Hadn’t played for a few days and came back to Fallen London. It’s not quite the same as I’d left it.
On this page:
[quote=] A Name Known to Many
There’s an unusual statue atop the Eclipse Tavern, recently reopened. "Come in, come in! 'Ave a pint!" It shifts to another, equally uncomfortable-looking pose. "Obviously I’m not a statue. I’m just here to draw in business for the pub. But you - you’re a real artist, aren’t you? Where do I know you from? Bet you don’t stoop to things like this."
This will grant you the Making Your Name Quality, which is the first part of our revamp of early Fallen London content! This choice will determine where in the story of your Persuasive career you are, and will put you there accordingly. For more information, click here!
[/quote]
With options to
[quote=]
You're striving to become Imperial Artist-in-Residence
You’re romancing the Court
You’re acquainting yourself with the circles in the Shuttered Palace
You mix with the cream of Veilgarden Society
You’ve been investigating the secrets of Veilgarden, and working on your own prose
You’ve been exploring the wonders of the honeyed world[/quote]
No option to go back or otherwise get out.
I don’t want any of them. Tried the reset code mentioned in the header. Still have the same page.
I don’t want any of them. And I have no way to get out.
This is a dead end and I’m trapped.
We’re here for the story. In playing out that story, I’ve faced many decisions in Fallen London. Some I’ve regretted. Some were forced upon me by the story, but I’d gotten to that point of the story by decisions made earlier. Here it’s like I woke up and was teleported to that point. If it was the real world and that happened, I’d either leave or just have a pint and chose none of the above.
I understand Failbetter is continually working on the story and when some things change earlier in the arc, they have to take measures to adjust them in the existing characters. But I don’t like being being forced into this selection without one that would reflect how I would play it out.
If there’s no way out, I’m going to make a support request to be removed from this false forced choice. If that doesn’t satisfy me, I guess I’m done with Fallen London.
You can read more about trackers here, but the short story is that FBG is moving away from stats as a mechanism to unlock stories. So the storylet you’re currently in and cannot leave isn’t a new thing that changes anything significantly, it’s just asking where you were in your Persuasive adventures so you aren’t forced all the way back to the beginning content.
Wonders of the honeyed world, that would be the first few tastes of honey in Veilgarden? Probably the earliest one in the list.
Secrets of Veilgarden, due to "working on your own prose" would be around where the mushroom paper is written, and perhaps anything else that is needed.
Mix with the cream of Veilgarden Society … this must be next, top of the small circle.
Circles in the Shuttered Palace … some points with the Dutchess, but not yet in the Court.
Romancing the Court … seduction plotlines in the court.
Striving to become … That would be once you catch the attention of the guy who will lead you to be locked out.
Sound about right?
OH, Right, "Jewel thief or Heiress" … that’s … "mixing with the cream" … right? edited by ICountFrom0 on 8/9/2015
I think mixing with the cream is all those steps that lead into you becoming a Darling of the Ambassador’s ball. Not sure if the Thief or Heiress are a necessary step to that in the new system. Everything else seems right to me.
[quote=Jacke]
I understand Failbetter is continually working on the story and when some things change earlier in the arc, they have to take measures to adjust them in the existing characters. But I don’t like being being forced into this selection without one that would reflect how I would play it out.
If there’s no way out, I’m going to make a support request to be removed from this false forced choice. If that doesn’t satisfy me, I guess I’m done with Fallen London.[/quote]
My dear, it’s not a "false forced choice", there is no roleplaying element here. My understanding of this storylet is that it’s just a way to assign a progress marker to your character behind-the-scenes. If you’d previously completed the Spider-Council storyline, for example, before they began to revamp that story, you may have gotten the card "The Spider-Council". It didn’t change anything about your character, and in my case didn’t necessarily reflect the situation I believed my character had encountered, but I picked the closest option, and all it did was assign a number for tracking for further purposes. If you haven’t played through any of the Veilgarden content, because it doesn’t suit your character, choose "You’ve been exploring the wonders of the honeyed world". However, if you aren’t yet a PoSI, you may find that you will have to play through that content anyway to advance in the game after a certain point. The Veilgarden content is objective in this instance – it’s not a roleplaying card, it’s just asking what your character has been through on the Persuasive track.
