Heroica RPG - Quest Masters' Lounge

[Waterbrick Down]

Boris/Waterbrick Down

I've always liked Boris; there's an inherent contradiction to his character that makes him absolutely fascinating to watch, and I always get a kick out of him quoting Ennocian scriptures (which is a really cool way of breadcrumbing world lore outside of hosting a Quest ). I'd originally slated him to be Party Leader before Jinn and Terry signed up, and I still think it could have turned out well; that said, I was very pleasantly surprised in his interactions with the NPCs, where he reciprocated Kiri's attraction while being skeptical of Sakurai (as I said earlier, almost to the point of throwing me off the rails to an unplanned encounter). You also did a great job of quietly shepherding the lower-level characters to speak up a bit and roleplay, which I as a QM really appreciated. I wish I could have had Mac interact with you and Ezeran a bit more, but unfortunately life had other plans for me. The decision to make the scientists interaction a puzzle instead of just "choose between keeping the bones for yourself or getting Ji Pei rep" came from realizing you'd be on the Quest, and me wanting to give you a taste of the experience you've so often provided for the rest of us. We as QMs often make the sort of Quests we'd like to participate in, so it's always nice to have a chance to give back a little in that respect. My advice to you: while I know the stats aren't your biggest interest, I'd really suggest doing a little optimization on Boris. Despite having a massive level advantage over the rest of the party, he felt a little under-powered even compared to the Level 1s, and while I agree with JimBee that it's refreshing to see a Cleric actually be able to heal allies in battle instead of just fighting, it's a shame to see him so unable to contribute when he does fight. Even something as simple as Karie's Spring Staff would be of tremendous help to him in battle--give him enough WP that his Crits and Heal Mores actually mean something.

First off, a very good job Flipz, hosting is always quite a responsibility and your willingness to communicate your availability and desire to follow through on the quest was appreciated. I agree most definitely on the battles, there was learning curve but I think you erred on the right side (PC focused as opposed to story focused). While the plot was good, the battles seemed tacked on and independent of the story aside from the very last one. While the loot was definitely prevalent more variety would have been appreciated. I'd be glad to give Boris a better build if the quests he went on dropped usable equipment/weapons. As far as NPC's go, all three of them were good and differentiable, though I'd agree that Kiri could use a little more development but I think you've got a good foundation. It was nice to see Mac back and some of the other nods to the existing canon, great inclusions. The puzzle was a nice addition and I do enjoy being on the receiving end of those. Overall I think it was a fine quest, it's cool seeing you progress as a QM.

To my fellow players, Endgame, K-Nut, and JimB interactions with both of you were excellent and I feel Boris is starting to establish himself in the current generation of heroes. Alfadas and MysticModulus, it was great questing with you and I think you've both got solid characters that you can expand on. Alfadas, don't be afraid to throw in some characteristics that will help Torald differentiate himself from the standard run-of-the-mill barbarian, MysticModulus on the flipside take care not to make Ezeran so out there with his unique background and qualities that he becomes unrelatable. Finally thanks to Palathadric for stepping in as a sub-QM.

A great experience in the end.

[MysticModulus]

#141

Wow! I survived my first quest! This was so much fun! I would like to begin by thanking Flipz for hosting it, well done! I really liked the simple style in design of this quest, it made it more easy for me as a total newbie to follow what happend with the mechanics and the story. As for the NPC's: I loved Mac but had a hard time figuring Kiri out and Sakurai seemed to appear and then just vanish. I thought we would have had to fight him in the end as a "real" end-boss after the tyrannosaurus, he seemed like the real bad guy.

The puzzle was a real treat and really made a nice addition to the story.

I really liked the party as well, Terry made an interesting leader (I've seldom encountered a character with such a low self-esteem), I would love to see him become really mad at something or someone just to see how he would be able to handle it. I'd really like to see him being really confident in some area.

Jinnipher, seems like a typical proud elf (on the verge on being arrogant sometimes) but she has a hard time hiding her emphaty sometimes which makes her relatable somehow.

Torald, Torald my dear ale-loving barbarian. I love his simpe barbarian character but I'd agree with Waterbrick Down that some more personal characteristics would make him more than just your friendly near-to-berzerk-barbarian. I'm sure he has some real attitude hiding somewhere.

I simply love the character of Kheyli (Ezeran does too... ), she's bad with an edge but vulnerable at the same time in a very convincing manner. I would have liked Ezeran to interact with her more but I had a hard time figuring out a proper strategy for that. I sure hope they will fight together in the future!

Boris, somehow I feel like he is the most interesting and authentic character in this ensemble: a vampire with principles and values but also infused with personality and warmth. Love him!

To summarize: I really enjoyed this ensemble!

I really liked this party. I hope Terry's interactions with Jinnipher/Boris didn't overshadow the rest of you - i made attempts to reach out to the other folks, but I imagine not all f you post as much as myself/JimBee/WBD. I like Torlad's brutishness, and Ezeran's weird juxtaposition of being a pretty calm, unfazed everyman with a demon maw in his gut, and I liked what I saw of Kheyli, too.

I really like the idea of Ezeran being an ordinary "down-to-earth" man with a peculiar past that he has comed to terms with.

Ezeran/MysticModulus

You have a great character with a cool concept...and quite possibly the worst offensive element in the game. Usually, Mages are the most overpowered base class (as Terry handily showed), put poor Ezeran's very first battle put him up against a bunch of foes who were immune to his only element. On the one hand, I'm glad it let me use Weather as a balance tool (seriously, weather is a powerful but underutilized option in the QM toolkit for adjusting battle balance), but on the other I really wish I'd been able to give Ezeran a few more chances to shine. Still, you did an excellent job of staying active and engaged, and interacting with your fellow party members and the NPCs. I look forward to seeing you grow and develop him and his symbiont more in the future, and I'd happily bring him along in future level-appropriate outings.

I actually enjoyed the challenge, it really made me take good care in reading up on the rules etc. The symbiont is a great way to show otherwise subtle changes in feelings and atmosphere. I'll try to be careful not to overuse this asset, I'm more interested in developing their mutual bond somehow. If I'd played him as an NPC I would probably attach som game-mechanics to him.

Alfadas and MysticModulus, it was great questing with you and I think you've both got solid characters that you can expand on. Alfadas, don't be afraid to throw in some characteristics that will help Torald differentiate himself from the standard run-of-the-mill barbarian, MysticModulus on the flipside take care not to make Ezeran so out there with his unique background and qualities that he becomes unrelatable.

That's quite a challenge, in the end I think that his actions and moods will make him more relatable than his talk... I also wonder how I can utilize the ability to chose an advanced job later on to this effect.

Edited October 24, 2015 by MysticModulus

[Scubacarrot]

Thank you very much for hosting, CMP, I thought it was a very cool quest. The beginning was perhaps too focused on chasing down leads, which resulted in not really knowing what to do except follow the plot along, but I think the ending more than made up for that.

[Palathadric]

Yes, really a great quest. I would have loved to participate in it.

