The Secrets of Silduran is a story driven module designed for a first or second level single player.
The story begins as you disembark far from your home city on a newly discovered island. Your Order has commanded you to discover the secret of the great power its mages have sensed emanating from the island. Once it is found, this threat to your homeland must be destroyed.
Of course, you do not expect the mysteries ahead to unravel so easily.
Creative Beginning Movie, Extremely Detailed Areas, Well Balanced Treasure,
Very Good Use of Side Quests That Weave Into the Plot,
Very Interesting Storyline
Very Few Areas, No Respawning, Encounters too Difficult.
Posted by Mirgalen at 2010-10-14 07:31:09 Voted 3.00 on 10/14/10
Avoid (or a bring a strong lvl 3-5 character)
Game balance is a critical thing in this regard this module is a total failure (and the score could go as low as 2). Yet, the intro movie is nice and the story seems interesting so I gave the author some credit for that.
Pros:
- intro movie
- unique story/settings
- druid friendly?
Cons:
- Got a visual glitch right from the start that I have not seen in any module (something wrong with the tiles)
- Lame combats. My character and his new friend got into the first area outside the gate. We found two orcs and an ogre!!! We managed to bypass them only to be ambushed in the next area by a bunch of creatures. We quickly got KIA, we got one down for 140 XP. THe author even disable respawn (for those using that feature). What's the point really?
3-4: It is clear the author tried to make something interesting, but still fell short. With more work it might be worth the download.
The mod is really unbalanced, especially if you go in with not the strongest class. The situation is made even worse by the merchant that hs no magical item, and not even healing kits. I have nothing against non-magical merchant, but then the magical loot around is not so rare. Still, if you play with the wrong class, like a monk as I did, the game gets impossible, some enemies simply cannot be harmed. A shame because the mod was good. I'll come in with a superior character just to see the story ending.
The wraith is quite difficult to avoid, BTW, but what really put me off were the thorny rider appearing just on me and killing quite fast my level 5 monk. _________________________ The hottest new modules you can't miss - player suggested
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Posted by Bombot ( 62.253.xxx.xxx ) at 2006-01-23 12:05:24
Blizzard, please never put an ogre right at the beginning of a level 1 mod again. It may be the best mod in the world but after 50-odd reloads I'm no nearer finding out (yeah I could run away but where's the fun in that?).
Posted by Blatob at 2006-01-10 15:57:03 Voted 10.00 on 01/10/06
Excellent mod! Some fights (goblin chief) were too tough.
Posted by ���� ( 85.187.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-12-21 02:29:15
Èãðèöàòà ïîíå çàñëóæàâàëè ñè?
Posted by cegli at 2005-12-15 17:05:04 Voted 8.00 on 12/15/05
A little too straight line with negligible npc interaction, but a decent start.
Posted by ironysteeth ( 24.9.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-12-13 22:04:06
Overall, I like this module. I tried the module by starting off with a first level character, and indeed found the combat hard. I am pretty neutral about this so I don't take any points away for this. However, there are a few creatures that you run into that require a +1 weapon and for non-spellcasters these ended up being NEAR-IMPOSSIBLE fights. I finally cheated and dropped myself a +1 shortsword for my rogue to fix the problem. The multipath ending was interesting-I thought it harkened back to the Plainscape Torment ending. I kind of liked this-brought back some good memories of NO.
I can tell a lot of effort was put into the module but some refinements are deffinitely in order
Posted by BeBraw at 2005-12-09 10:18:48 Voted 7.50 on 12/09/05
*spoiler alert*
I played the module through with my half-orc fighter. I got around lvl 7 by the end. I noticed a few bugs whilst playing:
- I could go past the troll by going by right side, the troll was supposed to attack?
- I got the goblin henchman and when I went to the goblin cave, it turned hostile and naturally I smashed it. When I came back to the village, the goblin was there. It was hostile and it was fighting with the villagers. The oddest thing was that it was constantly respawning till I smashed it yet again.
- The goblin boss didn't drop the sword as he probably should have. Perhaps it is better to put it to a bashable chest.
- It was a bit odd to be able to get quest items before getting them. Perhaps this could be altered so that you cannot go to quest places before you have the quest or you are transported to the place and then back or something like that.
- The locked door at the put-villain-name-here basement was bashable. This is meant to be this way? There's no point in getting the key if this is so.
- The mummy in the front room of the put-villain-name-here was overpowered. It had too high damage resistance so it took a while to nail it down. The villain on the other hand was too easy compared to the mummy.
- I was able to get the quest to get the sacrificable lady to the archdruid and to kill the archdruid. I even got the lady as my henchwoman and she got accidentally killed. Perhaps it is better to make it so that you cannot kill the archdruid if you get the sacrifice quest. Also it would make more sense if after talking to the lady, you would be transported straight to the archdruid and initiate the dialog. This way it would be impossible to get her killed.
