Your exploration of a castle has brought you to its lord's apartments, where a distraught castellan begs for your help. His master has fallen prey to a strange madness, and in his deluded state has taken his own son hostage. Can you save the boy and free the lord from the grip of insanity?
A Bioware Writing Contest Submission by G. Scott Kurkul.
Well, now that the contest is over, I felt it was safe to check out the posts. ;-) Sorry to anyone who might have been looking for a reply from me, but I promised myself I wouldn't peek until the very end. Thanks to everyone who downloaded the contest module, and especially to those who voted. And I offer a hearty congratulations to those who won the contest! Good job!
Posted by Mister_Leebo at 2006-02-26 17:40:16 Voted 6.75 on 02/26/06
Plotline:
The module did not start out well, as others have noted. The "You randomly walk into a house and stuff happens" starter should be avoided like a plague. The player should have at least known about the Lord of the Castle before entering it.
Writing:
I was frustrated that skill checks are necessary to make any sort of progress on this quest. They were relied upon far too often in the negotiation with the Lord.
Some of the dialog nodes the player received annoyed me. This is particularly noticeable with Castellan. While it's a valid trick to use Links to make an NPC respond the same on two different PC choices, it's important to make sure the responce actually matches both choices. It was apperent that some of the responses were tailored to the PC's first choice specifically but copied to other choices where they did not fit so well.
Pacing:
This module suffered from severe Early-Out syndrome due to trying to do too many things at once, causing some options to trigger premature endings. In general, no single play-through lasted very long and there weren't any investigative dialog options that didn't steer you down the track to one ending or another.
Characterization:
The only character with any personality is the Lord and I feel as though the conversation with him didn't do his interesting malady justice. Castellan is more of an information box than a person and the child is a character only in the strictest sense. I would have liked to explore the Lord's personality a lot more, so I feel that making the conflict a "hostage negotiation" detracted from what could have been a very interesting character study module.
Posted by Kirian at 2006-02-24 09:03:49 Voted 7.00 on 02/24/06
This module is very well written, but there is not much substance to the story. All the endings were rather abrupt, and there did not seem to be much the player could do except choose one of the persuade/bluff options, hereby already knowing how things would end.
I suspect this is due to a trade-off between multiple endings on the one hand, and depth of a single path on the other (within the word limit). I sympathise, but I have seen other contestants manage this problem better.
Still, it always pains me to give a relatively low vote to a well written piece. I feel like the author could have done better with his/her talents.
Posted by Brougham at 2006-02-21 14:54:07 Voted 8.00 on 02/21/06
Technically good writing skills but I hold with those who found it a touch bland.
Posted by thegeorge at 2006-02-21 14:03:57 Voted 8.00 on 02/21/06
A solid entry methinks.
Posted by MikeLM9215 at 2006-02-16 21:37:53 Voted 7.00 on 02/16/06
Good all around module. No option to let him kill his son except by accident. Would have liked option where shadow turns out to be real and I kill it. _________________________ The road to Ravenloft is paved with good intentions.
Posted by Quillmaster at 2006-02-16 14:41:46 Voted 9.00 on 02/16/06
I was impressed with the dialogue, but the way it started felt a little odd. I felt I needed more convincing that I had just strolled into a castle. Once past that obstacle however, it quickly became apparent that there is a worthy writer here.
Although the writing is what we are judging, I do think it important that the writer is able to use their surroundings to add to the story, and I was surprised how this one fell down in that respect. Great dialogue, but very little attention to detail. To start with, the loading screen did not depict the area entered. Secondly the Castellan was a poor resemblance to his portrait. Third and perhaps more important of all, a golden opportunity to play with the lighting is missed. Yes, there were candles present, but there was not the contrast between light and dark one would have expected when the story has such emphasis on the shadows.
Had those things been addressed I think this would have been a worthy ten. It's not so much a case of downgrading you, more a case of being fair to those of equal writing talent who have paid attention to detail. Your writing is clearly very strong and one of the better examples I have seen here. Well done. _________________________ View my blog regarding the Relbonian Chronicles project --> Link
I think the module could be more interesting if the lord were actually *right* in his "madness".