[Waterbrick Down]

Let me start off by once again saying that it was great to have all of you who came on 132 along for the ride. Each of you contributed in your own way and I think the overall narrative is better for it. I know this quest was much longer than a lot of my usual quests and a lot more story oriented rather than free form exploration or mystery, but I'm thankful for you all sticking with me. I'll be the first to admit you could have used better direction and I should have figured out a better way to pace things to keep you all involved. About half way through I realized we were beginning to drag, but aside from pushing you along I wasn't quite sure how to keep you engaged, the scenery/NPC's weren't doing it, the battles seemed to dull, and the overall sense of urgency and desperation of the setting just wasn't being communicated well. The gist of this quest was to serve as the start of a trilogy involving the Dwarves under the mountain and hence introduced a lot of NPC's and background information and in the end suffered a little because of it. The mystery itself wasn't so much a mystery as a look everywhere and hope we come across the bad guys. I've been intrigued to do a Dwarven quest for a while and the actual quest is one I've been working on off and on for the past couple of years. Overall I think I might of tried to squeeze too much into one quest and ended up with a Party that was exhausted as opposed to interested in exploring the setting.

I'm going to break up my thoughts into sections of the story and then finish up with Player thoughts.

Section 1: Tavern, Docks, Voyage to Krumpknob

It was neat seeing some of the older heroes reuniting in the Tavern and some of the interactions with the patrons were great. I really liked Frumptious and hope to have more opportunities to integrate him into future quests, not a ton of character development but he's got a start. Ellaria's response to the bar tender's maiming was great.

The docks scene where the party figures out their aliases was fun and the bit with Ellaria volunteering the rest of the heroes to row was hilarious. I'm always impressed to see the sort of cover stories heroes come up with. The conversation with Nelly, Neddy, and the captain gave me a good chance to naturally relate some of the background of the Dwarven cities and gave an opportunity for some straight RPing, a tip taken from Zepher's QMing. This was one of my favorite scenes to do as I had just started exploring the capabilities of photo editing.

The rapids puzzle was one of my favorites as it fit the setting so well, apologies that I hadn't implemented the PM-me-the-solution policy yet to give everybody the chance for some XP. The Paddle Battle was perhaps a little too easy, but it gave me an idea as to how powerful the Drafter class could be in addition to how powerless Ellaria was against certain enemy types.

As a side note, if you had failed the battle you would have ended up in a side stream that would have taken you past the home of the inventor of the Fireball spell, an Elven wizard living as a hermit.

Section 2: Krumpknob

First Dwarven city, I really wanted to give each of the cities and clans a distinct feel/sub-culture. Krumpknob was the city on the sea, a shipping and trading town with not a lot of entertainment or excitement going on, similarly the members of clan Krumpkin were easy going and reasonable folks, more concerned with everyday living than riches or artistry. It served as the gateway to understanding the problems facing the party as well as introducing some of the main NPC's. It was great watching the party interact with Meladonna and I hope to include more of these fungus folk in the future. Chief Kulbin's introduction brought the party more clarification on their mission but also showed how far they had to go, I would have liked to have done a better job also at giving the heroes something more tangible in terms of their progress, when you're just collecting information it can become difficult to stay engaged and keep everything straight. Don't know what that would have looked like but I did recognize the party having trouble keeping everything straight. This was also the first opportunity the Party had to spot the Dark Dwarves who were spying on them.

Section 3: Journey to Brumpknob

With the introduction of Dumora and the clearing of the path to Brumpknob the Party were on their way. At this point I realized it would have been better to implement the Spoiler function that Sandy's been using to such effectiveness in Quest 130. I really wanted to include a vindicator on this quest and had been planning the Dumora character for a while. While I'm not totally satisfied with her character development this quest I hope enough of her stubbornness, pride, and gruff attitude came across to make her somewhat relatable to the PC's. She wasn't a great sounding board for conversation, but she served well as a Party guide and information source, in addition to another Party member allowing the group to split up if needed. I hope to include her and develop her more in future quests. After leaving the city proper we've got another puzzle (rock slides), glad to see it was solved by a lot of you. The Golem battle was definitely a cakewalk due to the vast amount of bombs the party had available to them in addition to the scroll laden Atramor, but that's OK. I was excited to see a Vindicator in action but would have to wait to see how the lass really functioned. I had meant to offer more side quests involving collecting Golem Kidney Stones to turn into Grating Stones available at Mycenia but just never was able to put it all together.

Section 4: Brumpknob

Where to begin, Brumpknob was meant to convey a rich cultural atmosphere, with artisans, shops, and plenty of adventures/side quests if the Heroes were willing to look. In each of the cities I tried to use a different layout to give them all a distinct feel, Brumpknob's center-piece was a gigantic furnace in the center of the city that supplied power/heat to the surrounding businesses. I tried making a miniature model of the city but just couldn't get the right look to everything. While the Party didn't really go very deep into some of the side quests available to them, I think they fully utilized all of the resources available to them in terms of amenities and shopping adventures. The individual specialty stores were a blast to make and am glad some of them were utilized. The Glittering and Temple of Orrik were a little under-featured but I think that's more to them being relegated to storytelling roles as opposed to anything else. As far as side quests go, Odmin and Fodmin were supposed to have more of a rivalry, Samwerk's bakery would made an offer for help with deliveries, one or two things at Kog's and Company could have been fixed, and a small retrieval quest for some of the patrons at the Rusty Mine Cart. Kog's and Company was my absolute favorite build out of all the sets and I hope somehow or another they'll come up in a future quest. The one battle and puzzle went over well I think, though as soon as Atramor showed up he shifted the tide pretty quickly, but it was good to see Dumora more in action. Story wise I noticed the Party was getting a little bored, especially after the High priest didn't really have any new information, so I hope to liven things up with a good murder, but couldn't seem to make things all stick together to give the Party a sense of urgency or stake. I do regret not giving a more fitting conclusion to that plot point, especially considering how great Nur's dialog with the Naga was.

From a creation note, I had already created Hava the Mindflayer before Sandy's reveal of Baba. And the inclusion of Werther Brickton was intentional, I've tried including a surviving CAT character in each of my quests.

Section 5: Journey to Frumpknob

Yay, a battle that finally starts feeling a little challenging. The worm battle was an opportunity to feature one of the creatures I had been working on for this quest since its inception. Glad to see the strategies coming from the Party, including an unexpected use of the Croise Croissant. The investigation of Xor might have gone better if Tensi had started using some of her intimidation, but unfortunately Peppermint_M's absence was starting to have some effects on the progression of the story. Definitely started seeing some of the frustration from the Party as to the direction they needed to go. Not sure how I could have better steered you all, Dumora was there to be an aid, but not necessarily provide an answer for every question, especially on one oriented towards investigation and mystery. Party seemed more interested in just getting through the quest at this point than exploring the setting, fault on my part for not making things more intriguing. The rail-map puzzle was supposed to help give you a bone as to what was going on, but due to a mistake on my part it was unsolvable until later, though you all made valiant attempts.

