Katah1969, my son and I just ran yours. He zoned before I finished my review, but the jist of it was that your story is great and the atmosphere was good. Nice pacing on the fights and though the decor was sparse, a little bit went a long way. Nice job.
lostchartaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 29Arc User
edited June 2013
Running yours now. Mine are in my sig.
Do either that you wish. Could you review in the linked thread?
Edit:
Done with lv58 CW.
Overall pretty good. I likes the story and settings. Also the boss after the not-final boss was a nice surprise.
There seemed to be a lot of swarms of mobs that can easily overwhelm. The waves of kobolds got a little dull after awhile, as did the waves of skeletons.
* Piles of rubbish in 1st corridor sort of clip into the wall a bit
* Sewer to cave transition is sort of sudden, one moment I'm in the sewer, next cave. Maybe a hole in the floor of the sewer or a crack in the wall would give more explanation.
* The 1st cave doorway flickers. I think there's something on the ground. You know the thing where you put two flat objects together and they flicker. If you move one up just a little it'll stop.
* Whenever you attach cave room sections to any other type of room there is a bug where part of the door becomes invisible. Check around the sides. You can use posts to cover it up.
* You put an Invisible wall near melissa so that I have to backtrack. Maybe having a door that opens would be less jarring?
* In big room with lots of cranes some of the Cranes are embedded in the rock
* In the middle of the cave with cranes something buried almost completely near the bed in middle of room
* The pane of water that you've put under the floor doesn't cover the whole area and you can see the edge if you go to the pit near the piece of scaffolding that has a ladder attached to it.
* The beds in the center of the room are not aligned to the floor
* The 2 groups of skeleton archers you spawn stacked on top of one another can hit quite hard at higher levels. Especially if they spawn when you're right between them.
* It vanished too quickly to be certain but I think there was a spelling error on the quest text for killing the devil skinned as a flaming skeleton. Something like "Kill this creature and put an end to this Maddness"
* Maybe asthetic choice but perhaps not have torches in the hall covered in webs? The webs would burn and it would be scarier with no light anyway.
* It might be a better idea to move the NPC spiders further away from the aggressive ones, otherwise one attacks the other.
* I like the entrance to the tomb, very pretty
* The not-boss is labeled Foulspawn hulk. Is this correct? Maybe you meant to relabel.
* I think both the final boss and the skeleton earlier on were reskinned large devils. It's sort of boring to fight another of the large Devils as the boss when I just fought one earlier in the quest. Maybe change one or other of them to a different encounter?
* In the end dialog there's a lot of "...".
NW-DIRYOWUKYNW-DPXB42EEH The Linkwell CryptThe Linkwell Vault
Got everyone new added to the list. Will be running after we eat. Got my dad in on this as well so looks like for a while everyone will be getting 3 reviews for 1 - sweet right?!
Looks like you have three quests? Will do the first. If I have time will try the other two as well.
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ravenspire1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 16Arc User
edited June 2013
Will review your quest now or later tonight. I finally finished my quest and have submitted it to Cryptic. I hope you guys enjoy it. The short code is in my signature.
Initial conversation the Grate is North and East not North and West as he said.
How did I get from the sewer to the cave?
Nice use of the Kobolds and the escort makes sense
Nice Maps... Some battle debris is floating above the ground
Great Kobold boss fight very challenging solo
Skeleton Boss fight was very good
Very nice entry way with plants and light.
Great Ending...
Campaign: Right Place, Right Time: NWS-DHFZYUPJS Chapter 1: Message Delivery:NW-DA3XAVZ9W
I'll run yours today. Please add my Weird of the Weather-witch (NW-DEZAK4QPA) to your queue; it should be suitable for 1-3 players.
REVIEW
Interesting quest progress handling. I guess you did that by having two "go to" steps for each location? Worked pretty well.
I enjoyed the story overall, but the very end seemed a bit rushed. Would have liked some adds, or more dialogue with Exarah or something. The dialogue was very heavy up front, and very light at the end - may want to spread out the story a bit more.
Combat was good - duo'd 55 TR and 51 CW. Never died, but our companions were defeated a few times.
The kobold cave was nice. Overall, I think you need more lighting though. And maybe something other than the standard torches. Some of the crypt rooms seem very empty; props or lighting would help there.
Great work with the spiders webs, and adding the non-aggro spiderlings made it creepy.
