Prologue: Fort Neverember - NW-DL2RVQ54C .Will trade reviews.

casten24 · June 2013

So, this is just a rename and a tune-up of an old quest that I accidentally gutted when I was beginning work on the first chapter of the campaign. In an effort to prepare the 2nd Chapter, I ended up gutting this rather than copying it (apparently, colons in titles make the duplication process fail. Couple that with a long day... well. Stuff happens.) Anyway. This is the Prologue to my Portrait Gray Campaign.

Prologue: Fort Neverember
NW-DL2RVQ54C (You'll need to search for this to find it)

Current Average Playtime - 19 minutes

The Story:
Kobold hunting is the reason for which you came to Fort Neverember. It's not what you received, though. Can you survive the Bandit King's siege?

Features:
Combat Difficulty Slider... In the form of optional side quests (best listen to General Sarkis when preparing for the siege. He'll direct you to them).
Working Ballistae... Available through the completion of one of the optional side quests.
Some side humor... hint: visit the mess hall in the fortress upon arrival...

Please, if you get the chance, an in-depth critique left here would be ideal. And if you'd like to trade reviews, either leave a post here or toss me a Private Mail with the ID number. Note: There is a chance that I could get backed up with requests. I will be checking this, though, so if you post, I will get to your quest eventually.

Side note: I've had a lot of experience critiquing stories (part of my major at Uni), so that will be the focus of any critiques I do. In essence, you'll get a greater help (if it's needed) with the story logic, grammar, as well as the necessity of information presented by NPCs (both through OOC and if the NPCs repeat information... or give more info than they should know...) than you will with visuals (though I will try my best to point out things that work and don't work).

Pictures coming soon.

casten24 · June 2013

And here are the screenshots...

Arrows Away!

The Bridge to Fort Neverember

The Fort Neverember Lighthouse and the Majestic

Fort Neverember

casten24 · June 2013

Scattershot Ballistae, go!

The Siege Begins...

Woops... Friendly Fire...

casten24 · June 2013

And, finally...

Hmm... Odd looking people...

Did you see it coming? I saw it coming.

casten24 · June 2013

Giving it a bump.

lumicakery · June 2013

Hi there, Ill give your quest a go. My quest is in my sig (the second one pls). And if possible, post your review on

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?366002-Trading-Reviews-Deception

Thanks in advance

.

lumicakery · June 2013

Hello there, finished playing your quest. I kinda liked it but it needs a lot of refining. Anyway here are some of my comments.

Here are some of the main things you might need to look into

1) Details. Atm looks a bit empty. For the bridge, I recommend debris, barrels, crates, construction doodads, anything that says, 'I'm under construction'. You can even add some builder npcs to give more of the feeling. For the village I recommend things like merchant stalls, wagons, trailers, more barrels and crates.
On a side note, the village didnt really do anything for the plot, so its possible to just replace it with something else, such as a military operation with tents and what not.

2) Music. Why wasnt there any

? I bet itll look a whole lot more awesome with the right music.

3) A lot of going in and out of the fort. If im not mistaken, you have a couple of duplicates of inside and outside of the fort. Its gonna be quite tedious editing one by one (particularly in adding more details). I think its possible to only have one instance of the inside and outside, as there wasnt much plot going on inside of the fort. I think you can just make Sarkis be stationed outside of the fort, have a guard outside saying that everyones safe inside and what not, and only need to go inside at the end. This way, you can put some of the ideas you had inside the fort such as the star wars (trolol) reference outside to liven it up. You can put it on the bridge as well. Just my thoughts.

And these ones are some of the more minor things.

1) The townsfolk were walking so fast o: I think you might to reduce their movement speed. Else make them stationary and do something like animate them talking to each other, doing merchanty things, loitering, etc. anything to give a more realistic feel.

2) Costumes. I noticed you used a couple of preset costumes. But I strongly advise that you do not use the cleric companion costume. Seriously, everyone has her, and its kinda awkaward

.

3) Some of the npcs were not properly named, like battle wight commander pirate, and an elf with a number attached to it.

4) Fort Neverember. That name carries a lot of weight lore wise. Personally, I would prefer a different name.

Anyway, hope my review helped

.

j54219 · June 2013

Good run casten.
I like the balance between battle and movement around the map.
I really liked how you mixed the ability on the pigs. I never thought about that on animals.

Minor note, I think after retreating after the first wave I was told to talk w/ General Sarkis, but found myself talking w a Guard?
Also nice work on the away team

Good Luck!

casten24 · June 2013

Well... first griefing (yay?). 1 star and no explanation... Didn't expect it to happen so early.

brunomalta · June 2013

Casten....nice to see your post. I will have a run at your quest latter today and tell you what i think. Good to know you managed to finish it.

casten24 · June 2013

hahah, yeah, I was hoping to run into you in the foundry, but no such luck. I was having trouble remembering the second and third parts of your name. I'm happy that you were able to find my post, though. Cheers. I see you have two quests, so I'll give them a go when I get a chance, as well.

brunomalta · June 2013

casten24 wrote: »

hahah, yeah, I was hoping to run into you in the foundry, but no such luck. I was having trouble remembering the second and third parts of your name. I'm happy that you were able to find my post, though. Cheers. I see you have two quests, so I'll give them a go when I get a chance, as well.