Edit: and if you are a PoSI, or on track to become one, simply pick the card that reflects what you’ve most recently done with Persuasive. "Honeyed World" is the most basic Persuasive card, "Secrets of Veilgarden" places you, as others guessed, on track to complete the Mushroom Paper storyline, "Cream of Veilgarden society" starts you at the point where you need to become Darling of the Ambassador’s Ball (again, if you already were but choose that option), "Circles in the Shuttered Palace" is the best option if you had acquired admission to the Shuttered Palace and were currently getting acquainted with the Duchess and Society, "Romancing the Court" is asking if you were currently working on seducing the Acclaimed Beauty/Barbed Wit, and Imperial-Artist-in-Residence is self-explanatory. edited by Mirelle Nye on 8/9/2015
"You’ve been exploring the wonders of the honeyed world" requires Persuasive 14 and is the earliest of the storylines. Get cosy with the Master Jewel-Thief or the Honey-sipping Heiress.
"You’ve been investigating the secrets of Veilgarden, and working on your own prose" is the next one along. I found that to proceed, creating a short story with 60 Potential seemed to work, though it’s quite likely that 50 is enough.
As for the rest of the, "You mix with the cream of Veilgarden Society" and onwards, if you’ve done the persuasive storylines you should be able to figure out where you’re up to. If not, just pick one of the lower ones and work your way back up again. :-)
I’ve reached Carving out a Reputation at Court: 5 a few times now (mostly while I was grinding SotC via "somewhat challenging" Symphonies), but decided to go back to writing Short Stories for a bit, to replay the old content I’d long-since forgotten.
Edit: corrected a name. edited by Kittenpox on 8/9/2015
I vaguely remember in my previous status being the Darling of the Ambassador’s Ball. Never remembered how I got it before.
This is still all very confusing. I think I was at acquainting myself with the circles in the Shuttered Palace. But when this came up, I looked at it and thought I didn’t want to chose.
Still not sure what to do with this except put it off.
If you’re already a Darling of the Ambassador’s Ball I would choose "Acquainting yourself with the circle of the Shuttered Palace" so you are at the same place you were previously. Once you do that I believe you’ll be directed to a storylet that allows you to respond to the previous stage of the Persuasive track. You won’t necessarily get the perfect choice for your character (Madison deliberately skipped the romance in the Court, so that was a little awkward), but it does give a range of responses to pick from.
You could also choose "mixing with the cream" if you want to experience that content again. I don’t recall it being very remarkable, but it’s a perfectly valid choice too.
^ That sounds like good advice.
“Acquainting yourself with the circle of the Shuttered Palace” should put you where you are - or near enough.
Did you encounter the Barbed Wit or Acclaimed Beauty? (That’s the next step, if I remember correctly.)
Alternately take a step backwards like I have, and mix with the cream of Veilgarden society, to repeat the bit you’ve forgotten.
[quote=Jacke]We’re here for the story. In playing out that story, I’ve faced many decisions in Fallen London. Some I’ve regretted. Some were forced upon me by the story, but I’d gotten to that point of the story by decisions made earlier. Here it’s like I woke up and was teleported to that point. If it was the real world and that happened, I’d either leave or just have a pint and chose none of the above.[/quote]I wouldn’t look at this like you’re being teleported to that point in the story. Think of it more as a friend asking you over a pint, "So what have you been up to lately?"
While I will admit that it’s not a huge deal, I do believe that this storylet was clumsily-handled, and definitely way too railroad-y for my tastes. When it popped up for Thysania (who has a Persuasive of 18), I was honestly annoyed; the game seemed to be taking it as a given that my character was some sort of socialite artist-type just because she occasionally finds it in her to act like a civilized human being to get what she wants (she’s certainly not artistic at all, unless you count all the shattered bones and spilled blood she leaves in her wake as "art"). Everything about the situation I was thrust into and the choices that were available to me was so antithetical to what my character is about that I’m going to have to pretend it never happened just to preserve my image of that character; that seems like the sort of scenario that should be avoided, even if it is just a one-time thing to help transition to the new story progression model. I hope the future tracker storylets will be more roleplay-friendly than this was.
I’ve found that there are many events necessary for advancement in this game which one needs to pretend never happened in order to maintain one’s character’s personality. I think the main reason this one feels different is that it appears the moment one logs in.
I could be misreading this situation entirely, though; I was done with the Court when this was introduced. I can certainly see why it doesn’t feel good; I’m just not sure it was any worse than some of the other events in the game. Why would a born socialite stoop to theft, for example, and why would a dockside bruiser without a formal education head to Veilgarden to carouse with Bohemians and write eloquent poetry?