Section 6: Frumpknob

The city of mining and refining, I wanted to give Frumpknob a dirty and industrial feel. The city was built downwards into the earth as the Dwarves dug ever deep and I wanted that to be felt through the architecture, more established and older towards the top, grimier and rougher towards the bottom. These were some of my favorite sets to build and I'm glad how they turned out. Nur as always has some priceless interactions with folks as does Ellaria. I loved seeing the problem solving of the burning drill and was glad to show how not obstacle needs to be conquered through a fight. The dunking of Alfred into the mythril while spontaneous, ended up hilarious. Frumpknob brought about the introduction of Chief Volaf, of whom I hope was distinct enough from his fellow clan-leaders, though I must confess after writing so many NPC's I was having a difficult time keeping each of them unique. Atramor and Twitzle was one of my favorite scenes and I hope he gets to use his familiar more often. Overall Frumpknob was pretty straight forward, understandably so as the Party was itching for resolution to the long drawn out story line.

Section 7: The Tunnels

First really challenging fight. It was good to see the Party stretched a little and I think the mob mechanic in addition to the zones mechanic made the Party realize how much they depended upon working as a group. Finally see a Vindicator's class at full power. Without any real specialized equipment, the class was hitting as hard as a Hunter class and still had defensive options open to it if necessary. The battle went well and it reinforced the idea of what was really going on behind the scenes. Wish I had done more with Figgle.

Section 8: The Final Confrontation

I'm not convinced I gave enough clues pointing to the ending which is one thing I regretted, though we seemed pressed for time and the Party didn't really feel like doing more investigating so my hope was the twist would be enough to carry the Party along with the story. I would have really liked to go more into the reasoning behind the High Priest's scheme, but monologing really isn't my forte and the Party was itching for a fight. Hopefully it made sense and the stakes/urgency were felt by this point. The battle itself was long and grueling, but I don't think impossible or boring. There were several moments that the Party shined and several moments where I thought it was the end. Atramor summoning nearly a dozen monsters during the first few rounds was awesome and seeing him stroll over to the drill like a bad-megablocker was cool. The mechanics allowed for a sense of urgency as well as different strategies to be implemented at different zones. There were probably a few things that could have been more refined to avoid loop-holes, but overall I was happy with it, though towards the end it did seem a little inevitable.

Section 9: Quest Conclusion

Not a lot to add here, a lot of this was tying loose ends up and setting this up for the next Dwarven quest. I'm glad the Party had the opportunity to utilize some of the specialized merchants back in Brumpknob and to say their goodbyes. The ending might have seemed a little quick, but I could tell we were all ready to be finished and am thankful for you all sticking with it to the end.

Player Feedback

Tesni (Peppermint_M): Tesni is a classic character, she's been there pretty much since the beginning, that said she doesn't seem to have developed very much over that time period. She's been in some of the most game changing events of Heroica RPG, but she's hasn't changed much. You've got a lot of great potential with her rough attitude, the effects of her dark swords, and the numerous connections Tesni has with both PC's and NPC's alike, it would just be nice to see her take advantage of those and for you to expand upon them. While some of your interactions were great, especially during the beginning of the quest, I felt as time went on though you really dropped the ball. It wouldn't have been too bad, but you were Party Leader and without a leader a quest can easily come to a stand-still because no one is making decisions. Your interactions and comments towards the end were pretty lack-luster and really felt like you were posting out of obligation rather than interest. If that's the case or if things come up in real life, feel free to talk to me or any of your QM's in the future and I think we'd be glad to take what steps are necessary to either get you more engaged with the story at hand or maybe move your responsibilities over to another PC so the quest isn't held back. Again, glad to have had you, wish you could have been a little more invested.

Ellaria (Sandy): I could always count on you to keep pushing the quest forward and even though I know you probably got a little frustrated at times I was glad to see you putting thought into your character up until the very end. Ellaria is one of those characters who has definitely evolved throughout the years both as a PC and in her relationships with other PC's. It was clear through her interactions with all her fellow Party members, that she had quested with them before and had been changed by them and had affects on them as well. From a puzzle standpoint you're right up there for some of the quickest solves and when it comes to battles you're quick to find the best solution to a certain mechanic or situation. I was a little miffed towards the end of the quest when you seemed more concerned about finishing than about the actual circumstances, but I can totally sympathize if this quest was just too long, it was for me as well. One thing I must commend you on is your patience, there's a lot of players who complain/criticize before everything is said and done and I'm glad you're always willing to wait and see how things turnout before giving your feedback. Overall, it's always a pleasure to have you along for my quests.

Atramor (CallMePie): It's been awhile since I've hosted you and it was fun to have you as a PC again. While I miss Atramor's conversations with his chicken, I've liked the new side we're seeing of him as a Drafter. You were a little more absent than I would have imagined you'd be towards the end of the quest, but I think most of us were in that boat to some extent or another. From a battles perspective, Atramor is a killer to balance for, his ability to deal out damage either actively or passively, inflict status effects, and ward off damage and negative statuses make him one of the most likely PC's to be able to hold his own in the game. His rushing off to take care of the drills on his own was pure awesomeness and some of his interactions throughout the quest were great. Throughout most of his adventures, it's always nice to see Atramor reverting back to his roots of a pirate with a bone to pick with the Bonapartes, you can see he has no love for them in the little things he does, but he never makes it a grandiose display, it's just perfect. Glad to have you on this quest, you along with Sandy were the quick solvers with the puzzles, which is always fun to see.

Nur (Jebediahs): Have I ever said how much of a joy it is to have Nur along for a quest? Sure he'll do his own thing every once in a while, but he's always there to lend a hand and move his Party along, even if he is making a buck on the side. You play your character so well that I imagine it must come pretty naturally to you. I've pretty much got no complaints in terms of your role-playing as it was some of the best in the quest. I'm also always grateful that Nur is willing to notice the small things, the inconsequential things and then make them his own, whether it be Dwarven racism, a mispoken name, or some sort of misunderstanding. Nur is real because he's prone to mistakes and looking out for his own interests, which I think a lot of PC's gloss over. As a whole we tend to create characters that are ideal versions of ourselves to the exclusion of there never being misunderstandings or never really focusing on what our characters want out life, Nur doesn't really have this problem. Because Nur often picks up on the little things, it can sometimes be difficult to make them more significant and unfortunately I tend to not tie everything up nice and tidy, like Figgle and the murdered Naga, apologies on my part. Nur's always free to come on one of my quests and I'm glad he was here for this one.

WBD: Self criticism, the quest was too long, not structured enough, and had too many things going on and too many NPC's to make them all relevant and intriguing. The sets were probably some of my favorites to build, I'm proud of the battles and the loot, the puzzles were good in my opinion, and the overall story worked. I think it's going to take a little more practice to figure out the best balance between long form storytelling and the everyday snapshot types of quests I'm used to running. Overall, I'm glad to have run the quest and learned the things I did and hopefully the next one will be even better and more exciting to watch. Once again, I'm thankful to all of you who participated on this thing over these past 7 months.

[Flipz]

As an observer of 132, I think it fell a little bit into the trap of Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: the mystery itself didn't build up large enough nor quickly enough to successfully hook the audience, and so the investigation and reveal didn't carry as much weight as they might have (particularly given how things ended up being foreshadowed). Fair warning, I'm going to reference Professor Layton a lot here, because that series and 132 (well, most WBD Quests, actually) share a lot of similarities in structure (if not mechanics, though this one was a lot closer than most with all the puzzles).

