[Feedback/Discussion] Permanent Monthly Stories

Fallen London
1

Hello there! I don’t post here very often, but I’m a long-time player who in spite of requent breaks has a great love for both the game and the setting. Having finally reached the point in life where I’ve begun making my own money I started seriously considering signing up for a subscription a while ago. With the promise of a new story every month (and the realization that the subscription costs less per month than I spend on lunch every day) I finally got my stuff in order and signed up.

So far I’ve been greatly enjoying the benefits of being exceptionally friendly, and this month’s story, The Last Dog Society, was wonderful. However, and this is what I’m here to discuss, there was one thing which surprised me.

When signing up, I originally expected that this would also give me access to last month’s story. This turned out not to be the case, which I found a bit odd. I mean, why not, right?

I thought about it a bit, and I came to the conclusion that there could be several reasons for setting it up this way.
Perhaps the fear is that accumulating too large an amount of stories with a high value/action ratio will make the increase the ‘power’ one gets from being an Exceptional Friend so much that the dreaded Pay-To-Win factor becomes too big to be ignored. Granted, Fallen London already has many scenarios in which spending nex leads to an increase of a character’s power, but that kind of thing is always a balancing act.

Another reason could be that adding permanent stories on a monthly basis might ‘dilute’ the game. Permamnent content takes more thought and planning than temporary stuff, as it has to be taken into consideration for all future additions. With temporary stuff you just have to look at it in the context of how the game is at the given moment. Having it be temporary gives you more freedom with what you can do with it, as well as what rewards you can give.

On the other hand, I think that it really is rather sad that after the month is over all of these stories just vanish into oblivion.
It means that they by their very nature has less impact on the game than other content, and that we can expect the choices we make in them to have less consequences for our characters as a result. This makes playing through the stories somewhat bittersweet for me, although I’d much rather have it this way than no stories at all.
Just imagine it; long-running storylines within these monthly stories, new stories being able to be continuations of older ones seeing as the previous parts are freely available at the House of Chimes, actions and opportunities locked and unlocked by the choices you make. The kind of stuff we know and love from the rest of the game, but in bite-sized monthly form.
Delicious thought, that.

In addition having these stories as permanent parts of the game would be an enormous encouragement for people to become Exceptional Friends. A year from now that’d be a veritable treasure trove of content waiting to be uncovered by those who sign up.
When I got my first temporary subscription a while back I was a little disappointed by comparatively little to do there was in the House of Chimes. If things were set up like this new subscribers would not only experience tons of new content, they would also know that the amount of content they currently have would be growing within the foreseeable future.

What do you people think?
This post is based on a few days of speculation, and I feel like there’s a lot more to this issue than I’ve currently dug up. If nothing else I think it should be made more clear that previous months’ stories are no longer available once the new ones go up, as it really isn’t very clear from the way Exceptional Friendship is currently advertised.
Some folks might be a bit disappointed, to say the least.
edited by Munk on 8/12/2015

2

The current plan is to put the old stories on the Fate page 3 months after they were Exceptional Stories. I don’t know any other details, but I do know that these stories are not going to be gone forever.

3

Ah, that does make things a better. I don’t know if I like having to buy nex to experience stories that I’ve missed even though I’m already paying the subscription, but it’s more elegant than just having them vanish.

Thanks for the heads-up!
edited by Munk on 8/12/2015

4

True, but the problem there is that it means that people could pay for one month’s subscription a year from now and get a year’s worth of stories. Good for them, but less good for the people who paid for a year’s subscription to get the same stories - and terrible for Failbetter, who would be selling those stories for a twelfth of their value!

5

That’s a very good point.
Perhaps they could be available, but there’d be a cap on how many of them you could play every month in addition to the monthly story, like one or two perhaps? This would allow loyal customers to eventually catch up, but would hinder those who would abuse the system.
edited by Munk on 8/12/2015

6

It’s worth noting that the stories do stick around permanently as long as you’ve taken two or more actions in a given story – the starter storylet that appears throughout London, and the continuation that you need to be able to get into the House of Chimes to access. If you think about it, one reason the stories have to expire is that otherwise the “advertisement” starters that appear throughout London to promote Exceptional Friendship to all players would pile up!

