132 replies to this topic

[skyrimdragonface999]

all i got to say is holy s*** man. i guess if you want job good way to prove your self, but man a lot of time wasted at your very young life i hope you get some club hours back.

[655321DeLarge]

 

The Falskaar mod is clearly a work that took a great deal of time and effort on the part of the mod author. Since it took a great deal of time, I'll put a good deal of time into this review. Also, since the author is applying for a job at Bethesda, I will be subjecting the mod to more stringent standards, befitting an a-list game rather than a mod. I am not sure what job the applicant is seeking at Bethesda, so I'll look at each department as I review the mod. A word to Mr. Velicky: I will be tough in this review, but don't let that get you down. Remember to take each criticism as a chance to improve, and you'll do great. Some of these criticisms are things that would fix themselves just by BEING employed at Bethesda, such as access to higher-quality sound engineers and voice actors. That said, here we go.

 

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

 

Art (Textures)

It appears, according to the end credits, that the textures were done by someone else on the dev team, so this really has little bearing on Mr. Velicky. Few custom textures were particularly noticeable. I did examine the Key of Strength up close -- the bear design on it was a nice touch. And Ynggvar's custom armor drew my attention well enough to make him stand out as a "signature" character.

 

Sound: Music

Skyrim's own exploration music is employed during the course of this mod's exploration, but when the custom music comes in, it sounds thin and tinny by comparison. This is to be expected, though. Had Mr. Velicky hired an orchestra, I'd question his sanity! The musical composition is decent enough and has a nice, if understated, reading of some main themes. It's consistent with the mood and feel of the other music accompanying it.

 

Sound: Voice Acting

Obviously, the applicant didn't have access to truly professional voices and was working on literally no budget for equipment and engineering. In that light, what came out of this was great for a mod. Still, from a game design perspective, I would like to point out that while I've never actually witnessed real people die in combat, I'm fairly certain that the vast majority of those who do don't say "I have failed" or "too soon" when they do. There's nothing quite so immersion-breaking than plunging your sword into a khajiit's forehead in a finisher, only to hear him say, "are you serious?!" Really, simple cries of "augh" would have been fine, and if dying lines simply must be used, I'd suggest interspersing them among a large amount of "arghs" so they're more rare. Perhaps disable them during finishing moves. Additionally, asking the actors of the khajiit combatant and Brother Thorlough (maybe they were the same guy) to keep his voice down may have helped... every time either of these characters raised their voices, I could hear the echoes of the room the actor was in, another immersion breaker.

 

Story

This is what I like about stories: it takes no budget to craft a masterpiece, so your only limit is your own ability...which means in theory, any modder should be able to create a masterpiece regardless of professional resources. Unfortunately, the story here is very lacking. It feels stilted and forced. There is literally no explanation behind the dragon that devours Ynggvar in the end, and the scene felt anticlimactic. I kicked his tail in battle, only to have him pull a Mary Sue and freeze me in place while he ran for the artifact. Just as I'm bracing myself for an epic final boss fight, a dragon swoops in and carries him off for lunch.

 

I can forgive lack of moral choices in a mod, but when a clear moral situation is presented and a choice isn't given, I feel cheated. That's how I felt both times that cooperative people were killed (once by the housecarls, once by Agnar). I found myself saying, "well I can kind of see why Ynggvar would revolt against THIS..."

 

The placement of Borvald on the map also caused me a few eye-rolling moments when Agnar seemed SHOCKED that Ynggvar would attack it. Why hadn't he thought Ynggvar had already attacked it? It was on the way between Staalgarde and Amber Creek... So for that matter, why HADN'T he attacked it sooner? The natural logical progression of Ynggvar's invasion would run from east to west, spreading out from Staalgarde. Instead, we see his men arrive at Amber Creek and then find that they've already been to the priory...then they later hit Borvald...so he's moving west to east. Suggestion here would be to have Borvald already ruined and CRAWLING with his goons when you first arrive in your attempt to warn its jarl.

