Review trade: The Orb of Avalon

rigellia · January 2014

Hi everyone!

I've made a Foundry quest that I would be happy to trade reviews with.

The Orb of Avalon by Rigellia
Short code: NW-DPIJSYAI7
Quest type: Story, combat
Average duration: 20-25 minutes
Amount of combat: High

I'd love to hear any feedback or constructive criticisms. I've worked on this quest for a while and spent a bit of time just trying to balance the encounters/sort out bugs. I'd just love to see it get out of the Under Review section (I feel it deserves it).

Anyway, thanks for reading this and let me know if you'd like me to review one of your quests too!

myrmecoleon · January 2014

I just played through the Orb of Avalon. It was... not at all what I'd been expecting. My thoughts went roughly as follows:

HUT IN THE WOODS: Ah, a nice, beautiful forest with a tiny wood cabin. This'll likely be a nice, quiet, story-based adventure.

LATER: Hm, what's going on here? Is this some sort of combat-based arena quest?

EVEN LATER: What the deuce.

LATER STILL: what is this i don't even.

I think I should probably avoid spoilers here, but it was a really fun quest to run through. The mechanics were well-constructed (the sound, in particular, was very well done) and the encounters balanced - especially given the sheer amount of creatures at some points (as a 60 GF, some encounters were threatening but I never popped a potion). The environments were good on the whole - especially the hut - but I thought the HQ area could have used a bit more detail (the dragon skeleton was an excellent touch, though). Overall, a very enjoyable adventure! Some more detailed notes below.

- The entrance to Hut in the Woods is not aligned perfectly with the mountain behind it. Might be worth moving it back a bit.

- In the contact dialogue with the book on the desk, "come into my posession" should be "possession"; "Nevermind that" should be "Never mind that"; "Incriptions of the side of the orb" should be "Inscriptions"; "Here's goes nothing" should be "Here goes nothing".

- The Guardian Flame Demon was quite a bit tougher than Ferook - it might be worth switching those two names.

- Is Yu Sheng a cleric? I was expecting him to be a mage (works perfectly fine as a cleric, though).

- In the Commander's first dialogue, "change it's outcome" should be "its".

- In the Commander's last dialogue, "There is not stopping him" should be "There is no stopping him".

rigellia · January 2014

Thanks for playing!
I'll look into making the changes you suggested with the dialogue and the map. As for other things:

-About Ferook, the names were originally switched to begin with, but when I played it, it didn't seem right when I saw how massive the forge master was compared to the flame demon. Perhaps I'll just give all the enemies in that encounter special names.

- Yu Sheng as a cleric, yeah, it would make more sense for him to be a mage. However, for that scene when he assists you, I thought a cleric might've been more helpful at that point.

I'll give your map Crimson Descent a go and let you know how that goes

myrmecoleon · January 2014

rigellia wrote: »

-About Ferook, the names were originally switched to begin with, but when I played it, it didn't seem right when I saw how massive the forge master was compared to the flame demon. Perhaps I'll just give all the enemies in that encounter special names.

An alternative might be to switch the costumes round, but giving them all names also works!

rigellia wrote: »

I'll give your map Crimson Descent a go and let you know how that goes

No obligation at all - I think I'm done with it at this point, and I wasn't expecting any reciprocal review. (I was just browsing through the For Review tab on Foundry hour for a combat-heavy quest to level my companions and remembered this!)

melinden · January 2014

After reading myrmecoleon's review I knew I had to play this one to see it for myself. I played with a level 60 DC. I thought this was very original and very fun! I do believe it needs about 100% more JCVD, however.