If you’re actually paying to help fund this content in a given month, but don’t have a lot of time to play, it just takes those two actions to “lock in” your exceptional story, and then it’s around forever. Plus, the stories have already built on each other in small ways – for instance, you get an additional option in July’s story if you finished June’s. Like this month’s story’s relationship to “The Gift” it’s mostly a matter of flavor and a bit of economic reward, but it does give that feeling of continuity you’re talkin gabout.

7

[quote=Munk]That’s a very good point.
Perhaps they could be available, but there’d be a cap on how many of them you could play every month in addition to the monthly story, like one or two perhaps? This would allow loyal customers to eventually catch up, but would hinder those who would abuse the system.
edited by Munk on 8/12/2015[/quote]

Well, if it was one, it would be the same as the current system, except that instead of all subscribers playing the same monthly story, they’d be playing a grab-bag of that month’s or any of the previous ones. Which could work, but it sounds like it would be complicated to support. Honestly, I think the existing model works just fine for the purposes of a subscription, which is providing a steady stream of revenue for Failbetter and a steady stream of new content for the subscriber. It’s reliable, predictable, it does what it’s supposed to, and the stories have been top-notch.

8

I like the monthly stories. I think it provides the best motivation for Exceptional Friendship since they released the action cap 3 1/2 years ago.
Money keeps the game going, and I’m getting something pretty Exceptional every month for my money, so I’m in favor of it.
Subsequently, the stories aren’t necessary to the main story, so if folks can’t or don’t want to pay for it, they aren’t missing anything that one can’t live without. And if they want to replay the stories in a few months, they can buy them with Fate.

These are good times. Thumbs up to the monthly stories. Well done.

9

[quote=metasynthie]It’s worth noting that the stories do stick around permanently as long as you’ve taken two or more actions in a given story – the starter storylet that appears throughout London, and the continuation that you need to be able to get into the House of Chimes to access. If you think about it, one reason the stories have to expire is that otherwise the &quotadvertisement&quot starters that appear throughout London to promote Exceptional Friendship to all players would pile up!

If you’re actually paying to help fund this content in a given month, but don’t have a lot of time to play, it just takes those two actions to &quotlock in&quot your exceptional story, and then it’s around forever. Plus, the stories have already built on each other in small ways – for instance, you get an additional option in July’s story if you finished June’s. Like this month’s story’s relationship to &quotThe Gift&quot it’s mostly a matter of flavor and a bit of economic reward, but it does give that feeling of continuity you’re talkin gabout.[/quote]

I was aware of the first part, but not of the second which does sound good.

I doubt that the ‘advertisements’ piling up would be much of an issue though. They could be moved to the house of chimes once a story was done being the new sensation, allowing people to start them from there. Or, if that would end up having issues with minor details such as location and consistency, alternate beginnings could be written.
That would require at least some amount of extra work, though, which makes this particular idea less attractive.

And while I don’t doubt that they can weave in some continuity, what I was really hoping for was some more impact and consequence. Then again, seeing as they’re going to be available in the nex store after three months (as I was just earlier informed of) this might be entirely possible even with the current way of things.

[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
Well, if it was one, it would be the same as the current system, except that instead of all subscribers playing the same monthly story, they’d be playing a grab-bag of that month’s or any of the previous ones. Which could work, but it sounds like it would be complicated to support. Honestly, I think the existing model works just fine for the purposes of a subscription, which is providing a steady stream of revenue for Failbetter and a steady stream of new content for the subscriber. It’s reliable, predictable, it does what it’s supposed to, and the stories have been top-notch.[/quote]

The idea was that it would be one or two in addition to the newly added one, but that’s a minor point.
I don’t think it would be that complicated to support, however, as I already thought of this. The game already has functions that run based on objects which are periodically handed out to players, which they can then spend as they like. For example, free evenings and iron knife tokens. They could hand out a special currency to subscribers every month when the monthly story changes, or something like that.

