Looking to Trade Reviews (Storming Monte Hall)

meysa · June 2013

Looking to trade reviews please. I would like feedback on what I've built as my first quest. I'm looking for feedback on quest flow and various triggers I've placed on the map. I haven't completed my decoration plan for the interior of the keep yet, so I'd love some feedback on what you think would make it look cool as well.

Storming Monte Hall
NW-DRAQHLR54
Duration: 30 minutes, or so, in the L11, L21 and L31, tests I've done
Solo: yes
Tags: Story, Humor, Combat

Just post your quest info here, or send me mail in game and I'll review your quest ASAP.

Note:I published this quest earlier under the same name, but I made a copy of it and thought I would be able to copy all my changes into the already published one. Alas, I was not, so I withdrew the old one and published this one and am in need of new reviews. So if you already reviewed the old one, I'd appreciate a review on this one, if you have the time.

revelationmd · June 2013

I just re-reviewed. I liked it the first time round but think this is an improvement. See you took whoevers advice it was to add some kobolds - I think that was a good idea. The last room was hard as hell (specially if you manage to pull one hard encounter into another, like I did!) but in a good way - not silly hard, but very challenging. Good job.

meysa · June 2013

revelationmd wrote: »

I just re-reviewed. I liked it the first time round but think this is an improvement. See you took whoevers advice it was to add some kobolds - I think that was a good idea. The last room was hard as hell (specially if you manage to pull one hard encounter into another, like I did!) but in a good way - not silly hard, but very challenging. Good job.

Yeah, I agree on the last room. You really do have to pull it in a particular way to avoid needing to use lots of potions on that fight. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

runis12 · June 2013

Fun gnoll-bashing quest.

The last room proved a little tricky, even for a lowbie like me. Was the throne the quest exit? Didn't work for me. Those things don't work half the time anyway. Meh!

:rolleyes:

meysa · June 2013

runis12 wrote: »

Fun gnoll-bashing quest. The last room proved a little tricky, even for a lowbie like me. Was the throne the quest exit? Didn't work for me. Those things don't work half the time anyway. Meh! :rolleyes:

Yes, the throne was supposed to be the quest exit for you. I did notice that if you click it before you talk to the NPC and get your treasure chest that it doesn't work. I guess I'll have to file a bug on that. It's annoying I can't put it in place to only be intractable once you've gotten the treasure, or at least talked to the end guy.

oortexplorer · June 2013

Added to my list, will play within the next couple of days. Hopefully you can play mine in return (info in sig).

maerwin · June 2013

Hello, almost finished your quest, server maintenance kicked me out in the throne room

Anyway, it was quite fun, at least for those who like killing gnolls

A few minor things I have put down:
The man you meet in Protector's Enclave called me 'sir'. It is weird when my character is female. I'd change it for something more gender-neutral

The dwarven captain speaks of 'Geenral Python'. I'm not sure if that is a typo, or a try at dwarven accent, but mention it just in case

The magical anvil, while interesting, is dangerous. I read every dialogue, but I can imagine a lot of players just pressing 'Continue' after they see a wall of text. It's up to you, but I would be very careful in placing an item like that in my quest.

I didn't notice anything else worthy of mentioning. It's a fine quest, and I will play it again tomorrow to give it the rating it deserves

meysa · June 2013

maerwin wrote: »

Hello, almost finished your quest, server maintenance kicked me out in the throne room
Anyway, it was quite fun, at least for those who like killing gnolls

A few minor things I have put down:
The man you meet in Protector's Enclave called me 'sir'. It is weird when my character is female. I'd change it for something more gender-neutral

The dwarven captain speaks of 'Geenral Python'. I'm not sure if that is a typo, or a try at dwarven accent, but mention it just in case

The magical anvil, while interesting, is dangerous. I read every dialogue, but I can imagine a lot of players just pressing 'Continue' after they see a wall of text. It's up to you, but I would be very careful in placing an item like that in my quest.