Play through notes:

-On a personal note, I have so many foundries on my quest log I can barely see anything on the overworld map. I have my work cut out for me.
-on the path in the first map lots of the grass and weeds and things are floating. I find it really hard to work with green on green so I really count on that yellow Y axis line to let me know when I have it low enough. It isn't foolproof but it helps.
-in the house I might recommend putting the cook campfire inside the fire place and then replace the big fire with the dynamic campfire. That fire fits the cook campfire pretty well. That is, as long as everyone can still reach into the fireplace, not sure if you already tried that.
-in the arena area it would be nice for folks like me to have some more kiting room but I did ok. I appreciate have the help.
-you are missing an R in "Yourself" when Sheng is giving me ideas about what to do when I go through the portal.
-it seemed odd to me that you made that nice gate and I didn't leave the quest through it

say1o · January 2014

What is JVCD?
Where do I buy it? Does it come in a cream?

LOL seriously, newb here, a little help.

rigellia · January 2014

melinden wrote: »

-On a personal note, I have so many foundries on my quest log I can barely see anything on the overworld map. I have my work cut out for me.
-on the path in the first map lots of the grass and weeds and things are floating. I find it really hard to work with green on green so I really count on that yellow Y axis line to let me know when I have it low enough. It isn't foolproof but it helps.
-in the house I might recommend putting the cook campfire inside the fire place and then replace the big fire with the dynamic campfire. That fire fits the cook campfire pretty well. That is, as long as everyone can still reach into the fireplace, not sure if you already tried that.
-in the arena area it would be nice for folks like me to have some more kiting room but I did ok. I appreciate have the help.
-you are missing an R in "Yourself" when Sheng is giving me ideas about what to do when I go through the portal.
-it seemed odd to me that you made that nice gate and I didn't leave the quest through it

Hi melinden! Thank you for playing the quest

I tried to implement as many of your suggestions and tips as I could because I thought they were helpful, but I could not implement all of them. I'm not sure what you mean by JCVD, but if JCVD means improvement, then I'm totally willing to do that.

- Someone else has said the same thing about it being hard to see the quest trail at the beginning, so I made the initial quest objective more direct.
- I cleared up a lot of the floating weeds and plants. Hopefully the forest maps are a lot better now.
- Unfortunately, the big fire inside the fireplace is a fixed part of the prefabricated room I am using so I can't change it. I have moved the cauldron more inside the fireplace though as to make it look better.
- You're right, the arena area is quite small. I have already made the ground a bit uneven so that kiting characters could snag enemies trying to follow them on uneven terrain. This was helpful when I did a test playthrough as a DC. I'm not sure how much I want to change this section as I have already spent a lot of time on the invisible barriers stopping the players from falling off the arena.
- Typo is fixed!
- Nice idea on the gate, I don't know why I didn't think of that.

Thank you for playing!

melinden · January 2014

That's Jean Claude van Dam. I didn't want to be too spoiler-y. I'm probably showing my age with the reference back to your story, however.

say1o · January 2014

Thanks! LOL

Never to old for some good ol' JCVD.

rigellia · January 2014

Haha, I get the joke now.

Looking up JCVD gave me a bit more inspiration actually if I wanted to do either a sequel (or prequel) quest or another quest using the same sort of lore.

orangefiree · February 2014

I will play through yours now. Would you mind reviewing either part four or part five of "The Planar Conflict"? They both have no reviews so expect them to be in a very rough state, part four has a maze, part five has a unique boss encounter.

orangefiree · February 2014

Some play through notes:

1.) The ogre was labeled as an orc.
2.) The later guardians seem to get easier even though Yu Sheng says they are getting tougher. Up until the last two anyways, I lost count but I think there was more than five guardians.
3.) The door to leave the house didn't seem to be aligned with the wall.
4.) There is a random door in the woods? That seems a little strange.

rigellia · February 2014

Hi orangefiree!

Thank you for playing my quest! I'm putting your quest on my to-play list now.

orangefiree wrote: »

Some play through notes:

1.) The ogre was labeled as an orc.
2.) The later guardians seem to get easier even though Yu Sheng says they are getting tougher. Up until the last two anyways, I lost count but I think there was more than five guardians.
3.) The door to leave the house didn't seem to be aligned with the wall.
4.) There is a random door in the woods? That seems a little strange.

