Another first timer looking for reviews...

casekuk · July 2013

Hi everyone,

I have found the foundry community to be so incredibly helpful, I am almost at a loss for words! If only the normal forums were so decent, they might be a good place to hand out!

I am asking for reviews of my first foundry quest, and after much editing and rearranging locations because of bugs, I think I am finally at a point I can call it finished.

Its part 1 of my campaign... And its called The Mysterious Portal : NW-DIKGSOTWT

I thank you for your reviews and constructive critisism in advance.

Please leave a code for your own Foundry's, I will return the favour... Possibly even with a video review. I am not sure of this setup yet, I may do this straight away, or it may be just simple text, Watch this space.

All the best,

Art.

redneckronin · July 2013

Putting this here to remind me to run/review this in the morning.

All The Best

mehrr · July 2013

I'm going to play your quest and do a review today yet.

My quest: NW - DTTNRHKBB

visualkeiuk · July 2013

As you know I have done my review for you as it is so far and will be good to run it again with the changes. And helped with other matters

It would be good if you could re run mine with the edits. To touch home with some feedback

Keep it up and the more time you spend in the foundry the better you learn

docterry · July 2013

casekuk wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I have found the foundry community to be so incredibly helpful, I am almost at a loss for words! If only the normal forums were so decent, they might be a good place to hand out!

Art.

A bit off topic, but I agree with you. I haven't authored any quests yet, but have seen how helpful everyone is on this forum--whereas, on the regular forum I have given up asking for advice due to the huge number of "You really suck" "Sheesh, I can do that using no pots!" and other such hurtful responses.

So, to all you Foundry-ers(?) good on you!

mehrr · July 2013

Hey casekuk, I've played your map.
It's really good. I didn't find any critical and visual bug. I'd say that having to come back to report is boring and you should avoid these kind of things. However, it's a great quest and map.

I was getting excited to see how the map from the other side of the portal looked like

redneckronin · July 2013

Sent a PM.

All The Best

casekuk · July 2013

Thank you guys,

I am glad you enjoyed the quest, although I am concerned about the difficulty at lvl 60. The spawn point just isn't safe, which in itself is ok I guess, but the roaming mobs in my first map can really get the better of you at 60.

Can I have some opinions on this please, as even I find it difficult on my Wizzy and even Guardian if I get the hulk and a couple of the other roamers at once.

I did put a warning to this difficulty in the description, but I'm wondering if it isn't 'too' much.

Thanks for your help all.. Very appreciated.

I will run a few Foundry's this evening, and come back here to review them before bed.

Visual, I will probably leave yours for tomorrow now if thats ok, as I have already run yours. Not to say I won't, I'd be glad too, but I will run the others first.

Thx all

casekuk · July 2013

Oh another quick thing...

Mehrr

=I'd say that having to come back to report is boring and you should avoid these kind of things. However, it's a great quest and map.

While I agree that people will find this boring, I did do my best to keep it 'short' I made the 'Barracks' very small for that purpose.. I was just wondering what my solutions to this are?

The story requires the return to the authority figure to 'report' I guess I could do this 'magically' and will look to doing this in the future... I was just wondering if there were any other ideas you folks may have?

Art

bandolini · July 2013

Hi Art.

I ran through your quest this morning. Well done, I really enjoyed it. It is nice to see the difference between an author who takes time and effort to add atmosphere and detail to their environments which you obviously do, and those that don't. The framework of the story is straightforward, as a basis for the crystal hunt and the encounters, and your dialogue is well written and logical. The first part is, as you said, structured to stop you just running straight through, you could get into a lot of strife if you did that, and it works, as its a challenge but if you are careful its manageable. one tiny point, and I know this is hard to get right, one of the spiders the traverse the path gets hooked on a tree, which actually makes it easier to pick it off! but it's a minor gripe, and I know how hard it is to get the looping paths right, especially in a forest. All in all, I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to part two. Thanks!

I am a rookie author here and I have just published my first three parter which if you would like to look at I would be very grateful. I think fellow authors views will be so much more beneficial as when you have been through the process of creating a quest it is easier to understand how hard some of the techniques are. Cheers!