I didn't notice anything else worthy of mentioning. It's a fine quest, and I will play it again tomorrow to give it the rating it deserves

I'll fix the Dwarven Captain right now. I thought I had all of those pesky typos gone. :-(

I put it there as an abort exit for that map. I thought I named it something appropriately obvious so people would not use it, unless they needed it. I'll consider moving it so that it's not right next to the door though. I did just put some text on it that is more clear and in large capital letters. I take it you didn't notice my "Cowards Bench of Quest Aborting, right next to General Python? :-)

I'll look at changing the text of the starting guy to something more gender neutral as well.

Note: I fixed the text you were talking about to something that amused me at the time. I hope you enjoy it when you get a chance to play it again. ;-)

oortexplorer · June 2013

I'm not generally a big fan of the "hack n' slash" style quest, but I really enjoyed this one a lot. No pretense at being anything but, and extremely well-crafted. Great environments and the progression was logical throughout. The map worked perfectly when I lost my sparkly guide. Encounters were spaced beautifully (loved the various chat lines as well), and the whole quest is brought to another level by witty writing and great (albeit a little sadistic) DM notes.

Very little to critique. At one point on my way to the Gnoll Commander, there is a trap floating right in the middle of the hallway about 2 feet off the ground, had to actually walk around it. Also "I'm such a lier" should be "liar". For the throne at the end, rather than simply saying "Press F to Exit", it has a second option to "Interact". I had the same thing happen in my quest, couldn't figure out a way to fix it but in the end I simply deleted the "door" on the map, and replaced it with the same door, which seemed to do the trick.

Clever and very well done. 5/5 (I was out of "tips" for the day, so wasn't able to, otherwise I definitely would have).

meysa · June 2013

oortexplorer wrote: »

I'm not generally a big fan of the "hack n' slash" style quest, but I really enjoyed this one a lot. No pretense at being anything but, and extremely well-crafted. Great environments and the progression was logical throughout. The map worked perfectly when I lost my sparkly guide. Encounters were spaced beautifully (loved the various chat lines as well), and the whole quest is brought to another level by witty writing and great (albeit a little sadistic) DM notes.

Very little to critique. At one point on my way to the Gnoll Commander, there is a trap floating right in the middle of the hallway about 2 feet off the ground, had to actually walk around it. Also "I'm such a lier" should be "liar". For the throne at the end, rather than simply saying "Press F to Exit", it has a second option to "Interact". I had the same thing happen in my quest, couldn't figure out a way to fix it but in the end I simply deleted the "door" on the map, and replaced it with the same door, which seemed to do the trick.

Clever and very well done. 5/5 (I was out of "tips" for the day, so wasn't able to, otherwise I definitely would have).

OK, I fixed the floating traps. Apparently I reveres what was supposed to go where. :-P I placed the targets in the wall and the launch point in midair. :-P I also corrected the angle on some saw blade traps

I fixed the word "Liar"

I also fixed the throne exit portal, at least in my tests. I think the problem was caused because initially, I chose to make it interactable but then I linked it from my map transition point in story. That turns off interactable, but since it was already on it probably causes that bug, because it was never "officially" toggled off. I'll submit that as a bug for Foundry, once I've duplicated it and determined all the ways I can thing of it can be caused.

I added a neat costume to the Final Kobold Leader as well. So hopefully, someone will notice the awesomeness there. :-)

Thank you ever so much for your feedback, it is what helps me make my quest better.

meysa · June 2013

Shameless bump. Still looking for reviews

caustic8 · June 2013

I'll give it a run through in a few minutes and post my review soon. I've appreciated your candor with other reviews I've seen you do here. If you have a chance, please give mine a run through also. I'm interested in any criticism you might have. Thanks.

Code: NW-DA8O42CFF
Title: A Short Dig

caustic8 · June 2013

Just finished and reviewed. Everything looked great and ran well. You're a cruel tyrant of a DM... I had fun. The fights were challenging and I died once - not a bad thing.

vuelhering · June 2013

Clicking the throne before collecting the chest causes the player to be stuck

I went through about 15 pots at level 45 CW. It was painful. Not so bad once I figured out the strength, but twice I backed into other groups that either pathed or spawned. Not fun.... well, okay, it was fun. Barely survived, but it did cost me a lot of pots!

