Neverwinter Noir now open for review (and review trades) :)

drnoesis · July 2013

NW-DDZMGM5F3

Hi all, after countless hours spent sat in front of the pc, levelling up my "discomfort" and "numb posterior" scores to godlike proportions, I've finally managed to get my first quest running and published

So, like many a newbie author before me, I was wondering if it would be possible for any of you to take a look at my quest and let me know what you think? Be as detailed as you like, as I'm always interested to learn, just rememeber to be gentle

In return, feel free to leave your quest/campaign shortcodes below, and I'll add them to my list of quests to work through

Big thanks to so many of you in the community, both here, in game and on youtube, for your advice, instruction and feedback through the whole process, and for helping me keep my spirits up when things got tough

I'm shattered after it, and I'm not sure I want to look at the toolset again for a little while, lol, but I've really enjoyed going through the process of developing content again, and I'd like to thank everyone that's taken a few minutes to help!

EDIT: Just to help myself keep track, here's the q's I need to review as soon as I'm able....

NW-DS1XBAK7D - @thalazar1 (Done)
NW-DTZKRXY4J - @wuhsin (Done)
NW-DJ5BFT52F - @oortexplorer
NW-DIKGSOTWT - @Caseuk

drnoesis · July 2013

spotted a couple of bugs with encounters attacking stuff they shouldn't. Corrected that now and published the update to hopefully fix it soon.

I'm also finding on playthroughs its not always giving me directions on where to go next.... trying to figure that out now.

Neither set of bugs showed up in the foundry..

weird..

thalazar1 · July 2013

will run this in the morning, for now i can barely keep my eyes open.

drnoesis · July 2013

bugs ironed out where possible, and it's all ready to go for reviewing.

Average playtime seems to be in the region of 30-35 mins.

thalazar1 · July 2013

ok where to start.

I think you did an amazing job on the story, as one of my fav genre I was completely enthralled. I found a few things mostly small. But again I can not speak enough to the story. (though I may have driven you average time up by an hour

sorry)

ok small things *SPOILERS* (though i will limit them as best i can)
-talking to the urchin right away "he tole me" i wrote this down thinking it was a typo but looking back now i think it may have been an accent choice
-andre is scared after reading the journal (seemed weird for him to be continuously scared after the issue was resolved)
-talking to Hasting at the bar "Foot prints on (them?) all the time" missing them
-bar patron elf with the slicked back long hair (not sure if a bug, pathing problem or cryptic issue) but while walking around he seemed to faint and just lay on the floor before getting up to wander again
-just a pirate repeated twice maybe add a ! to the last one "just a pirate?!"
-Little girl street urchin in the bar player refers to her as boy
-sneak theif instead of thief(talking to bone capt)
-when in jail you can still hear bar ambiance, have the sound set to disappear at the right time, also the end boss once defeated you can still hear screams and boss voice, same thing set it to disappear
-Cleaned up to you (after, or for you?) forgot to write down which dialog this was
-outside the caves young street urchin is named 'street urchin 3'
-Urchin stands up afraid of the pirates (wont say where but i think you know) make the npc ignore all so she doesn't react to them)
-first set of slaves near the beach a tent is floating half in the rocks half in mid air.
-the portal interact text says go to next map
-going back to the office we use the same door as the bar instead of the original office door
-tell 'use' your story (extra e)
-very end of quest after chest says go to next map again

One big thing for me was coming back to protector's enclave each time. It takes you out of the story to come back to full colour (not to mention the current cryptic bug that forces you to log out and back in as it drops your quest in PE) It will take some time but maybe use some prefab neverwinter street maps to move between buildings so the whole quest will be black and white.

Again I loved it a lot, as well as all the references, names and movie mash ups thrown in.

Like Bensunmum (didn't think any one else saw murder by death)

monty python line thrown in for good measure

and Col. Umbo's vacation.. (they all did it)

Awesome work.

drnoesis · July 2013

Thanks for the excellent feedback

A lot of great points there, and on a big plus point, its largely just cosmetic, which is awesome from my point of view

I think a lot of it boils down to the same set of tired eyes staring at the same stuff going blind to the mistakes, so I REALLY appreciate you picking out what you did, and I'll start hammering through those points as time allows

Tole me was an accent choice. If it's jarring to read, however, I'll correct it.
The drunken guy that falls over was meant to be passing out lol. I'll correct his behaviour to something that works better lol.

The return to protectors enclave and getting dropped out of the "noir" setting bothered me a lot. I think on the next quest I'll develop myself a small town to run the quests from instead (kind of a Neverwinter "Midsommer" lol) This time round I wanted to make sure players could get to shops if needed, and I wanted to minimise the number of maps to build in my first effort, so I hope the bouncing around didn't kill the immersion for you too much.