I thought the part with Steven, Melissa, and the guards at the end were a nice touch. Added realism.
Very few spelling/grammar issues. I think Melissa's dialogue was a bit off where it said "you get you out of there".
I don't think the "three doors" worked the way you wanted. We walked up to each to examine them (without clicking), but two of them became non-interactable (with invisible walls in front), so we could only choose one door.
Also, it might be good if you somehow connected the skeleton boss to the portcullis below. Maybe put the same kind of magic crystal in each location or something.
Cool. Added all new requests. We are working down the list! Some really creative people out there. Love it!
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mrthebozerMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Hey Katah,
Just left my review in-game. I very much enjoyed the use of quest objectives as a dungeon master, and the combat was pretty top-notch. I'm not usually a fan of stacked encounters, but the few you included were both well balanced and well justified. You can tell you had your own proofreader on board - I have no spelling or grammar notes to give.
The only suggestion I have is a minor one:
You have some absolutely gorgeous set pieces spread throughout your quest, like the webbed hallway and the flowery door. But other areas seemed to be left intentionally blank. One was up the staircase, and was very dark and entirely empty save for a chest in the middle. The other was the chamber the ghost spawns in (and by the way, an absolutely inspired decision to have the light and grass spawn in with her. It was a simple detail, but unexpected and a very nice touch - I had to stop and take a note about that). For both of these scenarios, the large empty chamber makes sense. But if you have the detail points to spare, you might want to consider ways to make them empty without just being blank. Some lighting in the one room would definitely be nice, and wall details in both - any kind of sculptures, pillars, vegetation or anything that catches your eye in the Foundry inventory - can make them unique and interesting without cluttering the map and losing the effect of the large empty chamber.
Great work, and I'll be keeping an eye out for news related to certain fabled princesses.
Just left my review in-game. I very much enjoyed the use of quest objectives as a dungeon master, and the combat was pretty top-notch. I'm not usually a fan of stacked encounters, but the few you included were both well balanced and well justified. You can tell you had your own proofreader on board - I have no spelling or grammar notes to give.
The only suggestion I have is a minor one:
You have some absolutely gorgeous set pieces spread throughout your quest, like the webbed hallway and the flowery door. But other areas seemed to be left intentionally blank. One was up the staircase, and was very dark and entirely empty save for a chest in the middle. The other was the chamber the ghost spawns in (and by the way, an absolutely inspired decision to have the light and grass spawn in with her. It was a simple detail, but unexpected and a very nice touch - I had to stop and take a note about that). For both of these scenarios, the large empty chamber makes sense. But if you have the detail points to spare, you might want to consider ways to make them empty without just being blank. Some lighting in the one room would definitely be nice, and wall details in both - any kind of sculptures, pillars, vegetation or anything that catches your eye in the Foundry inventory - can make them unique and interesting without cluttering the map and losing the effect of the large empty chamber.
Great work, and I'll be keeping an eye out for news related to certain fabled princesses.
Thanks so much for the kind words. I do know exactly what you mean about the empty areas, and they were done that way on purpose, but I think I may need to change my thoughts as you are not the only one to mention it. The entrance to the tomb is very simplistic in nature, but the trick was to get you "used" to the darkish areas so when you rounded the turn there it was! I was going for the same concept by having some rooms more decorated than others to help add a wow factor, but I think the final areas do lack a certain flare...
Question though... I actually do not like stacking encounters (I had some as of yesterday, but should have all been removed) and I had thought I avoided it after my last update, but you mentioned a few encounters that were stacked. Could you please tell me which ones and I'll cut them right away. Again, thanks for the comments - and I appreciate your review. Got your set to run shortly.
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mrthebozerMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Question though... I actually do not like stacking encounters (I had some as of yesterday, but should have all been removed) and I had thought I avoided it after my last update, but you mentioned a few encounters that were stacked. Could you please tell me which ones and I'll cut them right away. Again, thanks for the comments - and I appreciate your review. Got your set to run shortly.
You know - I am probably just using that term wrong. I am referring to encounters that spawn encounters upon defeat. Your waves of ambushers, for example, is what I am referring to. And I would not remove them - like I said, they fit within the context of what is going on.
You know - I am probably just using that term wrong. I am referring to encounters that spawn encounters upon defeat. Your waves of ambushers, for example, is what I am referring to. And I would not remove them - like I said, they fit within the context of what is going on.
