NW-DMFGWPBN3 (The Lost City) - trading reviews

maerwin · June 2013

Hello, after a long time, I've managed to put together my first Foundry quest (yay!), so now I'm looking for reviews. I will review your quest in return, just leave the code here, or PM me in game. Any constructive feedback is much appreciated!

The Lost City
NW-DMFGWPBN3
@maerwinSK

An elven wizard and explorer Lucia is investigating a rumor about ruins of ancient drow city, accessible from the surface. Everything goes right, until she realizes she isn't the only one looking for it...

Duration: 40-45min
Difficulty: Average
#Story, #Lore, #Combat, #Solo

Some screenshots, because everybody loves screenshots:

Spider! Kill it! Kill it with fire!

They totally worshiped something good here.

Thanks to everyone who finds some time to play my quest!

meysa · June 2013

I'll run your quest now and post a review here when I'm done. If you would reciprocate, I would appreciate it. My short code and link to my review thread are in my signature.

***Review***
Maybe change the "Go to next Map" text to be something like "Travel to Broken Kettle", so I know what I'm supposed to be looking for on the map.

The doors and doorways in your inn are mismatched in size and look kind of odd, because of it.

A bunch or your dialogue text gores from orange to white, maybe clean that up to make it consistent.

The archway into the village seems a little low. Maybe that's just because I'm tall IRL though. :-)

One of your interaction in the find clues in village is "Talk to Dead Man". Maybe change this to be "Inspect Dead Man", because in my experience talking to dead people doesn't yield a lot of information.

Same thing for Talk to Dead Drow.

Random note: Maybe give the different Drow factions different Group Names to add a little flavor to them.

You have a bunch of triggered quests called Defeat the High Priestess. Maybe rename all of them to be something unique, like Wave 1, or something like that, so there is a little variety. It took me a minute after I saw Defeat the High Priestess a couple times to figure out what was going on. Confusion = bad.

Mrs. Skimpy-dressed priestess should be "skimpily dressed". (this is from the conversation after the fight with the High Priestess.

At the end of the right path, Delkyn says "Tell the princess to stop whining and puts herself together." I think you mean "Pull herself together."

Overall, a fine quest and I can't wait to see the next installment. I might suggest that you do them in shorter time segments though.

maerwin · June 2013

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I fixed the mistakes you've pointed out. English is not my first (or second) language, so grammar mistakes are likely to have slipped in there.

The shorter time segments... well, I am aware that it ideally, it should have been like 10 minutes shorter. However, ending it after the caves wouldn't make sense, and ending it after the Priestess would likely make it barely 15 minutes. I can only hope that most won't be put away by ~40 minutes play time.

Also, this is a shameless bump!

runis12 · June 2013

I honestly didn't run into any game-breaking bugs. Here are some things I wrote down while doing the quest:

( ͡ _ ͡ )

-Mismatched door in the tavern during "Find Lucia"
-Orange and white responses back and forth.
-Delkyn behind the statue: when talking with him, you get a face full of statue
-"Put yourself together" --> "Pull yourself together" in the quest "Speak with Lucia"
-The bodies of the dead drow outside when fighting the Priestess seemed to stand then fall again, over and over.

Thanks for the fun quest! Lemme know when you make a sequel.

meysa · June 2013

Any chance I can get that traded review, in exchange for this shameless bump? :-)

maerwin · June 2013

you got it

Only noticed one more small typo ("as you much on your squirrel sandwich" - I think you meant "munch"), but no other bugs or glitches

sourcreamking · June 2013

Looks cool! Will play it the next time I log on

eskarine · June 2013

Hi, I will gladly trade reviews with you - I will run your quest tommorow afternoon/evening after I return from work.

If you can leave your review on my thread (link in siggy) that would be great.

maerwin · June 2013

Bump. Still interested in trading reviews

pris23 · June 2013

OK I reviewed your quest as promised in my thread. I enjoyed your story and felt that there was a good balance between dialog and combat. The few things that I noticed were mostly cosmetic and certainly not game breaking in any way.

Something that I appreciated from a DM perspective was the way that you set up the travel in the quest. When it was time to go to a new map you just took the player to the map that they needed to be on instead of making them run through some huge forest or something like that. I really liked that there was not very much running around for no reason. Sometimes that can be a good thing (when you want to create a specific mood/setting), but it can also stagnate parts of a quest. Hats off to you for this and thought it was definitely worth mentioning.

1. Most of the player responses are orange. This may be a personal preference, but I always feel that orange means the dialog is coming to an end or that I am making a huge quest decision.

2. The doors on the lower level of the inn are not as tall as the doorways. This may have been intentional like a saloon door or something? I thought I would point this out just in case it was not intended.

3. Lucia's conversation right before leaving the end she tells you to "wait her outside." I thought it should say "wait for me outside".