- The door, for which you get the key from the archdruid, was bashable. I didn't need the key for it. Perhaps make it indestructable?
- I got the four emeralds at the last meanie place though apparently only one was needed. The golem was hardest to nail down. I would change this if I were you. Perhaps make it some sort of small puzzle instead? There could be way to solve it through using skills/magic/force and hence it would encourage to invest to speech skills too. Overall there could be a lot more skill checks in the module imo.
- It would be nice if the quest givers would be placed so that when you enter an area, you can't miss it. It could be made so that it initiates a dialog with you automatically.
- It would be a nice touch to make some loot to spawn items so that it would give nice weapons according to specialization feats. I got specialization at using scythe, yet I found some battlehammer (+2) and a scimitar (+3). I would have appreciated a scythe more.
- The beginning and the ending movies were sweet.
- To make module easier to install, I would recommend using Nullsoft Install System, NWN Module Installer or some similar tool. It's nice extra touch.
Steve: there is no adult content if that's a concern, it's a pretty clean mod, no low-brow humour either.
Ring: Thanks for the comments. I've just started to work on the sequel, which will be much longer. I wanted my first release to be a bit shorter so if I screwed up I'd waste a lot less of both my own time and those that played. That concern now out of the way, I'm ready to dive into something more intensive (and your words are a great encouragement). By the way, you mentioned a vote, but I don't see one posted, you might want to retry voting if it didn't work.
Bladed Thesis: Thank you for reviewing the mod, your comments are a help and will be a guide as I work on the next mod. It's nice to see active and supportive people like you in the community.
Hi, what is the content rating of this module? _________________________ Steve's Characters - please don't forget to vote on them if you play them.
Thanks,
Steve
Posted by Ring ( 140.186.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-12-06 10:26:39
A solid 9.5
Mr Blizzard starts his small well-crafted Mod with a brief maybe 20-sec."INTRO" (movie, music, lyrics, poetic-commentary). It is hauntingly beautiful. Perhaps the best Intro to a NWN mod I've seen so far. In its brief few seconds it grabs your heartstrings, sets mood, pulls you into game. I only wish the song had briefly re-appeared often, in course of game.
Quests were well-done. I'd have enjoyed heavier, meaner, much-tougher combats but thats my preference others may feel differently. A genuine "moral dilemma" was presented to my girl-Hero (a noble fighter) very early in game. Should she return an item to its rightful owner or allow herself to be slick-talked into giving it to another without the owners knowledge or permission? And the "choice" was presented to her in crafty way, that i-m-p-l-i-e-d that if she said "no"----she was a scumbag a traitor and War might be lost. SPOILER: (Wendy The Dragon Girl stuck to her moral code. Ditto, at game-end when she was presented with another sucker-bait, whose essence was "Do this Evil act and Good will come from it").
I hope Mr. Blizzard does more mods like this. If it were longer, with tougher fighting I'd have raised my "9.5" even higher. If you're a gamer looking for something different from standard hack-n-slash, try this little gem. You mightbe delighted. Thanks Robert, well done. With a little more polishing "Secrets Of Silduran" will be HOF material.
Ring
Posted by Armin at 2005-12-05 15:33:05 Voted 8.50 on 12/05/05
A pretty nice, short module. Could use some fleshing out of the background, as well for the PC as for the rest of the setting, as some of the philosophy and conflict seems to hang a bit in empty air.
Some polishing would also be required, some NPCs I encountered responded as if I met them before and some side issues remained unanswered, but overall a promising first module. _________________________ With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince...
With science, you can turn a frog into a Ph.D....
... and still keep the frog you started with.
Posted by zhuri at 2005-12-04 15:22:49 Voted 10.00 on 12/04/05
This module played well to my character, as I was a druid. I really liked that this story had so many dimensions and was not just linear like so many others out there. Can't wait for your next one!
Posted by Mr Gringo at 2005-12-04 14:20:42 Voted 9.25 on 12/04/05
Fun mod, entertaining amount of rp choices offered and is much better for the addition of a merchant! Well done! An excellent first offering.
-Ring: The song is "Boudicca" by Enya, fantastic tune.
-Kirian: Thanks for the vote, glad it worked out for you this time. As for the paladin conflict, you have a point. My own view though is that the life of a paladin is one of constant sacrifice and being able to make those sacrifices for the greater good. That and of course obedience to their values/gods/superiors/etc in other words belief in heirarchy.
Posted by Ring ( 140.186.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-12-03 11:21:19
I've just now loaded Mod for first time and am thunderstruck by beauty of the Intro song and beauty of the singer's voice (tell her that if you know her). I'll now play the game and comment later.
