well as the length. If you want to make longer quests, you'll have to work on the storyline. My opinion, of course. Others may want you to add more encounters.

As for the encounters, I thought they were pretty good especially since you were looking for light combat. Try changing map transitions as well as letting dialogue go back to the top of the conversation rather than end it. Good work with the details.

Overall, 4/5.

keylord02 · May 2013

There's a ton of awesome Foundry quests with long, richly-written dialog entries and elaborate waves of enemies with special FX used to make the battles even more intense. I'm currently attempting to branch out into a third developmental focus and make tons of choices and items that will interact in interesting ways with the NPCs by giving you more hints or flavorful little reactions.

Blame Tilt42.

In the Beta, I was blown away by the open-ended tavern exploration part of The Hidden Blade and wanted to replicate that as a whole dungeon crawl. By the time I got to the floating hair lady, I was so excited by the plot and the open-ended nature of the quest, that I was brought back down to earth when I realized that every conversation option would lead to fighting her.

In fact, the more Foundry quests I play, the more I want to do this open-choices stuff, because it seems like it's pretty par-for-the-course to include conversations where every option leads to a battle. I know that for story-heavy stuff, you pretty much HAVE to do this, so I want to include a Story-Light(compared to the well-written wall-of-text stuff I've seen) option where you don't!

I'm curious what I should do with the map transitions and what dialogues don't go back to the top of the conversation too. Again, thanks for playing and reviewing my quest!

wolf213 · May 2013

To answer your question, no I was a control wizard. =(

keylord02 · May 2013

wolf213 wrote: »

To answer your question, no I was a control wizard. =(

Oh! Then I'll have to check that out, because a control wizard should be able to cast Knock(4e purists can pretend they're using the Knock ritual) to open that door. I'll jot that down on the bug sheet!

keylord02 · May 2013

Just noticed that I copied the "Thief" door and forgot to change the "disappear when" section. It's fixed in the latest update, and now there's even a reason to go into that room! By design, the fighters can bash the door down, the rogue can pick the lock, and the wizard can cast Knock.

slaidz · May 2013

keylord02 wrote: »

There's a ton of awesome Foundry quests with long, richly-written dialog entries and elaborate waves of enemies with special FX used to make the battles even more intense. I'm currently attempting to branch out into a third developmental focus and make tons of choices and items that will interact in interesting ways with the NPCs by giving you more hints or flavorful little reactions.

Blame Tilt42. In the Beta, I was blown away by the open-ended tavern exploration part of The Hidden Blade and wanted to replicate that as a whole dungeon crawl. By the time I got to the floating hair lady, I was so excited by the plot and the open-ended nature of the quest, that I was brought back down to earth when I realized that every conversation option would lead to fighting her.

In fact, the more Foundry quests I play, the more I want to do this open-choices stuff, because it seems like it's pretty par-for-the-course to include conversations where every option leads to a battle. I know that for story-heavy stuff, you pretty much HAVE to do this, so I want to include a Story-Light(compared to the well-written wall-of-text stuff I've seen) option where you don't!

I'm curious what I should do with the map transitions and what dialogues don't go back to the top of the conversation too. Again, thanks for playing and reviewing my quest!

What I meant with the map transitions is to make them flow more naturally to make a seamless transition. And with the dialogue going to the top part you can have dialogue go to the beginning of the conversation chain rather than ending it.

tarum89 · May 2013

Me and my wife just finished your first quest:
I gave you 5 stars, she tried to do the same but she had not the chance to interact with the final treasure chest... a cryptic bug that i have meet other times in other quest (from cryptic too).
We really liked that there were no direction and all was about exploration and interacting with creatures and tools.
Great job, i think that anyone who likes exploration should play this!

keylord02 · May 2013

Awesome! Glad you enjoyed it!

Those pesky Cryptic bugs are all over the place, but we can't let them get us down! My plan is to overhaul the quest once my work week's over and change things that are bugged to work differently. I'll still leave in my music and sound items, because I'm optimistic that Cryptic will resolve that issue at some point!

I got a comment to remove the invisible wall stuff entirely, but I can't think of a better way to simulate a room with monsters in it that would not let you into the room unless you "deal with them." I think for some people it hurts the immersion to have invisible walls used as a way to simulate NPCs that initiate a conversation with you when you walk up into their room, but I personally think it's a nice way to handle it.

My next project will definitely be designed with the Foundry's limitations in mind, however!

[UGC] - Tomb of Wernar - Feedback Thread

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