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midnightsigh · June 2013

I finished my first quest the other day, A Bag of Holes (NW-DHM7UNNOJ). I'm currently reviewing a few for reviews back on other threads I found and figured I may as well start my own. I also found that the in game review limit is just to short a lot of times, and I also like to review as I'm playing, so if you ask for a review here, I can post it here or link to your own thread so I can make a longer, more detailed review. (I also apologize because as a result of live reviewing and alt-tabbing to do so, I make the time of my quest a bit longer which can effect the average if there aren't many reviews.)

A Bag of Holes is designed for solo play. It is also designed so that some reading must be done. (Not just blindly pushing 1, 1, 1, like you can do for most of the game itself.) I like to think that it is a balanced quest. There's some combat, some puzzle, some exploring, and some lore and story with many dialog options (both with effect and just because). Whenever I get enough feedback, I try to update as soon as possible, so any and all feedback is helpful!

So, please, any criticism, comments, complaints or whatnot, I'm happy to receive. I expect honesty and I will give the same. Happy gaming!

-Midnight

sphecida · June 2013

Hi Midnight! Could you tell us a bit more about your quest? I'd be glad to review, but I prefer story quests to combat, and I solo.

pris23 · June 2013

I'll be happy to play your quest. I'll leave my review on this thread.

As for my quests Part 2 is the one that I am looking for reviews on although I certainly will not complain if you do Part 1.

The review thread for my quest is http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?369081-Now-trading-reviews-for-The-Secret-to-Paradise-Part-2-Into-the-Mist

Thanks and have fun!

I'll check out your quest today.

pris23 · June 2013

OK that was awesome. I loved your environments and story.

More music/sound effects would have been nice though to help support the mood of your beautiful environments.

- Press F to go to next map. This was frequently used. It isn't a game breaker, but it does break the immersion a little bit.

- On the left of the front door inside the shack I think there was a map on the floor. I couldn't interact with it though. It was always out of line of sight.

- Press F to [OOC]This small bag has holes...

- You can take Wind's quiz more than once so you can fix incorrect mistakes. I didn't know if that was intentional.

- Fire was a pretty tough fight for a 60 cleric.

Not too hard, just requires a bit of patience because I don't have a huge damage output.

- Last dialog with the creator he says "I may consider it. May." I didn't know if the extra May was intentional.

Hey thanks so much for the fun story. I hope that you enjoy mine as well. Happy creating!

midnightsigh · June 2013

sphecida wrote: »

Hi Midnight! Could you tell us a bit more about your quest? I'd be glad to review, but I prefer story quests to combat, and I solo.

I would like to think that it's a fairly balanced quest. There are multiple maps, a lot of options in dialog, lore, combat and puzzles. I did it solo with my TR and had no problems, and the quests are geared toward solo, though if you have a regular duo partner, it doesn't hurt to go with them. My husband did it with a group, which isn't preferable, but was still reported to be enjoyable.

I hope that's enough info-I'm not very good at summary's because I either ramble or don't say enough XD

midnightsigh · June 2013

pris23 wrote: »

OK that was awesome. I loved your environments and story. More music/sound effects would have been nice though to help support the mood of your beautiful environments.

- Press F to go to next map. This was frequently used. It isn't a game breaker, but it does break the immersion a little bit.

- On the left of the front door inside the shack I think there was a map on the floor. I couldn't interact with it though. It was always out of line of sight.

- Press F to [OOC]This small bag has holes...

- You can take Wind's quiz more than once so you can fix incorrect mistakes. I didn't know if that was intentional.

- Fire was a pretty tough fight for a 60 cleric. Not too hard, just requires a bit of patience because I don't have a huge damage output.

- Last dialog with the creator he says "I may consider it. May." I didn't know if the extra May was intentional.

Hey thanks so much for the fun story. I hope that you enjoy mine as well. Happy creating!

Thank you for reviewing, and now that I'm home, I will log on and review yours as well! With the last dialog, I tried to make the Creator seem quirky or weird, so its good to know if it doesn't come off that way. I may dull down Fire's combat a bit (partially because I hate fighting those guys in general.) But it's a hard debate for myself because the essence of fire itself is action and challenge. I will make note of the map, sounds, and map transitions to fix, thank you. And as for the bag, I'm a bit confused, because i saw that when I ran through, went to fix it, and there was no [OOC] there-I retyped it, and it didn't show up, so I find it odd that it's back...so I'll try and find a way around that.

pris23 · June 2013

midnightsigh wrote: »

Thank you for reviewing, and now that I'm home, I will log on and review yours as well! With the last dialog, I tried to make the Creator seem quirky or weird, so its good to know if it doesn't come off that way. I may dull down Fire's combat a bit (partially because I hate fighting those guys in general.) But it's a hard debate for myself because the essence of fire itself is action and challenge. I will make note of the map, sounds, and map transitions to fix, thank you. And as for the bag, I'm a bit confused, because i saw that when I ran through, went to fix it, and there was no [OOC] there-I retyped it, and it didn't show up, so I find it odd that it's back...so I'll try and find a way around that.

I agree with you about the essence of fire. There were two difficult encounters that were stacked...a giant and a fire brute or something like that. Both are very difficult so maybe have one encounter set to spawn when the first one is complete to limit the time taken for people to kill them. I probably spent 15 minutes on that one fight. Granted I am a 60 cleric and I am specced for damage mitigation...not damage output. It is possible that others will not feel the same way that I do about the fight. Truthfully the ratings that you already had were 5s so it seems like it is fair enough.