I bet you are talking about the Kobold boss encounter. When you enter the room a small group spawns... kill them and a group comes into the room rinse and repeat until the boss comes in. I think maybe a happy mid ground can be met. I think I 4 waves, all easy encounters, but I hear post 50 easy is not really easy. Instead of four I'll move it to two. Still will have a bit of challenge. I moved the spawn markers back so the Kobolds would have to walk further to get into the room thus giving clerics more time to heal inbetween, but everyone simply runs out of the room and the encounter was meant to be fought inside the room. I think toning it down some will work well.
Thanks for all the reviews everyone! Have a few more queued up and will run them asap!! Please feel free to post your quest and we'll review for a review! Will be taking a short break for some dinner and to make a few adjustment to Exarah's Tomb. I hope the changes already made from comments in posts has made a positive experience in my quest! Be back in a few! If you add your name, I'll add ya to the list when I get back and will run your quest asap.
Thanks again to everyone who has run Exarah's Tomb. I think its even better now with everyone's input as I've been able to change quite a bit without actually hurting the overall look and feel of how I wanted the quest to run. Wanted to post what I had been working on for those who might want to trade reviews still and those who maybe gave 4 stars to go back and see if I earned that last star (I know shameless plug lol)
Major Fixes and Updates:
The Kobold encounter and the Skeleton encounter has been changed. I could not for the life of me figure out why so many people thought it was so hard... and then I looked! Sorry everyone! 4 waves of HARD encounters including a boss is simply not good at all. My apologies for overlooking this on both these encounters. This quest is more for a solo run / daily Foundry and these two encounters made that harder than it needed to be.
Spider encounter has been done so animations are correct. Now you can take defensive actions.
Let there be light! While it still isn't the sun, it is much brighter in darker areas than it was. This should reduce if not eliminate the squinting and cursing! (Maybe now someone will find the hidden area!)
Minor changes:
Added some additional details to the overall quest. Still more I want to do so hopefully it will look even better and more true to life in its feel and depth.
Added an additional encounter for the escort with some story elements - text flies by pretty fast so read fast!
Added by popular demand... pixie trails!! Encounters now have points on the map while everything else has areas. Should help keep you going the right way. *Note* Pixie trails are not perfect. They seem to ignore "placed objects" so the trail in some areas could run through what looks like a mountain wall... just go around
What's next:
I want to add more details to the crypt area and I'm trying to come up with what might make this work without just putting stuff down to put it down. I'll be sure to post any changes.
So far the quest is getting great reviews and is now allowed to be run as a Foundry Daily (Thanks everyone!) Once this is as perfect as I can get it I'll have to start thinking about the next episode.
Well longer winded than I wanted to be.
If anyone is still interested in review trading, just post and I'll to the list. Anyone still on the list your hard work in your quests will be run by me so have no fear.
Went through your dungeon and must say I quite liked it. The environment made sense most of the time and the naming conventions for monsters was pretty spot on. I have to admit, I was a little bit let down when I entered the final chamber, but as soon as the final fight began, the effects completely made up for the lack of environmental detail... It was pretty intense
The story was all right... More on the serious side than I tend to go for. The escort made me want to bash the keyboard repeatedly with my face, pull out my own toenails and gulp down arsenic-mixed lye....... That's how much I hate escorts. But regardless of that, I'll definitely be looking for the follow-up story though
But now that I done yours, please give mine a try at: NW-DEZSTNUT7 and save poor Gavin from... himself I guess? Combat-heavy quest with a very thin storyline but lots of hard encounters, so stock up on pots
I quite enjoyed that! One of the top 2 or 3 foundry quests I've done so far. Decent storyline that kept me interested and I thought the encounter pacing was very good. I did not find it difficult (level 30), but from what people are saying I guess this is more of an issue at higher levels. Obviously a great, well-crafted environment.
Regarding "story", it's a tough balance because you want to add enough detail without boring players with a lot of text. Since I lean to the side of "more" when it comes to storytelling (as long as it's good), I thought it was fine. Method used to "DM" was a bit clunky but also clever, since we only have limited options to choose from.
Not much to critique, really. I noticed during the playthrough that the ghost crypt area did seem awfully bare. I am not sure what you could add but it could use some sprucing up. Only complaint about the story was (as someone mentioned earlier), it did feel a little rushed at the end. That last section could use a little work, but all in all it's a very nicely-constructed quest and deserves to be played.