The references are:

The Captains Return Part 1: NW-DHEX3XPPU
Part 2: NW-DO595JNP2
Part 3: NW-DBSJ4HMOU

casekuk · July 2013

Thanks for the kind words Bandolini, I'm glad you enjoyed it

Interesting that you noticed the spider getting caught, because I went to great lengths to make sure that didnt happen to any of the 'wanderers' but the foundry as I'm sure you know is really awkward like that sometimes...

The 'hulk' is supposed to catch you off guard if your not being careful, but on a few times through it myself, I have noticed him starting in different areas... Go figure. I will look at the pathing again and see if I can tweak it further.

Thanks for noticing the 'detailing' When I started doing it, I sat there thinking to myself WHAT HAVE YOU LET YOURSELF IN FOR!! lol.. Detailing takes a VERY long time, and lots of patient effort, I'm so pleased you liked that.

As I have said to the others, I will get to play some foundry's tonight, possibly not as far as yours but I will state a promise to you now of playing them as soon as I possibly can.

Thanks for your insights all,

Greatly appreciated.

Art.

bandolini · July 2013

For your info, I played on a lvl 25 Rogue with a cleric companion, and didnt have any problems. The 'Hulk' did indeed surprise me, but it started attacking my companion first so that kind of made it easier, and I also use a lot of them in my quest, so I am quite adept at how to beat them after the hundreds of run throughs of my own!
I too had that 'what am I doing' moment, on more than one occasion when I changed my mind about some minor feature and spent the next 2 hours making everything else in a particular map work around it, so I know how you feel! Also I read through a previous comment about the 'boring' element of travelling back and forth, and think we can never get this sort of thing right for all tastes. Me, I was fine with it, and saw how it sat within the story, it didnt take long so I accept that there has to be some element of this, but we just have to agree that not everyone looks for the same things in a quest and respect those views. thats part of the fun of the foundry I guess!

Looking forward to your feedback if and when you can get time.

Cheers, Band.

casekuk · July 2013

mehrr wrote: »

I'm going to play your quest and do a review today yet.

My quest: NW - DTTNRHKBB

I have just run your quest Mehrr, and I enjoyed it.

I really liked the mood and colour change after speaking to the first NPC... Great atmosphere for the fighting to come!

A couple of things I would point out about your quest follow...

The first quest objective is 'go to next map', and while this is fine.. I think it would be nicer after just picking up the quest that it said something more descriptive? I found the trail a little misleading at times, as it goes through rocks and trees etc...but thats not a biggie.

As I got underground I noticed that the first corridor had a black wall at the end of it which disappeared when I got close.. Not sure what that is, some kind of graphical glitch? It didn't stop me proceeding, but it did look a bit odd and out of place. Also theres a big hole at the end of the lit tunnels that players could fall down.. You might wanna cover that up with something

I liked the All Seeing Eye, he was a nice addition, but there was little in the way of explanation as to why he's there.. I don't have a solution, it just seemed a bit 'sudden' and again a little out of place. a little more attention to him would be great.

The part after the tunnels feels a little disjointed, the locations feel a little too different sometimes, although they are all well done. At one point I didn't know which way to go at all.. And turning on the trail didn't help as there wasn't one. I had to run around a bit to find my way. I'm not for hand holding in these games, but I felt a little directionless at that point, again not a biggie, it was easy enough to find my way.

Now to the final battle... I REALLY liked the idea, I liked the setup, the sound effects everything was great.. But the actual execution really needs some work I'm afraid to say

I found it very easy to outwit the waves of fights by trapping them in the lava while I took the high ground and had my Wizzy wail on them from his vantage point. The fights were good, but difficulty didn't scale and seemed to go backwards at the 3rd change. Also regarding the waves.. Its a small niggly thing, but you cant really have 'The Final battle 1, 2, 3 and 4... The FINAL battle needs to be exactly that!

I liked the idea of your quest very much, but I think you need to spend some time fine tuning it. There were quite a few errors in spacing of text too, you might want to look through the conversations.. Again, niggly little things, but worth changing.

Thanks for your time, I hope this helps...

Art.

d3war · July 2013

casekuk wrote: »

Thank you guys,

I am glad you enjoyed the quest, although I am concerned about the difficulty at lvl 60. The spawn point just isn't safe, which in itself is ok I guess, but the roaming mobs in my first map can really get the better of you at 60.

Can I have some opinions on this please, as even I find it difficult on my Wizzy and even Guardian if I get the hulk and a couple of the other roamers at once.

