Necropolis (spoilers)

Beware, I hated this quest. You have been warned.

Spoiler

I hated this quest. It was the first time I actually went through because I haven't been leveling much for the last few releases, and it was on my to do list.

I had heard from other players that this was a good quest. It seemed to have good feedback when it originally came out. Obviously, this quest is incomplete, so I'm trying to look at it as objectively as possible. But there are some almost comically insulting events that occur in this quest, and overall I walked out of this thinking "what a train wreck".

Here's my list of things I wish I had never encountered. Sorry for any perceived snark here, I've tried to list a few things that I thought were really well done to offset the harshness. But I was really disappointed and shocked that this is what some people would call good.

1. I picked Samael as my Spirit Talker. It seemed like an obvious choice to make based on what we knew about both dudes.

When I got to the Necropolis Barrens I found the Necropolis easily since it was previously part of a Tour Guide quest. Luckily for me, some other player was camping the hell out of the outside area and everything was dead. This allowed me to casually walk up to Samael and get into the Necropolis.

Point: How does Samael manage to stand around outside without being killed, but I get shot at by 100 skeletons? It didn't happen to me this time because another player was camping the scene, but I know what it's like normally. It's not a good environment to figure out what Samael wants me to do.

2. Once inside the Necropolis it was clear that I was trapped in the start of a single player quest. This is pretty unimmerssive. Here I am standing next to Samael and what looks like street vendors and ghosts, and all I really know is that I can't get out even if I want to.

So I talk to everyone. But no one is really helpful. In fact, after the first conversation I understand exactly what's going on. So why should I have to talk to more NPC's that don't add to the progression of the narrative?

The answer is, I don't have to. But I don't know that until after I've talked to them all. I'm also opening up all these coffins and because of a bug my character is riding them up into the air. It's kind of funny for two reasons. First because it looks silly, but second because I'm probably unsettling the spirit world - a theme that will continue throughout the quest.

Point: More unimmerssive gameplay.

3. So even though I understand the main point of the quest. Spirit people are sad. I just walk around looking to get out of this place. There's nothing to interact with, no knew knowledge to obtain. Just dumb NPC's being dumb.

But eventually I get to a gate and some skeletons come out to kill me. I can't kill them all because my build and gear are not "the best", and I run back to Samael who if I remember correctly said something about me being able to ask him for "help". Samael doesn't help, he just stands there like an idiot as I get destroyed by 3 skeletons.

I yell at Samael. I hate him.

Point: Samael is beyond useless. Everything that guys does in this quest could've been, should've been, written on a cocktail napkin. "Goto Necropolis. Kill things that try to kill you. Talk to everyone. The end."

4. I liked the sound of the doors when they opened and closed. The game needs a lot more of THAT in it. Especially on player housing.

5. So I finally kill the skeletons and enter into a giant arena dome thing, only to find that more skeletons are attacking me for no apparent reason. And now Samael is standing in front of me, magically, watching me get killed again.

Eventually I grind my way through these skeletons. I'm level 28 by the way, and talk to Samael again. This time he's flanked by two giant skeleton mages (guardians) and they are yelling stuff at me. The stuff they're yelling is not important. What is important is that it says that it's "IN RUNIC". It literally says (IN RUNIC) yell yell, more yell, yelling yell.

And I'm thinking, how the hell do people TALK in runic? How is that even possible? It's NOT! No one can yell in symbols. Seriously, even if runic is another "language" it sounds exactly like English. So don't do this. Don't have anyone "talk" in runic.

Point: This is one of those "what's a Paladin?" moments.

6. I go through the gate and wander into an Alice in Wonderland type scene that apparently has Earth Elemental's thrown into it for the sake of people having to fight something, because people like to fight stuff. I didn't like the look of the scene. It didn't make sense to me that a Necropolis was somehow also a planetarium/space plant garden. This was surprisingly made even more awkward when I later went back into a traditional style gothic looking crypt. What was this place again? A garden for souls? Literally it was a garden? Who built the crypt and then planted a space garden inside? It just doesn't fit together well.

Back to the EE's. I couldn't really kill these things. I killed two of them. But they killed me like 20 times. Final score, Earth Elemental's (EE) 20 Drocis 2. I got a safety!

Here's what was the most frustrating part of this. The only way that I could kill them was to out DPS them. Something that required me to spam heals and ranged attacks while hoping that I would be able to stay out of range of these guys long enough to kill them before they killed me.

The attacks the EE's used was the earthquake spell. What stinks about this spell is that there's no COUNTER and no way to avoid it or reduce the damage. There's also no animation that shows what's going on. These invisible AOE spells are really lame.