My first one is more of a comedy and pretty short (link above). Hopefully you enjoy it. I'll be bringing more of a serious lore vibe to the next one.
Went through your dungeon and must say I quite liked it. The environment made sense most of the time and the naming conventions for monsters was pretty spot on. I have to admit, I was a little bit let down when I entered the final chamber, but as soon as the final fight began, the effects completely made up for the lack of environmental detail... It was pretty intense
The story was all right... More on the serious side than I tend to go for. The escort made me want to bash the keyboard repeatedly with my face, pull out my own toenails and gulp down arsenic-mixed lye....... That's how much I hate escorts. But regardless of that, I'll definitely be looking for the follow-up story though
But now that I done yours, please give mine a try at: NW-DEZSTNUT7 and save poor Gavin from... himself I guess? Combat-heavy quest with a very thin storyline but lots of hard encounters, so stock up on pots
Hi rdxcyclo,
Thanks for running the quest! I think a good way to describe the ending is "not epic" and even though I was afraid it might cost some stars here and there (was hoping not of course lol) I did not want to detract from the real ending. At present I have planned three episodes and that third and final (actually working on it now since the ideas for the ending are fresh in my mind) ending has to beat them all! But spicing up that last room is paramount! I have not liked it from the start and it maybe a bit too big. Lots of stuff I can plop down but I want everything to make sense and not just be there to be there. That one I'm still wrestling with lol
Sorry about the escort - personally I don't mind them *IF* they make sense and are not silly long. I did have it where she simply disappeared, but it seemed so lazy. Try one in your quest even if just to see. They really are a pain and require constant closing and opening the Foundry to test.
Got you queue'd up and from what I'm hearing the kid and my dad are going to be running with me again tonight so you may just get 3 reviews for the price of one
I quite enjoyed that! One of the top 2 or 3 foundry quests I've done so far. Decent storyline that kept me interested and I thought the encounter pacing was very good. I did not find it difficult (level 30), but from what people are saying I guess this is more of an issue at higher levels. Obviously a great, well-crafted environment.
Regarding "story", it's a tough balance because you want to add enough detail without boring players with a lot of text. Since I lean to the side of "more" when it comes to storytelling (as long as it's good), I thought it was fine. Method used to "DM" was a bit clunky but also clever, since we only have limited options to choose from.
Not much to critique, really. I noticed during the playthrough that the ghost crypt area did seem awfully bare. I am not sure what you could add but it could use some sprucing up. Only complaint about the story was (as someone mentioned earlier), it did feel a little rushed at the end. That last section could use a little work, but all in all it's a very nicely-constructed quest and deserves to be played.
My first one is more of a comedy and pretty short (link above). Hopefully you enjoy it. I'll be bringing more of a serious lore vibe to the next one.
You are very kind. Thank you for the encouragement! I am no writer by any stretch of the means and will be keeping my day job, but it is fun to come up with little stories here and there. I am a big... BIG fan of being able to solo these quests and in my haste to get Exarah's Tomb out there I had overlooked two encounters - they were not stacked in the traditional sense of mob on mob on mob, but they did come in waves with little time to get ready for the next... long story short I had every wave set full of hard encounters. I've not yet experienced level 50+ gameplay, but I hear for some classes even an easy encounter can be difficult. So that got changed right away.
The DM method is clunky... very good word for it. The clunky part of it does abate a little if you only have Exarah's Tomb being tracked, but it is a personal preference.
The crypt is bare and frankly it is my top beast to correct. I'm hoping that through the day I'll come up with some inspiration and at least improve upon it. Yes the ending does move on pretty fast, but once part 2 is complete being able to move directly to the next one will fill in that gap.
I got you added to the list for my little brigade to run though so will be able to get you a few reviews. Looking forward to seeing what you have created! Thanks again for your kind words and helpful suggestions.
Good morning everyone! Still trading reviews if anyone is interested. At work right now (I know... I should be working) so will start up again when I get home. Just post your interest and I'll add you to the list.
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ravenspire1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 16Arc User
edited June 2013
Thanks for running my quest and reviewing it. Good call on the barricade, I moved it back a little just before I published and did not go into 3d to check it. I have since fixed it. I was using invisible sphere to interact with and get the flavor text but decided to go with the walls and make the player at least stop and take note. The first one in the shipping company was tough since it was not in a junction or hall.
