Tax Relief! (In need of a few playtesters)

lostrom · October 2013

NW-DPSBQDGEZ

[Synopsis]

Chapter 1:
The village of Harrowbrook is in need of help. The new lord of the area is straining the village beyond what it can bear. They have come up with a plan to get past the lord's growing pains, but they'll need an experienced adventurer to help them in this dire time.

I could really use some help play-testing this quest for some of the timing elements. It is chapter one in what I hope will eventually be an epic tale.

Duration: Just over 15 minutes when tested by me.. YMMV

winterswitch · October 2013

Lostrom,

Yikes, have you tested your quest with a melee level 60 toon? It's impossible to get back to town--one ogre is fine, two is a challenge, more than two? Insane.

I was enjoying it up until then. Here are some other suggestions:

--Young Girl dialogue: Add a period after "sniffles".
--In the village: Several of the houses have corners that are floating off the ground. Use bushes from the Foundry details and place them to hide the empty spaces.
--In the village: Two of your NPCs have the stock "Peasant Human 18" and "Commoner Human 2" names.
--Map transition: I'd recommend changing the "Go to Next Map" to something more descriptive.
--Add attack text to the orc and skeleton mobs in the forest: "You're not welcome here!" "Go back to town!" "HA! Another weak adventurer!" etc.

I'd be happy to re-play the quest once you've thinned out the ogres.

lostrom · October 2013

The intention was to avoid the army.. I have been able to avoid the patrols and the army when running it, though admittedly it was because I know the map well. Were you referring to a specific encounter or did you get stuck with the army milling at the exit because you didn't beat them there? I will say that I'd like to make it so that they don't necessarily mill about at the exit to that map.. but it's sort of intended as an auto-fail mechanic.. you aren't supposed to be able to survive them if you can't beat them there.

nimzowitch · October 2013

Overall I thought this was a solid story driven quest, and I liked what you intended to do with the orc army, but I ended up not playing through that way. While in hiding at the fort, the patrolling army is in range of your hiding place once it spawns so you end up having to fight them anyway (I burned up a few major injury kits getting through this part.) Also, the standing army does not disappear once the patrolling army spawns (more injury kit.) Figuring that the objective was to get into the fort I ended up clearing them as well. There were no way point markers on the mini-map for the "continue up the mountain" part so by the time I did that there was another orc savage army waiting for me at the "beat them back to town" part. I think this will be a good quest once you make it explicit to the player what they have to do next, and that there is a time frame for them to do it in. Other than that I noticed that some of your fort walls are above ground level. Also, I would check the Y values of your spawn points as it seemed like I was in "fall" mode for a while when entering your maps. With a few fixes I think this will be a really good quest.

Please give one of mine a try when you get a chance:
Into the Drow Helix
Siren's Cove Castaways

phoenicianson · October 2013

I will give your quest a whirl... can you run mine in exchange?

Fall of the City of Grumura (click for link)

Don't let the average time you see when you pull up the quest on the job board scare you, when I performed that major update, I was spending a ton of time in the city checking everything to make sure it published properly. It should take you 20 minutes for the core quest, and 25-30 minutes if you decide to go through ALL of the optional dialogue, including the non-objective NPC.

Thanks! I will post my notes here once I am done playing! I read the earlier posts, I love a challenge, bring the ogres on

PLAYTHROUGH:

Ok, I played through, and I gave you 5 stars, because I can appreciate the time it takes to make foundries. I assume this is your first? Anyways, it was fun. Although, I have some notes for you through my run. I think if you make some refinements, this could be a very unique quest, and you can even expand a bit further on the good parts as well. I constantly refine mine. I mean, Grumura, I actually just redid the entire map from scratch again and rewrote most of the storyline. Anyway, here are my notes:

MAP 1:
1. Village can use some detail. I know you must have at least 1200 assets available to you. Spend some on the town and give it more life. It was nicely set up, but very bare. Details can give a place a lot of character, and its own personality to the storyline. Without giving up too much storyline, if the new person in charge is all about fun and games, make the town look like his private playground. Give it some life.

