163 replies to this topic

[Moosh]

Ok, so your rebuttal, aside from some parts like when you failed to understand my use of hyperbole in the music section, has some pretty valid points. I feel though that I need to address your actual post, though, as there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding going on here.

After having reading and studying the review carefully, I must conclude that the reviewer has done this for political reasons. I present reasons for this to the public and leave it to them to make their own judgement. Firstly, earlier in this thread he specifically said "you won't get anything reviewy out of me anytime soon". Yet he does this and its pretty soon. Second, we all know that he relies on the support of his team members, Shane and Dragonite (who are known opponents to LoH) to help him complete his current quest. If he were to write a positive review of LoH or remain silent, the team could very well fracture spelling disaster for the author. One wonders as to the extent that Shane and Dragonite have threatened to quit unless he wrote this, thus pointing a figurative “gun” to the reviewer's head. Third the timing seems rather coincidental to the conflict I had with Shane. He only posted the review a few days after the incident. Very suspicious...and lots of circumstantial evidence.

So you seem to fail to understand how Team Ruin works. Dragonite and Shane were both recruited by me and take orders from me. As I said in PM, I feel I command a good deal of respect, although we're all friends and so usually my leadership doesn't need to come into play. There is no figurative gun being held to my head. If there was, I'd have the both of them thrown off the team and do things myself.

As for your comment about me saying "you won't get anything reviewy out of me anytime soon," that was posted a whole month ago. Now that the expo has come and gone, we're much more relaxed and I'm able to get back to reviewing.

Finally, yes, Shane's argument with you did inspire me to post the review although it was fully my idea, not something Shane had anything to do with, and I actually had it in the making for a while beforehand.

Further, the fact that he has used the gold ring leads me to believe that he got beaten too many times. We all know what happens to a review when the reviewer has been beaten too many times... Sadly, the review can never quite come across as completely unbiased after that due to political reasons. Also, the game was never supposed to be played with the gold ring. How can a review be based on a mode of play which the author has specifically not approved of? Surely, the game must be played without any ring or otherwise cheating to ensure that all its beauty of challenge can be appreciated. If the reviewer is incapable of skill, then he should not be reviewing LoH.

Please reread the section of the review where I explained my usage of the gold ring.

All the screenshots that the reviewer has taken are to be of fortress 1. I don't see any screenshots of the remaining levels or mini-games and I for one do not believe his assertions that he is “keeping you in the dark”. There is nothing “dark” about LoH nor was there any intention of darkness. Anyone can view the levels by buying the gold ring and walking through it to see all challenge before they get serious. One must wonder how he is able to write properly informed criticism without having played through ALL of LoH. Is the reviewer to say that ALL the levels are bad simply based on what he saw on fortress 1? If the reviewer “didn't feel like expending any more effort” then I question how he is able to form a proper opinion on LoH. As the staff of PureZC have previously stated, it is very poor etiquette to rate a quest without playing a decent portion. Therefore, it is the DUTY of a reviewer to review a decent portion the quest before posting a public review despite what they feel. They MUST keep going no matter how bad a quest is at present because there might be good portions later which the public deserve to know about.

Liberation is a fairly new quest, and my review policy with new quests is to not spoil things for people if I can help it. Liberation was created in such a way that I feel Level 1 accurately reflects on the rest of the quest. Although I did play more than Level 1, I felt that Level 1 was all I need show for this review.

As for your rebuttal, I can tell your views differ greatly from mine, particularly on the subject of expending effort to make the quest look good, and honestly if I were to try to counter it it would only lead to an argument that would inevitably get this thread locked, so I'll leave it to the people to decide.

Out of curiosity, how would YOU rate your quest on a scale of 1 to 5?

[Avaro]

Nice review, Shane. There were some scripts in this quest though.

It's my favourite too. I love the vast and beatiful overworld and the variety of interconnected caves and the huge challenging dungeons!
Great quest. You could have written and shown some more, I think, though.

Edited by Avataro, 12 May 2012 - 01:48 PM.

[DarkFlameWolf]

Thanks for the review Shane! Good stuff.

[TheLegend_njf]

You guys are doing great! Makes me worried you'd one day rate my quest for it's flaws! Haha!! But I'm not that worried. I'm certain alot of people would appreciate a good review before stumbling into a new quest. Also, quest designers should also be more humble, to take a negative review too personally reflects on their character and personality. No matter how great you think your own quest, it can't please everybody.