4. Delkin refers to drow priests a few times. I thought all drow religious leaders were female. Priestesses would be more appropriate in this case.

5. Lastly, in the temple there is a way to examine a statue. In the dialog box there is a way to use Arcana, Thievery, and Dungeoneering. I was looking for the religion option since I am a cleric and I was in a temple. Totally not game breaking, but since the rest of your quest was very detail oriented I wanted to give you my two cents.

Thanks so much for checking out my quest as well and I appreciated your feedback greatly. If you want to run it again after I made some changes the shortcode is NW-DDMMIKYTB.

maerwin · June 2013

Thanks everyone for the positive comments, I wasn't sure if I wanted to make part 2, but now I know I will.

I try to fix any issues you find with the quest, but unfortunately, I don't know how to fix the twitching dead drow (they sometimes stand up for a moment when fighting is nearby). They are NPCs with behavior set to 'Dead body', but that apparently bugs in combat. Other dead NPCs with same behavior don't do this (i.e. people in village), so I don't know what's the problem there.

mosby1 · June 2013

I really enjoyed this one!

Good story; nice quest hook; interesting characters (not too many like one I did recently) and dialogue; excellent pacing. I like how it kept moving smoothly all the way through. Map transitions were very nice and seamless. Even though it was longer that most, it didn't feel long to me. The ending was a bit anit-climatic, but I'm not sure how you'd change it. Looking forward to the next part.

We duo'd it - 56 TR and 53 CW. Combat was fine, there were a couple fights that would be tough to solo, but not unusually so.

Settings were very nicely done. You must have spent a lot of time with the webs! The last temple had a great feel to it. Probably could have used a bit more activity in the tavern, but it was fine.

I thought it was interesting how you offered skill-based options, but didn't require the skill. That's a nice solution for solo players.

How did you make the first statue non-sparkly? I did notice the orb (nice touch), so it was no trouble finding it, but I like that trick.

Lucia summoned the elementals (even though we didn't choose that option), but I'm glad she did.

There were a few minor typos/grammar:
- Lucia: "wait (for) me", "could (?) do"
- Delkyn: "pull(s) herself", "aren't (weren't) any more"
- Temple: "thousand(s) of bones"

maerwin wrote: »

I don't know how to fix the twitching dead drow (they sometimes stand up for a moment when fighting is nearby). They are NPCs with behavior set to 'Dead body', but that apparently bugs in combat. Other dead NPCs with same behavior don't do this (i.e. people in village), so I don't know what's the problem there.

I'm pretty sure the new behaviors available one 6/20 will take care of that problem.

eskarine · June 2013

Ok, so, I just finished your quest, sorry that it took me so long to get to it. Would be great if you could review back on my thread.

Overall it was a very nice quest, some minor things that need tweaking. The final boss, man! I don't know if you're aware of this, but foundry difficulty pops up HIGH after lv55. As a lv57 solo cleric I have to say - stacking encounters like that is not cool. Died three times and spawned pots like crazy.

- Surroundings: tavern and caves seem a little empty

- Difficulty: good overall, though spawning 3 drow assassins in one tiny room at tavern seems a little cruel, lol. I liked the caves the most - and that's because I could knockback opponents off the ledges and not fight them. In fact, the spider mother was 1-hit kill as well, with well-aimed knockback.

- Item issues: mis-matched doors in tavern, wrong item names ('dead drow sphere' at dead drow interaction, 'drow statue 2' in shrine, 'FX-Drow large floating something' in shrine), some items off the Y axis (bushes in forest, items in cave, one of the light thingys in shrine near final statue)

- Mobs: I think re-skinned wolf packmate in village looks weird - you don't see animation when it's attacking (so you don't know when to dodge) and when it does attack, you hear sounds of swordfight.

maerwin · June 2013

Lucia summoned the elementals (even though we didn't choose that option), but I'm glad she did.

I thought it was interesting how you offered skill-based options, but didn't require the skill. That's a nice solution for solo players.

Fixed. Dungeoneering indeed didn't require the skill. That wasn't intentional

(The only thing those options do is spawning less groups in their respective waves, so no big deal, really)

How did you make the first statue non-sparkly? I did notice the orb (nice touch), so it was no trouble finding it, but I like that trick.

There's an invisible item (cube) there (they don't sparkle). You don't actually interact with the statue at all.

Settings were very nicely done. You must have spent a lot of time with the webs! The last temple had a great feel to it. Probably could have used a bit more activity in the tavern, but it was fine.

Thanks. Indeed, the two hardest things to do were webs and the lights in the last room. While I am satisfied with the results of latter, some webs still aren't placed right. I just can't bring myself to fixing them.

Overall it was a very nice quest, some minor things that need tweaking. The final boss, man! I don't know if you're aware of this, but foundry difficulty pops up HIGH after lv55. As a lv57 solo cleric I have to say - stacking encounters like that is not cool. Died three times and spawned pots like crazy.