So me being in leather armor with 118 hit points just had to take it and hope I could heal myself faster than it could damage me. This is a huge problem with combat in general, but at this point in the quest it would just stupidly stupid.

Eventually I killed the EE and was able to talk to Samael again. He stood by the entire time watching me die 20 times. He also had more friends with him. Some guardians that apparently enjoy watching EE's clobber guests, and some more spirits.

The spirits were really dumb. You'd say "hello" and they'd say "I don't know" or something equally absurd.

Point: Don't have NPC's that don't add to the experience in some way. If NPC's are just there to be there, they don't need to be there.

If NPC's are going to stand around watching you get killed 20 times, AT LEAST make them laugh at you once you finally get to them and start talking. "Hey man, I really thought you were going to make it here on try number 14. Who'd have thought that it would take you 20 tries? Go figure."

7. I make it to a bridge that has Red Spiders. Every time I shot the red spiders it looked like I wasn't doing any damage. In fact, the spiders were just able to absorb my hits so fast that it looked like I wasn't doing any damage.

This was the point where I decided that I was done fighting anything. So I just ran through all the rest of the scene. I passed all kinds of things that looked equally as stupid as the EE's. Spiders, Elemental's, Obsidian Guardians. I ran past them all. Which begs the question, why did I have to do that?

Point: This is a huge problem with PVE in general, and not really part of the quest. But seriously this is bad. The only way to succeed with my build is to run past everything. If these NPC's had been faster I would've never gotten through the quest.

8. One thing I really liked during this time was the fogy mist on the floor of the caverns. Well done!

9. I finally made it to some kind of throne room where another Lich was waiting for me. Of course my good buddy Samael was there too.

The lich guy was talking in Runic, which wasn't in runic so I could read it. Samael was translating it to me as if I couldn't read it. It reminded of people that talk to foreigners very slowly and loudly as if somehow they'll understand a language that they don't speak better that way.

After I listened to this lich guy mumble some nonsense about helping him find out what was happening to spirits that were obviously being turned into undead, I didn't really know what to do next or where to go. It took me some extra time just wandering around before I found the way out.

I also had to laugh when I clicked on the big lich, Thanatos or whatever, and I said "Hello" automatically. I mean here I am in the Necropolis talking to the ruler of the spirit world and I'm like "Hello." It just seemed ridiculously silly at that point in time. Can you imagine being in the shoes of the character at that moment? Samael says something like "This is Thanatos the ruler of the spirit world. I can't believe he's actually here. This is very rare. You have to talk to him!" And you just walk up casually and say, "hello."

Point: I realize that some sections of the quest were blocked off. But even if those areas were open I think this would've been confusing.

10. I found the exit and it was very nice. Not just because I was leaving (without Samael, btw), but because it was fun exploring the way out.

So that's it, that's my feedback. I know it's harsh. I know it's direct. I know it's got some snark in it.

Regardless, I hope you can use this feedback to your advantage and make the scene and quest much better in the future.

Spoiler

I'll be honest. I disliked this quest so much, I felt the need to write this additional text. I feel like this is a bad representation of what this game can do. Not because it's an unfinished quest, but because of how the quest works.

You have NPC's that are in two, three, four places at once. They are supposed to be helping you, but honestly they don't help you at all. They defy the gaming world and scream I'M AN NPC and YOUR A PLAYER with every fiber of their coding.

The progression of the quest is very much a mixture of hack and slash with confusing NPC interactions, supported by backstory that is not very compelling. I found myself saying, who cares about these spirit people? And, why can't I just kill Samael? That would be satisfying to see him end up in the spirit world talking to everyone in runic.

I think some of the other areas that I've seen in the game like the Spectral Mines are more what we should be doing as far as scene creation goes. The NPC's showing up in static form around the corner, that's got to go. That's just bush league design, imo. I know we have technical reasons that we're trying to use that. I know this might just be a placeholder until NPC companion logic is developed. But we can't launch this game with that kind of thing going on. Edvard at Solace bridge, these spirit talkers. This is really bad.

I think this is an area of the game that should be pulled out until it's had some work done on it and it raises back up to the standard we should have for quests.

 

You don't have to read anything I post. In fact you can put me on ignore. Feel free to.

To say that my review of that quest was all about DPS, would be a lie. I mentioned DPS ONE TIME in the entire thing. ONE TIME.

So whatever, sure make a counter point that I talk about DPS too much.