I released Souls of Wisdom with absolutely no expectations. I released it just to get through that stage of my life. It was supposed to be my final quest because I had no creative energies left in me. I honestly believed it would get a few hits, and than die, and I would have been proud and settled with just that. But now look at what you people did, topped it on the Zeldaclassic.com charts, forcing me to be motivated enough to produce a sequel which will have everything the original don't offer! Will I ever get away from Zeldaclassic?? Haha!

Keep up the blunt and honest reviews.

Update: Holy typos!!! My sentences barely makes sense half the time. That's the price of using an iPhone as my main approach to communicate on here.

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 12 May 2012 - 07:14 PM.

[Shane]

Nice review, Shane. There were some scripts in this quest though.

It's my favourite too. I love the vast and beatiful overworld and the variety of interconnected caves and the huge challenging dungeons!
Great quest. You could have written and shown some more, I think, though.

Thanks, were there scripts? Guess that explained some latter puzzles in Level 4. Also I could've showed more, but I don't want to spoil a quest that isn't mine.

Thanks for the review Shane! Good stuff.

No problem, happy to review.

[James24]

I didn't start all this argument over LoH, but I'll finish it if it gets started. I feel compelled to respond when people attack me adhominem over my quest when I'm going about my normal business. Or if they post criticism about my quest when they have 1) been politically motivated 2) are clearly incompetent at playing challenge quests or 3) didn't play any decent portion of the game and post public reviews on it. These are unfair things which, although I support player's rights to post their opinion, must be responded to and discredited if necessary. I am also at fault for inviting the wrong people to play my challenge quest, but I'll rectify that in future.

@Moosh. Of course you say that about your team in public, but how am I to know what really goes on behind the scenes? If you really are the boss who just shouts out orders about what you want and have Shane and Dragonite act as your quest-writing slaves who write it, then its a win-lose situation for you and you'd try your hardest to keep it that way even if it means pacifying them with reviews such as these. If they were to quit you'd have to do all the hard work yourself and you'd do anything to avoid that. I remember you once said to Dragonite you'd hurt him in some private places if he were to quit... can't remember where now.

I wish I could have someone who I could shout orders to and have them write scripts for me. Could help me a lot with implementing my scripts. Would I write a politically motivated review to entice them to join or to retain them? Well... I would be lying if I said I wasn't tempted.

As for the gold ring - not buying it. Couldn't be bothered to play properly and so resorted to that.

I don't believe you played any more than fortress 1 without gold ring coz you can't produce screenshots to prove it. I give you permission...please show these screenshots to the public. As I said, Liberation is not about secrets and hiding things from people. Everyone should know exactly what they are challenging beforehand and -yes- the proper strategy to fight the monsters if they wish to know. So, its not really going to hurt anything.

And, as for your views about making the quest look good, I seriously question that given the quests that you've published, namely Engage to Zeldawock, You Only Live Once, Link's Quest for the Hookshot. Can you honestly say that great effort was expended making them look good?

As for my own rating, I rate my quest 5. Why would you ask such a question?

[Moosh]

Oh James, I really don't know how to respond to you. I think your post really provides the counter arguments itself.

Dragonite and Shane are not my quest writing slaves, they are my friends. I don't need to do anything to keep them in line because we all treat each other as equals. If you wish, you can pop into IRC, anonymously even if you so desire, and see for yourself. There is no conspiracy going on behind your back, at least not among the Crab People.

You have a very high opinion of your work and I respect that, but you need to learn to handle criticism. If you have any criticisms about my quests I would be glad if you were to post them so that I can know what I have done wrong. You claim LQftH (which had a custom tileset by the way), YOLO, and EtZ are ugly? Why not put some evidence behind those claims?

Edit:

I remember you once said to Dragonite you'd hurt him in some private places if he were to quit... can't remember where now.

Oh c'mon now. Seriously? I assure you if I said any such thing, it was all in jest and everyone present was aware I wasn't serious (except you apparently).

[Kite]

Hello everyone!

I've decided to enter this thread in my capacity as Site Staff to say one thing:

Shut up!

It is very clear that neither side is going to budge on this stupidity about Liberation of Hyrule that has managed to leak through this thread, other threads, the staff dropbox, and goodness knows where else. There are clearly people that love this quest and there are clearly people that hate it. Dragging this around endlessly is not going to change any minds!