Didn't realise about the log in/out bug till I'd published the Q myself, or I'd have built around it in the first place >.< On the plus side, its a learning experience

Beyond that, I'm really glad you liked the genre. A few people I'd spoken to about the idea seemed to really like it, but I had no idea if anyone else would really be that interested. I enjoy cheesy detective films and progs a lot, and the missus lives on a diet of morse, midsummer and marple, so it's kind of something I'm getting to know really well lol.

Don't worry about pushing my average time up. If anything I'm gratified, as my biggest concern was that it would be stupidly short after all the time and typing lol.

I've added all your missions to my list, and look forward to enjoying them when I get some time during the week. In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to highlight those points and note them down for me!

EDIT: Forgot to say, murder by death is one of my all time fave's

wuhsin · July 2013

I'll trade with you.. going to go run yours now. My sig links to my latest quest, and it's in need of reviews.

wuhsin · July 2013

Well I tried your quest, and ran into a problem that prevented me from being able to complete it. After I left Col. Umbo's office, the quest vanished from my journal. There are no waypoints or any objectives related to the quest. I can't enter his office again. I'd abandon the quest, and accept it again to start over from the beginning, but it's not in my journal. I'm sorry I cannot complete it now.

I will offer this feedback though. The black and white effect only works when your graphics are set on high. Since you have to walk through Protector's Enclave in this quest, the majority of players are going to enter your maps with their graphics set on low, causing the quest to be in color instead of black and white.

drnoesis · July 2013

wuhsin wrote: »

Well I tried your quest, and ran into a problem that prevented me from being able to complete it. After I left Col. Umbo's office, the quest vanished from my journal. There are no waypoints or any objectives related to the quest. I can't enter his office again. I'd abandon the quest, and accept it again to start over from the beginning, but it's not in my journal. I'm sorry I cannot complete it now.

I will offer this feedback though. The black and white effect only works when your graphics are set on high. Since you have to walk through Protector's Enclave in this quest, the majority of players are going to enter your maps with their graphics set on low, causing the quest to be in color instead of black and white.

Yeah, as thalazar1 wrote and I discovered after publishing, apparently there's a bug with dropping back into Protectors Enclave between area's which means users have to log out and back in, in order to have new waypoints show up.

I'll bug report this shortly, though I suspect it's probably been done before.

Hadn't realised the black and white effect only worked on high settings, thanks for letting me know, I'll try to allow for this in future development work

wuhsin · July 2013

drnoesis wrote: »

Yeah, as thalazar1 wrote and I discovered after publishing, apparently there's a bug with dropping back into Protectors Enclave between area's which means users have to log out and back in, in order to have new waypoints show up.

I'll bug report this shortly, though I suspect it's probably been done before.

Hadn't realised the black and white effect only worked on high settings, thanks for letting me know, I'll try to allow for this in future development work

I did log out, and back in, soon as I read thalazar1's post. Unfortunately this did not resolve the problem as I had hoped it would. Your quest seems very interesting, I like the dialogue that I did read, and Col. Umbo's office was nicely decorated. Hopefully I'll be able to complete this one day soon when this problem is fixed. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

drnoesis · July 2013

Not a problem

You've pointed out the black and white setting requiring High gfx settings, which I can account for in future missions, and were positive about what you could see, so all in all I call that useful feedback

I hope you're able to pick it back up some time, but in the meantime, I appreciate your making the attempt, and I've already added your Q to my list to review when I can

wuhsin · July 2013

drnoesis wrote: »

Not a problem You've pointed out the black and white setting requiring High gfx settings, which I can account for in future missions, and were positive about what you could see, so all in all I call that useful feedback

I hope you're able to pick it back up some time, but in the meantime, I appreciate your making the attempt, and I've already added your Q to my list to review when I can

Thanks. I recommend making your own custom town for future mysteries to cut out any pesky map transitions. I'll check on this again periodically to see if it is fixed.

drnoesis · July 2013

just a quick note... errors spotted by thalazar1 corrected, except the one with the office using the wrong door, which seem's to be correct within the foundry editor... will keep an eye on that and prod it with sticks.