I feel like the setting itself (or at least, the first two cities) were interesting and fairly well fleshed-out, but the driving motivation for the Heroes being there was rather weak. It was almost too simple, too mundane, better suited for a short linear "go from point A to point B and beat up the bad guys" Quest than a grand, sprawling, puzzle-based mystery Quest. Professor Layton games (and, to a lesser degree, the larger WBD Quests) are known for having a truly bizarre, mysterious, and/or supernatural-seeming phenomenon at their heart, the solution to which is what grabs the player and compels them to push through the rest of the game in search of; "what's the deal with the Elysian Box? What's the deal with Future Luke and the time-travel? What's the mysterious 'Last Spectre' wrecking the town? How the hell did everyone get sucked into a storybook, and how is all this magic even possible?!?" I feel that a larger mystery, one where a logical solution (like "the mines are running out" or "someone's stealing the Mythril") doesn't even come to mind, would have done a lot to foster engagement and encourage more active investigation; see 116's "what and where is this giant monster?" and 54's "why would someone sew so much gold into a cloak?" mysteries, for example. (Incidentally, the weakest game in the Layton series that I've played, "Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask", also made the mistake of setting forth too mundane a mystery, so you're still in incredibly good company, WBD. )

I was also a little disappointed by the ending; while I was surprised by the twist of the High Priest being the Big Bad, it seemed like it came out of nowhere and was hardly foreshadowed at all, whereas the Dark Dwarves (which in my opinion could have been an EXCELLENT shock appearance) seemed to have been foreshadowed a bit too much by being directly revealed in the library. This, too, felt a bit mundane as a solution for the mystery; I was really hoping for some ludicrous, over-the-top batsh*t insane twist reveal like the little girl being the monster in 116 or Retak Ysp being the leader of the undead revolt in 108. (Again, tendencies you share with the excellent Professor Layton series.) A really good twist could have revitalized interest towards the end, sparking a desire in readers and players alike to go back and revisit the earlier sections of the Quest to view them in light of the new information and giving a slightly more satisfying solution to the whole experience.

Other than that, though, I think most of the pieces were already there for something really great, and the flaws were just magnified more than they would have been by slow pacing and a slow-posting, mostly-disengaged party.

Speaking of the party, my thoughts on them basically boil down to "more". You were great individually, I just wanted to see more of you, and I wanted to see more of your interactions with each other and with the environment. That being said, I know how hard it can be to do that when you're not really engaged by the elements you have available to interact with, so I count myself lucky in being able to see as much of you as I did.

[Jebediahs]

7 months! I didn't know it was that long! I thought the pace was fine because unfortunately I often come to forget the "game" part of RPG a lot of the time and focus too heavily on the roleplay. I actually don't mind (maybe a little) waiting 24+hrs for a PC's response if it'd make the current conversation or storyline better/believable/realistic. I don't like when one or two hyper active PCs overrun a quest and don't give slower posting players a chance to have a voice. I think not being allowed to shine is a contributing factor as to why so many good players/characters end up leaving the game before their time so-to-speak. This attitude I have towards pacing also stems from me not reading quests I'm not in until they're long over so I'm never looking at the dates posts were made. I believe I mentioned via PM that my seeming "disinterest" because of my sparse posting in the beginning was merely my character playing along with the ruse of letting his employer Ellaria do the talking while Nur did the bodyguarding. Others' "disinterest" may have been RL issues or hosting and/or participating in multiple other quests with their secondary characters.

Some grew frustrated but I don't mind rereading through the quest I'm participating in to remember details I've forgotten but my character should or should not remember. There are some things I pick up on as a player that my character wouldn't so sometimes I wait/hope another PC will get it and if they don't then I usually let it pass.

In life not everything gets to be tied up nice and pretty so it's fine with me that Nur never saw Figgle again but I'm assuming he lived to show up in another quest. The Naga will be missed. Who was the character standing in the middle of the Rusty Minecart? He/she was was holding the feather/quill and had the empty-potatosack-looking cape, errand quest NPC? I was so engaged with the naga that I didn't think it was right to just start talking to someone else so was hoping another PC would chat that NPC up.

Vindicator is an awesome warrior class and one I'd strive to get towards for my next character but might have to scrap Nur for since I'm too far away from unlocking a second character. Vindicator provides variety to a melee class which is neat because these classes are usually just target/fire-and-forget. It was fun trying to determine which target would need an oath directed towards it for future rounds then in the next round choose the vindicator's primary target. Using sword and board for defense or throwing shield to the wayside for increased 2-hand grip dealt damage is a really cool mechanic.

I had wondered about the golem kidneys and why there was only one. Next time, Mycenia...next time. WBD let me in on some insider information:

QM Note: For your information to do with as you please.

"That'll do it," remarked Atramor, giving the Treant an approving nod as it withered away and its image slid back into view on its card as he shuffled it back into his deck. "Any chance Alfred knows what a...golem kidney stone is good for?"

Golem Kidney stones are utilized in the production of Grating Stones, 5 Golem Kidney stones will yield 1 Grating Stone when manufactured by someone with the proper processing procedure.

Thanks for letting me contribute to the development of golem lore a bit with Alfred's explanation:

- "..."

- An incredulous look crossed the mage's face. "Respond! You must know something with all the time you spent in that Tower."

" By your command ...Many of the organs used to build golems have a variety of uses. The correlation between a golem's organs and the animated creature is quite simple: In general, the greater the complexity of the golem means that more organs are used in its creation. The relationship extends a step further in that more "important" organs in fewer number can also result in a higher functioning or specialized golem such as myself. The Master used a golem heart to bring life to me. Nur leaned forward slightly and cocked his head to the side, letting the golem know he had yet to answer the question. "The golem kidney has been known to be used as the primary component in the creation of some grating stones. The craftsmen of Brumpknob should know more." En Sabah Nur narrowed his eyes and continued to stare at the Seneschal as he drank 3 Potions.

Not sure if it'll be accepted as cannon based on the wiki being about Golem Hearts only. Thank you very much for improving Alfred. I really wouldn't have minded if the vat straight up melted him into nothing. Easy come easy go I guess. Nur would have been devastated though. Lol

The puzzles were neat. CMP was quick on that rapids puzzle. I got home from work then saw the puzzle and that it was solved all at the same time. For the mine rail puzzle I had printed and cut out the pieces and had solved it with the fixed piece (at least I believe I did) but my son destroyed the pieces before I could get the solution situated on the screen then I just got too busy to attempt it again before the time was up.

Amazing scenery as always, great loot and services. Unsure as to why the Party didn't take more advantage of those services with their abundance of gold. I liked the Fungoids but wanted the young one's fear in the golem battle to truly infect the Party and give us the Afraid effect or something similiar hehe. I also liked how the Party(Nur) botched the Xor interaction to the point where mentioning Rip's name would probably not have worked to gain Xor's favor to complete the sub-quest.

I had fun, thanks for bringing me.

[Waterbrick Down]

Flipz equating Quest 132 to Professor Layton.

Even though I've never played a Professor Layton, I've read enough now to see the comparisons and it's one that I don't mind at all. I enjoy giving my players some variety aside from the regular fight or use a job trait situation and puzzles put everyone on an equal playing field no matter your build or level, in addition to involving any readers of the quest. I'd agree the high priest could have been more foreshadowed, but the semi-red herring of the dark dwarves was intentional in order to provide more of a surprise, unfortunately the reveal did feel like it came out of left-field to some extent. Another clue or two about someone on the inside organizing things would have done it I think.