Our stance on the issue can be summed up with the guidelines (not to be confused as rules) in this thread. Yes. It is kind of rude to review a quest without playing a decent chunk of it. But at the same time, people are entitled to making reviews however the hell they want them. And while it normally would be acceptable to defend against what you consider a bad review, there is a difference between defending against it and being a poor sport. If someone has made it clear they are not changing their mind, you cannot force it down their throat or try to publicly discredit their integrity.

So let's get to the point with this.

If you guys (Yes. This is applying to more than just James24) want to continually talk about this issue, do it by Private Message! Or better yet, use the handy Ignore feature. If this crap continues in this thread or in other threads, there will be offense hammers falling down! If you wish to talk about this decision, contact the staff. Don't continue it in this thread.

With that said, please go back to discussing things like that Lost Isle review by Shane or something. I know that there is a review of Liberation of Hyrule in this thread, but it's pretty clear talking about that isn't going to accomplish anything.

[Moosh]

Thank you, Nick. I feel that really needed to be said.

I feel a bit strange not being allowed to discuss my own review, but I suppose it's for the best.

[/M/]

Just wanted to let you know that I really like these reviews, you have a good sense of humor and try to be as honest as possible. I hope to see another one sometime soon. Keep up the good work, Poke.

Edited by /M/, 12 May 2012 - 11:39 PM.

[trudatman]

I'd love to see this thread revived.

edit: I certainly offer up HowHigh for ruination by Moosh, Shane, Rover, anybody.

Edited by trudatman, 24 July 2012 - 04:13 PM.

[Evan20000]

Il would like to see the reviews start back up as well. I felt it was a great fad that offered a lot of constructive feedback for questmakers, as well as being humorous.

[Ventus]

Yeah I would like to see more reviews too!, I enjoyed reading them. I for one would love to have someone review This Might Be Good, My failure quest

[Moosh]

Hey, remember me? Remember how I used to do these review things? No? Well screw you and a pox on your mailman. It's goofy time, bitches!



 hr[/hr]

Moosh's not so random review 7: Mini.qst
By peteandwally

This honestly looked like it might be a good quest. I didn't see a whole lot of complaining in the quest's help thread. The maps posted looked pretty good. How bad could it possibly be, I asked myself. I was a fool. There comes a time in every quest designer's life when he asks himself "Should I playtest this?" A good quest designer will always respond with a "yes" when facing this decision. Evidently, peteandwally said no. There comes a time in every quest player's life when he or she asks himself or herself "Do I have standards for what I play?" Evidently, a lot more people said no.

 hr[/hr]

Gameplay:
So let's assess this quest from a gameplay stance first. It's very open ended. From the start you're not told much about where you're going and what you're doing. Right off the bat there are at least 3 dungeons you can enter and it's not abundantly clear which you're supposed to go to first. At points I thought I had hit a dead end when there was actually something more to do.

Pictured: One of the early dungeons using a feature that is not only not intended for the tileset it was built in, but also completely fucking pants-on-head retarded considering you don't have the candle at the early point in the game where you find this dungeon. Oh yeah, I think this is supposed to be Level 1.

So as pictured above, I got a bit lost in the horrible mess that was "Level 1". It felt shoddily put together and as I stated at the beginning of this review, I don't think it was playtested. Not well at least. Enemy choices and bosses are also pretty random. You want an example? Here:

Here's the boss of "Level 1", a random assortment of enemies.

To make matters worse, a lot of the gear you'll want early on is found in stores. Anyone played Ballad of a Bloodline here? Its record has been broken. I honestly can't tell how the overworld is supposed to flow together. Areas very close to the starting area are teeming with some rather nasty enemy combinations while areas a good trek away have enemies that are complete cakewalks. So yeah, balancing not so much.

These enemies give me chilling memories of Liberation of Hyrule...oh also I'm swimming in the air. Fuck the police.

A couple of the dungeons come to mind where you couldn't even see where you're going half the time.

Your dungeon's entire gimmick revolves around the player fumbling about in the dark. Evan is gonna punch me for this, but I prefer Impa's Ways over this shit.

And then there's other general oddities...I don't have enough stuff to say to put alongside these pictures, just...why...

I have the level 1 power bracelet. Which of these blocks do you think I can push? All but the darkest ones? Wrong. All but the medium dark ones. Your confusion mirrors my own.