I pulled both of them. I had two people playing then and the feedback was not good so i will re-work them and publish again latter. I will let you know when i do.

casten24 · June 2013

Cool, I look forward to giving them a go.

karitr · June 2013

Couple of typos spotted - Sarkis says "here" when he means "hear" and Spork's line when you first come across him needs correcting.

I'm not sure if foundry designers have control over volume, but approaching from the bridge in complete silence to then be hit with a wave of town noise the like we only hear in the enclave was disconcerting to say the least. This either needs to be toned down, or sound effects added to the bridge area to balance the two.

Both the Fort of Many Doors and the tree-felling in real time (:p) felt artificially designed to stretch the length of time spent playing the quest.

Your guards were too powerful. My CW (L60) reaped all the reward of encounters that didn't leave a scratch on her.

Returning to the bridge to seal the fort gates shut (I think), I passed a luminous green, circular target on the ground that I believe was a placeholder for the Ballistae controls (it was in that general area anyway).

Although new, the fort exterior could use more signs of habitation. Currently it looks as if even the sand gets swept hourly.

On the plus side, I loved the Ballistae, the harbour, having my own unit of soldiers, the fort ramparts (yep I walked them), the combat design in general and of course the trekkers (you recreated the characters perfectly, they were unmistakeable; my era too

).

Hope you keep working on it as it will be worth a revisit.

casten24 · June 2013

karitr wrote: »

...

Thanks for the critique. I'm looking into decorating more, but I need to be a bit careful, because I plan to use the map for the future chapters, and the market will grow with each consecutive chapter, but it will be added eventually (most likely after all the chapters are done). Concerning the sound, unfortunately, I don't have control over the volume... However, I found a better sound bit, that actually becomes louder as you get closer (why the Neverwinter City Ambiance 2 doesn't grow louder as you get closer to the center, I have no clue). For the trees, yeah, I can see that, ended up switching them as well as the adventurers to optional quests. As for the Fortress, it's partially out of realism that I created it that way (where would you meet the commander of a fortress? and, where's the most tactical place to station guards to guard the most secure place in the fort and still be able to field as many troops as you can?), but more importantly, I did it because I would have gone over my Encounter budget if I hadn't broken it up (50 encounter limit, which is strange as the actor (mobs) limit is 500 and the largest encounter group is 6 units. As for the difficulty... Well, you did do all the optional quests, I'm guessing (as you mentioned the ballistae). Still, I've expanded the combat slider, by making both the barricades and the adventurers optional. So, hopefully that will increase the difficulty even more. Anyway, thanks again.

casten24 · July 2013

re-published with some added flair. Added some (better placed) grass, as well as adjusted the heights of certain buildings in preparation for details that are being added in the first (of possibly many) Gaiden for the Campaign.

bandolini · July 2013

Hi Casten,

I gave this a run through earlier and wanted to say I thought it was good fun and had some really nice touches. Loved the 'war pigs' and I liked the variety of enemy, most of which I found well balanced with regard to having the extra NPC backups, it is a good concept and the flexibility is also very nice, with the option to get extra help. Your harbour with the ship would look even better with a bit of dockyards type debris and some of the NPC's doing some animations appropriate to the scene.

Cons were I thought the environment needed a bit more detail just to fill it out and add atmosphere, and because of the placing of certain buildings, the 'sparkly' trail went through walls a lot, but that's a small gripe. I didn't think you needed so many doors in the interior bit as this doesn't really add anything, but these are minor, as I thought all in all it was a good fun quest! Unfortunately I got a server disconnection as I was just about to complete it and couldn't place my review but will revisit it later to give it 4stars. Well done.

If you want to have a look at my offering ( I am a first time author) I would really appreciate your 'proffesional' feedback on my story.
The Captains Return Pt 1 - NW-DHEX3XPPU
The Captains Return Pt 2 - NW-DO595JNP2
The Captains Return Pt 3 - NW-DBSJ4HMOU

Cheers and keep up the good work!

casten24 · July 2013

Heya, Bandolini. Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into adding more stuff to the dock area. A for the rest of the environment, it'll grow in progressive chapters. Before it was a fortress it was a small, isolated fishing village. The Sparkly trail, I really have no control over. The odd thing is, in the Foundry, the trail completely avoids the houses, but post-publish, it doesn't. The doors in the interior, I'd like to get rid of, but what what replaces them (a small archway that's the size of the entrance to the Fort's Messhall) wouldn't suffice for the look, so until the option to pick 'open' room transitions appears, that's what I'm stuck with.

Thank you again for your feedback. I'll look into your quests right now.

winterswitch · July 2013

Hey Casten, I just completed The Gray Portrait.

First off, I really enjoyed the exploration/hunting for clues vibe in the village. And the environments you've built, particularly at the endgame, are atmospheric and have great attention to detail. I have only a few minor suggestions:

--Outside the castle, at the start, a bit of music or ambient sounds would help set the tone. I heard seagulls as I approached the water, so no need to change anything there.
--Just inside, there's a guard sitting in a chair with his feet clipping into the stone fireplace. I know it's a massive pain to position NPC's who are sitting/leaning, but I think it's worth tweaking this.
--After drinking the blackout potion, an NPC says "it's taking affect." This should be changed to "it's taking effect."

The rest was great. Nivram is one of the more interesting characters I've met in a Foundry.

I'd appreciate it if you could give "The Green Zone" a run-through. Thanks.

Prologue: Fort Neverember - NW-DL2RVQ54C .Will trade reviews.

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