I fear at level 60, this will be very, very difficult as a CW. I pulled out my tank companion after my dog was getting eaten, and he kept dying, too.

pris23 · June 2013

I have completed your quest. I think that there was a good balance of dialog vs. combat for the type of mission that you created. That last battle was really pretty tough for a solo cleric, but I made it.

I think the enemies in each area of the dungeon came at a good pace.

I would have liked to see some items to inspect or perhaps ruined bookshelves or something to show that this place had been lived in prior to the take-over. However, I found the DM messages to be amusing. Also, I think the amount of time that it takes to complete is reasonable.

Thanks for the fun quest.Please check out mine as well. It is called The Secret to Paradise: Part 1 - Paradise Lost? NW-DDMMIKYTB

redneckronin · June 2013

Ok, here's a direct copy of my in-game review:

Tags say: Story, Humour, Combat. Lost of Combat, almost no story, and what Humour there is is contrived and not very funny. The Castle Approach geography was brilliant, and flowed nicely. Inside was just Gnoll, Gnoll, Gnoll, and no story.

So lets expand on that.

Good Points

The external environment "Castle Approach" ?, was brilliant. Looked the part, felt right, I really liked the concept of showing the battlefield advancing by spawning in the forward barricades while engaged in dialogue. A huge thumbs up for that.

And that really was about it for good points.

Bad Points

Story - there really, really wasn't any. A few dialogues with people basically saying "Ha ha, you're killing lots of mobs for us. Well done, now move on and do the same again... and again... and again." There was nothing to Interact with, nothing to add more to the stroy, and more did so desperately needed to be added.

Humour - Was there any? The odd bits of "Combat Chat" weren't really that funny after the first two or three, and half way through you stop reading them anyway because you are getting bored of Whack-The-Gnoll. The humour was overly and badly contrived. And in in the end became a negative point. The attempt at a Gilbert & Sullivan reference, while the funniest of the humour references, is very likely to be aimed at an audience way too young to get the reference (I am 40 and really only got it because I work in a theatre that hosts a G&S Society play each year).

Combat - Lots of it, too much of it for too little a pay-off in terms of "engagement" with the Quest. A quarter of the way in you are fed up with seeing Gnolls, but you still have a few hundred more to go. Three large rooms with 3 or 4 Encounters, and connecting corridors with 3 or 4 more encounters that do nothing than link you to the next room for "more of the same".

In the "Boss Room" the Encounters are way too closely packed, and it nigh on impossible to deal with any of them without aggroing at least 1 more group.

Conclusion

Now I can kind of see what you were attempting to do, I think, - a parody of bad dungeon crawl. Unfortunately for me it lost the parody bit just before halfway through and became just a bad dungeon crawl.

Which is a shame because the intent was clearly there, you'd clearly put time and effort in to the Castle Approach environment and combat pacing; but then seemed to squander the "good" once we get in to the Castle.

If it was half as long, and "Tagged" correctly - "Hack n Slash Dungeon Crawl" I would have awarded 4/5 stars, as it was I gave it 3/5.

All The Best

visigoth18 · June 2013

Sorry man, I just spent 2 hours making a video review 'it's totally F'ed the mic audio was inaudible' so I'll revisit it later.

anrix2 · June 2013

The first time I played through this quest I was 40ish and I was able to complete it, using relatively few consumables. I played it again at 60 and you should know, as a level 60 CW, this crawl is near unplayable solo once you get into the hall. It feels like griefing. I would tone down the spawn triggering a whole lot, after all you do want people to complete your quest so they can rate it. I made a crawl too, I run it as a 60, it is challenging without being overbearing. I offer it to you as reference as to what is an acceptable level of combat for 60. I too had to tone it down when I got input from level 60s. The quest is called Mage Masher.

meysa · June 2013

anrix2 wrote: »

The first time I played through this quest I was 40ish and I was able to complete it, using relatively few consumables. I played it again at 60 and you should know, as a level 60 CW, this crawl is near unplayable solo once you get into the hall. It feels like griefing. I would tone down the spawn triggering a whole lot, after all you do want people to complete your quest so they can rate it. I made a crawl too, I run it as a 60, it is challenging without being overbearing. I offer it to you as reference as to what is an acceptable level of combat for 60. I too had to tone it down when I got input from level 60s. The quest is called Mage Masher.