You can push those darknuts. What in the name of baby Jesus flying above Detroit with his loins stuffed with cabbage is wrong with this quest? Also note how I managed to clip into that hut there.

Scattered throughout the many houses in this quest are these chests that you can never open except sometimes when you can. They aren't slash combos and chest combos weren't in 2.10 which this was made in. Why put them there if they're just going to taunt me with the possibility that a random secret in the room opens them?

 hr[/hr]

Story:
This quest doesn't focus on story much at all. Some of the strings indicate that there is a story present, but I can't figure it out. So I'm just going to make up my own: The land of *BlankDMapName* is being overrun by strange people with very colorful skin (insert racism joke here) and it's up to Link to save the land from its horrible palette and layer problems. I don't fucking know. I don't understand this quest. What's going on here? Seriously.

This is a casino and I'm going to hell. I don't care. peteandwally made this joke too easy for me.

 hr[/hr]

Visuals:
This quest is made in DoR, a set that doesn't lend itself well to newbies. DoR is kinda like the force. With great power comes great responsibility. peteandwally, sadly, could not handle the responsibility. The quest has many, many, MANY layering errors. Entire towns of NPCs are placed on layers 3, 4, 5, and 6. I don't know if peteandwally knew how layering worked when he made this and he certainly didn't test enough to see his mistakes.

Something seems a bit off about this screen, doesn't it? So I used cheats to disable layer 5...

Never disable layer 5. You'll always regret it.

It's hard to take a screenshot of this quest without discovering a layer bug of some sort.

In other areas of the quest there were palette errors or tiles used wrong altogether. Visually the dungeons went from authetic classic style to freeform DoR. The graphics got really grating on the eyes after a while and eventually I just played through most of it with all the layers disabled and only walkability cheat to show me the way.

Red cows, an old man and two subrosians in a puddle, and I'm standing on a tree. What the fuck is going on here?!

Not only are LttP pits being used as floor tiles, but I was unable to get out of this room from the left side. I had to continue warp. Edit: OK apparently you can escape this room from the left side, the way to do so is just very awkward.

Here we have a very empty screen using bridge tiles as ladders...

Now so far I've done nothing but bash on this quest. This is by no means a good quest, but visually, it has its moments. With DoR, a dozen monkeys jumping on a keyboard are bound to create a good screen now and then.

Not a great screen by design, but I really liked this area's palette and feel.

This is a dungeon made out of overworld combos. When I entered this place I was like "Wait is this the same quest I was just playing?" This dungeon can have my babies.

I seriously love sky areas and I seriously love this one. Sadly this was too little too late and around this point into the quest I finally broke down and quit. Edit: I realize I have the lens in this shot. Not sure if it's in the game, I just cheated myself it because by this point the quest had gotten too cryptic to play normally and remain sane.

 hr[/hr]

Music:
This quest has pretty average music. Nothing super cliche, no One Winged Angel on the overworld, but still nothing all that special. I noticed some midis from Final Fantasy 6 and some tunes I didn't recognize. For the most part they fit well with the areas they were found it.

 hr[/hr]

Concluding Thoughts:
This quest is pretty bad. Not bad by lack of effort when designing it, but by lack of effort when testing. It had the potential to be something good, but peteandwally shot for a goal that was a bit too lofty to reach. I'd suggest starting with simpler tilesets before trying to use DoR. I can definitely see the effort that went into making this, which is why it's so sad that I didn't enjoy it.

For now, let's look at the quest's strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths:

• Decent midi choices
• Some areas really stood out
• Evident effort in creation

Weaknesses:

• Layering and palette errors
• Bland dungeon design
• Bugs everywhere/lack of playtesting

 hr[/hr]

Rating: 1/5

Better luck next time, peteandwally. Everyone has to start somewhere and even though I gave this a 1, it's a very strong start. Quest design is something that improves with practice. Looking at my earliest work, this is amazing by comparison.

Edited by Moosh, 07 October 2012 - 02:35 PM.

[trudatman]

the bridge as ladder looks sweet. the typos and layering SNAFUs would drive me nuts were I playing. the tweedle beetle battle in a puddle in a bottle on a poodle eating noodles is a great shot. in a tree. too much fun! this thing obviously still needs lots of work, but it looks like it is fun to play. 1/5? I still want to try it.