Obviously can't do anything about waypoints disappearing between my maps and protectors enclave at the moment, tho I've bug reported on the boards and in game on the off chance that helps.... when I get some time I'll look into integrating a larger, custom base map to work from

Meantime I've added a note to the quest text to alert players to the problem, and I'll have to cross my fingers and hope ppl don't mind.

wuhsin · July 2013

I knocked out a few more objectives in this quest today before it went poof on me. Soon as I can coax the next objective into coming out of hiding I will continue this epic adventure. So far I found Mrs. Moreley's husband, and returned his signet ring to her, which she had never seen before. The story has a nice twist around this part, which I won't spoil for anyone else. I noticed one oversight, you forgot to change the names of the Nasher Enforcers in Quincy's tavern. Great job, I can't wait to be able to continue this.

oortexplorer · July 2013

Unless I am missing something, a similar thing happened in another quest I recently played. I "lost" the quest returning to PE, but it will still continue. If you know where you are going, go there and if you need to talk to a particular npc for example, you should still be able to.

While I'm here, I suppose this one sounds interesting so I'll add it to my list. Be aware though that it may take a couple of days to get to it. If you want to return the favor, my quest info is in sig.

wuhsin · July 2013

oortexplorer wrote: »

Unless I am missing something, a similar thing happened in another quest I recently played. I "lost" the quest returning to PE, but it will still continue. If you know where you are going, go there and if you need to talk to a particular npc for example, you should still be able to.

While I'm here, I suppose this one sounds interesting so I'll add it to my list. Be aware though that it may take a couple of days to get to it. If you want to return the favor, my quest info is in sig.

Yeah, it's a bug that this author has no control over, and it makes me very sad to see his quest affected in such a way when he obviously put so much work into it. I look forward to his future works now that he knows about this bug. Guess I better subscribe!

drnoesis · July 2013

Thanks for the spot on those enforcers

will add to my list of tweaks

And have no fear, I'll review any foundries listed in your signatures as time permits

You took the time to take a look at my work, even if a bug prevented a complete play through in one go, so I will ensure I repay your time.
(work and a missus who doesn't "get" gaming mean I can't be on as much as some, so it might be a little slow, but I will do it )

I also have a theory in my head about the bug that I want to experiment with, as it doesn't seem to happen with all the waypoints, just some.... if my theory works out, I'll post a work around for others that are similarly affected.

wuhsin · July 2013

I just completed the next part of your quest, where I returned to Quincy's tavern, and met Captain Bones. Were the undead pirates supposed to be undead pirates? Or did you just forget to rename them and change their costumes? I liked the effect you used to send me to jail. Very creative, and better than my previous arrests today. (Yes, this is the second time today I've been arrested in a Foundry mission. Guess I'm good at playing a Trickster Rogue, eh?)

drnoesis · July 2013

Okies, those fixes have been applied, and I've worked my way through the potential bug fix.... latest build is currently publishing, so fingers crossed, itll be up in 30mins or so, and we'll either have a fixed quest and a solution for the bug, orrr, I have to give up on this quest and start working on a part 2 lol

Glad you liked the arrest

I can't claim the credit for it, however, as I asked around in game and on the forums for methods of achieving it, and was referred to the trick used as the basis for it in my Q. It's not easy to pull off without losing your player though, lol.

The undead pirates were supposed to be undead

B.C. there is the captain of a vessel crewed by the dead and damned

I was toying with the idea of renaming them, but I figured it was probably more appropriate (and easier for the player) to leave them as they were

drnoesis · July 2013

curses, foiled again...... attempted fix didn't work

thalazar1 · July 2013

yea the only work around for this bug is to have your quests no where near PE sadly. I ended up having to hit change char, change now (instead of wait 15 sec) then enter world again, repeating up to 3 times in some parts but was able to play straight through in one sitting doing this. It sucks but I really enjoyed the quest enough to endure cryptic's silliness and I hope others will too.

wuhsin · July 2013

thalazar1 wrote: »

yea the only work around for this bug is to have your quests no where near PE sadly. I ended up having to hit change char, change now (instead of wait 15 sec) then enter world again, repeating up to 3 times in some parts but was able to play straight through in one sitting doing this. It sucks but I really enjoyed the quest enough to endure cryptic's silliness and I hope others will too.

I've been at this quest for a couple of days now. I haven't been able to play for very long without my rheumatism acting up lately, my neck has been killing me. So being able to play a small bit at a time is actually pretty convenient. I actually feel like a detective. lol

drnoesis · July 2013

thalazar1 wrote: »

yea the only work around for this bug is to have your quests no where near PE sadly. I ended up having to hit change char, change now (instead of wait 15 sec) then enter world again, repeating up to 3 times in some parts but was able to play straight through in one sitting doing this. It sucks but I really enjoyed the quest enough to endure cryptic's silliness and I hope others will too.

i really appreciate the effort you made though, you picked up on a lot of error's I just couldn't see any more, and really helped me polish it off.