And yes! The current model works just fine, and I am definitely not here to say that it doesn’t. I’m here to say that it might, possibly, be able to become even better.
In my opinion these monthly promises of narrative goodness are the best thing which has been added since I started playing years ago. It is for that exact reason that I felt the need to express myself about the one thing which might hold them back.
edited by Munk on 8/12/2015

10

I don’t think there’s any way to make that fair to people who signed up for the monthly stories from the beginning. I think the current model–that is, one free Exceptional Story per month of subscription–works perfectly well. I think I understand how you feel–it kind of sucks to miss out on something because you signed up late–but that feeling is irrational; you’re paying for one story, twenty additional banked actions, and four more banked cards, not all the exceptional stories up to this point plus all of the above. You’ll be able to pay to gain access to the stories you missed paying for previously, as has been mentioned; you’re not being locked out of anything. You just have to be a little patient.

11

I think some of them will have longterm consequences actually. Otherwise, having permanent qualities from them would just be clutter, and I don’t think that’s the case. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it will someday matter that I chose to keep the future from the July story (speaking of which, I find it intriguing that that quality is under Progress), or that I was an arbiter for the court of cats. I also agree that I think the current model makes sense.
edited by Trifa on 8/12/2015

12

Heh, I suppose that Occam’s razor does say that I’m just annoyed that I didn’t get last month’s story and came here to complain. But no, I honestly don’t mind all that much (especially seeing as I can pick it up for nex in a month or two!).

As for whether it’d be impossible to make that fair for the people who signed up from the beginning, I have to say I’m a bit surprised about this argument. Seeing as the privilege they paid for was getting the stories for free, and that the stories would eventually become available for purchase at any rate, what would they be mad about? That other people would eventually get as much content as them? That anyone who signs up and remains signed up for long enough will eventually get just as good a deal as they did? Now that does seem a little bit irrational.
Reminds me of that time Iawata had to apologize for lowering the price of the 3ds, because people who had already bought it were incredibly mad that others were getting a better deal.

I do realize that the current deal which you get for exceptional friendship is just fine, and as I have previously stated I find it to be completely functional. However, I do feel that some minor alterations to the deal might make it better for the community and the game, which is what I am here to discuss.
My only real issue with the current way of things is that I don’t find it transparent enough that you’re only getting the current month’s story for free when you sign up, as the advertisement and the store description says a ‘new story every month’.

[quote=Trifa]I think some of them will have longterm consequences actually. Otherwise, having permanent qualities from them would just be clutter, and I don’t think that’s the case. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it will someday matter that I chose to keep the future from the July story (speaking of which, I find it intriguing that that quality is under Progress), or that I was an arbiter for the court of cats. I also agree that I think the current model makes sense.
edited by Trifa on 8/12/2015[/quote]

Gah, I’ma have to pick up that court of cats thing when it becomes available. It sounds damn good, even though I’ve seen a few people complain about the rewards.
edited by Munk on 8/13/2015

13

They paid to get the stories for free? I can’t quite make sense of that idea right now. Anyhow, the point is, your proposition still leads to a situation where people can pay less to get the same amount of subscription content - if you get previous months’ stories as part of your subscription, then people who only pay every second month, or every few months, will still be getting just as much content as people who pay every month. That means less money for Failbetter to justify offering the new stories, and a worse deal for those players who were consistent subscribers.

I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think the idea of a subscription really suggests otherwise. If you subscribe to a magazine, you get a new issue every month. You don’t get every issues that came out before you subscribed, because you didn’t pay for them.

14

[quote=Munk]Heh, I suppose that Occam’s razor does say that I’m just annoyed that I didn’t get last month’s story and came here to complain. But no, I honestly don’t mind all that much (especially seeing as I can pick it up for nex in a month or two!).

As for whether it’d be impossible to make that fair for the people who signed up from the beginning, I have to say I’m a bit surprised about this argument. Seeing as the privilege they paid for was getting the stories for free, and that the stories would eventually become available for purchase at any rate, what would they be mad about? That other people would eventually get as much content as them? That anyone who signs up and remains signed up for long enough will eventually get just as good a deal as they did? Now that does seem a little bit irrational.
Reminds me of that time Iawata had to apologize for lowering the price of the 3ds, because people who had already bought it were incredibly mad that others were getting a better deal.