Campaign: Right Place, Right Time: NWS-DHFZYUPJS Chapter 1: Message Delivery:NW-DA3XAVZ9W
Thanks for running my quest and reviewing it. Good call on the barricade, I moved it back a little just before I published and did not go into 3d to check it. I have since fixed it. I was using invisible sphere to interact with and get the flavor text but decided to go with the walls and make the player at least stop and take note. The first one in the shipping company was tough since it was not in a junction or hall.
It was a super creative way to get some area information. I'll run it again and check out the changes. I think I just missed the first one because I was so hung up with "hey why can't I move forward!"
Hey everyone! Little behind on some dungeon runs, but will get them done. Full time job and going to college makes for limited time some days. Will get to them tonight for sure.
Anyone else wanting to trade reviews please be sure to post and I'll add you to the list.
Comments
Do either that you wish. Could you review in the linked thread?
Edit:
Done with lv58 CW.
Overall pretty good. I likes the story and settings. Also the boss after the not-final boss was a nice surprise.
There seemed to be a lot of swarms of mobs that can easily overwhelm. The waves of kobolds got a little dull after awhile, as did the waves of skeletons.
* Piles of rubbish in 1st corridor sort of clip into the wall a bit
* Sewer to cave transition is sort of sudden, one moment I'm in the sewer, next cave. Maybe a hole in the floor of the sewer or a crack in the wall would give more explanation.
* The 1st cave doorway flickers. I think there's something on the ground. You know the thing where you put two flat objects together and they flicker. If you move one up just a little it'll stop.
* Whenever you attach cave room sections to any other type of room there is a bug where part of the door becomes invisible. Check around the sides. You can use posts to cover it up.
* You put an Invisible wall near melissa so that I have to backtrack. Maybe having a door that opens would be less jarring?
* In big room with lots of cranes some of the Cranes are embedded in the rock
* In the middle of the cave with cranes something buried almost completely near the bed in middle of room
* The pane of water that you've put under the floor doesn't cover the whole area and you can see the edge if you go to the pit near the piece of scaffolding that has a ladder attached to it.
* The beds in the center of the room are not aligned to the floor
* The 2 groups of skeleton archers you spawn stacked on top of one another can hit quite hard at higher levels. Especially if they spawn when you're right between them.
* It vanished too quickly to be certain but I think there was a spelling error on the quest text for killing the devil skinned as a flaming skeleton. Something like "Kill this creature and put an end to this Maddness"
* Maybe asthetic choice but perhaps not have torches in the hall covered in webs? The webs would burn and it would be scarier with no light anyway.
* It might be a better idea to move the NPC spiders further away from the aggressive ones, otherwise one attacks the other.
* I like the entrance to the tomb, very pretty
* The not-boss is labeled Foulspawn hulk. Is this correct? Maybe you meant to relabel.
* I think both the final boss and the skeleton earlier on were reskinned large devils. It's sort of boring to fight another of the large Devils as the boss when I just fought one earlier in the quest. Maybe change one or other of them to a different encounter?
* In the end dialog there's a lot of "...".
NW-DIRYOWUKYNW-DPXB42EEH
The Linkwell CryptThe Linkwell Vault
@lostcharta
solo campaign, balanced
review thread
Looks like you have three quests? Will do the first. If I have time will try the other two as well.
Initial conversation the Grate is North and East not North and West as he said.
How did I get from the sewer to the cave?
Nice use of the Kobolds and the escort makes sense
Nice Maps... Some battle debris is floating above the ground
Great Kobold boss fight very challenging solo
Skeleton Boss fight was very good
Very nice entry way with plants and light.
Great Ending...
Chapter 1: Message Delivery: NW-DA3XAVZ9W
REVIEW
Interesting quest progress handling. I guess you did that by having two "go to" steps for each location? Worked pretty well.
I enjoyed the story overall, but the very end seemed a bit rushed. Would have liked some adds, or more dialogue with Exarah or something. The dialogue was very heavy up front, and very light at the end - may want to spread out the story a bit more.
Combat was good - duo'd 55 TR and 51 CW. Never died, but our companions were defeated a few times.
The kobold cave was nice. Overall, I think you need more lighting though. And maybe something other than the standard torches. Some of the crypt rooms seem very empty; props or lighting would help there.