Thank you for these comments, I'll try to find that quest and see what I can do to tune the combat, to be more L60 friendly. As an L60 CW though, I honestly didn't find even the main hall spawns to be that bad. I certainly did burn through a few potions doing them though. Still, the purpose of my posting this thread is to improve my quest, and I've heard this combat comment several times, so I'll see what I can come up with to answer these.

meysa · June 2013

redneckronin wrote: »

Ok, here's a direct copy of my in-game review:

So lets expand on that.

Good Points

The external environment "Castle Approach" ?, was brilliant. Looked the part, felt right, I really liked the concept of showing the battlefield advancing by spawning in the forward barricades while engaged in dialogue. A huge thumbs up for that.

Thank you, I had a lot of fun creating it.

redneckronin wrote: »

Bad Points

Story - there really, really wasn't any. A few dialogues with people basically saying "Ha ha, you're killing lots of mobs for us. Well done, now move on and do the same again... and again... and again." There was nothing to Interact with, nothing to add more to the stroy, and more did so desperately needed to be added.

I can accept your feelings here. Maybe I should say it's a "light story". A bunch of Gnolls takes over a castle and start causing trouble in the countryside and you're sent to root them out. Yeah, that could be considered a light story, very light even. Initially, when I came up with this idea and story boarded it in my office, I had the idea to do some really awesome things that just aren't supported by the current Foundry, which would've added a much more in-depth story, but they got removed.

redneckronin wrote: »

Humour - Was there any? The odd bits of "Combat Chat" weren't really that funny after the first two or three, and half way through you stop reading them anyway because you are getting bored of Whack-The-Gnoll. The humour was overly and badly contrived. And in in the end became a negative point. The attempt at a Gilbert & Sullivan reference, while the funniest of the humour references, is very likely to be aimed at an audience way too young to get the reference (I am 40 and really only got it because I work in a theatre that hosts a G&S Society play each year).

Humor is a personal taste. I found what I did to be amusing and so have many others. I'm sorry you didn't find it as humorous as I intended, if you have specific suggestions on this, feel free to make them and I'll take them into consideration. I'm glad you god my Pirates of Penzance reference. Do I expect most people to get it? No, but I put it there for the ones who would and because it amused me. I know, I'm selfish. I also would say it wasn't an attempt at G&S humor either. It was a quite successful reference to it, since you got it and others have remarked on it as well.

redneckronin wrote: »

Combat - Lots of it, too much of it for too little a pay-off in terms of "engagement" with the Quest. A quarter of the way in you are fed up with seeing Gnolls, but you still have a few hundred more to go. Three large rooms with 3 or 4 Encounters, and connecting corridors with 3 or 4 more encounters that do nothing than link you to the next room for "more of the same".

First off, a dungeon has to have a theme, in terms of encounters it provides. To do otherwise is absurd, unless you're attacking a Monster Circus, of some sort. Initially, there were just Gnolls and some people complained about that, so I simply did some digging in my Monster Manuals and decided that Kobolds were a logical choice.

As for too much fighting, I'm not sure there is much I can do here. I suppose I could completely redesign my castle layout, again. but if I pull out some encounters, then someone will complain that there is too much empty space, even if it's really well decorated. I could eliminate a few of the triggered spawns, or modify them to use a timer. There are many options and I'm even playing with some of them right now in my copious amounts of spare time. That isn't to say I wouldn't love to change the flow movement through the keep and eliminate having to "double back" to check some stupid "I went here" box. I'm actually considering doing some things to eliminate that, but I'm trying to figure out what the best way to accomplish it is.

redneckronin wrote: »

In the "Boss Room" the Encounters are way too closely packed, and it nigh on impossible to deal with any of them without aggroing at least 1 more group.