Posted by kiriandunbir at 2005-12-02 21:33:29 Voted 9.00 on 12/02/05
A little short but well done. Perhaps a role playing problem with the plot if you want to play a lawful good one as a paladin.
Posted by kiriandunbir at 2005-12-02 21:28:44 Voted 9.00 on 12/02/05
Well i've just finished the new version with a sorcerer and all went fine. No more random hostile and it's well balanced for a magic user (with his panther!).
Liked the reaction of the goblin henchmen :-)
Thanks for the tip, I've submitted a cover. Can't wait to read the review, publish another update, then start working on a sequel (where you'll play Cassandra's child years later).
New update out. Have fixed (I hope) the bug where random people go hostile. A few typos, and added skyboxes.
I've also scaled down a few fights that were causing people trouble and tweaked a few conversations to make the plots more robust.
As with every update, there is a possibility that something may have gone horribly wrong (corrupted zip, wrong starting point, you all know the drill), so please let me know if there are any issues.
The Hordes of the Underdark expansion pack introduced new content such as skyboxes (the sky-scenes you see if you zoom with the camera to see the sky in-game). Mod-builders can choose to use custom ones available on the Vault as well, but there are 4-5 that come with the toolset (basic ones like grass/windy/snowy). Pretty much, the builder can add a skybox to an area under area properties in the toolset, and it really adds to the mood of an area.
absolutely alright with me. This week I hope to complete the next major update (mostly tracking down kirian's discovered bugs-thanks for finding them), then it'll be worthy of being considered a top module of yours.
Kirian, if you'd like me to email you when I post the new version, send me an email at [email protected] and I'll reply when it's ready.
Posted by kiriandunbir at 2005-11-28 15:57:11 Voted 9.00 on 12/02/05
Oups, sorry, my fault! It works with Celad, didn't took the good dialog's option!
So i got the dagger and killed Lethe with it. I also tryed to do it without the dagger and it's possible with the +2 hammer. The problem is that the end script doesn't fire if you kill him without the dagger.
I played a paladin lvl 7 and it helps a lot to have smite evil against him. With another class it could be much more difficult without the dagger.
Will wait for the new version and try it again with another PC.
That's a more serious bug than I thought; I really hate show-stoppers. I'll give a hint then, the Archdruid will give you a key that will get you to either final encounter, with or without the dagger. The last fight will be a bit more difficult without the dagger, but far from impossible.
Posted by kiriandunbir at 2005-11-28 15:33:12 Voted 9.00 on 12/02/05
After seeing that there's no conversation with Fathian I also tryed this (speaking with celad) but it didn't worked. No change of conversation from the first time.
Will try to finish without the dagger if it's possible.
Thanks for finding this. I'll have to do some testing to discover this mystery (disappearing peep's), I hadn't encountered that before either.
As for the Fathian bug, if you speak with Celad, he'll give you a key to get into Fathian's house where you can steal the blade back. Also, you can win without the dagger, it is more difficult though.
Other notes, the most difficult fights are usually voluntary (troll, wraith can be avoided). The ogre is there to "encourage" the player to see Kali before Silduran/Lethe, but is a tough fight depending on your class.
Thank you so much for all this feedback, I think I'll go through the mod this week and post a new update by the end incorporating this (including kirian, your note about odd dialogue).
Posted by kiriandunbir at 2005-11-27 15:48:58 Voted 9.00 on 12/02/05
Hi,
Just trying to play it with a fresh level 1 paladin and found some strange bugs and a show stopper. I played the version with the merchand (you ought to number them to be sure it's the last one).
The mod is short but well balanced. The fights are hard but you can do it with a good preparation and some retreats :-)
Strange bugs:
When entering the village from the north gate, sometimes a see a hostile mouse and the merchand is not here. I just make some move inside and return just to see the merchand again and the mouse is no more hostile!
Same problem with Fathian who sometimes is not here.
When entering the east forest for the second time with cassandra i saw the name of some people without seeing them (malar and gerry). I save and started again but there were nobody. Very strange!
Some conversation problem with NPC who greet me the first time as if they have allready seen me.
Some misspelling (Lethe: 'fulfull' Silduran: 'you words')
I've some role playing problem with the plot. I played it with a good guy and the idea of a sacrifice is not good at all. How can a paladin accept to make this sacrifice???
Show stopper
I return the dagger to Fathian before knowing that you need it at the end. When i tryed to speak with him to let me have the dagger there's no conversation so no dagger!
Those knights usually don't like it if you take the stuff from their chests. It is only temporary, but if you're going to steal from them, you need to make sure that they don't notice you.
I'll add a speakstring to them so it's clear that they think your a thief. Keep the comments coming.
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