There are exactly two stacked encounters in my quest. The first one is easy + standard (mercenaries at the very beginning), second one is two easy wolf pack patrols spawning at the same time. The last boss is one single hard encounter. I agree that the assassins are probably the hardest fight of whole quest because of limited space, but they are just a single encounter as well.
The only high lvl character I have is lvl 60 CW with green items. She had zero trouble with fights, so I didn't change them. I have to admit, I have no idea how hard it might be for a cleric. Most people haven't complained about difficulty, though.

Tried to fix the rest of issues (cave is not what it's supposed to be without sounds, I know

). Funny thing is, wolves are simple incompatible with any standard meelee encounter (the best I found were spiders). Cryptic, we need wolves!

eskarine · June 2013

maerwin wrote: »

There are exactly two stacked encounters in my quest. The first one is easy + standard (mercenaries at the very beginning), second one is two easy wolf pack patrols spawning at the same time. The last boss is one single hard encounter. I agree that the assassins are probably the hardest fight of whole quest because of limited space, but they are just a single encounter as well.
The only high lvl character I have is lvl 60 CW with green items. She had zero trouble with fights, so I didn't change them. I have to admit, I have no idea how hard it might be for a cleric. Most people haven't complained about difficulty, though.

Yeah, well, clerics are squishy and without CW's firepower, so it wasn't that easy xD

eskarine · June 2013

maerwin wrote: »

There's an invisible item (cube) there (they don't sparkle). You don't actually interact with the statue at all

Do you mean a ruler cube? If not, can you precise which item it is? I am very interested in interaction point without sparkles (I'm doing a puzzle map)

maerwin · June 2013

eskarine wrote: »

Do you mean a ruler cube? If not, can you precise which item it is? I am very interested in interaction point without sparkles (I'm doing a puzzle map)

Invisible Wall - 5x5x5. Any other invisible wall should work the same way

voivodak · June 2013

I'm very interested to play your quest and tomorrow i'll surely give a play to it.
Return the favor pls. You can gather any other information about my campaign in sign.
BB

mllebean · June 2013

I’ll trade reviews with you. My quest is a roughly 45 minute single person spoof adventure: “Arty Boa and the Holy Grail”.

NW-DUTKDLBYI

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

runis12 · June 2013

Hey maerwin. Just wanted to let you know I played your quest, but I moved during the review window and it poofed on me. Dang it! I'll run it again- I'll be interested to see any changes you made since I played last.

eskarine · June 2013

maerwin wrote: »

Invisible Wall - 5x5x5. Any other invisible wall should work the same way

Ah, thanks for the tip.
Will you be playing my quest any time soon?

maerwin · June 2013

eskarine wrote: »

Ah, thanks for the tip.
Will you be playing my quest any time soon?

Done. Aside from the large number of demon elites (those fights didn't feel neither fun, nor challenging, just boring), I liked it. Four stars.

runis12 wrote: »

Hey maerwin. Just wanted to let you know I played your quest, but I moved during the review window and it poofed on me. Dang it! I'll run it again- I'll be interested to see any changes you made since I played last.

a small tip to make the review window pop again:
/ugcshowreviewgen
Bind it, use it, love it

By the way, your quest inspired me to add rune-of-fate-like items to my part 2. Just thought you should know

almostcool · June 2013

Posting my review here to give you a bump :P

Overall I thought the story was engaging but there was a bit too much running around for me personally and I think the encounters in the drow shrine could be placed a tad closer together. That room is awesome but fighting wave after wave of skeletons in it wasn't very appealing to me. Also, in regards to the shrine your details there are great but the door in the back of the room is floating in the air. I think you should try and also put some love into your other environments, that drow room had more detail than the other maps combined and really immersed me into the quest.

You have a few spelling errors but nothing major. One of them was when you interact with the rune in the shrine. You might want to review that one again.

maerwin · June 2013

One, two, three, four, five... bumpity bump.

harmor · June 2013

Played it yesterday I had a wonderful fun. used my level 60 trickster rogue, the combat had perfect pacing and difficulty, the conversation was engaging and interesting. i liked that you didn't added the pixie trail at the last shrine it made me search my surrounding. cant wait for the next part.

celestarion · June 2013

The quest is really good, the feeling of exploration is here!

What can be improved to bring more quality in your quest:

Drow monsters: the major difficulty with humanoid monsters is to have diversity. There is no problem to put the same model when it's beasts, spiders and so, but when you're using Human (or drow), you quickly notice similar models. I think you should change some model to avoid a clone army.
Monster's Idle Animations: Lot of your Drows are just waiting in Idle without moving. I think you should add animation for their idle (talk for instance).
Place your Monsters: it feels like you just put your group of mobs without placing each one. Your monster are always stacked.
Sometimes they are not facing the player (first group of orcs in the cave) and it's weird (even if it's realistic).
Music are rare in your quest. Maybe it's due to a bug, I know one which disable the first music of the map only in Public mode. Just tell me if it's a bug in your quest.

