Great First Stream and Working on Some New Content

Out first stream went pretty good, I would even say great! We had a good time and hopefully got some much needed attention to the few quests we played through. We even got a Dev to come watch us stream and give us some tidbits of information on the patch headed our way tomorrow (Thurs) which is great news. I hope the sound issue gets resolved, that would make for some much needed ambiance to the quests.

In light of that success we also had a bonus "featured" stream today where we focused on just playing and having fun through some of the better, more polished quests out there and threw in some of our own quests as well. It went pretty well too, with some of the better moments being a jumping puzzle map that one of our Guild mates had quite a task completing the easier part of.

Speaking of the guild,  I am the Guild Leader of Dungeon Masters, an author guild on the Dragon shard. It was given to me by a fellow author and I am proud to be the leader of such a great community of content creators.

On to the new thing I am working on, no it's not allowing the players to kill Darius, yet. Sorry.

It is the next part of the Circle of the Living Flame campaign and I am nearing completion. This one, much like the previous one, is more combat focused and less story oriented. Like the first campaign, it will end with a larger story based quest in the final part and of course the same wow factor. It's probably not going to appeal to many players as it is just a task quest with tidbits of story lore and lots of fighting, which is fine because that is where the story is telling me to go.

At any rate, that's pretty much all I have for this post.

Peace

-chili

Getting Featured making a Guild and Live Streaming!

Man has it been a long week since my last post here, for that I am sorry!

After being spotlighted on the forums, my quest Crypts of Carnage has now been featured in the game as well, and if you were not aware of this, its like hitting the lottery! I am honored to receive this recognition for my quest that started out as a simple no story hack and slash and molded into a simple light story hack and slash :P Get out there and play it already!

The guys who I spend most of my time with in vent in the official Neverwinter Foundry Q&A Ventrilo have banded together and formed a guild on the Dragon shard called THE FORGE. It's a small collection of authors who try their best to help the community as much as possible and shed light on the Foundry quests that often get overlooked.

With that said, THE FORGE is also branching out into streaming the lesser played foundry content out there to try and get the authors who put in a lot of effort to their quests some much needed plays and attention.

We have previously been doing this for fun and we want to try and get the word out there about some fantastic quests that fly under the radar so we thought it would be fun to bring others along for the ride and help promote authors and their works in the process.
For more information check out these threads in the official forums:

The General Discussion Pimp Thread

The Foundry Forum Submission Thread

The Live Stream Link

Come check it out Saturday May25th @ 3 pm EST for our first broadcast!

To help bring in viewers, I will personally be giving away 1000 AD to a viewer at the beginning and each hour after and when we finally conclude this week’s stream I will give away a bonus 5000 AD!

Thank you!

-chili

Necropolis of Nightmare is now LIVE!

Netho'relak Saga - Prologue
Dungeons of Dread NWS-DISAP2SA3

Part 3: Necropolis of Nightmare NW-DANM3TCD5

@chili1179

Campaign Summary: It appears that someone has set up a dungeon challenge in the Sword Coast and is calling out to all adventurers to come accept explore it's depths, to claim the riches that it may hold or meet your fate within. But, (there is always a but) all may not be as it seems, inside the dungeons lie a brewing back story that could cause you to lose your soul and forever change the all of Faerun!

Quest Summary: On the trail of Darius Red, the Neverwinter Guard have received reports that he has taken his kidnapped son to a remote beach North of Neverwinter called Death Knell Cove, home of a powerful Drow Necromancer named Xaxiuz Corpserender also known as The Lord of the Dead. The Warlock’s tower hovers high above the cove and gaining access will take some considerable will power and wit, and a little muscle probably wouldn’t hurt.

Gather your strength, set your fears aside and pursue Darius into the Necropolis of Nightmare!

Quest Type: Combat/Story/Exploration/PuzzleTime to Complete: 30 Minutes or so (Undetermined)
Combat: Heavy In Parts
Starts At: Protector's Enclave - Guard Frinko
Tips: Quest Trail can be misleading at times, use the minimap/map to locate objectives.
Difficulty: (Created for Solo Play)

• Group: Easy-Average
• Solo: Moderate-Hard

This campaign is the prologue to a larger story which will introduce you to one of the story's major antagonist; Darius Red. It's starts off slow in part 1 with it focusing mostly on combat and then the story takes off in part 2 to get you familiar with the larger back story and finally wrap up in this quest which will end the Prologue. The story will then continue in the next campaign:The Circle of the Living Flame.


When providing feedback, I ask that you please the as detailed as possible with locations of glitches, bugs, typos, misspellings, encounters that need adjusting (harder/easier) etc... The more detail you can provide the easier it will to be to fix and help make this campaign an the follow up campaign(s) much more enjoyable for the players.


Full Image: http://i.imgur.com/mS2WTw7.jpg
Campaign Image Album: http://imgur.com/a/pCpXG#0
Promotional Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWkyY6etrDM

What are you waiting for? Go play it!

-chili

Some spotlight love and weekend release for NoN!

This week I was surprised with the honor of being featured on the Neverwinter site for my Crypts of Carnage quest in the community spotlight.

It's something I am really proud of have but I think there are tons of other authors who are more deserving but I'll take it!

In other news, I have been working my butt off on the Necropolis maps and have the story complete, the maps complete and the encounters complete. I just need to tie up a few dialogues and proof play/check all the details to make sure it's ready to unleash to the masses. It's probably best played solo but I tried to keep in mind that players will go in groups so I tried to make it challenging but not overbearing or cheese fights.