1.) The ogre was intended to be the commander of the orc guardians he is fighting with. I'll adjust his name perhaps to make that a little clearer.

2.) There are 7 Guardian battles, Sheng says so himself at the start. I'll grant that I haven't played through with every class. I think I place the last 2 as certainly the most difficult, although the difficulty varies in the ones leading up to it. I test-played it through as a lvl 30 Divine Cleric in the Foundry and based my idea on difficulty from that (My main character is a Guardian Fighter). Saying that though, if you think I could've beefed up some of certain encounters, let me know if you have any ideas for any more suitable encounters that I could use to replace them.

3.) Thank you for telling me. Probably it was dislodged when I duplicated the map.

4.) It seemed weirder to me if there was no way to exit the boxed-in forest! I intended it more to be like a tunnel. I might add some details to make it clear.

Anyway, thanks for playing! I'll find your thread for The Planar Conflict and leave my thoughts for you there

orangefiree · February 2014

rigellia wrote: »

Hi orangefiree!

Thank you for playing my quest! I'm putting your quest on my to-play list now.

1.) The ogre was intended to be the commander of the orc guardians he is fighting with. I'll adjust his name perhaps to make that a little clearer.

2.) There are 7 Guardian battles, Sheng says so himself at the start. I'll grant that I haven't played through with every class. I think I place the last 2 as certainly the most difficult, although the difficulty varies in the ones leading up to it. I test-played it through as a lvl 30 Divine Cleric in the Foundry and based my idea on difficulty from that (My main character is a Guardian Fighter). Saying that though, if you think I could've beefed up some of certain encounters, let me know if you have any ideas for any more suitable encounters that I could use to replace them.

3.) Thank you for telling me. Probably it was dislodged when I duplicated the map.

4.) It seemed weirder to me if there was no way to exit the boxed-in forest! I intended it more to be like a tunnel. I might add some details to make it clear.

Anyway, thanks for playing! I'll find your thread for The Planar Conflict and leave my thoughts for you there

Ok, thanks.
And yes, the last two waves were the toughest, I think it was the fourth wave that Sheng said "They are getting tougher" and it was the easiest one yet, at least for me. As for the amount, I misread Sheng's dialogue and thought he said five, my bad.

And you're not the only one to have a door halfway in the wall. I have done that as well.

saiyaku87 · February 2014

Hey I did a review and here are a few notes

(if also you could check my quest "Child of the Night" I would be rly happy ^^)

Notes:

The first NPC dialogue starts with "Talk with the merchant". Seems a bit needless
Same NPC dialogue could be cleaned a little

Suggestion:
"Hey, you there! Want a job?
I'm the proud owner of 'Neverhungry' -the best fastfood delivery service!
I need someone to deliver this piping-hot bag of Spicy Chicken Wings to a gentleman who lives out in the woods, a bit far from town."

the first pointer says "deliver to wizard sheng'', we don't know he's a wizard or his name yet
change 'hut' to 'house' everywhere, since it's a house XD it even says "enter the house" when u enter it haha
the flies in the house are a bit annoying since there isn't that much meat, or a corpse...
mistypo: when u open the book it says "first-day", "seventh-day", "second day": the dash is unnecessary ^^
on the same note: it changes from "seventh" to "second" day haha, you should switch those two ^^
you could add a "drinking" sound for the "drink potion" action, just a suggestion xD
you could remove the campfire in the dimension: you don't need it and it breaks the story, since there's nothing to make a campfire with, haha
remove the platform, it's really annoying to fight them on it... just place them on the ground ^^
the police captain first is kneeling but then lies down for the rest of the dialogue
the floor beneath and the outside of the HQ is white... idk if that was on purpose but it looks like the whole place is hovering in a white space xD

Other than that it was a really cool experience, i loved the twists and turns and the time police was a nice touch ^^

rigellia · February 2014

Hi saiyaku! Thank you for playing my quest and taking the time to look at it. I will certainly look into the suggestions you have made but allow me to address them with some detail:

- I will go ahead and fix up the NPC dialogue. It was one of the first dialogues I have written and the one I have checked the least.