Jebediahs' comments

One thing I noticed about Nur is he wanders and lives through everything that happens to him. To some heroes the goal is to get through a quest to get to the next one, Nur actually invests himself in the world in which the quest is taking place. The chap in the middle was run-away royalty from Terra Chima, he would have given you a side quest. The Golem Kidney stones were meant to be a side quest in which the Heroes could go Golem hunting and turn in the Kidney stones for Grating Stones at Mycenia or Hava the Alchemist at Kog's and Company. The side quest kind of got lost in the rest of the plot and again the Party seemed more focused on getting the job done than exploring. As for battles with effects already in place, I'm still getting adjusted to throwing those kind of things in, but I do like the idea and think we should see more of it where the story actually impacts the battle.

Pie, one thing I didn't really consider was your ability to decamodify creatures. While you could have done it with some of the Golems, I should have done a better job in giving opportunities for you to utilize that trait.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Waterbrick Down

[Zepher]

My notes on 132:

A mixed bag, for sure, but a lot more good than bad in there. Hosting big long quests is incredibly difficult. I find them more rewarding than smaller quests, personally, on both a PC and QM level (though of course we need a good mix of them). I don't think we've seen them really fantastically pulled off except a few instances: Quest 4 (wow!) and then probably 100 and 130, but Sandy has way more practice than anyone else.

So, there's a lot of things to consider, and a lot of practice needed. As a reader, I was thoroughly engaged throughout the whole quest. Nur is just an absolutely stunningly fun character, and Jebs is a good understanding dedicated player. He's a ton of fun to watch, not game breaking, not power hungry, just really great. And Nur is hilarious. I agree with Jebs too - I often adhere to the 24 hour rule not because I can't reply within 24 hours but because it would lock out some players from getting a chance to return. Ellaria was also a blast to follow - she's really filled out as a character, and getting to see her play "confident" Ellaria was a fun switch-up, because while she's come a long way and has gained a lot of competence, it was fun to see her take even another step. I like Tesni and Atramor well enough, but they weren't so much on display here. A particular disappointment with Atramor, just because CMP is usually so active and it took the drive out of the quest a little bit to have half the party nearly inactive. I assume it was life stuff for the both of them, which I totally get. That's why I usually do parties of five, so that two can go inactive and we can still have a majority. Life does exist, but I hate to halt quests.

Loot is always strong on WBD quests. That living dwavern alloy is broken as all Hell and I can't imagine it won't be nerfed, but maybe only I hold that opinion. But over all, great stuff. The battles were a bit give and take, but higher level parties are kind of grossly difficult to balance for, and I think you did an over-all good job of it.

And the sets were absolutely gorgeous. Seriously. You got my vote for best sets in the Henrys, and I'd be willing to give you that off this quest alone. So cool. And I think you did a fantastic job of developing the different cities. I wish that the port city had been a bit more populous, but other than that, good work!

So, let's talk story a little. Over-all, pretty great. There are a few places to improve. I didn't mind the slow boil detective story. Like I said, long quests are fine. 136 and 130 I've felt directionless often, and it hasn't hurt either quest. I think what was missing here was the drive a bit. There should have been more leads to follow through. As the others have said, while the High Priest seemed justified, he didn't really have anything that gave him away other than "now you've explored as far as you can, so here is the villain, you've just stumbled upon him". That kind of felt not so good, mostly because of the time spent "investigating". If they'd just sort of walked to the last city, they would have solved it. And when they got to the last city, that's essentially what they did. There weren't ever really suspects that they had to sort through or anything of that sort.

Also, the Naga murder really bothers me. Did we ever figure out what happened to her, or why it happened to her?

I also think the NPCs were a little off, not entirely, but just a little. Dumora in particular. I know this is an opinion, and people don't always love that I do it, but I think each NPC should have a very specific goal and should push for that goal. What was Dumora up to? Wasn't she just supposed to help her aunt get the ashes to the Glittering? Why didn't she go home after that? Why did she lead the city guard, and then follow the heroes further? It just felt like she was a guide, which felt a little dishonest to who she appeared to be. I understand the need for a guide, but maybe change them off? I didn't feel like the NPCs clashed with the heroes enough, or tried to use the heroes enough. You have wonderful, human NPCs. Really well written, really funny, but sometimes they seem to lose their drive. I think that was another issue for the High Priest. If he had been more active, it could have presented more complications. I assume he summoned wyrms for the first wyrm battle? Maybe? He seemed to have the other scroll of wyrm control. That could have been a cool plot line to follow down. And why did the rabbit fellow accept so easily the final answer of the heroes? It didn't seem like much of a choice there - the dwarves asked the heroes to keep a secret, and they could either dick them over and get paid or not dick them over and get paid, so what was the choice there other than be total dicks or don't be total dicks.

Anyway, over-all a lovely quest and read. I wish I had written this better, but it's 2:30 AM. I plan to give the quest another read through some time soon, and maybe will leave further comments.

[Waterbrick Down]

So, let's talk story a little. Over-all, pretty great. There are a few places to improve. I didn't mind the slow boil detective story. Like I said, long quests are fine. 136 and 130 I've felt directionless often, and it hasn't hurt either quest. I think what was missing here was the drive a bit. There should have been more leads to follow through. As the others have said, while the High Priest seemed justified, he didn't really have anything that gave him away other than "now you've explored as far as you can, so here is the villain, you've just stumbled upon him". That kind of felt not so good, mostly because of the time spent "investigating". If they'd just sort of walked to the last city, they would have solved it. And when they got to the last city, that's essentially what they did. There weren't ever really suspects that they had to sort through or anything of that sort.

Also, the Naga murder really bothers me. Did we ever figure out what happened to her, or why it happened to her?

I also think the NPCs were a little off, not entirely, but just a little. Dumora in particular. I know this is an opinion, and people don't always love that I do it, but I think each NPC should have a very specific goal and should push for that goal. What was Dumora up to? Wasn't she just supposed to help her aunt get the ashes to the Glittering? Why didn't she go home after that? Why did she lead the city guard, and then follow the heroes further? It just felt like she was a guide, which felt a little dishonest to who she appeared to be. I understand the need for a guide, but maybe change them off? I didn't feel like the NPCs clashed with the heroes enough, or tried to use the heroes enough. You have wonderful, human NPCs. Really well written, really funny, but sometimes they seem to lose their drive. I think that was another issue for the High Priest. If he had been more active, it could have presented more complications. I assume he summoned wyrms for the first wyrm battle? Maybe? He seemed to have the other scroll of wyrm control. That could have been a cool plot line to follow down. And why did the rabbit fellow accept so easily the final answer of the heroes? It didn't seem like much of a choice there - the dwarves asked the heroes to keep a secret, and they could either dick them over and get paid or not dick them over and get paid, so what was the choice there other than be total dicks or don't be total dicks.