Posted by Dunks at 2006-02-13 08:01:56 Voted 6.00 on 02/13/06
Good title, unfortunately that was the best bit. It appeared to be very short and not an awful lot to it. It seemed a bit weird how I was suddenly inside a very secure building and it was not obvious why I was there. There were some good parts to the story but it did not seem well developed. The ending was rather abrupt and I was hoping for more.
Posted by Lance Botelle at 2006-02-09 13:58:15 Voted 6.75 on 02/09/06
6.75 LORD OF CANDLES: (81ST TESTED MODULE)
My intention is to give feedback on both the writing (competition) and design (not necessarily competition) for every module I have the chance to play. NB: Judging any material is always subject to personal taste. I have tried hard to be as objective as possible and apologise if I have appeared harsh in any of my scores. Also remember this is only my opinion; Bioware�s is the one that counts!
WRITING: The start of this module did not work for me. I thought the writing was clear and simple enough, but the story did not grab me. There were quite a few options for the king�s conversation, which gave good opportunities. The three NPC�s were bland and rather two-dimensional.
DESIGN: A simple two-room interior. It would have been good to make the interior darker and allowed the candles to do the lighting.
FINAL: This was not bad piece, but I have seen (and read) better.
MY SCORE SYSTEM (IMHO):
< 5 Not up with the competition.
5 - 6 Average.
7 - 8 Above average.
> 8 An exceptional piece
SCORING FACTORS (IN ORDER OF MY PRIORITIES):
GRAB FACTOR: How quickly am I involved in the action? Do I have direction?
PLOT: Is the story engaging? Is subject interesting? Varied conversation choices?
CHARACTERS: Are they easily identifiable? Are they rounded/memorable?
SPELLING & GRAMMAR: Is the text easy to read? Are there quite a few errors?
OTHER FACTORS (MINOR INFLUENCE): Design for atmosphere & scenery, including sounds & props. Quality of module stability; does it break easily? _________________________ World of Althéa Blog: Link
Posted by Ythaniel at 2006-02-07 20:05:54 Voted 7.00 on 02/07/06
The hook of this module was forced. Not every adventurer just wanders into every building they see. Have someone send the PC, an old friend, or whatever, but you were asking too much right in the beginning for me. Otherwise the concept was good. The prose was nice, but the explanation tended to drag on a bit. The characters were good but not exceptional. Dialog options weren't always fluid. Pacing was affected by the long explanations at the beginning.
Posted by herrjeff at 2006-02-06 20:19:29 Voted 8.50 on 02/06/06
Good scenario that would provide a different experience when entering an unknown noble house. Objectives are clearly defined, and might please players enclined to pacific solutions.
Posted by LordNiah at 2006-02-05 13:47:49 Voted 7.75 on 02/05/06
Great interactivity in dialogues and the scenario was interesting. The writing was also solid, but you could have worked more on characterization. Also, at some points the dialogue seem a little awkward. Otherwise, very solid
Posted by mattd at 2006-02-04 15:26:53 Voted 7.75 on 02/04/06
The conversations went on a bit too long in my opinion. Sometimes less really is more. One thing that I've noticed is that a lot of these mods are using "--" and "..." a lot. Is this really the sort of clear modern english being taught these days? Nothing personal, like.
Other than that, I did like the use of dialog for handling the situation in multiple ways and the standard of writing is good.
Posted by Brian3343 at 2006-02-04 12:15:47 Voted 8.75 on 02/04/06
After reading the reviews, I had high hopes for this one and for the most part they were fairly close to accurate.
Something about it though kept me from being completely absorbed in it to the point that I got bored.
The writing was good, but just not quite glowing with character.
Again, not at all a bad entry, just for me its not quite what I was hoping for.
Posted by hmdai at 2006-02-03 12:07:27 Voted 9.75 on 02/03/06
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