As for the dialog...I have had the foundry duplicate dialog sometimes. Maybe it duplicated the dialog and you fixed one, but not the one that was connected to the item. I usually just click on the item on the map screen and open the dialog from there to ensure that it is tied to it. Or maybe the foundry didn't publish your fix as it has been failing a lot the last 2-3 days.

In either case I really enjoyed your quest and I am glad that you liked mine as well. Thanks for playing.

sphecida · June 2013

Hi, I played it last night and enjoyed it very much!

- Like pris, I couldn't interact with the item on the floor of the shack and noticed the "Go to next map" text.

- There was one early dialogue with a less/fewer grammar issue.

- Alice's dialogue: whose instead of who's and volatile instead of volitile

- The ice shards in Death's area have numbers

But those were the only things I'd change.

My favorite parts were the crazy talking mushrooms, navigating through Shadow's challenge, and learning lore through the ghosts' stories.

I played as a lvl 10 cleric and had no difficulties with combat, though one of the fire guys knocked me off a ledge and killed me - I shouldn't have been so close to the edge.

I've noticed that difficulty scales way, way up after lvl 50, so a difficulty slider through dialogue or interaction is a kind addition for higher level players.

For me, attention to dialogue and character differentiates a memorable quest from a merely good one, and yours had that in spades. Looking forward to more of your work

zbkolde · June 2013

Your quest is very creative.

Some parts were confusing to me at first, which may have been due to it being morning and maybe i wasn't fully awake yet, but eventually it came to that moment of "oh! that's what's going on!" I was really enjoying the story, and looking forward to leaving you a good rating and such... then i got to the end.

Actually, i'm still in the end, as i haven't figured out how to get out yet. The room was full of mobs, i hit one to pull it, which pulled 6 mobs out to fight me, 3 of which were tough, the other 3 archers that were sniping me from a distance. I died, waited for them to leave, released, but as i was looking for my injury kit in my inventory, they ran back out and attacked again. I died again, but that time they never left, they stayed there attacking the NPC. I released, died again, released, tried to move away, died again. So as i'm typing this, i'm dead on the floor watching them attack the NPC, not knowing how i'm going to get out of this quest, as i can't "leave" when in combat, but i can't survive to get out of combat. I'll figure out something.

Up until that point, it was a really neat quest though.

I hate to sound like a baby, but maybe tone down that last room a bit.

(By the way, i'm playing on a level 60 Cleric, full purple armor, level 30 panther companion, all level 60 enchanted gear for both of us.)

Update: I was finally able to run down the hallway without aggroing the mobs, and leave the instance. I'll keep the note to do this one, and try it again later if you ease up on the last room.

pris23 · June 2013

zbkolde wrote: »

Actually, i'm still in the end, as i haven't figured out how to get out yet. The room was full of mobs, i hit one to pull it, which pulled 6 mobs out to fight me, 3 of which were tough, the other 3 archers that were sniping me from a distance. I died, waited for them to leave, released, but as i was looking for my injury kit in my inventory, they ran back out and attacked again. I died again, but that time they never left, they stayed there attacking the NPC. I released, died again, released, tried to move away, died again. So as i'm typing this, i'm dead on the floor watching them attack the NPC, not knowing how i'm going to get out of this quest, as i can't "leave" when in combat, but i can't survive to get out of combat. I'll figure out something.

Up until that point, it was a really neat quest though. I hate to sound like a baby, but maybe tone down that last room a bit.

I also died several times in the last room because you cannot pull just one group. It would have been reasonable to have the same amount of mobs, but have one group spawn as soon as another is dead. I did manage to beat them, but I had to kill a couple archers each pull until it was manageable.

midnightsigh · June 2013

Alright. Thank you guys for reviewing! I've did an update last night and a bit more today, taking all the comments I've gotten to heart. (The changes from today are currently publishing) I had a whole page of notes of things to edit-some minor, but none the less pertinent.

-I've fixed the map in the shack and edited the names of the interactables in there
-Changed the "go to next map" texts (though a few of them still just say "go to the next part of the bag"...cause you're not supposed to know what's next XD
-Added more detail to Fire and Shadow
-Fixed some grammatical, spelling, and wording errors
-Tried to fix the LOS issues on collecting the runes
-Made it so that the runes can be collected and you can activate them in the same quest line, so if you don't have space, just go activate. Also fixed that they weren't being "used" when activating the shards.
-Edited the encounter in Fire and in the Creator's room.
-Fixed interactable names

And a lot of minor things that I'm not going to put all here. But I'm also working on some more mushroom dialog to add XD

Thank you guys so very much! This means a lot to me, and I'm very glad that people truly enjoyed it (even if it proved me wrong and my husband right XD).

I have two questions, though, that I'm looking for specific answers to, if anyone is willing. Is Death's quiz too easy? I know not everyone wants to play this game to read everything, especially if they're long. So I wanted to make it so you had to pay attention, but not remember every detail-but should I add a few more questions regarding the ghosts to make it a bit more challenging?

And second, there are a couple mushrooms, that if you're mean to them, they're supposed to trigger an extra group for an encounter. In play testing, this hasn't been working, and I've checked appearing trigger and dialog prompt time and time again and they're correct as far as I can tell. I'm wondering if it's just not working for me during play testing, or if it really isn't working and for ideas to fix it.

-Midnight

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