2. You have 3 NPC villagers with their default names, that I could tell.
a. NPC Gambling - Peasant Human 21
b. 2 NPCs at Merchant - Peasant Human 18 and Commoner Human 2

3. That path up the mountain is confusing, as the turn up is very subtle. Maybe use some foliage to suggest the proper direction for the player. Honestly, I missed it the first time and ended up thinking I had to go into the castle that was guarded by the mob you avoid.

Map 2.
1. Your entire focus is orcs, and I know that you had a graveyard there, but the multitude of undead encounters seemed arbitrary, maybe switch a few back to the orcs by skinning them.

2. One of the Reach Points is to set up camp, why not actually have the player set up the camp? Using forrest items, collecting them, and then creating a tent? Just a suggestion.

3. After playing, I understand what the other people were mentioning in this post. You do realize that once the mob spots you, you cannot interact with objects until they are cleared? I do like the idea of avoiding the mobs, very novel approach, but you need to set that large mob back a bit so the player has a chance to get to the map transition without setting off their attack. If their attack view includes that post, then you have to get lucky to hit it before they start attacking, and once they attack, there is no possibly way to survive. Also, maybe add a few more stragglers from the massive mobs, as I was having fun picking off the few that were set apart from the huge mobs.

Map 3:
1. You have a Fire Archer skinned Brander, and Brander skinned fire archer in the group right by the lake. I am pretty sure after attacking those multiple mobs that the Branders were supposed to be the elites, and the archers the minions, but in that particular mob, the archer was the elite, or standard, which ever you used to skin the group.

2. Your encounters are way too concentrated into a single spot. You have a large village, spread them out a bit. Also, add some ambient light sources to make the area a bit more lit, since you have the backdrop set to night.

So, these are my notes. I really think you have something there, it just requires some refinement, and a little more attention to the details that are solid, and you will have a great quest. I didn't notice any issues with your dialogue that were not stylistically intended, so no notes there, and great job on proofing your dialogue.

Please play mine, thanks. I provided the link in this post.

lostrom · October 2013

I haven't yet done any of the quests posted because I've been working on mine, but I'll be running them shortly. I really appreciate the time that you all have put into giving me constructive feedback. This is indeed my first quest.

[Changelog]

Added in some invisible walls that pop up after hiding in the bushes to keep players from immediately jumping off the cliff or running back down the path to fight that ridiculous horde.

Moved the horde slightly further from the cliff path to try and avoid instantly aggroing the player.

Added bushes along the path to make it a little more obvious where it is.

Changed the text while hiding in the bushes to hopefully make it more obvious that you don't want to fight the army and that you should run up the path.

Tweaked house heights to get them to ground level.

Spread out village fights to make it more structured.

Added pathing for many village encounters so that the combat is more paced where the player can potentially get to fights in time to make a difference.

phoenicianson · October 2013

Happy to hear that you are jumping on some of the suggestions! If you would like me to run it again, let me know. Also, add some love to the town, with some more design elements. You have a nice little village there, but it was really, really, bare. Thanks for the heads up about playing my quest! I actually ran out of assets, otherwise, I would have put a lot more details in my town as well, but on a 1250x512 map, you can run through 1500 assets fairly quickly.

lostrom · October 2013

I have now filled up the village with some more knick-knacks to add character. I do think it looks a lot better (I'll probably do a bit more tweaking through the coming weeks, but overall, I think you'll agree).

In regard to the ideas for setting up base camp by collecting firewood, etc.. I think that's a great idea, but I am at a loss on how I would go about hiding the campfire and preventing players from being able to take advantage of it as a respawn during that process.. would an invisible block prevent players from spawning inside of it? I had the idea of filling the farm with smoke and adding the invisible block to keep players out until it was done..

On the other hand, I was really trying to stay just over the 15 minute mark so that it would be daily friendly. Each of my chapters will be designed with that in mind if possible.

Tax Relief! (In need of a few playtesters)

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