I do realize that the current deal which you get for exceptional friendship is just fine, and as I have previously stated I find it to be completely functional. However, I do feel that some minor alterations to the deal might make it better for the community and the game, which is what I am here to discuss.
My only real issue with the current way of things is that I don’t find it transparent enough that you’re only getting the current month’s story for free when you sign up, as the advertisement and the store description says a ‘new story every month’.
[/quote]

The privelege we paid for was getting the story at a reduced price, not getting the story for free. Before the Exceptional Friendship programme, Exceptional Friendship had a price of 20 Nex–not even $5 USD. It now costs $7. Two dollars may not seem like a huge amount of money, but considering we’re talking about the price of a fancy coffee to begin with, it’s not an inconsiderable increase. So yes, we would have something to be irritated about if someone who waits several weeks before purchasing Exceptional Friendship is able to play all of the stories (or even three of them every month until they’re caught up) for free.
edited by Snowskeeper on 8/13/2015

15

[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
They paid to get the stories for free? I can’t quite make sense of that idea right now. Anyhow, the point is, your proposition still leads to a situation where people can pay less to get the same amount of subscription content - if you get previous months’ stories as part of your subscription, then people who only pay every second month, or every few months, will still be getting just as much content as people who pay every month. That means less money for Failbetter to justify offering the new stories, and a worse deal for those players who were consistent subscribers.[/quote]

Oops, yeah that didn’t make much sense. Cut out ‘free’ and it should work.
And yes, I do realize that the basic premise of this proposition will, no matter how you look at it, lead to people being able to get more stuff for less.
Granted, I did not know that the stories would become available for purchase at a later time when I first made this post, and was mostly made with the idea of utilizing content that would otherwise vanish into oblivion in mind.
However(!), I do think the assumption that giving people the opportunity for a better deal will result in a straight-up net loss for Failbetter is somewhat cynical. While I’m certain that there’d be some people abusing the system like you say, even though that kind of loophole jumping could be cut short with some clever administration, I reckon that this game’s community is generally made up of pretty respectable people.
That’s the impression I get, anyway.
There might be some losses from the people who’d otherwise have subscribed late and ended up buying the stories for nex, but at the same time there might be gains from the people who wouoldn’t otherwise have subscribed at all. There’s tons of diffirent things to take into consideration when we look at it from this angle, and I reckon it’d take quite a substantial amount of knowledge to fully understand what economical impact making this change would have for Failbetter.
Possible system abuses, possible untapped customers. Possible net losses from offering a better deal, possible net gains from offering a better deal.

[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think the idea of a subscription really suggests otherwise. If you subscribe to a magazine, you get a new issue every month. You don’t get every issues that came out before you subscribed, because you didn’t pay for them.[/quote]

Absolutely, and if Fallen London was a magazine I wouldn’t be here writing this post. How magazine subscriptions work is an established thing, but how the subscription of a browser game works is not.
If we were to compare it to other browser game subscriptions, such as RuneScape’s and AdventureQuest Worlds’, we might actually be led to make the assumption that we would be given access to content released before we subscribe.
…buuut I don’t actually think that anyone in their right mind would assume that this game would function anything like RuneScape or AdventureQuest Worlds, so I’ma stick to judging it on it’s own merits.

I stand by the fact that they should be more transparent about what exactly people are getting. At current what people are being told is that they get more actions, more cards, access to extra content in the form of the House of Chimes and a new story every month.
Could this be interpreted as the stories of previous months not being available and only granting access to the current month’s story? Yes.
Could this just as easily be interpreted as access to bonus content with more content being added every month? In my opinion, yes.

[quote=Snowskeeper]The privelege we paid for was getting the story at a reduced price, not getting the story for free. Before the Exceptional Friendship programme, Exceptional Friendship had a price of 20 Nex–not even $5 USD. It now costs $7. Two dollars may not seem like a huge amount of money, but considering we’re talking about the price of a fancy coffee to begin with, it’s not an inconsiderable increase. So yes, we would have something to be irritated about if someone who waits several weeks before purchasing Exceptional Friendship is able to play all of the stories (or even three of them every month until they’re caught up) for free.
edited by Snowskeeper on 8/13/2015[/quote]

I understand what you are saying, but with this we’ve reached a point where this turns into a matter of disagreement rather than wrong and right.
It is true that, if we base this speculation on my previous suggestion that people would be able to play the current story as well as one or two of the previously released stories every month, they would be getting more content for their money every month while they are still catching up to the rest of us. The diffirence in value would be minimal, seeing as those of us who’d been subscribed for longer have been enjoying access to the House of Chimes, extra action caps and a larger opportunity decks for all this time, but it would be there.