The combat gets pretty heavy in the second half of the quest but not with stacked groups with hard abilities to destroy the player. I tried some experimental things with it that work best with a solo player but I still think groups will enjoy the story and I left a lot of room for exploration in the outdoor map with a lot more combat than the direct path will bring.

The outdoor map also has a couple of flavor items laying about for those explorers to find that should reward them with a little back story to the area they are playing.

I did manage to snag some screenshots this time as I played through it on the live server.

This is me working on the final boss room.

The first boss you encounter

A nice peek at the tower from inside a cave below.

That is all for this update, should be posting again after the quest goes live.

Peace

-chili

Re-Published A New Threat!

I just re-published the Circle of the Living Flame Part 1: A New Threat with the changes needed to make the story more in line with the events that take place in DoD even though the final part of that chapter is not published.

Speaking of which, I have the first tower room in the Necropolis completed with all it's epic-ness and started working on the upper tower room but have not decided what exactly it's going to be, I'm thinking a puzzle room but not sure yet perhaps a small maze with puzzle aspects. Will have to mull over it a while. Still have the whole other tower to think about as well.

No further screenshots on that as I really want it to be a surprise, and I think you guys will enjoy it.

-Chili

Necropolis Update

Been working pretty hard on the next chapter of the DoD campaign; Necropolis of Nightmare. Added some caves for one of the quest objectives and building an old Dwarven Crypt for another one of the objectives. Still have to add encounters and work out the dialog and quests but that will come later, after I build the interior to the towers themselves as I am still working out the exterior story in my head.

For the interior I am thinking of going with a maze for the first floor but it might not appeal to many having to traverse a maze so I may also throw in an optional puzzle to bypass the maze and also include the option to the player, if they solve the puzzle, to traverse the maze too (for those who want to). I just have to figure out a puzzle that is complex enough to warrant bypassing the maze.

But that is pretty much as far as I have gotten with this one. I did make a teaser video while the servers were down yesterday, so feel free to have a look at that.

More updates to follow as I progress with this quest.

-chili

Just an update to DoD: Pt 3

I have a name for the Dungeons of Dread Part 3: Necropolis of Nightmare.

The pic I posted in the last update has been drastically changed for the better as I am now finished with the building phase of the Necropolis and started throwing ideas around for the inside, which will be piece built using the large cave tiles because the offer the best layout for a multilevel round tower interior and the lighting will be easier to manipulate. I will most likely be using a varied set of walls, floors, doors and ceilings that will also vary in height as it will allow me to create stair cases and winding pathways.

This will be a tough build but I think I can make it work. I plan to make it at least 3 levels, but I might shoot for 5 per tower (2 towers) and the final bosses level, but we'll see what kind of difficulties I run into along the way.

Here's the updated and final rendition of the Warlock Xaxiuz' Necropolis of Nightmare floating tower.

Good night!

-chili

Pulled "A New Threat" to make Room for Dungeons of Dread Part 3!

The story in DoD: Labyrinth of Lunacy ended with Darius escaping the player with his son to sacrifice to Netho'relak and this is where the DoD campaign was going to come to an end and the Circle campaign was going to begin and officially kick off the Netho'relak saga with the player playing cat and mouse with Darius through a lengthy campaign.

I decided to scrap that idea and go ahead and have a final part of the DoD campaign end with a the player tracking Darius to one of the Circle founding wizard's lair, a Drow Warlock by the name of Xaxiuz, where the ritual to sacrifice Darius' son will be in progress for a climactic ending of the campaign.

Since that is happening, the story currently in "A New Threat" does not apply, since it references Darius' son and the player is supposed to be chasing after them both.

Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you as to how it plays out :)

But I will show you this:

Enjoy.

-chili

Netho'relak Saga Chapter One: Circle of the Living Flame

The area around Mount Hotenow is facing a new threat calling themselves the Circle of Living Flame, a group of Wizards lead by Darius Red who is collecting souls to feed their supposed God, Netho'relak. Short on men and resources, the Neverwinter Guard is asking for volunteers to aid with finding the source of this threat and helping to eliminate it as their attacks are getting more frequent and closer to home.

This story picks up where Dungeons of Dread left off with you trying to track down and find Darius Red before he can sacrafice his b*stard son to the god Netho'relak and put and end to the cultist group Circle of the Living Flame in which he founded.

Part One: A New Threat

A notice pasted to the job board reads:


"The area around Neverwinter has been encountering a new threat from the already hostile areas of Neverwinter Wood and Mt Hotenow. Short on men and resources, the Neverwinter Guard is asking for volunteers to aid with finding the source of this threat and tracking down its nefarious leader, Darius Red before he can sacrifice his own son to an alleged new god and gain the power to draw souls from the living.


Speak to Guard Frinko for more information."


It appears that there is trouble stirring in the area around Hotenow. The Circle of Living Flame, which was founded by the now wanted criminal Darius Red, is causing problems to local travellers and merchants in the areas around the Sword Coast. The Neverwinter Guard is calling out for volunteers to assist one of their best in investigating a cave complex that they reportedly started moving supplies into and hopefully find Darius, and his son before it’s too late.


Genre: Combat - Light Story - Not Much Exploration
Difficulty: Average to Hard
Map Setting: Caves
Time: 20 Minutes or so (unsure at this point)

This is my most detailed map to date. Working with the large cave tiles proved to be a pain but I got it like I wanted it with some help from my buddies Apocrs1980 and Nyghoma.

I hope you enjoy it.

-chili