Good points, honestly I couldn't really think of a great way to drive the party to the final solution of the problem, there were a lot of pieces but not a solid way to tie them together. As the Party entered Frumpknob I was definitely sensing disengagement and I thought the solution to it was to just speed the quest along to the conclusion as opposed to having it drag out with PC's who weren't really interested in questioning people that didn't approach them directly. Again this falls on my shoulders I think in not providing a more motivating mystery. I tend to swing towards more of a reactive approach to QMing, the Party discusses suspects based on what they've seen thus far and then I elaborate upon them, as opposed to the reverse of outright giving them suspects and letting them discuss them. Again the conclusion definitely wasn't what I intended for this quest, but it seemed better at the time to give it a quick wrap up rather than make the suffering continue.

Concerning the Naga murder, it's tied to the plans for the Nautilus that Atramor has.

Generally my NPC's are more character sketches than fully fleshed out breathing beings which is why they do so well in short episodic doses and lose their steam in the longer run (Dumora, Hoples, Grishnod, etc.). In this case I wanted Dumora to serve as a guide as it didn't make sense to let the heroes just wander and in the past I've noted that most of my parties sometimes feel at a loss as where to go. Additionally, I wanted to use this quest to try out the Vindicator class, so she was always with the Party for the most part whether they needed her or not, I do hope to bring her back to give her some more depth though. As for the High Priest, as Flipz mentioned, he really did need some more development and I erred in not foreshadowing enough with him. It's funny you think the NPC's were too agreeable, because it seemed like throughout the entire quest the PC's found them utterly annoying and unhelpful. As for the ending with Frumptious, the decision wasn't so much a decision to be a dick or not as it was to potentially get paid or not, or to be truly helpful to the Bonapartes by telling them everything. Believe me, there'll be repercussions for the Party's answers they gave.

Well it's been a week and only one feedback from an actual participant. Was it that bad? I don't like pushing for feedback, but as this was one of my first really long quests I'd really appreciate the viewpoint from the actual players.

[Sandy]

Well it's been a week and only one feedback from an actual participant. Was it that bad? I don't like pushing for feedback, but as this was one of my first really long quests I'd really appreciate the viewpoint from the actual players.

Sorry, things have just been hectic for me lately. I'm not usually one to write elaborate feedbacks and analyzations, either.

Yours was not a bad quest, by any means, just somewhat disjointed one. With the open-world concept, it was hard to discern which events, NPCs and subquests were important and which were just filler. Once it dawned to me that the answer would only be revealed in the last town - no matter what happened in between -, there was really little incentive for me to explore the other locations. I understand you took it as impatience to finish the quest, but at least on my part it was just about wanting to keep some focus in a long quest. Details of what had happened at the start of the quest started to elude me, so it was increasingly hard to see connections between the different events. If there had been less NPCs to interact with and places to visit, the quest would have been a much more coherent experience, at least for me.

But there's a big positive side to this: you have now introduced a whole new, detailed place to the world of this game, which can be revisited and expanded upon with ease. It's just like me and my Salmanda quest - planning for #130 I could use a lot of stuff from #14 and add to them, and have a large, coherent playground for the heroes to play on. Now, I might have overdone it, too, but at least for now the heroes on my quest still seem invested...

...Which brings me to the player activity. It was dismal in your quest, on my behalf as well. The quest coincided with huge events in my life - a long trip abroad, break-up from a 10 year relationship, a move to another city and a search for a new job there. With quests of my own to host, my time was just stretched really thin, and for that I apologize sincerely. It was emphasized by the fact that the other players - aside from Jebediah - didn't seem to have much time, either. It was just bad luck, I guess...

I really loved a lot of the things in your quest, WBD; the puzzles, the elaborate world, the lore behind it all, the MOCs!!! Like said, you now have a great place to revisit in another quest - just be sure to plan out the storyline from start to finish. My worst quests have always been the ones that I have planned the least in advance.

Thanks for the minecart ride!

[Mencot]

Now that I have more time I will give some feedback on CMP´s Quest 140 (a bit late, I know. Sorry about that but been really busy )

First of thank you CMP for a really fun quest and it was great to be apart of it.

The story was nice, great follow up to your previous quests and maybe by our end action we will see more of it .

So the story held some surprises but to those that have read or followed your previous quest, the who was behind it all wasn´t the biggest surprise of them all but intresting turn of events nontheless.

Being more of the roleplaying kind of character, I like puzzles and "talk and think your way through stuff" rather than using battle, so i liked that this quest had some of those.

The battles and Loot. Hmm battles where nothing too hard for our characters and as usual in Heroica, we had some bad luck with rolls but we pulled through fairly easy i think.

The loot was good overall, nothing too much of anything but not too little either. Maybe a better distribution by the Party leader would been fair but it was his decision to make.

Fellow Players:

In this quest also would had liked too see some more interaction from all of you but I understand that life is busy. But maybe more roleplaying between characters would be good, because here we really had people who could not stand eachother (I don´t know why this is but ) Altough there was, I would had wanted some more drama between Annie, Keliim and Em.

Calamity

As I said before, she is an intresting character with depth. A dark person but with humor, don´t really know where she is heading but will follow with her story improvement with intrest.

And Keliim would quest with her again.

Annie

Also an interesting character to follow. Shy, insecure, bookwormis elf but hell of a fighter, strange combo you have come up with but that makes the character great and feels real. You did a good job in playing her disliking and being maybe a bit afraid of Keliim (don´t know why she is that but maybe will figure that out later if they meet each other again.) All in all Keliim would quest with her again, altough the drama.

Mortimer

Sorry, don´t understand the character thinking. He seems quiet, even more quiet than Keliim. Liked the things that Keliim and him clashed or Keliim clashed with his thinking and actions, Em didn´t do anything... his he depressed?

Have read many quests where he has been apart, altough he is quiet on everyone on this one he was almost apathetic.

Will follow how you will evolve him in the future.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Mencot

[CMP]

Someone remind me to post these a little earlier next time, I think I might be a few days weeks months late...

Thanks to the part of Quest 140 for an awesome quest, I had a great time and I really hope you enjoyed it despite some obvious missteps. I think planning things a lot more succinctly and taking more photos beforehand definitely would've benefitted the pace, which I feel like was the main issue on my end of things. It probably should've been about a month shorter but I got really busy around the middle (again).

I've had this quest in mind since a wacky figbarf in which I ended up with a very hardcore-looking Wally. I should also point out that yes, this is a direct result of what happened in Quest #98, if it wasn't completely obvious. I've been trying to make a push towards having big decisions that kind of drive whatever bit of story I tell next in my quests, and this was just that. I was very glad to get Em back on board, having been on the quest, while Scuba was somewhat familiar (as a player, not as a character) with some of the things going on. I was also very happy to have along some of the newer characters and I think there was some nice interaction (usually in the form of friction) going on between them.

It also led to one of the big failings I noticed in the quest, and one that came about mostly as a result of me not predicting you guys properly.

The lower-level heroes would get slaughtered in any of the real challenging battles. Why? Well....you guys would chuck bombs and obliterate every enemy they were supposed to kill. I suppose I should've seen that coming, but truthfully I would've assumed Calamity would've relied a bit more on her scroll rather than take on targets that amounted to suicide for her. Luckily you guys dealt with it pretty well, but it did result in a much more toned down final boss battle.