Personally I would not mind this one bit. You could argue that this would be because I am among the people that would benefit from this change, but I would counter-argue that that’s a bit of a stretch. After all, I’ve only missed a single month so far, and thus if this was implimented I would be among the people who would recieve a marginally worse deal in the long run.
Would us early adapters recieve less than those who subscribed later? Well, that unfortunately depends entirely on how you view this whole thing. We’d be getting the same amount of content, but they would be getting that content as well for slightly less cash.

It could be argued, if we’re basing this speculation on my previous suggestion, that the limit on only being allowed to play one or two stories per month and thus having to wait with playing all of them is what we paid to avoid, but the actual monetary value of that is incredibly hard to determine.

16

Content creators do end up changing what’s “fair” for existing and new purchasers all the time – for instance, when putting something on sale or lowering the price. If Failbetter were to offer a promotion like “new subscribers get one extra month free” or “your first six months are US$6.50 instead of US$7” or “start a new subscription in September and get Court of Cats free with your subscription” then I don’t think anyone would have real cause for complaint. (Some entitled customers will always complain about say, the inevitable iPhone price drop or a cable TV service promotion that’s only offered to new subscribers.) Companies have to make money, and deciding when to have a sale or a promotion or a price change is a fundamental part of that, and lowering prices to get more customers in the door is vital.

However, in this case there’s a business model where Failbetter is planning on continuing to sell the past months’ Exceptional Stories. That’ll help make the whole Exceptional Story aspect of their business more profitable – as opposed to each story just earning part of the total subscription fees for the month it was released – so if you like the Exceptional Stories, that’s good news which should be welcomed. It also means that making all the past months’ stories free for anyone who subscribes would eat into or wipe out that revenue stream! (But of course, Munk was not aware of this when first posting.) The business rationale I can imagine for doing that would be that over time, the value of subscribing would grow greater and greater as you’d get access to a whole lot more content. This is, in fact, part of the business rationale for some subscription-based MMOs like say, World of Warcraft – that offering greater value over time helps offset the gradual thinning of the player base and keep new subscriptions from dropping too precipitously. However, it’s worth noting that even big MMOs release expansions which are not available to anyone who hasn’t helped pay for those expansions – even monthly subscribers don’t get large amounts of content for nothing, it’s not sustainable. Plus, if a company wants to drive a lot of new subscriptions, there’s always the idea of limited-time promotions, mentioned above.

Failbetter will hopefully get a large influx of new subscribers when the mobile version comes out in any case, which if nothing else will affect the forward plans for this kind of thing!

17

I’ve read this carefully but I … just don’t see the problem you’re getting at. You get one story for each month you subscribe. I have subscribed for 4 months - I’ve had 4 stories. You subscribe for 1 month - and get one story. That seems fair to me - I flatter myself that I am a generous soul, but I would be a bit sore if someone got for $7 what I paid $28 for. Not sore enough to unsubscribe and not sore enough to game the system, but sore enough to dent my goodwill, for sure.

After a while, you’ll be able to buy access to any stories you miss, so it all seems fair enough to me, and giving everyone the content they pay for seems the simplest method by far.

18

[quote=metasynthie]Content creators do end up changing what’s &quotfair&quot for existing and new purchasers all the time – for instance, when putting something on sale or lowering the price. If Failbetter were to offer a promotion like &quotnew subscribers get one extra month free&quot or &quotyour first six months are US$6.50 instead of US$7&quot or &quotstart a new subscription in September and get Court of Cats free with your subscription&quot then I don’t think anyone would have real cause for complaint. (Some entitled customers will always complain about say, the inevitable iPhone price drop or a cable TV service promotion that’s only offered to new subscribers.) Companies have to make money, and deciding when to have a sale or a promotion or a price change is a fundamental part of that, and lowering prices to get more customers in the door is vital.