Unfortunately I think most people will just avoid it, due to the bug, but the feedback I am getting is encouraging me to start thinking about the next quest, which I really hadn't expected to want to do for some time (I really burned out in the foundry trying to get this one out of my head and built lol)

Incidentally, it looks like I might be able to clock up some proper game time tomorrow evening, so I plan on working my way through as many of the reviews I owe others as possible, as I don't want to keep you guys waiting

drnoesis · July 2013

wuhsin wrote: »

I've been at this quest for a couple of days now. I haven't been able to play for very long without my rheumatism acting up lately, my neck has been killing me. So being able to play a small bit at a time is actually pretty convenient. I actually feel like a detective. lol

LOL! Thats a pretty awesome compliment

Thanks

Hope the rheumatism settles down a little for you. I've had a rotator cuff injury in my shoulder for the last 2 years, so whilst its not the same pain by any means, I can certainly empathise to an extent.

wuhsin · July 2013

drnoesis wrote: »

i really appreciate the effort you made though, you picked up on a lot of error's I just couldn't see any more, and really helped me polish it off.

Unfortunately I think most people will just avoid it, due to the bug, but the feedback I am getting is encouraging me to start thinking about the next quest, which I really hadn't expected to want to do for some time (I really burned out in the foundry trying to get this one out of my head and built lol)

Incidentally, it looks like I might be able to clock up some proper game time tomorrow evening, so I plan on working my way through as many of the reviews I owe others as possible, as I don't want to keep you guys waiting

I'll certainly look forward to your next quest.

wuhsin · July 2013

Another update. I played some more of the quest. Got through the sewers. Then Pirate's Cove. I really liked the Pirate Cove. Captain Bones' dialogue was genius, reminded me of my own humorous evil dwarf merchant character. The first street urchin in Pirate Cove still as a number in their name. A lot of NPC's by default have a number in their name, so that's one common mistake a lot of authors overlook. No biggy. I also finished the part with Nathan, and his wife, and Captain Hastings (again).. Why does she always show up after I've murdered a dozen people? lol. The twist was awesome. All I have to do know is return to the colonel to claim my reward, but at that transition I lost the quest, so I'll be finishing that soon as it pops back up, and rating your quest five stars.

wuhsin · July 2013

Finished it, and rated five stars as promised. Col. Umbo is one of my all-time favorite characters I've met in Foundry missions. I also really liked Captain Bones. The twist was excellent. And I max tipped. Thanks for the awesome quest. I can tell you poured your heart into it.

thalazar1 · July 2013

yea, Col. Umbo had a bit of Peter Falk from 'the cheap detective' feel to him lol, hired for a case, farming out the tasks and never paying or tipping for information or anything, with a hint of sam spade from murder by death. (i know he was also columbo

) All three played by Mr. Falk all rolled into one.

drnoesis · July 2013

wuhsin wrote: »

The first street urchin in Pirate Cove still as a number in their name.

eep! thought I'd fixed that after thalazar1 pointed it out. Must have failed a save/publish somewhere along the lines and reverted it. Will take a look at that this evening >.<

Glad you enjoyed the Cap lol, I wanted him to seem a little larger than life without being overly camp, and to be honest he was the one character where I felt like he was writing himself as I went

Col. Umbo, was a little harder, I spent a good couple of hours with a pen and paper trying to think of things that were definitive "Columbo-ism's"... the cheap feel, always losing things, "just one more thing" and referencing his wife at random times. Then I had to work them in there without forcing them lol. It was worth it though, Peter Falk was the definitive detective for me, and it was a real pleasure to fit

I'm really pleased you enjoyed the quest, despite all the hassle with disappearing way points and the like. Thanks for your time and the feedback both here and in game

I thought I'd burned myself out on the foundry getting this out, but I'm already planning out a town map to use as a base (to bypass the waypoint bug) and im fleshing out the idea for the next installment, which is entirely due to you guys

Really looking forward to being able to hit your quests this evening too

redneckronin · July 2013

OK, just played through this.

Totally and utterly brilliant!

Story - excellent - 5 Stars
Maps - amazing - 5 Stars
Noir Feel - stunning - 5 Stars

The only niggle is the Protector's Enclave Quest Loss Bug, and honestly - getting through that is well worth it for this quest.

I can only think that it is the Bug that means this quest has received so few full plays because this is genuine gem of a quest.

Loved every minute of it, and a couple of bits of humour had me laughing out loud.

Top class effort.

Sent a PM with feedback.

All The Best

avatre21 · July 2013

Really want to play this now, but it doesn't seem to be showing up on the catalogue

Neverwinter Noir now open for review (and review trades) :)

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