Great work with the spiders webs, and adding the non-aggro spiderlings made it creepy.
I thought the part with Steven, Melissa, and the guards at the end were a nice touch. Added realism.
Very few spelling/grammar issues. I think Melissa's dialogue was a bit off where it said "you get you out of there".
I don't think the "three doors" worked the way you wanted. We walked up to each to examine them (without clicking), but two of them became non-interactable (with invisible walls in front), so we could only choose one door.
Also, it might be good if you somehow connected the skeleton boss to the portcullis below. Maybe put the same kind of magic crystal in each location or something.
Pacing was good. Looking forward to more.
The Cursed Emerald:
Just left my review in-game. I very much enjoyed the use of quest objectives as a dungeon master, and the combat was pretty top-notch. I'm not usually a fan of stacked encounters, but the few you included were both well balanced and well justified. You can tell you had your own proofreader on board - I have no spelling or grammar notes to give.
The only suggestion I have is a minor one:
You have some absolutely gorgeous set pieces spread throughout your quest, like the webbed hallway and the flowery door. But other areas seemed to be left intentionally blank. One was up the staircase, and was very dark and entirely empty save for a chest in the middle. The other was the chamber the ghost spawns in (and by the way, an absolutely inspired decision to have the light and grass spawn in with her. It was a simple detail, but unexpected and a very nice touch - I had to stop and take a note about that). For both of these scenarios, the large empty chamber makes sense. But if you have the detail points to spare, you might want to consider ways to make them empty without just being blank. Some lighting in the one room would definitely be nice, and wall details in both - any kind of sculptures, pillars, vegetation or anything that catches your eye in the Foundry inventory - can make them unique and interesting without cluttering the map and losing the effect of the large empty chamber.
Great work, and I'll be keeping an eye out for news related to certain fabled princesses.
Thanks so much for the kind words. I do know exactly what you mean about the empty areas, and they were done that way on purpose, but I think I may need to change my thoughts as you are not the only one to mention it. The entrance to the tomb is very simplistic in nature, but the trick was to get you "used" to the darkish areas so when you rounded the turn there it was! I was going for the same concept by having some rooms more decorated than others to help add a wow factor, but I think the final areas do lack a certain flare...
Question though... I actually do not like stacking encounters (I had some as of yesterday, but should have all been removed) and I had thought I avoided it after my last update, but you mentioned a few encounters that were stacked. Could you please tell me which ones and I'll cut them right away. Again, thanks for the comments - and I appreciate your review. Got your set to run shortly.
You know - I am probably just using that term wrong. I am referring to encounters that spawn encounters upon defeat. Your waves of ambushers, for example, is what I am referring to. And I would not remove them - like I said, they fit within the context of what is going on.
I bet you are talking about the Kobold boss encounter. When you enter the room a small group spawns... kill them and a group comes into the room rinse and repeat until the boss comes in. I think maybe a happy mid ground can be met. I think I 4 waves, all easy encounters, but I hear post 50 easy is not really easy. Instead of four I'll move it to two. Still will have a bit of challenge. I moved the spawn markers back so the Kobolds would have to walk further to get into the room thus giving clerics more time to heal inbetween, but everyone simply runs out of the room and the encounter was meant to be fought inside the room. I think toning it down some will work well.
Major Fixes and Updates:
The Kobold encounter and the Skeleton encounter has been changed. I could not for the life of me figure out why so many people thought it was so hard... and then I looked! Sorry everyone! 4 waves of HARD encounters including a boss is simply not good at all. My apologies for overlooking this on both these encounters. This quest is more for a solo run / daily Foundry and these two encounters made that harder than it needed to be.
Spider encounter has been done so animations are correct. Now you can take defensive actions.
Let there be light! While it still isn't the sun, it is much brighter in darker areas than it was. This should reduce if not eliminate the squinting and cursing! (Maybe now someone will find the hidden area!)
Minor changes:
Added some additional details to the overall quest. Still more I want to do so hopefully it will look even better and more true to life in its feel and depth.
Added an additional encounter for the escort with some story elements - text flies by pretty fast so read fast!
Added by popular demand... pixie trails!! Encounters now have points on the map while everything else has areas. Should help keep you going the right way. *Note* Pixie trails are not perfect. They seem to ignore "placed objects" so the trail in some areas could run through what looks like a mountain wall... just go around
What's next:
I want to add more details to the crypt area and I'm trying to come up with what might make this work without just putting stuff down to put it down. I'll be sure to post any changes.