However, in this case there’s a business model where Failbetter is planning on continuing to sell the past months’ Exceptional Stories. That’ll help make the whole Exceptional Story aspect of their business more profitable – as opposed to each story just earning part of the total subscription fees for the month it was released – so if you like the Exceptional Stories, that’s good news which should be welcomed. It also means that making all the past months’ stories free for anyone who subscribes would eat into or wipe out that revenue stream! (But of course, Munk was not aware of this when first posting.) The business rationale I can imagine for doing that would be that over time, the value of subscribing would grow greater and greater as you’d get access to a whole lot more content. This is, in fact, part of the business rationale for some subscription-based MMOs like say, World of Warcraft – that offering greater value over time helps offset the gradual thinning of the player base and keep new subscriptions from dropping too precipitously. However, it’s worth noting that even big MMOs release expansions which are not available to anyone who hasn’t helped pay for those expansions – even monthly subscribers don’t get large amounts of content for nothing, it’s not sustainable. Plus, if a company wants to drive a lot of new subscriptions, there’s always the idea of limited-time promotions, mentioned above.

Failbetter will hopefully get a large influx of new subscribers when the mobile version comes out in any case, which if nothing else will affect the forward plans for this kind of thing![/quote]

I agree with… just about everything said here. No counter-arguments or small details that I’d like to point out. Bravo.

[quote=Lady Eris]I’ve read this carefully but I … just don’t see the problem you’re getting at. You get one story for each month you subscribe. I have subscribed for 4 months - I’ve had 4 stories. You subscribe for 1 month - and get one story. That seems fair to me - I flatter myself that I am a generous soul, but I would be a bit sore if someone got for $7 what I paid $28 for. Not sore enough to unsubscribe and not sore enough to game the system, but sore enough to dent my goodwill, for sure.

After a while, you’ll be able to buy access to any stories you miss, so it all seems fair enough to me, and giving everyone the content they pay for seems the simplest method by far.[/quote]

Heh. This is getting slightly repetitive, but seeing as I haven’t been editing the original post with updates regarding the state of the discussion I suppose I’m the one to blame for that.

At any rate, my original issue with the system was that I believed the stories would vanish after they were replaced by the next month’s story. I had not been able to find any info on this before posting, but I was immediately informed of it.
The other thing I came here to point out was that I believe the current details of the subscription which are made available in the shop prior to purchase are lacking, as they could be interpreted in multiple ways without too much of a stretch of the imagination.

I still stand by the point that a model in which what you pay for is access to all the exceptional stories could potentially be a good model, but I have also heard a lot of very good arguments for the way things currently work.

So, as a tl;dr, the first ‘problem’ that I was getting at never actually existed. I was unable to find any info on that particular topic prior to posting, but this was quickly rectified.
The rest was suggestions on how to possibly make a better model, none of it directed at any real problem.
The sole exception is the fact that I think the store page should be more transparent about what exactly is being offered, but I reckon I’ve said that enough times already.

At any rate, I am going to bring this thread (or at least my participation in it) to an end here, as I really didn’t realize just how much of my time would end up being swallowed by this endeavour when I first decided to begin it.
I’ve thought a lot about this issue since I made the original post, and for the most part the various arguments people have made have convinced me that the way things are currently set up is pretty damn good. As I said a few lines ago I still believe that a model in which the subscription grants access to the entire library of exceptional stories could bring a lot of good stuff with it, and I’ll continue to speculate on how this might work, but for now I’m going to concede this discussion and declare my opinon on this matter (at least 70%) changed.

Even though it has resulted in my reputation on this site currently sitting at a depressing negative one, I am very happy I made this thread. It’s rare that I get to have discussions like this one, and I thank you all for taking the time to read through my walls of text.
Please stay just as keen minded and critical as you are now, so that I’ll meet the same kind of resistance the next time I’ve got something controversial (or misinformed, or just plain dumb) to say.

I’m going to go and spend the last twenty minutes I’ve got left of this evening on reading some Steven Erikson.
Cheers!

19

I think it’s sitting at 0, now. Hopefully it’ll soar higher soon. This is one of the cooler concluding posts I’ve seen on the internet.