I did put a warning to this difficulty in the description, but I'm wondering if it isn't 'too' much.

Thanks for your help all.. Very appreciated.

I will run a few Foundry's this evening, and come back here to review them before bed.

Visual, I will probably leave yours for tomorrow now if thats ok, as I have already run yours. Not to say I won't, I'd be glad too, but I will run the others first.

Thx all

The first pull of the mission, I was very careful to grab only two spiders, and stay right on the path, but one of my abilities (level 34 guardian by the way) pulled another group of spiders as well as one of the big foulspawn brutes out of the forrest. I managed the fight all right, but I'd imagine that would have killed me easily at level 60. I was especially bummed because I didn't feel like I had done anything wrong.

The rest of the pulls seemed to go much more smoothly. When I was attacked by more than one group, I felt like it was something that I'd done wrong, not bad level design.

Other notes
1) For a lot of the initial conversations with the guard, you use quotation marks for what he's saying and then non-quotes for actions. At some point in the middle of the mission you stop doing this. I generally prefer to put his words in white and any actions in OOC tags. Either way you want to go, you should be consistent all the way through.
2) The portal gives you a prompt to "Press F to Teleport." I assume it's a feature of the object and you can't get rid of it, but I wanted to mention it just in case there's a way to turn that off.
3) There's a double chest back in a nook to the right behind some roots in the Foulspawn Tunnels right before you turn to the left to see the first cool looking crystal.

Awesome mission, looking forward to seeing the next ones. My mission is NW-DA7ZWLNXG if you'd like to return the favor.

mehrr · July 2013

casekuk wrote: »

I have just run your quest Mehrr, and I enjoyed it.

I really liked the mood and colour change after speaking to the first NPC... Great atmosphere for the fighting to come!

A couple of things I would point out about your quest follow...

The first quest objective is 'go to next map', and while this is fine.. I think it would be nicer after just picking up the quest that it said something more descriptive? I found the trail a little misleading at times, as it goes through rocks and trees etc...but thats not a biggie.

As I got underground I noticed that the first corridor had a black wall at the end of it which disappeared when I got close.. Not sure what that is, some kind of graphical glitch? It didn't stop me proceeding, but it did look a bit odd and out of place. Also theres a big hole at the end of the lit tunnels that players could fall down.. You might wanna cover that up with something

I liked the All Seeing Eye, he was a nice addition, but there was little in the way of explanation as to why he's there.. I don't have a solution, it just seemed a bit 'sudden' and again a little out of place. a little more attention to him would be great.

The part after the tunnels feels a little disjointed, the locations feel a little too different sometimes, although they are all well done. At one point I didn't know which way to go at all.. And turning on the trail didn't help as there wasn't one. I had to run around a bit to find my way. I'm not for hand holding in these games, but I felt a little directionless at that point, again not a biggie, it was easy enough to find my way.

Now to the final battle... I REALLY liked the idea, I liked the setup, the sound effects everything was great.. But the actual execution really needs some work I'm afraid to say

I found it very easy to outwit the waves of fights by trapping them in the lava while I took the high ground and had my Wizzy wail on them from his vantage point. The fights were good, but difficulty didn't scale and seemed to go backwards at the 3rd change. Also regarding the waves.. Its a small niggly thing, but you cant really have 'The Final battle 1, 2, 3 and 4... The FINAL battle needs to be exactly that!

I liked the idea of your quest very much, but I think you need to spend some time fine tuning it. There were quite a few errors in spacing of text too, you might want to look through the conversations.. Again, niggly little things, but worth changing.

Thanks for your time, I hope this helps...

Art.

I'm considering doing another quest. It was my first map so was great to have a look what I can do with the foundry and these reviews
helped me a lot.

I appreciate the review and my second map will be way better I'm sure.

visigoth18 · July 2013

it's good that you started a thread of your own "you should make a signature for your quest and link it to this thread"

I think "This" is a great video tutorial, you might find it helpful. "I know I do"

docterry wrote: »

Foundry-ers(?)

"Authors", unless it's someone who only plays [UGC] and then I would call them "Reviewers" XD

casekuk · July 2013

Thanks so much for your support guys! My quest is now at 17 plays.. just a few more and I will be 'eligible'!!