 

All in all, the story tries very hard to be epic but just isn't quite there. Unfortunately I can't recommend Mr. Velicky as a writer. This unfortunately also precludes quest design, since their quest design jobs include writing the story and dialogue of said quests.

 

Level Design: Overworld

Now we're getting closer to Mr. Velicky's bread and butter. The overworld in Falskaar is gorgeous, if a bit underpopulated. It could do with more features and map markers to visit, but the ones that are there are very nice indeed. Loved the high mountain overlook into the eastern valley. Also notably beautiful was the view from the docks, looking up at the fort on the hillside to the west. The archway visible from the docks creates an iconic and memorable landmark. Other than wishing there were more map markers to visit, my only other nitpick here is that just west of the Emerald Valley Gates, a gushing waterfall drops into a tiny pond that stops at the side of the road. Really felt that this stream should continue on to join with another, or go out to sea. Seeing a large waterfall pour into a pond that's barely ankle deep and maybe 10 feet across just isn't realistic. However, as those two small things are my largest complaints with the overworld, I'd say the applicant has presented something worthy of Bethesda, and I think with their guidance, he'd fit in very well with the overworld design team.

 

Level Design: Interiors / Dungeons

Now this is the creme de la creme. The introductory cave before reaching the Falskaar portal is fun and adequately gloomy, and in some aspects is better than Bethesda's own work. As soon as I got out into Falskaar proper, I saw unexplored map markers and began looking around. The first interior I dove into, to see how fleshed-out the caves were, was Watervine Chasm. (I think I hear Mr. Velicky laughing.) It's fleshed out VERY well, it's quite long, gloomy, and takes some thought to finish. A minor nitpick: I had to toggle clipping off to get through the gates leading down into the spiral stairs, as none of the gates seemed to work. Either I missed something, or the gates would only function when on the appropriate quest. Still, I completed the dungeon and it was very fun. Another minor detail... Ancient dwemer ruins probably should not contain books that seem as though they were written as recently as the 3rd or 4th era. But that didn't detract from the fun, of course. Mr. Velicky seems, to me, a top-notch designer for interiors, and I feel he would only get better if surrounded by the designers at Bethesda. This is the department I recommend him for, most strongly.

 

Gameplay

Generally, the gameplay was fun. There are no groundbreaking new systems, and some moments left me feeling like the sidekick, however, such as when I was sent on a fetch quest only to return and find the real action had happened in Amber Creek while I was away. Too many quests instruct me to follow a certain character as they do the heroics. This became a problem in Fort Urokk, when Agnar got stuck on a wall, and the objective arrow pointed to him. I went off looking, hoping I could force the quest to advance without him. Fortunately, it worked.

 

This was not the only time the NPCs had difficulty reaching their destinations, though. Several times I would arrive at a destination well before the NPCs and have to use the Wait function for an hour or two before they came. In the final quest, it took a day and a half before all 4 NPCs arrived at the Mountain Mist Temple.

 

Finally, after clearing the main quest, I fast-traveled back to Mountain Mist to see how well things had been cleaned up. Once again I was impressed with the interior. All 5 keys removed, the door into the Heart Chamber locked... But the door to get back outside was no longer functioning either. Had to reload an auto save. Staalgarde and Borvald were left burning... Some NPCs and bodies were cleaned up, some were not. An Amber Soldier stood staring off into the sky with nothing to do. Cleaning up details like this would be helpful, especially if you plan so well for the player trying to break your game that you even reward them with more content for doing so.

 

I would have been incredibly impressed if, upon my return to Staalgarde, I had seen bewildered citizens wandering around saying "what happened to our city? What do we do now?" The quest line clearly directs players from one place to the next, but be ready for players to try and go another path at every turn. Providing content that shows you anticipated their actions is what really sets a Bethesda developer apart from the pack. I can't tell you how many times in Fallout, Oblivion and Skyrim I thought I would make a quest bug out with some sly action here, or going to this person instead of that one when the quest didn't imply that possibility, only to find that nothing bugged at all, and that the quest was built to let me do exactly what I thought the developers had missed. That's the sort of thing where, when I encounter it, it makes me think Bethesda went the extra mile, because anyone could have forgiven a bug that obscure even in an a-list game. But if that sort of thing were even present in a mod like this, it'd seal the deal in my mind.