So far the quest is getting great reviews and is now allowed to be run as a Foundry Daily (Thanks everyone!) Once this is as perfect as I can get it I'll have to start thinking about the next episode.
Well longer winded than I wanted to be.
If anyone is still interested in review trading, just post and I'll to the list. Anyone still on the list your hard work in your quests will be run by me so have no fear.
Thanks again everyone!
Quest # 1: All's Fair in Love and War
Code: NW-DJ5BFT52F
Author: @oortexplorer
Code: NW-DJ5BFT52F
Author: @oortexplorer
Now eligible for Daily Foundry!
The story was all right... More on the serious side than I tend to go for. The escort made me want to bash the keyboard repeatedly with my face, pull out my own toenails and gulp down arsenic-mixed lye....... That's how much I hate escorts. But regardless of that, I'll definitely be looking for the follow-up story though
But now that I done yours, please give mine a try at: NW-DEZSTNUT7 and save poor Gavin from... himself I guess? Combat-heavy quest with a very thin storyline but lots of hard encounters, so stock up on pots
First installment of Gavin the "Lucky" series is live
Episodes:
Gavin the "Lucky": Prologue - NW-DEZSTNUT7
Regarding "story", it's a tough balance because you want to add enough detail without boring players with a lot of text. Since I lean to the side of "more" when it comes to storytelling (as long as it's good), I thought it was fine. Method used to "DM" was a bit clunky but also clever, since we only have limited options to choose from.
Not much to critique, really. I noticed during the playthrough that the ghost crypt area did seem awfully bare. I am not sure what you could add but it could use some sprucing up. Only complaint about the story was (as someone mentioned earlier), it did feel a little rushed at the end. That last section could use a little work, but all in all it's a very nicely-constructed quest and deserves to be played.
My first one is more of a comedy and pretty short (link above). Hopefully you enjoy it. I'll be bringing more of a serious lore vibe to the next one.
Code: NW-DJ5BFT52F
Author: @oortexplorer
Now eligible for Daily Foundry!
Hi rdxcyclo,
Thanks for running the quest! I think a good way to describe the ending is "not epic" and even though I was afraid it might cost some stars here and there (was hoping not of course lol) I did not want to detract from the real ending. At present I have planned three episodes and that third and final (actually working on it now since the ideas for the ending are fresh in my mind) ending has to beat them all! But spicing up that last room is paramount! I have not liked it from the start and it maybe a bit too big. Lots of stuff I can plop down but I want everything to make sense and not just be there to be there. That one I'm still wrestling with lol
Sorry about the escort - personally I don't mind them *IF* they make sense and are not silly long. I did have it where she simply disappeared, but it seemed so lazy. Try one in your quest even if just to see. They really are a pain and require constant closing and opening the Foundry to test.
Got you queue'd up and from what I'm hearing the kid and my dad are going to be running with me again tonight so you may just get 3 reviews for the price of one
You are very kind. Thank you for the encouragement! I am no writer by any stretch of the means and will be keeping my day job, but it is fun to come up with little stories here and there. I am a big... BIG fan of being able to solo these quests and in my haste to get Exarah's Tomb out there I had overlooked two encounters - they were not stacked in the traditional sense of mob on mob on mob, but they did come in waves with little time to get ready for the next... long story short I had every wave set full of hard encounters. I've not yet experienced level 50+ gameplay, but I hear for some classes even an easy encounter can be difficult. So that got changed right away.
The DM method is clunky... very good word for it. The clunky part of it does abate a little if you only have Exarah's Tomb being tracked, but it is a personal preference.
The crypt is bare and frankly it is my top beast to correct. I'm hoping that through the day I'll come up with some inspiration and at least improve upon it. Yes the ending does move on pretty fast, but once part 2 is complete being able to move directly to the next one will fill in that gap.
I got you added to the list for my little brigade to run though so will be able to get you a few reviews. Looking forward to seeing what you have created! Thanks again for your kind words and helpful suggestions.
Chapter 1: Message Delivery: NW-DA3XAVZ9W
It was a super creative way to get some area information. I'll run it again and check out the changes. I think I just missed the first one because I was so hung up with "hey why can't I move forward!"
Anyone else wanting to trade reviews please be sure to post and I'll add you to the list.