 

Baron, i think that your review would be my review for any quest from any game if i decide to do it in a bad mood (except, naybe, a heavy "on rail" kind of game).

 

I appreciate that.

I don't want to hold SOTA up to so high a standard that it can't possibly be achieved. But I don't think I'm doing that. I think what I'm pointing out is that there are some very basic parts of this quest (and others in the game) that don't reach the bar of believability while simultaneously punching roleplayers in the face with frustrating mechanics. I hope most people see that in my review.

 

I see what you mean, but let me point out a few things.
First, the (IN RUNIC) is temporary. I see your argument about speaking in runic. It's a fair point. But right now the conversation can't be presented in runic. Once that can be done, the player that can read runic will get a bit more information than the player that can't. If you pay attention, you will see the spirit talkers don't translate everything. The alternative would be to invent an ancient dialect and present players with a chance to learn it. (Hmm. That's kind of what runic is.)

Talking to all of the non-aggressive NPCs gets you pieces of information that point you toward the main story quest, which is mostly not in the game yet, so it seems pointless now.

You were told not to fight your way through, if you read the spirit talker's instructions.
You can run through without fighting, even though you will be attacked. You even state that this is the only way you could make it through.
You are also told you will be forgiven for attacking things that attack you, but it's your choice to fight. The problems you had with skeletons and elementals and spiders were a result of you choosing to fight.

Thanatos tells you where to go and what you need to do next. If you didn't get that, maybe you were too frustrated at that point to read his dialog.

The quest here is to run through, talk to the NPC spirits and Thanatos to get the information you need to move you along the quest line, and then leave.

 

I appreciate the feedback and your point of view.

If that was the point of the quest, I don't think it did a very good job of communicating that. I can't be the only one that thinks this.

One thing to consider is that if you're a person wearing all plate mail and bouncing through this area at level 50+ then you may not feel the sense of urgency that I did. I think level 28 should be able to complete this quest but maybe that wasn't the intention of the design.

I don't remember being told that I should not attack anything. I did try to read everything, so maybe that got thrown out the window the moment I found stuff in red attacking me.

I think if the AI were better, and the combat system were better, and the dialogue were better, I would have been less distracted and gotten the same experience that you appear to have gotten.

 

I was 16 wearing cloth. I understand the urgency to keep moving.
This is the first release I've leveled beyond whatever we started at.
I'm just following the quest line.
It can be done.

 

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying it's not good. There's a huge difference. Even I completed the area and had the general feel for what was going on. I'm just saying that it's not a good product in its current state. I expect more from this game.

If you're saying that you think that quest was good then we have very different expectations.

 

Did I have to make choices?
Other than the broken and poorly designed mechanics, what was the challenge in this quest?

I would be surprised if the developers didn't look at this quest as is today and agree with the assessment that this is not good in its current state. I'd be very surprised.

If the reality is that this is the best we can do with the time and budget we have, so be it. There's not much I can do or say about that. But there's no reason to sugar coat it. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings here, that's not what I'm about. I just see a spade and I say "hey that's a spade".

Ultimately we get the game we deserve, and if people don't speak up when they see something that's not high quality then we get a low quality game (and deservedly so).

 

To understand what was going on.

Who or what is Samael (and Muriel, for that matter). There's far more than an hint - and the "in runic" distinction is critical in that regard.

Why Nyx doesn't heal spirits anymore, even when they trickle down in the PERFECTLY THEMED garden - which you clearly overlooked.

Why Thanatos is so angry and concerned about the undead activity, and points north toward Malice (your next step: there, right in front of your face, without spoilers tag, happy?).

What are doing lost spirits there, why, and who forced them to do something they're obviously not happy to do.

Who is Anapa, and why he's referenced both in Necropolis *and* in Tower of Shuttered Eye letters and books, alongside other fellows you wouldn't love to meet without healthy backup.

Why there's a researcher in the first room, and what she's doing there.

If you're clearly unable to play the game, don't *always* blame the game, for Sequanna's sake!

Maybe, JUST MAYBE, you should take a deeper look at what really matters, instead of your insane crusade against otherwise perfectly fine mechanics.

Ah, I learned all this while wearing clothes, lowly 20s, and running like Usain Bolt among mobs - but stopping to talk with the relevant NPCs (and even managing to enrage a couple of them).

 

I didn't catch on who Muriel was. Maybe my "in runic" is a little rusty. Also, I've never played an Ultima game in my life, so if this is a bunch of inside baseball reference to one of the other games then of course it would be lost on me.