- I was attempting to imitate the way Cruptic did dialogue in their quests. However, I did ditch the format quite quickly so I'll look at changing that.

- Good point about that quest objective and house/hut

- i'll try and find the source of the flies. I don't remember putting them in :S

- the dash is part of how Faerun writes their days, I think. While I have introduced bits of lore, I researched a bit on D&D time system so that I could still be consistent and part of (in a way) that universe.

- there is a drinking sound! The other ambient noises may have drowned it out however.

- the campfire is more of a practical. I wanted to give players a place to heal and rest between the battles

- the police captain is supposed to be grievously wounded and dying when you're talking to him. I'll see if I can improve that dialogue somehow to make that clear

- I have noticed the white outside but I don't know how to fix it. If anyone has some technical advice regarding that, I'd like to know

Anyways, thanks for playing. I'll put your quest on my to-play list

saiyaku87 · February 2014

rigellia wrote: »

Hi saiyaku! Thank you for playing my quest and taking the time to look at it. I will certainly look into the suggestions you have made but allow me to address them with some detail:

- I will go ahead and fix up the NPC dialogue. It was one of the first dialogues I have written and the one I have checked the least.

- I was attempting to imitate the way Cruptic did dialogue in their quests. However, I did ditch the format quite quickly so I'll look at changing that.

- Good point about that quest objective and house/hut

- i'll try and find the source of the flies. I don't remember putting them in :S

- the dash is part of how Faerun writes their days, I think. While I have introduced bits of lore, I researched a bit on D&D time system so that I could still be consistent and part of (in a way) that universe.

- there is a drinking sound! The other ambient noises may have drowned it out however.

- the campfire is more of a practical. I wanted to give players a place to heal and rest between the battles

- the police captain is supposed to be grievously wounded and dying when you're talking to him. I'll see if I can improve that dialogue somehow to make that clear

- I have noticed the white outside but I don't know how to fix it. If anyone has some technical advice regarding that, I'd like to know

Anyways, thanks for playing. I'll put your quest on my to-play list

first, thank you for checking my quest^^

the flies - you can find by opening the map they are in, clicking "components" and just type in "flies" or "sound" ^^ although i'm starting to think they might be WITH the meat, for some reason

the police captain - yeah i understood that but he's first kneeling, then laying down, then kneeling again

it looks a bit confusing, but it's not game-breaking of course ^^

campfire - yeah i understood that later on haha

the dashes - i see i'm sorry for meddling in, then (i'm not hugely familiar with D&D lore)

the white - actually yea i just played a few other foundries and most of them had the same white in some interiors... sorry about that too, i didn't know it occurs so often

lightbringer1102 · February 2014

@rigellia -- I'm going to try your quest, take a look at mine, i've made changes.

rigellia · February 2014

saiyaku87 wrote: »

first, thank you for checking my quest^^

the flies - you can find by opening the map they are in, clicking "components" and just type in "flies" or "sound" ^^ although i'm starting to think they might be WITH the meat, for some reason

the police captain - yeah i understood that but he's first kneeling, then laying down, then kneeling again it looks a bit confusing, but it's not game-breaking of course ^^

campfire - yeah i understood that later on haha

the dashes - i see i'm sorry for meddling in, then (i'm not hugely familiar with D&D lore)

the white - actually yea i just played a few other foundries and most of them had the same white in some interiors... sorry about that too, i didn't know it occurs so often

Alright, I've implemented a few of your suggestions now. I've found the source of the flies! For some reason, I made that an ambient noise (lol?). They're gone now. I had no idea why I did that in the first place :S

I'll reply to your thread my thoughts on your quest soon.

rigellia · February 2014

Thanks lightbringer. I'll put Belial on my to-play list too!

Review trade: The Orb of Avalon

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