So, the Gontzo interrogation puzzle was I hope relatively straightforward. By dismantling his story you avoided combat (in which he would've immediately disabled the guardsmen). You seemed to get it fairly quickly but to be honest I prefer these kinds of puzzles to having to do the insane visual puzzle stuff that I can barely comprehend crafting (As a veteran of of three WBD quests I have absolutely no idea how he does it. )

I was glad to have a lot of old characters show up in this quest at the LLL. It's a tough balancing act when you have an NPC other characters have met and know pretty well meet entirely new characters. I think that occured to me when you arrived at Lady Luck's Locale because while there were plenty of people to talk you there was no reason to not beeline directly to your target. So that's why you got saddled with a half-though out objective. This battle was almost a Dastan final battle-alike but then I decided having two was enough and dropped this one. (The other one was the final battle, but as I said, the party was becoming difficult to balance for and things were dragging by then anyway). I did do the three-way battle, which I would like your opinions on. It was certainly chaotic and interesting, but I want to know how engaging it was in terms of I guess battle complexity.

The part in the Tritech Workshop was slow. Again, those damn visual puzzles. I had a different one in mind (but basically the same in theme) but I didn't write it down in a way that was coherent to me, so. The djinn battle was a somewhat last minute thing. I had to use a scaled level enemy which felt gross. But there was no other way to do it. I probably should've been a lot more clear about Chalvo's fate, but I couldn't figure out a way to get it across. If you left him behind the Ji Pei's assassins would've later killed him and you would've gained Ji Pei reputation at some point later.

And of course, the end of the quest. I'm sure it wasn't a giant mystery who the Eubric Knight was but all the characters seemed appropriately confused and conflicted so that's a big plus to you guys, even if you figured it out beforehand I take character/player knowledge separation very seriously.

There was something I was going back-and-forth on as we neared it, though. I considered Avina dying if the heroes didn't outright attack Wally after a certain point and continue talking. But it felt unnecessary and also not what Wally would've done. So instead she's just very very disappointed in you all.

Also, if you chose to let Ervie die, you would've had a second boss battle against Wally's flyer, which would've ended with him getting knocked out of it, the thing exploding, and him getting impaled and killed by a propeller blade. And Avina's outlook would've been very, very different at the end. I considered having the guards show up again and taking Ervie away, but, well, I wanted to give you guys one last choice, and it's one I really didn't expect. So I'll definitely be making something of it in the future.

Thank you very much for hosting, CMP, I thought it was a very cool quest. The beginning was perhaps too focused on chasing down leads, which resulted in not really knowing what to do except follow the plot along, but I think the ending more than made up for that.

I'd hoped the files would've helped ease some of that confusion but it suppose it was kind of formulaic at first. It's a system that's worked very well for my quests in the past though. I hope I didn't come across as too heavy handed in what you guys needed to do, but in a quest with this much talking it was kind of necessary.

Being more of the roleplaying kind of character, I like puzzles and "talk and think your way through stuff" rather than using battle, so i liked that this quest had some of those.

Talking through stuff is a huge chunk of a lot of my quests so I'm glad you enjoyed it.

All in all, thanks for a great quest you guys and I hope you had as much fun as I did.

Maybe next year I'll get an analysis of Quest 132 done.

[Flipz]

So, the Gontzo interrogation puzzle was I hope relatively straightforward. By dismantling his story you avoided combat (in which he would've immediately disabled the guardsmen). You seemed to get it fairly quickly but to be honest I prefer these kinds of puzzles to having to do the insane visual puzzle stuff that I can barely comprehend crafting (As a veteran of of three WBD quests I have absolutely no idea how he does it. )

For me, it is very much a sort of insanity. The closest thing I can compare it to is figbarfing; I sort of just started throwing paths and obstacles and false leads together until I had something that pleased me; from there, I set one path as my intended solution and then tweaked all the others to have one crucial obstacle that couldn't be overcome within the rules/mechanics of the puzzle. WBD would probably have more insight into the process, but that's my experience from 141 at least.

[Scubacarrot]

I really liked Quest 143. The characters involved were interesting, and I feel like you made the inclusion between this short story and the overall narrative pretty well. It was not necessary at all to know a lot about Endgame Quests, but provided good information for those that did. I also think it's fun that you left yourself plenty of room for follow-up to use this story as a base. We don't know exactly what was going on with the mage the old couple mentioned or what will happen to Garson and his sister. Maybe we find out in the future, maybe not. The puzzle could maybe have been improved by following what CMP usually does with puzzles, which is to get everyone to send their solution to the QM privately within an allotted time, because this time Lind did it before I even had a chance to look at the thread. The battle worked a bit weird, but that's totally understandable with the range of levels. It was maybe a bit too easy, but the way to do it with the amount of hits is a fairly good idea if there is a big level-gap. Overall, I am very happy to have gone on it and finally be hosted by you, Endgame.

[Palathadric]

Yeah, I had fun. I always enjoyed short and sweet quests and this was just that. I've always said that your short quests are better than your long ones. It does seem to be just me. I think this was the perfect quest for Pretzel to get back in with the heroing scene. He probably feels that he's done some good for a "change", after "Kill Baba" so from his perspective, I really enjoyed it as well. Thanks for hosting! And great to be on one of your quests again. It's been years, hasn't it?

[Endgame]

Thanks for the comments, all!

Yeah, 143 was made for a few reasons:

1) There was a wicked bad drought of quests at the time

2) After a fairly heavy 138, I didn't want to jump from that to an even heavier finale quest, so I thought 143 would be a good breather episode.

3) I wanted to tie up some lore before the end.

After 138 had a lot of just "fluff" characters, I tried to make every character matter in this one. I'm glad to see people got attached to the secondary characters, like Garson, Marionne, Flavius, and the Bogossus, and some of the interparty relationships, plus your interactions with Gabriel, were good.

In case you couldn't tell, Gabriel is a bit of an megablocks. He's getting better, though. I feel like he differenetiated himself faily firmly from Masson in this one, while still showing some inner confusion over his emotions and morals, without really saying it. Also, the whole "storm is coming, Gabriel is scared Immortalis is a-knockin;" was just something I improvised. I was out of time for the day I wanted to give you guys something to talk about, so I remembered how Gabriel was afraid of Charon/Immortalis from 138 and kinda just threw it out there.

I think the Bogossus worked well as a bait and switch, and the conflict with Garson was a fitting finale. I was originally going to have only two bleak outcomes (Garson is killed by the heroes, or Gabriel fails you), but I could tell you guys were really trying to reach a good resolution for all parties, and it would clash in tone with the rest of the quest, so I elected not to. Plus, you guys did something I didn;t expect - nstead of talking Garson down, you pleaded towards Gabriel's conscience. And you borught it out, so kudos.

[JimBee]

I never thanked you for 143 Endgame, so now I am. I enjoyed the short and simple quest. As others have said the implications still felt large enough to warrant the quest in the first place, especially with Gabriel's decision. It was an important factor for his and Jinnipher's relationship too, even though that might not have shown in the dialogue. I must admit that I was not as focused on the quest as I should have been; the end of the year and semester were especially busy for me so delays or half-assed posting were something I wish I had had time to avoid. Sorry.

I don't have any idea when you're planning on hosting your finale quest, but if timing allows I would surely like to participate in it.