@Bandolini

I'm really sorry my friend, I got your quest up and running, but every time I try and go to Thann Manor, I get the error message:

Dynamic patch failure: The connection was idle too long! I have NO idea what this means.. I tried it on 2 different characters and got the same... I will try again tomorrow.

@Visigoth19

Thanks for the link.. I will check that out tomorrow sometime, it looks great! I will also look at creating a decent sig.. I think your right, if your gonna do this.. Do it properly.

@D3war

It's funny you should pick up on the fact that I forget my quotes during the conversations, this is something I will check again... Funny, because I started out using the OOC as suggested. I wrote the entire thing like that, and then for reasons I honestly cant remember now I decided to change it to Quotes and normal text (book style)

The problem, as I'm sure you understand, is the way the foundry presents these 'texts' to you... And even though I was diligent, and methodical in changing them, it's obvious now I missed some! Thanks for the heads up, I will recheck them.

I will check the 'chest' you pointed out.. That seems odd, but well spotted.

I am suposed to be checking Band's quest tonight but I have a weird issue with it, so I will check out yours D3... I will come back and review asap.

Thanks for your input all,

Art.

casekuk · July 2013

Aww man!!

I get the same trying to play yours now D3war aswell..

It seems to be a common problem, many people cant change zones while playing foundry quests..

All I can do is try again tomorrow.. Sorry guys.

Art.

casekuk · July 2013

Ok, going back in to try these now.. It seemed that quite a few people were having this issue.

Fingers crossed

Art.

casekuk · July 2013

@Bandolini

I just finished your first quest Band, and I'd like to say it's simply brilliant! You will get LOTS of bad reviews from the text clickers, and thats such a shame because your writing is among the best I have read in any foundry! A story so deep and clever it is worthy of a book! I REALLY liked it.

As for the quest itself I found so much to like, including the fights which were well spaced and balanced! The detail you injected into it, from the streets of Luskan, to the uniforms of the Luskan guard, to that so cool little tavern (the seven sails was it) that you created. Just brilliant! Just after I left that tavern btw, one of your mobs was stuck in the wall.. Might want to check that placement.

There were a couple of things I'd suggest to improve it slightly, if I may?

The text itself is always in a block... and this makes it harder to read than if you split it into mini paragraphs. I know for continuity and proper writing it should be like that, but all bunched up, especially when there's a lot of text it hurts the eyes a bit. I will never understand why game developers think white text on black is a good idea!!

The initial conversation with Craulnober has a choice to tell him he's being rude, or the quest path... If you take the 'he's being rude' path the conversation ends and you have to start over. I didnt mind this, but maybe you could play this a little differently, so that either choice flows into the appropriate texts? Also, he say's he has to go at the end of the conversation and he disappears. Again this is only niggly little things, but there is a way to swap out the NPC, and have him move off on a looping patrol to give it the appearence he has 'actually' walked off. Honestly its not a big deal, I just think it would make it that 'little bit' better.

Your placement of mobs is excellent too, and of a difficulty that my 16 rogue had no issue with. My guardian however may have struggled. Guardians have ABYSMAL dps, and those fights would be very long. May be worth thinking about.

The end fight was spectacular! Brilliantly crafted, and set just right.

Your quest is a triumph Band, and I support it fully. I am actually eager to play the others, and will do so when I get the time.

It's SUCH a shame that some folk dont want to read quests, because yours is SO good. Like I said earlier, be prepared for lots of immature bad reviews my friend.

But dont let that stop you. I like them just the way they are!

Take care,

Art. (aka Casek)

zagnar1 · July 2013

I will review your quest. My foundries are in my sig. Review either one - I have been having a hard time getting anyone to review my stuff.

casekuk · July 2013

I will get to it as soon as I can Zagnar, thanks for your review in advance!

And now for some good news...

THE QUEST IS NOW ELIGIBLE FOR DAILY!!

I can't thank everyone enough, I hope that this will make it a little more appealing to folks, and it might get some more random plays.. we will have to see.

On a side note... How come some quests have gotten many more plays than 20 and are NOT eligible for the daily? How does that work?

Thanks again all!

