The Tannhuser Gate - Voice acted video teaser

Well, I posted this in the arc section, to advertise my arc, naturally, but I'm also going to post the movie here, not as an ad, but just to say "hey fellow multi-media people, what ya think?"

That, and I love to share. I worked on this for two days, and I'm extremely happy

The Tannhäuser Gate

Well done!

Very spiffy!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Cool promo!

I really like that voice. Any possibility of getting her to do some VO work for me?

Slick. Nice work.

Great work!

Peaked my interest.

Bravo! Well done! Encore! Well scripted! It reminded me of the olden EQ promos. Off to try the arc, since I am now waxing nostalgia.

(QR)

If you're gonna one star my thread, at least have the nuts to come by and say why.

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I really like that voice. Any possibility of getting her to do some VO work for me?

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Sorry, I missed this before.

She's a friend, that's why she did it for me (and she DOES have an excellent voice, pretty good voice actress), but she's doing an Oblivion mod with something like 3,000 lines right now 0.0

I'm impressed! I think I'll pop on and try this out!

(Edit: Oh - one of the more impressive things about the video - other than the stellar voice work - was the fact that you included a -picture- of this tower that I'm supposedly checking out. That helps me with the 'suspension of belief' and makes it seem less like I'm going into some standard Orenbega lair!)

I want to make some notes as I'm going along here. Because this looks like a VERY unique setup.

First off - Mission 1 - The entrance. I do NOT remember seeing anyplace in this game previously that had this much fog! Wow! Is this somehow a custom add-on or something? Whatever it is, it's REALLY evocative and lets you know right off that this is not a standard mission. Very Spooky. Made my Peacebringer, Lora'Lai put up her shields first thing!

First boss fight - Yikes! Tough! And the dialogue - coming out of the fog without me being able to see the source at first (!!!) was very chilling. I couldn't even SEE what I was shooting at clearly until I was right on top of him. Just his eyes.... (shudder)

(Want to mention again that the inability to see more than a few yards ahead is a VERY effective choice. It can't say if it would be frustrating in a group or not. But as a solo adventure, this is working again and again to induce a feeling of EXTREME caution and paranoia! Reminds me of playing Tomb Raider for the first time.)

I find my choice of a Kheldian Peacebringer strangely appropriate in this situation. Light-based character taking on hordes of dark creatures? Oh yeah.

I just noticed upon looking at my map that I'm going in a large downward spiral from the entrance.

The mix of Shadow Shard, Orenbegan and even Devouring Earth monsters is also effective at evoking a "chaos magic" feel here. Or maybe whatever you'd call a mad scientist if he weren't a scientist but a magician.

Oh! I get what this whole thing reminds me of!

In Big Trouble in Little China, when the heroes are sneaking through the Vault of the Dead Trees, and this... THING just leaps out and grabs one of the party members (effectively a "red shirt" and eats him and Egg Shen throws an explosive magic spell at it and says "It will come out NO MORE!"

And Jack Burton says "WHAT? WHAT'LL come out no more?? HUH?!?"

THAT's the feel of this first mission!

Good grief! There's FACES in the wall! O_O That's CREEPY!! (Where the HECK did this map come from?)

Okay. Finished with first mission. On looking at the overall map, it's NOT that big. But it sure felt like it!

The choice of map, the fog, and the mix of creatures, plus the dialogue were all quite effective. I wouldn't want to play this part with the lights off!

Okay. On to the 2nd mission.

Pretty standard "Orenbegan" map here. The video from earlier and the description in the writing are good at making me think "tower" and not "underground" though.

At least I can see where I'm going now!

You know what else this is reminding me of? Hellboy and Hellboy II. That's a good thing, BTW.

Okay. Physically speaking, a lot more straightforward. No real surprises. And now I'm getting some real answers to the story. (This is good stuff, story-wise.)

I'll leave off with specifics though. Anybody reading this - play it and find out for yourself! No spoilers!

3rd mission

Good writing and set-up, for anyone who cares to read it. The background of the main villain is turning out to be quite a sad story. I'm looking forward to finding out just -why- he's getting set up to destroy Paragon now, though.

Love the Design on Reen. She's terrific! (Nice touch with the tattered cape design - consistent with the clue from the first mission.)

Okay. She's a good ally - when she isn't running off for no apparent reason! Something is messed up with her AI.

There's a deep chasm near a "prison cell" room. Keeping her focused and on target in that room is all but impossible! And then - for no apparent reason, it seems she gets confused and runs out and promptly dumps herself into the chasm! I don't know WHAT is up with this behavior.

I wouldn't bother keeping her around if it weren't for A) I feel it's worth it to test and see if I can keep her alive and with me. And 2) She does good damage with that sword.

I'll try and keep her alive. But she's starting to frustrate the hell out of me. Good thing Peacebringers can heal.

It may be the map that's the problem. Maybe try one that's "flatter"?

Once you get her away from that area, it's not as bad.

Reflections of Tannhauser... Wow. This guy has issues.

4th Mission

Ok. Good set up in terms of writing. I'm still liking this. The background of the magic system you've set up makes sense and is believable.

Ok - it's the maps.

I think there should be some sort of official "guide to AIs in missions" thing. And the FIRST rule should be - "If you want the AI allies to stick with the PCs, do NOT put rooms with CHASMS in them that can only be navigated by jumping!"

AIs apparently don't understand jumping. It's a simple hop across a space of no more than 2 feet across the central pillars in this room and Reen can't do it. I'm standing here watching her continuously trying to find a way back to me and I know I'm just going to have to leave her behind.

Ok - there's a portal at the bottom that leads to the top and she can leap down to the path from there. (Whew)

The rest of this mission went fairly well. I did get defeated by Tannhauser once right at the end, but Restore Essence got me through.

Reen once again ran off in the middle of the fight. She didn't go far. About 30 yards away toward the altar of the temple. When I ran up to her, she said, "Oh, there you are!"

>.>....

5th (final) Mission

Okay. Fog again. (This time I've seen the map before.) Once again - good choice for the purpose.

It's a little bit of work to keep the AI pets (Reen and Aisynia) from getting distracted or lost. But WORTH it when you come to the final Boss. Made it SOO much easier. (And this time Reen did her job right. Heh.)

The ONLY thing that was slightly unclear was the reason for the threat to Paragon. You cleared that up in the souvenier text though. You might want to take a look at making clear what's going on with that aspect of the plot in the exposition. Maybe I was just tired and missed it.

Overall - VERY impressed with the missions. The maps chosen, the enemies chosen, and most of all the story. Bravo!

Well this isn't the mission feedback thread (that got buried long ago) but thank you so much I genuinely appreciate the feedback. It was a lot of fun to read, I'm really happy you enjoyed yourself

As for the third mission, I had to use as small a map as I could find that would still spawn the objectives. I had a lot of issues getting the objectives to spawn properly on other maps.

As for the threat, there's the clue in mission 2 that speaks of the ritual initially, and Aisynia speaks to you afterwards and more or less states that it could wipe out the city. I will recheck to make sure it's absolutely clear though. There's SO much text and story here, it's pretty easy to miss a couple thing. I will make sure though.

If you want, stop by here <3 <3 <3