[Endgame]

I though the dialogue did show how much weight Gabriel's choice pretty well, actually - the "since you made the right choice, you can take me out on a date" thing was really effective and showed that Jinnipher actually did want Gabriel to do the right thing.

As for the Immortalis Quest: expect the pitch to appear on the questboard soon. It's pretty good timing, considering 130, 137, and 139 appear to be in the late stages.

[MysticModulus]

Some thoughts on 142. First of all, thanks a lot to Sandy for hosting it! I had a blast during this quest and it provided a nice story for the development of Ezerans character. I was actually quiet eager to be a part of this quest since all of the quests in this arc has been really interesting. Coming into contact with the guild of Invision was a nice treat for Ezeran since he is fascinated by their work. Ezeran also got to show some of his qualities as a leader in a hopefully satisfactory capacity, a really good excercise both for him as a character as for me playing him.

I liked the concept of the quest, I haven't read the Sci-Fi-story that it may (?) be based on inspired from but it truly was a fascinating creature and the mechanics coupled with it were interesting and made for a variety of interesting situations.

The scene in the restaurant was teeming and well planned, subjectively speaking it felt like the hardest battle until we got help with buffing the triffid with nostrum.

I personally loved the atmosphere provided in the battle with the triffid and the hanged pirates, the weather mechanics were exciting even though my character were somewhat helped by the fact that he could absorb most of the damage dealt. The quests pace sped up considerably with the inclusion of captain Cousland and it felt like the hunt really intensified and that the stakes got higher.

It was a real treat to be able to visit Triad Park and it would probably have been an interesting battle if Torald had controlled his itching trigger finger. The story then climaxed with the two alternatives of either destroying the Triffid or escorting it back. Ezeran found the choice a rather easy one but it comes down to his experiences and values.

Waldorf and Cousland was obviously the most noteworthy of NPC's since they tagged along the most. I liked both a lot but the golem could have had a bigger role.

It would have been fun with a more substantial "boss"-fight or the like but it is of minor importance, great work Sandy! This was a perfect quest for Ezeran at this point!

Torald: It's nice that the relation between Torald and Ezeran is progressing and that they obviously complement each other, Torald is more of a "doer" than Ezeran and I hope Torald may be even more active the next time they get the chance to be on the same quest.

Petaldan: Petaldan has some nice characteristics that are played out really neat, I like the boyishness of him especially when it comes down to the moral discussion at the end. That interaction between the two were most rewarding in my opinion.

Dr Windus: Obviously it's hard to relate to the character since he was absent a lot, I hope Ezeran will get the chance to get to know him better at some other time.

[Mencot]

My responce back on this is really late

It also led to one of the big failings I noticed in the quest, and one that came about mostly as a result of me not predicting you guys properly.

The lower-level heroes would get slaughtered in any of the real challenging battles. Why? Well....you guys would chuck bombs and obliterate every enemy they were supposed to kill. I suppose I should've seen that coming, but truthfully I would've assumed Calamity would've relied a bit more on her scroll rather than take on targets that amounted to suicide for her. Luckily you guys dealt with it pretty well, but it did result in a much more toned down final boss battle.

It was fun to finally use that BIG bomb, Keliim was eager all quest to use it and what a blow it did. Captain overkill but it seems Keliim has a serious competitor bomber in Throlar, who also did a Big Bomb overkill in quest 142. Captian Overkill Copy cat

There should be another way to get big bombs cheap than the Bonaparte Expert class.

So, the Gontzo interrogation puzzle was I hope relatively straightforward. By dismantling his story you avoided combat (in which he would've immediately disabled the guardsmen). You seemed to get it fairly quickly but to be honest I prefer these kinds of puzzles to having to do the insane visual puzzle stuff that I can barely comprehend crafting (As a veteran of of three WBD quests I have absolutely no idea how he does it. )

The puzzle interrogation was fun and maybe quick and simple, but as I said before those kinds of things are what I like. Only thing I would had wanted more in it was to speak more with the Town Watch and the zombie Infiltrator Emelia.

I was glad to have a lot of old characters show up in this quest at the LLL. It's a tough balancing act when you have an NPC other characters have met and know pretty well meet entirely new characters. I think that occured to me when you arrived at Lady Luck's Locale because while there were plenty of people to talk you there was no reason to not beeline directly to your target. So that's why you got saddled with a half-though out objective. This battle was almost a Dastan final battle-alike but then I decided having two was enough and dropped this one. (The other one was the final battle, but as I said, the party was becoming difficult to balance for and things were dragging by then anyway). I did do the three-way battle, which I would like your opinions on. It was certainly chaotic and interesting, but I want to know how engaging it was in terms of I guess battle complexity.

I liked it, maybe it was at some points a bit too hard for us lower level players, especially when we had some bad rolls.

The part at the LLL before the battle was intresting also, made me think that could there had been a way to avoid the battle there? Felt like there was some kind of puzzle, if we talked with the different people and gang members there, the outcome could had been more friendly?

Also the thing that, I was disappointed in was after the battle (not your fault ) was that my party mate choose to let the dangerous criminal Reg go and give him over to the Town Watch, who with a right and just point of view would do that. Ofcourse I had a bit of a selfish thing here going on because I would had wanted to Keliim get in favor with the Town Watch not Wolfgang .

And of course, the end of the quest. I'm sure it wasn't a giant mystery who the Eubric Knight was but all the characters seemed appropriately confused and conflicted so that's a big plus to you guys, even if you figured it out beforehand I take character/player knowledge separation very seriously.

There was something I was going back-and-forth on as we neared it, though. I considered Avina dying if the heroes didn't outright attack Wally after a certain point and continue talking. But it felt unnecessary and also not what Wally would've done. So instead she's just very very disappointed in you all.

Also, if you chose to let Ervie die, you would've had a second boss battle against Wally's flyer, which would've ended with him getting knocked out of it, the thing exploding, and him getting impaled and killed by a propeller blade. And Avina's outlook would've been very, very different at the end. I considered having the guards show up again and taking Ervie away, but, well, I wanted to give you guys one last choice, and it's one I really didn't expect. So I'll definitely be making something of it in the future.

All things reconsidered, I think we did the right thing here with saving her life, altough she maybe didn´t deserve it. Here also, I should had put my foot down and not let Ervie go and let Keliim take her back to Eubric to the Town Watch, because she was an accomplice to the Eubric Knight.

As said before, all in all an great quest, and thanks for that CMP.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Mencot

[Duvors]

It was fun to finally use that BIG bomb, Keliim was eager all quest to use it and what a blow it did. Captain overkill but it seems Keliim has a serious competitor bomber in Throlar, who also did a Big Bomb overkill in quest 142. Captian Overkill Copy cat

What?

[Endgame]

Throlar has been in Fellcreste for 6 months.

[Mencot]

What?

Throlar has been in Fellcreste for 6 months.

Hahaha I meant to say Torald.

Oh well Throlar, Torald whats the difference.

[Lind Whisperer]

Hahaha I meant to say Torald.

Oh well Throlar, Torald whats the difference.

A good foot and a bad disposition.

Okay, okay, Throlar nor Torald have a bad disposition, but it was too good a joke to resist...