Is there any chance Failbetter would be willing to give those who pay for Sunless Sea early access some sort of bonus to Fallen London?
I must have first started playing Fallen London a few years ago but within a couple days, I had given up. I’m just not the person to check back every few hours. Action refresher games never worked for me but Sunless Sea has me jumped on it. Unlimited actions!!! /drools
But now I’m craving for the lore and story lines of the original. So perhaps Failbetter can create some sort of mutually beneficial system? Early access payees provide Failbetter with revenue now and beta testing. Failbetter in return makes accessing its other product easier. Early access members gain a better appreciation of the history and are in a better position to evaluate connected story lines. Failbetter gets higher quality and more dedicated beta testers who are more likely to spread the word. Plus there are all those cheeky invite a facebook friend quests in Fallen London :P
What you’re asking for is not a small boon, but is redesigning a whole major game mechanic. Action costs and the action candle are baked into Story Nexus, the thing on wot Fallen London runs. I’m not saying it’s impossible (but it pretty much is), just that it won’t happen. Read the wiki if you really want to learn the stories - or spend nex on an exceptional friend subscription and you’ll get a lot more actions before you run out, if you want to play the game. You can also spend nex on refreshing your candle.
(They don’t need the connected story lines evaluating - they’ve got that covered.)
Alternatively: it does help to treat the game differently to a video game. It’s a good thing for lunch breaks, if you work in an office/in gaps between classes. It’s a delicacy to be sipped, not gobbled. edited by babelfishwars on 10/9/2014
Yeah, no, that’d be really unfair to all the people who have spent Nex on Exceptional Friendships over the years, if what you’re implying is that they should remove the action costs altogether for Sunless Sea players. I guess I could see giving Early Access Sunless Sea players a month-long subscription to the Exceptional Friendship service, but I doubt that’s something they’re considering, and personally, I’d prefer it if they didn’t; they’ve done a pretty good job of making sure that spending money on Sunless Sea doesn’t give you a palpable advantage in Fallen London so far.
If you really can’t stand the action limit, you could try visiting one of the many fan-made blogs which deal with the lore, or you could grab an Exceptional Friendship for yourself and see how a fourty-action pool thrills you. I strongly recommend that you try to stick it out a little while longer without using a blog; one of the joys of this game is finding stuff out for yourself.
Nay, that is not what early access is supposed to be about.
The format exists so that the most fanatical fans, and most devoted followers can assist in getting a product ready from the dev state, to the ready state.
Less a beta test, then an admission that the game is still ALPHA in most cases.
It’s not quite as primitive as a game going through greenlight is meant to be, but it’s not a ready or finished game, it’s not meant to be played yet.
That some companies have turned the early access (and greenlight) programs into naked cash grabs does not bode well for the industry, but I am confident that this crew values us more then that.
Course, I could be wrong, I have been before, and will be again.
Good points everyone. Thanks for the topic about the kickstarter. Wish I’d known about that or I would have backed. I’ll definitely be looking out for wikis.
I didn’t have a specific request and only labeled it as a “perk”. I do know that the business model/gameplay model isn’t the most accessible. I’m not saying that anything is possible much less easy. But I’m pointing out that there is a potential player base that doesn’t appreciate the “sip the tea over lunch” bit. Things like exceptional friend aren’t exactly the solution to engaging users who are otherwise turned off by non traditional video games. A challenging problem can require a creative solution.
The ‘creative solution,’ in this case, is not ‘change the entire game to suit the tastes of a different audience’ or ‘give Sunless Sea players an unfair advantage over ordinary FL players.’ Again, that would be unfair to those who have been with it from the beginning.
Ben, no–Early Access exists so that fans can help shape the development of a game while it is in the process of being developed. Some companies have been providing in-game rewards for Early Access players, but all the ones I can think of at the moment have been cosmetic, and giving EA players an advantage over late-comers would be extremely unfair, regardless of whether the benefit affects Fallen London or not.
Aren’t both Fallen Lond and Sunless Sea pretty much exclusively single-player games*? So what unfair advantage over “later-comers” could FBG possibly give Early Access players?
*Obviously excluding Knife-and-Candle and the friend interactions in FL which are both completely optional if I recall correctly.
[quote=Demut]Aren’t both Fallen Lond and Sunless Sea pretty much exclusively single-player games*? So what unfair advantage over “later-comers” could FBG possibly give Early Access players?
*Obviously excluding Knife-and-Candle and the friend interactions in FL which are both completely optional if I recall correctly.[/quote]
The ability to access new content significantly faster via extra actions, for one. The ability to play without actions, which seems to be what Maverick is suggesting–I can’t think of any other way FB might make it more accessible to people who aren’t able to put up with the action cost system–would be immensely unfair, and would also break the game. There are other ways. "Unfair" applies to more than just competitive gaming.
[quote=Ben ]But let us raise the stakes in a more interesting way…
If it was known that a single sip of cider was up for grabs between the best contribution by a beta tester.[/quote]
Oh you don’t need to be a beta-tester for that. It’s no secret that I give out sips of cider to just about anyone who asks, as is my wont as a Hesperidean. I got the hookup for you no worries. One sip of cider is on its way to you right now.