(That said: might have been better if it was just completely OoC.) edited by Snowskeeper on 8/9/2015 edited by Snowskeeper on 8/9/2015
I went back to the earliest point, flirted and slept my way to the top of the pile all over again, ahh the heady days of youth, i remember thee fondly. im having a little trouble sitting down but i feel invigorated.
The thing is, in situations like that, it’s usually easy enough to read it as your character temporarily acting outside their comfort zone in order to further some other goal. To take one of my older characters as an example, Zero Hunt is not what I’d think of as a scholarly sort of person. He’s certainly no idiot, but he’s just not interested in academic knowledge for its own sake the way, say, Soran is. Still, he ended up becoming a Scholar of the Correspondence in order to help further his goal of finding the person who murdered his brother (it makes a certain action less costly), and it didn’t feel out-of-character even though it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d naturally pursue.
But that tracker storylet was basically forced on me; I didn’t just need to do something potentially out-of-character to continue some storyline I wanted, I needed to do it to continue playing this game at all. And while I’m sure that, under the right circumstances, there might be some semi-logical excuse to justify a bloodthirsty, Vake-hunting lunatic deciding to pick up a pen to write poetry or whatever, this situation did not provide that excuse; it was just "oh, you’re totally a super-charming, up-and-coming artist now!" without any real sense of rhyme, reason, or choice. It was frustrating.
Yeah, that probably would have been preferable. Just a simple message from the developers of "okay, we’re changing how the story progression works, so tell us what tier you were at for this quality so you don’t lose any progress" would have sufficed, without the risk of stepping on any character’s toes.
[quote=Snowskeeper]I’ve found that there are many events necessary for advancement in this game which one needs to pretend never happened in order to maintain one’s character’s personality. I think the main reason this one feels different is that it appears the moment one logs in.
I could be misreading this situation entirely, though; I was done with the Court when this was introduced. I can certainly see why it doesn’t feel good; I’m just not sure it was any worse than some of the other events in the game. Why would a born socialite stoop to theft, for example, and why would a dockside bruiser without a formal education head to Veilgarden to carouse with Bohemians and write eloquent poetry?[/quote]
I think, essentially, it’s being made clear that the nature of a Person of Some Importance - the very definition of progression through the game - is someone who is a saucy socialite and a winning prize-fighter and an accomplished cat-burglar and an eccentric scholar-detective. An accomplished adventurer, a debonair jack-of-all-trades - someone like middle-period Sherlock Holmes, complete with royal commissions, gangs of urchins, and library of monographs. If that’s not even broadly the kind of character you want to play, well, I very much sympathise (I love playing within restrictions myself), but you’re not going to reach Person of Some Importance-level story progress. If you want to stay a surly docker or an ineffectual poet, you’ll just have to stay in Wolfstack or Veilgarden and forego ever becoming a dashing zee-captain or an influential press-baron.
(All that said - can one still pay Fate to skip POSI requirements? I don’t remember how effective those options were and I don’t know whether they’re still in place. I hope they’re still there - I’d quite like Doctor Taupe-Wainscot to reach POSI status through sheer virtue of mundanity.)
It sounds like the issue for you was two jolting things in a row: first the Must storylet to set your quality, second is that it takes you directly to the completion reward storylet for whichever option you select.
If the whole make a choice about how you celebrate your well-received epic poem about mushrooms storylet had appeared naturally after you, well, published your mushroom epic, you would have already mentally prepared yourself about how you wrote a poem to make some quick cash, or because, as unlike you as writing poetry is, it was the first step in your convoluted plan to secure an invitation to the Shuttered Palace.
It makes sense from a game design perspective, they drop you into the reward to simultaneously remind you where you are and give you the reward for where you are, but from a story perspective it’s a bit weird.
Also, I do wish they’d allowed us to play from tracker zero, which is presumably where new players will be. Then anybody who wanted to start from the beginning would have had to actually write that poem about mushrooms and it would have felt more natural, rather than starting from one step into the progression.
I wonder if at least some RP-confusion might ameliorated by changing the wording of the options from “You’re [doing something]” to something like “Last you recall, you were considering [doing something]” (e.g. “Last you recall, you were considering acquainting yourself with the circles in the Shuttered Palace”)
This is both less committing to what you had in fact done before and less committing to what you are in fact about to do, while clearly identifying a point for the Quality-setting purposes.