What did I overlook here? There were a few lines about a garden of souls and I'm sitting in a garden of space plants underground. It still seems extremely out of place to me. Here you have this obviously man made area called a Necropolis, and in the middle of it are a bunch of spirits in space garden. My imagination is pretty good, but my expectations are pretty high when it comes to implied references.

I don't see how you could possibly get Malice from any of these conversations. North is kind of broad. Thanks for the help Lich King! You say North, I say Malice.

Why should I care? I'm an immortal Avatar. Seriously, WHY SHOULD I CARE? Oh yeah, because this is a game and I get experience and money from doing this stuff.

I would be surprised if I met Anapa. He or she would probably enjoy my company since I'm running around with an Obsidian Order cloak on. Or maybe Anapa would just look at me and say things like "I don't know" when I said "Obsidians" to it.

She told me what she's doing. She's being an NPC and standing there forever.

If you can't take criticism and use it to make a better game, then don't read the forums, sit in your silo and make a bad game. Those are your two choices.

You have low standards. There are other games (most of them single player) that have far greater capacity for making quests feel and work well. Wasteland II for example.

What's wrong with that statement? You ran like Usain Bolt? Was that before or after you realized that you couldn't kill anything in that dungeon?

What's the point of having stuff to kill in the dungeon if you're just supposed to run past it all? Even the NPC tells you you'll be forgiven if you kill the stuff so what's the point?

 

Hmm... This looks almost like a Private Discussion worthy one.

Little emotional.

Just saying.

 

Ah, ok, I give up.

 

@Devs

I think a good comparison dungeon is the Temple of the Shuttered Eye. It has it's problems too, but I'll review those later in a separate thread. The one thing I find relevant here that I wanted to bring up however was the in the temple 1st floor I was able to read at my leisure. Which is why I know who Anapa is, and I recognized the name above. I didn't have 400 things trying to kill me. I didn't have a dungeon that I had to run around while trying to find clues to stuff.

Of course after the 1st floor things get different, and the same things I dislike about the Necropolis, I dislike in the Temple of the Shuttered Eye. It's one thing to have challenges that require skill. But it's another thing entirely to be thrown into a hyper aggressive world where you have to run and read (runic) at the same time. The stair case up into the tower is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

And for that matter this is why combat in a roleplaying game should not be twitch based. But that too is another thread.

 

Personally, I found the elementals brutally difficult to get past, even at 40 plus with full plate. Not sure if it will remain this tough. I could only try to run past all of them without getting my character killed.
Most annoying when your character does get killed and you find yourself right back at the entrance with your spirit talker. (edit)

 

I had a fairly good time exploring the Necropolis. But then I jumped off the bridge by the spider cave. I couldn't find a way back up from the water, and then I got stuck in a wall.

 

My problem with dying in the Necropolis is that when I was alive again my character would not move...I stayed stuck. Apparently the skeleton could see I was alive again and killed me immediately....I could not even exit the game. It was as if my computer crashed. I had to turn my computer completely off and restart which starts right inside with Samuel again. I dont know if it is supposed to do that or if it is a bug. Has anyone else had that problem?

 

Yes. I have had two similar issues.
Sometimes, if I die while in a conversation, I am locked in that spot and have to relog and try again.
Also, once I ran from the skeletons back toward the entrance and they followed me. When I died, they waited there and killed me when I respawned. I could not find an ankh to resurrect me elsewhere, so I got caught in a kill loop that required logging out again.
Lesson: If you're going to die, just die or run deeper into the dungeon. Don't run back.

 

Thank you. I get all the way to there with NYX and every time I die it locks there , I become invisable and must exit to menu and start from Samuel in the doorway of Necropolis again. Now the Elementals kill me over and over almost like the Skeletons in that loop. I guess I will just keep working at it...Im sure they will fix this for R21

 

Some brief points:

- The dialog for the Necropolis needs to be reworked (along with a lot of Ardoris quests, we haven't done another pass on that yet)
- Necropolis is solo-only. You are not intended to be able to kill everything in the dungeon. You are constantly told it is a dangerous place and you are an intruder in a very old and ancient ruin.
- NPCs currently do not have the ability to move with a player in a scripted fashion, so we have to do the multiple-instances-of-an-NPC thing. Is it ideal? No, but the game's not done yet, either. (this is the same reason why undead NPCs cannot currently have dialog that displays in Runic, either; once they do the concept of spirit talker as translator will make considerably more sense and we had to get the ability for NPCs to 'translate' other NPCs in anyway.)
- I suspect you personally would have been happier with Kardan Marbane as a translator.