 

Overall Impressions

I highly recommend Mr. Velicky as a designer of interiors at Bethesda. His gameplay design is good, his overworld designs are great, but his interiors are exceptional. I hope this is helpful to whoever reads it, whether Mr. Velicky or staffers at Bethesda. Thanks for your time.

 

Having put in more than 400 hours over 15 months (as a Falskaar QA tester) I find I can't disagree with anything you say.

 

Thank you for taking the time to write such a perceptive & detailed review, I hope it is of help to both AV & other people who may be inspired to attempt to surpass his efforts.

[unclesam287]

where is a hidden cave or room in "dreams in oblivion" quest?!

[Canisback]

In response to post #8495886.

Same, can't find it.

[Mastashake15]

Before this review I just want to say I appreciate the effort that you did put into this and I did enjoy my time spent in Falskaar.

The Pros:
The dungeons and scenery in this mod is amazing the the voice acting was very well done. I can't remember the name of it but the "main" dungeon that takes a couple hours to do during the main quest absolutely blew me away. Overall I would say that your interiors are on par with, if not better than Bethesda's work. The design of the world was also pretty amazing. I loved the feeling I got from being in the forests of Falskaar, it has a bit more of a fantasy feel to it than Skyrim and reminded me a lot of Oblivion. Even though you used vanilla Skyrim textures you still managed to create an environment that felt unique and I think that shows a lot of talent. I must imagine that if you had the resources Bethesda has you could create masterpieces.

The Cons:
What your mod lacks big time is writing and story. The ending was extremely lackluster and disappointing, I almost couldn't believe it when the dragon came down and it just went to a cutscene, I though there had to be more but there wasn't. At the very least after I was let down by the abrupt ending I expected some sort of unique reward but got nothing but some gold, which most players should have plenty of by the time they have finished your mod. There was also zero opportunities for me to make a choice or alter the outcome of any of the main quests which I was also let down by. Otherwise, my only other major gripe with this mod is that the regular bandits you fight are many times over more difficult than the actual boss fights. After some extremely brutal battles with the bandits I expected my fight with the lieutenant to be even more difficult, but I was able to kill him in mere seconds without even taking any damage. The same thing goes for the duel with Yngvarr at the end of the main quest, an extremely easy duel to say the least.

Overall I can see that your focus was mainly on visual design and not on story, which may have been your intention all along and if so I just hope you don't get a job writing quests for Bethesda, stick to building dungeons and worlds. I'd give this mod a 7/10, good effort and great vision for dungeon and world design but it's obvious very little effort went into the story or the ending.

[Canisback]

What about new items and spell? Finished primary quest and few secondary, don't find them...

[Nadraihe]

In response to post #8495886. #8501002 is also a reply to the same post.

When standing right outside the back door to the priory, it's to your left, by a tree, slightly hidden by some grass.

[TheAkantor]

In response to post #8501281. #8519160, #8521244, #8544335, #8546744 are all replies on the same post.

No mods contributed, not even images. What gives you the right? 7/10? Tell me again why you deserve to even criticize this guy.

Edited by TheAkantor, 27 July 2013 - 04:23 PM.

[Mastashake15]

In response to post #8501281. #8518255 is also a reply to the same post.

So you've never criticized anything you've used unless you have personally made a similar product? Please. I guess if you use some soap and it doesn't clean any dirt off your hands you can't say anything bad about it because you don't own a soap factory and manufacture soap yourself.

Oh and since a 5/10 is average a 7/10 is still pretty good, just thought you should be aware since you seem to think a 7/10 is a bad score for some reason.

Edited by Mastashake15, 24 July 2013 - 02:16 PM.

[walltribe]

In response to post #8501281. #8518255, #8519160 are all replies on the same post.

"What gives you the right"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Anymore questions???