Art (aka Casek)

zagnar1 · July 2013

Just finished it. I love it. I can't wait to see what you do with the second part. I like extra-planar quests

The environments were really good, but there were two small things I noticed:
No music. The forest could have used music more than the caves. The caves you had a lot of atmospheric sounds, which when combined with the lighting, created a good mood setting. Somehow the forest felt a little lacking in the sound department. (I know outdoor maps can be buggy with sound)

The combat, I enjoyed it overall. Playing this on a level 46 DC, I found one part to be unusually hard. In the forest I was basically attacked by 3 encounters at once. Consider maybe adding some wave-style encounters. Have the second wave encounters set to appear when the player beats the previous encounter. You can also set encounters to appear on markers. Its really just my preference rather than an outright complaint. I was able to defeat everything easily except that one spot.

Great quest. I can't wait to see part 2!

visigoth18 · July 2013

casekuk wrote: »

THE QUEST IS NOW ELIGIBLE FOR DAILY!!

Congratulations ^_^

casekuk · July 2013

Thanks for your time Zagnar, I glad you enjoyed the quest. I agree with you on the music side of things, and have to confess the reason I left it out was because it's one of the first things I turn down when I start a new game! I hardly ever have the music playing, it's a weird habit I've always had.

But rightly so, you have brought my attention to the fact that maybe I should put some in, so thank you for that.

The encounter in the forest is becoming a little bugbear to many... I may well consider revising this fight a little.

Thanks for the input, I will review your quest later today, I have 2 in front of yours to do.

Regards,

Art (aka Casek)

casekuk · July 2013

@D3war

Just finished your quest, and you can mark me down as another subscriber! To me this quest felt professional, well thought out and above all fun to play!

I loved your locales, they were very well put together, although possibly if i'm being nitpicky a little too dark, but no biggie.

When you first speak to Vernor is it downstairs, the camera angle is a bit funky, but I dont think theres a great deal of that, thats in your control.

I did find one portcullis that opened, and then wouldn't let me through. On succesive attempts it said there seems to be no way to open it. But again, no major issue here either.

Really enjoyed your quest, thanks for the fun time!

Art (aka Casek)

bandolini · July 2013

Wow Art, thanks for such a brilliant review, I am SO happy that you enjoyed it, and I really appreciate your comments, I will definitely look at making those changes. I spent many hours just learning how to do things on this map and after so many hours I just wanted to get something out there to see if I was going in the right direction, and your review gave me great encouragement. I hope you enjoy the other parts as much, they are far less wordy, as now you go on to the heavy fighting, (i am worried about the level of encounter being to hard at higher levels, its so hard to understand that balance) so I tried to make the environments really atmospheric, I hope you think I succeed in this. Personally I really like the sewers, ( and the gruesome torture chamber!) I put many hours into them, but again it's a matter of taste. I will continue to develop them as I have a couple of small areas that need a little work, i am sure you'll notice if you get the chance to play them. Your view is obviously well balanced and I would really appreciate your critique of the others if you can later. Cheers mate and thanks again!

bandolini · July 2013

BTW - congrats on getting into the eligibility for dailies! Let us know when part two is ready!

Band.

casekuk · July 2013

@Zagnar - you drew the short straw my friend, you got the video review! lol...

You'll find it here 268 minutes from the time I post this... Bloody UK upload speeds SUCK! lol.. It's doing its best

I really liked Visigoths idea of video reviewing these quests for people, so I did yours as only my second one so far... I am trying to find a natural feel to them, it's hard when talking into a mic, but I'm hoping to get better as time goes on. I enjoy doing them.

in summary, I think your quest was really well put together and thoroughly enjoyable.. I am lucky to have some talented folks looking for reviews in this thread! Obviously there's more in the video...

Thanks again,

Art (aka Casek)

casekuk · July 2013

@Zagnar - you drew the short straw my friend, you got the video review! lol...

You'll find it here 268 minutes from the time I post this... Bloody UK upload speeds SUCK! lol.. It's doing its best

I really liked Visigoths idea of video reviewing these quests for people, so I did yours as only my second one so far... I am trying to find a natural feel to them, it's hard when talking into a mic, but I'm hoping to get better as time goes on. I enjoy doing them.

in summary, I think your quest was really well put together and thoroughly enjoyable.. I am lucky to have some talented folks looking for reviews in this thread! Obviously there's more in the video...

Thanks again,

Art (aka Casek)

casekuk · July 2013

Stupid double posting! Sorry.

Another first timer looking for reviews...

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