To conclude, I give you 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 (expecting you will bring those improvement).

Thank you for this adventure

.

sphecida · June 2013

Hi Maerwin, I played through The Lost City and really liked it. I liked the story and the different maps. I didn't have any trouble with the combat until the very end. Interaction with the statues was a nice touch in the final room. But I started to get tired of all the waves of soldiers. I had a lot of difficulty soloing the final group, kept rezzing right next to them when I died, and since I had to go anyway, I was unable to leave a review. I would be glad to play it again if there is a difficulty choice for solo players who are not as adept as others.

maerwin · June 2013

celestarion wrote: »

Drow monsters: the major difficulty with humanoid monsters is to have diversity. There is no problem to put the same model when it's beasts, spiders and so, but when you're using Human (or drow), you quickly notice similar models. I think you should change some model to avoid a clone army.
Monster's Idle Animations: Lot of your Drows are just waiting in Idle without moving. I think you should add animation for their idle (talk for instance).

Done. I've actually wanted to do this from start, but it became a mess when I started to add and remove encounters, and I've never got to it after. Thanks for reminding. The animations are a bit tricky, as I have to apply it to the whole encounter, but I've tried to do something with it.

celestarion wrote: »

Place your Monsters: it feels like you just put your group of mobs without placing each one. Your monster are always stacked.
Sometimes they are not facing the player (first group of orcs in the cave) and it's weird (even if it's realistic).

I did place most of them, sorry if it doesn't feel that way. In general, I try to keep mobs from one encounter together. But I will keep that on mind on my next maps

sphecida wrote: »

Hi Maerwin, I played through The Lost City and really liked it. I liked the story and the different maps. I didn't have any trouble with the combat until the very end. Interaction with the statues was a nice touch in the final room. But I started to get tired of all the waves of soldiers. I had a lot of difficulty soloing the final group, kept rezzing right next to them when I died, and since I had to go anyway, I was unable to leave a review. I would be glad to play it again if there is a difficulty choice for solo players who are not as adept as others.

Thanks for the feedback. Are you a cleric, by any chance? I've noticed they mostly have problems with the last fight. I don't want to put an easier encounter there as to not trivialize it for other classes, but as a compromise, I've added religion check there to remove one Lesser Golem (and kill 2 birds with one stone as there was no religion check in the quest before). As to the boring waves... I've removed one group in each wave so far. I'm not satisfied with the last room yet, but will have to think about another interesting twist instead of fighting undead there.

By the way, is it just my graphics, or did they change the awesome dark-purple drow platform into this horrible rainbow thing? I removed it just in case, it spoiled the whole room now

Also, it was a pleasant surprise to see my quest went from 30 plays to 220 in a day. I'm glad you guys like it. Part 2 - Threads of Time - is on the way (although I am horribly slow at decorating maps, so with my limited time it will take at least two weeks). Here are some screens from one of my maps (and only one that's finished):

sphecida · June 2013

maerwin wrote: »

As to the boring waves... I've removed one group in each wave so far. I'm not satisfied with the last room yet, but will have to think about another interesting twist instead of fighting undead there.

By the way, is it just my graphics, or did they change the awesome dark-purple drow platform into this horrible rainbow thing? I removed it just in case, it spoiled the whole room now

Also, it was a pleasant surprise to see my quest went from 30 plays to 220 in a day.

Someone said the same thing about the waves of encounters in my quest - too much the same. So I've been working on making a bunch of new costumes and re-skinning different kinds of monsters to try to make it more interesting on Hard difficulty. I guess when I started, I thought to myself, "These need to be demons and zombies to fit the story." But I guess I can take almost any monster and turn it into a demon or zombie - we'll see how that goes. *visions of zombie spiders*

Of course, the Foundry is down now, so it's frustrating!

Yes, the platform did look just like it does in your picture. Terrible when you put effort into decorating and then they change it like that.

And wow, congrats on the 220 plays! I'm still trying to get to 20 :P

draeg00n · December 2013

its a really fun map. the story was interesting enough for me to read it, which is an accomplishment.

gankydarogue · December 2013

I'm very upset at this quest. I'm a level 34 Hunter/Ranger and I was unable to open the door. I searched for 2 hours and couldn't find any way to access it. I looked online. Nothing. Wasting 2 hours of my life and making no progress is very upsetting. Someone needs to verify these foundry quests are working prior to putting them out there for use.

maerwin wrote: »

Bump. Still interested in trading reviews

NW-DMFGWPBN3 (The Lost City) - trading reviews

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