I disagree completely. I must've tested the pulling of that room dozens of times, because I dislike having entire rooms pulled on me. There is a "correct" way to pull it though and I can surmise from your comment that you did not find it. If pulled properly, you can have only the Gnoll Commander and the Orcish Emissary left at the end. That's certainly an easier solo fight than the majority of Foundry quests I've run. If I allowed for an "incorrect" way to pull it, just chalk that up to the sadistic ******* in me chortling with glee over player discomfort. :-)

redneckronin wrote: »

Now I can kind of see what you were attempting to do, I think, - a parody of bad dungeon crawl. Unfortunately for me it lost the parody bit just before halfway through and became just a bad dungeon crawl.

Which is a shame because the intent was clearly there, you'd clearly put time and effort in to the Castle Approach environment and combat pacing; but then seemed to squander the "good" once we get in to the Castle.

If it was half as long, and "Tagged" correctly - "Hack n Slash Dungeon Crawl" I would have awarded 4/5 stars, as it was I gave it 3/5.

All The Best

Well, it certainly is a hack and slash adventure as you mention. Mainly it was a commentary on the "brave NPC's" who order you into harms way throughout every MMO I've ever played, while they sit back with their "elite forces" while you do all the hard work.

The simple fact with this, or any quest I make, is that I cannot please everybody all of the time. All I can do is listen to, or read, your feedback and try to make changes, where I deem them to be appropriate. So your feedback is appreciated and valued, as I strive to make this, and any future quests I make, better for the people who are playing them.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the entire quest. However, if I had done everything you suggested here, it still wouldn't have deserved a "5 star" mark from you, according to your own words, so it sounds to me as if nothing I could've done in this adventure would've made you happy, at least not completely happy.

redneckronin · June 2013

A couple of responses to your responses:

meysa wrote: »

I'm sorry you didn't find it as humorous as I intended, if you have specific suggestions on this, feel free to make them and I'll take them into consideration.

I think the biggest problem with the humour was the delivery method.

Encounter Combat Chat: something on screen for 3-4 seconds, at the moment that your attention is assessing the dynamics of the layout of the monsters, how to prioritise them etc.

Now if some of it were in actual dialogue it would be there long enough to read, to take in to think about, and the humour could become a vehicle for the story, and vice versa.

meysa wrote: »

First off, a dungeon has to have a theme, in terms of encounters it provides.

Yes, it does. But it is only the total absence of a Story that limits you to using just Gnolls and Kobolds. A Story would provide a mechanism for you to justify other types of encounter. In fact in MMORPG Adventures that is effectively the most important thing that a Story gives you - choices.

meysa wrote: »

As for too much fighting, I'm not sure there is much I can do here. I suppose I could completely redesign my castle layout, again. but if I pull out some encounters, then someone will complain that there is too much empty space, even if it's really well decorated.

There is only the potential for "empty space" because there is no Story. A room with no encounters can become integral to your Quest if it has a story element in it. A Painting to look at the offers a clue to an alliance (I haven't looked at all the possible paintings in the foundry yet, so there may not be one that could fulfil that exact role) but the point remains. A book detailing the history of the Castle may reveal the existence of old caves deep beneath the Castle, these may have provided the route the Gnolls and Kobolds took to infiltrate the Castle, or they may offer an opportunity to introduce a new type of encounter (Drow, Spiders come to mind immediately). A Library with a passage hidden behind a book case that may provide a path to circumvent some of the encounters, and even lead to new ones. All of these things become possible once a story is laid over the geography of your Quest.

meysa wrote: »

I must've tested the pulling of that room dozens of times, because I dislike having entire rooms pulled on me.

But most people will only ever have one chance at clearing that room. They don't have the luxury of testing different pull strategies dozens of times. As Foundry Authors we have that luxury, but we need to remember that most players will only ever have once bite of whatever cherry we offer them.

I had to kite the whole room down the stairs and over the line of traps you had there, and then when I jumped back the mobs wouldn't come over the traps so I was able to pick them off a few at a time, and hop back over the traps.

Which reminds me! Why oh why block an entire corridor with traps? Companions refuse to cross over them without a Dismiss/Summon and you can't summon in combat. Bad Traps!

meysa wrote: »

However, if I had done everything you suggested here, it still wouldn't have deserved a "5 star" mark from you, according to your own words, so it sounds to me as if nothing I could've done in this adventure would've made you happy, at least not completely happy.

Oh, it would be quite possible to have this adventure make me completely happy. Many have done so, even Hack-Fests.

That wouldn't necessarily get a 5/5 though. 5/5 is reserved for exceptionally good quests that are of a standard I would expect from professional game designers. I think so far, out of 50 or so different Foundry Quests I have played I have awarded just two or three 5/5s.

PS: I hold myself to the same standards. If I was reviewing my own Foundry quest it would have got 3/5 at version 1, and may just squeak a 4/5 now on V1.3. But as it is my first attempt that was kind of the point, to get feedback so I could a) improve it, and b) learn more about the foundry.

PPS: I've been RPGing since 1983/4. When it was only pen, paper and dice and if we were lucky an "dungeon map" and non-permanent marker pen. Because there were no flashy visuals 95% of what you did had to be Story, and I still believe that a Story is the basis of any good Quest, even if we now have the tools to add the flashy visuals.

All The Best

mllebean · June 2013

Just ran your quest, I got my reward but the review window didn't pop up? Sorry... But I thought it was good, tough fight at the end for sure, I had to pull everyback back about 5 rooms.

I'd be happy to trade reviews with you. My quest is a roughly 45 minute single person spoof adventure.

NW-DUTKDLBYI

Info and comments at http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?326671-My-first-quest!-Kind-hearted-reviewers-wanted-)&p=4198891#post4198891

visigoth18 · June 2013

Hey, my video review is uploading now.
-Video Review-

meysa · June 2013

I just published v 1.05 of my quest. I did some retuning of a couple of the fights. I pulled out the saw traps at the stairs, because I honestly didn't think about the effect on companions. The final fight also got retuned and I dressed all the monsters for the party. :-) I also threw in a few more surprises for everyone.

meysa · June 2013

redneckronin wrote: »

Many things, read the post above if you want to see then all

I understand what you're saying, and certainly I could add caves underneath the keep, if I wanted to. Apparently, the dialogue portions that said that is was an abandoned castle were taken out, because I couldn't do something I wanted to. So I really didn't need to explain why they were there. Still, I could add much more to the story, if I so desired. However, I do not desire to ruin what was supposed to be a simple hack and slash story-lite adventure by bogging it down. I wrote this adventure to help me figure out how to do certain mechanics and to get a handle on how their builder works. I am working on a story that has a big story behind it, and will have less hacking and slashing, comparatively.

Sometimes it's just fun to go and ram your sword through the gut of a Gnoll though...

vuelhering · June 2013

meysa wrote: »

a dungeon has to have a theme, in terms of encounters it provides. To do otherwise is absurd, unless you're attacking a Monster Circus

Well, I now have MY next foundry quest basis!

warstormforum · June 2013

Yes, the throne was supposed to be the quest exit for you. I did notice that if you click it before you talk to the NPC and get your treasure chest that it doesn't work. I guess I'll have to file a bug on that. It's annoying I can't put it in place to only be intractable once you've gotten the treasure, or at least talked to the end guy.

actually you CAN do this it requires the use of '2 thrones' a pre quest throne and a post quest throne.
you place those on the same spot and set the first throne (the non interactable one) to disapear when you want to make it possible to interact with and this point you make the '2nd throne' appear on the same spot (the interactable one)

meysa · June 2013

vuelhering wrote: »

Well, I now have MY next foundry quest basis!

You know, I was thinking "I should totally make one of these" as I typed that. :-)

Looking to Trade Reviews (Storming Monte Hall)

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